The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4) by Kurtis Eckstein (ebook reader for surface pro .TXT) 📗

I gave her a confused look. “She didn’t?”

“Correct,” she agreed. “Almost a year ago, when Lexi took a break from her job, after Blaze Maddox disappeared, she decided to terminate her public contract with us – the one that made her a face of the organization. Her last public appearance was a television interview, where she announced her separation from Blaze. Since then, she’s bought a new house, thus changing cities entirely, and she’s been removed from the public eye. At this point, almost a year later, she’s been nearly forgotten.”

“Seriously? How could people forget her?”

“Easily. They do all the time. We do it to them, all the time. The formula is simple – media censorship, combined with distraction. Lexi ‘takes a break’ and we thrust a new young attractive super in the public’s face. They don’t even realize it’s happening, or that it’s happened, but they’ve long since forgotten about Lexi. After all, she’s just one of many celebrity superheroes, even if she was one of the most popular at one point in time – it happens all the time with movie and music celebrities too. And sure, people might privately wonder about her sometimes, but no one is talking about it publicly. And if they did, we’d shut it down.”

Damn.

That was useful, but also kind of scary how much control they exerted.

“So her home is safe,” Jackie continued. “And your home is especially safe, because Lexi doesn’t officially live there. Technically, even going out in public isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. The airport’s database had been infiltrated, which was how the enemy probably found out she was going to be there, and it sounds like her younger sister opened up an opportunity when she put her name up on a dating app. It’s even possible the assailants didn’t know for sure that Heidi was Lexi’s sister, and were just taking a chance. Had Heidi denied having a sister, or if someone different shown up, instead of Lexi, then they might have determined that there was no relation and kept searching.”

“What about the mall?” I wondered.

“The exact method used to find her has not been determined, but there are a lot of possibilities, especially since you were there for a while. For example, a hacked security camera with facial recognition software. It’s also possible they have a powerful technopath on their side, though nothing thus far has indicated that is the case. Because if that were true, then the situation would probably be a lot worse. However, something like going to the grocery store, or going to a park, is all extremely low risk.” She paused, as if she was reconsidering her own statement. “That being said, I still think she should avoid going out in public for a while, but it’s really not as unsafe as it might seem.”

I nodded, only to realize I’d neglected to ask the most important question of all. The who and why.

“Jackie, who is this Sheriff guy, and why is he even after Lexi?”

She took a deep breath, leaning back into her chair more. “The nickname is self-proclaimed, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, and he’s a terrorist we thought Blaze Maddox killed a couple of years ago. And, up until three months ago, we thought he was truly gone. As to why Lexi? We really don’t know. It’s possible Lexi has become a target because of her association with Blaze, maybe as a form of revenge. After all, publicly, no one knows Blaze is deceased. Only missing. So it could even be an attempt to get Blaze to come out of hiding.” She took a deep breath. “This terrorist bastard brainwashes people into doing what he wants, though we suspect the process takes a lot of time, because otherwise he’d have an army at his disposal and be a much bigger threat.”

Shit! I didn’t like that at all. Not one bit!

Brainwashing people? Meaning, all these assailants might have been normal everyday people who were turned into this guy’s puppets?

Shit!

Jackie could see the horror in my expression, quickly leaning forward to reassure me.

“We also think he has limitations,” she added. “Very rarely are his victims female, and the few times in the past when they were, they weren’t actually brainwashed. Instead, they were coerced via blackmail, always by men who had been brainwashed.”

“So then, the suicide bomber…” I whispered.

She nodded. “It’s very likely she wasn’t brainwashed, but was instead blackmailed with something significant, like the life of her family. And that threat might not have even been real. For example, the guy who did the initial attack might have met her using the same dating app, and then convinced her that the people he worked for would come after her kids or parents if she didn’t do what he wanted. And while the threat might have only involved him, with there not actually being other people, she would have no way to know for sure.”

Jackie glanced at the wall then, her eyes becoming unfocused. “Plus, the threat would definitely feel real if she’d been abused beforehand. Not to mention, the bomb she had strapped onto her body probably couldn’t be removed once it was put on her. That gave her no options at that point. It’s not like she could just take it off and walk away.”

I shook my head in disbelief, prompting her to focus on me again.

“Then again,” she continued. “The person you saw might not have been female. Could have been a guy dressed up as a woman. Unless you’re confident it was a woman?”

I honestly wasn’t confident at all. The person was definitely dressed like a woman, but I wasn’t exactly taking the time to verify gender. Definitely not a priority when I was having premonitions of a bomb going off.

Unexpectedly, Jackie’s phone rang then, and she hung up a few seconds later with good news.

Lexi was out of the hospital, and the two sisters were already on their way