06 - Vengeful by Robert J. Crane Read Free Book Online

campus. It was a move that would have reeked of desperation had it been a normal bomb, but the Brain hadn’t wanted a normal bomb. Oh, no, she asked for the deluxe, enough to kill a normal human five times over, even if they pulled a Robert De Niro in Casino and put a metal plate under their entire car.
    I strolled the two of them, entirely dazed and with all the spine busted right out of them (not literally—I know you leap right to that because it’s me, but not this time) right up to the door to the prison without bothering to cuff them.
    I didn’t need to cuff them. I’d just used my powers to steal the memories I needed right out of their heads. Normally I might not have, but these were special circumstances, and if I’d had to interrogate them without my succubus powers, I wouldn’t have bothered even asking civilized questions. I would have probably escalated straight to alternating between dunking them upside down into Lake Minnetonka and setting them on fire. Know thy enemy, know thyself, and thyself was not in a mood that encouraged trifling.
    “Two to go down,” I said to the guard, Rogers, who regarded me with a carefully neutral look and my prisoners with one that indicated that they were contaminated with toxic waste in his eyes.
    “Uhhh …” Rogers said, clutching tighter to his M4 assault rifle. He pointed the barrel down and far, far away from me, then mumbled his next words. “I can’t let you down there.”
    “The hell you say?” I asked.
    “Can’t let you down there,” Rogers said, slightly less tentatively. Maybe his boys dropped.
    “I’ve got prisoners,” I clarified for him without smacking him over the head or anything. Go thyself.
    “You’re, uh … suspended,” he said, and like a mouse he whispered the last part, bringing a hand off the grip and scratching a sudden itch on his face.
    “You know that big-ass explosion on campus a couple hours ago?” I fixed him in my gaze and he didn’t dare look up. He looked like he was feeling itchy. Must have been nerves. “These are the responsible parties. They are also metas. What the hell would you have me do with them if not put them in our meta prison? Because … maybe I’ll just drop them at your house.”
    “It’s orders, Ms. Nealon,” Rogers said, looking especially pained at the mention of his house. “From the top. You’re suspended, you can’t arrest anybody, per the orders of the—”
    “Director,” I muttered in the same tone as Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Newman.” “Is he in this morning?”
    Rogers looked like he wanted to pace, possibly leaving his skin behind. His hand was back on the M4’s grip, and he was white-knuckling it. “I … I don’t know.”
    “Okay, then,” I said, and turned loose of the two of them, both nearly collapsing, looking around with slack looks as they felt my grip release. “I’ll just leave them here for you, then.”
    “Uhhh …” Rogers’s eyes went wide, he looked a little panicked. He was at the outside duty station, wasn’t even at the inner door to the prison. He just kept an eye on the lobby entrance with an assault rifle, was the first line of defense. “You—you can’t do that!”
    “They’re prisoners without a prison to go to,” I said, and started to walk away.
    “W-wait!” Rogers called. “Don’t leave them here!”
    “You think the Director wants me to take them to his office?” I asked, walking away a lot slower than I could have, all for effect. Rogers looked a couple steps shy of panic, the end of his M4 wavering as he pondered bringing it up against Shafer and Borosky, who, while still not having their wits entirely about them, were clearly starting to steer their slow wits to the idea that they might be able to make a break for it. “He gets mad when I don’t take my winter boots off before I come visit. Doubt he’s going to respond well to me bringing assassins in.”
    “You can’t just leave them here!” Rogers called, trotting