“Nice kick,” I said, impressed.
“I used to play soccer in my day,” she replied, her voice shaking.
I wondered how long ago “her day” was.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I—”
“Hey, you! Leave her alone!” Two large guys climbed out of an oversized truck.
“Get away from her.” The driver reached into the bed of the truck and pulled out a tire iron longer than my arm.
“I’m getting tired of you punks running around my city,” the other said. They started walking toward the intersection.
I figured the woman would be safe now. The two dudes didn’t look up to mischief.
“Gotta go.” I turned and ran down the street.
“Thank you!” The woman’s voice followed me down the street.
I turned a corner three blocks down and stopped, peeking back around. The two men stood protectively around the woman as a police car pulled up to the scene. The officer hopped out of the vehicle, pulling his service pistol. The two men motioned to the thugs scattered around the car and then pointed in my direction. With the pistol leveled at the thugs, the policeman spoke into the radio clipped at the shoulder, his eyes down the street where I stood. I sighed and turned back into the alley, disappearing into the night.
Chapter 8
7:20 a.m.
I don’t know what time I made it home. One moment I was standing over my bed, contemplating if I had the energy to change clothes and the next, I was awakened by my mom shaking my shoulder.
“You are an evil woman,” I mumbled sleepily.
“You love me anyways,” she replied. “Why in the world did you go to bed dressed?”
“What?” I asked confused. I lifted my head from the nest of pillows. Apparently, tiredness from the previous night’s foray into the city had won out against undressing. Oops.
I glanced around the room, my heartbeat rising a bit. Luckily the ski mask lay off to the side of the room where I had dropped it among a pile of other clutter.
“Did you sneak out?” she asked, glancing towards the open window.
“What? No.” I made a face. “You know I like my sleep too much for that.” I rolled to sit up and clear the sleep from my eyes.
“Mhmm,” she hummed. “Where’s your alarm clock?” She stood over my bed with arms crossed.
“Broke.” I glanced at the empty nightstand. “I knocked it over a couple nights ago.”
“Mhmm.”
I rubbed my face. “What is this, an interrogation?” I ran a hand down the side of my face and around to the back of my neck, shifting my shirt in the process.
“What’s that?” Mom asked, hooking a finger in my shirt collar and pulling it to the side. “Where did you get that?” Her tone held an odd mixture of concern and suspicion.
“Get what.” I twisted my head, trying in vain to see my neck.
“Don’t play dumb,” she scolded. “This bruise.” She looked at it closer. “Please tell me you’re not a part of all this stuff going on lately, Conor.” There was a definite shift towards a concerned tone in her voice.
“What stuff, Mom? I got that the other night,” I lied. “When I broke the clock. I rolled too far in my sleep and fell out of bed.” Truth told, I got that bruise last night—along with many others thankfully hidden under clothing. After rescuing the lady in her car, I was involved in three more fights. A few of the crazies running around had gotten in some lucky blows as the night wore on and I started to tire. That particular one on my neck was the aftermath of a wrench smacked against my skin.
“Why didn’t you tell anybody?” she asked.
“It’s just a bruise, Mom. It’s not like I was shot or anything,” I laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
I sighed.
She poked the bruise with a finger. “It looks fresh.”
“Hmm.” I figured my best defense was silence.
She put her hands on both cheeks and pulled my face to look her in her hazel eyes. “You’d tell me if you were mixed up in something you shouldn’t be, wouldn’t you, Conor.”
At some point in my sociology class, my teacher had covered lying, including the signs experts used to tell if somebody was indeed not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. One was the reflex that many had to drop their eyes to the left when they lied. I willed my eyes to stay on hers. “Yeah, of course, Mom.”
She nodded. “Okay, I love you.”
Yay sociology teacher! Whatever her name was. I couldn’t remember at that moment.
“Love you, too, Mom,” I said. “Awkward.”
She let me go and stepped out. “Hurry and get dressed, you don’t have much time. I’ll buy you a new alarm clock today.”
I blew out a breath and tried to will my tense muscles to relax. How could I have been so stupid to crawl into bed without changing? Or without setting an alarm on my phone to make sure I woke up before my mom came looking for me? I blamed weariness instead of stupidity, but it was probably a combination of both.
One thing I was sure of was that I had to be more careful at night. Even though I had made that promise to her, Mom would be suspicious and check on me for sure. I bit back a swear. That meant I would probably have to take a few nights off just to make sure she didn’t catch me out while her suspicions were high.
I punched the bed in frustration. I had to be out there. Things were getting worse. Sure, I could back off and let the police handle things, but they hadn’t done a stellar job of that the past few nights.
In a moment of certainty, I decided I’d wait to decide. If Mom acted funny around bedtime, I’d stay in and hope I’d be able to sleep.
My jaw cracked as a huge yawn escaped. At that moment, I probably could fall back asleep and be dead to the world for at least a week. That’s what it felt like, anyway. Instead, I crawled out of bed and dressed before heading down the hall. No sense in making Mom come back in to drag me out by my ears.
The T.V. was on in the family room and the twin dorks were in the kitchen arguing about who was the “baddest” video game character of all time. Guess which direction I headed. I turned to the family room—half to avoid my lovely siblings, half hoping my dad would be there again. He wasn’t.
I grabbed the remote and sat on the couch. I flipped the channel from Spongebob to local news. The noise of the argument in the kitchen rose, so I turned the volume up.
“...a record number of 9-1-1 calls were recorded,” the fake looking reporter was saying. “Many are concerned by the apparent lack of police presence sufficient to deal with the escalating crime. Salt Lake City Police Chief Max Bouwman felt inclined to disagree.”
The video cut to a tall man with an impressive gray mustache standing outside the police station surrounded by reporters pointing microphones of every variety at him. He must have been up early to give that press conference.
“We had a high number of patrols out last night,” he said. “Certainly more than normal, but the fact of the matter is that we spent a lot of time chasing down false alarm 9-1-1 calls. We’re all concerned about the situation of escalating, you know, crime at night, but we just don’t have the manpower to jump every time somebody is startled by a shadow.” The left side of his mustache twitched, as did his eye. “I implore people to only use the 9-1-1 system when you are sure there is an emergency. And rest assured we will be mobilizing a record number of patrols tonight so we can bring this disturbance to a halt before it escalates any further.”
Disturbance, I thought. Was he purposely avoiding the term crime wave?
The video cut back to the female reporter. She had a look of well-practiced skepticism on her unnaturally tanned face. “We can only hope the increase in police presence tonight will deter the criminals responsible for the current situations.”
Current situations? Another fuzzy, sugar-coated term.
“They’d call it what it is if they were out there,” I told myself.
The reporter’s face transformed in an instant from serious skepticism to lighthearted hope. “But, it seems some concerned citizens have decided to not wait for the overworked police.”
The video switched again, this time to a dark, jumpy video obviously recorded on somebody’s cell phone. Shot from outside a window on the third floor of a building, it showed an abandoned street. As the image moved up the street, the reporter’s voice sounded over the video.
“Videos like this are starting to pop up on Youtube. This was taken by a man who was working late in his office when he heard a scream from outside. He rushed to the window—phone in hand—ready to call 9-1-1 if needed. Imagine his surprise when the scene he saw prompted him to turn on his video camera instead.”
The dark video panned up the road to an intersection lit by a street lamp. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I recognized the car stopped diagonally in the middle of the intersection.
“Oh, man,” I muttered. “This isn’t good.” I leaned closer to the T.V.
“The video captures one citizen fighting back against four criminals who attempted to carjack this car with a terrified woman in it.”
The man tried to zoom in, but the video just went blurry, so he backed it out. I squinted to get a better look. It showed me catching the bat mid-swing and then the guy charging me and getting thrown into the car.
I winced. “That had to hurt,” I said.
“Now, watch this,” the reporter said, apparently keen on giving a play by play. “The impromptu hero knocks out the window to pull the victim out of the car and from the clutches of her assailant.”
I watched myself reach into the car and pull the woman out. Too bad the video didn’t show her part in the rescue, I thought, remembering her devastating kick to the dude’s face. The reporter’s voice came over the video again as I pulled the guy out the window and shoved him against the car.
“Most of us might be happy to see a woman pulled from the clutches of evil,” the reporter said dramatically. “But, Chief Bouwman was less than amused.”
The video cut to our mustachioed police chief. “We are aware of these videos and will be examining them with great interest. Make no doubt about it; we strongly discourage vigilantism for three reasons. First, these activities are illegal and you will be charged with assault if you cause bodily harm to another person without proper cause. And by proper cause, I mean you're in danger yourself. We will not stand street brawling even if you think you’re in the right.
“Second, often vigilante activities lead to harm to those who think they are doing good. Third, you’ll just get in the way of the police trying to do their job.”
While he spoke, the station cut back to the dark video. This time, they let it run further, showing me as I ran from the scene.
“Conor.”
I nearly jumped out of my clothes. I spun where I sat, clicking the T.V. off in the same motion. “What?”
“Nathen’s outside,” Mom informed me.
“Oh, okay.”
“I don’t know how you didn’t hear him.” Her lips pinched together.
“I was just, you know, watching the news. Wanted to see what you were talking about. You know. Earlier.” I stood and made my way toward the front door.
“What about breakfast?” she asked.
“I’ll grab something quick at school.” With that, I was out the door.
10:19 a.m.
Algebra II was hell. Staying awake under the best of circumstances was a daunting task when Mr. Elliot hit his droning stride. A common joke put him present when math was invented, so to say he wasn’t a very lively teacher would be putting it mildly.
He stood at the chalkboard—he had valiantly resisted pressure to have a whiteboard installed in his classroom—and went on and on about this formula or that. He filled up the board with numbers without ever turning to face the class. When he ran out of board, he would methodically erase it and start anew.
I think I lasted all of about fifteen minutes before I was out like a light. I don’t even remember falling asleep. I had resisted the urge to lay my head on the desk and just sleep but somehow managed to find myself waking up with my head thrown back, mouth open with a bit of drool forming at the corner.
Confused, I sat up straighter, wiped my mouth with my hand, and glanced around the room. It didn’t take long to figure out what had woken me from the dead sleep.
“I can’t take this torture anymore!” Justin yelled from his desk.
All heads were already turned his way, so I assumed he had said something before I woke. He sat four rows over and towards the front of the class while I was closer to the back.
Mr. Elliott turned with agonizing slowness. “Now, young man, I won’t have you interrup—”
“Oh, shut up you old fart!” Justin replied. He then flipped his algebra book closed and threw it at the teacher. Luckily his aim wasn’t very good. The book hit the chalkboard a few feet to Mr. Elliott’s left.
The entire class gasped as one. It was the most excitement this classroom had seen in quite a while.
“You march yourself down to the principal’s office this instant,” the ancient teacher stuttered.
“Yeah? You gonna make me?” Justin pushed himself from his desk. The chair screeched across the floor.
I reacted instantly, launching myself from my own desk. It all happened so quickly and, with my sleep deprived brain, I’m not sure how I found myself several rows over and behind Justin. At any rate, it’s a good thing I did. He had picked up his wood and metal desk with the intent of launching it at the teacher next. I grabbed the potential projectile and snatched it away, holding it aloft with one hand.
A short, awkward moment passed while Justin tried to figure out what happened to his weapon and I figured that I probably shouldn’t be holding it up with one hand. I dropped it with a clatter in the aisle. The angry kid turned to confront me.
“Maybe you should calm—” I started.
He took a swing. I probably could have avoided it, but I knew I had to be careful showing off what I could do with everybody looking. The punch landed with a fleshy smack. I let my head jerk to the side a bit.
Before he could try to land another blow, I snatched the front of his t-shirt and yanked him forward. I stepped to the side, letting his momentum carry him past. I wrapped my arm around his neck as he stumbled by and bent him backward. I held him up, bent at an awkward position under my arm so he couldn’t gain any leverage to break free.
“Get security,” I told the class in general.
It took a very long moment for anybody to react. They sat staring at me holding Justin bent backward and flailing at the air. Somebody finally stood and ran out the door.
Justin yelled insults and curses, but by the time the middle-aged, slightly overweight man the school hired for security showed up, he had devolved to incoherent grunts.
The security guard blinked at the scene, a look of confusion on his face. He had no idea what to do.
I sighed. “I think you’ll need your cuffs,” I suggested.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He fumbled at them, trying to retrieve them from his belt. The cuffs and a blue button down shirt that looked vaguely like a police shirt were the only things that set him apart as an authority at the school. “Is this really necessary?” he asked me.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Yeah, well...” He looked at the cuffs in his hand. “I don’t think his parents...I mean, it could be considered excessive force...Parents might sue.”
Justin tried to bite my arm, so I twisted him around and in one smooth motion, lowered him to the ground on his stomach with me on top of him. I kept my arm hooked around his neck, holding him with gentle but firm pressure. He flung a hand around wildly, hitting a nearby desk sharply.
“Yes,” I said. “It is necessary!”
“I...okay.”
I had to help him get Justin’s arms behind his back to put the cuffs on. The security guard lo
oked wearily at his work, clearly still worried about that whole suing thing.
The class shifted uneasily and all murmuring died. I looked up to see the principal standing in the doorway. Oh, crap, I thought. Not good.
“Bring him to the office, John,” Mr. Walker, the principal, said.
I assumed “John” was our fearless security guard.
Mr. Walker crooked a finger at me. “You come, too.”
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