Toxicity (Out of the Box Book 13) Read online

  “SHOTS FIRED! SHOTS FIRED!” the cop in the trailer shouted. “We have an officer in need of assistance! Other officers reporting a toxic purple cloud in the vicinity of—”

  A sick feeling grabbed hold of me and I didn’t wait any longer. The cops weren’t going to settle this, and who knew what kind of damage could be done by the time Scott managed to get out to this place in his car? While everyone else was panicking and streaming out of the trailer, I ducked into the woods, hid behind a tree, shed my jacket and my wig, and took to the sky, heading in the direction of the purple cloud less than a mile away, hoping that for once I could defuse the situation before it got much, much worse.

  21.

  June

  “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!” June screamed through the cloud of purple toxin. Ell had created a little pocket of clear air around himself, looking just a step below panic. She’d already forgotten about their argument, the more pressing concern of a cop shooting at her forcing June to release a cloud and go to ground. She’d used it to hide for a minute or two as the cop approached, and then she’d snuck behind a car and then bushwhacked him from behind in the chaos of people screaming and fleeing their vehicles.

  Now she had him by the throat, tempted to fire a burst of toxin right into his lungs for screwing this up for her. He’d ruined everything, everything, and how dare he?

  Why was everyone out to ruin everything for her? Couldn’t they just let her be for a little while? Let her and Ell have a few moments of joy in the middle of this plague of trouble? Was that really too much to ask?

  “June, we have to go,” Ell said, looking around, sending the cloud of purple skyward, away from them. People were running, shouting, clutching their kids and carrying them away with nothing but horrorstruck looks cast behind them. “Let’s get in one of these abandoned cars and—”

  “NO!” she screamed, putting her fist through the passenger window of a nearby car. It shattered, leaving her with a couple pebble-like shards lodged in her hand. It stung a little, and bled a little, too, but she didn’t care. She’d accidentally let loose another little cloud of toxin in her anger, and Ell reached out to dispel it.

  “We need to leave,” Ell said. “You don’t honestly think they’re going to let us in now, do you?”

  She shook with rage. How could this be ruined for her? It should have been so good—a shining, golden day where they could just be, without any of the pressures on their relationship that seemed to infect everything more and more lately. “I don’t care,” she said, still blind with fury. “I will make them let us in. They won’t have a choice.”

  “Y—” Ell started.

  “You can’t do that,” another voice finished for him. A female voice, coming from above. June looked up in surprise to find a woman coming out of the sky, landing only a few feet away from her and Ell. Her dark hair flashed in the morning sun, a little messy like it had been flattened down against its will, and the look of determination on her face shone through even under the uncharacteristic makeup, something June had never seen on the woman, not in any of the innumerable times she’d seen her on TV or in pictures.

  “Sienna Nealon,” June said, awe cracking its way through her anger.

  “The one and only,” Sienna said, standing there like a guard, between her and the way to Disney. The way to her dream. “Now … June … what do you say we talk about what you’re doing … girl to girl?”

  22.

  Sienna

  June Randall wasn’t quite what I expected when I was staring her down, but for that matter, neither was Elliot Lefavre. Grandma Randall had certainly told us that June was willful, but by the way Elliot was cowering a dozen yards away, I got the feeling real quick that June was the brains, heart, and spine of this operation, and Elliot was … maybe a pinky finger. Maybe less than that.

  June was suffering a case of being awestruck at the sight of me, so it took a little bit to recover her wits. “What are you doing here?” she asked at last, in a shaky voice.

  “I’m here to stop you from taking a series of mistakes into much, much worse territory,” I said. “June … you haven’t killed anyone so far, okay? And that’s good. But this crime spree you’re on? You can’t possibly think it’s going to last. They’re not going to let you get away with it forever.”

  She didn’t even blink, just answered back like a snotty teen. “Why not? You got away with yours and they haven’t caught you yet.”

  Ouch. That one hit the mark. “Touché,” I said. “But I’m also not committing an ongoing string of crimes that are like a thumb to the eye of the country’s law enforcement—”

  “What about that New York thing a couple months ago?” June shot back instantly. God, she was a wiseacre. How did Grandma Randall avoid mashing her mouth, as my mom used to threaten when I’d get lippy with her?

  “That was a misunderstanding,” I lied.

  “And that thing where you fought off a bunch of government agents somewhere up north?”

  The battle I’d had in South Dakota had gone public? “I … uh … that was against my brother, who was having some issues … and some other friends. Just a squabble. We’re all good now. Well, good-ish.”

  “What about what you did to the president?”

  Shit. How was I supposed to even answer that bit of unsourced rumorage? “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said unconvincingly.

  Somehow, Harmon said, I don’t think she believes you. I’m having trouble believing it, too, and I was there.

  “Dick,” I said under my breath, incredibly unhelpfully as I was facing down June. Her expression darkened, and I felt compelled to add, “I was talking to a voice in my head. Not you. Sorry. You’re not a dick. Probably.”

  “I’ve admired you for a long time,” June said, breathing heavily, her feet set, a couple degrees off from the posture people tended to adopt just before a fight. Her tank top strap threatened to fall off her shoulder, the cloth clinging to her thin, athletic build. She was definitely heading toward confrontation, and that was concerning. “But one of the reasons I admire you is that you don’t take this sort of crap.”

  I looked around at all the abandoned cars around me—and a few not abandoned, families panicked and staying inside, as though locked doors and windows would keep them safe in a metahuman showdown. “I don’t kill innocent people, June. I don’t attack the cops. Yes, I’ve fought off metas who have attempted to do me—or others—harm, but I don’t go looking for fights, okay? And it’s not about ‘taking crap.’ Anyone with our powers could go on a streak of godlike impertinence. It’s a tale as old as history, reflected in the thousands of myths that are the only remaining record of our peoples’ early days. Flying off the handle at normal folks when things don’t go your way or they won’t give you what you want is not something I’m known for, all right?” That was mostly true, I thought.

  “But you’re way more wanted by the law than we are,” June said, eyes flashing, a smirk curling the corners of her mouth. “Why would you come here? Why would you want to even get involved in this?”

  I took a deep breath. “Because what you’re doing is wrong.”

  She took that like a light punch to the face, head rocking back. “And you’re right.” She punched back verbally. “I’ve never even killed anyone.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m here to make sure you don’t.”

  “You shouldn’t be fighting us on this,” June said, blinking in a dazed sort of surprise. “You should be with us.”

  I glanced at her fella, who was watching our whole exchange wide-eyed and fearful. “Three’s a crowd.”

  She smiled lightly. “I guess so.” She squared her feet, and I could tell she was about done talking.

  “Don’t,” I said, and she paused. “Don’t do this. You don’t want this kind of trouble.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, and to her credit, she wasn’t shaking. She damned well should have been. “But I haven’t been running fr
om trouble, in case you haven’t noticed.” Her eyes lit up. “I’ve been running to it.”

  I cringed, letting out a weary sigh. “The way you’re talking, I’m starting to get the feeling that your ‘no kills’ record is more of an accident than a planned thing.”

  “Like I said before,” she grinned, “I admire that you take no crap.”

  “You might not admire that so much when this is over.” I readied myself, drawing up Eve’s light nets.

  “You can’t expect others to take crap when you’re not willing to,” June said.

  “I’ll take a certain amount from you,” I said. “For instance … I’ll let you leave right now.” That caused her to raise an eyebrow. “Get in your car, drive away. No harm needs to come to you this minute.”

  She gave my offer a few seconds of serious thought, and then she exploded in a cloud of purple so hazy that I couldn’t see her anymore. She didn’t say anything, just disappeared.

  “I guess that’s a no, then,” I muttered, looking over the hundred cars laid out before me—and she could have been hiding behind any one of them, waiting to take me down.

  23.

  Great, I thought as a cloud of toxic purple smoke spread out in front of me, dispersing in the midst of the traffic jam I was standing in. I finally got to do my part in this, to face down June Randall, and she decided to play hide and go seek.

  Not being a sucker who’d stand around waiting to get hit, I immediately started playing along. I dove for the deck, sliding under the chassis of a giant truck and looking around for feet running between the massive tires. I didn’t see anything, but then, my job was slightly clouded by the preponderance of purple smoke still dispersing.

  I kept going sideways, figuring I’d slide out behind the truck and use it as cover, maybe reacquire my targets by hunting for them from behind its large frame and heavy engine. That was a safer bet than just standing out in the middle of the road, and not because June had any kind of serious, long-range attack ability. I was pretty sure she didn’t, based on case studies I’d read from old files about poison metas.

  No, I was worried about her boyfriend, the man with a spine composed of a boiled-to-mush spaghetti noodle.

  He had the same power as Reed’s, which meant wind could come shooting at me at any time, hampering the hell out of my efforts. I suspected he wasn’t as strong as Reed had been even before the serum my brother had been injected with had boosted his powers, but Elliot was still enough of a threat I didn’t want to give him a clear shot at me. Only an idiot would do that.

  “Why are you hiding?” June shouted across the parking lot between us. “Are you afraid of me?”

  I slipped between the bumper of a sedan and a minivan, heading toward the sound of her voice. Footsteps echoed nearby and I drifted that way, keeping low to the ground. I was taking a long, circuitous route toward where I’d heard her, mainly because I wasn’t actually after her.

  Why waste my time with June? It was pointless to argue with her.

  “June?” Elliot called, giving away his position. He hadn’t strayed far from where I’d last seen him and was wandering there, as though Sienna Nealon wasn’t going to just walk up and slap the hell right out of him. His call came at the worst possible moment, and I swore softly as I shot along, inches from the ground, heading right for him—

  June either guessed what I was doing or saw me coming, because she leapt off a nearby car and blotted out the sun with her shadow as she tried to land on my back. I saw her coming at the last minute, though it was a bit of a surprise since she wasn’t anywhere near where she’d been when she’d called out to me seconds earlier. Girl moved fast. And stealthily.

  I rolled hard and threw myself to the side, and she barely tapped me in the back with a foot as she came down for a landing. Unfortunately for her, my maneuver screwed things up for her; she landed badly, because I jerked her footing from beneath her.

  She rolled to her feet a little clumsily, but I was up before her, ready to throw a net. She was damned close, though, and puffed that purple cloud like a skunk once more as my light net disappeared into its depths. She cried out within, but somehow I knew she was gone, my net probably missing her by inches.

  I whipped my head around as the sound of a dull roar from wind started up behind me. “How could I forget about you?” I muttered under my breath as a miniature tornado whipped me around in a circle, spinning me like a top toward the cloud of poison.

  24.

  June

  They hadn’t been kidding about Sienna Nealon, the people who’d talked about her on TV. She was no pushover, that was for sure. Twice June had needed to blast a wide cloud of toxin to lose her, like a smokescreen she could project to hide in the depths of. It was a trick she’d used on people before, because who wanted to look for her in a cloud of poison?

  Unfortunately, it was exhausting to produce, and at this point, June felt like she was running on fumes. She dragged a little more as she ran now, breath coming in ragged gasps as she hunkered behind a nearby car.

  This couldn’t be the end, could it?

  She had Sienna Effing Nealon after her.

  Yeah.

  This could be the end.

  How do I stop her? June wondered. The answer came to her, instantly, and it was breathtakingly simple.

  If it worked.

  Of course it’ll work, June thought, she came all this way to stop us. It’ll work.

  “I’m starting to get cranky,” Sienna announced, and the roar of one of Ell’s tornados was suddenly blotted out by another sound. June chanced a look and saw Sienna spinning rapidly, bursting out of Ell’s little imprisonment attempt. He squawked and leapt aside as Sienna came striding toward him, and that gave June zero time left to work with.

  She looked around frantically and found the object of her immediate desire in a car three back. Two parents in the front seat of a big SUV, mom and dad with eyes wide like a full moon, watching everything unfold, frozen in time. And behind them …

  June sprinted for the SUV, ripping open the rear door. “Hey, Nealon!” she shouted once she’d done it, sticking her hand into the car.

  Sienna stopped only ten feet from Ell, who was already panicking, freaking out, too frozen to run. Sienna stared at her, and her expression hardened instantly. “You sure you want to play it that way?”

  June kept her hand leveled inside the car, just over a car seat occupied by a chubby little cherub who had no idea why some stranger’s hand was hovering a foot above his face. The little blue cap was dwarfed by his chub cheeks. “I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get us out of this.”

  “That’s a big line to cross, June,” Sienna said, quiet. “You go over it … there is no coming back.”

  “Don’t make me cross it, then,” June said. “You told us we could leave earlier. Just let us go.”

  “Or what?” Sienna asked. “You’ll do something so horrific it’d give a hardened killer nightmares?”

  “I don’t know anything about what’d give me nightmares,” June said, “but if I’m having them out here, where I’m free, instead of inside a prison … I’ll take that trade. I’ll take that trade seven days a week and twice on Sunday.”

  Nealon seemed to be thinking it over. “You want to run? Run. Get out of here.” She cocked her head, and June realized that the sound of sirens was obnoxiously loud in the distance. “Better hurry.”

  “Ell,” June called, and he shakily started to move, passing Sienna at a run. He moved toward their old car, and June shook her head. “No. Something new. Here at the edge of the lanes.” Ell changed trajectory, moving toward the very edge of the impromptu parking lot. He looked into two different abandoned cars before finding a small coupe that was still running. “Over here,” he said, and jumped in the driver’s seat.

  “I think that’s my cue,” June said, hesitating. She didn’t want to pull her hand out of the SUV, because what if Sienna blasted her with something right then. She had that power, rig
ht? Yeah. June had seen it.

  “Go on, then,” Sienna said, and suddenly June realized she looked tense. Almost desperately so, looking around toward the source of the sirens, which were working their way up through the traffic jam behind her.

  Of course. She needed to run, too.

  “You first,” June said, and Sienna rolled her eyes, then rocketed skyward without another word. June watched the heavens for a few seconds after she’d disappeared, and then burst into a run and leapt into the passenger side of Ell’s purloined car. “Drive!” she shouted as he bumped along in a U-turn and floored it as they tore past the endless line of parked cars on the other side of the road. “And whatever you do—don’t stop.”

  25.

  Scott

  It had taken a few minutes to make sure that the cops hadn’t closed all the entries to the park. They didn’t want that, after all, because then it would trap the two fugitives in a desperate situation, in a place where they were forced to fight their way out. The casualties would be terrible, like when a high speed car chase went off the rails in a busy place. This might actually be worse, because of the concentration of families the target location presented.

  “We have a chopper ready to go up,” Lieutenant Nunez said, speeding the car along toward the incident. He was one of the officers whom Scott had been interfacing with during the process. He figured Nunez was a pretty good cop and a pretty good guy, but he was probably over fifty and hadn’t taken much of this metahuman business to heart in his approach to the job, yet. Old dog, no new tricks.

  “Keep the chopper down,” Scott said tersely. “The male subject’s power is over the wind, and he can easily crash a helo.”

  Nunez’s face fell. “How are we supposed to keep an eye on them for later apprehension, then?”