Luminous

by Corrina Lawson

  She still didn’t know what it was, but at least she was getting used to glowing sometimes. Despite what she’d told Al, she wasn’t sure if her power had worked in the ER earlier because she was scared of the knife or because she’d been scared for Al.

  She sidestepped the lookout and stopped to listen to the workers. After a minute or two, she shook her head, disappointed. They weren’t talking except to give each other directions on how to load some of the heavier boxes. A very taciturn bunch. The guard did keep glancing over to the warehouse, which only cemented her need to go inside and look around.

  She walked into the darkness of the cavernous place and toward a thin strip of light coming from a room on the far right side.

  The concrete of the warehouse floor was colder than outside. She fought a shiver. Being naked had its drawbacks. Too bad her ability didn’t affect clothing, like in the superhero stories.

  The voices became clearer and more distinct as she slipped past the packed cases and made it to the open door. For a moment, she hid behind one of the packing crates until she reminded herself that, light or not, they would never see her. Some habits died hard.

  She walked until she could see right into the room. Two people were talking. One was a tall, well-built man wearing jeans and a work shirt.

  The second one was Jill.

  From his hiding place, Al cursed the workers, the lookout with the machine gun and Noir, though not necessarily in that order. Did she think he didn’t know she’d slipped by him?

  He’d watched the lookout turn at something he heard. Al had an advantage over the lookout. He knew there was an invisible person walking around. But Noir had no idea what she was getting into. There could be more guards inside.

  Or maybe she knew but she didn’t give a damn. Well, he did.

  He crept to the edge of the loading dock and ran to a closer dock in a crouch. He stopped for a moment to collect his breath. So far, so good. He felt down to his ankle and double-checked that his second weapon was ready and available. Then he felt in his back pocket for his switchblade. Also there. Excellent.

  Cops weren’t supposed to be this well-armed. Screw that. He knew plenty who carried automatic rifles in their cars. In fact, there was a shotgun in the trunk of his car, but Al hadn’t bothered to bring that. Hard to hide when running with a shotgun.

  He heard footsteps. He used those as the signal to get even closer, running in a crouch again. Now he was just one dock away from the truck being loaded.

  He stayed low, trying to go by sound. No sense sticking his head up and getting it shot off. The footsteps stopped. He heard a woman’s voice.

  “Is all ready?” she asked.

  “Done,” was the reply.

  “Great.”

  Al heard the crinkling of paper.

  “Here is your pay,” the woman said.

  “Damn, there’s something that looks like blood on this bill,” said one.

  Money from the bank, Al thought. My God, could this woman be Jill? That would be one lucky break. Now, just where the hell was Noir? Had she been hurt inside or was she still watching and waiting for something?

  “You want the cash or not?” the woman snapped.

  “Lewis, get over it. You’ve been paid. Now leave.”

  “Right,” the first man said.

  “Now, give me the truck keys and—”

  The woman’s voice was cut off by a scream. Al looked over the edge of the concrete loading dock.

  The woman was flailing around, reaching for something around her neck. Something invisible.

  Noir.

  Jill—she must be the woman—jammed her foot down on the concrete. No, not the concrete because the foot stopped about an inch from the floor.

  “Get off, you freak,” Jill screamed, and fell forward.

  Al aimed his gun. He didn’t want to fire without knowing where Noir was. He could be aiming directly at Jill and still hit Noir.

  Dammit, get out of there!

  “What the hell is wrong with you, lady?” the lookout yelled.

  “Give me that!” Jill grabbed the machine gun from the lookout, turned and started firing all around her. The workers hit the deck.

  Al heard a muffled cry of pain and saw a splash of blood off to the right, near the entrance to the warehouse. Noir! He fired at Jill, three shots in quick succession. Jill ducked inside the trailer. Al couldn’t tell if he’d hit her. Right now, he didn’t care. Noir was more important.

  He ran forward, firing at the truck. The lookout and the other men jumped inside the cab as the rig started pulling out. He was going to lose them unless he ran back to his car and started in hot pursuit.

  And leave Noir hurt? Screw that.

  He leapt up to the loading dock, looking in the area where he’d seen the splash of blood. “Noir? Where the hell are you?”

  “Here.”

  The voice was a harsh whisper. It was enough for him to find her. As he drew closer to the wall, he saw a trail of dark crimson.

  He knelt down. “Where are you shot?”

  “Leg,” her voice rasped out.

  He took off his tie. “Guide my hand to it.”

  He felt the fingers close around his wrist. He let her guide his hand to the spot. He wrapped his tie around what he sensed was the origin of the blood. “Where is this on your leg?”

  “Calf, fleshy part,” she whispered.

  “Is that better?”

  “Yeah.”

  He felt up her leg until he reached her knee. Then he curled his other hand around her torso and lifted her up. She was surprisingly light. He felt her head fall against his shoulder. “Hang on. I’m taking you to Leslie.”

  “No! We have to go after Jill.”

  “We’re outnumbered and you’re injured. I’m calling this in as soon as I get to the car.”

  “Oh.” He felt her shiver.

  He rushed to the car, praying that all the guards had gone with the truck. They had to get out of here fast, especially if someone in the warehouse came after them. As he ran, he felt the edges of Noir’s breast under his hand. He swallowed, not sure whether to apologize or not mention it. For all he knew, she’d passed out. He looked down to her leg. His tie was blood-soaked but nothing was seeping out. Maybe she was lucky. Maybe it had just hit muscle.

  He set her in the passenger seat, grabbed the cape from the backseat and tossed it over her. Keeping her warm would prevent shock and allow him to see the outline of her body. He sped around to the driver’s side, turned on the ignition, found her injured leg and propped it up on his knee.

  Then he called the truck in as a hot pursuit, asking for a BOLO, warning that the suspects were armed and dangerous. He’d gotten the license plate, at least. Maybe they’d get lucky. Maybe some smart patrol officer would spot the vehicle and pull it over. Maybe when the responding officers arrived on-scene, they’d find someone in the warehouse to question.

  He doubted it. But maybe. For now, he had to reach the hospital.

  He pulled out, tires squealing.

  “Hang tight. You’re going to get to see Leslie again, sooner than we both expected.”

  “No!”

  A hand gripped his elbow.

  “What?”

  “You bring me to hospital and all of a sudden, I’m a medical curiosity. I’m fucked.”

  She had a point. “Better fucked than bleeding to death.”

  “No! If you take me to a hospital, I’ll be terrified. I might start glowing again. Leslie won’t be able to treat me, and I’ll be revealed as a freak for sure.”

  He frowned. That would be a serious problem. “How come you’re not glowing now? You’ve been shot.”

  “I’m familiar with pain. Not the first time I’ve been bleeding all over the place. I’m not terrified. What I am is pissed that Jill got away.”

  He grunted. “I can’t have you bleeding to death.”

  “It’s not that bad. Can’t you bandage it up at your place? You could call Leslie. Ha
ve him walk you through it.” He heard her take a deep breath. It had a hiss of pain in it. “Please, Al.”

  He turned left at the next street, half his mind on listening to the police chatter on his radio, half debating her plea.

  He pounded the steering wheel out of frustration. She was right. Leslie might be safe, but the hospital could be dangerous for her. He saw a drugstore on the next block and pulled in.

  “Fuck.” He looked at her. “Stay here. I’m getting what we need to fix you up. Keep your leg elevated. Brace it on the steering wheel.”

  “Thanks, Al.”

  “How about ‘sorry, Al’? I told you to leave the cop stuff to me.”

  There was no answer, but he did feel her put her foot on the steering wheel. He rushed inside, grabbed sterile bandages, medical tape, hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic cream and a six-pack of Pepsi as a bribe for Leslie. Too bad the drugstore didn’t carry whiskey. Not for her. He was the one who needed the drink after tonight.

  He dumped the bag in the back, near her hat, and pulled out of the store. Noir’s ankle settled on his leg again.

  “Al?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sorry.”

  “If you’re sorry, tell me one thing.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Why did you glow in the ER if you don’t glow when you’re shot?”

  There was a long pause. He wished he could read her facial expression.

  “I was terrified for you, Al. I wanted to protect you. I think that’s what triggered it.”

  Of all the answers she could’ve given, he didn’t expect that one. “Lucky me.” He smiled.

  Chapter Five

  Noir wasn’t sure what was worse. That she’d been shot, that Jill had gotten away, or that Al was pissed off at her.

  The last mattered a hell of a lot more than she’d expected when she’d waltzed into his apartment a few hours ago and blithely told him that she could help him catch Jack and Jill.

  Some help I was.

  The gunshot wound throbbed, but it didn’t hurt as much as she thought being shot should hurt. Maybe she was immune to pain after all of Jill’s experiments. God, she hoped not. She didn’t want to be immune to pain. Pain meant she was normal.

  It was more hopeful to think that she wasn’t hurt badly.

  Yes, she’d go with that line of thinking.

  The car stopped so fast that she had to brace herself against the dashboard to keep from tumbling forward. “Watch it,” she said.

  “Sorry,” Al mumbled as he parked the car.

  He gathered up the bag from the drugstore, looped it over his forearm and then grabbed her clothes. He dumped the clothes in her lap. “Hold these.”

  “Sure.”

  He lifted her up, seemingly without effort again. “Keep the cloak over the leg wound.”

  “Sure.” She let her head rest against his shoulder, as she had earlier. He had strong shoulders. “You’re carrying me up three flights?”

  “Got a problem with that?” he growled.

  “Um, no.” She wrapped her hands around his neck. Cranky Al didn’t seem like a good guy to have an argument with, especially with her leg hurting. Still, despite the pain, it felt good to be carried by him. She was very conscious of the corded muscles of his arms and his fingers on the side of her breast. True to his boast, Al carried her up the steps easily. On the second floor, a man poked his head out of his door, presumably alerted by Al’s heavy footsteps.

  “Got a problem?” Al snarled again, this time at his neighbor.

  “No, sir.” The neighbor shut the door.

  Noir smiled.

  Al set her down momentarily to get out his keys and open his apartment door. He picked her back up, shutting the door behind him with his foot. But instead of setting her down on the couch, as she thought he would, he walked down the hallway and laid her on the bed in his bedroom.

  His bedroom. She realized she wouldn’t mind being here for reasons other than being shot.

  He balled up his comforter at the foot of the bed. “Put your leg up on this.”

  “Okay.” She let her head fall back on the pillow. So soft. “You have good pillows.”

  “Nice to know.” Al opened the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He put a towel under her leg, right under where he had tied off the wound. “Hold steady. I’m going to clean off this mess and then bandage you up. It’s going to sting like hell.”

  She closed her eyes. “Whatever.”

  The tie stuck when coming off. She winced as Al had to use more force to separate the cloth from the dried blood. She had to take a deep breath and let it out carefully to cure her lightheadedness.

  His hands were gentler than she expected as they cleaned out her now-exposed wound. It burned, and she couldn’t help moaning. Hah, she wasn’t immune to pain as she’d feared. On this one thing, she was normal. Too bad she’d had to get shot to know that for sure.

  Something cold splashed on her skin.

  “Argh.” She winced and instinctively tried to move her leg, but Al had an iron grip on her ankle.

  “I need to see where you are. Stay put.”

  She nodded, her teeth still gritted. “How’s it look?” She was warm, sweaty, and her heartbeat hammered against her chest. Since her escape, she’d been so emotionally numb, as if she were looking at life instead of being alive. She sure as hell was alive now.

  “I got a good look when the peroxide bubbled up. It could be worse. From the outline of the bubbles, I’m guessing the bullet caught the back edge of your calf rather than going through the leg. But I don’t know whether it needs stitches. Doesn’t matter, since we’ll have to do without because I can’t see you well enough to try that. You might have a scar, though.”

  She laughed. “It’s not as if anyone could see it.”

  He nodded. “True enough.”

  Al wiped off the peroxide and slathered something cold on her leg. She bit her lip.

  “Think you put enough antibiotic cream on that?”

  “Think you could just shut up and let me do something that really should be done in a hospital?”

  Right. Cranky Al. No arguing, especially since that lightheaded feeling was back. She took a deep breath and tried to think of something else. Anything else.

  “Jill got away.”

  “Yeah, I saw her jumping into the trailer as it pulled out. But we’ve got a lead now. You were right to want to look for her tonight.”

  “Mm…” She was going to say something, but now Al was wrapping the bandage tight around her and it burned too much for her to talk. Still, those hands on her felt good and almost made up for the pain. She opened her eyes to look at what he was doing.

  She saw a mound of bloody sterile pads on the floor beside Al, next to a half-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide. There was another sterile bandage on her leg. Al had wrapped it with gauze and was now applying medical tape to keep it in place.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Looks professional.”

  He turned his head toward her. “Not bad, I guess. I took some EMT training a couple of years ago because it felt useless to be a first responder who had to wait to help people. But a real doctor should look at this. It could get infected.”

  She bet a real doctor’s hands wouldn’t feel this good on her. He gathered up the bloody bandages and his ruined tie. “Be right back.”

  “I’ll be here,” she said.

  But he was gone for so long that she was almost asleep when he returned.

  “Noir?” he whispered.

  “Yeah?” She blinked.

  “You should take these,” he said.

  She reached for the glass of water and the Tylenol capsules and swallowed them quickly. She hadn’t realized how dry her throat had been before now.

  “Did you find the truck?” she asked.

  He scowled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Not yet. Working on it. That’s what took me so long. I made some calls.”

  She took his hand. He looked
so damn tired and it was mostly her fault. “Al? Are you okay?”

  He sat next to her. “You should have stayed in the damn car.”

  “I’m not under your command.” She drew his hand up to her face and kissed it. She was exhausted and she hurt all over, but she suddenly wished she could do more than kiss his hand. He had saved her life tonight. He’d carried her up the steps.

  And they said there were no more heroes.

  “No, you’re not. It was more my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you there.”

  “I’d have gone on my own and you wouldn’t have been there to back me up.” He was right. She’d been dumb to attack Jill. She should have been smart and stowed away in the truck. That would have taken her right to Jill’s new lab. Then they could’ve rescued the missing bank teller and taken down the whole operation. But instead, she’d gone ballistic and attacked Jill. Next time she needed a better plan than trying to strangle the woman.

  “What’s your name?” Al asked.

  “I told you. Noir.”

  “Your given name. If we’re going to be partners, I want to know your name.”

  Partners? “What do you mean, partners?”

  “Obviously, I can’t let you go out there and play cop by yourself, rookie.” He smiled. “So what’s your name?”

  “You won’t believe me when I tell you.”

  “I’ll believe you.” His fingers outlined her chin. She almost moaned again but not from pain. Al’s touch was definitely setting her off. “Is your name Moon Unit Zappa or something?”

  She took a deep breath. “Al, I don’t remember my name.”

  “I’m sorry.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “But, you know, that’s something I can help you with when this is over.”

  “What do you mean?” she whispered. How could he help her memory come back?

  “I’m a cop. Part of my job is finding missing people. You’ve been found. We just have to match you up with who was lost.”