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Pepper isn’t a hot girl, and this isn’t a movie, but I would love to have something incredibly badass to say right before I send this real life villain to the depowering machine.
“Time’s up,” Aurora says, grabbing Pepper by the neck and pulling until he’s standing again, albeit against his own will. Red tears fall down his cheeks. Guess she is stronger than she looks. Each word she says now comes out like its own venomous sentence.
“Where.”
“Is.”
“The.”
“Might.”
“Girl?”
My body goes numb. My stomach leaps into my throat and threatens to block off my airway. Tingles flow through my arms and into my chest, paralyzingly painful. This woman has come into Central and made a bloody pulp out of Pepper for the purpose of finding someone. Me.
And he kept my location a secret.
He risked his life for me.
When I haven’t ever done a single thing for him.
I take another step forward, coming into their view. This time I know exactly what the movie superhero would say.
“I’m right here, bitch.”
Four sets of eyes shoot in my direction. The only sound is the scraping of Aurora’s stiletto heel against the smooth floor as she turns to face me. Her demeanor softens. Her lips stretch into a smile, showing faint wrinkles on either side of her mouth.
“Sweetheart. You don’t belong over there.”
“Like hell I don’t.” Her eyes bulge as I swing an arm out, sending a set of hooks flying through the air toward the guy on her left. With a twist of my hips, my right arm swings out a millisecond later, sending the next set of hooks to her right. A flicker of panic crosses her face as she probably realizes that without her two goonies, she’ll have to fight me alone.
Aurora’s lips press together. Her hand extends perpendicular to the ground, revealing something smooth and metallic in her palm. The shiny surface pulses red, reflecting the flashing sirens above our heads. It all happens in a nanosecond, but it feels like hours as I watch the thing in her hand emit a shock of electricity that stops, no—obliterates—the hooks in thin air. Black dust erupts in a poof just inches from both guy’s bodies.
I gasp. What sort of fresh hell is this?
A bored laugh escapes her. I steal a glance at Pepper, who is backed into the wall, hands tied with silver cord, dried blood clinging to every inch of his skin. His eyes fill with pain as he watches me, and for a moment I’m overcome with annoyance. He should be happy that I’m here to save him, not giving me a head-shaking look of disappointment.
With no more tools at my disposal, I need to stall for time. Jake will come up with something, call for help, or reveal himself and come help me. The Heroes, the real ones, will be here any second. I just need to stall.
“I won’t let you do this,” I say.
“This doesn’t concern you.” She points behind me, toward the KAPOW pod with the open door. “Go sit down. I’ll deal with you in a moment.”
This is the weirdest confrontation I’ve ever seen. An obviously evil woman is willing to torture Pepper for information on my whereabouts, but doesn’t even try to fight me when I show up? She expects me to sit down and obey her? Dad will have a field day with this. She’s batshit crazy.
Looks like Pepper will get to keep his job after all.
I cross my arms in front of my chest. “I’m not sitting anywhere.”
“Really?” she drawls, slow and condescending. I catch Pepper in the corner of my eye. He shakes his head no, pleading with his eyes. Pleading for what, I don’t know. Aurora has him by the throat a second later. “Maybe this will convince you.”
Her outstretched hand with the silver object presses against his chest. I lunge forward, fingers desperate to grab hold of her hair and yank her neck back before she lays another bony finger on Pepper. But I’m too late.
Another shockwave pulsates through the air. His eyes roll back into his head, his lips part. A single word escapes his lips in a whisper. “Maci.”
Pepper drops to the ground. Lifeless.
I scream.
