by Bryan Cohen
Carter showed off a smug smile as he pulled out a knife. "I was looking for you."
"I figured."
Carter swung the knife, which Erica blocked with the broom handle. The knife nearly cut the stick in two, forcing Erica to break it in half on her knee. When Carter tried to swing again, she struck his arm and elbow back with two quick blows. He stepped back and shook out his arms. He let out a growl and switched hands, but Erica turned him away once more. She couldn’t help but smile when Carter rubbed his elbow, where a bruise had already begun to form.
"You're quick for a girl."
She raised her eyebrows. "You're ugly for a person."
Carter pulled the knife overhead, attempting to swipe down at Erica. She bent low and spun her legs through Carter's ankles. He tumbled to the ground. The knife bounced out of his hands and landed a few inches away. Erica felt her heart race as she leapt on top of him.
"Oh, I'm living out my fantasy," Carter grabbed her waist and lifted his head.
Erica’s momentum shifted as the thug rolled to one side. Her body spun until Carter was above her. "Except I'm on top in it."
The henchman clenched his fists and swung, but Erica brought up her wrists to deflect the blows. The pain radiated down her arms as his punches intensified.
When Carter reached for the knife, Erica grabbed his shirt with both hands. "And this is my fantasy."
She shifted her hips to the side and yanked his shirt hard. Carter’s momentum rolled her back on top. She winked as one powerful punch bounced the thug’s head off the linoleum. He released his grip as unconsciousness took hold. Erica stood up and flexed her hand.
"Not even a broken nail."
She picked up the knife and the gun and tossed them out the window. Neither truly suited her combat style.
She looked at Carter one last time before walking back into the hallway. "Not bad, cheerleader body, not bad at all."
27
As far as Ted knew, Nigel was safely tucked away in lockup, but given what he’d seen at the diner, he wasn't surprised to hear him over the loudspeaker.
"Maybe we shouldn't have had school." Dhiraj looked around nonchalantly at the empty room. "With the hospital killing and the prison breakout...."
Ted’s eyes widened. "Hospital killing? Prison breakout?! What are you-"
"It’s not public news, Ted. I bought a police scanner off eBay. They’re trying to keep it hush-hush."
Ted rubbed at his temples. "You tell me about how many followers I have, but not about the guy who tried to kill me breaking out of prison? And a murder?"
Dhiraj shrugged. "I'm your financial manager, Ted. That kind of stuff doesn't really concern me."
Ted’s chin started to tremble. "If I die, you don't have a client!"
"Good point. I'll wear multiple hats from now on."
A noise from the hallway caused both of their heads to snap to the door.
Dhiraj pulled out his phone and started swiping. "Should I live tweet this?"
Ted grumbled. "Wear the 'keeping your client alive' hat right now."
"Got it. Though it would have been huge, you know. Do you have a plan?"
Ted looked around the room. He'd never imagined he'd have to use its contents to defend himself. A large bookcase full of textbooks grabbed his attention.
"I think so. If I get him close enough, I can probably hit him with a book. Maybe hard enough to knock him out."
Dhiraj stood up and stretched. Then he walked right toward the doorway.
Ted wondered if a heart could explode from beating too fast. "What are you doing?!"
Dhiraj winked. "I'll be bait."
Before Ted could protest, his friend was gone. He moved to a better vantage point behind the teacher’s desk, where he could see Dhiraj walking toward one of the thugs. Ted recognized him as Tank, the tough guy guarding the door at the diner. He noticed the strange symbol emblazoned on the man's arm.
When Dhiraj cleared his throat, Ted realized exactly what his friend was doing.
"Oh no. Not the accent."
"Hello, excuse me." Dhiraj spoke in the worst Indian accent Ted had ever heard.
Ted’s pulse reached hummingbird speed.
The alarmingly muscular Tank turned around and looked straight at the fake foreigner. "Get out of here, kid."
Dhiraj appeared unfazed. "You're looking for Ted. I know where he is."
The thug looked Dhiraj up and down."And why would you help me?"
"That guy is the worst." He maintained the subpar accent. "He's weird and ugly. He deserves whatever's coming to him."
"Thanks a lot, friend-o," Ted said to himself.
Tank nodded and cracked his knuckles. "Alright. Take me to him. I get lost in this place, anyway."
"Oh, it's very confusing." Dhiraj put his hand on the thug’s gargantuan shoulder. "There's an A hall, B hall, and C hall."
As they walked toward the classroom, Ted focused his energy to float five thick biology textbooks off the shelves. He lined them up straight into the path of whoever stood in the doorway.
"I thought I was in A hall, but there's no way to be sure." Tank shook his head. "It's like a freakin' airport."
"They really should have more signs for strangers trying to kill people."
"Now you're speaking my language."
With that, Tank was positioned right in front of the door. As he looked in, he couldn't see Ted, who remained hidden behind the teacher's desk, but he could see the hovering books.
"What the hell?"
Ted let one fly. He poked his head around the desk to see the book zip through the air at an incredible speed. It made a whooshing sound as it flew beside Tank, into the hallway, and slammed into a locker. The metal crunched from the force of the thick textbook, leaving a massive dent.
Ted forgot to breathe as the thug took a confident step into the room.
"I hate books." Tank huffed. "Enough games, kid. I’m gonna tear your arm off."
Ted’s hand shook, and it wasn’t until the other projectiles dipped that he remembered his arsenal wasn’t empty.
The hopeful hero stood up. "Not today, steroids."
He let the other books go like a slingshot. One of them slammed straight into Tank's arm. The next crashed into his chest, sending a cracking sound echoing through the room.
Tank wheezed. "You son of a–"
The next two books packed a double punch, hitting Tank directly in the forehead. He fell backward and landed hard on the ground. Dhiraj walked into the room and waved his hand in front of Tank's face.
"He's out." Thankfully, Dhiraj had returned to his true voice. "Great shooting, Tex."
Ted let out a deep breath. "I was at a bad angle for the first one, but I straightened things out."
"Just in time, too."
"We better get outta here."
Ted stepped out into the hallway. As he did, Yarrick the Russian came charging down the hallway.
Dhiraj reached for his friend. "Ted, watch out!"
Ted couldn’t get a lock on the charging attacker with his powers. He scrunched up his eyes and braced for impact.
Yarrick never even got close. A loud clang echoed through the hallway as the Russian tumbled to the ground beside Tank. Ted and Dhiraj looked up at their savior.
"Sandra?"
Ted hadn't seen her out of her diner attire all that often, but her rainbow butterfly tattoo gave her away. The waitress was holding a giant pipe.
"I suppose we're even, now." Sandra kicked at the thug on the ground.
Ted ran his hand through his hair. "What're you even doing here?"
"I was teaching an acting workshop in the auditorium. Gotta make ends meet with Page's out of commission."
"Nice pipe work." Dhiraj glanced between the two of them. "So, where do we go from here?"
Sandra motioned for them to follow her. "I think they're holding some students hostage in B hall in the gym. They might be trying the diner thing all over again."
Ted nodded and picked up one of the textbooks. "Alright. I like three's odds better than two. Let's go save 'em."
Sandra smiled and led the way.
Dhiraj walked up beside her. "That pipe looks really heavy."
"When you carry trays of food for a living, you get some massive forearms."
As they kept a brisk pace through hall A to hall B, Ted thought about what Nigel and his gang wanted. What would killing all the diner patrons or a group of students do for him, other than make him appear really, really evil? He hoped the answer didn’t connect up with his terrifying nightmares.
The three of them didn't encounter any other thugs between their classroom and the gym. Sandra kicked an abandoned backpack out of the way and opened the door. It was pitch black inside.
Dhiraj squinted. "Why'd they close the windows?"
"I don't know." She waved them forward. "I think they have the hostages in the equipment room."
Ted didn't like the idea of flying blind in there. But he wasn't sure he had any other choice. He and Dhiraj walked past the bleachers and in the direction of the storage room.
"Alright, go slowly and stay behind me." Ted kept his hands in the ready position. "Keep the hallway doors open, it'll at least give us a little–"
The doors shut, blocking out every bit of light.
"Sandra, keep those open."
The silence matched the darkness.
Dhiraj took a hold of Ted’s shirtsleeve. "Sandra?"
Still silence.
Ted tried to open the doors with his mind. He felt them shudder, but something kept them from budging.
He could barely see Dhiraj’s silhouette as his eyes adjusted.
"We could use a night-light."
As Ted reached toward the windows to push them open, a solid object slammed into the back of his head, sending immense pain through his skull. His ears rung loudly as he dropped to his knees.
"Ted!"
He reached for Dhiraj until the pipe cracked him in the head one more time, sending him to the floor unconscious.
28
Natalie noticed an open window on the side of Deputy Daly's apartment.
"It's not breaking and entering if it's unlocked, is it?"
Natalie walked to the window and pulled herself in, nearly slipping on a pile of magazines as soon as she planted her feet on the inside. She closed the window and took a look at her surroundings. The pile she'd entered on wasn't the only one, by far. There were heaps of clothes, stacks of dishes, and two small pyramids of popcorn on the floor. The room had a musty gymnasium smell to it.
"Ted may have his issues, but there's no way he'd live like this."
Natalie remembered her mission. Her hopes that Erica had been dating a drug kingpin had been dashed when she'd discovered Deputy Daly's identity. An underage sex scandal might be enough to get Erica's parents to send her to boarding school, though.
Natalie stepped over the popcorn and magazines to look for obvious clues. There were no lingerie or pictures of Erica and the deputy in plain sight. She spied a computer on the other side of the room. It was already turned on and humming when she sat down at the desk. She clicked the mouse and the desktop came up without any password whatsoever.
"That's too bad." Natalie chuckled to herself. "It would've been fun to guess."
Natalie opened the web browser, which immediately went to and opened Daly's email. She felt a rush.
"No wonder hackers risk their lives doing this."
Natalie typed in Erica's name in the search. Over 100 messages came up.
"Holy crap."
The first email came over a year ago. The last was on the day Erica disappeared from town. Natalie began to read through them. She gathered that Erica and the deputy met at some charity barbecue her parents dragged her to. He lamented the fact that she was 15 at the time, because the two of them really connected.
"Gross. Just gross."
They continued some gag-worthy back-and-forth affection for a few months until the emails turned dirty. Natalie had no problem missing out on a few facts by skipping ahead until the last month of emails. She clicked on one long thread of messages only six days before Erica disappeared. One message from Daly caught her eye.
"I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought you were just playing around when you said you didn't want to. You know I'll love you forever and I would never try to upset you."
Natalie felt her stomach sink. She pushed down the remorse for her enemy and directed her emotions to hate the deputy instead. Erica took three days to respond to the email and the four other messages Daly sent in the meantime.
She read the email aloud. "What you did really put some things in perspective. We can't wait any longer. You and I need to run away now. I'll change my name and we'll do this the right way. Unless you want me to tell your boss what happened."
Natalie shook her head. "This is the girl you’re hung up on, Ted? She's a mess."
She scrolled ahead to the final email between the two of them. Erica asked that they meet late at night at their spot in the woods.
"One last time before we leave this place forever."
Natalie leaned back in the deputy’s chair. If Erica planned on leaving with the deputy for good, why were both of them still in town? Why had he stayed while she left Treasure for a whole month? None of it seemed to make sense, but Natalie took a picture of the email with her phone to study later on.
Just then, a key turned in the front door. Natalie’s heart raced as she closed out of the browser and ran back toward the window. The deputy entered before she could open it again, and dove behind a couch to get out of view. She hoped like hell that he hadn’t heard her.
Natalie clenched her fists. "I'm screwed."
She heard the deputy's footsteps slowly clacking against the hardwood floor. His shoes stopped with only the sound of his breathing left to play one-on-one with Natalie’s nerves.
"Erica? I know it's you, Erica."
Natalie heard the click of a gun as the deputy continued to approach.
He tried to kill her. She ran away because he tried to kill her!
Her throat closed up as she tried to coax her jumbled mind to come up with an escape plan.
"You could have just stayed away. Everything was fine. But now nothing makes sense anymore."
Daly took a step toward the couch.
She growled to herself. "This is not how I die." Natalie looked around for something that could help. Her eyes settled on a ceramic mug sitting on top of a pile of dirty dishes.
She snatched it without making a sound and waited until Daly took a step in the opposite direction.
"Erica! I just want to talk!"
Natalie let out her breath slowly before launching the mug through the air. It flew undetected over the couch, through the rest of the room, past a doorway, and into the kitchen. The mug smashed into a thousand pieces in a tarnished sink.
The deputy ran into the kitchen with his gun leading the way. Natalie didn’t think twice. She put her school-record 50-yard dash to good use and opened the front door before the deputy even had a chance to turn around. She concentrated on her short, steady breaths as her feet pounded hard against the grass of Daly’s yard, then the sidewalk, and eventually the pavement of three blocks away before she was confident he hadn’t followed.
Natalie ducked behind the bushes in somebody's backyard. She waited 15 minutes before she felt comfortable taking out her phone. Natalie looked at the email one more time.
"Whatever happened a month ago, your ex-boyfriend is willing to kill you to cover it up." Natalie looked down at her left hand, only then realizing it was still clenched in a fist. "It's gotta be some kind of blackmail. There's jail time for that, right?"
Natalie felt something unfamiliar in her stomach. It was a burning sort of fear that had never cropped up in a game situation.
She knew her investigation had taken her far beyond just lying to her parents. Now she was breaking into houses and hacking into o
ther people's emails. She knew it wouldn't take long to get to the woods to see if any evidence remained at Daly and Erica's special spot.
"Is it worth it, Nat?"
She pondered the question, looking at the email one last time.
"Whatever she did to Daly to make him so mad, she could do the same thing to Ted. I'm not going to let that happen."
When she didn't hear sirens after a few more minutes, Natalie assessed that she was in the clear. She finally opened her left hand and flexed her fingers as she charted her path to the woods.
29
Sandra put the finishing touches on the knot that tied Ted to the rafters. She was amazed how easy it had been to lift her former customer off the ground to set him up for the slaughter. She’d propped open the gym doors to let her see what she was doing.
"When he wakes up, he's going to break off the backboard and throw it on your head." Dhiraj unsuccessfully fought against his restraints.
Sandra rolled her eyes for the third time in as many minutes. Nigel had never said anything about a sidekick. While it took three or four exercise bands to adequately restrain Ted, Dhiraj only required one.
"If you don't keep quiet, I'm going to stuff one of those unwashed practice jerseys down your throat."
"Ted saved your life. You should be grateful."
The living soul was still unconscious from the metal pipe to the back of the head. It took a fair amount of willpower to land the blow. The old Sandra's memories were swirling with many thoughts of Ted's kindness.
"There are casualties in war." Sandra folded her arms. "Today, it'll be the three of you."
"What war?" Dhiraj pulled so hard against his restraints that his face reddened from the strain. "And there's only two of us here."
"Not for long."
Sandra watched as Ted’s eyes fluttered open.
She touched the back of his neck. "Hey, sleepy head. I thought you'd miss all the fun."
Sandra felt the pain from Ted's eyes. She knew he was her sworn enemy, but he looked a lot more like a melancholy teen than anything else.
"Sandra. I thought we were friends. Why would you do this?"
