Vigilante

9. Ryder Armstrong

He was a fool. He left the woman he loved in the most dangerous position he could have put her in. But if he stayed, it only would have gotten worse. He would have burned her to pieces, and the entire building too. So he did the only thing he could do. He ran.

"You are a damn fool," he flinched at the sound of Jenny Parkers voice.

"I'm not disagreeing with you," he grunted.

He sat in The Lair, hidden underneath Armstrong manor. Once, it had been Jenny's lab where she had run tests on them. He had vague memories of being taken down there as a boy. His parents always had told him that he was a sick kid, but they had never elaborated on the illness.

"An immune disease," they had called it.

As a teenager, the heat flares as he called his power, had been nearly impossible to control. Everything had set them off. Most especially, Patty. But it was impossible to keep control around her.

He had spent several, long years training with Parson alone on an island. There had been one thought that had gotten him through. The thought of being with Patty again. Now, he had ruined that chance.

"I'm sorry," he said, "you won't have to worry about me. I'm leaving."

Jenny smacked him on the head. "No, you sure as hell not. Do you know where my daughter is right now?"

Wincing in pain from the smack, he looked up at her, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Whittier came to see her at the hospital. When I went back for her, she was gone."

Ryder jerked his head up abruptly from his brooding. "How do you know?"

"He left this," said Jenny, "I think it's time to bring in my Father on this. You know he's the only one that's managed to go toe to toe with Whittier and still get out alive."

"He told me he didn't have what he needed yet to come back last time I talked with him," said Ryder, "it might not be an option."

"Well, it's going to have to be," snapped Jenny, "my daughter has been kidnapped by a lunatic! You were trying to be a hero, if you ever wanted to prove that you were one, now would be the time to step up and do that."

"I'm not a hero," he muttered, "you know as well as I do that I'm not. You've watched me from the beginning. I'm a monster. I hurt Patty. I can call Parson, I'll call the police even, but I shouldn't be around your daughter. I'm the worst thing for her."

"You know how Whittier works," said Jenny, "we can't waste time with the Police, or my father even. We need to be looking for Patty now. That's all that matters. So get off your pitiful me act and go find my daughter!"

"I burned her," he hissed, "I don't think you want me around her. I'm a monster."

"Believe me, I've known what your powers were since you were a child. You once nearly burned this place to the ground. But you have gotten my daughter into this mess. Now you are going to get my daughter out of it. Because you are not a monster. You're just different. But if you let my daughter die, I will call you a monster. And I won't stop until you're dead."

"I wouldn't even know where to look," he admitted.

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Don't give me that crap. You've had a tracker on Patty's phone since she was sixteen and she first started noticing boys."

He shrugged. "I was keeping her safe. We were in a private school, and there were people that would have put her in dangerous situations."

"No, you didn't want anyone else to have her. I've tried to be supportive of you, but it hasn't been easy. I know that you love my daughter. That's the only reason that I haven't taken you out myself. So, prove to me that you are worth saving Ryder. Otherwise I swear to god I'll kill you."

He frowned. "You know, I think you were the only thing that ever scared me."

"Good. Then do as I say."

"Alright, Jenny. You've probably known Whittier the longest. If he were going to take Patty somewhere to get rid of her, where would that be?" he asked.

Jenny's eyes widened. "The Murdock Institute."

He growled. "That place is still open? After everything that happened there?"

"Yes," she said, "its privately funded, and the people that own it know no bounds. They have money. Limitless money. If it were to ever shut down, they'd simply reopen again under a different name to continue doing the horrors they've committed. You don't understand the kind of things that they've done."

"You mean worse than fusing human DNA with a bomb?" he said.

She nodded gravely, making his stomach twist in knots.

"You're coming with me," he told her.

"What? Why?" she demanded.

"Because we're going to need help getting out of there, that's why, and if one of us gets hurt we'll need you to fix us."

"You know I'm not really a nurse, right?" Jenny squeaked, looking scared for the first time that he had ever seen in his life.

"I don't care," he grumbled, "you're coming. We'll take the private jet."

"Oh, that's not ostentatious at all," Jenny muttered, but followed after him.

"Wait," he said, as he reached the top of the stairs.

"What?" she asked.

"Grab the suit," he told her.

She sighed, muttered a swear word in underneath her breath, and grabbed the vigilante costume he'd been using from the glass display case it was kept in. Then, the two of them were on their way. To do something heroic, or die trying it seemed.