“Jesus…” he muttered, catching the thing with his hands. “What the…”
He turned it around, a look of profound disgust on his face. It was a sloppily made dummy, stuffed with… his new Tshirts??
“I WILL KILL HER!!” he roared and lunged for the staircase, only to drop senseless into Rob’s arms the next moment as he stunned Marco with a quick blow from behind.
He tightened his hold on Marco’s heavy body and growled quietly, struggling to contain his anger.
“Freakin’ teenagers,” he grated. “I swear, next time in the training hall I’m gonna beat the crap out of that girl…”
He dragged Marco into the room, Brad joining him silently, picking up Marco’s legs and helping Rob to dump him onto the bed.
“As if it wasn’t enough that she keeps showing up in the streets at night, I now have to deal with their stupid wars! What’s wrong with this girl??” Rob grumbled, watching his brother take the dummy off the hook.
Brad turned it in his hands, studying it with revulsion. On the front, formed out of three different pieces of clothing, was a single word: PIG.
“I think he’s right about the bullying,” Brad said at last, shaking his head.
Rob gave him a doubtful look, then glanced at the dummy like it was a poisonous snake.
“I am so done with this shit,” he stated, and with that, he left the room together with his brother, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 9
Pain finished her cheesecake and lay back with a contented sigh, a book open in her lap. The day wasn’t perfect anymore, but at least it was better now that she had got some revenge. If Marco thought he was the only one capable of disgusting pranks, he was wrong. She was the one who had grown up with a bunch of thugs and had learned how to stand up for herself. And he probably was raised by a pack of wolves, she thought caustically.
The door creaked as Jane came in, and Pain raised her eyes.
“Wow, he really got to you if you decided to pig out,” Jane said, whistling at the sight of all the food stacked on the vanity.
Pain gave her a wry look.
“I’m celebrating,” she answered simply, smiling to herself as she remembered that this morning she really did pig out in some way. “Want some cake?”
With a grimace, Jane dragged herself to her bed and collapsed onto it.
“No, thanks. I’m so full, I think I’m gonna explode,” she pointed a finger at her sister. “Being a teenager sucks. You’re always either too hungry or too full,” she complained and lay back on her pillow.
Pain only smirked, mentally agreeing with her sister. Then Jane’s bloodied knuckles caught her attention.
“What’s with the blood?” she enquired in a steely voice.
Jane waved her hand lazily.
“Some rookie tried to slap me.”
“Which one?”
“It doesn’t mat- ”
“Which one??” Pain pressed, anger seeping into her voice.
Jane stirred on her bed uncomfortably.
“Why, so you can break his arm in four places?” she asked irritably.
“Yes. His name, Jane,” Pain demanded in a flat tone, “You can give it to me now, or I can find it out on my own, and then it’ll be his leg broken in ten places.”
Jane sat up straight, exhaling angrily.
“It won’t change anything! Relax. I took care of it, okay??”
She stared into Pain’s eyes for a long, strained minute, and Pain finally let her book drop to her stomach and pointed at her.
“You’d better mean it, or you know what will happen. Let one of them get away with it, and they’ll never leave you alone. One day they slap your ass, next day they follow you into a dark alley and… ”
“I know,” Jane interrupted, before she got further into that story again, “You got away and they learned their lesson. It won’t happen again, and you know it.”
Pain opened her mouth, but Jane added quickly, “And I’ll tell you if it gets serious, I promise.”
For some reason, Pain didn’t feel like pressing her sister this time. She breathed out, giving up. Jane quickly used the silence to change the subject.
“What did you do? To Marco, I mean.”
It took a minute for Pain to calm down and decide how much she should tell her sister.
“Broke into his room,” she answered at last, “Left him a surprise in the doorway…”
Jane sat up straight again, her eyes wide.
“The door dummy prank? Really??” she asked with a doubtful look. “Have you seen that guy? I really doubt that’s enough to scare him.”
“Oh, I didn’t want to scare him…” Pain drawled, “Just wait till you see him in the training hall today. I bet he’s freaking out right now.” She gave her sister a sly look. “Probably even crying…”
Jane rolled her eyes, then grabbed her laptop from the vanity and flopped back on her bed.
A few hours passed in a blur of book and web pages, before they headed to the training hall. The room was packed this time of day, but Pain was surprised not to find Marco. Her need to gloat was too strong to let her focus, and she was distracted as she practiced with Jane, secretly hoping that Marco would show up.
However, after an hour of heated sparring she forgot all about him, focusing only on parrying Jane’s blows. That was when she was suddenly pulled backward, thrown off balance, and into a corner. She regrouped quickly, whirling around to see Marco’s dark eyes staring down at her, inches from her face.
“You broke into my room!” he grated, sizzling, “That was…” his hands balled into fists as he fought with his emotions, “That was too low even for you.” He stabbed his finger into her chest as he finally found the right words. “I spent my last money on those shirts!”
She only snorted, slapping away his hand. Somewhere deep inside she felt a twinge of guilt poke at her heart, but she forced it down. He was nothing but trouble for her. He had no respect for anyone, and he didn’t deserve to be treated nicely.
When his raised eyebrows told her that he expected a reply, she made an innocent face.
“I’m so sorry you spent your last money on offensive Tshirts!” she chirped with fake concern, making him clench his teeth, then added in a hard voice, “but I don’t give a shit what you think of me.”
She turned away, acting as if she was returning to practice, but her mind was doing angry somersaults.
“Fine! I’ll just follow your example then,” he retorted.
“That’s highly unlikely, since I usually lock my room,” she threw back at him over her shoulder, but then she heard him chuckle and turned around.
“Good luck with that!” Marco raised his voice over the noise in the room. “Like I don’t know how to pick a lock!” he yelled, and then cringed as the hall suddenly went quiet at that exact moment, and everyone stared at him. Marco swore quietly.
Pain glanced quickly at her sister before returning her gaze to Marco. Jane was watching them with a wary frown.
“You’re bluffing,” Pain retorted, stepping closer and tipping her head back to look him in the eyes.
Slowly, his eyebrows rose as he brought his hand from behind his back, holding out something white and lacy.
“Really?” he teased, “Then how do I happen to have this?”
But Pain wasn’t looking at him anymore. She stared in disbelief and shock at her favorite bra as it dangled from his fingers, dancing cheerfully in the air as he shook his hand.
“How…” she gasped, “Give it back!”
She lunged at him, hoping to hide it before anyone saw their angry exchange, but she could already hear the other fighters chuckling.
“Why??” Marco enquired in a high-pitched tone. “I find it quite lovely! Maybe I’ll keep it!”
He backed away from her with wide, excited eyes. Pain growled under her breath, not wanting to make a scene and attract even more attention by chasing him around the hall.
“I always
knew your boobs were an optical illusion,” Marco gloated, “but this! This is proof!”
“You pervert, you couldn’t just ruin my clothes or something, you had to steal my lingerie!” she muttered, her tone murderous as she stepped closer, trying to tune out the laughter all around her.
Marco made a thoughtful face and scratched his stubbly chin.
“You see, ruining your stuff is no fun because I know you’ll just go and replace it,” he answered, his tone didactic, “But THIS…!”
He threw up his hand, brandishing the bra as if it was Excalibur, no less. Pain pressed her palm to her face, exhaling heavily as the hall erupted with happy howling.
“This will be an eternal symbol of justice!” he announced in a solemn voice, and the fighters exploded into another fit of laughter, “Every time you as much as look at me funny, I will dig this up…” he paused dramatically, “…and put it on.”
He finished in a velvety voice, and Pain stiffened in horror. Slowly, she lowered her hand and opened her eyes to look at him again. Marco was pulling at the straps, measuring them up.
“You’re not gonna…” she hissed, watching in slow motion as he put his arms through the straps and stretched the delicate piece of clothing around his big barrel of a chest.
“Oh, I’m gonna,” he replied, nodding with excitement.
He fastened the bra over his black T-shirt, then backed off a few steps to the center of the hall, smiling broadly at the crowd of Ghosts going wild around them, howling and booing and laughing.
“I’m so pretty!” he squealed, making Pain shudder. “Look at me!”
He spun around like a little girl, with one foot in the air.
Pain’s vision blurred as she lunged at him… only to be held back by Jane.
“Stop!” Jane muttered feverishly into her ear, “Don’t react. It’s what he’s counting on.”
Pain let out a hissing breath, but realized Jane was right. She wouldn’t watch this clown, and she wouldn’t show that she cared what he was doing. Katana in hand, she stalked toward the exit, resolving to set up a bear trap in her room next thing in the morning. Jane hurried after her, followed by a chorus of laughter.
The last thing the sisters saw was Marco doing a Marilyn Monroe impression as he floated high up in the air. He even sang “Happy birthday, Mr. President” in his bass voice. Pain couldn’t connect the white bra and Marilyn Monroe in her mind, but she was sure as hell she was going to throw up once she got to her room.
“You think he stole some of mine, too?” Jane asked gingerly, breaking the silence as they came out of the elevator on their floor.
Pain turned her head to her slowly. Her deadly stare was answer enough. Jane just shrugged, and watched her sister rummage in her pockets for the key. She finally found it and threw the door open—
and jumped back as a black figure leaped at them from the inside.
“Fuck!!” Pain yelled before she could stop herself, her nerves already on edge.
She and Jane froze by the wall across from the door, eyeing the swinging black figure in bewilderment. A few seconds passed before Pain kicked herself into motion and stepped to the door, grabbing the dummy and tearing it off the hook. It was dressed in a huge black T-shirt, which somehow made it seem three times bigger.
Jane watched in confusion as her sister stormed into the room, grabbed something from a drawer and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she opened the window and climbed outside with the dummy under her arm. Jane stayed in the room, watching as Pain landed roughly and dropped the dummy to the ground. Muttering something incoherent, but almost certainly offensive, she crouched and rummaged in her pockets.
“What are you doing??” Jane called, as Pain’s fingers finally closed around the matchbox she had taken from the room.
“A bonfire,” she muttered to herself, bringing the burning match carefully to the cloth, “A big, stinky bonfire.”
She watched the fire spread over the dummy, quickly devouring the thin material and licking at the word Pig under it. Absentmindedly, she tugged at the shirt’s collar where it had creased when the dummy fell to the ground. There was some symbol on the inside, white on black and about an inch across. She paused, thoughtful. The Tshirts the supply room provided didn’t have any symbols on them: they were plain black. This one must have been what Marco was wearing when they found him. She stared at it for a few seconds, mesmerized, as the cogs whirled in her head, trying to connect it with something she had already seen once.
She jumped to her feet and rolled the dummy over, putting out the fire. Then she crouched over it again and peered at the collar. Jane was suddenly at her side, her eyes full of questions, but Pain hunched over the dummy, blocking it from Jane’s sight and straightening the shirt to cover the symbol of an eagle on it.
“What is it?” Jane asked at last, tired of waiting.
“Nothing,” Pain snapped, standing up and picking the dummy off the ground.
Jane grimaced ironically.
“Nothing?” she mocked, “What? You like it so much, you decided to keep it?”
“I just came up with a better idea,” Pain shrugged.
She rose into the air, returning to her room. Once inside, she quickly tore off the collar, hid it in her pocket, and shoved the dummy under her bed. Then she grabbed her cell phone and headed for the door. Belatedly, she realized that Jane was watching her with suspicion, so she turned back to her.
“We don’t have any rope in here, do we?” she asked.
Jane’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead.
“No, why?”
“That’s what I thought. I need to go get some. See ya.”
With that, she slipped outside, searching for Rooney’s number in her phone as she did so. She needed information, and she knew that Kenji wouldn’t give it to her, however much she offered to pay. But Rooney? He was young and new, and needed allies, just like everyone else at the Headquarters. He would listen and help her if she explained her reasons. With his help she wouldn’t even need to step outside to find out where Marco had really come from.
And she was sure as hell certain that Michael already knew everything.
Chapter 10
It had been two weeks since Marco’s Great Bra Revolution, and with Peter’s absence, no one was able to stop the war. Both Pain and Marco paid frequent visits to Doc, and sported new bandages and scars almost every day. For every chair broken on his head, Marco broke one or two of Pain’s fingers. And for every broken finger, she played another prank on him, which had evolved from just nasty to sadistic as time had passed.
The other fighters didn’t seem to mind, except for a couple of times when Pain’s pranks had got out of control and damaged some of the others along with Marco. Otherwise, they enjoyed their part in the conflict, which consisted of watching the two bully each other, and laughing at their misfortunes. So far, only the dummy had been severely harmed. It had been torn to pieces and thrown out by Marco, after it nearly gave him a heart attack hanging outside his window, burnt and smeared with ketchup.
Broken fingers, noses, teeth, and knockouts didn’t count. In fact, the knockouts probably saved them both from more broken bones. Rob had handed off his part in the whole thing to Skull, who had embraced it with his own kind of enthusiasm and resolved every conflict by dragging Pain’s and Marco’s senseless bodies to the infirmary, where they stayed until the following day, tied to their beds.
Today, they were in the training hall practicing. To the surprise of the others, Marco never tried to avoid Pain there. On the contrary, he used the time as a chance to strike at her every now and then. One time he accidentally hit Jane instead, and Pain dislocated his shoulder before he had even realized what happened, and would have broken it if Rob hadn’t interfered. He and Brad were the only ones who practiced with Marco, since the others avoided him, because of his attitude toward Pain.
Marco was sat on a bench, resting when the double doors flew open, and Peter strode in, together with Sku
ll. The giant’s eyes stabbed into Marco from across the big room. Crap. Marco looked away, trying to seem nonchalant, but secretly glad they hadn’t come in five minutes earlier, when he had “accidentally” hit Pain in the head. She still seemed to be having trouble coordinating, he noted, covering his smile with a hand.
“Pain!” Peter called out, his voice calm but with a steely edge to it, making her pause and turn around, “Switch partners! Jane should practice with Brad more often.”
Pain glanced at Marco with her eyebrows raised, then back to Peter.
“You want me to spar with him?”
“Yes,” Peter snapped, shooting a quick glance at Skull, who looked troubled. Marco’s stomach churned restlessly with worry: it was rare that he saw any emotions on Skull’s face. Was he expecting something bad?..
“Okay…” he heard Pain answer.
She shrugged, stepping back to give Jane, Brad, and their swords some space. Marco inhaled deeply, got up, and reached for his short sword, which had finally been returned a week ago.
“Hand-to-hand,” Peter objected right away.
Pain unbuckled the katana and laid it down on the bench beside Marco’s sword, frowning in Peter’s direction. The other fighters now paused and turned to watch Pain and Marco circle each other in the center of the room.
“Continue your practice!” Peter barked, startling a few of them.
There was no doubt now that he was in a bad mood. He obviously hadn’t been happy to learn what they’d been up to when he returned from his trip. But even with Peter watching them, it wasn’t practice that Marco had in mind. It was retaliation. He suspected that she would aim to make a mess of his face, so that everybody would see the results for days and know she was the one who did it, but Marco wasn’t going to let that happen. His goal was to inflict a heavy knockout.
He let her attack first, and as expected, she aimed for his head, but he caught her foot and jerked her to the side, trying to catch her in a headlock. She slipped out of his grasp at the last moment and backed off, but she wasn’t fast enough, as he managed to grab her jacket with his left hand. The next moment she jerked away with so much force that the leathery material broke, but he still managed to catch her in the eye with a right cross. It wasn’t a clean blow, but her eyebrow split, and he knew that she would only have one eye to keep track of his movements soon enough. Then he would take her down with a hook.
Sky Ghosts: Marco (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1.5) Page 5
