by A. E. Clarke
I shook my head and tried to imagine better-scented things, like my favourite cologne, which Alex used from time to time, and freshly baked bread from work.
Almost anything would be better.
I opened my eyes again as the baby in the stroller a couple seats in front of me started bawling—something went underneath our wheel, and it jolted him from sleep. The obviously tired teenage mother was trying to shush him with a pacifier and a toy, but neither seemed to be working.
There was some grumbling, since the people on a bus at this time of night were generally the type more open to griping vocally, but I kept it to myself.
I wasn’t happy by any means, but I realized that sometimes you can’t say or do much of anything when a baby starts crying. I fished my phone out of my pocket and started flipping through my playlist, looking for the half dozen or so loudest songs that I had on there to drown out the noise.
We passed the first major street and went into a more industrial/commercial area, and suddenly, I heard a scream ring out over top of the baby and my music. I looked up and could hardly believe what I saw. The homeless guy who had been passed out across the seats at the front of the bus had gotten up and pulled out a gun, and he was pointing it at the stroller.
I pulled out a headphone to hear what he was yelling. It was as I’d expected.
“Shut that kid up, lady!”
That really wasn’t helping the poor mother deal with the situation. The guy looked a little like the Joker in The Dark Knight, with longish, scraggly brown hair and a recently stolen denim jacket—I could still see the security tag—but it was the gun I was looking at.
Unfortunately, the gun looked entirely too real. No orange on the barrel.
I sucked in a breath and concentrated on building up a bit of electricity around my fingers. It was behaving better for me today than it had yesterday when I was training with Jesse, but I’d still rather not risk hitting the gun and setting it off or—worse—drawing attention to myself and getting shot.
Hiding my hand under the seat in front of me, I tried to vary the amount of electricity. At first, it was so bright I was sure someone would see it, but I tamed it to a few sparks. I was pretty sure that if I could stun him, I’d be able to defuse this situation a little bit.
All but literally defuse it, really.
I really, really wished I was Jesse or that I could borrow his remarkably cool head in times like these. I mean, hell, if I could be half as cool as he was last night at the diner… I shook my head. Thoughts like that wouldn’t solve anything.
I looked up at the guy again. He’d made the bus driver pull over onto a side street and gotten him to leave the driver’s seat to sit partway down the bus.
He’s pretty smart for a hobo. He started pacing up and down the aisle, and I quickly pulled my hands out of my pockets. I didn’t want to set him off before I could…well, set myself off.
Someone had to have dialled 911 by now,
Okay, Holly, this is your time to shine, girl.
As he reached my seat, I had a quick mental flash of him with white face paint, green hair dye, and scars on either side of his mouth. I shuddered, and he glared at me as he passed by. So much for not drawing attention to myself. He stepped up to the raised area at the back of the bus, turned around, and came back.
The baby was still screaming, though the mother was doing everything in her power to stop it. She was the person I felt most sorry for right then. She was trying her best to stay calm, but she couldn’t get the child to shush.
I sighed. This was not going to go well.
Unless I do something.
“Oh, I forgot to mention…” the guy with the gun said, waving it around the bus. I braced as it swept across me—he wouldn’t accidentally shoot me if I didn’t make him flinch, right?
He swung around in a circle and stumbled, and my eyes met those of the college student. I think both of us were willing each other to push him over, but he righted himself before either of us could act.
First chance, gone.
“I forgot to mention…if anyone has called the pig cops…”
You can do this, Holly. It’s all up to you.
I saw the college student’s eyes widen, and his hand went to his pocket, where I could see a cell-phone-sized bulge.
“You just signed their death warrant. And, uh, your own, I guess.”
He stumbled again, and this time, the college student reacted to the situation, taking advantage of the guy’s balance problem to jump up and push him over. Unfortunately, because the student wasn’t sober either, both of them ended up on the floor.
Suddenly, it was a flurry of movement. The mother curled up around her baby—I was gaining more and more respect for her as the situation went on—and the driver darted to the front of the bus to call for help, I guessed. I dove for the gun and felt my hand wrap around its cool metal barrel before it was yanked from me. The college student—oh, thank anyone who happens to be listening that it wasn’t the crazy guy—had gotten to it first, since it had landed within arm’s reach of him.
When I saw the slightly crazed look in the student’s eyes, though, I swallowed a gulp of air. That wasn’t much better than the first guy had looked. The college student stood up and pointed the gun at the man lying on the floor.
“People care about me. I have a name, I have a family—we all do.” He motioned with the gun very casually, twirling the barrel in the air. He was speaking a lot quieter than I’d expected, given the situation, and he seemed calm. Too calm.
He levelled the gun at the now-terrified man on the floor. “I would think that the only person no one would really care about is the crazy gunman who pulled a gun on a baby and then took a city bus hostage.”
“No, no, you don’t, no, no.” The initial gunman was rocking back and forth on the floor, covering his eyes.
“Dude, I really don’t think you need to kill him,” I said, standing up with both hands in the air. He swivelled towards me, gun pointed at my torso. I was expecting it and held my breath so I wouldn’t panic. “Seriously, put that thing down. Have you ever even shot a gun before?”
“No. Have you? The hell kind of Canadian are you, anyway?”
“I haven’t either, but I know you’ll get burned by the barrel. And you’ll get gunpowder residue on you, so they’ll know you were the one who killed him.” I took two careful steps closer.
“Way to go, Miss CSI over here.” He stepped backwards as I advanced, and when he hit a seat, he sat down, gun pointed again at the man crumpled in a ball on the floor.
“Would you put down the gun, man? He deserves to be locked up, but he doesn’t deserve to be killed for this.”
The homeless man, to his credit, seemed genuinely sorry and had even gone so far as to pee himself and start crying in an attempt to prove his point.
“Seriously?” He looked up at me, and I reached for the gun as if I just expected him to hand it over. He pulled back and stood up.
“No, I’m not—he’s not getting away with this!”
“Do you even hear yourself right now? You sound like something out of a bad movie, man.”
“You don’t even know me.”
I held out my hand, waiting for a handshake, and he paused for a moment before moving the gun into his other hand so he could shake mine, giving me a strange look.
“I’m Holly Gray.” I was tempted—oh, so sorely tempted—to give him a shock, but I didn’t think that would solve this problem and fix this situation.
“I’m…I’m Andrew Thibodeau.”
“Nice to meet you. Now we know each other a bit more, I feel confident enough to tell you to put down the stupid gun.”
I slid my gaze across to the bus driver, who was sneaking up behind him, wrench posed above his head. I tried to glare my message into his eyes, hoping it would be enough. He put down the wrench and whipped out his cellphone, which I could see was already on. I was pretty sure I could make out the small 911 in the corne
r as well. Good. Now, all I really needed to do was to keep them occupied—the college student and the homeless guy on the floor—until the police and ambulance showed up.
How the hell I’ve ended up in control of this situation, I have no idea.
“Listen. Andrew. Give me the gun.” I held out my hand in the least threatening way I could—palm up, with my fingers pointing towards him. “Please.”
“I’m gonna go to jail for this, aren’t I?”
I looked up, and he was crying, tears streaming down his cheeks. Oh, for the love of God.
“I don’t know. You haven’t explicitly done anything wrong, and I think we could all understand your reaction, right?” The bus driver sat down again, hiding the wrench behind him. He and the mother nodded vigorously. I figured that the homeless man crying on the floor wasn’t really going to pull much sympathy in court. “See? You’re fine. Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
“I can’t… I swear I’m a good person.”
“I’m sure you are, Andrew. You seem like an upstanding citizen. Now, give me the gun.” I reached for it again, and this time, he sighed as he placed it in my palm.
The second the cold metal touched my skin and I felt the spark gathering, I realized my mistake.
That was when my life went to hell.
There was a surge of pain in my shoulder where the bullet had hit, and I cried out—and as I did, my body reacted. The energy I’d built up earlier, trying to figure out a way to take down the first gunman, exploded from me in all directions.
It wasn’t visible. Everyone jerked and spasmed as it hit them, including the poor baby and the man on the ground, and then I felt everything within a few feet of me, all at once. The sudden flood of information hurt even more.
I could sense—almost see—the metal that held the gasoline beneath us all, and the fumes coming off it. A large spark erupted, and I jumped forward as the explosion built from the back of the bus.
The last thing I felt was my back shattering the windshield.
Chapter Sixteen: Jesse
“Breaking news today. There was a major incident on a TTC vehicle this morning around five a.m. The Bathurst bus was hijacked and pulled over on a side street.”
I almost reached over to smack off my alarm—I don’t know why it kept switching over to radio from the buzzer that properly woke me up. This morning, though, Brent had his arms draped around mine, so I tried to reach for the plug. I’d shut it off that way instead, so I wouldn’t have to move and wake him up.
“Wait, Bathurst?” Brent mumbled into my shoulder.
I opened my eyes. My half-asleep boyfriend had a point. That was Holly’s bus. I reached over and turned up the radio.
“There were only about a half dozen people aboard the bus at the time, but we’ve received reports that it was a very strange situation there. Not only was the bus hijacked, but after one young woman, aged twenty-two, was shot in the shoulder—”
I grabbed Brent’s hand, sure that it was Holly they were talking about despite the lack of detail.
“—the bus’s gas tank seems to have exploded, killing all on board except the young woman who had already been shot.”
I gulped and scrambled out of bed, leaving the warmth of the sheets and Brent.
“Jess, you don’t—”
“Brent, it could be her, and I have to make sure. Especially with the explosion. If what I told you last night is true, wouldn’t you worry about her causing that?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Thank you for swallowing whatever sarcastic comment you were about to make.” I leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead and sat on his legs to flip open my cellphone. I dialled Holly’s number; it rang five times before going to her voicemail. I hung up and tried again before it could click through. I was getting more and more worried, and I was starting to bounce my leg on the ball of my foot.
“Jesse, they said she was okay, even if it was her.”
“They said she’d been shot, Brent. She’d still be in hospital.”
“Call her boyfriend, maybe? Or her work number?”
“I’ll try the bakery first. Good idea.” I didn’t get that far, as my phone lit up and started vibrating. “It’s Alex. Perfect timing, I suppose.” I hit TALK and put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Have you heard from Holly?”
“No—”
“Turn on the news.”
“I already heard.”
He paused a moment. “You were awake this early?”
“Yeah, Brent and I were gonna grab some brunch before he has work this afternoon.”
“Well…have you tried her work? I tried and couldn’t get through, but I could try in another few minutes.”
“Aren’t you in the next room?”
There was a beat of silence.
“Yeah, I am. I…I know you and Brent are in there together, so I didn’t want to intrude on anything.”
Brent, who had his ear against the other side of the phone, leaned back in order to laugh loudly.
“I can hear him laughing through the wall, ’squeak.”
“Yeah, you’re cool to come in.”
“Okay, be there in a second.”
I leaned over and kissed Brent, full on the lips, to shut him up. He pushed me over and then kissed me back, lying on top of me. I pushed him off—or I tried to, from a bad position—and he easily pushed my hands down as the door opened.
Alex yelped. “Jesse, you said I could come in!”
“Brent didn’t hear me.” I pushed him, and he rolled off.
“And you call him pipsqueak, Alex?” Brent laughed. Alex flipped him off.
“I’m going to ignore that.” He sat on the edge of the bed, and I could tell he was trying not to look directly at me.
I looked down and grimaced. I was only in my boxers, and that was probably not what he’d been expecting when he’d walked into my room. “So you heard about the bus,” I said.
“Yep.”
“Well, okay. So we both had the same thought. That’s enough for me to be worried. Should we try again?” I flipped open my phone, hit Holly’s number again, and held it to my ear.
It rang four times and then was answered by a male voice.
“H-hello?”
“Yes, hi, who is this?”
“I’m a nurse at North York General Hospital.”
“Shit!”
“I’m assuming you know the owner of this cell phone?” he asked, very professional despite my non-answer.
“Yeah, she’s…she’s my older sister. What happened?”
“Have you seen the news, about—”
“The bus?” I closed my eyes.
“Yes, sir. We believe she was involved in that. If you could come down and give us some information about her, that would be very, very helpful.”
“Yes, uh—I’ll get down there as quickly as humanly possible.”
“Okay, thank you. When you come into the emergency room, give her name at the security desk. They’ll direct you to her bed.”
“Thank you.”
He hung up the phone, and I flipped mine shut. “Okay, so I was right. It was her.”
“That doesn’t mean—” Brent started. I held up my finger and shook my head, which drew reactions from both him and Alex, who looked puzzled.
“Should I have understood that at all?” he asked.
“Probably not.”
“Cool, because I didn’t.”
Brent gave me a raised eyebrow.
“Not now. I’ll tell you later, okay?” I winked, trying to pass it off as an inside joke.
He scowled at me, and I tapped Alex on the shoulder, making him jump. “Hey, Lex Luthor, give us about ten minutes. We’ll shower, and then we can all head out, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll drive, I guess?”
“Sounds like a plan. I don’t know if I’d trust myself driving right now.”
“I don’t—”
“I can drive y
our car, Jess,” Brent said.
I nodded. “What about work, though?”
“I’ll call them. I don’t really need this shift, and saying that there’s been an accident with my best friend’s sister, or even that I’m at the hospital, should be enough for me to get out of any sort of trouble.”
I climbed back onto the bed, pushing Alex from behind so that he would stand up. “Git.”
He turned around and flipped me off, so I shrugged and moved across the bed to kiss my boyfriend. That got Alex out of the room almost immediately, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Tease,” Brent grumbled.
“Hey, you wanted to know what was up with that, didn’t you?”
“True.”
“He doesn’t know, as far as I know. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you, but I don’t really care.”
“Oh, how sweet,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, breathing deeply in order to not get annoyed at him. “You really still don’t believe me?”
“You really still have trouble understanding that I need proof before I believe someone has superpowers?”
I shook my head. “I guess.”
“Well, anyway, regardless of how the bus explosion happened, it did, and Holly’s in the hospital.”
Our eyes met, and I sighed as we said, “Again!” in unison, with the same intonation.
“Well, then. Shower time?”
#
We pulled into the parking lot about thirty minutes later, with all three of us feeling a little anxious.
I didn’t even bother waiting for Alex to stop the car before opening the door and running towards the emergency room. I jogged up to the security desk, and the guard gave me an appraising look.
“Can I help you?” She was a short, stout woman, with curly hair down to her shoulders. She was probably in her fifties or so.
“Yeah, I’m looking for Holly Gray.”
She paused for a moment to scroll through a list of patients and then looked up and told me her room number.
An elevator ride and two hallways later, I walked into a room with three beds. Holly, in the last bed from the door, was the only patient in the room; a nurse with some papers was standing at the end of her bed.
