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  Nia tightly wrapped her arms around Kim. Even in his sorry state, Kim was always good at telling it like it was.

  Kim’s staggering arm reached up, his fingers gently clutching Nia’s recently repaired necklace as it dangled around her neck.

  Kim fell limp in Nia’s arms.

  “Kim…?” Nia mumbled, tears flowing like a waterfall under her eyes. “Kim?!”

  She pressed two fingers to his neck, searching for his pulse.

  Trembling almost violently, Nia snatched her fingers away. Tears gushed from her eyes.

  She closed his blank eyes with her fingertips and clutched his lifeless body one last time. Nia gently laid Kim’s body on the ground, stood and headed for an opening in the wall.

  She started hearing the screaming sirens of the ambulance and police vehicles approaching, and darted toward a hole in the wall at once.

  “I can’t be here when those people show up. You understand. Thank you for everything.”

  Nia backed out of the building, staring into Kim’s motionless face. She wiped tears from her eyes and finally headed back for the motorcycle Marc loaned her, leaving the scene moments before the fire department’s emergency vehicles arrived at the torn-down warehouse.

  Miles away, she pulled over on a side street. She stumbled off of the bike, fell to her knees and dry heaved on the asphalt.

  Twenty-Nine

  Nia threw aside the doors of the Jazz Hall. Her eyes were saturated and red, her hair a frizzy mess, her face the definition of sorrow.

  She thought it was strange that the Jazz Hall was empty. No customers. She was certain Marc was planning to open that night. But she was glad he changed his mind.

  The middle-aged bartender was sitting alone at a table. He calmly shot her a quick glance while going through a ledger and talking on a phone. He then caught sight of the torn piece of denim fabric in her hand, stained with blood. He looked her over, but she had no marks or wounds.

  “…All right,” Marc said as his expression changed. “I’ll call you back. I got a visitor. Uh-huh. Talk to you later.”

  “Where is he?!” Nia growled. “Was that him on the phone?”

  “Who, Bobby?” Marc gasped as he hung up. “No, that was one of my associates. Bobby’s not here. He wanted to take a break. Said he wanted to clear his head, so I decided not to open up tonight. He’s not home?”

  “No. I went there; the house was empty,” said Nia.

  “Oh. Guess he decided to take Charlene out after all.”

  “You know where they went?”

  Nia stared fiercely at Marc, hoping he realized just how serious and furious she was.

  “Look,” Marc said, lifting himself from his seat. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “My…my old man…” Nia sobbed. “They killed him…they killed Kim.”

  “Aw, damn,” Marc sighed, rushing toward her from behind the bar and taking Nia’s shoulders in his palms. “I’m sorry. I know that guy meant a lot to you—you used to talk about him all the time.”

  “It’s my fault,” Nia cried. “I was so childish…I should have known better. I should have known they would find a way to get to him…”

  “So what are you going to do?” Marc said sternly.

  “What…? What do you mean…?”

  “What are you going to do?” he said again with emphasis.

  Nia turned away and rubbed her eyes, her skin burning into the irritated flesh of her eyelids like sandpaper.

  “You just gonna run away, ain’t you?” Marc growled. “That don’t sound like the Nia I know. The Nia I know, the girl that took down a whole group of Hudson’s goons and a mutant assassin outside my club all in the same night wouldn’t walk away from this.”

  Nia turned about and looked up at Marc.

  “You need to go after whoever killed Kim, because you know it’s not going to stop with him. It’s never going to stop until they get what they want from you. You know, Bobby, Charlene…even I might be next. I know you ain’t thinking of running out on me, are you?”

  Nia shut her eyes. “I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.”

  “What? Can’t do what?”

  “I’m tired of all this…” Nia said. “I started out being a crook because I saw how strong I was. I knew I could do whatever I wanted. I ain’t need to be working in no retail store or nothing simple like that…money came to me. I had people fawning all over me, dying to pay me to jack stuff for them. It was fun…but Kim was always trying to tell me I was meant for something more. Kim was the only one who stood by me, and now…”

  Marc scoffed. “Yeah. And?”

  Nia was startled. “What? What do you mean ‘and’?!”

  “What you expect from me, a tissue?” Marc snapped. “I’m not going to be a guest at your pity party. You thought you could go around stealing, blowing up, killing, whatever, and didn’t think for a second that it would come back to bite you?”

  Nia folded her arms and sobbed.

  “Stop crying, little girl,” Marc went on. “Oh, now that everything come crashing down all around you, now you want to feel sorry? Now you want forgiveness? Now you want to ‘change’? I told you before that there ain’t no right way to do wrong, but you kept trying anyway. Now look at you…you lost everything you care about and you’re an emotional wreck. I…I knew a girl like you once. Crying over every little thing. Couldn’t stand that shit…you’d think with her background she’d be tougher inside. But whatever. So let me ask you again. What are you going to do?!”

  Nia looked down.

  Then a subtle buzzing broke the silence and Nia lifted her pager from her pocket. There was an unfamiliar number on the screen.

  “Who’s that?” Marc wondered. “Thought you said you wasn’t getting any more contacts.”

  “I don’t know who this is…” she muttered back. “Give me the phone.”

  Marc did so, and Nia dialed the number.

  “Hello?” Nia stated as the call connected.

  “Hi there. Remember me?”

  Nia’s face immediately hardened. “Yeah. Casey, right?”

  “That’s right. I’ve missed you, Nia. In fact, I missed you so much I tried to pay you a visit. But turns out I couldn’t find you at the address I had. Just some old man there. He wouldn’t tell me anything about where you were so my friends and I…well, I’m sure you already know the rest.”

  “It was you?!” Nia growled. “You killed Kim?”

  “Killed? Well, that wasn’t the plan, but hey…I’m sure he knew how dangerous it was to associate with a loose cannon like you, right?”

  Nia slammed the phone on the receiver, nearly shattering it.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?!” Marc suddenly shouted. Nia flinched.

  “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t break it…”

  “I mean, why did you bang on him? That’s who killed Kim, right? Isn’t that the dude you’re after?”

  “What…?”

  Marc shook his head. “You was just on the phone with the dude that killed your old man, the guy that got you sitting up in here crying and shit, and you’re still thinking about running away, ain’t you?”

  “What am I supposed to do?!” Nia wailed. “Go fight him? Kill him? For what? That ain’t gonna bring Kim back! It ain’t going to fix my rep! It ain’t gonna accomplish anything!”

  Nia’s pager buzzed again. It was the same number.

  “Call him back,” Marc ordered.

  “What for?”

  Marc folded his arms and looked to the ceiling. He exhaled hard as if he set down a heavy load, and then looked at Nia.

  “Because I need you to.”

  Nia looked dumbfounded. “You? What the…”

  “All right. I guess I ain’t got a choice.”He looked up and yelled seemingly into the air. “Yo, come on in!”

  Nia stopped sobbing as she reacted to the creak of the back door of the Jazz Hall opening. A tall man walked in, and the dim light glanced off of his spectacles.r />
  “What the…?” Nia gasped. “Jesús?!”

  “Yes, Nia, it’s me,” said Jesús Alvarez.

  Nia looked back and forth between Jesús Alvarez and Marc Benson, her throat empty.

  “I would have thought it was obvious,” Jesús went on.

  Marc sighed. “I’m disappointed, Nia. I’m disappointed because you couldn’t see it. You can’t even see it right now. You can’t see what’s right in front of your face.”

  “See what?”

  “I ain’t no damn gunrunner, Nia. I’ve been on the phone with this guy right here,” Marc continued. “We’re secret agents, both of us. Alvarez’s job was to infiltrate Corp Hudson. My job was to keep tabs on you when you made yourself Hudson’s Target Omega. Our objective is to put an end to Hudson’s science experiments. You were the key. As long as Hudson was pursuing you, we could see Hudson’s activities plain as day. The stories you kept telling me helped too.”

  Nia took a seat at one of the tables in the main hall. She stared at the two men with a blank look.

  “You probably got a whole mess of questions…” Marc went on.

  “Not really,” Nia sighed. “I mean, seeing him up in here confirms a lot. You’re the guy he said he was working with. You acted like my best friend, and you hooked me up with weapons when I needed to save Bobby and Charlene. I knew all along Jesús was the one who took them. That big dude was there to keep up appearances, but when he was about to kill me, Jesús stepped in and saved me. It was all a game to gain my trust. The whole plan was to use me to try to get inside that island lab, and it actually worked. But Jesús came back and rescued me and lost what y’all was looking for in the process. So now y’all want to ask me to help you out…right?”

  “Something like that,” Marc said. “Like I told you, our mission is to take down Hudson, piece by piece. He made you a target, and that made things easier for us. Now I got me an idea as to how we’re going to fix…”

  Marc shot a glance toward Jesús.

  “…Fix all our little blunders. But I need your help to do it.”

  Nia let out a slight chuckle. “You know, I’ve been played and twisted up so much these last few days that I don’t even think I’m bothered by it anymore. I’ve lost the man I thought I loved…I slept with this guy and then he left me…and the only person in this world who cared about me is dead.”

  Jesús started to say something, but Marc waved his hand and he fell silent.

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying fuck it. I’m in. It’s whatever. Give me some orders. But don’t get it twisted. I’ve started killing people for the first time in my life the other night. You know how they say once you do it, it gets easier? It’s true. The only reason I’m not busting caps right now is because neither one of y’all attacked me. Let’s keep it that way. What I want hasn’t changed. Hudson destroyed my family. His little associate tried to rape me, and he killed Kim. I want to make both of them pay…but I guess I can’t do it by myself. I sure as hell ain’t running no more.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, Nia,” Marc smiled. “Now, call that guy…what’s his name?”

  “Casey,” said Jesús. “Billy Casey.”

  “Yeah,” Marc nodded. “Call Mr. Billy Casey back, Nia. I want you to give him what he wants, but with a condition.”

  Nia looked at Jesús, then at Marc. “I got a condition of my own.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “Tell me how Jesús can do the same things I can do. How come he’s…almost…as powerful as I am? I know I was born with my abilities because of my father. I also know that apparently only my dad’s body accepted the formula. So what’s his story?”

  “We outfitted Jesús Alvarez with a performance enhancer that would help him keep up with you in case you didn’t trust him and things didn’t go the way we wanted them to go,” Marc explained. “It was experimental, and he needed regular re-dosing. That’s why he had to cut and run, in and out with you. We couldn’t risk anyone learning about it. That’s another thing we have going on—we’re trying this stuff out under field conditions. Turns out it’s nowhere near as powerful as you are…guess that’s another reason why Hudson wants you so bad. His competitors are starting to rise up.”

  Nia grimaced.

  “Now, if you don’t have any more questions, I’d appreciate you making that call. I’ll tell you what to say,” Marc stated.

  Billy Casey sat in Chelsea Romedrux’s chair in her office, sulking.

  “She’s not gonna call back,” said Chelsea.

  “Yes she will,” said Billy, looking down at her.

  “I told you not to kill the guy. I told you to just rough him up a bit and grab him, but you just had to take it so far, didn’t you?”

  “He broke one of my guy’s arms in three places!” Billy growled. “No way that guy was going to come peacefully. Besides, he wasn’t dead when we left. It’s not my fault the old man couldn’t take a hit.”

  “We don’t have any leverage anymore. You blew it. Like, again. Guess I’m going to have to come up with something else…” Chelsea began, then her office phone rang.

  “It’s her,” muttered Billy as he reached for the handset. “Don’t you move.”

  He picked up the receiver and answered the call. “Yeah?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Oh, hi, Miss Black. I’m glad you called me back,” Billy said, grinning at Chelsea. “What I want is you. Now, you can run away if you want. But I think you know from personal experience what happens when you try to run away from Hudson. Your daddy did that and your mommy paid the price. Now who might pay the price when you try to run, huh? Your buddy Marc and that nightclub? How about I finish off poor Bobby and Charlene?”

  “So what you saying? You just want to take me on?”

  “That’s right. Just you and me.”

  “Why? You know what I can do. Hudson can’t be paying you enough to take that kind of risk.”

  “This is personal, Miss Black. You see, you and your boyfriend Alvarez embarrassed me and ruined my shot at becoming security chief. So I’m going to destroy everything about your life. Whichever way you slice it, you’re going down. The only way you’re going to stop it is if you come deal with me directly.”

  “Sounds good to me. It’s personal for me too. I ain’t forget how you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself. But fuck all that. You killed Kim. You know you ain’t got long to live anyway since you crossed me. So where and when?”

  “Tomorrow morning. The Worthington groundbreaking site. Same place Hudson caught you before. It’s wide open and there won’t be any passersby. No innocents to get killed this time. I know how much you hate that.”

  “Fine,” said Nia. “But under one condition. Bring her along with you.”

  “Her? Her who?”

  “You know who I’m talking about. What’s-her-name…Chelsea. Make sure she comes along. I want to clear the air with her.”

  Chelsea snatched the receiver from Billy.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll definitely be there. I want to see you pay for what you did to my daddy. I’m going to totally watch you suffer and cry and then you’ll be all mine. You hear me, bitch?”

  The line clicked.

  “Are you quite finished?” Billy said with a smirk, hanging up the phone. “Because if I recall, you bet me that she wouldn’t call back. Looks like you lost. Time to pay up.”

  Chelsea sighed with a coy smile. “Okay.”

  She unzipped Billy’s trousers and moved his briefs aside, exposing his penis. She took it in her grasp and opened her mouth, outstretched her tongue, and—the desk phone rang again.

  “Don’t answer it…” Billy muttered, planting his palm on mop of blonde hair atop Chelsea’s head.

  Chelsea glanced at the number on the caller ID screen, then yelped. She reached up and took the receiver.

  “Hello? Uh…yes! Totally! Be right there!”


  Chelsea hung up the phone, lifted herself up supporting herself on Billy’s knees, and slid her exposed breasts back into her bra.

  “Hey, what gives?!” Billy gasped. “You can’t leave a man hanging like that! I’m gonna have blue—!”

  “Zip up, Billy,” Chelsea shot back, straightening her clothes. “It’s the big man. He wants to see us. Like, now.”

  Thirty

  At the northernmost point of the city stood a lofty skyscraper. This building protruded from the skyline like a sword in a stone, rising over the rest of the city like the seat of an observing god. From top-down view, the building looked like the letter ‘H’, to represent the name of the man who held that seat of power. The 666-level office building with the penthouse at its peak was none other than the Hudson Tower, the headquarters of Corp Hudson. The penthouse served as home and business headquarters to the chairman of the corporation and the most powerful man in the city, Maxwell Hudson himself.

  The Hudson Tower was his pride and joy, used not only as his command center and quarters, but also one of his many sources of revenue. The lowest floors were used for shopping and entertainment while the middlemost levels were used for high-income housing, as well as banquet halls for dignitaries and nobles. Only the highest floors served Corp Hudson’s corporate needs, including the penthouse, which doubled as the main office.

  The penthouse was divided into two sections; the smaller was the den where Hudson would retire for the night and the larger was Corp Hudson’s main office. The den was sectioned off into a separate chamber in the northwestern corner of the room, diminutive in comparison to the rest of the floor but by no means small. Inside, along with a massive Jacuzzi, was a wide and oblong bed with a transparent black and violet canopy overhead and motion sensors tracing a path across all four corners. Fitted inside the walls were drawers filled with scores of designer suits and other fine men’s clothing, custom made to fit his unnaturally tall frame.