That stupid, relentless stoicism of his. Even in the face of illness and death, he’d kept up the mask. For months, he hadn’t even told Elias and me the diagnosis.

  That hadn’t been strength. That had been – dishonest. Covering up. And it had hurt all three of us more in the end.

  There was still so much of him in me. It had put my friends in danger. In large part, it had led to everything that had just happened. I couldn’t shake him.

  The biggest part of my fear of growing old hadn’t been about getting slow, or losing my reaction times. It had been in getting so old that I couldn’t change.

  Because that’s what I was pretty sure I was.

  “We all have days when we feel like quitting,” Rachel said.

  “Not me,” I said. “Not like this.” Until now.

  A long silence followed. I wondered if Neena or Rachel were starting to understand what I was trying to tell them.

  If I left, I’d probably stay in the business. Mercing was in my blood now. It wasn’t a career so much as a lifestyle. But I’d been on my own before. Might be better that way.

  These people were my friends. I’d never had better ones. Leaving them would hurt like ripping out my own heart. But… there was friendship, and there was business. The mercenary business didn’t have much room for sentimentality. It hurt worse knowing that they’d come to harm because of my screw-ups.

  Neena wanted me to stay. That was plain. But I had to wonder if sentimentality wasn’t a chain, just keeping us leashed together. There was no reason we couldn’t be friends even if we didn’t stay in business together. Except we’d go long, long stretches without seeing each other.

  But it wasn’t just my problems making me feel this way, either. A whole lot of hate and bloodshed had come raining down on me and my brother, and I didn’t know how long I could take it. It felt like nothing ever got better. Like I never accomplished anything that lasted. Johnny Dee was out for the count, sure. But I’d learned things about Josh that I’d rather not. Josh and Johnny Dee didn’t seem all that different anymore.

  Neena had a good sense for when following a train of thought would lead to a derailment. She changed the subject. “Josh sent you a letter,” she said. “It arrived today, when you were out of our room.”

  I glanced at her. “Stealing someone else’s mail is a federal crime,” I said.

  Neena didn’t bite back. She didn’t apologize, either. “He got an offer from New Charles Xavier School for Mutants. I guess they must have been keeping tabs on you after you visited. They found out about him, paid his bail, and offered him a student slot. With some conditions – like if he screws up again or flunks anything, he’s going right back to jail.”

  “Good for him,” I snapped, and immediately felt awful – more awful – about being peevish. I wasn’t ready for emotional whiplash.

  “He said he wasn’t sure about other mutants until he met you.”

  “I’m… glad for him,” I said. “I really am.”

  “You don’t sound very happy,” Rachel said.

  “He was hoping to have a chance to see you again,” Neena said. “I think you should. It doesn’t mean you have to forgive him.”

  I turned back toward the window so they couldn’t see my face.

  Once my lip started trembling, I couldn’t stop it. I was so scared. I’d never let Neena, or Rachel, or Shoon’kwa see me like this before.

  That was what I’d come to learn throughout all this, though. I couldn’t keep hiding. Hiding how I was – or who I was – had made this whole mess worse from the start.

  It was one thing to realize this, though, and another to do it. And I was finding that I still had a lot of barriers to break down. That wouldn’t happen overnight. It was gonna take a lot of effort.

  If I’d had any sense at all, I would have known that the next thing I’d feel was Neena’s hands around my shoulders. Her cheek against mine. (Her damn hair getting up my nose, snorfle snorfle.) But I hadn’t had any sense, though. Not, at least, when it came to this, and to her. I’d kept myself from learning.

  It took more energy, more resolve – more cussedness – than I’d thought I’d had to turn around, let them see my face.

  Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I’d stayed in Johnny Dee’s nightmare for a little while longer, awful as it had been. Dad had been there. Johnny Dee had worn his skin, but my real memories of him had mixed in there, too. It had been a long time since I’d been that close to him. Felt his hands. Or heard his voice.

  When Dad had died, because I was so much like him, I’d never really had a chance to grieve.

  I must have blacked out. There was a hole in my memory.

  I didn’t remember Rachel struggling to stand and joining us. Shoon’kwa’s hand grasped mine from around Neena’s back.

  I still don’t know how much time passed like that.

  “I’ll stay on the team, if y’all will still have me,” I said. “But I’m gonna need help. Keeping myself in check.” Figuring out this stuff about myself was one thing. Changing it was going to be a long, hard road.

  “We’d never do it without you, cowgirl,” Rachel said.

  “Yeah, you would,” I said.

  “OK, maybe,” she admitted. “But we wouldn’t want to. Wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Funny. When I started in this business, I thought you weren’t supposed to be sentimental. Never settle for less than the best for your team.”

  “Only problem with that assessment is that you are the best,” Neena said. “Even if you weren’t, I’m not in this business because I’m heartless. You need a heart to be a merc. We’re not just a team. We’re partners.”

  Of course. I’d told myself that – in the same words, even. But learning to give myself the same kind of slack I gave other people was going to take time.

  There was no one else in the world like Neena. And, just like a few minutes ago I hadn’t been able to imagine staying on her team, now I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  “You’re a real peach, Peaches,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You, too.”

  “That’s us,” I said. “Real peaches among peaches.”

  “This is very sweet,” Shoon’kwa said, “but if you two keep talking like that, I will punch you.”

  Twenty-Three

  Most big city police departments – and some of the more militant, paranoid, and bigoted small-town ones – had special holding cells for mutants and metahumans. But building those without a specific person in mind was a fool’s game. The cops couldn’t keep ahead of all the ways mutants and metahumans could outsmart or overpower them. They were still going to try.

  The El Paso PD’s metahuman cell was underground, where it was easy to seal off from the rest of the building. The cement walls had an interior lead lining to try to stop telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation (it wouldn’t work, but the police didn’t know that). There were cameras in every corner, always being watched. And just in case they were dealing with someone who could tamper with electronics, there was a one-way window for the pair of guards outside.

  Neena, bless her, was already out negotiating the contract for our next job. She never stopped looking for our next opportunity. Rachel and I went to the police station alone.

  When we arrived, we were sent right down to Josh’s cell. Even though Josh was being released into our custody, the El Paso police didn’t even want to bring him to the exit on their own. From the moment he stepped out of that cell, he was our responsibility.

  Josh sat on his sheetless bunk, staring at the one-way window. The stark white lights robbed the room of any shadow. It must’ve been hell to sleep.

  As soon as the two officers here caught the glower on my face, they pretended they weren’t there. Good. My patience for everyday police bigotry had ended years ago. Neena, White Fox, and I were lucky we hadn’t ended up down here ourselves, frankly. The police didn’t have any charges they could pin on us.

  The only reason Josh was here was because he was playing along. With a talent like his, he could have found some way to slip free. He could reconfigure his body. Handcuffs and restraints wouldn’t hold him. I doubted a police officer could out-fight him.

  By voluntarily staying here, he was making a point. He was on his best behavior.

  The door was locked like a bank vault, with a heavy, mechanical bar blocking it. Nothing electronic for metahuman captives to mess with. I was told it usually took two officers to open. It was nothing that a big gal like me had any trouble with.

  Josh looked up at the sound of the bar unlatching. He bolted upright when Rachel and I stepped inside. A flicker of a smile crossed his face. It didn’t last.

  For a second, he’d been glad to see us. Then he remembered everything else… like what else we must’ve heard about him, and the terms of the deal that was getting him out of here. He would stay with the X-Men for a couple months. He would get his training. After that, what happened next would be up to him.

  He started to sit back down. I shook my head. “Up and at ’em,” I told him. “You’ve got a big day ahead.”

  “I do? They don’t even let me know what time it is here.”

  “Eight in the morning. Earliest they’d let this happen.” As if because I’d reminded her, Rachel yawned hugely. “I’d say we’re here to let you loose, but part of the agreement is that you do exactly what you’re told for a little while.”

  Rachel was letting me take the lead here, but now she spoke. “If they’ve left you down here all this time, you must have had plenty of time to think.”

  “You mean about living as a mutie?”

  “I mean about living as a person.” I frowned. “You’re a person. I’m a person. Mutants are people. I’m hoping you’re a better person than someone who used to be in the Reavers.”

  “Also,” Rachel added, “I wouldn’t use the word you just did around other mutants if I were you.”

  “Right, right – sorry.” Josh winced. “I’m still getting used to how to talk about this.”

  Notably, he’d let my challenge hang in the air. He didn’t tell me that he was a better person. Good. That would have been a bad sign. That kind of change took a while.

  The X-Men had done more than pay his bail. They’d gotten him the promise of a commuted sentence – attached, of course, to the conditions they’d laid out for him. The X-Men weren’t popular, but they had connections, and some strings they could pull when they needed to. One of those strings was in the Texas governor’s office.

  “Have you heard much from the X-Men?” Rachel asked.

  “Letters,” he said. He had only been here for a few days, but, when the X-Men spotted a potential new student, they moved fast. “They’ve already given me a student code name.”

  That was a slight. Usually students picked their own code names. They were telling him that he wasn’t free, not yet. I wondered if he’d picked up on that.

  I still couldn’t believe Triage had picked the name Triage. Whatever the Institute had picked for Josh must have been worse. “Let me guess. ‘Bandage.’ ‘Antibiotic.’ No – ‘Ointment.’”

  He scowled. “‘Elixir.’”

  It was only a little more on-the-nose than I had been expecting. “Ooh,” Rachel said. “Mysterious. A little bit magical.”

  I made an effort not to roll my eyes. Josh wasn’t so polite.

  “I can get used to it,” Josh said. “I’ve gotten used to a lot. It could’ve been worse.”

  “Speaking of things you shouldn’t bring up around other mutants,” I said, “I wouldn’t go mentioning the Reavers. Where you’re going, people have lost friends to groups like that.”

  “I’m going to be around telepaths,” he said. “You really think I can keep that to myself?”

  Well, no, maybe not – having never been a student at that place myself, that hadn’t occurred to me. “Fair point.”

  “It’s going to come out anyway,” he said. “If I manage to keep it hidden from the telepaths, some dark figure from my past will come back at just the wrong moment, or someone will open the wrong files, or… something even more dramatic that I can’t think of. That’s how it always works with you people. Keeping it to myself would just be asking for trouble.” He chewed on his lip. “Might as well just get the pain over sooner. I’m going to be an outcast there, too.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You probably are.”

  He looked a little taken aback. “That was where you were supposed to comfort me and tell me I wouldn’t be.”

  “Well, if what I’ve heard about you from those warrants is true, you’ve got a lot to make up for.” I knew what that felt like.

  And other people here knew it even more. Rachel shifted, uncomfortably. That was why she’d offered to come along with me. Her past as a member of the villainous Serpent Society still colored her interactions with just about everyone she worked with. Excepting the company of her current team, of course.

  “Being against mutants made so much sense at the time,” he said. “It was… it was like a gang. All of my friends were in. Everybody was so damn scared of mutants. We thought we were protecting ourselves. The rallies made everything seem so simple.” He buried his head in his hands.

  Rachel said, “Never trust anybody who makes the world seem simple.”

  “I was an awful human,” he said, “and I’ll be worse as a mutant. Outlaw, you helped turn me around on mutants, but do you know what the big push was? What made me regret being with the Reavers? It wasn’t a change of conscience. It was finding out that I was a mutant. That I would be affected by all that hate. If I hadn’t ever found out I was a mutant, I never would have changed. It was just… selfishness that shocked me out of it.”

  He must have been marinating in these thoughts the whole time he’d been in custody.

  “Yeah,” I said, “but you can admit you were awful. You’re not making excuses. It’s an important first step. You’d be surprised how many people can’t do it.”

  I offered him my hand. He stared at it. For a long time, he didn’t move to take it.

  “Do you think this is going to be worth it?” he asked. “Getting involved? I’m already going to need years of therapy after what happened with Wolfram’s gang, and I doubt life with the X-Men is going to get any easier. Even as a student. I don’t know that I can hack it.”

  “I wouldn’t join the X-Men myself,” I said, “but I’m starting to think the X-Men and I can get along.”

  They were taking a big risk by doing this. It was the kind of thing they’d do only if they cared enough about him, without even having met him, to give him a chance. That was as brave as it was kind. I would have to reevaluate my opinion of them.

  “That wasn’t an answer to my question,” he said. “You’re not an X-Man, but you’re a merc. You get into these kinds of fights all the time. Is that life worth it?”

  If Josh and Rachel could change, so could I. Next to what they’d done, my problems were easy. I could lower my barriers. I could trust my friends. See? It sounded easy to say. With friends like mine at my side, I could do anything. If I let them help me.

  And if I helped Josh continue turning around, then maybe all the trouble, heartache, and bloodshed of this job was worth the money after all. He didn’t have to be another Johnny Dee. I’d help him find his way to being a better person.

  Maybe someday, in return, he could do the same for me.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “You can make it worth it.”

  Acknowledgments

  Inez Temple wouldn’t be in our lives without her creator, the mighty Gail Simone, and the many wonderful comics Gail wrote for Inez and her Posse. There’s no world in which Inez or anyone like her exists without Gail. Anyone who would like to see more of Inez has dozens of comics with Gail’s name on the cover to pick from. Go read!

  Many enormous thank yous to my editor, Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells, both because this story wouldn’t exist without her, and for putting up with me even more than usual. The “editorial” footnotes that appear throughout this book were written by me and not her. Any errors and oversights are my responsibility.

  My first reader for this book and all my others has been my delightful partner and fellow writer, Dr Teresa Milbrodt, who I love more than Inez loves six-shooters.

  The gorgeous cover art for this book and its predecessor, Domino: Strays, was done by Dale Halvorsen, aka Joey Hi-Fi. You can find his portfolio with more of his work at dalehalvorsen.com.

  Tempus and Triage’s appearance in this book was most directly inspired by their appearances in Carrie Harris’s Xavier’s Institute novel, Liberty & Justice for All, which takes place in the same continuity as Outlaw: Relentless.

  Marc Gascoigne, Aconyte’s publisher, and his continued faith in me has been astounding. Thank you to him and to everybody on the Aconyte Books team, including Anjuli Smith, Nick Tyler, Vanessa Jack, Vince Rospond, and Gwendolyn Nix.

  We’ll be seeing you around, cowgirls.

  About the Author

  TRISTAN PALMGREN is the author of the critically acclaimed genre-warping blend of historical fiction and space opera novel Quietus, and its sequel Terminus. They live with their partner in Columbia, Missouri.

  tristanpalmgren.com

  twitter.com/tristanpalmgren

  AcoNyte Extra!!

  Tristan Palmgren interviews Gail Simone, comics legend and creator of Outlaw

  GS: First, Tristan, I wanted to thank you both for inviting me to participate, but also for the excellent work you have done on the Domino: Strays and Outlaw: Relentless books. The writing is extraordinary, and just a pleasure to read. I am delighted that someone of your talents is writing those women I love so much!²² –Gail

  22 Aww shucks! –Ed

  TP: Just for the record, could you state which species you are? I’ve heard mixed reports, and some rumors that you may be a bear…