Chapter 317 Pants.

Chapter 317: 317 Pants.

"Yeah," I groaned softly, wanting nothing more than to melt into the linoleum.

Lockdown let out a booming, entirely too cheerful laugh. She sauntered up and clapped me affectionately on the shoulder.

The impact nearly threw me completely across the waiting room. I had to brace my boots against the floor tiles just to keep from face-planting into the reinforced security glass.

"Oh, we go waaaaay back!" Lockdown announced to the room at large, her bright eyes locking onto me. "I was the active warden back when Miles here attended our fine, state-sponsored institution. Come back for another stint?"

"Not if I can help it," I said, rolling my shoulder to make sure she hadn’t accidentally dislocated it.

Lockdown sighed sadly, a ridiculously exaggerated pout crossing her face as she rested a cheek in her heavy, metal-chained palm.

"Such a genuine shame! And here I was hoping we could finally spend some quality time together again. Because I’ve heard on the news that you’ve been out being a very successful, high-profile villain around town. And right after I thought I’d successfully managed to rehabilitate you, too."

I offered a stiff, noncommittal shrug. "Sorry."

"But I absolutely have to say," she added, a cheeky, fanged smile spreading across her face. "I’d love to try it again. How about it, Miles? Want to try some of my tough love?"

I reached up and very carefully, very delicately picked her heavy hand off my shoulder.

"No, thanks."

Lockdown just waggled her eyebrows at me, completely undeterred by the rejection.

"We’ll see about that," she said with a massive wink. She actually blew a theatrical kiss my way before spinning about on her combat boots. "Right this way to the interview room, everyone!"

I felt my face burn just a fraction as I started walking after the statuesque super, following her massive, armored frame deeper into the concrete bowels of the prison.

Lilith and Khonsu immediately moved in tight beside me, the pair of them eyeing me with extremely pointed expressions.

"Ooooh, my goodness!" Lilith practically squealed, vibrating with giddy excitement. Her spade-tipped tail swished frantically behind her. "Milesyyyy, you have a prison girlfriend? She is so incredibly tall! It’s super cute!"

"You and her?" Khonsu asked, in bewilderment. If I didn’t know him I’d say he was interested in gossip. "Really?"

"No," I replied firmly, keeping my eyes locked straight ahead. "Not even once."

"Really? Because it super looks like it!" Lilith giggled, leaning over to peek past me at Lockdown’s retreating back. "And she seems like she could totally give you a real run for your money! Like, physically pick you up and run for your money! Yay!"

"Is it because of her muscles?" Khonsu asked, his tone dropping into a serious, almost investigative whisper.

"No way," I said in a harsh undertone, shaking my head. "Not at all. Look, she is amazingly hot, I’ll easily grant you that. But I wasn’t exactly in a... you know, good negotiating position when she was doing all that flirting. Specifically, I was the one locked on the wrong side of the reinforced steel bars, and she was the one with the keys to the entire facility."

"Ah," Khonsu said with a slow, understanding nod. "Yes. The inherent power dynamic of incarceration would certainly pose an ethical and logistical problem."

Well, that was certainly one highly sanitized way to put it.

Sure, fraternizing with the convicts probably wasn’t strictly kosher in the state employee handbook. But Supermax let its warden get away with pretty much anything she wanted.

Because the cold, hard reality of the situation was that there was probably nobody else on earth who could keep this absolute hellhole in working order other than her.

See, Lockdown wasn’t your average, run-of-the-mill super. She was something very different. And very, very dangerous.

Specifically, she was a copycat cape.

And she wasn’t just any baseline copycat. Most mimics in the industry can maybe hold onto one or two people’s powers at a time before their nervous system burns out.

But Lockdown was widely rumored to be able to seamlessly juggle dozens of stolen abilities simultaneously.

On top of that, absolutely no one in the criminal underworld knew if her baseline super-strength and invulnerability were part of her natural mutation, or just another power she’d permanently absorbed from some unlucky inmate.

All of which combined to make her arguably one of the most powerful, unstoppable people on the entire planet.

Now, realistically, there were probably some hidden biological limitations to her mimicry. But I’ll be damned if I or anybody else in the cape community actually knew what they were.

And she sure as hell wasn’t willing to share the secret. Either way, actively working as the warden of Supermax gave her completely unrestricted, daily access to some of the most dangerous, powerful, and deadly villains in the world.

She basically lived inside an all-you-can-eat buffet of superpowers.

And yet, even among all those unhinged, world-ending maniacs, Lockdown genuinely stood apart.

Because she was completely, hopelessly man-crazy.

And I didn’t mean that in a terrifying, ’serial collector of human skin’ kind of way.

It was much more of a ’lonely, optimistic woman watching way too many romantic comedies’ style.

From what I could gather during my own sentence here, half the reason she actually took the grueling job at Supermax was because she desperately wanted to find a man.

Not just any man, though. She wanted the ultimate project.

She wanted to redeem some broken, brooding bad boy with the power of true love—and, presumably, thighs that could effortlessly crack granite boulders.

It was an incredibly dangerous psychological combo, and she didn’t take kindly when some of the more manipulative villains tried playing with her heart to score extra commissary privileges.

She considered herself a ’pure maiden,’ as she so frequently and loudly told anyone within earshot.

Sadly for her, given that the guys who inevitably ended up transferred to Supermax were almost universally puppy-kicking psychopaths, deranged megalomaniacs, or absolute creeps, her grand romantic fantasy had proven highly problematic to achieve.

But if she was anything, Lockdown was eternally optimistic about finding her prince charming behind bars.

Which was exactly why she had immediately locked onto me like a heat-seeking missile the day I arrived in shackles.

In a prison full of screaming lunatics, basic sanity made me stand out like a beacon.

And I mean, I’d been sympathetic to her situation, but I absolutely did not let it get anywhere. I simply hadn’t needed the headache.

And sleeping with the warden of a maximum-security black site—though maybe a highly popular premise in cheap pornos—was not a viable strategy to accomplish that goal.

"I absolutely love the new costume, by the way," Lockdown said.

I blinked, realizing she had eased her pace, dropping back so she was walking right beside me again.

She looked down at me with a wide, fanged grin, completely ignoring Khonsu and the bouncing succubus trailing behind us.

"The iron helmet and the heavy cape is a really lovely touch for your brand," she purred, looking me up and down. "Very dark. Very mysterious sexy."

"Uh... thanks?" I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the grey concrete walls of the corridor.

She giggled. The sound coming from a woman who could bench-press a commercial airliner was deeply unsettling.

"You know," she said, idly twirling a short lock of red hair around a heavily armored finger. "I had really been wondering what you’ve been up to lately. I was so terribly lonely when you finally finished your sentence and left us here."

"Yeah, well, I did do my time," I pointed out diplomatically. "Debt to society paid, and all that."

"And it’s such a crying shame, too. I almost regret signing your release papers, Miles. It’s been very naughty of you, finding a way to be such a successful bad guy without getting yourself sent back to me." She leaned in just a fraction closer, her voice dropping into a playful, conspiratorial whisper. "I’ve even kept a cell all nice and clean, just special for you. It’s right near my personal office. So, you know, if you ever wanted to just drop by and get anything off your chest."

She winked again.

"Like your pants."