Power(3)

“What’s up, bros?” I snarled as I stood there, feeling the cool air run over my skin.

Two massive specimens stood in muted shock in front of me peering in, one to each side, a divide between them where I’d sent the door to the box that had been imprisoning me skittering across the metal grating of the deck. The guy on the left side had long, curly red hair and a red beard while the other had short dark hair and a clean-shaven face.

They both looked at me blankly. I could tell that their brains hadn’t gotten the tray tables up and the seatbacks locked just yet. There was a boiling anger in me that wasn’t entirely my own, something closer to the surface than usual that wanted to tear off their faces, shred the skin from their bodies in large chunks, expose their entrails to the sweet light of day—

Settle down, Wolfe.

But it will be so sweet, Little Doll, to taste their blood on the tip of the tongue, to—

“That’s about enough of that,” I said, letting my thoughts form out loud.

“Wh–what?” The red-haired one asked, and I could see the genuine surprise on his face. What was his name again? Grihm, that was it. Grihm was the redhead. Which made the clean-shaven one Frederick. I glanced at him; he looked just as stunned as his brother.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” I surged out of the metal enclosure with a speed greater than I’d ever had. I had tapped directly into the power of Wolfe, and of the many things he’d been—murderer, psychopath, serial killer—

Hey, the voice of Wolfe protested from within me.

Well, you were. Are. Still would be if you could be.

—he was also a lot stronger and faster than I’d ever been. I couldn’t have hoped to break open the door to the box that his asshole brothers had trapped me in, but for Wolfe it was all, “Knock and the door shall be opened unto ye.”

I was hoping his brothers’ skulls operated under the same principle.

I slammed into Grihm with a punch to the midsection that he was just beginning to prepare for when I hit him. These two jerkoffs had done a number on me recently, busted open some of my internal organs, laid a hurting on me like I hadn’t felt in a while.

All signs of it were gone now. Healed by the power of Wolfe, that creepy and sadistic and magnificent bastard. One of the souls that lingered in my head, and now my new BFF.

That probably should have been cause for concern.

Hey, he said again with a little bit of umbrage.

Sorry.

The blow to the midsection caught Grihm flat-footed. If he’d been surprised I’d broken down the door, he was almost completely unprepared for the world-ending blow to his gut that I struck him with. He grimaced in pain.

And flew into the ribbed steel hull of the plane twenty feet away.

The whole world shifted with the sudden impact of his body against the bulkhead, a tilt in gravity as though something heavy had just impacted the plane from the outside. I felt like I was on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise during a space battle, and the world turned sideways while I lost my footing. I watched Frederick go tumbling with me as I scrambled to grab hold of the grating on the deck. My fingers caught hold while I watched that dark-haired bastard fall a few more feet before he managed to get a grip as well.

It took a moment for the plane to stabilize, and I returned to my feet before either of the other two, which was good. They still both had that look like they were shaking off surprise. Which was even better.

Because it made them prey.

Prey are unprepared, Wolfe said, lecturing me. They wait, they react, they try to fight back after the hunter has made his move.

Yes, thank you, I said. Really helpful. And kind of scary.

He was right about one thing, though, I reflected as stooped into a low crouch and readied myself to spring.

They were prey.

My prey.

I launched myself at Frederick in a low run, my center of gravity closer to the deck than his. I was average height for a woman, after all, five foot four, and he was a mountainous, towering beast who looked like he should have been hitched to a wagon in the old west, lashes falling across his back as he pulled his burden along a dusty road.

I actually giggled at that image as I slammed iron knuckles into his back and heard him release his breath. I’d hit him in the kidney, just the place where he’d hit me not ten minutes earlier. It had hurt. A lot. And I carried a grudge.

I hit him again as he struggled with his balance. He threw back an elbow to try and knock my head off my neck, but I was short enough to duck it. It caused him to lose his balance, and I was nimble enough to let his momentum carry him to the ground. With a little help, maybe.

I knocked one of his legs out from beneath him at the most vulnerable moment. “Timber!” I cried gleefully. When I’d fought these two only a half hour before, they moved like lightning and hit like … well, also like lightning, I suppose. I’m fast, but I’m not that fast.