Ravages

by Kit Bladegrave

  A few gang members and other thugs who leered at anyone passing by. A few of their younger recruit shitheads jumped me once, but thankfully I hadn’t had a dime on me, not that I made it easy for them to figure that part out.

  I had stabbed one of them in the arm with the keys to our apartment, so I could get away, screaming at the top of my lungs until I scared the bastards off. His mama had the nerve to come banging on our door the next morning saying I assaulted her son. My mom’s response to that had been throwing up on the woman’s shoes. The one time I hadn’t minded watching Mom puke her guts up.

  Those idiots had left me alone since then, but I was still nervous. The younger ones might not want to mess with me, but there were plenty of older guys who hung around that I could not take on with a pathetic key as a weapon.

  The street light above me flickered, and a shiver ran down my spine as fear crept into my mind; I was still about three blocks away from home.

  Poor Mason was probably either passed out on the couch, or was waiting up for me worried about how late it was and wondering why I wasn’t home yet.

  I picked up the pace. Something about that flickering streetlight made me feel like it was a bad omen.

  I told myself to stop being paranoid, but I should’ve listened to my gut.

  As soon as a turned a corner, I heard a vehicle speeding on the road ahead of me. A light blue car whizzed by, jumping the curb and nearly side-swiping me. I leapt to the side with a yelp, tumbling over the sidewalk to avoid getting hit head-on.

  I cursed, my elbow and hip throbbing from where I hit the cement, but at least I was alive. I staggered to my feet, stunned, and checked myself for any other injuries as the car continued down the road.

  “Drunk asshole!” I screamed after the car, picking up a broken bottle nearby and chucking it down the street. “Cause I don’t have enough problems in my life, huh?”

  I shouted a few more profanities at the car’s back bumper as it disappeared. I looked around for a second car, thinking maybe the idiot had been racing, judging from the way he had been driving, but the road was dead silent.

  “Whatever, jackass,” I shouted, but the car was long gone.

  I continued my route home, thankful I had not been flattened. The scrapes on my elbow stung, and I limped as the pain in my hip increased. I’d be sporting some pretty bruises in the morning.

  I turned the corner, wishing I could run to get home, but my hip hurt too much to run.

  I froze.

  Down the long street ahead I saw two headlights in the distance.

  It was the same car again.

  My stomach dropped, and I glanced around, hoping for someone, anyone else to be around, but I was alone.

  The engine revved in the distance, sounding more like a beast ready to eat me alive than a car. The driver slammed on the gas, and it started my way.

  “Oh, come on,” I uttered, not ready to believe this was happening a second time.

  He was trying to hit me, and he had come back around since he had missed the first time. I was sure of it. Not even certain why I was so convinced of that.

  A million things went through my head. Like, was I going to die? Why would someone want to run me down? Was he some creepy serial killer, and I was about to become one of his statistical kills?

  I turned on my heels and ran—ran with more power than I had ever run before, ignoring my hip screaming in pain, and my lungs burning, as I sucked in air.

  A good distance behind me, tires squealed and spun. I couldn’t outrun a car.

  Lungs begging for relief, and legs sore from the incredible sprint, I knew I was going to die.

  This psychopath, whoever he was, had picked me out for whatever reason.

  I closed my eyes, tucked my head down and braced for impact.

  “Are you insane?” a male voice shouted, and hands suddenly grabbed me, and swung me around hard.

  My feet came out from under me, and the two of us fell backward into the alleyway just as the car zoomed past.

  I landed on a hard body with an “oomph,” as whoever saved me cursed and sputtered.

  The driver, in an attempt to still run us down, overcorrected and went straight into a telephone pole, and the car scrunched up in a smoky and crumpled up mess.

  A body exploded out of the windshield at the time of impact, and I grimaced when it didn’t move again.

  Smoke rose up from the hood, and the passenger’s door was thrown violently open.

  I tried to see more, but the hands that pulled me to safety shoved me protectively behind him again, and I had to strain my neck to peer around him.

  A second person fell to the pavement, growling like an animal, pulled himself to his feet using the car, and took off into the darkness.

  “Think you’re safe,” the guy said, and finally turned to face me.

  Words of thanks died in my throat as I blinked several times, wondering if I hit my head and this was all a dream.

  All I could do was stare numbly back at this guy and wonder why someone like him would risk his life to save someone like me.

  His brow furrowed in worry, and he gently reached out, running his palm over my head.

  “You hurt? Hey, can you hear me?”

  He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes and the moment was broken, but in those seconds, I was able to admire his beautiful voice.

  He reminded me of something straight out of one of Mason’s cheesy anime flicks; one of those devilishly handsome types. I was digging it despite the near-death experience.

  I cleared my throat and nodded. “Yeah, yeah I’m good I think. Just some cuts. You?”

  “I’ll live.” His hand fell from my head and gently held my chin, tilting my face to the left and right to catch what little light there was from the street.

  I usually was not one for being touched by a strange guy in the middle of an alleyway, but as he studied my face looking for injuries, it gave me a chance to check him out.

  He had long blond hair that wrapped back behind his ears and eyes that looked like some sort of blue crystal. He was gorgeous. Unreal. And he just saved my life.

  “Thank you,” I breathed. “I—uh, I have no idea what was going on with that asshole. And he’s, oh God, he’s dead, isn’t he?” I stood and stared at the car and the dead man on the hood. “Shit! This is bad, isn’t it?”

  He stood beside me and opened his mouth to reply, but we were interrupted by another male voice calling out, making me jump with a curse of alarm.

  “Slade,” a voice called from the alley. “Man, we got to go.”

  I looked at him.

  Slade. His name was Slade, really?

  He didn’t look like he wanted to leave, and shifted on his feet. “You going to be okay?”

  “I think so, but I have to report this, right?”

  He glared at the dead man, and I swore a growl escaped his mouth as his hands curled into fists. “You should leave him to rot.”

  I’d never heard someone speak with so much hate before and it left me speechless.

  “Slade! We don’t have time for this shit! Let’s move, or I’m leaving your ass behind!”

  He cursed under his breath and backed down the alley, deeper into the shadows. “Look out for yourself,” he called to me, spun on his heel, and darted into the shadows.

  The sound of his steps disappeared, and I was left standing at the entrance to the alleyway, my brain struggling to process what the hell just happened.

  I stumbled out into the street, moving towards the car before shock hit me hard and my knees gave out.

  I didn’t own a cell phone, no money in the budget for that, and managed to scream a few times for help.

  Lights popped on in several windows, and several doors opened as people ran outside, pointing and muttering at the car.

  “Hey. Are you okay?” Someone was running toward me from a nearby apartment. “Hon? Can you hear me? What happened?”

  I managed to mutter something abo
ut the car trying to hit me, and the older woman knelt beside me, yelling for someone to call 9-1-1.

  I wasn’t sure what answers I gave to the woman; I was too busy looking for the guy named Slade who had saved me.

  Chapter 3

  Slade

  I scurried up the rickety, steel ladder on the side of the brick building, a pair of boots disappearing overhead.

  That had been close, too damned close.

  I hadn’t expected her to be out so early. Her schedule at night was always the same. I’d have to have a word with the others about having more eyes out here for nights like these when I almost didn’t make it in time.

  As I pulled myself onto the roof, I hurried to the shadowy figure of Tank.

  “She good?” he asked in his deep growl of a voice.

  Lights flashed against the buildings, and the sirens cut out as several more cop cars pulled down the street.

  I nodded. “She’s hurt, but she’s alive.”

  “They’re not going to like this, what you did.”

  “What choice did I have?”

  He sighed, his hands gripping the cement wall hard enough to make it crumble. “Two of them, they sent two of them after her. We should’ve known at some point they would act.”

  “And? What are we supposed to do about it?”

  I narrowed my gaze and peered down until I spied our target being tended to by the paramedics now.

  They were guiding her to the back of the ambulance. She stumbled a few times, and I saw her repeatedly glancing towards the crashed car and the dead body jutting out of the windshield that the cops were studying with their flashlights.

  Would she tell them a second one got away? Would they even believe her about that driver trying to kill her? Probably not. Humans tended to ignore the obvious.

  “We need to go, the others will be waiting,” Tank informed me gruffly, turning for the other side of the building. His long black trench coat billowed out as he moved, and he pulled a hood up to cover his face.

  I lingered a few seconds longer, cursing the night for having to reveal myself to her, but there’d been no other choice unless I wanted to watch her get run over and killed.

  “Watch out for yourself,” I murmured to the night. “They’re coming for you.”

  “Slade.”

  I backed away and forced myself to follow Tank. If they were smart, they’d leave her alone with the cops crawling around like they were.

  We had to report this incident and decide our next move.

  Tank leapt across the alley and landed on the other rooftop as easily as he walked.

  I followed, and we jumped from one roof to the next until we reached the end of the row.

  After checking the coast was clear, we jumped off and to the pavement, jogging along towards the entrance to the tunnel. Guards were present, even if I couldn’t see them. That was the point.

  We reached a large grate where the pavement sloped deeply downward, and water drained from the street overhead.

  Tank waved his hand over the massive lock, whispering under his breath, and the lock clicked open with a resounding clink.

  We stepped inside, and it closed soundlessly behind us. Our boot steps echoed back to us, and the deeper in we went, the more a sinking feeling started in my gut that the events we hoped would hold off a few more years, were about to start happening.

  Eventually, light appeared ahead as we entered the main junction of tunnels that resided forgotten beneath the city.

  Two guards nodded as we passed, but their gazes remained focused towards the tunnel, never wavering from their post.

  “Slade! Tank! What took you two so long?”

  “Problems, that’s what,” I growled, and veered right towards the raised metal platform with two ladders going up to it.

  Four others stood on in it, two women and two men, looking as stressed and tired as I suddenly was.

  “They’re here,” I said, the second my feet hit the grated metal.

  “What?” Jenny snapped, Turning her head so fast her long black dreadlocks whipped around. Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits as a hiss slipped from her mouth. “That’s not possible.”

  “Maybe not, but I know what I saw.”

  Tank stomped up behind me. “He’s right. Two of ‘em and we were almost too late.”

  “Damn it! Davis!” she screamed out, and silence fell over the makeshift encampment underground. “Where the hell is Davis? I want him up here, now!”

  “It’s not his fault,” I tried to defend him.

  Jenny sliced her hand through the air, silencing me.

  “It’s his job to watch, and clearly he is slacking. What happened?”

  Jenny, Maura, Toby, and Preston, the ringleaders of this quadrant leaned in closer as I relayed the activities of the evening to them. Their faces were set in stone by the time I finished, especially when I had to tell them one of the attackers got away.

  “You didn’t give chase, why?”

  “I already exposed myself. I couldn’t risk going after him and alerting the mortals to our presence. Do you want a bigger mess on your hands?”

  “No, no, you’re right.” Jenny leaned heavily on the table, the harsh random lighting of the lamps and torches catching the vivid white scars that covered her dark-skinned arms. “We’re not ready for this. Not even close.”

  “What are my orders?” I asked.

  “Same. If they’re risking making a move like this, we don’t have a choice, but we need more men,” Jenny muttered darkly, glaring at the maps on the table before her. “And your attack wasn’t the only one tonight.”

  “What?” I glanced towards Tank, but he seemed as clueless as I was. “What happened?”

  Jenny looked at Preston, her husband, and shrugged.

  “You might as well tell them. They’ll find out sooner or later and I’d rather they take their anger out now, than lose it out there,” he said, but Jenny started to shake her head. “Jenny, tell them or I will.”

  My heart pounded, and I wanted to punch something, the longer they made us wait. “What happened?” I repeated.

  “An outpost was attacked,” Preston said when Jenny still refused to speak.

  I swallowed hard as Tank cursed vividly beside me. “Which one?”

  I knew before he even said it, but I had to hear. “Higgins Square… thirty dead, fifteen missing… we have no idea if they took prisoners or if they fled.”

  The room spun around me, and I reached out for the metal railing to hold me up.

  “Zara… she was found amongst the rubble,” Preston went on quietly. “Slade, I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry.”

  “No…” I sank to the grated floor and held my head between my hands.

  This wasn’t happening, not again.

  Growling filled my ears, and I realized suddenly it was me, snarling as Tank tried to pull me to my feet.

  “Get away!” I bellowed, and leapt down from the platform, stalking through the crowd of refugees and fighters until I reached my sad excuse for a room—a curtain draped over an alcove in the tunnels.

  I paced the tiny space, seeing her smiling face over and over in my mind, but every time I blinked, her face shifted and became bloodied and broken.

  “No!” I raged as I punched the concrete wall, over and over, until my skin split and blood spattered the wall.

  The curtain was yanked aside, and Toby and Tank were there, grabbing me bodily and dragging me away, screaming bloody murder. At some point, I think Tank punched me to try and calm me down, and I let my body go limp.

  They’d stolen everything from me so far, everything I cared about.

  Tonight, I thought I was going to lose my target and instead, I lost something else, a part of me I would never get back.

  This was how it was always going to be. They would just keep chipping away and chipping away until finally, there’d be nothing left of me.

  “Rest, Slade,” Tank ordered after they got me situated in our infi
rmary away from prying eyes. “We’ll talk in the morning, eh?”

  I rolled over and curled up into a ball, not sure if getting up tomorrow morning was possible.

  Not anymore.

  Chapter 4

  Everest

  I should have bolted when Slade did; I had no idea what to do in this situation.

  Someone tried to run me down not once, but twice with their car, and now I was left standing with said car and a dead man inside.

  The police arrived within minutes, paramedics not long after that. They wanted to check me over, or whatever, and numbly, I let them guide me to the ambulance. The entire time, I swore someone was watching me, but when I glanced over my shoulder towards the rooftops, there was nothing, but darkness.

  The paramedic did a full check and then tended to my scraped elbow and ensured me I had no broken ribs. They left me sitting on the bumper as two cops came over, eyeing me curiously.

  “Are you sure you’re alright, ma’am?” the woman asked me softly.

  “Yeah, I mean shaken up you know, but I’m fine.”

  “Why don’t you run through what happened?”

  I nodded nervously and did my best to explain the crazy event that just occurred. When I was finished, she was tapping her pen on the pad of paper in her hand, staring into the alley.

  “And you say this person just ran off?”

  “Yeah, the one left alive in the car and the one who shoved me out of the way.”

  “Wait, there was a second one in the car?” she asked sharply. “You didn’t say that before.”

  “Sorry, thought I did,” I mumbled. “Everything happened so fast.”

  “It’s okay, hon. Just take a breather. Do you have your ID with you at least?”

  “Sure,” I said, even though a voice in the back of my mind said this was a bad idea. Not like I was about to lie to the cops though.

  When I showed it to them, and they realized I was a minor, they insisted on driving me home.