Page 57 of In the Nick of Time
Well, damn.
“Hey,” Nick said with a little smile.
“Hey yourself,” replied Doug.
“Nice job there.” Nick pointed at Porkpie Man.
“No problem.” Doug brushed off his hands and stood back up. He was going to need Advil, ice, a shower, and a massage, and he didn’t know which he wanted first.
“I thought I heard Tim.” Nick glanced around, looking for the damn tortoise.
“I’m here,” Tim said. “Wasn’t fast enough to save the day, but I think I make good support material.”
Nick looked a bit tattered and worn, probably not much different from Doug. A bruise was forming on his forehead and his hair was a mess, but he was alive, and Doug wanted to—well, dammit, why not? Closing the distance between them, Doug swept Nick into his arms and squeezed. Maybe a bit too tight because Nick squeaked.
“Sorry,” he said, relaxing his hold.
Nick wrapped his arms around him. “Thanks for coming after me.”
“I’m not completely heartless. Once Tim told me what happened, we got here as quickly as we could.”
“Talking turtle.”
“Talking endangered tortoise,” Tim corrected.
Doug let his hands fall to his sides, but not before dropping a very unprofessional kiss on Nick’s lips.
“We need to call SPAM. This asshole may have been stopped, but we still have missing agents. Could they be inside?”
The place was small, and Doug hadn’t seen any obvious indication that Esther or any other agent had been near it.
“I haven’t had a chance to look around yet.”
“What did you do in there?” Doug suspected Nick had used his subpower, but he wanted to hear Nick’s version of the story. “And don’t try the big innocent eyes thing on me either.”
“Hmph.” Nick smiled and rolled his eyes instead. “I made time skip back several times in a row. I wasn’t sure I could do it. Never tried before. The henchmen didn’t seem that professional—not that I personally would know this kind of thing. I thought if I could make things be a little Freaky Friday—no, wrong movie—anyway, if short periods of time kept repeating themselves like a vinyl record skipping backward, I hoped it would scare them.”
“It worked.”
“It did!” Nick said brightly. His gaze fell on their prisoner. “He’s…” Nick circled one finger at his temple. “Suffice it to say, maybe not quite all there. He said that he couldn’t tell how I died, and I think it freaked him out. He also claimed to be trying to harvest powers.”
“Lovely.” Doug resisted the urge to kick Pork Pie in the ribs. “Nice work, Nick.”
“Yeah.” Nick beamed before peering down the drive toward the empty highway. “Do we have to go after those other guys?”
“No,” said Tim. “They won’t get far. I lowered the air pressure in one of the tires. And”—he waggled his long turtle neck—“I got the license plate this time.”
FIFTEEN
NICK
A subpower hero’s job is never done.
Nick was exhausted,even more tired than he should be without having had coffee yet that day. Did that make sense? He couldn’t even think in a straight line. It was probably the aftereffects of whatever drug the henchmen had pumped into his arm.
Doug was on his cell phone, presumably talking with SPAM. He’d said something about cleanup, which Nick assumed meant someone was coming to take away The Undertaker. Really, the whole thing was sort of an emotional letdown. They hadn’t destroyed a building or a single car. No explosions. What kind of superhero-ing was that?
On the other hand, he’d dragged himself out of the coffin in time to watch Doug go after The Undertaker, and that had been sexy as hell. Not that Nick found violence arousing per se, but violence to protect him? He was okay with that.
