“In,” Trix said, pushing Jezebel into the back of the ambulance, and pulling the doors closed behind her. “Now, Daniela, you need to tell me what happened after we got hit. We landed on the side, my side, and that door was crushed. You got that truck back up on its tires and got my door open. Tell me about it.” Her eyes were intent, needing me to be honest, but I didn’t know what was real.
I shrugged because nothing seemed to matter if Dirk hated me and my psychotic family. “I lifted it up. I think it was adrenaline, but Philippe said that it was a super serum. He killed Dirk’s sister, and now I’m just like him.” I closed my eyes tight and pulled up my knees, hiding my face against them.
“So, no one’s talked to you about this super serum before now?” Jezebel asked, voice cold, like my grandfather’s when he was dealing with an important yet impersonal issue.
“My grandfather used to lecture Philippe a lot about controlling his instincts, making reason and logic his master instead of his emotions, but I didn’t have emotions to control, not until now.” Emotions hurt so much, so much pain, so much crushed hope that had been such a delicate sprout, pushing out of the weight of the soil to find sun, only to be stomped by Philippe’s big, ugly murder.
“This Philippe, he’s here?” Trix asked, leaning close and putting her arm around me, protective, like I was Minx, weak right up until the point where she shot you. But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
I sniffed. “He was. He’s behind the attack, probably all of them. My grandfather is very powerful. He has a lot of men who work for him, people who like hurting other people.”
“This is the first time you reached down deep and let the monster off its leash? You’re doing really well, honey,” Jezebel said, and draped her arm over my other side, so I was surrounded by what felt like love and safety. All I needed was Dirk for everything to be perfect.
“He paralyzed me so he could tell me…” I swallowed hard.
Jezebel bumped her head against mine. “Nothing good.”
“I have to get Dirk to work with my grandfather, or…”
“Or what?” Trixie asked, sounding annoyed. She patted my hair. “No one is going to break your hands.”
She had heard me during my nightmares. I would have been humiliated, but I was already past the point of that. Fear clawed at me instead. “They’ll kill him.” I said it in a cold voice that was only slightly ruined by the sob at the end. “My cousin will probably do it personally.”
“My, my, what a fine specimen of manliness. I think he deserves a place at the top of the list of gentlemen I’d like to get to know better,” Jezebel purred.
I lifted my hands and then dropped them. “I don’t know what to do. If I leave, he’ll kill Dirk. If I stay and can’t get Dirk to comply, he’ll kill Dirk. If I can get Dirk to do what my grandfather wants, then he’ll be safe, but only as long as his compliance lasts. He won’t do it, not after what they did to his sister and Nitro.”
“Why aren’t we taking this psycho out first?” Trix asked, puzzled.
“Because,” Jezebel answered for me, patting my shoulder. “Poor thing’s been terrorized her whole life and doesn’t realize that there are other options. They used fear to control her since she was just a puppy, and now she’s trying to overcome years of conditioning, but once she starts working through it, someone comes along to put the fear back into her. No offense, Dani, but I’m not loving your kin too well. If they’re all suped up, that explains a lot of it.”
I raised my head to stare at her. “What do you know about the super serum? Is it real?”
“You lifted up my car,” Trix said, nudging me. “You also put a seal on the tank to keep it from blowing and drove like Nitro. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”
“It’s real enough,” Jezebel said, rubbing her chin. “I don’t know much about it, but there’s some who do. Is that the priority? How long do you have to test Dirk’s ‘compliance?’ What would that look like? You should do that, which is probably being happy together and lots of PDA.”
“How can I do that when he hates me?”
“Your family isn’t you,” Trixie said gently.
“But, Phillippe said that I’m just like him.”
“He’s a liar or stupid. Do you go around messing up people’s lives for the fun of it?”
I nodded at her. “I came here to destroy Dirk, to ruin his reputation, steal his tech, and break his heart. I’m a supervillain,or maybe just a villain. I don’t feel like there’s anything super about me.”
“You picked up an armored off-road vehicle.” Trixie smiled broadly. “You’re definitely super something, but you saved me, so I’d say superhero.”
I rolled my eyes, because that was too ridiculous to seriously contemplate.
“Why not?” Jezebel said with a shrug. “Your origin story’s pretty intense, but not more than mine, and I’m firmly out of villain territory.”
“Some might object to that,” Trix said with a wink. “Hero, villain… they’re just words, but the important thing is to find out who is causing these problems and go on the offensive at the source. If it really is your family that attacked Nix’s team, Nix is going to fight them, and so are we. You’re part of the team. Will you fight with us?”
I stared at her while my blood ran cold and I couldn’t breathe. Fight with them against my grandfather? We’d all lose. And then everything would be broken. But what was the alternative? I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the stretcher while Trix and Jezebel were arguing above me.
“She should stay out of it,” Trix said, shaking her head. “She has the strength to fight, but she has to dig it up out from under years of fear and trauma.”
