“Where are we?” I asked.
“Taking a different route.” She flipped a blinker on, and pulled into a store parking lot. “We’re here. We’ll walk the final two blocks. I don’t want the rental car seen at what may be a crime scene shortly. But we need to plan.”
“Okay, so how do we play this?” I asked. “We’re not trying to, like, kill anyone, are we? I didn’t sign up for that.”
“No. Absolutely no killing if it can be helped. If you were fully trained, Jordan’s four guys wouldn’t stand a chance.” She grimaced. “I see three options. I go in normal and attack first, or I go in normal and you do a surprise attack, or we both go in stealth mode and coordinate a surprise attack.”
“So which is it?” I asked.
“I like the first option. Gives me a chance to assess and change the plan if needed without worrying about you making a move before me.”
“Got it. So I’ll blend and follow you in, then flip to bruising once you let loose on them.”
“That sounds right.” She turned and faced me. “They’re armed with guns, but they’ll go for the tasers if they know you’re there. Remember, these guys know their stuff, and I’m sure Jordan’s prepped them about you. He’s cautious. Covers all possibilities.”
“Tasers, not guns. Got it. Wait. Why?”
“Bruising can stop a bullet, but a taser will light you up like a Christmas tree.”
“Okay,” I said. “Note to self. Avoid tasers.”
“These guys can fight, too. Even with option one, I’ll have to shift. It could get ugly. Tooth and claw ugly.”
That did sound ugly. “What, uh, are you going to shift to?”
“Depends on the situation, but probably a bear. A big one. The fur and fat make tasers and handguns less effective. Gives me time to reggie if I take gunfire.”
I took a deep, calming breath. What had I gotten myself into?
“Okay, so once you shift, I’ll bruise and start beating goons. If I can manage it, I’ll stay blended.”
“And if it goes sideways,” Mara said, “try to meet back here at the car.”
“Got it.” I pulled the mask on and blended. “I’m going to stay out of sight the whole time. Let’s do this.”
“Joss!” Mara’s voice sounded urgent. Her eyes skimmed over me. “Joss, thank you. And I’m sorry. I got swept along. I blew it. I just kept making one more compromise to try to keep my sister safe. But I’m sorry.”
Would I have done anything different? Probably. I’d have made an even bigger mess of it. “We’re good. Let’s go kick some bad guy butt.”
She gave a quick nod, opened her door, and stepped out. I ghosted out of the car and followed Mara as she walked down the street. No one else was in sight, so I walked loudly. Mara glanced in my direction and gave a quick smile.
We turned onto a street that looked familiar. The sidewalk was broken in places and the houses looked sad. The small apartment house was just up ahead.
“Here we go,” Mara said under her breath. “Hey, can you put a hand on my shoulder? Lightly. Don’t want it to show. But it will be good to know where you are. Give me a couple taps when you’re going to move away.”
I rested my fingers on her shoulder as we strode up the walk to the apartment. She pulled a key out of her purse and unlocked the door. I had to briefly ghost to keep the door from hitting me as it closed behind us. We were in the dim hallway between the apartments. The big blonde goon I’d seen the first time stood a few feet ahead by the open door to the first apartment on the left.
“Where’s your car?” Blondie asked. A real conversationalist.
“Not sure what happened,” Mara said. She hooked a thumb back the way we had come. “It stalled out. Left it in a parking lot.”
Blondie’s eyes narrowed. That didn’t seem good. I tapped Mara’s shoulder and ghosted through the wall into the apartment behind Blondie. He started yelling something, but I didn’t catch the words as I came through the wall. Two more goons were in the apartment, surging to their feet as I entered. They rushed the door toward Blondie, so I did too.
A primal roar shook the building and Blondie flew back through the doorway. The goon in the lead dove and caught Blondie, taking him to the floor in a smooth roll. Blondie shook his head. “Thanks, Sticks.”
I didn’t see Sticks’ response. I was too busy trying to bruise while rushing the door, still blending. I got there just as the third goon did and sucker punched him. He must have heard me. Just before I connected my rock-hard fist to his pink, fleshy face, he dropped down and threw himself to his left away from me, rolling to his feet on the far side of the doorway. Then Sticks hit me.
I’m not sure how he’d gotten up so fast, or where he’d gotten the two-foot wooden batons from, but now I knew how he’d gotten his name. He wielded a baton in each hand. I couldn’t tell much about them, because he was moving them with blinding speed. The first strike glanced off me and barely made contact, but it was like those sticks were antenna that he used to figure out where I was.
It turned out a glancing blow from a well swung piece of lumber felt like a train politely pushing you out of the way. I staggered back into the wall, which saved me from his next few swings. My ribs burned with pain. I bruised all of me just as he made contact again and reggied my ribs.
He bounced blows off me at a stunning rate, and it was all I could do to keep bruising so I wasn’t knocked out or worse. Behind Sticks, I saw Blondie had recovered and pulled out a large handgun with a silencer. On the other side of the doorway, the guy I’d tried to hit held a taser and was lining up a shot at me. It was over before we'd really started. I was going down.
Mara surged through the doorway in an explosion of wood and plaster. She was a huge brown bear, all fangs and claws and muscle. She’d told me most Sevens couldn’t change their weight much when shifting like her. What she hadn’t said was just how much she could change when shifting. The bear was massive. Maybe there was hope.
The pop-pop-pop of silenced gunfire registered in my mind as blood sprayed from Mara’s bear legs. She stood tall for a moment, roaring defiance, and then tottered forward and collapsed.
Game over.
Chapter 21
THREE BAD GUYS AND A BEAR
STICKS WAS BEATING me into submission, pinning me against the wall in spite of my invisibility. I wasn’t used to bruising for more than a few seconds at a time, and I’d never tried to harden my whole body before. It was killing me. I was running out of time. And Mara had shifted to a bear to help protect against gunfire, but they’d known to aim for the bear’s joints. Mara had just had her knees ripped apart.
I’ve read lots of comics, and no superhero ever falls to three normal guys, even if they were well armed. Yet three of Jordan’s goons were going to take us down? Just like that? Was it really that easy to stop two Sevens?
Well, no. Mara the bear fell forward as she collapsed and rolled onto Blondie. She enveloped him, all claws and teeth and fur and muscle. I heard a couple more shots fired, but couldn’t see what they hit. And right then, I asked myself why I was standing there being punished by Sticks. Being the Seventy-Seven was all about options and adaptation.
I switched from bruising to ghosting. Sticks’ clubs passed through me, but he kept swinging. I went for the guy across the doorway from me. His spent taser trailed behind Mara, and he reached for a handgun like Blondie’s that sat in a shoulder harness. I kinneyed and leapt. His draw slowed as time slowed down and I floated through the air toward him.
Ghosting, blending, and kinneying was too much. I dropped the ghost and blend. I hoped I was moving too fast for them to react. I switched back to bruising as I flew through the air and tucked into a cannonball. The goon’s eyes slowly flared open and swung toward me as I closed the distance. I released the kinney and everything snapped back to a normal speed as I put all I had into my bruising.
I guess I was getting better at kinneying. I was going way faster than I’d planned. I hit the g
oon like an actual cannonball and kept going. I heard bones snap as I sailed by. I didn’t slow down until I crashed through the wall to the adjoining apartment, slammed through a few pieces of furniture, and hit the far wall.
I stood and glanced around. The apartment looked similar to the one that I’d first entered. The only light came from the hole I’d just made in the wall between the apartments. A shadow swept across the light. Sticks was the only guy left standing. It had to be him.
Gunfire filled my ears again as bullets slammed into my weary body. Sticks had switched to his gun. I hadn’t let go of my bruising, so I survived, but it was a close thing. I was thrown back into the wall behind me and twitched this way and that as bullets hit me. Pain seared through every part of my body. My concentration on the bruising wavered and the pain got worse.
I was done. End of the line. I knew I needed to switch to ghosting, but it was all I could do to keep my body hardened against those bullets. If I released the bruising and failed to ghost, I’d be shredded by the gunfire. But the strain was too much.
Dark fur flashed by the hole and Sticks disappeared. Mara. She was back in the game. It was my last coherent thought before I fell to the floor, helpless. Pain flared in my stomach and I struggled to roll over onto my back. I took a deep breath and lifted my head. A bullet stood a quarter inch out of my abdomen, a wet mass of blood flowering from it, soaking my black shirt.
I lay there with blood oozing out my my stomach and a bullet protruding for what felt like hours. The pain kept breaking up my thoughts. There was something I had to do, but I couldn’t pin it down.
Instead, I thought of my family. Mom, Dad, and Janey. I loved my parents, and Janey was all right. We had it pretty good. I was getting used to Janey being at Battlehoop, even if she could beat me at sparring.
I thought of Thomas. Here I was, in the middle of a plan we’d come up with. It had seemed like a good plan. There had just been that one little challenge at the beginning of the plan. Something about rescuing Isabella by taking on four of Jordan’s henchmen. Or three. I was sure it had been four bad guys, but the number three kept coming back.
My thoughts splintered. Drifted. Time passed. Then focused on Isabella. She’d been awfully cute. I wondered if I’d ever meet her again. Did she know how to speak English, or were we trapped in a love that couldn’t be spoken. What was I talking about? I didn’t love Isabella. Who was Isabella?
“Joss!” My eyes cracked open. I saw Mara leaning over me. She slapped me again. It stung. Wait. Slapped me again? How long had she been slapping me? “Joss! You’ve got to reggie!”
Reggie. Seven-speak for regeneration. Cool. The pain kept me from speaking, but I slowly lifted up my thumb to let her know I understood. I knew the lingo. I passed the test. It was all good. Now what had I been thinking about? Something about Isabella. Oh, yeah. That cute chick I was in love with. The one who couldn’t speak. No, that didn’t sound right.
Mara slapped me again. Dang it! What the heck? I cracked an eye open. She was miming something. Pretending to yell, but I couldn’t seem to hear her. What had she said before? She wanted me to reggie. Oh! I grabbed hold of my fractured thoughts and pretended to concentrate. It was enough. My body knit back together in all the right places. The bullet popped out and sat on my stomach, centered on a large circle of dark wetness.
I looked around. Mara sat on her knees looking ragged and bloody but whole. Furniture was scattered everywhere, and a large hole was torn out of the wall opposite me in the apartment. My mask lay on the floor beside me. It all came back. I tried to surge to my feet, but my head spun and I fell over on my side.
Mara put a hand on my shoulder. “Take it easy.”
“Bad guys.” I looked around and located the hole in the wall. “We’ve got to clear that room.”
“It’s cleared,” she said. “Don’t go back in there. Don’t look through that hole.”
Bile stung my throat. “Did we kill anyone?”
“No, but I wasn’t gentle with Sticks and Joey, and you almost knocked Dirk’s arm off.”
“Dirk? The guy by the door?”
“That’s him,” Mara said. “Take some deep breaths. We don’t have much time.”
I breathed in and out, and my thoughts pulled together. What had I been thinking about Mara’s sister? I didn’t even know the girl. The room stopped spinning and I gingerly sat up. “I’m good. You reggied, right? You’re not bleeding?”
Mara patted my shoulder and stood. “I’m fine now. Just weary. That was rough. You still get to feel the pain before you reggie.”
“I know all about that.” I hauled myself to my feet and stretched. I was feeling wiped out. “You said we don’t have much time. What’s going on? I mean, other than having to stay one step ahead of Jordan?”
“I used Sticks’ cell phone to call 911. Asked for police and paramedics. They take a while to get to this neighborhood, but they’ll get here eventually.” She nodded toward the hole to the other apartment. “They need help. I’m not sure I’d mind if they died, but I told you I’d do what I could.”
“Thanks. Okay, I’m fine. Just tired. So we grab Isabella and go.”
“Jordan’s got two crews of four men who watch us, Joss. Four. This was Joey’s crew. The fourth guy, Gary, wasn’t with them. I fear he’s got Isabella.”
My heart clenched. I didn’t know Isabella, and I had every right to be angry at Mara, but all I could think was that Isabella was my age. Right then, some mobster named Gary was likely holding her hostage. My anger redirected. I came to terms with what Mara had done.
Mara didn’t need my anger. Jordan did. Jordan and his thugs.
I glanced around. “Are we on camera? Is he watching us right now?”
She shook her head. “Cameras in the hall and upstairs, but not down here in their apartments.”
“Okay,” I said. “So Gary may have her. One guy versus both of us. I feel like I haven’t slept in three days, but it’ll be enough. We can do it. And Gary? Really? What kind of self-respecting bad guy calls himself Gary?”
Mara shook her head. “Thanks for trying, but the humor’s not helping.” She looked up toward the ceiling. Up there was the apartment she and Isabella shared. Her eyes blazed. “This is no smash and grab. We have to go in there and extract her. Carefully. The paramedics and cops aren’t the real problem. If Gary’s got her, he’s notified Jordan. Either Jordan’s inbound, or the other crew is. Probably the other crew, as Jordan wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty with this. Gary knows he just has to wait. We’ve got to do whatever we’re going to do fast. I’m going to go grab Joey’s gun.”
“Whoa!” I grabbed her arm as she turned toward the hole. “Mara, we can do this. But if you fire that gun, you may be on the run from now on no matter what happens.”
“And?”
“And… and how does that help Isabella?”
“So what do you suggest?” she asked.
I took stock. Sure, I felt like death warmed over, but I could fall back on my main talents. “I’ll blend and ghost. Head straight in. You go into the apartment, act like you’re in a blind rage. Like, I’ve been killed or something. I’ll be there with you. We’re just going to have to figure out what makes sense once we’re in there. I’ll make the first move to catch him off guard, okay?”
Mara’s eyes closed for a moment, and she took a ragged breath. “Okay, we’ll try it that way. I’ll go in as me. Get going. I’ll give you a ten second head start.”
I didn’t wait for her to reconsider. I grabbed my mask, pulled it back on, and blended. “Here I go.”
I ghosted straight through the wall into the hall and ninja-stepped down the hall toward the stairs. Though tired, I held the ghost. What if Gary surprised me and took a shot? I didn’t think I would live long enough to reggie again.
As I turned into the stairwell, I looked back down the hall and saw Mara step through the doorway into the hall. She looked like a goddess of war. A scuffed up, bloody goddess of
war, but still. Rage and power radiated from her. Gary was going to regret it if Isabella was hurt. I needed to get in there and figure out how to save Isabella before Mara did something really violent.
I scooted up the stairs and stopped. This was the very piece of wall I’d ghosted through yesterday. Had it really been less than twenty-four hours? I glanced back down the stairs and saw Mara turn the corner into the stairwell.
It was time to get moving. Time to be a hero.
Chapter 22
GARY THE GOON
I GHOSTED THROUGH the wall. At least, that’s what I meant to do. The wall felt thick, and I had trouble pushing through it. I was running out of steam right when it mattered most. With effort, I pushed through and maintained my blend.
I took in the apartment at a glance. Isabella sat on the couch looking straight ahead. A large man sat beside her, but I didn’t really see him. My vision was consumed by the gun he held pointed across his body at Isabella. It had a silencer on it which rested on his opposite forearm. The end of the barrel nestled against Isabella’s ribs.
Even the gun could only hold my attention for so long. I was pretty sure the large, pasty blocks strapped to a vest Gary was wearing were major-league explosives. Wires ran from the vest to a handle with a large trigger held in his hand. He held the trigger squeezed against the handle. I’d seen this in a movie. A dead man’s switch. If he released the trigger, the explosives would detonate, effectively making Gary very important. If he was knocked out or killed, everyone died.
So. Gary had a gun and a bomb wired to a dead man’s switch. And all he had to do was wait until reinforcements showed up in a few minutes. On the flip side, Mara and I were spent. We couldn’t take on four more guys, so we couldn’t wait, but we couldn’t just go head-to-head with Gary.
Isabella sat perfectly still. She was as beautiful as I’d remembered. I hated seeing her terrified, but there was nothing I could do. I needed to get back out in the hall and warn Mara. We needed a plan. We needed to—
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