He’s so warm.
“That’s not too hard on your wrists, Ms. Vigil?” he asks quietly and for a whole moment I forget I was kidnapped.
“I’d rather deal with wrist pain than tasting my dinner again,” I say, and hate myself immediately. No one wants to know about your gastrointestinal issues, Lacey.
“Right on,” he agrees with a chuckle that reverberates through his chest to mine and carries me away.
I can’t really see where we’re going, but soon I feel the cool night air on us, and the little light that peeked under the blindfold is gone.
“Hold on tight, this step is a little wonky.” He grunts, and something wraps snugly around my leg, just under my knee. I might think it was a rope or something from how thick and heavy it feels, but I’m a little taken aback by how warm it is.
The thought is immediately knocked out of my head by the way the world tilts unsteadily for a moment, like he hops off something and lands just a few seconds too late for it to have been a small drop. The warm binding around my leg unfurls again and is gone just as quickly as when it had first squeezed me.
Then there’s a little beep, not too far from my face. Oh no.
“You should put me down. My ex is about to rescue me,” I tell him, because this guy, at least, I’m hoping doesn’t get caught up in the ensuing fight. I don’t know how someone ends up a henchman, but Craigslist seems as likely a place as any.
They kinda immediately covered up my watch with the duct tape when they first grabbed me, and it’s probably slim enough that they didn’t notice it. It’s a useful enough watch that I still wear it most days, but it’s also Steel Heel’s gift to me for our one-year anniversary.
And it’s also a tracker, because everything I’ve ever gotten from him is.
3
Ellis
Her watch is going off like crazy, the little red light flickering rapidly through the duct tape. That seems like it’ll be a problem.
It doesn’t take a genius to put together that it’s Steel Heel’s tech. We all need to get going or say hello to the big guy ourselves.
People love Clayton Steel. They love dressing up their toddlers in chunky cardboard boots to mimic his steel rocket thrusters on Halloween, they love wearing T-shirts with his company logo like it’s not free advertising.
Can’t say I’m a fan. Mr. Billionaire-Genius-Playboy has plenty of die-hard weirdos defending him online the moment another article about a lawsuit he’s currently embroiled in is posted, mass reporting it until the website host removes it. I can’t imagine volunteering your free time to make fucking propaganda.
Not to mention, I can’t imagine he’ll react kindly to the mutants that kidnapped his girlfriend.
Ex-girlfriend, I remind myself. I didn’t know that.
Of course, Vin had to go and make it weird by making me sound like an obsessed fan. It’s not like that, I just used to follow one of her socials because she would post her daily workout routine and ok, alright, I liked to watch her ass jiggle. She’s one of those girls who props up her phone to film herselfaggressively shaking her thermos full of ice water and then walks on a treadmill in the tightest pink spandex workout set and a ponytail. It wasn’t weird and parasocial, it was totally shallow and unassuming.
I feel like it would have made more sense to leave her inside, but Vin wanted her out on the balcony. He’s thinking Steel Heel will just scoop her up and take her away.
“So, same time next week?”
She slides out of my arms easily, and as soon as she sits safely on the balcony floor, she sighs. “Yeah, see you around. I mean, not that I would know.”
I stifle a laugh. “Oh, I’m sure you would recognize me.”
Even with the blindfold, I can tell she rolls her eyes.
Leaving Ms. Vigil blindfolded and tied up on the roof of the abandoned warehouse doesn’t feel great. Especially when Steel Heel and the mutant of the month are still tearing up the city. I know I shouldn’t worry because it’s not my job to worry about people. We do whatever Maestro needs us to do. Of course people get hurt in the crossfire.
But it’s Lacey Vigil from Channel 6 News. She’s like a beacon of hope and whatever.
I glance through the propped open door to the roof access, and Vin is still fiddling something with the mainframe. All the screens flip between various security footage angles as he types slowly, two fingers at a time. A large countdown pops up on one of the screens, and he downsizes it just as the ten minutes it starts at flicks to 9:59, 9:58, 9:57...
Well, I don’t like that.
I take a knee in front of Lacey. Her expression below the blindfold doesn’t budge as I kneel into her personal space, until I touch her cheek. She gasps and then bites down on her surprise.
