Madison
She strode into the Limp Noodle with a confidence she hadn’t ever felt before. The world swam before her in a contrast so sharp to what she was used to that at times it still overwhelmed her with a brief bit of nausea. It surprised Maddy that she was adapting to her new senses so quickly. It was almost as if part of the effects was the added ability to accept her new vision, powerful strength, and acute sense of smell as normal.
The situation also wasn’t giving her much of a chance. After the confirmation from Connor that it was indeed Flint who was the traitor, the pair of them knew they had to warn everyone as fast as possible. Once word reached Flint that the Agency had failed in apprehending both Maddy and Connor, it was likely they would send their Agents to sweep up the entire Underground.
She couldn’t let that happen. She had met too many good people in her short stay with them, and they were fighting for what was right, against an evil much more powerful than they were. That was something she needed to help preserve, no matter what it might take.
“Hi, how can I help you t—” The clean, perky waitress in the yellowed outfit sputtered to a halt as she realized who was standing in front of her.
Then, before Maddy could get in a word, the blonde turned and dashed for the back. Maddy darted forward, catching up with her in the span of half a dozen steps. One dainty—and yet now extraordinarily strong—hand reached out and clamped itself onto the fleeing woman’s shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
“Please don’t kill me!” the waitress pleaded as she was spun around by the force, her hands spread wide and above her head to show she was unarmed.
She blinked at the first words from the blonde’s mouth. “What? Why the hell would I kill you?”
The blonde frowned. “You work for the Agency. That’s your job.”
Maddy shook her head angrily. “I don’t work for them. Neither does Connor.”
“B-b-but, Flint told us…”
She snorted. “Exactly. The same Flint that sent me here,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the information card, giving it to the blonde. “Do you happen to recognize the place?”
“Coleforn Shipyard? But isn’t that the place—”
Maddy nodded, still holding onto the woman’s shoulder. “The same Flint that sent Connor into an ambush from four Extremis Agents?”
The blonde didn’t reply, but her eyes did flicker to look at Maddy’s hand where it held her shoulder.
She sighed. “Right, that. That does look rather incriminating, doesn’t it?”
The waitress shrugged nervously.
“That’s the result of me making an extremely stupid decision. I’m just lucky it didn’t kill me instead. But trust me when I say I got it from the samples I was supposed to take to Genesis Valley, and not from the Agency itself.”
The other woman looked at Maddy, her eyes bouncing back and forth slightly as she stared into both of Maddy’s eyes, evaluating her story, judging it for the truth.
“You’re telling the truth,” she said in an awed whisper at long last.
Maddy nodded.
“But that means Flint…”
“Is an Agency traitor,” Maddy finished heavily, nodding unhappily. “I don’t know how they got to him, but they managed to.”
The blonde began to shake. “He knows everything.”
Maddy grimaced. “I know, that’s why he has to go. That’s why I’m here. If I go through the secret door, then I won’t have to fight everyone else at the club just to get to him.”
The blonde was crying now.
“What? What is it?” Maddy asked, giving the woman a minor shake when she didn’t answer.
“He knows who my family is,” she said at last, looking up at Maddy as tears streaked down her cheeks, beginning to take some of her mascara with it, giving the tears an added splash of black color to them.
Maddy scowled at the unhappy implications of that. “We’ll make sure they stay safe,” she said firmly, adding that to the list of things she was going to have to do after Flint was dealt with. “For now, I need you to send whatever signal it is that you usually send to indicate whoever is coming through the tunnel is okay.”
The blonde looked at her. “I don’t do anything like that. I just show them the door.”
Maddy nodded. Another thing to change then. Beef up security a bit.
“Very well. Stay here,” she said. “I’m going to go deal with Flint.”
She released the blonde, giving her a sharp pat on the shoulder to help stiffen the woman’s resolve. Then she raced into the back, opening the secret panel and descending the stairs. She left the door open, and the dim light that filtered into the tunnel was more than enough for her to see by.
“This is so cool,” she whispered to herself at the way her eyes automatically amplified the very little bit of light, turning the darkness into more of a misty fog. It still wasn’t as clear as daylight, but it was more than enough to see by as she jogged along. The trip passed much quicker than her first time. Maddy almost tripped over the stairs as they loomed up in front of her.
Okay Flint, she thought angrily. Time to answer for what you’ve done.
She pushed open the secret door, trying to act timid and nervous. It was harder than she thought. The power coursing through her blood seemed to give her an innate confidence that was hard to dispel, even when she tried to do so forcefully. Hopefully Flint would buy it, giving her the few seconds she needed to get close to him.
“Now that’s surprising. I expected your boyfriend to come for me, not you.”
Maddy shrugged off her shock as Flint spoke even before she’d finished exiting the secret door into his office. He was fiddling with something on his desk. She couldn’t see what; it was obscured by the open lid to a hard-shelled carrying case of some sort, roughly the size of a briefcase.
“I must admit, I’m impressed. I didn’t expect either of you to survive. Your boyfriend I can see, as he is stubbornly resourceful, but you my dear? How is it that you were able to escape? I was informed that you both had, but that was about all they told me.”
She shook her head. “You sold us out to them, and yet they give you no information?” She smiled. “You should have asked for a better payment package to go rogue on us.”
Flint stared at her for a moment as she tried to project an air of confidence, but one that made it clear she wasn’t actually confident. Which was tough, when she was extremely confident beneath it all.
“What was it?” she pressed when he turned back to whatever it was on his desk. Moving forward into the office, she walked along the wall, pretending to eye the trinkets and pictures. Hopefully Flint would fall for it. She wasn’t moving closer to him, so it might work.
“What was what?” he asked, irritated.
“The thing they gave you in exchange for selling us out. For turning traitor.”
Flint rolled his eyes, took something from the case, snapped it closed, and moved.
But Maddy was quicker. She put herself between him and the door, having gotten just close enough to intercept him. Flint eyed her up and down, evaluating what he had just seen.
“So that’s how you escaped. You took a dose. Very brave,” he said, nodding.
Then, as if coming to his decision, a smile spread across his face. She had expected Flint to become apprehensive of her. Now all of a sudden his continued confidence was fueling the nervousness growing in her stomach. Something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
Flint headed back toward the secret door that she had left hanging open. She watched as his forward progress halted and he began to backpedal. His outward confidence wavered for the first time as Connor entered the room. He had been waiting there, out of sight, to allow Maddy to see if she could perhaps get any more information from him before they did what they needed to.
“I was wondering where you were keeping him,” Flint said over his shoulder to her. “No matter though.” Before either of them could react, the traitor took whatever it was that had been in his case, flicked his wrist, and downed it.
Maddy frowned, moving quickly to the desk and ripping the case open. There was an empty vial. It was labelled Extremis Serum V2-A.
“You took two doses?” she asked, terrified, backing away to keep herself between him and the door, while Connor looked warily over at her. “
“Two doses of what?” the Sentinel shifter asked.
“Extremis,” she whispered.
“That’s dumb,” he replied. “He’s going to die then.”
Flint began to laugh. “The serum has come a long way since those first trials that your friend Ajax uncovered. Trust me, I’ll be just fine.”
“Thanks to all of those shifters we were unable to save. It was their blood that was used for the serum,” Connor snapped. “How many of those can be laid at your feet, I wonder?”
Maddy eyed the exchange, keeping quiet. She was looking at the now-open case and its contents. Which, among the notes and other things that she didn’t have time to read, was another vial labelled Extremis Serum V2-B. She wondered what the difference between the two was, remembering that her original vial had had an A on it.
“Not enough of them,” Flint spat. “Bunch of circus freaks, changing into animals and shit.” He looked smug. “We’ve taken the only good part of you and refined it, so that proper humans can use it.”
Now Maddy spoke up. “Only half-bloods can use it,” she said. That was how it had worked for her, after all. It was her father’s blood that the serum bonded to, giving her the enhanced effects of the shifter serum.
Flint smiled even wider. “As you two shall see momentarily, we’ve moved beyond that. I am no half-blood. I am pure human, unmixed, unlike you two blackbloods.”
She looked at Connor. “Blackbloods?” She didn’t know that term.
“The opposite of blueblood,” he said. “Impure. We’re not true humans to him.”
“Exactly,” Flint sneered. “We’ve developed a serum that will bond with the human portion of the DNA.” His sneer turned to a smile. “Soon you will be extinct.”
Connor rolled his eyes.
Maddy’s eyes, however, shot to the vial in front of her.
So Flint is pure human. And he took the vials labeled A. Which is the same as what I took. So it’s bonded to my human DNA, not my father’s DNA.
Her eyes focused on the vial labelled V2-B, lingering there for a long time.
“When did they get to you?” she asked, looking up.
Flint laughed derisively. “You two aren’t looking big enough,” he said with a shake of his head.
“What do you mean?” Connor asked.
“Do I really have to spell this out for you?” he said with an overly dramatic roll of his eyes.
“Yes,” she said bluntly.
Flint blew air from between his lips. “Fine. The Agency didn’t buy my loyalty from you. They didn’t have to, you see, because they have always had it.”
Maddy went cold at the implication.
“That’s right,” he said, mocking her. “You’ve been working for the Agency all along, and you never knew it!” He laughed, the sound almost like a cackle, a reflection of how proud he was of his big charade.
She stared at Connor. This was much, much worse than either of them had figured.
“Yes, you should be worried,” Flint said, getting his laughter under control. “Oh, it was amazing. You see, we needed a way to flush out the shifters in the city. Many of them led very unassuming lives. Makes it hard for us to find them. But with you guys—” he broke off with another chuckle. “Oh, you made it so much easier.”
“They saved so many though,” she said, fiercely protective of Connor’s efforts. “Ones that you’ll never get back.”
“Yes, Genesis Valley,” Flint mused. Then he shrugged. “Some sacrifices had to be made. I’m not aware of everything going on, but I would be hesitant to believe them safe, if I were you. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll be going.”
“I don’t think so,” Connor said as Flint made his way to go.
Out of her peripheral vision, as she stared at the vial, she saw Connor tackle Flint. The pair went flying past the desk to crash into the far wall. The dark-tinted windows above them vibrated rapidly under the impact, though they didn’t shatter.
Connor grunted, and was thrown backward as Flint kicked him away. Maddy was forced to dodge out of the way as Connor landed on the desk and flipped over the back of it. She curled her body protectively around the item in her hand, bouncing solidly on the floor until her back came to a rest against one of the bookshelves.
Noise sounded from above her as Connor and Flint tangled once again. It wasn’t much of a contest, however, as Flint was easily overpowering the man she cared for. The only thing keeping Connor in the game was his training. Flint had none, and it showed, but he was landing enough hits to keep Connor reeling.
Maddy thought about jumping into the fray, but she had less training than Flint, and was weaker than him. He had taken a double dose. From what little she’d been exposed to, someone surviving that was a new thing. Who knew what he was capable of?
She scrambled to her feet as Connor stumbled backward, reeling from a blow to his face. Blood streamed from his nose, and his left eye was rapidly swelling up.
Her choice was made for her just then. If she didn’t do anything, Flint would either escape, or kill them. Or both. For the second time that day, she twisted the cap off and downed a vial of liquid that would have unexpected effects on her.
Power coursed through her veins almost instantly, a crackling flow of electricity that was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She could feel it building within her as it spread throughout her entire body. Unlike the last vial, this one was immediate, happening without delay.
“Flint,” she shouted, her powerful voice filling the room with ease, snapping the Extremis-enhanced traitor around to look at her.
Connor saw what she was doing and dove out of the way, just before Maddy kicked the desk across the room.
Maddy blinked as the piece of furniture flew forward in a tumbling roll, thick wood snapping from where she had planted her foot in it. Flint cried out in surprise as he was hit by three hundred pounds of solid wood.
The desk plowed right through him until it smashed apart against the far wall, bowing the thick steel outward slightly as it did.
“Wow,” she whispered, marching over to where Flint lay curled up. She bent down to pick him up, but was sent reeling by a surprise backhand that caught her completely off guard.
Apparently Flint wasn’t as hurt as he appeared. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she pushed herself off the wall, reaching for something else that she had on her.
“Over here,” Connor said, spitting blood at Flint, distracting the man before he could make another charge at Maddy.
Flint glanced over at Connor before casually hauling a bookcase from the wall next to him and hurling it at the shifter. He then charged at Maddy. She stood her ground, letting him hit her.
Ow. The singular thought pulsed through her mind as she flew backward under the impact, slamming into one of the thick metal columns that separated the panes of tinted glass. The metal bowed under the blow, and the glass on either side of her shattered, raining shards down upon the both of them. She was cut and sliced in numerous places, as was Flint.
That wasn’t the damage though. She flexed her arms and sent him flying back. He collapsed into a ball, then rolled to his feet, just in time to cry out in pain as Connor hit him from behind.
Flint spun, his closed fist crashing into Connor and spinning him away.
But as he moved, Maddy could see that the damage was already done. His white shirt was rapidly becoming soaked in blood.
Flint focused on her. “You think two little knife wounds are going to stop me?” he roared, the sound a mixture of pain and anger.
Maddy held up the knife she had pulled from its hiding place on her back. It was covered in Flint’s blood. She had stabbed it into his gut at the last second as he leapt at her.
“Notice anything?” she asked, noting the flow of blood begin to soak his pants.
In the corner, Connor climbed back to his feet. He didn’t look very good, but he didn’t wobble either. Her heart soared with pride. Her man was one tough customer.
Her man.
Maddy’s smile grew bigger. Yes, he was hers, and she was his. All his. Somehow they had found each other amidst the violence and craziness that seemed to be descending upon her city.
She couldn’t be happier.
Flint grunted as he looked down at his wound, noting the way his clothing was sticking to him, soaked as it was with his blood. “Bastards,” he muttered. Then his eyes rose, fixing on Maddy. “Still enough time to kill your precious man though.”
He whirled and went after Connor.
Maddy screamed and launched herself forward.
She was too late.
Flint arrogantly knocked aside Connor’s defenses, making the strong shifter look weak. If Maddy hadn’t understood before why the Agency needed to be stopped, she saw it now.
Connor’s mouth exploded with fresh blood as another blow landed. Maddy had closed half the distance. The small room seemed to be a mile wide at that point, stretching on forever, as if the world itself was collaborating to ensure she couldn’t get there in time.
Rage rushed to the surface as Flint’s hand snapped forward, grabbing Connor around the neck and squeezing. He was attacking her man. Something deep within Maddy awoke at that, spurred by the protective instinct.
Whatever it was, it was angry.
She hit Flint in the side, and the whole world went dark.