Yes, super senses, right. I’ve got those. I pull in a long breath and analyze the scents: old perfume, mothballs, Rain Bailey’s woodsy deodorant. I hear footsteps above me, and the soft murmur of voices. I feel auras too.

  Five, I tell Tarren. Five auras upstairs.

  I wonder where the real Tarren is; what he’s doing. Did he accept the last command I gave him?

  Just before Tarren was taken by Grand, he used the same code word, Styx. We were supposed to leave him behind and save ourselves. Yeah, not exactly an option as far as Gabe was concerned. Not when we had guns, fingers to pull triggers, and a good guess as to where Grand took Tarren. That rescue almost cost Gabe his life.

  Would Tarren die for me? I think of his cold eyes, the way he always watches me, waiting for me to break, waiting for an excuse to…

  You won’t come for me, I think to Tarren. You’ll follow protocol.

  He knows that if I broke under torture I could put everything and everyone at risk: Lo, Dr. Lee, Francesca, Gabe. Tarren won’t let that happen. Even while I’m cuffed to this chair talking to myself so I don’t melt into a puddle of fear, Tarren’s probably already severed all lines of communication, cleaned out the hotel room, and abandoned the jeep. He’ll be working now to move all of our allies to secure locations even as he puts Peoria in his rearview mirror.

  It’s what I told you to do, I think, but are you even a little sad, or just relieved that I’m gone?

  The panic comes again. Those icy fingers, and now a helping of vertigo for good measure.

  My nose itches.

  I lash out against the cuffs, pulling, straining, as a fluttering whimper crawls out of my throat. The chair rocks, and for a moment it teeters up on one side. I brace for the fall, but the chair tilts back down and lands solid and jarring.

  You don’t have to break the cuffs, Tarren whispers.

  It comes to me, like a train of obviousness steaming through my panic and the last vestiges of the drugs. The lock picks! The beautiful, wonderful, fantastic locks picks that Tarren commanded I sew into every piece of clothing I own. I’d sewn a basic double ball pick into the right sleeve cuff of this gray, long-sleeved Under Armour shirt on our trip back from Detroit.

  I curl my fingers around the hem of my right sleeve and feel the reassuring hardness of the pick nestled within the cuff. My breath whooshes out in a loud sob of relief. Just as I begin to work away the first loose stitches, the door above the stairs slams open, and heavy steps descend.

  ***

  They come for me, and the room fills with the music of their energy. The instant ache in my chest tells me that it’s been too long since I’ve fed.

  I study my captors. The Puma, the Tiger, and the Penguin. Oh my! I think absurdly.

  Puma is tall and broad. His open leather jacket shows well-defined muscles beneath a conspicuously tight t-shirt, and his skin is the smooth bronze of a fake tan. With his carefully-cropped sandy hair and strong jaw, he’s perfected the bland handsomeness of a Ken doll except for the arrogant smirk on his lips, which isn’t handsome at all.

  He steps forward, his aura riding on green tides of adrenaline. I’m introduced to a cloud of musky cologne and cinnamon breath.

  “You scared little girl?” he says and giggles in a very disconcerting way.

  I’m Tarren, Tarren, Tarren, so of course I’m not scared. Emotion of any kind repulses me. I keep my fingers wrapped around the lock pick hidden in each sleeve of my shirt.

  I look past Puma Mask and focus on the Tiger. A heavy chain hangs from his thin waist beneath a long leather jacket. I recognize the contours of his round, Asian face. His black hair is shorter than the last time I saw him, and beneath his mask, his dark eyes simmer with hatred. Murky, rotten colors fill his aura. I remember how close he’d come to dying in Poughkeepsie. Milo, he’d said his name was Milo. I almost didn’t get us out of that burning farmhouse, and even when I did he wasn’t breathing. If Tarren hadn’t—

  A fist crashes hard against my cheek. Pain shatters my concentration, and the chair rocks sideways, before slamming back down.

  “Don’t look at him,” Puma Mask says. “It’s just you and me down here, freak. Just you and me gonna have a little fun.” He giggles again, blasting heavy clouds of cinnamon at me.

  “You’re…supposed to ask questions first, then beat me,” I inform him as tentacles of heat reach out across my face, all the way to my neck and ear. My voice is shaky, weak, but it still doesn’t come close to sounding as terrified as I actually am.

  “That was just a welcoming present,” Puma Mask says, that smirk never leaving his lips. I see hues of pleasure in his aura, but not the bright shades of green I see in a little girl’s aura when her mother hands her an ice cream cone or the waves of intense emerald when Gabe beats a hard level on Zombie Hordes VII. This is a rotted shade of green, sickness wrapped around his pleasure. He is the snot-nosed boy who plucks the wings off living butterflies. Only, he’s graduated from butterflies. I press myself deeper into the chair, as if that will make any difference.

  Stay calm, Tarren warns me as my vertigo kick up a notch and my throat constricts.

  “I already told Rain….Penguin, we’re on the same side. I fight against the—”

  “I’ll ask the questions here,” Puma Mask snaps. “How many creatures are in your pack?”

  “I have no pack. I’m alone.”

  Another fist sails at me, but this time I’m ready. The moment before impact, I push against the floor, tipping my chair onto its back legs. Puma’s knuckles whiff through the empty air an inch from my nose, and his momentum almost takes him a full 180 degrees. He’s off balance and standing too close to me. I come back down and hook his ankle with my left foot. A gentle tug is all it takes to hear the satisfying impact of his butt on the floor.

  Milo chuckles as he readjusts his tiger mask. “You can’t even hit a girl cuffed to a chair, you idiot. Back off, I can do this.”

  “I got it!” Puma Mask growls. He performs an awkward roll thing away from me that must have looked way better when he saw it on TV. He scrambles to his feet, chest heaving with anger.

  That was a mistake, Tarren informs me, always the lord of understatement even when I’m making him up in my head.

  Puma’s fists pinwheel at me, and all I can do is tuck my chin down and let the blows rain. They land on my jaw, my right ear, my shoulder. I hear the crack of cartilage and feel a rush of warm liquid down my lips moments before pain spreads across the bridge of my nose.

  “Stop, stop!”

  My eyes are shut, and because my head pounds and my heart clobbers, it takes me a moment to realize the outward blows have ceased. Never this. On all those nights I imagined what capture would be like, I never conjured this much fear, never this much naked helplessness.

  “What the fuck!” Puma Mask exclaims.

  I crack open my lids and see Rain standing in front of me with a fistful of Puma’s leather jacket in his hand.

  “Got a weak stomach Penguin?” Puma spits out the name in derision. “Go upstairs, suck down some Ginger Ale, and eat some fucking crackers.” Puma smirks, obviously proud of this line.

  “This is how it’s got to be done,” Milo says quietly to Rain, the hues of hatred in his aura lightening for a moment. “They didn’t show us mercy.” He fingers the rusted chain at his hips and eyes me with so much hostility I think he could start bottling it for mass production.

  But I did show you mercy, I think. I dragged his unconscious body out that burning farmhouse in Poughkeepsie after my brothers killed the angels feeding on him. Even as I’d gagged on the smoke in my lungs, I’d begged Tarren to keep performing CPR on Milo though it seemed like he was gone. Milo had only regained consciousness long enough to tell Tarren his name.

  Explain it to them. This is Gabe’s voice in my head; Gabe with the golden tongue who could talk his way past Cerberus if he had a mind to. Make them understand.

  “I…the fire…Poughkeepsie,” I begin. The words can’t seem to make it up my dry, dry throat. “I went in…and—”

  Milo’s aura rages, bright, bright, bright. The power of it intoxicates me, and my words sputter out.

  “See, she’s talking.” Puma pulls his jacket from Rain’s grip and shoves him aside. He readjusts the lapels as he stares down at me. “Looks like we got a little nose bleed going on.” That high-pitched giggle again. “You’re not gonna cwy now are you?”

  His words barely register.

  “Watch out. Her hands,” Rain whispers.

  “Damn, that’s so sick.” Puma almost sounds impressed. “I’m really getting to her.”

  “You were in Poughkeepsie?” Milo presses. “You were one of them.” The accusation is a growl – a perpetrator, not possibly a rescuer. “You fed on us like…like, animals.”

  I turn away from him, forcing my eyes closed to protect me from the spell of his aura. The throb of pain in my face helps me reestablish control. Blood seeps into my mouth and drips off my chin. I’m not calm and hard like Tarren. I’m not witty and fluent like Gabe. I’m just Maya and Monster Maya and Mousey Maya and Stupid Pixie Girl.

  I look up at Rain, hold onto the brown eyes beneath his mask.

  “I didn’t kill Sunshine,” I whimper.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Puma Mask sneers. “We talking in code now?” That arrogant smirk is back and so are those sick greens in his aura. More butterfly wings to pluck. He takes a step toward me, his fingers folding into a fist.

  “I want her,” Milo says, reeking of damage and revenge.

  “Wait,” Rain speaks above the others, his voice rough and uncertain. “Let’s just…”

  The door opens above.

  “We’re busy,” Puma Mask shouts up. “She’s cracking.”

  “Bear’s got a lead. He says it’s strong.” The female voice is so soft that it sounds like a dove’s coo.

  Puma Mask grimaces and points a finger at my face. “Stay here,” he says and giggles at his own joke. “We’ve still got a lot of catching up to do.” He turns and walks up the stairs.

  “You guys go. I’m gonna stay here,” Milo says. His hand never seems to leave the chain around his waist. Rain sees it too.

  “We need everyone,” he says to Milo, “for safety.”

  Milo gives him a vicious stare, but Rain doesn’t back down. I see it again, the quick fluctuation in Milo’s aura from bloody reds to softer hues and then back again.

  “We’ll have time later,” Rain says.

  Milo gives me a long, hate-filled stare. “I thought he killed you all in Poughkeepsie,” he says and then follows Puma Mask up the stairs.

  “The man with the scar,” Rain speaks. “Tiger says he saved us all; thinks he’s some kind of superhero.”

  Yeah, Tarren has that effect on people.

  Another drop of blood trembles on my chin and splashes onto my thigh. They have no idea what they’re doing. If it were just Puma and Milo, I would let them screw themselves to hell…but Rain…he shouldn’t be here. I swallow and force my voice to work. “Rain...”

  “Penguin, and don’t you dare thank me,” he snaps.

  “You can’t bring any other angels down here, not like this,” I pull on my cuffs. “This isn’t enough.”

  Rain crosses his arms. “They seem to be holding you just fine.”

  “I’m not a full angel, I already told you.”

  “Whatever.” He uncrosses his arms.

  “Angels are too dangerous to interrogate,” I plunge on desperately. “They have abilities, they can—”

  “Penguin,” Milo calls down.

  Rain gives me a long look. His aura is a swirl of colors, and god damn me, just the thought of his energy has my palms splitting open again. The chambers within release an ambient glow and waves of heat.

  “Not a full angel, huh?” Rain’s voice is barely audible beneath the chemical chaos his aura is causing in my brain. “You sure as hell look like one to me.”

  Then he’s gone, tromping up the stairs, leaving me to my dry eyes, my bleeding nose, and the reassuring feel of the lock pick in my sleeve.

  Chapter 12

  A door opens somewhere above me in the house, and I feel the auras leave together. All but one.

  My fingernails dig into the hem of my sleeve, pulling against the stitches that I made big and loose so they’d be easy to break. My face is a single large pile of pain. The waterfall of blood from my nose slackens to a drip. Those icy fingers of dread are back, wrapping around me, squeezing me to pulp.

  Tarren, I have to be Tarren again. I try to find him within me. Slow. Careful. Plodding. But I can’t stop my heart from clamoring like it wants out of my ribcage and this whole terrible nightmare.

  The door to the basement opens just as the first stitch snaps. I tug two more away, opening up a small hole in my cuff. Light footsteps descend the stairs and stop halfway. I hear a long pull of breath. My fingers dig, and I slide the lock pick out from my cuff, gripping it in my palm as if it were the Holy Grail. My eyes run lovingly down its silver body and the small bent heads on each end.

  From the stairwell, the breath comes out in a tight rush. The steps continue until a figure stands on the last stair. An aura flairs, and the girl steps out of the stairwell. She is short and round with brown skin and straight black hair pulled into a crooked ponytail. Her thick blue jacket hides all traces of breasts, and I wonder how old she is. Maybe my age, or even a little younger. She moves away from the stairwell, but stays pressed against the back wall of the basement, about 12 feet away from where I’m seated in the center of the room.

  “Could I get some water?” I ask. It’s a long shot, but at least the high emotions charging through her aura seem to be uncertainty and fear, rather than hatred or those sick green hues that Puma Mask has taught me to loath.

  “Oh, um, I don’t…” For a moment she honestly considers the request. Her hand flutters up, patting the yellow bird mask that covers the top half of her face.

  She chose Big Bird for her Totem thing?

  “No,” she decides.

  “But I’m really thirsty.” I soften my voice and go for my most innocent expression, the one that could twist Gabe around my finger before he got hurt.

  “No talking,” the girl snaps. Her naturally high voice severely undercuts her attempt at a forceful command. She fiddles with her jacket and produces a gun, which she holds out awkwardly in two hands. I study the barrel. It’s a tranq gun…I think.

  “Okay,” I say, and we lapse into silence. I study my cuffs and find them to be a standard Smith and Wesson 100 model with double locks engaged. Good, good, good. We have a pair of these at the house. Gabe declined to tell me how they were acquired, but he did train me on them. The double locks will slow me down, but not by much. I just need a small window of time with no eyes on me, and I can be out of these cuffs, out of this house, and then….I’ll think of something after that. .

  Five minutes alone, just five measly minutes is all I need.

  Time drips by, and Birdie doesn’t do me the favor of going to play hide and seek by herself. I sit. She stares. I feel my face throb with every heart beat. She keeps staring. The pick practically burns the skin on my palm. Still staring. Shit, Team Crazy Knuckles is going to come back before she even blinks.

  Maybe I should just start screaming hysterically and flailing in the chair. Birdie might get flustered enough that I could at least unlock the first cuff. Or she could decorate your face with a dozen tranq darts, Gabe’s voice whispers to me in ironic tones. Patience, Tarren tells me, even as Birdie’s aura teases at the predator part of me. The hunger grows, and my control is starting waver.

  Birdie switches the gun to one hand and wipes her palm on her jeans. She glances up the stairs, probably wishing the rest of the group would return. I’m guessing guard duty isn’t exactly her chosen line of work.

  Cookies, you want to bake cookies so bad right now, I think at her. The boys would love some warm, gooey cookies when they get back from trying to kidnap people.

  A half hour drags by and then another. Go up and dust, I think to her. No one likes a dusty house. Wouldn’t the boys be so pleased if the house was sparkling when they came back? You could probably give the carpets a good shampooing while you’re at it. No time like the present.

  Birdie seems immune to my thought projections, and I give up and slump back in the chair. I almost here Tarren barking at me to do something useful with my kidnap time, so I try to stitch together what I know about The Totem. It amounts to basically nothing except that they are clearly amateurs. Rain had never heard the term “angel” before, and these guys clearly don’t appreciate the strength level of full angels or apparently know about the different ability each full angels possesses.

  Not complete amateurs, Tarren corrects me. He’s right. The way the team boxed me into the alley; the fact that they could even discover an angel when Tarren and I came up empty for three days tells me that at least some part of their operation isn’t completely reckless and sad. Tranq guns aren’t easy to get, Gabe confirms to me. It’s all so confusing. How in the hell did Rain and Milo get from Poughkeepsie to this? Where did sociopathic Puma Mask and his nasty knuckle sandwiches come from? What about little Birdie with the crooked ponytail? She looks like she should be at marching band practice on some community college campus.

  After another half hour, Birdie unzips her big, blue jacket, revealing a white Hello Kitty sweatshirt beneath. As if I wasn’t unterrified enough of her. She looks up and gives me a suspicious stare.

  “It’s a good look for you,” I tell her solemnly.

  “No talking,” she says. I notice pink jags ticking through her aura with growing urgency. I know exactly what this means, and now I’m sending her thoughts of waterfalls, rushing rivers, tap water gushing out of a sink. Drip, drip, drip, I think to her.

  She lasts another fifteen minutes, rocking forward and back on the balls of her feet. I hunch my shoulders, looking as sad, innocent, and non-escapy as possible.

  “I have to go to the….” she starts and then stops. We stare at each other. She frowns, puts her gun down on the floor, and climbs the stairs. Did she just seriously put her gun on the floor? I can’t wait to tell Tarren that someone in the world is more inept at vigilantism than I am.

 

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