Free Superlovin' by Vivi Andrews Page A

until she hit pay dirt. Kim Carruthers, intrepid reporter.
    Darla would owe her the exclusive of a lifetime, but if anyone knew about the latest conspiracy theory, it would be Kim. The woman was a bloodhound—and her very public on-again-off-again relationship with Captain Justice gave her a soft spot for supers.
    “Carruthers,” Kim answered brightly on the fifth ring.
    “Kim, it’s Darla. I need a favor. Strictly off the record.”
    There was the slightest hesitation. “I can’t kill the DemonSpawn decimation stories, Darla. I don’t have that kind of pull.”
    Darla cringed. Would that story never die? Admittedly it had only been a couple days, but still. “It isn’t that. I need the dirt that isn’t fit to print on a break-in a few weeks back.”
    “The bank vault?” Kim asked, an odd edge to her voice.
    Darla straightened in her chair, coming to attention. “That’s the one. What’ve you heard?”
    “Darla, honey…”
    “I’ll owe you.”
    “I’ll collect,” Kim warned.
    “I would expect nothing less. What’ve you got?”
    The noise of the newsroom faded in the background, as if Kim were sneaking away to somewhere more private. “Nothing firm. The official report is nothing was taken, but the one print they found was rushed through the system and Demon Wroth’s daughter just up and vanished when they linked it to her.”
    “I know that already.”
    “ Do you?” Kim asked with interest. “Well. In that case, maybe you know this too. They say nothing was taken, but Trident Labs has a safety-deposit box in that vault, and several calls were made between the bank and Trident’s execs on the morning after the break-in. The old man himself was even spotted entering and exiting the bank that morning.”
    “Edward Calder? He went in person?”
    Across the table, Lucien jerked to attention. “Trident’s involved? Shit .”
    “Look,” Kim continued, “the rest is just speculation, but if I was Edward Calder and I had accidentally created a weapon that was almost impossible to use and completely impossible to destroy, I might just put it in a safety-deposit box to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.”
    Darla’s breath whooshed out of her. “Apocalyptum? You think that’s what was stolen?”
    Lucien paled.
    “I can’t be sure,” Kim said hurriedly, her voice lowering as someone called out her name and noise rose in the background again. “It’s just a crazy theory. But if I were a super looking into crazy theories, I would definitely also pay attention to the break-in at Nightwing Manufacturing last night. And I’d probably take a good long look at page three today.” Darla heard another voice ask Kim who she was talking to, and the reporter gave a sassy retort before whispering into the phone. “I’ve gotta run, D. Good luck. I want some good dirt for my exclusive.”
    When her phone beeped to signal the end of the call, Darla met Lucien’s eyes.
    “Apocalyptum.” The word was a horrified exhalation. “ Fuck .”

Chapter Ten
    The End of the World As We Know It
     
    “It might not be that,” Darla said, before Lucien could run with the End-of-the-World idea, desperation rushing the words. “It’s just a theory.”
    “Even as a theory, it’s pretty damn scary.”
    She couldn’t argue with that.
    Apocalyptum, also known as the Doomsday Rock, was a byproduct Trident had tripped across in their experiments to create tools for superheroes to use in self-defense. Harder than diamonds, the highly volatile substance could only be triggered by someone with superstrength, but once it was activated, the blast made a nuclear explosion look like a cherry bomb.
    Those with superstrength also inherited a certain imperviability to pain and damage—otherwise every time they punched through a wall would be agony. Making a hit was also your body taking a hit, so supers with strength were built tougher and sturdier than others. The single experiment done to trigger just a few grains