The Vigilante's Handbook (Misfits #1)

Forty: Anything But Simple

The moonlight felt cold against my super suit. It filtered through the sparse branches, illuminating patches of forest and creating shadows deep enough for my Misfits to hide in. Valentine was next to me. I knew only because of the nearly silent crunch of her boot in crusted over snow. Around me was the sound of muffled breathing courtesy of Diana's quick improvement to our communication system.

Wherever my team was, each of them sported a single bluetooth headphone that she had hacked to create an eight-way secure comm channel. No, I don't understand it either. I reached up to shove the earpiece in more securely. This would have to be a temporary fix for us. I didn't trust the headphone to stay in during any sort of fight.

But the whole plan was not to fight. This was going to be a simple extraction without violence. The key to our success was strapped into my superhero utility belt (a normal belt that did a fine job holding three syringes in place against my hip). Along with the masks, Freyson had been able to score us another gift: Conspiracy-approved Nothing syringes. Enough for each of us to have a couple on our person and more than enough to send the rest of Julien's team to la la land just long enough for the Conspiracy to move in an extract them. 

"Simple." That's what I heard with each stifled breath on the radio. "Simple. Simple. Simple." It was an unspoken prayer.

Val placed her hand gently on my arm to catch my attention. My flinch in response was instinct. My whole body was filled with the kind of jitters that Elliot's energy drinks left. She had the decency to not bring it up. With silent signals that we had drilled on an hour ago back in the apartment, she pointed out our starting point in this infiltration, a window in the northeast corner that never shut fully.

The tree line had grown nearly to the building, which gave us cover until we were two feet from the concrete block walls. It was still silent as we approached.

The building itself was not much to look at. Inside Val had described two small workrooms inside, one of which was unusable due to the debris that inevitably built up after years of disuse. The only functional room had been overhauled into a close quarters bunk room.

In the yard of rusting power plant machines, there were three other small structures that usually housed whoever was on guard duty. Those were the rest of my team's problem.

We just had to get in the house and stick a Nothing syringe in whoever was sleeping there.

While we waited in the shadows, I started freezing the nearest tree. It wasn't the frozen bark that I was after but the burning of my Gift. Ice crawled up the trunk at a controlled pace. I had to do this carefully or I wouldn't be prepared for a fight if one broke out.

Whisper close, I heard Lucia's voice over the comms. "We're in position. Teams two and three?"

Val looked at me with something like panic in her eyes. They were wide enough to reflect the full moon in the purplish irises. Those were Julien's eyes. I knew that's who she was thinking about too. I tested my hand in a swath of snow. The snow melted on contact without so much as a sizzle.

She interpreted that as my go ahead. "Oui. Team two is ready."

Alek gave team three's approval the next second.

Lucia took an exaggerated breath that prompted all of us to draw in the last bit of night air. "On my go. Three." I took a step into the clear winter air. "Two." The skin of my hand steamed in the cold. "One." My palm rested on the window frame as frost and ice melt away to give us free access. "Go."

It happened in slow motion.

Val made it through the window before me. I prepared myself for the worst and rolled through behind her. My Gift was consuming my thoughts. I was supposed to have the other escapes frozen shut within five seconds of touching the floor. Valentine was supposed to be singing asleep whoever was in the bunkhouse.