Renee’s blue face filled the monitor, obscuring my view of the room behind her. She blinked, frowned, and then stepped back to reveal the Manhattan Island Penitentiary’s main control room. Serious-looking armed guards walked to and fro. Some carried files or paperwork, others nothing but an angry expression.
“Hey, T, you look a lot better,” Renee said.
“Thanks.” I stood in front of the monitor on our end, Gage by my side. It had taken the MIP guards almost thirty minutes to locate one of our people. Renee and William had been inspecting Bane activity in the north, among the remains of Harlem, when we called. Gage teased me incessantly about my lack of patience until someone finally rustled up Renee.
“Not a lot to report here,” she said. “So far, the Banes aren’t making much effort to escape the island. They’re mostly keeping to themselves. Only a few have actively engaged their powers, but not against us or each other. One guy transmuted dirty water into sparkling clean water.”
“That seems odd, doesn’t it?” Gage asked.
“Pretty odd, yeah, but I’m not knocking a good thing. Disinterested Banes are ones we don’t have to fight. They just seem … I don’t know, out of sorts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kind of dazed, I guess. Like they got their powers back, only they don’t remember what they’re supposed to do with them. You think it’s some sort of radical rehabilitation program that actually worked?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Have you tried talking to the warden about it?”
“Repeatedly, but he doesn’t have time for me or Caliber. I don’t think he realizes that we’re not the same as those guys he’s been babysitting for a decade and a half. He sees blue skin and big muscles and thinks the worst of us.”
“I know the feeling.” Grayson had been no different in his judgment. At the moment, I didn’t care why the Banes were so apathetic about their powers, as long as it kept them from all-out rebellion. Once we had Specter under control, maybe life wouldn’t be as hard as I imagined.
“Just be careful out there, Flex,” Gage said. “An ATF agent is doing a press conference today in Los Angeles, announcing our return. Once people know who we are, our anonymity is out the window.”
Flex giggled. “He says to the girl with blue skin. Take a look at your team, Cipher. Most of us don’t fit in at a family picnic. Although I can see Trance’s look becoming a popular fashion statement.”
“I hope not,” I said.
“Purple contact lenses will be all the rage.”
“Shut up, Flex.”
“Remember, Flex,” Gage said, “you’re our eyes and ears out there. If you see anything suspicious, let us know immediately. We both got funny vibes from one of the agents they sent to watchdog us, and I don’t think everyone is on our side. You and Caliber need to watch each other’s backs.”
“We will,” Renee said. “In fact, I’ll be watching his back very seriously. Remember in school he used to hate my powers, and I’d tease him with them? You know what he told me? He had a crush on me the whole time. What do you think, T? Do you see sex in our future?”
Gage grunted.
I coughed. “I’d rather not let my mind go there, if you don’t mind.”
She giggled again, and then sobered. “You do the same, okay? Watch each other’s backs, I mean. And maybe go have sex or something, you both look tense.”
She cut the call short before I could muster a reply. I settled for staring at the blank monitor. Gage blew hard through his nose, lips twisted in a strange grimace.
“What?” I asked.
“Renee Duvall and her casual conversations. She’s unbelievable,” he said, an odd layer of annoyance in his voice.
“She keeps you on your toes.”
“Something tells me Agent McNally will, too.”
“I won’t be her poster girl for Ranger support, Gage. A few photos with schoolchildren and old folks smiling won’t erase decades of violence.”
“No, it won’t, and there’s no reason to expect it to. We have to earn back that trust and not from politicking.”
“So what, then? We keep a bus full of kids from toppling off a bridge into the river? Pull orphans from a burning building? Stop a mudslide in Malibu?”
He turned until he stood toe to toe with me and tried to act stern. Humor still peeked through. “Okay, you do realize that the unspoken rules of superheroing states that one of those events will magically occur within our immediate vicinity?”
“Well, good,” I said, flashing him a bright smile. This close I could smell a hint of shaving cream and something else. Something decidedly male and uniquely Gage. “We can get that step in our careers over and done with, and move on to more important matters.”
“Such as?”
“Picking out uniforms?”
“I’d rather wear my jeans.”
“I don’t know.” I quirked an eyebrow and gave him a once-over. “I think you’d look good in something skintight and leather.”
I expected him to laugh; I didn’t anticipate his completely blank stare. Crap. “Sorry, that wasn’t—”
Gage interrupted my retraction by cupping my chin with his free hand and lowering his head. My heart threatened to beat right out of my chest. He brushed his lips across my mouth so gently I thought he missed. Just the lightest of strokes that set my nerves on fire.
Indecision forced me to pause. Knowledge of a turning point. He wouldn’t talk about Oregon, but he’d offer tentative kisses. Our conversations skirted deeper pain, while remaining surface and casual. If words couldn’t bring us together, maybe something else could.
Not knowing how many more “laters” I had, I captured his lips in a crushing kiss. Arms circled my waist, hands tangled in my hair. His mouth, his tongue, his intense heat and flavor and scent—all surrounded me and forced a soft moan from my throat.
He broke the kiss, but didn’t pull away. Every inch of his body seemed to vibrate. His intense, silver-flecked eyes drilled into me, trying to see past the lavender exterior. The intensity of it was overwhelming. “You frighten me, Teresa.”
Confusion overpowered my tumultuous emotions and I tensed, stifled by his tight embrace.
He must have read something in my expression. “I just meant I’ve never felt like this after knowing someone for only a couple of days. Like I’ve … I don’t know.”
I thought I did. “Like you’ve found something you didn’t know you wanted in the first place? Or is that kind of corny?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, it’s corny?”
“No.” He traced the side of his thumb down my cheek. “The other part.”
“And you’re afraid of messing up and losing it, like you’ve lost everything else?”
His face hardened, the once-open emotions shuttering. Shutting down.
Concerned, I splayed my fingers against his chest. Felt his heart beating there. “Sorry, I was just remembering something a shrink said to me during one of our multiple sessions dedicated to my inability to commit to a relationship.” A topic I felt awkward broaching with Gage or anyone else—one that would probably have to be broached before we went any further with … whatever it was we were doing.
“Gage, what is it about me that frightens you? I’d really like to know.” When he didn’t respond, I gave him a hint. “Is it what Dr. Seward said about my potentially dying?”
“No, that’s not it.” His body thrummed with tension. “The potentiality of your death does frighten me, Teresa. It terrifies me. But your powers are stronger than anyone else’s here, maybe stronger than anyone else active, and they’re not yours. You have them for a reason that no one knows or is sharing, and it scares me to death.”
“I’m not going to explode, Gage.” I thought of yesterday’s episode and cringed. “At least, I hope not.”
He rested his forehead against mine. Our height difference made looking up awkward, so I closed my eyes. His breath was sweet, warm, and his mouth so close. The butterflies in my stomach stirred.
“Please talk to me, Gage. About anything.”
“Teresa, I—”
Whatever statement he meant to make was cut off by an obnoxious blaring noise, filtered into the room through a loudspeaker in the ceiling. We pulled apart.
“What is that?” I asked.
The computer monitor opposite us blinked to life. Live news coverage filled the screen. Half of a large complex was flattened, the street littered with dust and rubble and debris. The scroll at the bottom read “Inglewood Demolition Goes Wrong, Workers Trapped.”
Just a few miles from our headquarters.
“Should we let the fire department handle it?” Gage asked.
I sensed a challenge in his words. The building had done more than simply collapse. If the news reporter was correct, it had also trapped half a dozen workers beneath the rubble. It could take the fire department hours, if not days, to safely reach them. Using our powers together, we could get there faster.
“I suppose there’s no better time to introduce ourselves to the world,” I said. “Let’s call Onyx and Tempest. We’ve got our first team mission.”