Angela Smith, psychic manipulator of people’s emotions—and in trouble with the government. Constant surveillance versus going rogue? Not even a question. Angela runs away to sunny Los Angeles, where being a blue-eyed blonde won’t make anyone bat a false eyelash.
Silver-screen star by day, superhero by night, Arktos uses his glimpses of the future to keep Los Angeles safe. When a frightening vision of an explosion leads him to rescue a damsel in distress, he finds himself trading Shakespearean insults with a rogue.
Revealing her identity means a return to constant government surveillance for Angela.
And the rules say Arktos should turn the rogue in…
But together, they just might be able to melt all the obstacles standing between true love for a hero and a rogue.
Chapter One
Dear Mom,
New York is everything I hoped it would be. I love this school! Last semester alone the students showed a marked improvement over the previous year. And, so far, we haven’t had a single senior drop out. This might be our highest graduation rate ever.
I’m really excited by all the improvements. It makes me feel like I’m actually doing something useful. I’m in control of myself, and it’s wonderful.
The date with Simon was less exciting. He’s… um… “Dull as a brick” might be the right term. You’d think it would be easy to find someone who could carry on an intelligent conversation in New York, especially with Internet dating. It’s 2032! But, no, this hypothesis has been proven incorrect yet again.
Give my love to Daddy, Gideon, and the minions. If Maria stops by, tell her I’m worried about her. Delilah and I talked about staging an intervention. I’m not sure, but Delilah thinks Maria will calm down once the shock of losing Martin is over. It may be just a phase.
Oh, and Blessing wrote me. She’s in South Africa and loving it. She sent the most hideous picture of a giant bug ever. I forwarded it to Gideon. And I told her not to bring it back no matter how much she adores its fangs.
Your loving daughter,
Angela
APRIL IN NEW YORK City. Angela could almost taste the coming summer. She’d even rolled the car windows down to take advantage of the first warm day while she drove back from lunch. Summer would be bliss: eight weeks kid-free that she planned to fill by maxing out her tourist quota and hitting every landmark in a day’s drive. By the time her second year as a teacher began in August, she would know more about New York than any native-born city slicker.
Angela parked her car and rolled the windows up. The school was experiencing an unprecedented surge in academic reform, but that didn’t mean she needed to tempt the alumni with an easy steal.
A police siren screamed in the distance, echoing the fear and despair radiating from the school. It felt like the first edge of trouble, a nudging headache that made her want to snarl despite her good mood—but New York was like that, the underlying anger of the citizens scraping against her nerves until she was emotionally raw.
Public School 84 was hers though. Angela had been there long enough that she’d been able to slowly shift the mood of the school from fearful resentment to an amiable interest in learning. It was probably just a schoolyard punch-up, nothing to worry over too much.
Sipping on her smoothie, Angela headed for the impressive security array that divided the outside world from the inner sanctum of PS 84. Outside there were guns, drugs, and chaos. Beyond the arch of metal that scanned for everything from weapons to lethal viruses, there were regimented schedules, dusty dead-wood copies of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and young minds ready to argue over every word she said.
One of her favorite students had spent an hour debating the merits of shoelaces. You couldn’t buy that kind of doublethink.
The security guard wasn’t at her usual place in the main lobby, but Angela knew the drill. She swiped her ID, scanned her fingerprint, and headed for the lunchroom where there was undoubtedly a fight emerging.
As she neared the cafeteria, however, fear washed over her like the noxious smell of a skunk in the dark. Angela tossed her unfinished smoothie in the trash and thought of pleasant things. Bluebonnets on the Texas prairie, the smell of hot apple cider on a crisp winter night, the laughter of her baby brother, the love of her parents… She took it all, wrapping it into the idea of what her school should feel like.
At first, the collective mind of the students fought back. They were scared, and fear was a familiar friend. But she pushed, and they swayed under her will. Manipulating emotions was right up there with the ability to generate polka dots on a wall in terms of usefulness; unless she wanted to turn people into mindless slaves, there was very little she could do as far as the government was concerned. Besides, brute force wasn’t her style.
Influencing things was different though. This is different, she told herself. She turned the corner into the cafeteria and almost jumped at the sight of Travys Freeman—top student in her AP calculus class—holding a gun.
The security guard had her Taser out and was trying to talk Travys into handing over the weapon. Terror so thick it was almost a physical force rolled off Travys. There was no way he would hand over anything to the guard. He wanted to turn it on himself. He just hadn’t worked up the nerve. Yet. Waiting would be fatal for someone.
Angela cleared her throat and pushed on the mob. Everyone turned, even Travys. She smiled winningly. “This isn’t about the quiz yesterday, is it?” she asked, weaving between the tables.
Travys made eye contact. Big mistake. Eye contact meant she had his full attention, and once she had that, he was hers.
“Travys, I asked you a question.”
“It’s not about the quiz, Miss Smith.” The gun wavered, not quite dropping, but he wasn’t sure where to aim.
Angela laid a comforting hand on the security guard’s arm. “We don’t need an audience do we, Travys?”
He shook his head.
“Miss Netley, why don’t you get everyone to class? The bell is ringing,” Angela added as the bell marking the end of lunch rang out. The crowd stayed frozen, spellbound by the same power that kept Travys from pulling the trigger. It was risky, but she refocused, encouraging everyone to hurry away. “Everyone go to class. Not you, Travys. I want a word with you.”
The security guard shook herself out of her stupor. “Come on people, get to class. What are you gawking at?”
Conversation hummed to life around her and Travys sagged. The terror that had buoyed him was gone—only crushing despair remained.
Angela took a seat across the cafeteria table from him as the students and teachers filed out. Some of them tried to stay, or shout, or intervene, but she kept them all walking.
Travys peeked up at her, brown eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Miss Smith.”
“Guns don’t solve anything. You know that.”
He was getting ready to kill himself. She could feel it. The desire to stop the pain overwhelmed him. Angela tried to bleed it off, taking some of the despair herself. It hurt.
“What happened? You can tell me, Travys.” She pushed thoughts of safety towards him. He wanted to believe, but Travys had no memories of safety. When they’d first met, he was a failing student, a scrawny sixteen-year-old who flinched when anyone raised their voice. Her power allowed her to create a sanctuary in the classroom, and in that sheltered place, he’d bloomed into a brilliant student.
“Did you get a college rejection letter?” she asked. It seemed the most probable answer.
He jerked his head to the side as if he’d been slapped. “Chris came home.”
She sucked in air so fast it whistled past her teeth. “I thought he was doing twenty to life?”
“He got off on a technicality.” Chris Freeman was his son’s worst nightmare. He was a dealer with an anger problem who saw his only kid as a punching bag. Angela had never met the man, although she’d wanted to rearrange his brain after meeting Travys’s mother, a sweet woman who was the poster child for domestic abuse.
“What’s your mom doing?”
Travys’s eyes dropped to the floor. “She didn’t come home from work.”
Which made her smarter than Angela thought. “Maybe she didn’t know he was coming home.”
“She knew.”
And crueler than she’d guessed: she’d abandoned her son to a monster. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not going home,” Travys said. His thoughts turned back to the gun. Angela could feel his longing for an escape.
“Shooting yourself won’t make anything better.”
He startled.
“Give me the gun. We’ll make other plans for tonight. You won’t go back home to him.”
Travys hesitated.
“Give me the gun, Travys.” She seized at his mind, making him want to please her. The desire for her approval was false—Travys was too strong-minded to need outside approval—but it worked. His arm lifted slowly, like he was fighting gravity.
“You can trust me.”
“Nobody move, NYPD!”
Angela jumped. She’d been too focused on Travys to feel the approach of the police. In a split-second decision, she released her hold on Travys and reached out for the minds of the police before they could ruin everything.
It was the wrong decision.
Travys screamed in pain. His hand convulsed around the gun, pulling the trigger, and sending a bullet through the flesh of her upper arm.
Still trying to grasp the collective mind of the police, everything blurred and Angela found herself standing near the main office in the arms of a strange man in bright green spandex.
“Travys! Hold still!” The police were moving, too focused for her to grasp; they’d stunned and cuffed Travys before she could even figure out what had happened.
She tried to brush the man aside. “Let me go.” Angela released Travys’s mind and focused on herself. The man in bright green held her.
“We need to get you to the doctor,” the man said.
Angela realized he wasn’t holding her as much as trying to hold her arm. Blood seeped between his gloved fingers. She blinked at it. The pain was secondary to the emotional savaging she’d taken from Travys’s mind.
“Stay calm. An ambulance is on the way,” the man repeated. He was trying to make eye contact. She didn’t cooperate with him.
“I’ll be fine. I’d like to check on my students now.”
“If I hadn’t rushed to your rescue, you would be dead.” Confusion tinged his voice, as if he was waiting for praise.
She glared at the team hustling Travys out of the school. “If the police hadn’t burst in here screaming, Travys would have handed the gun over and I wouldn’t have been shot.” She pushed him away. “This is your fault.”
“No,” said a crisp, authoritative female voice. “This is your fault.”
Angela turned to look at the newcomer, an older woman with salt-and-pepper hair and a grim expression, which she recognized from a picture. Katrina Bocks, de facto government employee and chief of the United Nations Council for Superhero Control.
Not a friend.
“Miss Smith, please let the EMT examine your arm, and then I have some paperwork for you to sign.”
“What sort of paperwork?” She wouldn’t qualify to sign with the teachers’ union until she’d worked a full school year, and she doubted the school board was prepared for this kind of situation. Besides, the chances that The Company was involved with something as benign as arranging medical leave were astronomically low. She’d sooner believe in love at first sight.
Katrina gave her a bitter smile, her emotions colored by hate and anger so violent it was almost a physical aura around her. “How long have been aware of your superpowers, Miss Smith?”
Angela played innocent. “Superpowers? I’m a teacher, but that’s a generous compliment. Though some days I can’t imagine anything harder than twisting these young minds around calculus.” She widened her eyes, the very picture of an innocent southern belle.
Katrina wasn’t buying it. She held up an old-style thumb drive. “I have papers saying you are a superhero with the ability to perform psychic manipulation.”
“I don’t believe anyone can do that.”
“I also have evidence that you and the young man were in a very unprofessional relationship. When he came to his senses and realized how he’d been used, he came to school to kill you. The public will be incensed to hear you lived.” Satisfaction edged Katrina’s words. She thought she had Angela pinned in a corner.
The woman had come far too well-prepared. Angela looked over at the EMT hovering behind them. Time for a quick getaway. “I think I need to see the doctor now.”
“I’ll wait with you,” the man offered. “For your protection.”
Right, he was her well-meaning bodyguard, another concerned citizen fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Angela moved to walk past Katrina, then stopped. “How long have you been tracking me?”
“I learned several months ago that a mind-raper was in the area. I didn’t know who it was until today.”
Angela nodded. Considering they didn’t know the name of their target, they had certainly put a plan together quickly. Daddy was not going to like hearing about this. There was always a risk of The Company stumbling across her path this close to headquarters, but things had been so quiet lately she’d been sure she was flying under the radar. “I’ll meet you at the hospital, I suppose?”
Katrina smiled triumphantly. “Yes. There’s some very simple paperwork you need to fill out. And then we’ll discuss more of your future after your surgery.”
Her arm stung at the reminder. “I don’t think I need surgery, just stitches.”
“And I don’t think a mutant should be allowed to breed,” Katrina said. “Fortunately, the government sees my point of view. A quick snip-snip and you’ll be safe to release into the wild.”
Angela turned to follow the EMT, teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. There were so many things she wanted to say. None of them would help. Training took over, memories of summer drills under the hot Texas sun. The Company could come at any time. There was no hope of fighting them, so you had to evade, dodge, run.
She let the EMT load her into the back of the ambulance and waited until they’d hit the first stoplight before she dialed the only number that mattered. “Mom, they found me. Come pick me up.”