“I do. We’re going to have so much fun.” He smiled the Typical Reid Smile, and it was still chilling and terrifying. And I knew that was what he wanted—to terrorize and therefore control me. He was back, fully back—truly the only person who’d ever made me want to beg for mercy. And just like before, I had no weapon. Just like before, he could kill me before anyone else could save me. “You only made it last time because your man saved you. That won’t happen now. Everyone’s too busy. It’s just you and me.” He reached out and stroked my cheek.
He really shouldn’t have said or done either. As my music changed to “Never Again” by Discharge, I remembered something—victims needed rescuing. And that’s what Reid liked to do—make other people victims. That’s what Cliff and his Minions did. What all the bad guys did, really. Only I wasn’t his or anyone else’s victim. I’d never begged when he’d wanted me to the first time, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to do so now. I was Code Name: First Lady and I did the saving. My rage went supernova. He was going down.
He tried to turn the caress into a slap, but I blocked it and batted his arm away. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
He lunged for me and I leaped back while throwing a front ball kick that, due to his position, hit his solar plexus. He hit the ground, but was up again by the time I’d landed. Dropped down and swept his legs, then did a backflip to get more space. Yeah, when I was this enraged, the skills worked at optimum.
He started fighting, boxing, really. Which was a good strategy against most women. However, I’d not only spent years being trained by Christopher, but I’d also had Tito, aka Mr. Mixed Martial Arts, advising me during fights for a long time.
Reid was bigger than me, but kung fu wasn’t a martial art that depended on size and strength. And in MMA, if you weren’t a striker, you did your best to take your opponent to the ground.
Dodged and blocked Reid’s punches, then saw my opening. Tackled him at the waist and took him down. I was on top and he didn’t appear to have heard the rule that you shouldn’t let your opponent get you in mount. I was sitting on his abs, had my knees locked against his ribs, and my legs clamped against his sides. Then I started doing ground and pound, which meant I was hitting his face with my fists while he tried to get me off of him and block my punches at the same time.
He was not effective at either. And I was hitting him at the fastest hyperspeed I’d ever managed, so that his head was a double-end bag—the little boxing training bag you always saw boxers hitting repeatedly at head height in every training montage done in every boxing movie ever made—only his head had no place to swing to except the floor.
“You will not ever hurt any woman ever again.” Each word punctuated with two punches. “Especially not me or any of my friends. Your evil leaves this world forever tonight or today or whatever time it is.”
He was never able to reply, and very soon, he wasn’t fighting me anymore. And soon after that, there wasn’t much head or face left.
Part of me wanted to keep on pounding him until he was a liquid. But the other part reminded me that my friends and family weren’t safe, particularly when Trik Turner’s “Friends and Family” came on. Leaped up and looked around. More than half of the Reid clones were down. Jeff had apparently gotten the others to see reason, had broken free, or else they’d all decided that they wanted to hit something. He, Christopher, White, Reader, and Tim were all finishing off whatever Reid clones the others weren’t handling.
Any time a Reid clone went down, the moment their opponent moved away, a bullet went into the head and then body. Siler was living by the Double-Tap Code. Which made sense that he was doing it this way because there were too many bodies in motion for him to be sure he wouldn’t hit one of the team.
Wruck was literally rending LaRue limb from limb. The Poofs appeared to be holding their own with Long Armed Rexie, and someone was sending bullets into the Rexie, too. Figured this was Mossy, since bullets were hitting downed opponents at the same time.
Rahmi had used her battlestaff to free Francine, who was fighting a Reid clone along with Len and Kyle. All the clones appeared to have A-C in them, which was why it was taking the good guys longer to win.
And Chuckie was still fighting Cliff. Well, he was a human and while Cliff wasn’t looking all that healthy, he’d been trained at fighting. And, realistically, Chuckie had a lot of rage to work out. Maybe he was taking his time and enjoying his work.
Saw my gun, which was getting kicked all over the room. Ran and managed to retrieve it without getting kicked too much, then ran back to Reid and shot him twice in the heart because the double-tap was not to be ignored, ever.
Then headed over to Chuckie.
Cliff was about dead, which was nice. He looked at me. “You’ve doomed yourselves,” he gasped out. “I could have saved everyone.”
“But you never intended to save anyone.” Nudged Chuckie and handed him my gun. “Why hurt your knuckles any longer?”
Chuckie took the gun and stood up. “The queen always saves the king. She saves the other pieces, too, when she has to. And this is, once and for all, checkmate.”
Cliff laughed the Dying Villain Laugh. “You think you’ve won? You have no idea. I always have more than one plan in place.”
“Yeah? About that. We’ve ensured that your plans can’t happen, or didn’t you realize that our team destroyed all your strongholds and neutralized all your doomsday plans?” The Long Armed Rexie gave a death cry and toppled over. The Poofs didn’t eat it, however, though Mossy and Siler sent a lot of bullets into it, just in case. “And your last ally just went down.”
He smiled. “You can’t stop the Close Encounter. Enjoy your pyrrhic victory—you all, like this planet, only have a few hours left to live.”
“Then we’ll spend them happily together, burning your bodies,” Chuckie said. “Oh, and by the way? I’ve always been better than you, without trying. Because I always had the right person on my side.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and I put mine around his waist. Then he shot Cliff in the groin once, the heart twice, and the head three times. Because Chuckie also believed in the double-tap.
CHAPTER 90
“BODY BURNING SOUNDS like a good idea,” Jeff said as he joined us. “You two okay?”
Nodded as we separated. “We both killed the people that hurt us the most. So yeah. How are you?”
Jeff shrugged. “I killed the original, human Reid. Killing some enhanced clones wasn’t a problem—all I had to do was think back to what he’d wanted to do to you and killing them was easy.” He reached out and pulled me to him. “I felt what you went through, baby. I’m proud of you for facing your biggest fear, getting through it, and coming out even stronger on the other side.”
Couldn’t help it, had to kiss him. Jeff obliged, of course. He ended our kiss just before I started grinding against him. Couldn’t complain—we weren’t exactly in private. “So,” I asked when we ended our kiss far too soon, “are you okay? Do you need an adrenaline harpoon?”