Heroes 'Til Curfew

by Susan Bischoff

  Stupid, impulsive, emotional. I know. Because then Corey was on me and already had my left arm in his grip. I knew he’d be all over me in a moment, wrestling me down, getting my both arms pinned before I could get the blindfold off. My fist had already bounced back to my ear, and I was swinging it around, pivoting my forearm like I was swinging a bat. I clubbed Corey in the side of his head, smashing his ear. He howled as he fell away.

  I yanked off the blindfold. The air was fresh and cold on my hot face, and I sucked in a big breath of it before Jeff leapt over the back of the couch, hitting me at the shoulders, taking us both to the floor. We landed hard, and though I managed to keep my chin tucked and kept my head from smacking the floor, Jeff’s heavy body landing on mine drove most of the air from my lungs. I didn’t hesitate to bend one knee and get a boot planted on the floor. I used the leverage, the strength in my lower body, to roll and throw Jeff off before he could recover. I couldn’t throw him far, the big Neanderthal, so I was at a good distance to quickly reposition, bring my boot up, and swing the back of my heel down on his head like a hammer.

  I barely felt the satisfaction of that before something struck my shoulder and upper arm so hard that I actually cried out. It knocked me to my back again and I looked up to see Nathan standing over me with a thick, jagged stick of old lumber. Before I could do anything, something covered my face. My heavy breathing sucked fabric into my mouth and I could smell that stench of cigarettes and BO again.

  “Help me pin her down!” Corey shouted.

  I reached out, dug my fingers into the laces of Nathan’s sneaker and yanked as hard as I could. I pulled my hand away as I felt him fall back on his ass, taken by surprise, and grappled with Corey.

  Corey Danvers, member of the Fairview High Varsity Wrestling Team.

  He had thrown himself over my upper body, holding the jacket down tight over my face with the hands that pinned my shoulders to the floor. His chest hovered over my head, his head over my chest, his lower body positioned away from me, so there was no way I could touch him. But he was still yelling for the other guys to get up and help him out.

  I shut everything out, focused, tried to visualize Nathan’s stick where it had fallen. I felt Jeff’s weight land across my lower body, heard him shout for Nathan to find something to tie me with, heard Nathan scrambling up off the floor, and even the soft scrape of the stick in the dirt when my mind found it and wrapped that invisible line around it. In my mind I saw it flying up from ground and swinging back down in an arc toward my chest.

  Corey grunted and fell on top of me as the stick changed directions and swung blindly outward toward my legs. I felt the resistance as Jeff caught it, but it didn’t matter because I had my hands free for the moment to shove Corey away from me and get my vision back. Jeff rose to his knees and I had to use my hands and my mind to stop the club from coming down and splitting my face apart. I drove a knee up into his unprotected groin, caught his chest before it could fall on me, and rolled him away, grabbing the stick from his hand as I skittered away from him.

  On my feet again, I spun to try to take in the scene but was only able to note that Bella was nowhere to be found before seeing Nathan square off with me. I raised the stick only have it crumble to dust in my hands. I jumped back, totally freaked out, and Nathan put his head down and rushed me. We fell back onto the couch, which turned over with the impact. This time the back of my head did crack against the cement, but I was almost too pissed off to notice. Nathan was about my size and not much of a fighter. I yanked him off to the side and rolled away from him, gaining my feet again, breathing hard.

  Corey and Jeff both scrambled up off the floor. The couch was between us, so I sent it sailing back into them. Corey faded to nothing and the couch passed right through where he had been standing before he faded back into view again. But it struck Jeff and sent him stumbling back, falling against the wall. I followed through, using the couch to pin him there, but my diverted attention allowed Corey to get to me.

  As I tried to break Corey’s hold, I looked around for anything I could use against him. I knocked over one of the steel drums that had flanked the couch. Burning trash spilled out onto the floor, throwing sparks across the concrete as the drum started to roll toward our legs.

  It burst into dust before it could reach us.

  Already occupied with keeping Jeff pinned behind the couch, I reached out with my mind, picked up one of the heavy, battery-operated lanterns the guys had brought over for their “photo shoot” and flung it at Nathan’s head. It, too, turned to dust before it reached him. He smirked at me as he stood back and watched Corey try to wrestle me into submission.

  Corey was at my back and had both my arms pinned painfully between us. He shoved me up against the wall, causing my face to smack painfully. I came away choking on plaster dust. He laughed and did it again, using more of his weight to shove my whole upper body into the wall. In my mind I felt myself losing my hold on the couch that kept Jeff from joining him. Corey pulled us back for a third shove, even farther this time. When we hit it exposed the broken, wooden lattice behind the plaster. I let myself whimper, hoping to encourage him to do it again, and when he pulled us back, I punched my shoulders back against his chest, levered my knees up and planted my feet against what was left of the wall. I kicked out hard, sending us sailing backward, bouncing off Corey as he landed and his arms fell away.

  I got to my feet in time to see Jeff rushing in to tackle me again and looked around frantically to find something to stop him. My mind knocked over the second drum, sparks flying as his foot stomped down on some of the blackened trash. I expected to see the drum burst into dust as I lifted it to hurl at Jeff’s head.

  In that moment of slowed time, something, somehow, caught my attention. I looked up to see a network of exposed, iron pipes jerking and shifting as the supports that bound them to the ceiling popped and disappeared. I understood it instantly and flung the drum weakly at Nathan as I leapt to get out of the way.

  Jeff was hurtling toward me, or to the place where I had been. The heavy, empty pipes came down, one end before the other, swinging through space, catching him hard in the spine. As he tried to turn, he tripped over his own feet and fell. The back of his head bounced once when it hit the cement, the pipes landed on his twisted legs, and he was still.

  Above, the ceiling groaned and continued to rain dust and debris. Corey was struggling to his feet yelling, “What did you do?!” at Nathan. Sirens wailed and I realized I’d been hearing their approach for the last few minutes. There was the sound of an engine, a single car or truck, close by and approaching fast.

  Nathan started to run, and I should have let him, but I swung the couch around to pin him against a wall. “Is that Marco?” he shouted at Corey, panicked and hopeful.

  Corey glared at me and faded to a shimmer of air that disappeared through the nearest wall. Before I could decide what was next, that groaning sound came from the ceiling again and I reached out for it with my mind instinctively. I pressed up against the damaged area and could feel the weaknesses, the weight of something huge and monstrously heavy pressing, cracking, trying to come through the battered structure. I backed up, away from the danger, getting all of the damaged area in my range of vision. But that also took me away from the doorway,

  Outside, the car screeched to a halt, a door slammed, the car peeled away again. There was yelling followed by the sounds of fighting.

  “What’s going on?” Nathan yelled, shoving at the couch.

  I couldn’t hold the couch with him struggling to get free as well as keep the ceiling up. As I stood there, the damage was increasing, spreading outward, making my job more complex. Harder.

  No answer for Nathan from outside, just muffled, angry voices and the thudding of fists. “Nathan!” I snapped, just before I lost my hold on the couch. “This ceiling’s about to give out and there’s something heavy up there. You need to pull Jeff out from under those pipes.”

  The sirens were
getting louder and Nathan’s wide eyes darted to the ceiling, to Jeff, to me. “No way. No way I’m letting you drop that on me.”

  “I’m not going to drop it on you, you moron, but I don’t know how long I can keep this from falling and obliterating your friend there, so hurry your ass up and drag him out.”

  Nathan took about two seconds to consider. He wriggled out and climbed over the couch. “He’s not that good a friend,” he told me. Then he covered his face with one arm, blew a hole in the wall nearest him, further weakening the structure, and bolted through it.

  Dylan came in at a run, focused on the direction of the explosion. He stopped cold when I called out to him, his name coming out all strangled and choked-sounding. For some reason, seeing him come through that door, seeing him standing there staring at me, I just wanted to break down in a crying heap of girl at his feet. Which was just so completely unacceptable. But he was just staring at me with a red welt on his cheek and this really intense look on his face and it was sucking all the oxygen out of the room.

  Above us, the ceiling groaned. He looked up.

  “Turn around and get out of here,” I told him. “I’m fine, but the ceiling’s about to come down.”

  “Well come on, then!” He started toward me with his hand out.

  “I can’t. I’m holding up the ceiling. There’s something heavy up there, and I can’t see it to try to move it. If I leave, I won’t be able to hold everything in place, and it’ll come down on Jeff.”

  He looked around and spotted Jeff under the tangle of pipes. I realized he hadn’t looked around when he came in, and thought that all he saw was me. It made my stomach flip.

  I was an idiot.

  Dylan changed directions and hurried over to where Jeff lay, unconscious. Outside, the blaring sirens came to a stop. Car doors opened. He got his arms under Jeff’s and started to pull, but didn’t get very far.

  “Can you lift those pipes at all?”

  I tried to split my attention and focus some of it on the pipes. I really wanted to ask how he’d even gotten here, how he’d known I was in trouble. And then I wanted to know why’d he’d come after me. A thick piece of lumber came down. Dylan flinched away, still holding onto Jeff, and he grunted in pain as it bounced off his shoulder.

  “Get out of there right now. I can’t hold the ceiling and move the pipes.”

  “Let me see if I can…” He was putting Jeff down, too gently, and moving around to try to pull at the network of iron. “I could use another set of hands here. Seen anything I could use for leverage?”

  “No, and it’s too dangerous anyway. I don’t know how long I can hold this up and you need to get going.” I could hear them outside, identifying themselves as police and demanding that anyone inside respond and come out. “I’ll stay and hold this as long as I can, play the concerned girlfriend if I have to—”

  “Like hell you will!”

  “Seriously? That’s the part of the plan you don’t like.”

  “No, I think your plan sucks as a whole.”

  “We don’t have time to argue about this,” I snapped, ready to call out to the cops whether Dylan was gone or not. The last thing we needed was for them to come in with guns drawn and be surprised by us. If I got Dylan shot by a nervous cop, I was pretty much never going to get over that.

  “Agreed. So shut up and keep still.” He rushed over to me, backed me up, into the shadows, against the wall opposite Jeff.

  “What are you doing?” I tried to stare harder at the structure of the ceiling to maintain focus, not to look up at him, check out the injury on his face, or look at his blue eyes. My concentration wavered and bits of plaster rained down on Jeff.

  “Easy now. Pay attention to what you’re doing,” he said, in that low, honey-smooth way he had that was supposed to be calming but was totally not helping me concentrate on the ceiling. “And Joss, don’t freak out, okay?”

  “Freak out about—?”

  Dylan disappeared.

  Chapter 3

  Joss

  He had been standing in front of me, so that I had both him and the ceiling in my field of vision. And then he was just gone.

  Except he was still there. I could feel him standing there in front of me. Feel the heat coming off him.

  He was freakin’ invisible.

  “Concentrate, Joss. They’re coming. I know it seems like you’re looking right through me, but you’re not. I’m not clear, I just…blend in. As long as I’m between you and them, they won’t see you.”

  He moved a bit, leaning one shoulder against the wall so that he formed a wall between me and the door. He leaned in to shield as much of me as possible with his body, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder, pulling me in tight. I found that my own hands had come up, maybe in defense of the personal space invasion at first, but I had two invisible leather lapels clutched in my fists.

  “Can you see okay?” he asked, his voice barely a breath in my ear.

  My eyes almost rolled back in my head, but I answered, “Yeah, I got it.” Just barely. I was dizzy, too warm, overwhelmed by the scents of leather and Dylan. Get a grip. This isn’t a come-on, this is Dylan saving your ass so you can save Jeff’s. So try to stay focused here, and not let the whole building fall down.

  But that was really hard just at the moment.

  Dylan’s a Talent.

  Why didn’t I know that?

  Why wouldn’t he tell me?

  The cops were pouring in through the door now. Those that glanced our way never gave us a second look. They immediately assessed Jeff’s situation and brought in the paramedics who must have been on standby. And those guys were taking their time.

  My head felt like it was about to explode. Holding up a ceiling, the structure of it, the floor above it—it was way complex. That alone would have been a strain, but the stress of the whole night, the fight, the shock of Dylan’s revelation, and, let’s face it, mostly the distraction of being wrapped up in him, were splintering my attention and making it harder. Drastic measures were called for.

  I purposely let some boards fall on the cops, and let one narrowly miss Jeff’s head. That seemed to give everyone a greater sense of urgency. There was a lot of unnecessary yelling that cut into my brain like a saw, but at least they gave up their on-site assessment and four of them lifted the pipes aside. They worked quickly to get Jeff all braced and locked down, and then got him out of there.

  As soon as they moved him, I let some more stuff fall where he had lain, just for effect. Everyone seemed properly motivated to get the hell out.

  Dylan heaved a sigh of relief that went right down my neck and brought down some more of the ceiling. Whatever that big piece of machinery was, it was coming down soon.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, releasing me, but still being careful to stay between me and the door. “Out the window?”

  “Yeah.”

  He took my hand and I trusted him to lead me to a large window that had lost all its glass a long time ago, while I kept my eyes glued to the same spot. They burned, and my vision had gone a little blurry. Dylan grabbed my waist and hoisted me up on the wide, concrete sill, which made my eyes fly to his face, even though there was nothing there to see. I couldn’t help it.

  A huge conglomeration of metal parts crashed down onto the cement floor, little chunks of rock and small machine parts flying in all directions, as Dylan hoisted himself up onto the ledge.

  “Oops,” he said.

  “Sorry. A little warning next time you’re going to pick me up.”

  “Sorry. Let’s get out of here.” He looked down at what seemed to me to be about a 10-foot drop. “Ladies first?”

  Where we were perched was still structurally sound, so I said, “Sure,” and leapt from the window. I heard the horrendous noise of the cave-in behind me as I refocused on making myself a cushion of air to break my fall. I felt the slight resistance of my cushion taking the brunt of the landing before it popped like a water balloon. I hit
the ground, feet, knees, hands.

  I rolled over in time to see Dylan…rematerialize? He jumped down and I cushioned his landing too, which seemed a little more graceful than mine.

  Smart of him to know I’d have to see him to do that.

  That was all I had time to think because he grabbed my hand and we were running through the woods that had grown up around the abandoned factory district. Then we were out and onto the street, only to be forced back into brush by the sight of a patrol car. We doubled back and came out on a different street, and there, too, a cop car was rolling down the hill. It seemed like they were out in force, combing the area for any sign of renegade Talents. Dylan pulled me back into the woods, and we continued to run parallel to the river until we emerged in a more upscale section of the riverfront area.

  It seemed to me that Dylan had way too much energy. He was still holding my hand, and although I was exhausted and my head was pounding, I’d be damned if he was going to have to pull me along, even if I did have to take more steps to keep up with his long legs. He dropped my hand and scaled a 6-foot chain-link fence, vaulting over the top and down to the pavement below without breaking stride. He turned back to me expectantly.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  “Joss, come on! Need a boost?” He came back to the fence like he was actually going to climb back over.

  Oh, hell no. I had my pride, after all. “No, I don’t need a boost. I’m coming.” I stuck the toe of my boot in the fence and started to climb. I turned at the top and climbed down the other side because it just seemed easier on my head than taking the impact of jumping over. Dylan grabbed my hand as soon as my foot touched the ground and started pulling me along again.