by Nicol, Andy
I looked up at Louis skeptically. Maybe he was trying to bait me into revealing something; I wouldn’t put it past him. They called him the Headless Horseman, but that was just a stage name. It didn’t stop him from trying to keep a leg up on everyone, though. I mean, he did kind of creep everyone out, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to get in league with Soul’s “monsters.” Was he?
“Yeah. I really do,” I stated finally, studying his face.
His thick brows knit together, making him look cross-eyed but contemplative. If he really was involved, he was a pretty incredible actor.
He looked back up at me suddenly, face frozen in a scowl. “Hmm, alright then. Go on. Get out of here.”
“Gladly!” I hopped off the table and jogged toward the door.
“And eat something, would you?”
“I was on my way to the cafeteria!” I cried out behind me as I shoved open the door. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped someone saved me some food.
I saw Josh leaning against the wall as I walked back to my room. He was still in uniform but clearly off duty, so I convinced him to bring me a sandwich. Even after I settled down, it was hard to calm the jitters in my body. It was a long day, and it didn’t look like it was about to end anytime soon.
“Holler if you need anything else.” Josh said, already on his way back out the door.
“Thanks, Josh,” I called after him, with a mouth full of spicy-grilled-chicken sandwich.
I sat on my bed and ran over what happened. I’d have to tell Soul he made that kid really happy. Somehow, after a while, I managed to fall asleep with a smile on my face and a half-eaten sandwich in my hand, despite the day I had.
Six
After spending the morning training, I walked down to security and knocked on the door. “Josh, open up. It’s Ben!” I heard a crash. The door swung open and a dishevelled Dan appeared, glaring down at me. I entered the office and took a seat with a slight laugh. There were wires everywhere, as well as half-empty plates and cans of soda. “This man needs a maid,” he stated humourlessly. “I’ve been here since breakfast. Frankie’s bringing me lunch, then he’s going out. I only have one hall left. Would you mind taking a look at those three cameras?”
Nodding, I started the playback. The video was from the day Dan was attacked, showing a view of the second-floor training room. I saw nothing, so I sped it up. The only people in the video were Ronin, who was lifting weights, and Jekyll and Hyde, roughhousing on a couple of mats. I’d give my left arm if I never had to see them again. I hit fast-forward again.
My back hurt from the plastic chair. We’d been sitting there for an hour and had found nothing. My mind was starting to wander.
“Hey, Dan?”
“What?”
“What are we going to do when we find this guy?”
He scratched his scruffy chin. “I don’t know … run him out of town … hang him … put him in a fight against, like, twenty guys? Whatever we want, I guess.”
I didn’t want to do any of that.
“Got it.” I felt a little sick. Should Dan find out, he’d kill Soul. Judge, jury, executioner. I don’t even know what Dan would do if he found out I was helping Soul. I couldn’t let that happen, but if I said anything, Dan might start to catch on. Instead, I diverted the conversation.
“Are you going out with the crew tonight?”
“Yeah, why not? I need a break from this hunting. It’s taking up my every waking minute.”
Dan and I took our time on the last two security tapes, which took another hour and a half. He made sure he watched every file, but based on the time stamps, there were clearly some missing. My temperamental companion shouted profanities as he slammed his hands down, noticing the same thing.
“He got to them first! Now how am I supposed to figure out how to find him?”
I took a breath and mentally cracked my knuckles: time to put my powers to work. “Forget it, Danny. This guy knows what he’s doing, and he doesn’t want to be found. We’ll get him on something else. Now, I’m hungry. Let’s just go meet everyone.”
He scowled and side-eyed me. “Maybe…”
I dragged my finger across his collar and pressed my cheek against his as I massaged his shoulders. “Please come? We can talk later.”
Dan got to his feet and grabbed my hands, swaying back and forth for a moment before nodding. He wrapped an arm over my shoulder and grinned like the sleazy dog he was. I resisted the urge to lean over a trash can. But at least he had dropped his focus on finding Soul and was following me like a puppy. I probably would have high-fived myself if given the chance.
Sam’s Choice was the best restaurant in town. It was packed, so finding our friends was a task in itself. Most of us had dinner here at least twice a week, but they weren’t set up at our usual table. The lights were dim, and I was a little bit distracted by the smell of bread sticks, but I spotted a flash of blond through the crowd and waved to Chrissy. She sat at a table with Angel. Dan followed, making flirtatious eye contact with various waitresses before walking smack into the table and receiving a barrage of mockery.
“Did you guys manage to find anything?” Angel asked. She was the first to speak up, which was unusual — Angel rarely cared about anything that didn’t involve, well, herself. Lovely woman, I swear. She must have been worried that she’d be next.
“No, but there are some files missing. We’re going to have Josh and Matt try and trace them tomorrow,” I said.
Angel looked at Chrissy, then Dan, then back at me. She seemed suspicious, almost as though she thought one of us had something to do with it, which, of course, was true. But she didn’t have to know that.
“Maybe it’s Dan,” she said. “He’s been spending all his time on this investigation and getting nowhere.”
Dan made a sarcastic face and crossed his arms, waiting for one of the staff to recognize him and send over a round of his usual beer. “Yes, brilliant. I hit myself over the head with a steel bar. All for what, exactly? Attention?”
Chrissy shrugged. “Wouldn’t put it past you.”
I could barely hear over all the restaurant noise, but I still made an effort to seem half-responsive.
“Oh! Look who it is, the lovely couple!” Chrissy hollered gleefully, probably completely hammered already. I turned my head to see Eloise and Frankie walking toward us, holding hands. She gave a shy smile while his cheeks turned pinker than his hair. As they sat down beside me, he quickly mouthed a thank-you to me, and I silently nodded.
They were the target of conversation for most of the evening. After an hour or so, I started to notice Angel getting agitated and looking around the restaurant.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Ronin said he’d be here.”
Ronin was her current boyfriend, one of a long line of them, but she seemed to be really into it this time.
I looked around and shook my head. “He probably forgot, or he’s avoiding us. You know how he feels about crowds.”
She nodded sadly and ate her meal, as slowly as humanly possible.
When our small group got back, Matt stopped us at the gate. He was holding a camera in his right hand.
“What is this?” Frankie looked at him curiously.
“The cameras were knocked out, the live feed is down, and the power’s been cut, but the boss still wants us to broadcast. Josh, Jeffery, and Louis are helping,” Matt answered.
Everyone exchanged nervous glances, so I spoke up. “You know what? We should round everyone up, send them to the lecture hall. Only one person gets hit at a time, right? If more of us are in one place, the better our chances of stopping him, or better yet, catching him.”
Nodding, Matt radioed his counterparts and told them to do exactly that. It took a couple minutes and it was all chaos because of panic and infighting, but we did it.
“Shut up!” I shouted. Everyone turned to me and gawked. “Are we missing anyone?”
Our warriors looked around and shook
their heads, until Angel stood. “I still can’t find Ronin!”
Looking at her, I grimaced. “Everyone stay here. Randy, Frankie, you’re going to help me look for him.”
Frankie nodded. “You got it, boss.”
“Why us?!!” Randy snapped grouchily at me. “Because you know him better than anyone else, and Frankie can easily go unnoticed in the dark.”
“I’m going with you!” Angel followed me to the door. From the look on her face, I knew I couldn’t stop her even if I wanted to.
We grabbed our weapons then took off toward Ronin’s room; Randy and Frankie headed towards the training room. The backup generator had kicked in, but the lights in the long, white corridors were so dim we could hardly see where we were going, never mind search properly. Angel held her nunchucks to her chest nervously as we ran through the halls as fast as we could.
The door to Ronin’s room was ajar.
“Wait here,” I said, and bit my lip as I slowly opened the door. I could hear someone rummaging through Ronin’s things. Sadly, Angel could too. She shoved me aside and pushed her way through.
I looked around her to see Soul with his back to the door.
“What did you do to my boyfriend?” Angel’s words were sharp, her voice dangerous.
Soul held Ronin’s “log” in his hand (really, it was a diary). He tossed it onto the table and shook his head.
“Not good for you.” His voice was raspier than I’d ever heard before. There was something in his hand and Angel seemed ready to attack; I needed to stop this.
“Drop the weapon,” I warned.
He started to turn around but only shook his head and chuckled. “Did you a favour, you’ll see.”
He dropped what was in his hand — a bright, smoking flare — and ran past Angel, who thrust her leg toward him, trying to trip him on his way out. I stepped to the side as he tripped, stumbled past me out the door, and hit the wall in the corridor with a thud.
Soul looked back at Angel, then shook his head, touching a cut on his lip and standing to his full height. I watched him straighten, then calmly walk down the hall.
“Benji, where are you?” Frankie’s voice came through the radio.
I grabbed the radio from my belt and spoke into it. “Get to Ronin’s room!”
I quickly put my sword back in its sheath and ran to the side table, grabbing the logbook and slipping it into my jacket. Angel set to frantically searching the room, obviously hoping to find some clue about what happened to Ronin. She was desperately trying to keep herself from crying out of frustration as she looked around the trashed room.
I stepped into the bathroom, wanting to clear it of anything that could be linked to Soul. Instead, I found Ronin face down in the tub, which was full of ice cubes.
“Angel! Get in here!” I yelled. “Grab a blanket or towels!”
My arms strained as I pulled Ronin out of the tub and laid him on the floor. He was still breathing, but his lips were blue and his limbs were bound.
Angel ran in holding the huge, blue comforter that had been on the bed, but dropped it upon seeing her boyfriend on the floor.
Frankie ran in a second later and helped me untie him, then wrap him in the blankets. The three of us lifted him and took off toward the medical facility. Both head medics were in when we burst through the door of the med centre. They told us to set Ronin down on a gurney and started rushing about. Angel stayed behind to keep him company as Frankie took off to brief Dan and the boss.
I let Louis know what had happened, then went back to my room. I read Ronin’s logbook and was surprised about the things it said, referring to Angel. It looked like he actually did care about her. But the other pages… He took too much pleasure in hurting people. Angel wasn’t like that. She hated people like that, but Ronin always acted so upset when he hurt others, so you would never know. I shook my head and flipped to the last page. It only got worse. I had to put the book down and close my eyes, trying to think about something that wouldn’t make me feel sick.
I must have fallen asleep thinking about everything because — once again — I woke up in a cold sweat with a sinking feeling in my gut, probably due to the fact I was going to have to deal with the aftermath of what happened to Ronin. I couldn’t tell Angel about his log though … I just couldn’t. It would kill her. I decided that I was going to have to talk to Ronin before anyone else did. I needed to find out what he knew about Soul. After cleaning myself up, I walked down to the medical office.
“Hey, Jeff?”
A bespectacled man with messy brown hair stuck his head out from under a desk and smiled. I was glad Jeff, the head medic, was in. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Louis.
“Benji, what can I do for you?” He said.
“Is Ronin awake yet?”
He nodded and pointed toward the bed he was in. I nodded thanks at Jeff and walked past him and over to the bed. “K9? What do you want?”
I held up his logbook and he stiffened. His lips were still blue and he clearly had a chill, but he still grabbed for it. I pulled it back half an inch and sneered, “I read it, you know. I particularly like the part about how much you love to play the innocent hero. You enjoy not having any competition?”
“I didn’t mean that…”
“Prove it to me and I won’t out you to the public.”
“That’s got to be extortion — blackmail!”
I shrugged and leaned closer to him with an angry grimace. “I have a feeling I’m going to do a lot worse very soon. Now, are you going to do better?”
He didn’t say a word; he only glared at me. There were footsteps entering the room, so I stepped back and hid the journal again. Dan hardly acknowledged me, and Angel raced to Ronin’s side. After smearing her red lipstick all over his face, she sat herself beside him and pushed his hair away from his eyes.
Angel looked up, apparently surprised to see me. “Benji, what are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to see how our patient is doing.”
Angel eyed me for a minute, apparently suspicious.
“Any details on the guy who attacked you?” Dan asked.
“He hit me from behind and we grappled. I think I got a decent look, though. He looked sleep-deprived and just overall sad. He told me to just leave the base, and when I refused, he attacked me again and knocked me out. I woke up here.”
Angel shook her head, running to her boyfriend’s side and holding him gently.
“Brutal,” Dan muttered. “Anything else?”
Ronin looked at me and then back at Dan. “I think he had a scar down his face. On the … left, near his chin.”
I swallowed hard and looked at a determined Dan. “I’m going to find this guy if it kills me,” he said.
Well, if it had to be one of us…
Angel sat down with her boyfriend, and Dan and I left.
“We need to look for common factors between the victims, things that might link them together,” Dan said as we walked.
“Got it. I have a fight later, though. It’s against Carmel —”
“Say no more.”
I walked back to my room. Inside, it was too dark to see but I knew the layout by heart, so I walked towards my bed.
I must have miscalculated the angle because I walked right into what felt like a brick wall. I fell backwards and landed on my behind. I groaned. My head, wrist, and mind hurt so much I decided to stay there. I rested my head on the floor and ran my uncasted hand through my hair.
“I’m going to die today…” I shook my head and heard the light click on. Blood rushed to my head as I bolted up and looked around.
Soul slowly tilted his head and gave me a worried look.
“You scared me. That was you I ran into?”
He stared a moment, then quickly returned to his senses and nodded. “Be wary of the candy, poison bite, and twisted heights…” he said. I pulled myself to my feet and dusted off my clothes, trying to understand what he meant.
“Are y
ou talking about Carmel?”
Soul cocked his head to the side, thinking.
“Carmela McCarthy,” I continued. “One of the downtown crew. I’m fighting her today.”
He nodded slowly.
The last part about “poison bite and twisted heights” had to be about her weapons. As gladiators, we were given access to new toys, to test them. Everyone knew she’d been experimenting with hallucinogens. For this fight, I planned to coat my swords with a tranquilizer, a high enough dose to cause paralysis but only momentarily (or at least that’s what Jeffery, the head medic, claimed).
“The doctor wants to know…” He held out a piece of paper, a printed-off email.
“Why is K9 back? We told you to get rid of Keanin. If she knows anything about you, she’ll hunt you down and then come after us! I’d tell you to fix this but your incompetence has already lowered our expectations. Do not fail us again.”
My crow-like companion had a sly smile that completely defied how he should be reacting to that email.
“The dog and the bird were such a good herd…” He motioned for me to turn the page over but kept his eyes on the floor. There was a list of names scrawled messily in blue ink.
“People that they want you to go after?”
Soul nodded.
“Well in that case, I’ll take Matt. I’d really prefer if he didn’t get hurt. The guy can’t even take a friendly punch.” I looked back up at him and ran a hand through my hair. I could procrastinate, right? All I’d have to do is scare him…
“The weapon is fear
It will shed thousand a tear
In an astronomical year
And bring shame
To many a domineer.”
I focused again. Soul was getting agitated and had started pulling his hair and biting his lip.
“H-he’s a friend? Hmm-mm … don’t…” He tried to steady his breathing but stuttered and tugged his hair harder.
“No! Soul, it’s okay, I’ll tell him to go. He’ll understand, no problem,” I said, trying to reassure him. His breathing steadied and he nodded, still not meeting my eyes.
