Out of This World

damn much.

“Are you deaf? Get down!”

I hesitated, thinking if he just came even a little bit closer, I could wring his neck, even if said neck was five times thicker than mine. See, getting superpowers had to be good for something.

Tired of me, he turned and fired off a round about a foot from William’s head, reminding me that he was dead serious.

Serena screamed as down I went, first to my knees, then to my hands, thanks to a vicious jab in my ribs from Curly.

“Flat on your face, asshole.”

Nice new nickname.

“Now!”

So with another bone-crunching jab to yet a different rib, I kissed the ground, thinking maybe I should just be thankful he was more fond of jabbing at me than actually shooting me. Bruises were a helluva lot easier to recover from than gaping holes in the flesh.

As my cheek pressed into the floor, dust tickled my nose. Seemed Marilee was an even worse maid than a cook, and that was saying something. I sneezed.

Moe leaned down and peered into my watering eyes. “Shut up.”

In answer, I sneezed again.

“I mean it. Shut up.”

Pissed off, I lay there, inhaling dust, trying not to sneeze, and contemplated my choices.

And it occurred to me for not the first time that the extra strength wasn’t nearly as convenient as Rach’s new vision, or, say, the ability to read the minds of these jerks. Unable to hold it back, I sneezed again, and a new pain radiated through my head. As my vision faded to black, I had to sigh. Yeah. Definitely, I’d rather have had a mind- reading ability, as then I’d have been able to anticipate that blow to the head…

I woke up with a headache from hell and the taste of blood in my mouth. But I had all my teeth and appeared to have all of the rest of me as well, though every single inch hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

I was sitting, my back to a beam in the center of the room.

Moe was tying me up, my hands behind me, my feet straight out in front of me. He yanked the ropes far tighter than he needed to, cutting into my skin. When I winced, he slid his eyes to mine and made sure to back up to a safe distance, holding his gun on me. “I did you a favor tying you up in front of the chick.” He jerked his head toward Serena. “You can see right through her clothes, right?” He chortled. “Lucky dog. Enjoy it, because soon we’re going to drag you out to the woods and do the swap, and then I’ll get to look through her clothes all I want.”

His thinking I had Rach’s ability was probably the only thing that had kept him from seriously incapacitating me. If he’d known I had the strength, he’d have had to be much more thorough in hurting me so that I couldn’t hurt him back.

I glanced at Serena, still tied to her chair. She’d been crying, and she had a bloody lip. But as she glanced at the rope they were using on me, her lips quirked with genuine wry humor. We both knew I could break the rope with one flex of a muscle.

William was tied at her back, facing away from me, and he murmured something to her, and she nodded.

Moe moved to a corner of the room, sitting on the bed to talk into a radio he held.

Serena met my gaze. “It’s nearly sunrise,” she said softly.

The dot on Gertrude’s calendar weighed heavily on my mind, as did the gut-tightening fear over Rachel and where she was right at this moment. “What happens at sunrise?”

“The reverse swap. We need the laptop,” she whispered. “It puts us in control. And-”

“Jesus. There’s more?”

“It affords us a certain protection. Without it…things could go bad.”

As opposed to how great things were now, I supposed. “Where is it?”

“I left it in the kitchen, which is where they nabbed us. It’s in the pantry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her eyes filling. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you and Rachel.”

Moe glanced over at them, his gun at the ready, but went back to talking on his radio.

“Can Rachel get the laptop?” Serena whispered.

“I don’t know.” I tried not to think about all that could be happening to her right now.

“This shouldn’t have gone down like this,” William said over Serena’s shoulder. “You and Rachel should have gone home tomorrow and never have known about any of this.”

“That would have worked for me. Maybe you people should move your vacation spot to a different location. Say Siberia. Or better yet, stop vacationing all together.”

“I know it seems strange to you,” Serena said, “but our abilities get heavy. When we come here, we can drop them for the weekend, and rest.”

“Not drop,” I said. “Swap.”

Guilt flashed across her face. “Well yes. Swap.”

“You gave them to unsuspectings. That’s against the rules.”

“Ah.” Serena nodded. “You’ve read the rules.”

“They were in the Blackberry.”

“The blackberry!” Serena whispered, relief flashing over her face. “That’ll work. Do you have that?”

Moe glanced over at us, and we went quiet. When the pirate went back to his conversation via radio, I looked at Serena. “Tell me what happens after the swap.”

“Normally? We just go home.”

“How?”

“It’s a sort of molecular rearranging. You’ve heard the boom.”

“The lightning.”

“Not really lightning, but yes, that’s the noise it makes. We do it here because no one hears it.”

“Yeah, we used to do it in Nevada,” William said. “But the noise eventually drew too much attention. People thought we were aliens from another planet. It got messy.”

“So you came to Alaska.”

“Right. But it’s problematic here, too. It’s butt-ass cold here for one, and also getting too well known. Like I mentioned, we’re building a new place in the Bahamas. Warm and isolated. Do you have the Blackberry or not?”

Moe slipped his radio into his pocket and eyeballed us in a way that put my back up all over again. I certainly didn’t answer William. I was thinking about how to get the pirate close enough so that I could break free of my bonds and get his gun.

Before he used it.

“Hey,” I called out to him. “Did you hear that?”

Moe frowned. “What?”

I jerked my head toward the door. “Right out there.” Come on, asshole, walk right by me to get to the door.

Instead, Moe aimed the gun at the door and blasted eight holes in it. The sound was deafening, and made him grin. “Hope that wasn’t your hot stuff. Be a shame to hurt her before I get her ability. That strength, it’s going to come in handy.” He waved his gun, taunting me. “So big guy, how many bullets do I have left, hmm?” He aimed right between Serena’s eyes.

She cringed back against William.

Moe laughed. “Do I have one left to nail her or not?”

“Leave her-”

The doors, filled with holes, burst open, and Curly stood there, a gun around his neck, another in one hand, and in his other…I couldn’t see past the doorjamb. He looked right at me, smiled malevolently and tugged.

Rachel fell against him.

“Says she doesn’t have the laptop,” Curly announced.

“She doesn’t!” Serena cried. “I do.”

Rach was looking a little worse for wear, sporting an already blackening eye, a cut lip and a torn camisole. “I’m