When Villains Rise Read online

  Of course, none of those ways would be at all legal.

  “She might.” He raised his eyes, and for a moment, she thought she could see the cracks beneath the surface, the fracture murdering Henry had made inside him, but his voice betrayed none of his pain, just practicality. “But what if she doesn’t want to?”

  “She’s your sister.” Nita’s voice was gentle.

  “She was my sister. But the sister I knew would never have joined INHUP.” His voice was soft. “She’s clearly changed since then. What if she’s in favor of the Dangerous Unnaturals List? You’re basing this plan off the assumption that she’ll help me, but what if instead she just wants to hunt me down? We could be giving INHUP more information that will help them kill me.”

  Nita understood his reluctance—almost every person he’d cared about had ended up betraying him. Gold had betrayed him. Henry had wanted to use him. Even Nita, who had never betrayed him, still struggled with some parts of him.

  She didn’t know if Kovit could take another betrayal on the heels of so many. Better to keep the memory of their happier years as children alive than risk destroying it.

  Kovit’s hands shook on his lap, and for once, Nita didn’t think it was because he was eating pain from the other room.

  She reached over and put her hand on his. “You won’t have to speak with her. I’ll do it. You don’t even have to meet her if it doesn’t work out.”

  He laced his fingers with hers. “But I don’t want to know if it doesn’t work out. I don’t want to know if she says, ‘Good, let him die.’”

  Nita was silent a long moment, and then squeezed his hand softly. “Okay.”

  He stared at her, as though he wasn’t sure what he was hearing. “Okay?”

  “We’ll think of another plan. We’ll find another way to prevent INHUP from making your information public.”

  There were other INHUP agents Nita could contact, but unlike Kovit’s sister, they wouldn’t have altruistic motives for helping him. No, for them she’d need proper leverage.

  Her mind began spinning plots, a spider in her web of lies and blackmail, trying to figure out a route that would tangle up INHUP and protect Kovit from harm. There were options—especially if she tied it into her plans for Fabricio. But they would be difficult. The timeline would be tight.

  Even if Kovit had agreed to meet his sister, they probably would have needed to make backup plans like this anyway. Just in case.

  Kovit rose, pulling away from her. He took a few steps back toward Fabricio’s room, toward comfort and pain, familiarity and control. He stopped in the doorway and closed his eyes, leaning his head on the frame.

  “I’m being really stupid, aren’t I?” he asked.

  Nita tilted her head. “No.”

  “She could save me. She could go in and delete everything.”

  “Maybe.” Nita shrugged. “Or maybe she’d turn us both in. There’s no way to know.”

  He turned to face her, and then pressed his back against the wall. He looked down at his hands. “Do you know what Songkran is?”

  Nita shook her head.

  “It’s Thai new year. It’s in April.” A smile flickered across his face. “We used to have big water fights as kids during Songkran. It was a thing. One year, Patchaya—my sister—and I got water guns from our parents. Mine was neon green and white, and hers was baby blue.” He laughed softly. “I can’t believe I still remember what color they were. Of all the random details. I must have been . . . eight? Which means Pat was thirteen.

  “We filled our water guns with water and din sor pong—a white powder.” His eyes were sly. “We used to try and find businessmen, really put-together-looking people, and get them absolutely soaked until they looked like ghosts. When we had the water guns, we were practically unstoppable.”

  His gaze was far away. “I remember, it was near the end of the day. We were tired and heading home. Our plastic guns were empty, and we were as covered in water and white powder as our victims. We were walking along the river, and I felt it. Some man had fallen down a stairwell in the building next to us, and the pain . . . I still remember it. His, ah, scrotum, caught on a nail as he was going down and got . . . stretched. He’d cracked something in his spine, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, but he could feel everything.” Kovit shivered softly at the memory. “The pain was exquisite.”

  Nita shifted uncomfortably, and Kovit cleared his throat. “Anyway. I had to stop and just savor it. It was so good. I wanted to bring him home, to keep him forever because someone who can’t scream, can’t move, can’t escape . . .”

  It would be a zannie’s dream, Nita thought, trying not to show that the idea made her ill.

  “So Pat, she looked at me. And she asked, ‘Are you hungry?’ I said I was, and she tucked me against the side of the building while she went for help. She wasn’t supposed to leave me alone or let me eat while I was in public, but she made sure I was safe and just let me absorb it all.”

  He sighed gently. “Of course, she called for an ambulance, and it ended eventually when they took him away. But I didn’t begrudge her, I knew she was like that. I think that was a good day for both of us. My sister, she’s always liked helping people. I think it made her feel good to save that man and to give me something I wanted at the same time.”

  Nita was silent for a long moment. She didn’t have any idea where to start in parsing what this story said about either sibling. So she finally settled on “It sounds like a good memory.”

  “It is.” He met her eyes. “She was always good to me. Even though I scared her. Even though I think she was too good a person for the family she was in. She was my world as a child. I’d have done anything for her.” Kovit took a long, deep breath. “And she did do everything she could to save me when INHUP finally arrived.”

  He straightened and squared his shoulders. “Let’s do it.”

  Nita blinked. “Do what?”

  “Contact her.” His mouth was firm, and his voice was calm. “I’m not ready to die yet. I may be evil, I may deserve what INHUP plans to do to me, but I don’t care. I want to live. It’s stupid to reject this path. We need to try every option.”

  Nita hesitated, and then rose and went to him. “Are you sure?”

  His gaze was steady. “I’m sure. Contact her.”

  Three

  OF COURSE, it wasn’t that easy to call immediately. Nita didn’t want to use her phone in case everything went wrong and they managed to trace her number. Which meant she needed a burner phone.

  “I’ll go get the burner phone.” Kovit rose. “I could use the fresh air.”

  Nita looked at his bloody hands and raised her eyebrows. “You’re going to go out like that?”

  He blinked, as if just noticing the gore. “Good point.”

  She followed him down the hall to the small white bathroom. The water turned pink when it touched his hands, wiping away all evidence of what he’d done.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to, uh . . .” Nita hesitated and then carefully said, “Relax with Fabricio for a bit? I can go out and get the phone.”

  “You mean torture him until I’m so high on pain I can pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist?” Kovit’s smile was bitter. “As appealing as that sounds, I would rather be doing something to fix the problem than pretending it’ll go away on its own. Or that you’ll fix it for me.” He shook his head. “I’ve let other people control my life long enough. It’s past time I started fixing my own problems.”

  For the first time she realized that while Kovit had broken something inside him when he killed Henry, he’d also made a choice to take control of his life back. Like pulling a blade from a stab wound, it hurt like hell, but in the end, you needed to do it to heal and survive.

  Kovit needed to break the part of him chained to Henry’s control, the part that could let himself be tied down that way. And now that it was gone, he could start healing the damage it had caused and building his life on his ow
n terms.

  “You’re staring at me strangely.” He raised an eyebrow as he turned off the faucet.

  She shook her head and smiled slightly. “Nothing. I was just worried for you since . . . Well, you know. But now I see that was for nothing.”

  He looked away. “No. You were right to worry. I reacted . . . poorly.” He sighed heavily, body shaking a little. “I can’t talk about this now. Later. It’s only been a few hours. I need some time.”

  “Of course.” Nita wished she hadn’t brought it up. “Whenever you need.”

  He nodded, but didn’t look at her as he dried his hands. “I’ll be back soon.”

  A part of her wanted to go with him, but he didn’t look like he wanted company right now. And it wasn’t a wise idea, even if he did.

  Kovit wasn’t the only one with a price on his head.

  As the door closed behind him, Nita pulled out her phone and scrolled through the Toronto news. Six more missing teenagers, all of whom looked just like her. When she’d checked yesterday, there’d only been three.

  Nita scrolled through the faces and clicked on the news link for an article titled Gang War Ensues Over Dead Body? The Black Market Hits Toronto.

  According to the article, two rival groups had started a gunfight in Markham, just north of Toronto, over the murdered body of a teenage girl who looked like Nita, both wanting to claim it as their own. Half a dozen bystanders had been wounded before one of the groups managed to steal the body.

  Nita skimmed the news and was horrified to find even the general news was now talking about how the black market was on the hunt for a teenage girl with supposed healing powers. Thank God for laws, because the news couldn’t legally show the video causing all this—a video of a kidnapped minor being cut and healing wasn’t public-viewing-approved in most places. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to make its way from the dark web to the regular web eventually.

  Nita swore to herself. This was getting out of control. When her captor, Reyes, had first uploaded the video onto the dark web as proof of what Nita could do, Nita had known she’d be screwed. She was a new unnatural, unknown, and people would pay for that. Especially if they thought they could gain some of her power by eating her.

  The emptiness where her toe used to be tingled. She’d already had one person eat her flesh, though she hadn’t seen any effects, especially not the immortality he wanted, given that he was dead now.

  She rubbed her temples. She’d never imagined she’d be so in demand that gangs of black market dealers would literally have gunfights over a body that might or might not be hers.

  She forced her fingers to unclench on her phone. She needed to leave Toronto. Corrupt INHUP agents had sold out her location, and it was time Nita got out, before more black market hunters found her. But running away wasn’t going to fix the problem.

  Luckily, Nita had several other ideas that might.

  She went onto the dark net websites, scrolling through black market forums, searching up what people were saying about her. Her mother had told her she’d started to plant seeds that the video was doctored and fake, and Nita saw a few comments about that, but not enough, not nearly enough.

  Her mother’s idea was solid—make the video seem like a fake. Some people would always believe it, and it was already so talked about that it might not do much now, but it couldn’t hurt to try. She couldn’t rely on her mother for that sort of thing, though, and she made a mental note to think of ways to discredit the video.

  She scrolled through other forums, picking up information nuggets like a gamer on a quest, except the consequences for this were very, very real.

  Sighing, she moved her attention to the general forums and paused, eyes catching on something unusual. It was a request for information on the location of a black market dealer who went by the name Monica. Nita clicked it.

  Someone was trying to buy information on her mother.

  Nita frowned as she read down the list of semivague descriptions that would only make sense to someone who knew her mother. It was a list Nita recognized, because it was almost word for word what she’d been asked by a customer when she was imprisoned in Mercado de la Muerte.

  Her fingers tightened on her phone, the only physical manifestation of the anger burning tight and hot within. Zebra-stripes the vampire was still hunting her mother. He’d murdered her father, and he was after her mother. She didn’t know who he was, or why he was after her family. Despite the fact that INHUP had identified him to her, he wasn’t listed online on INHUP’s wanted list for dangerous unnaturals. Probably more evidence of corruption in INHUP. As if she’d needed more.

  No matter what, Nita promised herself she would get vengeance on Zebra-stripes.

  Grief trickled in when she thought about her father, soft and delicate, opening the door and tiptoeing into her heart. It felt like a wound that had bled copious amounts and just recently scabbed over. Thinking about him was like picking at the scab, little bits of blood bubbling up and trickling through her soul.

  She wiped her eyes quickly, as though by removing the tears she could make the pain go away. Of course, it didn’t work, and the pain lingered, a constant throbbing in her heart. It was better than before. After she’d first found out, when the pain had been almost all-encompassing and the tears had come fast and free.

  She took a long, shuddering breath, banishing his image from her mind. She couldn’t afford to let herself crack right now. Once she’d exacted her vengeance, once the black market was ashes at her feet, she’d allow herself the time and space to grieve.

  She looked down at the ad again, and her face hardened. It was time she dealt with Zebra-stripes, once and for all.

  She sent a message responding to the ad.

  Four

  KOVIT RETURNED FAIRLY QUICKLY, carrying a bag with burner phones and two boxes of ready-to-go-pizza from the Little Caesars down the street. Nita hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until she smelled the gooey cheese, and she snatched one box from him and ripped it open.

  “Hungry, are we?” Kovit laughed.

  Nita’s only answer was to shove a slice in her mouth.

  Within a few minutes, both of them had devoured a whole box, and all that remained was the oil on their hands and a few crumbs. Nita wiped her greasy fingers on her jeans, put half the second pizza in the empty box, and handed it to Kovit.

  “Do you want to go give that to Gold while I handle Fabricio?” she asked.

  Kovit made a face. “Must I?”

  Nita made sure her voice was gentle, not judging, even though she was judging just a little. “You can’t avoid Gold forever. And you need to talk to her. We need to figure out to do about her. We can’t keep her here, but until we know what she’s going to do, we can’t just let her go either.”

  “I know.” He rubbed his temples and sighed heavily. “I know.”

  Nita put a hand on his shoulder. “Go talk to her. You were friends, once upon a time.”

  Until Gold realized that the anonymous boy she’d befriended in the chatroom was Kovit and betrayed him. Nita could understand if Gold hadn’t known the person she’d been interacting with online was a bad person and then discovered he tortured people for fun. That was justified rage. But Gold had known the person she’d been sent to spy on was part of her mafia family. She’d known he was very much not a good person. She just hadn’t known he was a zannie.

  Even when Kovit made friends with people as horrible as he was, prejudice got in the way.

  Kovit looked away. “Yeah. Once upon a time.”

  But he took the pizza and went down the hall toward Gold. Nita watched him until he went through the door, and then took a deep breath and picked up her box.

  She stood in front of the pastel blue door to Fabricio’s room. There was a strange feeling of déjà vu prickling her skin and stilling her steps. She remembered the last time she had brought Fabricio food. He’d been chained in a dog kennel in her mother’s apartment, and blood had s
oaked the side of his face where her mother had hacked his ear off.

  He’d looked at her, and he’d begged her to help him. And Nita, foolish, naive Nita, had.

  And everything had gone wrong.

  She swallowed. She wasn’t the same girl she was then. She was smarter now, more ruthless. And this time, Fabricio wouldn’t manipulate her into ruin.

  Squaring her shoulders, she opened the door.

  Fabricio was slumped in his chair, still bound. He lifted his head when Nita came in. His face was striped a crusty pink from where his tears had mixed with blood and then dried. His blue-gray eyes were broken and scared, and they stared at her with a vacantness that made her shiver.

  “Hello, Fabricio.” Nita stepped into the room and held out the box of pizza. “I brought you some food.”

  He whimpered softly as he straightened his body. “I suppose you think of that as a good deed.”

  “Not really. But I can’t have you dying yet.”

  His voice was bitter. “That’s right. You need me to break into my father’s office so you can steal his company’s information.”

  Fabricio’s father, Alberto Tácunan, ran one of the largest corrupt legal services in the world. Every monster who was anyone used his services. Legal assistants covered up crimes and got monsters off on technicalities, and shell corporations and calculated tax evasions hid money. And money, well, money told stories. Money proved crimes. Money hid secrets. And secrets were power.

  Nita wanted that power.

  “I told you. I don’t know the password to get into my father’s databases.” Fabricio sounded desperate, his body straining forward against the bonds. “I would give it to you if I did, I don’t care if you rob him blind. But I don’t have it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll remember it eventually.” Nita gave him a hard smile. “After all, it’s the only reason you’re still alive right now.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t jump for joy.” His voice was dead. “I seem to be tied up and in the middle of being tortured. It’s really getting in the way of celebrating.”