Of course I knew it. I looked at the faces of people who were long dead and wondered if they’d be proud of me.
Marco’s phone beeped and he shut his computer. “Patrolling time. I convinced Patrick that you should be with me because of your head injury. Ember is going with Reid. Meet you at the door in five?”
I nodded and pocketed the thumb drive.
The pills kicked in while I was lacing my boots. Luscious, numbing warmth radiated out from my stomach to the tips of my fingers and toes, causing me to fumble with the laces. In the recesses of my brain I knew I shouldn’t patrol while under the influence of a narcotic, but it was hard to care. Marco was a good fighter and I’d be safe with him.
13
Patrolling was more difficult than I’d anticipated.
After I stumbled over a curb for the third time in thirty minutes, Marco guided me by my elbow over to a bench at a deserted bus stop in the industrial part of town.
“Sit here for a while and take deep breaths. I can’t believe I let you have the pills.”
“My head doesn’t hurt anymore,” I mumbled, the words struggling to form in my throat.
“Oh, I bet nothing hurts anymore for you.” He rolled his eyes.
I closed my eyes and let my head loll backwards, the motion causing a pleasant whoosh sensation. I did it two more times until Marco’s warm hand caught my head. “You’re going to make yourself sick if you keep that up.”
I sat up and let my eyes focus on the area around us. The Bell Enterprises’ Industrial Complex was across the road, fenced off with an old chain link fence. Beyond the fence was a massive campus of parking lots, warehouses, and a huge chemical plant. It was deserted, lit up only by floodlights on the buildings and a few streetlights in the parking lots. I stared at the guard building at the gated entrance of the Complex. Something was wrong with it, but my mind struggled to process what it might be.
I pointed to the little shack after thirty seconds. “Their security sucks.” I cracked up. “No wonder they’re always getting attacked.”
Marco stiffened and he scanned the parking lot, focusing finally on the guard building. “There’s nobody in there. That’s really weird. With all the attacks you’d think they’d have heightened security. In fact, something here stinks. Where is everyone?” He stood up, pushing me back down when I tried to stand. “You stay here and take deep breaths. I’m going to check on the guard.”
Humming to myself, I watched him melt the lock and push the gate open, then peer into the guard shack. He froze, then turned and sprinted back to me.
“The guard is unconscious in the shack. The screens with the security feeds are all showing snow. Not a single camera in this facility is working, as far as I can tell. It’s just like what happened at the bank. The guard was intact, though.”
“The fence isn’t,” I said with a giggle, pointing to a hole in the fence about twenty feet down the street from us. “Poof! Gone, just like the heads.”
Marco’s eyes followed my finger. “Someone’s cut the fence. The piece they took out is on the ground. We should check that out once you’re done laughing about homicide.”
Hoisting me up by my elbow, he dragged me over to the hole in the fence, where we bent down for a closer look at the loose flap of chain links. It had been cut recently; we could see small fibers attached to the jagged metal. We were dealing with another attack on Bell Enterprises. Marco rolled up his sleeves to let in as much ambient light as possible. “We might have to bust some heads. Are you up to this?”
I responded by twiddling a knife and promptly dropping it.
Marco glanced back at the bus stop and then shook his head. “Just stay behind me, okay?”
“Back up,” I grunted.
Marco took a step backwards. “What is it?”
“No,” I groaned. “Call for back up.”
Uncertainty passed over his face. “Um…I…I’d rather not have to explain to Atropos why you’re stoned senseless. I wasn’t really supposed to give you the pills.”
“I’m not stoned senseless.”
He pinched my nose, hard. “Can you feel that?”
Instead of bothering me, the childish gesture made me laugh so hard I stumbled backwards, tripped over my feet, and nearly fell.
Marco looked again at the bus stop, then back to me. “Please, please try to focus, okay?”
I nodded, solemn. “Focus. Right.”
We worked our way through the fence with little difficulty and moved into the shadows of the warehouses, pressing ourselves against the walls to stay as small as possible.
“Over there,” Marco whispered, indicating warehouse fourteen. “I just saw a moving light. Could be a flashlight, and that’s suspicious.” We ran as stealthily as possible through the lot and up to the side of the building. Flattening ourselves against the bricks, we listened for any sound from within. There was nothing but silence. “We need a plan,” Marco whispered. “Any suggestions?”
“Superhero stuff,” I slurred.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” he muttered. “Okay, I’ve got an idea. I’ll open the door and stun them, and then we’ll both run in and grab everyone. Be fast about it, though. I only have one good flash left in me.”
“Make a noise so they look at you.”
“They might not be on our side of the warehouse. If I make a noise right off the bat, I risk giving away that we’re there. We should surprise them.”
“No, we don’t know where they are.” Beneath my drugged torpor, fear stirred. I didn’t like barreling into blind fights.
Marco made a noise of disgust. “You know what, this conversation wouldn’t be happening if we had the whole team. I’m calling the others. If Atropos puts my head through a wall, oh well.” He pulled out his cell phone.
“No no no!” I snatched his phone away. “We can do it your way. Don’t call anyone. Please.”
Marco’s eyes darted back and forth while he debated with himself. “Okay, I won’t call for backup.” He slowly turned the handle to the warehouse side entrance, his hand raised.
I remembered to close my eyes just in time.
Marco’s light flooded the warehouse, shining through my eyelids. If the thieves—or whatever they were—were looking towards the door when he made his little show, they’d be temporarily blinded. I ran in, blinking away little spots in my vision.
Unfortunately, the two men inside hadn’t been facing the door.
The warehouse was filled with row upon row of metal shelving lined with barrels. Some barrels were labeled with innocuous strings of letters and numbers, but a few had large black-and-yellow biohazard symbols printed on them.
The two men were standing next to one and had removed the lid. From what I could see, they were taking a sample; plastic cups with lids and labels were scattered around them. Curiously, while they both wore nondescript gray garb, their faces were hidden in masks like myself and Marco. I was intrigued; I’d never encountered costumed criminals who committed such a mundane crime as corporate espionage.
The shorter of the two slowly put down his little plastic cup. “Easy there, man. We’re not going to cause trouble if you don’t.”
“You’re breaking and entering,” Marco said, his voice deeper than usual. “Put your hands on your head and kneel with your ankles crossed.”
The order always sounded more intimidating when Patrick said it.
Neither of them complied.
“Are you the team leader?” the taller one asked, his voice considerably lower than his partner’s.
I couldn’t see under the short one’s hood, but his head movement made me think he was looking back and forth between Marco and me.
Before Marco could answer, the shorter one spoke again.“Neither of them are the leader, idiot. Haven’t you seen him? He’s all over the tabloids every week. They call him Atropos.” He pointed to his partner. “And that’s Cyber, by the way. He thinks his codename is cool. What do you guys think?”<
br />
“Shut the hell up,” Cyber growled.
There was a second in which nobody moved, but then Cyber bolted towards the door.
Marco was faster. A ray of heat flashed from his hand towards the man’s knee and the would-be escapee howled in pain, stumbling forward.
Not wasting a second, I clumsily ran towards him and tackled him.
Marco raced towards Not-Cyber who…disappeared?
He reappeared behind Marco half a second later, sitting on another barrel. He hadn’t teleported; rather, he’d run so quickly he’d blurred. “I’ll go quietly if you can catch me,” he teased, before reappearing a second later by a pillar yards away.
Cyber wasn’t so jovial. He lacked super strength and was injured, but I was injured and intoxicated, which made for a painful stalemate. I pinned him down with a knee, but with a yell he threw me off balance and swept his leg under my own. I fell, aware of how stupid a move that was.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Marco vainly chasing after the other man. He’d let Marco barely brush his fingers against him and then reappear ten feet away, laughing uproariously.
I landed a knee in the tender flesh of Cyber’s groin and he roared again in fury. With surprising strength, he punched me in the stomach, and although it didn’t hurt much, I was winded. I vaguely noticed that his hands didn’t feel like normal human hands; they were harder and heavier.
In the two seconds I took to recover my breath, he whipped out a switchblade.
Cyber swiped at me with an angry shout, and I barely jumped away from the blade in time. I grabbed his arm, intending to twist it and make him drop the knife.
He backhanded me across the face and I stumbled into metal shelving, dazed.
I charged at him and ducked away from his knife, but he grabbed me and in one motion sliced my neck under my ear. The hydrocodone couldn’t mask the searing pain. I fell to the ground, my hand pressed to my gushing neck.
Swift realization hit me: I was going to die.
Cyber stared down at me, his chest heaving. Slowly, so slowly, he walked towards me.
“Cyber, stop!” His partner appeared in a blur and pushed Cyber’s arm away. “We already have enough bodies at scenes to deal with. We don’t need a dead hero on our hands on top of everything else.”
Cyber snorted. “You weren’t singing that song in Baltimore.”
The shorter one tensed. “Just go.”
Cyber gestured at me with the knife. “She’s already dead. She’ll bleed out in the next few minutes. Let’s just finish them off. I thought you were into that angel of mercy crap.”
I felt a sob in my chest. It fought against the pills and lost. You’re a failure.
I already felt measurably cooler than usual. Snatches of thoughts appeared and vanished in my brain. Where is Marco? Is he okay? What is going on? The floor is cold. There’s a bug under the shelf. Someone…should really…clean.
Each thought was stupider than the last. I tried to focus on the conversation above me.
“Take the product and leave. You’ve done enough.”
“You’re a baby,” Cyber snapped.
Even in the midst of exsanguination I thought that was an odd thing for a hardened criminal to say to his partner in crime. The reply, a string of profanities, was more the usual.
Cyber stormed off and out the warehouse door.
To my surprise, the remaining man kneeled down next to me and gently pulled me into a sitting position against a barrel. I could see Marco lying on the ground in the distance. He was breathing.
“What’re you doing?” I mumbled. I no longer had the strength to fight, but I still tried to pull away.
“Easy, easy, don’t move,” he said quietly. He pulled out a cell phone. “I’m going to call an ambulance. You’ll die if I don’t.”
“No, don’t. Don’t.” I wanted to die like my grandmother. Her life blood had spilled out, too. And like her, I wasn’t afraid of death. I wished I could’ve lived longer, and that my final months had been happier, but I wasn’t afraid.
He paused, and then nodded. “Is there someone else you’d like me to call, then? Or text?”
How weird. He was obviously a criminal and criminals were soulless. This was a fact of life that had been hammered into me from birth and I wasn’t comfortable with it being defied in my last moments. However, he was offering me an unexpected last chance to send a message and I intended to make the best of it.
“My phone.” My voice was failing. “Text snitch…five. Tell him…I’m sorry I can’t…be there tomorrow.”
“I hope this person misses you.” He slipped my phone from my pocket and tapping out the text. “It’s nice of you to send a final message.”
I was unable to reply but I enjoyed his kind voice. I hoped he wouldn’t hide my body. Gregory’s body had been washed away and the lack of closure still hurt.
The coolness had turned into fuzzy warmth that was creeping from around the edges. I felt disconnected from my body.
He put the phone down. “There, it’s sent.”
My sight was dimming. When I approached the edges of my consciousness I heard a text alert. Another oddity—my phone was always on silent when I patrolled. Even there, dying in a pool of my own blood next to a masked thief, I felt a stab of annoyance that I couldn’t see what the text said.
However, the man glanced at his own phone. There was a brief silence before the phone slid out of his hand and clattered to the floor.
He pulled off his hood and mask, sandy blond hair spilling out.
Benjamin stared down at me, shock and horror written on his face. “Oh my God.”
The last thing I was aware of before the world went dark was warm hands on my cheeks.
14
I opened my eyes and blinked up at the high ceiling of the warehouse, shivering and wincing against the brightness of the fluorescent lamps.
Several feet away from me Marco sat up and rubbed his head. “What happened? Where’d they go?” He poked at his temple. “I could’ve sworn he hit me right here but there’s not even a scr—holy cow, where did all that blood come from? Are you okay?”
I was sitting in a large pool of congealing blood. A familiar tightness gripped my chest; nobody lost that amount of blood at once and lived. I touched my neck and felt smooth skin. “I’m—I’m fine,” I choked out.
Marco was still staring. “Where did that blood come from? Wow, you must have really injured that guy. He should be dead.”
Dead.
The realization hit me like a wrecking ball: I almost died and Benjamin was a criminal. A supervillain. I leaned over and emptied the contents of my stomach.
Marco just laughed. “I wondered when the pills would make you do that. Too bad you didn’t barf all over the big guy.”
When I was done, I heard a strange whooshing sound and focused on it, then realized it was my own hyperventilating. I crawled to my feet, sticky blood clinging to my fingers and clothes.
Marco got up and walked to the barrel Benjamin and his partner, whom I assumed was his brother Beau, had been looking at when we first came in. He pulled out a little flask from his utility belt and scooped some of the liquid into it.
“If you’re feeling better, come over here and take a look at this stuff. I don’t know what it is, but I want to know why they were looking at it. Can you call the team and ask them to rendezvous at the bus stop across the street? Battlecry? Hey, where are you going?”
I pushed the warehouse door open and ran out into the night, echoes of my footfalls bouncing around the deserted lot. Marco shouted for me to wait for him, but I was already sprinting. I slowed only to rip the broken fence back so I could duck under it, then I turned and fled down the street.
The world flew by as I ran past the police station where I had registered as a superhero. I rushed past the middle school that a disgruntled ex-teacher had tried to set on fire during an assembly. I ran past the alley where I met my first snitch who passed on a pie
ce of information.
I continued my flight all the way to the bridge at the edge of the city, where Marco and I had been greeted by Patrick, Ember, and Reid only six months before. I dashed to the side of the bridge, slamming into the waist-high safety barrier. I gripped the railing and looked down at the dark stillness of Blackbeard Creek’s main branch which, despite the name, was actually a large river.
My strength left me, and I sagged against one of the metal support beams, looking out over the dark water, sweat dripping down my face into my eyes. The bridge was silent except for my panting breaths, which turned into sobs. I cried for several long minutes, not knowing or caring if anyone saw me. When the tears stopped, I hiccuped and peered around.
A memory tugged at me—I’d talked down a jumper here once. While she’d been hanging off the edge, she’d told me her life wasn’t worth living anymore.
I’d replied with the standard response: “There is always hope.” Then I’d offered her my hand and the warmest smile I could muster. “Whatever it is that made you think this is the answer, it’s temporary.”
Did those words mean anything anymore? Had they ever meant anything? I’d learned them along with a thousand other platitudes in my training, the same training that had tried to teach me how easy and natural it was to joyfully submit to my leader, my father, and my elder. Yet, my whole life I’d struggled to joyfully submit to anyone who had authority over me. Since leaving home and joining the team, I’d failed to submit altogether. But why?
The memory of Benjamin’s shocked voice in the warehouse rose up, unbidden. I let out another sob and sank to my knees. Somebody had to have forced Benjamin into a life of crime—that was the only way someone as kind and caring as him could’ve worked alongside the man who’d sliced open my neck and left me to die. Somebody had threatened Eleanor, perhaps, and coerced Benjamin into the criminal underworld.
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