The digital clock on the microwave reminded me that I had forty-five minutes left.
“What would you like, sweetheart?” The middle-aged man behind the counter smiled at me. His name tag read Lee. I bit my lip.
“I’ve never had fancy coffee before,” I admitted. “What’s your most popular?”
Actually, I’d never had coffee, period. It wasn’t available in the camp where I’d grown up, and if it had been, we probably wouldn’t have been allowed to drink it. Elder St. James often lectured to children that anything that alters the mind, besides medication, was dangerous, though he never explained why. The coffee smelled so good, and the old lady in the corner who sipped on a large mug seemed to enjoy it.
He thought for a moment. “If you’ve never had a specialty drink, I’ll start you off with a latte. It’s just coffee and milk, so if you want something more, I can give you some syrup or chocolate.”
He poured my coffee and gave it to me with a wink. I handed him my money, donated by a thankful almost-victim of an armed robbery, and sat in the corner on a squishy loveseat, grateful for Patrick’s generosity. He allowed us to keep three percent of any money donated to team members. Because I didn’t spend often, I’d accrued about twenty dollars in six months.
Before I indulged in the coffee, I took one last glimpse around me to make sure nobody was watching.
A fashion and entertainment magazine rested on the table next to the loveseat. I turned it over so as to not be tempted to look at it, because looking at media not sanctioned by the camp elders was a very serious infraction, far more serious than sipping coffee. Coffee just temporarily intoxicated the mind. Most, if not all, movies, television, books, music, and magazines could pollute it forever. If I thought hard enough, I could probably trace my character flaws to some rock song I’d overheard while grocery shopping with Ember.
I settled back into the loveseat and started flipping through memories, looking for a song or image that had left a bruise in my psyche. I took a sip from my latte. It was bitter, but I decided I liked it.
The door of the café opened again with its friendly jingle.
“Hey, Lee!”
I looked over to see a handsome young man about my age walk in with a thick book in his hand.
Lee looked up from cleaning a coffee pot and grinned. “Benjamin! How are you?”
Lee and Benjamin shook hands and chattered for a few minutes. I didn’t normally listen in on civilian conversation, but Benjamin’s deep voice and bracing northern accent were pleasant to listen to.
Lee pointed to the menu. “So what’ll it be? I’ve got all the usual stuff and the new seasonal menu. Three new pastries, too.”
Benjamin waved his hand. “Just my usual order, thanks. I’ll take a chocolate croissant, though.”
“You got it.” Lee got to work, and I couldn’t help but notice that Benjamin’s “usual” involved a lot of chocolate syrup.
After Benjamin paid for his order and took it from Lee, he looked around for a place to sit. I returned to mentally reviewing all the civilian songs I’d ever heard—it wasn’t a long list.
Far in the distance, many blocks over, wailing sirens made me pause in my thoughts and turn my ear towards the door. No explosions or gunshots…probably just an accident. Civilian authorities preferred that we wait until called in for those.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
I startled and looked up.
Benjamin stood next to me, smiling pleasantly. He gestured to the empty spot on the loveseat. “Not to be weird or anything, but the loveseat is the best spot in the place.”
I doubted that. An identical couch sat in another corner near a pretty girl with spectacular hoop earrings. She’d been shooting glances at Benjamin since he’d come in.
I scooted closer to the arm of the loveseat, my own automatic smile stretching my face as I made room. “Er, no, that’s fine. Make yourself comfortable.” I certainly wasn’t comfortable. Speaking with normal people outside of strict superhero business was so forbidden I half expected to spontaneously combust.
He sat. “Thanks.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Benjamin.”
I awkwardly shook his hand with my left, a thrill shooting up my arm when he touched me. “I’m Jillian. Sorry about the sling.”
He did a double take. “No apologies necessary. If you don’t mind my asking, what happened? You look like you went through a harvester. Er, I mean, you look fine,” he said sheepishly.
His embarrassment was touching. “Don’t worry, I know I look bad. I got hurt at work today.”
Benjamin’s face hardened for a moment but then smoothed over. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I lifted my left shoulder in a shrug. “It happens.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds. I tried to rework my face into something other than a grin. He seemed to search for a topic of conversation.
I glanced at the microwave. Thirty-three minutes.
Finally, he said, “So, first day of hurricane season. Scientists are saying we’re overdue for a big one. Do you think it could happen this year?”
“Don’t they say that every year?” I murmured into my latte.
He nodded. “Yeah, I guess they do. So, are you a student down at the university? I’m thinking about going there myself, and I wouldn’t mind an insider’s perspective.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m an assistant gym teacher at one of the city schools.” My usual lie came out easily. The job was ordinary and explained bruises.
He nodded and sipped his chocolatey drink. “You’re braver than I am. I’m not sure I could work at a job that beat me up like that. What did you do, fall down some bleachers?” His words were polite and friendly, but I thought there was a tiny speck of sarcasm in there, too. He reminded me of Marco.
“That’s exactly what happened.” I was purposely neither enthusiastic nor dismissive. It was best to let civilians think what they wanted to think. The conversation was focusing on me far too much for comfort, so I pointed to his book. “What are you reading?”
A woman outside the window answered a phone call. After a few seconds, she gasped and took off running in the direction I’d heard the sirens.
Now I was intrigued, but I had to wait for the call to report to the scene—I was technically supposed to be at the clinic, much too far from the sirens to hear them.
He held it his book. “A nursing textbook. I’m thinking about quitting my job and applying to the nursing school down at UGSC.”
“Nursing. Wow.” I was impressed—The University of Georgia at Saint Catherine was the largest university in the region. “I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard that it’s hard. Lots of long hours and cranky civilians. I mean, patients.” Whoops.
“It can’t be harder than my current job.” There was an edge to his words. He hadn’t appeared to pick up on my mistake.
“What do you do?”
“I’m an errand boy for my parents’ human resources consulting firm. And before you ask, no, the work isn’t hard. Being with my family all day is hard.” He sank back into the couch. “I’m actually supposed to be on a job right now, but I decided to ditch.” He looked sidelong at me. “I’m glad I did, though. Normally the company here isn’t so nice to talk to. Pardon me for being so bold, but I love your Georgia accent. It’s thicker than others I’ve heard.”
Heat crept into my face. How should I even respond to that? “I—I’m also ditching. My boss would freak if he knew I was here. But I’m glad I came, too.”
I’d never had a real conversation with a young civilian man before, and Benjamin was incredibly nice to look at. Every once in a while he’d turn his head and his mop of light hair would bounce slightly, shifting into his eyes. He’d shake his head a little to clear it away, and I’d see his crinkly hazel eyes once more.
Benjamin grinned. “So how about we waste more time? Tell me about your bad boss and I’ll tell you about mine.”
His wide smil
e warmed my stomach. Against my better judgement, and the microwave’s half-hour warning, I started talking.
“My boss isn’t really bad, just difficult to work with. He…Patrick is kind of controlling. He yells a lot and gets really angry when I make a mistake. He’s just really hard to please. But it’s usually my fault,” I added quickly. “I mess up, a lot and there’s so much on the line when I do. I deserve what he does.” I picked at a spot on the couch. “You wouldn’t believe how much I mess up at work.”
Benjamin raised an eyebrow. “I can’t believe that. And your boss shouldn’t yell at you. Although…I’m being hypocritical, because my dad yells at me a lot and I never tell him to stop. But Patrick’s not your family.”
Patrick actually was a distant cousin of mine. “Sometimes I think about quitting but then I feel terrible. Besides, Patrick would be so angry; he hired me and I owe him everything.”
Benjamin set down his cup. “Jillian, I don’t know what this Patrick guy has been telling you, but you can quit your job. And you know, if he’s such an ogre that you’re afraid to give two weeks’ notice, you may want to report him to the school board. That sounds like a really bad place to work.”
This was the downside to my cover story; it only worked at the surface level. “It’s not that easy,” I said softly. I looked up at him. “Tell me about your boss.”
The lights flickered. Lee stopped cleaning and frowned at them.
Twenty-nine minutes…but I didn’t want to go.
Benjamin exhaled in a long breath. “I should start off by saying that my mom and dad are under a lot of pressure all the time. When things get bad, they lose control and start screaming their heads off. Dad’ll get gruff, mom will say something nasty to my brother, he’ll reply with an attitude…” He trailed off and sighed heavily. “And then everyone jumps on the crazy train.” He stared off into the distance for several long seconds, lost in thought. After an awkward second, he turned beet red and ran a hand through his hair. “I—I’m sorry, that was a lot to unload on you. Um, let me go get you another latte.” He jumped up and headed towards Lee, still red as tomato sauce.
Smiling into the latte I was still drinking, I worked through his words, looking for the part that was supposed to be “bad.” Authority figures had a right to rein in their inferiors through any means necessary, and sometimes that included yelling, even hitting. It was just an unpleasant part of life, like hail or sickness.
Still, I sensed that Benjamin thought this was unusual behavior in some way, so I sipped my coffee and decided not to comment on his family drama when he returned.
When he sat down again with a new latte in hand, a few awkward seconds passed before Benjamin spoke. “So if you quit your job, where would you work? Could you teach something else?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what I’d do. This is all I’m good for.” The pain in my shoulder flared and I winced. I’d have to go soon, whether I wanted to or not.
He reached out to touch my shoulder, then drew his hand back. “I don’t believe that. Give yourself a chance.”
I was tired of this part of the conversation, but I didn’t want to stop talking to him altogether. His black t-shirt said the word Nirvana on it and had a bizarre yellow smiley face below. “What does your shirt mean?”
Two shrieking ambulances raced down Davis Street, followed by a firetruck and police cars.
He pulled the bottom of his shirt to straighten out the front. “Nirvana? They were a nineties grunge band. You’ve never heard of them?” He was surprised, but I didn’t hear any suspicion in his tone.
“No. Are they your favorite band?”
I could hardly judge him for enjoying a band, since he was a civilian and had no limitations on what media he could consume. I wondered what Nirvana’s songs sounded like. They couldn’t have been too bad, if Benjamin liked them—he was just so polite. Nearly all civilian music could corrupt, but I’d always gotten the impression from our lessons that some music could corrupt faster and more completely than others. Nursery rhymes and traditional ballads were alright—I even knew a few. Nirvana, whoever they were, were probably on the safe end of the scale.
“Eh, not really. They’re okay. The shirt was last year’s birthday gift from my sister. She’s visiting right now, and I wanted her to see me wearing it.”
I sipped my coffee to hide my smile. I didn’t know what I’d expected from talking to this young civilian man, but such thoughtfulness about his sister’s feelings wasn’t it. I was moved.
“What bands do you like?”
Dang it. “Um, there aren’t any specific bands, but I’ve always liked singing with my family. We used to sing around campfires when I was young.” Those days seemed very far away. “Singing while we played in the meadow…while we worked…while we ran through the trees. I love to sing.” I hadn’t sung in six months.
Benjamin’s eyes shone. “Were you in musicals when you were in high school? I wasn’t good enough to be on stage. I ended up doing debate and forensics, plus some other stuff. What did you do?”
I knew what “debate” was, but not the other activity.
However, before I could bluff my way through an answer, my phone rang. A quick peek at the screen showed that it was Marco. I mouthed to Benjamin to hold on a minute while I took the call over by the bathrooms.
“Hello?”
“Jill, come home. There was a break-in at a bank and Patrick is freaking out ‘cause you’re not back. Tell me you’re close.”
So there it was: a robbery. Didn’t criminals in this city ever sleep?
“Of course I’m on my way home. I just left. Give me fifteen minutes.” I hung up and returned to the couch. “That was a coworker.” I hoped my anxiety wasn’t written all over my face. “I need to go.”
Benjamin jumped up, and I saw for the first time that he stood at roughly six feet, just like me. “I had a great time talking to you,” he said, taking my trash. “I’ll just come out and say it: would you like to meet me here again?” He looked hopeful and shy at the same time.
His words hung in the air between us.
Nobody had ever asked to see me socially before. Back home, my only friends had been other children in the camp. Here in Saint Catherine, I had to be careful. Everything about the situation felt wrong. Forbidden. I could think of a dozen reasons to say no, the first one being the risk of Patrick pounding my face in for breaking a cardinal rule.
“Yes, I’d love to,” I blurted. “How about next week, same day and time? In fact, let me get your phone number.” I dug around in my pocket for my phone.
He told me his contact information and I saved it, making sure to label his contact file “Snitch #5” in case Patrick felt like randomly searching through it as he’d done in the past.
When I was done, I stuck out my left hand. “It was great to meet you.”
He shook my hand and a spark of electricity traveled up my arm into the back of my neck and down to my thigh. “And you, Jillian. I really hope you’ll consider what I said about your boss.”
I nodded and we parted without another word.
I was walking out the door of the café when I realized that my shoulder didn’t hurt anymore.
4
I smelled blood the second I stepped through the front doors of the bank.
Nobody else on my team did, as they lacked my heightened senses. They walked through the revolving doors of Saint Catherine Citizen’s Bank with their usual cool confidence and went straight towards the stairwell to the basement, which was sectioned off with red and yellow tape.
I was the last to enter, so they didn’t see me throw my arm over my face to block the smell and take a staggered step backwards, gagging quietly. The closer I went to the gray marble staircase, the stronger the stench became. For decorum’s sake I couldn’t hold my nose.
I caught up with Marco while we descended into the dimly lit basement. He smiled at me absently, but then seemed to really take in my appearance for the fir
st time since I’d changed back into my uniform half an hour earlier.
“Where’s your sling? And your black eye? And all your scratches?” he whispered.
“I’m feeling better,” I whispered back. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Ahead of us, Patrick stopped at the bottom of the stairs and inhaled sharply. He turned to look at the rest of us. “Go to my right. Stay around the edges of the room.”
When we got to the bottom of the stairs I understood immediately why Patrick had reacted so strongly and why the whole building stank of blood; it was everywhere.
Pools of thick, congealing blood fanned out from three bodies on the floor, each covered with bloodstained white sheets. My first guess was that the three victims had been shot point-blank in the head. I kept my face expressionless, but I felt sorry for the three people. They’d either died from massive head trauma or slow exsanguination, and neither of those options were ideal ways to die. The latter method especially made me uncomfortable to contemplate, for my grandmother, my namesake, had died after having her throat slit by a supervillain.
The police and technicians moved around the scene with calculated precision, snapping photographs and making sketches while skirting around the little red lakes to avoid soiling their shoes and contaminating the scene. A man in a pinstriped suit, whom I figured was the bank’s manager, spoke with great animation to the police, turning to point to the vault and to another wall.
I’d been so preoccupied with the mindboggling amount of blood that I hadn’t noticed the ever-so-slightly irregular three-foot holes in both the vault door and the wall. What on earth were we dealing with?
A plain clothes detective I recognized from two other investigations saw us and walked over, stepping over the blood as if he dealt with oceans of it every day.
Battlecry Page 3
