Joss the Seven

by J. Philip Horne

  The door frame splintered as the door crashed open and slammed into the wall. My eye caught a flicker of twisting motion, and Mara strode into the apartment. She must have hit the door as a bear and shifted back. Girl knew how to make an entrance.

  Mara took in the situation at a glance. Gary might as well have slapped her. She looked stunned. It had taken me a lot longer to think it through, but I guessed Mara had come to the same conclusion. We were hosed.

  “Hello, Mara.” Gary’s voice was as bland as his name. “Why don’t you have a seat beside us? Is your little friend here with us?”

  Mara stood tall for a moment, and then slumped, tears falling from her eyes. She shook her head and went to the seat she’d sat in yesterday when talking to Isabella.

  “Dirk tasered him. Sticks beat him. They took it too far.” She put her head in her hands and wept.

  How did girls do that? She seemed to really be crying. And Gary looked shocked. But this was our plan, which meant Mara still expected me to do something. To take control of the situation and make the first move.

  “That’s not good,” Gary said. “Jordan’s not going to be happy about losing his Thief. Not my problem though.”

  While Gary spoke, I started edging forward. I saw my one and only one chance. I had to grab that hand and hold the detonator down long enough for Mara to disarm him. But it was impossible. I could grab his hand, but I had nothing left. There was no way I could bruise well enough right now to protect my body from gunfire. And what if he shot Isabella, not me?

  Gary kept talking. Something about Mara having screwed up, big time. I tuned him out. I was standing across the coffee table from where Gary sat. Across from Isabella, who still stared straight ahead. She looked so scared.

  One side of the gun was in plain view. An idea popped into my head. It was an impossible long shot, but we were out of options. I leaned closer to study the gun. There it was. Just above the base of Gary’s index finger, where he reached forward to cradle the gun’s trigger. A little switch that was pulled down, showing a tiny red dot that would be covered if it was flipped back up. The safety.

  One chance, and failure meant one or all of us died. For a moment, I just stood there and made sure I didn’t pee myself. Right then, I realized that being a hero sucked. It was too much.

  I had once asked my dad what it meant to be a man. He’d looked at me for a moment, and said, “Being a man is being able to stand up under it.”

  “Under what?” I’d asked.

  “Whatever needs standing under. Could be special, or spectacularly mundane. Whatever would crush you or those you love. We don’t bear it in our own strength, but we bear it all the same.”

  At the time, I’d had no idea what he was talking about, but now I knew I needed to man up and bear it. To bear the weight of responsibility if I failed. To bear the weight of acting, of taking charge, of trying. It terrified me.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, then snapped them open and stared at the safety. I reached out with my mind and felt it. Dizziness washed over me. I honestly thought I could have done it if I was fresh off ten hours of sleep, but now, it felt out of reach. I dug deeper.

  There it was. A tickle in my mind. The safety. I could feel it. I didn’t hesitate, but pushed with all my might. Nothing. I tried again, and failed. I couldn’t do it. I was barely hanging on to my blend, and I didn’t have enough left to move that safety.

  It was too much to ask. I couldn’t stay invisible while moving the safety. My telly talent was just terrible and untrained, and I was worn out. If I grabbed the gun while invisible, I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t shoot me or Isabella or both of us, not to mention he might release the dead man’s switch. To do all of it, I had to telly that safety and grab the detonator, all the while staying invisible.

  And that was the answer. I couldn't do all of it. But maybe I could do enough. I took one slow breath, and released my blend. As I did so, I pushed again, calling on all my energy to move that safety. It felt like fifteen different things happened at once.

  Gary’s head whipped around and he stared at me in shock. I’m sure I looked weird, all in black and wearing a mask. I felt the mountain shift slightly, then break free. It wasn’t really a mountain, just a tiny steel switch, but it felt like one. The safety moved over with a satisfying click to its safe position. As it moved, so did I.

  I dove over the coffee table and grabbed Gary’s hand holding the bomb detonator in both of mine. I landed awkwardly sprawled across Isabella, but I locked onto that hand like a spider monkey and made sure he did not release the switch.

  I felt a steel tube poke me in the ribs. Two shallow clicks were followed by a curse from Gary. The safety had worked. That meant I had about two seconds to live before he flipped it off and tried to shoot me again.

  Mara roared. It was an inhuman, savage sound. I caught a blur of motion in the corner of my eye and looked over in time to see Gary’s gun punch into the wall by the front door where Mara had flung it. She towered over us in the form of a gorilla. Gary looked from her to me and back. Her gorilla fist came down on the top of his head like a sledgehammer, and his body went limp and sagged away from me onto the arm of the couch.

  Isabella sobbed loudly, a sound filled with pent up terror and relief. She struggled to get up, but I was half on her lap, still clutching Gary’s hand in both of mine. There was another blur, and Mara was back again. No longer a gorilla, and no longer a goddess of war. She looked more like a refugee of war.

  “Sorry,” I said to Isabella. “I think we may blow up if I let go of his hand.”

  Isabella sobbed again and ripped my mask off. She held my head in her hands and gave me a long look. Then she hugged me so hard I thought she’d cut off the oxygen to my brain. Mara ran from the room, yelling something to Isabella in Spanish.

  “What was that about?” I asked, then reconsidered. “Do you, uh, speak English?”

  “She gets the tape.” Isabella nodded toward my hands clutching Gary’s hand which held the detonator. “You will let go soon.”

  I was still half on the coffee table and half on Isabella’s lap. Her arms encircled my neck. I was almost disappointed when Mara ran back into view a few seconds later holding a big roll of duct tape. A minute later, Gary’s hand was thoroughly taped in place holding the trigger detonator, and Gary himself was taped to a dining room chair. I’d even remembered to retrieve my mask and tuck it into a pocket.

  Mara turned from the chair, set the tape down, and grabbed her sister in a fierce hug. When they pulled apart, each still clutched the other’s hand.

  “Isabella,” Mara said, “may I introduce you to Joss Morgan?”

  Isabella smiled and nodded to me. “It is good to meet you, Joss the Seven. Mara has told me you are rare? Even for a Seven?”

  My face burned and I looked at my feet. “I, uh, think we’re all going to be a lot rarer if we don’t get out of here right now.”

  “He’s right,” Mara said. “I’ll fill you in on the way, Isabella, but we have to move right now. But first, I’m hitting the safe downstairs.”

  “The safe?” I said, but Mara was already on the move.

  She turned to Gary and fished around in his pockets until she pulled out a wallet. Mara held it up with a smile and waved us toward the door. On the way out, she pulled Gary’s gun from where it was lodged in the wall. Outside in the hall, she retrieved three other wallets from the floor. We headed downstairs and followed Mara back into the first apartment we’d entered. I noticed all the cameras were twisted around and broken. Mara had been busy on her way upstairs.

  In the apartment, Mara cut to a back bedroom and yanked a painting off the wall. A small safe sat behind it. Mara spun its black combination knob this way and that for a few seconds, then yanked down on a small handle. The little silver door popped open.

  “I couldn’t do anything with the information,” Mara said as she pulled tightly bound bundles of bills out of the safe and tucked them in various pocke
ts, “but I learned what I could the past couple years. Including the combo. Criminals deal in a lot of cash, you know?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said while giving Isabella my best puzzled look and shrugging. She smiled.

  Mara grabbed one last stack of bills and waved us after her as she headed back the way we’d come. Outside, Mara led us on a roundabout tour of the alleys and back ways in the neighborhood, until we finally arrived at the parking lot. We piled into the little rental car, with me stuck in the tight back seat. Mara stuffed Gary’s gun in the glovebox and piled the cash in after it.

  Isabella rotated in her seat to look at me as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Gracias, Joss the Seven. You were very brave. I was too frightened to move.”

  I would not let my cheeks turn red again. Perhaps just a light pink. “Uh, you can call me Joss, okay?”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Joss Okay.”

  Maybe there was more of a language barrier than I had realized. Isabella laughed.

  “I joke,” she said. “Thank you, Joss.” She turned toward her sister. “What do we do next? Are we trying to escape?”

  “Ask him,” Mara said. “His plan. But yes, we are going to escape.”

  Isabella looked back at me and raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Well,” I said. “My friend Thomas helped me come up with it. Getting you out of there was just phase two of the plan, and that was just about a disaster. Phase three is shopping. Mara’s got to buy some clothes, and I need to rest. Then we hit phase four.”

  “And what is this phase of four?”

  “The ultimate prank. We rob a bank.”

  Chapter 23

  300MINUTE

  IT TURNED OUT that during her two years with Jordan, Mara had managed to steal the ATM PIN codes for most of his thugs. She’d tailed them as a bird when possible, which was rarely, and watched as they retrieved cash.

  Mara pulled the car into a parking lot across the street from a bank with a drive-through ATM. “Isabella, you need to get in the back seat with Joss. They’ve got cameras at the ATM. You both need to get down low.”

  Isabella nodded as she climbed over the center console between the front seats and we scrunched down. It was a cozy arrangement. Isabella smiled at me from her spot on the floor behind the front seat, but her eyes looked bigger than when I’d first seen her yesterday. She was scared.

  Mara shifted. She looked the same from the shoulders down, but had that man’s head she’d used on my missions. Isabella’s eyes got even bigger. Apparently, she’d never seen that particular shift before.

  It took fifteen minutes and three banks for Mara to empty a large stack of bills from the ATMs courtesy of Sticks and company. I spent the time with my eyes closed and my head resting against the car door at my back. We had so much more to do today, and I had hit my limits already.

  It was 10:30. Hopefully Gary had been waiting for Jordan’s other crew of four guys, and not Jordan himself. I hadn’t thought Jordan would want to blow his cover unless it was absolutely necessary, and Thomas had agreed. If that was the case, we had an hour and a half until Jordan finished at Battlehoop. Not much time to shop for clothes and rob a bank.

  After the ATMs, Mara made two quick stops before pulling into the parking lot of BIGGUN’S FASHION MART - CLOTHES FOR REAL BIG MEN. First, she grabbed some meal deals for all of us at a fast food joint. Second, she picked up several energy drinks at a convenience store.

  Isabella and I ate in silence while Mara shopped at BIGGUN’S. She’d gone in with a female game face on that I hadn’t seen before. After eating my burger and fries, I popped open a 300MINUTE ENERGY DRINK and downed it all at once. It tasted like sweetened cough syrup with a hint of lemonade. Nasty.

  I hated to suffer through that flavor and not get the benefit. It was such a tiny bottle. I decided to play it safe and drank a second one. I hoped that would give me twice the energy for three hundred minutes instead of the same energy for six hundred minutes.

  “I will never return to my apartment, yes?” Isabella said.

  I looked up from the empty little bottle and frowned. She was looking intently at me with her big brown eyes. Were they brown? They had hints of that golden-amber color of Dad’s bourbon. Then I remembered to speak. “Did you want to?”

  “No, no, it is not the place. Mara never allowed me to be personal there. Nothing to tell of me. But my clothes are there. Other things too.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you’ll be going back to get your stuff. I bet Mara picked up enough money from the ATMs to replace a lot of it.”

  “Maybe it is so.”

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “We have a rough plan, but Mara didn’t know about any of it before today. And I doubt she’s got anything for tomorrow yet. But she’ll think of something.”

  “Yes,” Isabella said. “Mara is strong.”

  “Yeah, she is. Ever sparred with her?”

  “Yes, many times. She taught me for past two years. But not strong with her arms. Strong with her heart.”

  “Ah.” Strong with her heart. I hoped someone would think that about me one day. Except for the her part. “Do you think you’ll go home after this? To Mexico?”

  “What is home? My parents are dead.” She paused and stared off in thought. “It would be good to go back. To see my aunts and uncles. Let them know we live.”

  “It’s been a hard day, hasn’t it? Did Gary just burst in and grab you?”

  Isabella shuddered as she nodded yes. On instinct, I reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. She squeezed back, and held onto my hand. My head started buzzing. I couldn’t tell if it was the energy drinks, or her hand in mine.

  “You’ll get there,” I said. “We’ve just got to take care of Jordan first.”

  Mara opened the driver door and got in, dumping a big bag on the empty seat beside her. I pulled my hand free and tried to act natural. Thankfully, I was directly behind Mara so she couldn’t really see me. Acting normal was hard.

  “Okay, we’re good to go,” Mara said. “I tried the shift out in the changing room. I think it’ll work. How are you two doing?”

  Now that I wasn’t staring into Isabella’s eyes, I noticed I felt weird. “Should I be hearing, like, a buzzing in my ears?”

  “You drink a 300MINUTE?”

  “Two of them.”

  “Good Lord, Joss.” She twisted around in her seat and stared at me. “What were you thinking?”

  “It was such a tiny drink.” Was my hand shaking? Was it still attached to my body? I felt weird. Like my body was made up of a bunch of different parts that happened to be next to each other but weren’t really connected.

  Mara shook her head and mumbled something in Spanish as she turned back to the front and started the car. Isabella smiled. “Mi hermana, she says you have left your brains behind when ghosting.”

  I smiled and shrugged. At least, I tried to. My shoulders felt all twitchy. My shrug probably looked more like a spasm.

  “We’ve got about forty-five minutes to set things in motion,” Mara said, steering the car out onto the road. “Let’s head back to that second bank we hit up for the ATM. I’ll shift and dress up there. Isabella, here’s what happens next.”

  Mara had put off her sister’s occasional question ever since we’d gotten her away from Gary. Now she laid it out for her in detail. It turned out there wasn’t much left to tell. We’d be more or less free of Jordan in the next hour, or things would have gone terribly wrong.

  “It is, how do you say, devious?” Isabella said when Mara finished.

  Mara pulled into a parking lot at a strip mall. “Bank’s just around that corner. Joss, you need to blend. Your little black get-up’s going to stand out too much. Follow me, you two.”

  Mara flipped open the glove compartment and retrieved the gun. She put it in the clothing bag and took the bag with her as she opened her door and stepped out. I gave Isabella a quick smile, which she returned, and blended.

  “Incre
íble,” Isabella said, and reached toward me from where she still sat. Her hand found my knee.

  “Time to go,” I said, and ghosted. It was a mistake. Isabella’s hand was still on my knee, and I got a strong jolt as her fingers passed through my leg. What I sensed didn’t make me like Isabella less. She gave a start, and then nodded, like she was thinking.

  I ghosted out of the car, and was relieved to find it was easy once again. On the flip side, I still felt like my body was assembled from mismatched parts, and my ears were ringing. Two energy drinks had definitely been a mistake.

  Isabella got out of the other side of the car, and Mara led us around to an alley between two rows of stores. It smelled like leftover things rotting in the sun and pizza. Several dark-green dumpsters stood nearby. I released my blend, and Isabella started.

  “Be right back,” Mara said. “And nobody freak out when you see me.”

  She took the bag of clothes behind the dumpsters. Four minutes later, Jordan stepped out from behind them carrying the now empty bag.

  “No manches!” Isabella cried, as I let out a low whistle.

  Mara really looked like Jordan, huge and bald. She had on a dark sports coat over a plain, black shirt tucked into black slacks. Black leather shoes and sunglasses completed the look.

  “How do I look?” Mara as Jordan asked in his deep voice. She casually pulled open the jacket to reveal the gun she’d lifted off Gary tucked into an inside pocket.

  “It’s him,” I said. I didn’t mention that I’d almost run away when I first saw her. “This is actually going to work.”

  “It better,” she said.

  “I still do not understand,” Isabella said. “Why a bank? Why not the store? Banks have guards, yes?”

  “It gets the Feds involved,” I said. “The FBI leads on bank robberies, at least for most banks. FBI, local police, everyone comes down on bank robbers.”

  “Ah. You know so much, Joss.”

  “Well…” I had to give credit where credit was due. “My friend Thomas actually knew about all that stuff. His mom’s like a big-time lawyer.”