by Jaz Primo
What an asshole.
Half of the world’s economy was in the shitter, and it seemed as if the only people hurting in our nation were the breathing kind. Meanwhile, the “corporation people” were wallowing in cash reserves and not creating much in the way of jobs for us “breathing people.”
At least I had a steady job at the tag agency.
Count your blessings, they say.
During the second mile of my jog, my cell phone rang. I paused and looked down at the phone’s screen.
Out of area.
“Hello?” I answered, catching my breath.
“Hello, Bringer,” replied a gruff male voice.
“Who is this?”
“The time’s come for you to start making choices,” he said. “Preferably, smarter ones. The less that you discuss with the FBI, the better.”
“And just why should I take advice from some asshole with no name?”
The guy chuckled in a way that oozed self-satisfaction, which annoyed me to no end.
“I think it’s important to keep those close to you safe, don’t you?”
My throat tightened.
“That so? Maybe you’d like to convey that in person?”
The only response was silence.
Jerking the phone from my ear, I quickly realized that the connection had ceased.
Given my sister’s proximity, my first thought was of her. I immediately dialed her house, but got no answer. I glanced at my watch, realizing it was relatively close to dinnertime for them.
I tried both Lexi’s and her husband’s cell phone, but still got no answer. That worried me…a lot. I think that I broke an Olympic record running the distance back to my Dodge Avenger.
The tires squealed as I jammed the gearshift into drive and floored the accelerator. I weaved in and out of traffic like a madman, all the while trying to get hold of my sister’s home or cell.
I tried Kevin’s cell again, to no avail.
As I cut around a slower vehicle and sped through a series of stoplights, I resolved that my typical fifteen-minute drive was going to end ten minutes earlier. Five minutes later, I heard the sounds of sirens somewhere nearby, and a sense of dread set in.
Conjuring years of self-discipline, I focused on the task before me. All I knew was I had to get to my sister’s house.
After what felt like forever, I rounded a corner and careened into my sister’s addition. It was then that I saw the black smoke billowing ahead into the early evening sky.
God, please.
That surprised me. I hadn’t pleaded to Him for anything in a long time.
By the time I made it to my sister’s street, a sick feeling had already formed in the pit of my stomach. I could see reddish-yellow flames and black smoke pouring out of the roof of Lexi’s two-story house.
A small group of people were gathered in the front yard. It looked like my brother-in-law and my little nephew, Jake, were among them. Both were on their hands and knees coughing. Neighbors appeared to be tending to them the best that they could.
I ran my car up into their neighbor’s empty front yard, and catapulted out of the driver’s seat to rush over to Kevin.
“Kevin! Where are Lexi and Kristie?”
Kevin hacked like some chain smoker at the end of his rope and shook his head.
“Still inside,” he gasped. “Going for them next…”
The sounds of sirens permeated the air, though it was of little solace. I had no intentions of waiting on them.
“Stay here,” I ordered.
I flew onto the porch at a dead run, impacting a wall of angry black smoke as I entered the front door. My mind reeled as I tried to figure out where they might be.
“Lexi! Kristie!” I yelled.
I coughed and immediately realized that I didn’t have much time. The roar of flames and a wall of heat loomed toward the kitchen to my left. I tried to visualize the layout of the house as I reasoned where they might be.
Then something strange and alien triggered in my mind, though it felt like nothing more than an insistent notion; an epiphany.
No, it felt like certainty.
Upstairs.
I concentrated on controlling my breathing and ducked low, focused on making it up the stairs. I felt raging heat at my back and realized that the living room had just been engulfed by flames.
As I hit the top of the stairs, I saw doorways lining both sides of the hallway.
Right side.
It was as if I could feel their minds nearby.
I crouched low to the floor but there wasn’t much more air than at walking height. I refused to let a fresh spasm of coughing deter my efforts to spring forward into the first open room that I came to.
It was Kristie’s bedroom, and both she and Lexi were lying on the floor coughing uncontrollably.
“Lexi! Kristie!” I yelled, slamming the bedroom door shut behind me.
Lexi seemed only half-conscious, but she appeared to recognize me.
“Logan,” she gasped.
I heard a muffled roar and looked back toward the bedroom door, seeing the paint bubbling across its surface.
I quickly considered the bedroom window, which was shut tight. A growing sense of doom welled in me as I realized we were all going to die unless we managed to get the hell out of the house.
No time for doubts. Playtime was over.
Recalling my recent game of bouncing a ball against the wall, I tried to imagine a small wrecking ball as I jammed the flat of my hand toward the window. I felt a rush of adrenaline through my body and my head felt like it was going to split in half.
To my amazement, the entire window exploded outward in a shower of glass and metal framing. Saving my awe for later, I dragged Lexi and Kristie over to the opening in the wall that was formerly the window. I hoisted Kristie’s petite body up and passed her out onto the shingled roof.
As I gasped for breath and reached down for Lexi, a fireman seemed to materialize from nowhere just outside the window.
He hoisted Kristie onto his right shoulder and yelled, “Hey, they’re up here!”
A roar sounded behind me, and I felt flames nearly upon my back as I struggled to half-shove, half-throw my sister through the window. Fortunately, another fireman was already waiting there to take her from me.
My mind clouded and I dropped to the floor in a fit of coughing. I felt so drained and lifeless at that moment, as if all of the energy in my body had been sapped.
At least I’d helped save Lexi and Kristie.
That’s when I felt my body being lifted from the floor.
“C’mon, mister!” a man’s muffled voice challenged. “We ain’t losing anybody today!”
With his help, I struggled to make it out onto the roof. The fireman only barely managed to make it out himself before the flames shot out through the shattered window.
My lucky day, I guessed.
The next thing I knew, I was on the grass of the front yard with an oxygen mask pressed to my face. A host of curious neighbors, firemen, police, and even a few television reporters milled around the area. I stared up at the house and could tell that the structure was destined to be a complete loss.
Well, not a complete loss. I still have my family.
Then the mysterious caller from the park came to the forefront of my mind, and anger swelled within me.
I didn’t know who was out to harm my family, but I vowed that somebody’s days were definitely numbered. Nobody threatened my family like that and got away with it.
By the time the oxygen did its work on me, Lexi and the kids were being transported to the local hospital. Kevin rode with them, so I was left alone to stare at the still-smoldering remains of their home.
My head ached terribly and I still felt weak, as if I’d just completed a marathon.
A police officer walked over to take my statement on the incident, and I wrestled with whether or not to tell them about my mysterious phone call.
My thoughts we
re interrupted by the arrival of Agent Megan Sanders in a black Toyota Camry, sans her partner. She strode purposefully over to me and took a moment to survey the scene before her.
“And what brought you so quickly over to your sister’s house?” asked the officer as he cast a quick glance over his shoulder to where deep ruts lead to my hastily abandoned vehicle. Somebody had been kind enough to turn off the ignition, I noticed.
I stood to look directly into Agent Sanders’ eyes instead of the officer’s. “I got a strange phone call.”
Sanders’ eyes widened slightly, and she quickly turned her attention to the officer.
“Officer, this is an FBI matter. I’ll finish taking Mr. Bringer’s statement.”
He appeared surprised but then he shrugged.
“Okay with me,” he said before turning to walk over to where a fellow officer was addressing a growing crowd of onlookers.
“So, where’s your other half?” I quipped.
She glanced at her watch. “Probably home with his family by now.”
“So, you’re the workaholic of the pair then?” I asked, rubbing at my eyes with my fingertips. My head was pounding.
“Something like that,” she replied, quirking her lips. “Mr. Bringer, shouldn’t you have gone to the hospital?”
“I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got a wicked headache, that’s all.”
“Let’s talk about your phone call at our office downtown,” she suggested.
“I’d love to,” I said. “But first, you’re going to have to let me grab a change of clothes from my house.”
“Fine,” she agreed. “But I think I’ll drive,” she added, noticing my car’s chaotically parked condition.
Sanders called her partner, Agent Burroughs, on the way to my place, and he agreed to meet us there for some strange reason.
“Why, Agent Sanders, I might think that you don’t entirely trust me,” I said.
She appeared amused. “Just standard procedure, Mr. Bringer.”
I pointed to a convenience store ahead.
“Hey, can you pull in there? I really could use something to drink, and maybe come aspirin.”
“Um, sure,” she said, a peculiar expression adorning her face.
She accompanied me into the store, and the cashier observed us with a strange look on his face. I was sure that it wasn’t every day that he saw a soot-covered man in jogging attire being accompanied by a lady in a business suit.
Before we even made it back to her car, I had downed over half the container of Gatorade and popped two aspirins.
Within minutes, the pounding in my head abated considerably, and I felt renewed energy course through my body. Maria Edwards had been right on the money concerning my body’s need for electrolytes. The brief use of my abilities at my sister’s house had taken quite a toll on me.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at my house across town. For the most part, my body already felt surprisingly rejuvenated.
A plain-looking, black four-door sedan was already parked in my driveway, which must’ve been Agent Burroughs’. However, there remained enough ambient light to discern from the street that my front door appeared to be ajar.
“My front door is open,” I said to Agent Sanders as we exited her car. “I know that I locked it before I left to go jogging earlier this evening.”
Sanders reached to her right hip to place a hand on her automatic pistol. “Stay here,” she ordered as she drew her weapon.
She peered around the corner of my house to the front porch and quickly made her way to my front door.
“FBI. Agent Burroughs, are you in there?” she demanded authoritatively.
As I peered around the brick facade to the front porch, I heard a slight moaning sound.
“Burroughs!” Sanders shouted.
She crouched down next to the prone form of her partner, who was lying on his back in my living room not far from the door. I started in that direction, but spied somebody to the left via my peripheral vision.
I turned to my left just in time to see a tall man with closely-cropped red hair and wearing a black London Fog coat peer from around the far side of my house. His hands flew upward, and I saw a pistol with silencer being aimed directly at me.
“This is Agent Sanders with the FBI. We have an agent down with multiple gunshot wounds at…” Sanders rattled off on her cell phone, oblivious to what was transpiring.
I felt my heart stop as I instinctively raised my right palm up to shield me, for all the good it would do. It sounded like a miniature air gun belched, and my mind felt like it had been struck by two heavy hammers.
As the stranger disappeared around the corner of my house, I focused upon two small copper objects that were suspended in mid-air just beyond my palm.
Bullets!
My eyes widened and the two small objects fell harmlessly to the concrete sidewalk amidst subdued clinking noises.
Agent Sanders launched out onto the front porch with her weapon drawn, staring at me in disbelief. She pivoted in the direction of where my assailant had been standing, and rapidly closed the distance to the corner of the house.
Despite the throbbing pain in my forehead, I rushed forward to follow her.
Sanders had already made her way down the length of the side of my house and was leaping over the top of the low vinyl fence surrounding my back yard by the time that I rounded the corner.
I continued after her at a dead run. Sanders stopped in the middle of my yard, scanning the darkness of the tree line at the back of my property as a multitude of sirens wailed in the distance.
My mind sensed someone among the trees to the right, and I scarcely managed to focus upon a lone dark-clad figure standing there.
“To your right!” I shouted, as two muffled belches erupted in the silence.
My right palm was extended before I knew it; reflexes left over from combat experiences earned in the battlefield. Sanders’ body tensed as I felt two more heavy thuds in my head, only this time they were followed by sharp, stabbing pains.
My vision blurred slightly, but I managed to focus on Sanders, who quickly scanned to her right. She gasped with shock and stared at two coppery objects suspended before her forehead.
She gasped as the small projectiles dropped harmlessly to the ground before her.
The moment seemed frozen in time, save for a breeze rustling the trees before us and the louder wail of approaching sirens. Despite the throbbing in my head, I no longer sensed the presence of anyone else immediately around us.
After scanning the area with her pistol held before her, Sanders turned to face me with an astonished expression.
“Are you—? Did you—?”
I rubbed at my throbbing temples, relieved that she hadn’t been injured. The fact that I’d been able to stop those bullets from hitting her meant more to me than I’d expected. A wave of confusion coursed through me, battling for supremacy with the effects of exhaustion and an adrenaline rush.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
I felt something trickling from my nose and brushed my fingers across the spot. My nose was bleeding.
She lowered her weapon and rushed past me toward the front of my house.
“Burroughs,” she muttered.
Three police officers had their guns drawn on us as soon as we rounded the corner. Fortunately, Agent Sanders already had her badge out.
“FBI, Agent Sanders,” she announced authoritatively. “There’s a gunman in the area; tall and wearing a dark fog coat. He fled south through the trees at the back of the house.”
Two officers immediately headed in that direction while the other scanned the immediate area. Fire department paramedics were already tending to Agent Burroughs as an ambulance pulled up to the curb before my house.
I felt dizzy and squatted on the ground to dab at my bleeding nose as Sanders watched over the ministrations to her partner.
It’d turned into one hell of a day.
* * *
Two h
ours later, I marveled at the control that a single FBI agent seemed to have over the crime scene. Agent Sanders had somehow managed to remove an entire set of my clothes from my home, claiming it was for “evidence”, which I genuinely appreciated.
Despite her obvious concern for her partner, who’d been transported to the same local hospital where my sister and her family had been taken, Sanders appeared remarkably calm and composed as she drove us downtown to the high-rise building housing the local FBI office.
Their office area was surprisingly modern-looking, and I was only too pleased to be offered the use of a walk-in shower in an oversized private lavatory. I appreciated the hot shower, which granted me the first opportunity that evening to reflect on all that had happened.
I was having difficulty putting the self-evident puzzle pieces together, struggling to determine who might be at the center of events that had transpired.
Granted, divining mysteries such as that wasn’t something I was used to doing, but there was more to it than that.
Maybe it was the continued pounding in my head, or the aching in my body, or even the lingering adrenaline coursing through my system that kept me from thinking entirely clearly. Either way, I quickly realized that I was severely lacking enough information to make even a wild-ass guess.
After cleaning up and changing into fresh clothes, I returned to the main office area. The place was buzzing with the activities of half a dozen agents.
I spotted Agent Sanders and made my way to her. She looked up at me with a penetrating expression and gestured to a spare chair before her desk. To my surprise, there was already a cold container of a sports drink waiting for me.
Apparently, she remembered my drink of choice.
“Feel better?” she asked. “Your nose stopped bleeding, I see.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I replied. Then I reconsidered her question. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. To feel ‘better’ would require that I wasn’t pissed off that someone tried to kill me and members of my family.”
She nodded but stared at me warily.
“Who are you exactly, Logan Bringer?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anything like what I saw happen this evening.”
