The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  Each draw of spring air burns, as I toss my books over the fence and climb to the other side, where I land on a soft bed of fallen leaves. My heart pounds against my ribs, and I look around through the shade of the trees, noticing the gentle breeze, and my face, once hot with anger, cools. The pain inside my head lifts, and I take in a breath of air as a sense of calm leaves a tingle beneath my skin.

  A flutter of leaves draws my attention upward, to the sound of chirping birds in the treetops over the distant blare of the train’s horn.

  “Grab her!” The masculine voice rises above the sound of my lingering sniffles and rushing blood, and I snap my head toward a patch of bushes to the left of me.

  Through the brush and the hanging branches, two boys, much older, judging by their sturdy frames and height, rush toward me. Their clothes are clean and new, their white gym shoes gleaming against the dark forest bed.

  I freeze in place for a beat of a second, before I take off on a dead run.

  “Hey, little girl!” Wicked laughter echoes through the trees. “How 'bout a game of hide and seek?”

  I’ve been warned of the boys who grow up in the trailer park. My mother always told me to stay away from them. “They’re dirty, and they’ll pick you up without thinking twice. I’ll never see you again,” she told me. Only, these boys don’t look dirty. They look clean, in their new clothes and white shoes. Athletic, like they play sports.

  I look up to where the top of the trees extend into the blue sky, for a sign of direction, since I’ve strayed from the worn path. As an object strikes the front of my foot, I trip forward, face-planting the ground while my books crash to the dirt.

  Before I can scramble to my feet, three boys pounce on top of me and slam my wrists to the ground so I can’t move. I scream over their laughter, and when one tries covering my mouth, I bite down into his hand, flinching at crunchy sound it makes.

  “Fucking bitch!” He reaches beside him, and a flash of gray hits the corner of my eye, before an intense pain zaps my temple.

  The boys instantly double to two sets, and I roll my head, trying to bring them back into focus. I can feel myself kicking, their hands scraping across my skin as they tear into me, but it’s like seeing it through the eyes of someone else. The pain is gone. The scene plays out in a haze, a bad dream.

  The boy above me draws back his hand, from where a rock falls from his palm.

  Dizziness has the treetops swirling overhead, and I let out another scream, one that's muffled by the rushing blood in my ears.

  My wrists throb, as they press them harder into the dirt.

  Will I pass out?

  A hand slides across my mouth, and a cold breeze tells me they’ve pulled my pants down.

  “Use your fingers first! They love that shit,” one of them says to the boy positioning himself between my thighs.

  This is it. The day my mother warned me about. I hate myself for thinking her too overprotective. Too worrisome. She was right. Oh, God, please help me. My mother was right.

  Rage burns in my veins, and I push my arm to punch them, but can’t.

  I hate them.

  One of their hands slip from my mouth, and I steal the opportunity to cry out again, in hopes someone might hear me. “Help me! Mama! Mama, please help me!”

  An object flies in like a bird from the left of the boy between my thighs and knocks him to the ground. The other boys release me, and scrambling up and backward against a tree, I watch a boy, dressed dirty, ragged clothes and a torn shirt, take on all three of my attackers.

  Muscles in his arms and shoulders strain as he fights them, pummeling the boys with his fists. I’ve never seen a boy built so much like a man.

  In the scuffle, a gun falls to the ground.

  I crawl toward it and, with shaky hands, pick it up from the brush. I’ve handled a gun before, on the occasions I’ve sat and watched my father clean his. He's let me hold it and taught me to aim and pull the trigger.

  Staring down at the one in my hands brings a rush of anger to the surface. The ache pulses at my eye, where the boy hit me with a rock, and I reach up to touch it, flinching at the sticky wet blood that returns on my fingertips.

  Looking back toward the boys, I lace my finger through the trigger and lift the gun.

  I take a shot.

  The rubbing of my scar snapped me back to the room, and I stared down at my fingertips. No blood painted them, and the wound at my eye had long since healed.

  That was the only time throughout my school years that I’d ever been attacked. The only time I'd needed to be saved. From that day on, I’d built a wall around myself, so tall and so impenetrable, not even I knew if I’d ever be capable of escaping it, someday.

  Jase had up and disappeared one day. I never knew what’d happened to him, but sometime later, I dared the same path through the trailer park in hopes I’d see him. I never did.

  Tucking my hands beneath my cheek, I anchored my gaze on the bedroom door, beyond which the light in the other room flicked off.

  A smarter woman would’ve devised a plan for escape. As drunk as he’d gotten, it’d be easy to walk right out the door.

  I had questions that needed answers, though, so like a fool, I closed my eyes instead.

  22

  Detective Matt Burke

  Burke sat across from Chief Corley, in his office, as his superior examined the pink residue plastered to the e-cig through the plastic bag labeled: ‘evidence’.

  “This is all you found at the site?” Corley asked.

  “I searched that whole, fuck—excuse me, that whole building. That’s all that was left behind.”

  “No body, though, huh?”

  Burke shook his head. “No body.” According to Anderson's report, anyway. All he’d brought back was a used ecig coated in some pink shit that’d been lying around the basement somewhere. Junkies probably camped out in the building, hallucinating dead bodies.

  Corley’s cheeks puffed, as he tossed the bag onto his desk. “Any idea what’s in the tank?”

  Burke trained his gaze on the atomizer of the vape pen, where the pink residue clung to the glass, and scratched the back of his head. “Nah. I’ll have to have the lab check it out. Ain’t never come across it before.”

  He nodded. “Thanks for doing this.”

  Rising up from his chair, Burke nabbed the bag of evidence, but paused. “Hey, uh … I put in for some time off. Just a few days. Wanted to spend some time with Katy. Anyway, Commander Rickson denied it. Said it was on your orders.” He scratched the back of his head again—a nervous habit. “Just wondering if you could—”

  Corley shook his head. “We’re down staff, and I’m afraid I can’t override any requests.”

  Bullshit. The department was down summonses. Money. And the split second of guilt he’d felt, walking into Corley’s office at the beginning of their meeting, had just been stamped with a big fuck you. “I just … I really need some time with my daughter. It’d mean a lot—”

  “I’m sorry.” He stared up at Burke, his dark-rimmed eyes telling him he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Goddamn workaholic. “I can’t.”

  Shifting his jaw, Burke curled his fingers into a fist, and he exited the Chief’s office before he could say or do something stupid.

  Weaving between the cubicles, he made his way back to his desk and slumped into his chair, his hand shielding his eyes as he closed them for a count of ten, trying to diffuse the shit storm swirling inside his head.

  Yeah. He knew they were down staff. Exactly why he didn’t want to take on the slaughterhouse, and good thing Anderson offered, or he’d be a hell of a lot more pissed off than he already was.

  “Hey, you hear about that car crash on the Lodge?” Anderson’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he glanced up to find his partner leaning against his cubicle.

  “No.” Burke couldn’t hide the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.

  “Crazy shit. Car caught the tail-end of a semi and blew up.” He
sipped his coffee. “Thought you might’ve heard some news on what went down.”

  Not bothering to look at him, Burke shook his head, gaze locked on a picture of Katy and him, that'd been taken at a Red Wings game when she was just seven years old.

  “What’s going on?” Anderson said.

  “Asked Corley to override that vacation request.” Burke rubbed a hand down his face and kicked his head back, expelling a breath. “He refused. Just wanted to spend some time with my daughter.”

  “Slave driving bastards.” Anderson shook his head in Burke’s periphery. “You talk to the bank, yet?”

  Tipping back in his chair, Burke dreaded having to recall the conversation he’d had with the mortgage company two days ago. “Said I’m late on too many payments. Nothing they can do for me. Suggested I go to some fucking state emergency website.” He let out a quiet groan and shook his head. “Humiliating.”

  “Ain’t fair sometimes, the way us cops get an unfair shake. Risk our lives every damn day, and for what? Sleepless nights and the risk of foreclosure.” Taking another sip of his coffee, he jerked his head, signaling for Burke to follow. “Come take a ride with me, man. I want to show you something.”

  Scanning the cluster-fuck piled on his desk, Burke rose up from the chair and followed Anderson out of the station, to the patrol car parked in back.

  Once they'd both climbed in, Anderson flipped the ignition and drove out of the parking lot. “How bad do you need the money?” he asked, turning onto the road.

  “Why you asking me this?”

  Lifting a cheek up off the seat, Anderson reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out a wad of cash.

  Eyes wide, Burke stared down at the thick stack of folded bills, like something a damn drug dealer might cart around. “You steal that from evidence?”

  Anderson snorted, shoving the cash back into his pocket. “Sometimes, you just gotta learn how to look the other way.”

  Burke groaned, rubbing his hand across his head. “Man, I’m not going fuckin’ bad cop to make a few bucks. You better watch out for Corley. He’ll be so far up your ass if he sees that shit.” He watched Anderson out the corner of his eye and expelled a breath. “What’d you have to do?”

  “Escort a shipment.” He thumbed at his nose, leaning into the console. “Look, man, you can keep doing this shit, playing the rat race, trying to survive by the rules. Me? I’m going out this weekend and blowing some fucking money on a seventy inch flat-screen I’ve been jackin’ off to in the ads for weeks. There’s a job coming up. An auction.”

  “Yeah? And what are you doing?”

  “All we gotta do is make sure we secure the building and provide protection.”

  “For what? What kind of auction is this?”

  “That’s the beauty of it. You don’t even have to know.” He rested his arm across the top of the seat. “Five thousand a piece, for a few hour’s work.”

  Jesus Christ. Five grand would put him farther ahead than he’d been in five years. Could he look the other way, no matter what, though?

  “When?”

  “Couple weeks.”

  “I don’t know.” Burke shook his head, then turned his attention toward the window, beyond which the homeless lined the streets. Did he want to be one of those poor bastards someday, begging for change, sleeping in Rescue Missions and trying to keep Katy from being fucking molested during the day. Homeless, jobless and blacklisted from every department across the country. Corley had instituted a crackdown, cleaning out the department of shady ass cops known for being on more than one payroll. He could sniff that shit out a mile away, and it’d only be a matter of time before it’d catch up to Anderson, too.

  Yet the alternative was just as bad, losing the only home Katy had ever known and having to switch her to public schools in such a critical year. Yeah, he’d still keep his position, but how fucking humiliating would that be coming in to work every day, and going home to some shithole in the slums every night? She had such hope, and he couldn’t bear to be the bastard who crushed it.

  Still staring through the window, toward everything he didn't want to become, he said, “I’ll think about it.”

  23

  Lucy

  I emerged from the bathroom, but stopped on the threshold, crossing my arms as I stared at Warhawk’s back from across the room. “Do I at least get a name? Your real name?”

  Offloading his guns onto the nightstand, he looked up at me, and that tickle of rejection fluttered inside my stomach. A bottle of whiskey sat beside the small lamp, and he swiped it up, kicked back a sip, hardly flinching as he set the bottle back down. “Hawkins.”

  “Jase?” I blurted before I could stop myself, and by the look on his face, brows furrowed into a tight frown, I guessed I might’ve gotten it right.

  “What’d you say?” He lurched forward, his big body coming at me like a freight train that’d plow me off balance, and I backed myself into the bathroom. “How’d you know my first name?”

  “I … I think I knew you. A long time ago.”

  “Yeah? So, what’s your name?” He stood framed by the bathroom door, preventing me from locking him out, if I planned to.

  I did.

  “Your real name,” he said. “Not the fake strip club shit.”

  Between the Aperture profile and the strip club, I felt like I’d spent most of my adult life hiding my name. A part of me hesitated to tell him, and he took a step closer.

  “Your fucking name.” The threat in his voice reverberated off the walls in the tiled room, and bounced inside my skull.

  “Lucia. My real name is Lucia.”

  “I don’t know any Lucia.”

  “It was a long time ago.” I lifted my gaze to Jase, who kept his distance, eyes narrowed on me. “You’re the boy. The one who saved my life.” I focused on his eyes. The same green eyes, and those lips. How could I forget such succulent, kissable lips on a boy? My stomach fluttered with the memory of wishing he’d press them to mine just so I’d know how they felt.

  “You’re fucking delusional. I don’t save people.”

  “You did. I was … attacked in the woods, and you came out of nowhere, like a shadow in the trees swooping down. You beat the hell out of the boys who hurt me. I remember you.” The memories hit me in a series of scenes, like watching a movie from the past. “I gave you … white lilacs. You stayed with me. Cleaned my wounds and talked to me, until my mother came home and you snuck out of the house. You’re the boy.” When he didn't argue, I continued, “You walked me home every day, for weeks, after that. And I knew why you saved that dog. You told me once.”

  He stared at me across the bathroom, his brows slowly knitting to a frown, and for one brief moment, I thought he’d remembered. The flicker in his eyes carried just the slightest lift of his brow, like a twinge of panic—but only for a second before it disappeared to the ice-cold expression staring back at me. “Get the fuck on the bed.”

  I caught the circle seven tattoo on his arm, as he rubbed a hand down his face—a reminder that, whether he was the boy I remembered, or not, he’d become someone entirely different as a man. A criminal. One I should escape because criminals were bad. They did bad things, and I’d become distantly aware that he’d done bad things in the last week.

  “No,” I challenged, hoping that what I did know of that boy was still somewhere inside the man standing before me.

  Before I could react, he closed the space quickly, and the wall slammed into my back, knocking the breath out of me. “The game you’re playing ends now.”

  “And what about your games, huh? Sneaking into my apartment. Threatening to kill me. What are you waiting for?”

  Holding me against the wall, he seemed to be studying me for a moment. His brows came together, and I wondered if the vacancy in his eyes was caused by the same memory that played through my mind.

  Two shots toward the sky, and I lower the gun, aiming it at the boys who’d attacked me. All three of them scurry away, l
eaving only one.

  The boy who saved me.

  We stare at each other across the space that separates us. His clothes are threadbare, hardly clinging to his body, but his eyes are beautiful, like the trees that surround him where he sits on the ground. Blood trickles from his mouth where they punched him. His eye is swollen and red, and will probably be black tomorrow, just like Jeff Harrison’s when the ball hit him in gym class.

  The red marks and the gash at his lip, when tied to his clothes, and muscles suited for a man, give him a savage appearance. Wild.

  Tears fill my eyes, because it’s then I realize, he’s hurt because of me. Because of what those boys did to me.

  Flashes play behind my eyes of arms reaching, scratching my skin, pulling away my clothes. You say a word, and we’ll come after your mom next, one of the boys whispered in my ear while his palm squeezed my breast.

  I collapse to the ground and sob. I was so stupid to come this way. Stupid to run off from the others, and what if the boy never came? What if he hadn’t heard me scream?

  “Can I have my gun?” His voice tears me from the frightening images playing over and over in my head.

  “They said that … if I tell anyone, they’d hurt my mom.”

  He dabs the back of his hand against his lip and wipes it on his jeans. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  I brush my nose across my sleeve and notice the scars on his arm. “You have scars.”

  He frowns down at me. “No shit. Give me my gun.” As I hand it over to him, he asks, “What’s your name?”

  “Lucy.”

  His eyes are fixed on the cut across my face, and the way his lip peels back like he’s grossed out heats my cheeks with anger.

  “Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

  “Feisty little shit, aren’t you?” His laugh catches me off guard. He doesn’t sound like the boys in my class. His voice is much deeper, and carries the kind of tone that makes a person want to clear their throat because it tickles somewhere in their chest. He sounds like a man. “C’mon. You live in the park?”