Page 26 of Sloth
“Don’t bloody give me lip for trying to help. You kept flashing your abnormal strength about. People were going to put two and two together that you’re different.”
“Unbelievable. This is just like the time we were in that gamer tournament and you swooped in and took my kill apparently to save me from the big bad monster. All you did was steal all my XP, level up, and boot me out of the tournament entirely.”
“It was a bloody computer game, Sloan. I was trying to impress you. It backfired.”
“You men. You’re all a bunch of assholes who think you can do better than me. None of you trust me to do my fucking job. I’m a fucking super—”
“Shh.” He waved her down. Had the woman no sense of self-preservation? Drawn by their shouting, a crowd had gathered.
As though a bad taste filled her mouth, her lips twisted in disgust. “I don’t need you to rescue me.”
And then she strode away, nail file still lodged in her bloody hand.
Seven
Sloan’s alarmwoke her at a fresh five a.m. the day of the gala. She’d spent most of the previous evening giving her family a rundown of the beast attack. Much of what they’d talked about was conjecture considering Daisy had destroyed the evidence, but they’d surmised the animal had been injected with the same serum that Lilo’s ex had been months earlier. That man had turned into a superhuman beast, able to sense greed, like them. He’d also had extraordinary strength, but in the end, he’d become so mindless with sin, and drunk on the serum, that he’d killed himself from taking too much. It burned through his insides.
As Sloan switched on the faucet in her shower, her mind inevitably turned to her lost sister. Daisy had been left behind when Mary and Flint rescued the family from the lab that created them. They thought Daisy had perished in the fire their biological mother set to destroy the lab. Obviously, they’d assumed wrong. If they’d only checked to see if she had survived the fire…
Sloan dunked her head under the hot stream and let it wash away her worry. It was stupid to get caught up with ifs and maybes. At the time, Sloan was only a baby, and Mary and Flint had their hands full running from the Syndicate with seven children. They couldn’t change the past.
But that niggling feeling was still there.
Last night, Sloan set a plate for Daisy at the family dinner table. No one said a thing as they all sat down at their seats in their private dining room in Heaven. Without saying a word, each and everyone of them knew who the setting was for, and at the end of the meal, Mary had requested that Sloan do the same thing at every meal until Daisy was brought home to them. It was a start. A dinner plate today, an olive branch tomorrow, a rescue the next. They would return Daisy to their family. Sloan’s heart clenched and she wrenched her mind back to working out why the Syndicate had experimented on animals instead of humans.
They’d been after the Deadly Seven for years, trying to get samples of their blood, especially the members who had leveled up with abilities.
Maybe they weren’t getting what they needed, and the animals were a back-up plan.
Regardless, moving to animal experimentation was another level of depravity from the organization, and this break in their hunt for the bastards couldn’t have come at a better time.Herbreak,she had to keep reminding herself. It washerwork that gave them this lead with the gala.
Anger still fired in her blood from the way the men in her life seemed to think she wasn’t capable of fighting her own battles, or doing her damned job. In the back of her mind, she kind of got it. She was a slothful bitch sometimes, but it wasn’t like none of them had danced with their sins before. Typical.
She tutted to herself the entire time she showered, dressed, and then packed her bag. When she was done, she gave her purring cat a rub on the head.
“AIMI, I’ll be away from the home for a few days. Can you look after Luna please?”
AIMI replied,“Yes, Sloan, oh Masterful One. I’ll arrange for Luna to be fed. Will you be checking in while you’re away?”
She grinned. That last software update she’d given AIMI was so that she would address her by her new exalted title. “Yes, I want to keep working on that binary code to visual pattern algorithm, and I also want to develop some communicator watches. Something we can program with an SOS.”
“Similar to the system we have in the suits?”
“Yes, but something normal enough we can wear during our civilian lives.”
A pause, then AIMI said, “You’re wanted down in the garage. Should I tell them you’re on your way?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Sloan hoisted her duffel bag, collected her dress bag, and went to the exit. But she couldn’t leave. Something stopped her.
This was it. No more hiding out in her room. No more waiting for someone else to do the job for her. And no more waiting for respect from her family. She had to earn it. But… maybe they were right. Maybe she needed saving. Maybe she wasn’t good enough to get the job done.
No. Fuck that shit. She was good. She was a badass. She single handedly—sort of—stopped that beast from killing anymore people.Her.
She may have even saved Max’s life.
“Sloan?”AIMI prompted.“Oh, Masterful One? Shall I tell them you’re running late?”
