I tell you that? You're like the boy who cried wolf - or jaguar in this case - and I told you not to do it. I told you."
I kicked into motion, pacing over to frown down at her. "Do you want to be deep-fried?"
"Please. I'm the only person brave enough to be the maid of honor at a wedding guaranteed to be a Who's Who of Superheroes and Supervillains, so you need me. We both know I'm not in any danger from your fury-fire."
No, she wasn't. She was more likely to drown in my tears or freeze from my touch. I was depressed and scared, and my fear always summoned ice, my sadness rain. My anger summoned fire, of course, and my jealousy summoned earth. Yes, I could make dirt pies. Calling the wind required an emotional cocktail of both negative and positive, so it was the hardest to manipulate. It was hard to be happy and sad, loving and hateful at the same time.
Once, for a short window of time, I'd been able to use my powers without relying on my emotions. No longer. For whatever reason - cough John's tests and Rome's absence cough - that was now nothing more than a pipe dream.
"What if he's..." I couldn't say it. I just couldn't finish that sentence. Suddenly my chin was trembling too badly. God, I was a wreck lately! And no, I wasn't pregnant. (I'd already taken a test.)
"He's not. Who was Rome battling, anyway? And why didn't you go with him?"
"Run-of-the-mill armed guards, most likely, and I'm an idiot. Besides, Cody went with him." Cody could manipulate electricity, so he was a good partner to have. Better than me, for sure. "I've been planning a wedding, babysitting yo - uh, Tanner, researching Desert Gall and - "
"Desert Gal, huh." Sherridan sat up straighter. "You mean the psycho-bitch who drains the water out of everything she touches?"
"Yes. That's her." Unfortunately - or fortunately? - I hadn't had a face-to-face with the sadistic woman yet. One, she'd managed to elude me and two, I'd been too busy getting nailed by other scrims who'd started coming after me the moment I joined PSI. Their mission: recruit me to OASS - Observation and Application of Supernatural Studies, a nongovernment agency whose methods sometimes bordered on criminal and sometimes straight up were criminal. Or, if they couldn't recruit me, plan B was to kill me.
Eight had tried so far, and I'd managed to beat them all. Okay, okay, Rome had ensured victory most of the time. I was still new at the whole shadow-game thing.
"What's she look like?" Sherridan asked.
That was the kicker. No one had a picture of her. Well, not that they'd shown me. Secret agents were so...secretive. But still. I'd already proven I was trustworthy, and why not share something that would help me? "I don't know, but I'm envisioning a dried-up prune with teeth."
"Okay. I've got a visual on her now. Continue."
"One of Rome's contacts intercepted a communication between her and some as yet unknown man and learned some stuff we didn't know. Like how Pretty Boy, her former boss - you know, the evil guy Rome and I had to kill during our courtship - had several warehouses filled with people he'd locked up and experimented on. Desert Gall moved them to a central location to test them and weed out the weaklings, and Rome went to save them. But knowing Pretty Boy, and having studied Desert Gal, there were a few booby traps along the way." Just saying those two words - Pretty Boy - caused me to shudder. And I'd said them twice. Double shudder.
He'd been the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, lushly sensual, darkly erotic, yet he'd possessed a black, monstrous heart. He'd tried to experiment on me, too, as well as attempting to kill Rome. He had experimented on others - the ones we'd known about before his death - replacing their skin with impenetrable metal, adding animal glands to their brains so they'd have beastlike instincts. He'd done other stuff, too. Stuff I couldn't even consider without gagging. All to build an army. An army that would bring him money and (more) power.
Tres cliche if you asked me.
Sherridan leaned forward, clearly intrigued. The book fell to her feet, a warrior's bright eyes staring up at me. "There were survivors?" she asked. "I thought all the people Pretty Boy tampered with ended up dying. Even the ones you guys rescued from