He starts to float, and Nitro grabs him by the ankles and yanks him back to the ground.
“No way, golden boy,” Draven says. “Just because you say you’ve had a change of heart doesn’t mean you’ve earned any trust.”
Riley turns to me. “Kenna?”
“Sorry, Riley,” I say. “The team voted.”
I don’t tell him it was unanimous. Whether or not I believe his good intentions, I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong. Too much is at stake. All it would take is one call, one signal. One mistake. Deacon’s and maybe my mother’s lives hang in the balance.
Dante walks toward Riley with the roll of duct tape in his hand and a satisfied grin on his face.
Riley blanches. “Come on, is that really—”
His words are cut off as Dante smacks a strip of tape across Riley’s mouth. Draven yanks a pair of zip ties tight around Riley’s wrists, and they heft him into the back of the SUV, securing him to one of the tie-down points in the floor.
Riley isn’t going anywhere.
He looks like a prized pig, trussed up for dinner…in Superman pajamas.
Before he shuts the door, Draven snaps a quick pic on his phone. “This one’s going on my wall.”
“That’s the relay box,” Jeremy says, gazing through a pair of high-tech binoculars, which obscure half his face.
He really does have one of everything in his backpack.
I follow his pointed finger. Just inside the fence that protects the entrance is a big, gray metal box in the side of the mountain. It looks like the fuse box in my garage, only about fifty times bigger.
“We all clear on the plan?” Draven asks, pocketing his phone.
Dante cracks his neck. “Let’s show these heroes what a team of villains can do.”
“Villains and heroes,” Jeremy corrects.
Dante rolls his eyes but nods in agreement. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that this cooperation is new to all of us.
Draven moves in front of me. His face is dark and haunted. It’s the same look I’ve caught glimpses of numerous times in the past few days. It’s the real him. The guy beneath the cocky, badass fa?ade.
The girl inside me, the one who is falling for him despite all the reasons she knows she shouldn’t, melts.
“Kenna, if anything goes wrong in there—”
“It won’t,” I interrupt. My spine stiffens. “We’re going to get Deacon back and find my mom.”
His gaze doesn’t waver. “But if we don’t, if something goes wrong—”
“Don’t.” I press a finger to his lips. My best friend already threw herself on her sword for me today. I can’t take the self-sacrificing thing from him too. Not when we’re so close to rescuing Deacon and my mom. We need to stay positive.
He kisses my palm and gently pulls my hand away. Then he steps closer. There is barely any space between us now, his mouth a bare inch from mine.
He cups my face in his hands and pulls me even closer as his thumb strokes along my jaw. And then he kisses me. It’s dark and sweet, edgy and soft, desperate and soothing. It’s filled with secrets…and promises. And I want it to go on forever.
I tilt my head, open my lips on a gasp. Wait for him to take the kiss—to take us—deeper. Instead, he pulls away. He’s so close that I can still feel his heart beating fast and frantic against my own. Can still feel his breath mingling, harsh and broken, with my own.
I move to kiss him again, but he stops me before I can do much more than slide my lips across his. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect you,” he murmurs.
“That’s good.” I force my voice to stay steady when every part of me is shaky. Shaking. “Because I’ll do the same to protect you.”
He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Kenna, that’s not what I want. I—” Whatever he was going to say falls away when his gaze shifts to below my ear.
“What?” I put my hand to my neck, certain it must be bleeding or worse.
He pulls my fingers out of the way. “Kenna…” He looks at me and hesitates. “Your mark. It’s…”
The realization hits me hard. My mark. The symbol that brands me as someone with powers has finally appeared. Not beneath the right ear, where a hero mark manifests, but beneath the left.
“H-how is that possible?” I ask.
My dad is a hero—was a hero. One of the most powerful of his generation. A hero. So how can I have the mark of a villain?
“Okay, guys,” Jeremy calls out. “I’m ready.”
I bite my lip, trying to hold in all of my questions, and shake my head. “Not now,” I whisper to Draven. He nods. He looks almost as freaked out as I feel. But there will be time for that when everyone is safe. I can scream and shout and destroy everything around me later. Right now we have a job to do. We have villains to save and my mom to find.
Answers can wait.
Now, we attack.
I take a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
? ? ?