Putting my palm against the glass, I applied a steady, ramping-up amount of force as the Magnum rang out again, and something behind me exploded. Mommy Dearest must have thought I was in the back seat and had fired a round in to test. Stuffing poofed out of one of the seats where the round impacted, and my ears rang in the confined space as I pushed against the back glass.
My fingers broke through after a second or two of increasing the pressure, and then I forced my whole hand through the safety glass as it pebbled off. On the balls of my feet, I only rose as much as necessary to reach out of the back of the window and grasp for the handle that would open the damned back hatch.
I found it almost immediately and yanked up.
Nothing happened.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered. Of course. The owner had left the damned driver's door unlocked, but naturally they'd lock the damned hatchback.
Another boom and the bench behind me exploded in a tuft of stuffing, like yellow snow flittering through the air. If she was running with a traditional revolver, she was down to one shot left. If she was running with an untraditional one...she might have two remaining.
Either way, she was closing on my position and would be here in seconds, at least one bullet ready to punch a giant hole in me.
I was trapped, on my knees in the rear cargo area of the van, my breathing hard and fast, waiting for the last bullet, the hatchback like an impenetrable wall between me and survival.
18.
Nothing focuses my mind like certain death. If I had one advantage over most other people, it was that in situations of life or death, I didn't tend to get quite as cloudy or adrenaline-fueled, locked into stupid or reflexive action. Don't get me wrong; in the middle of a situation like this I was still thinking fast, mind racing like a squirrel on meth trapped in a shoebox. But there was always a certain detachment that came over me when the adrenaline kicked in, years of my mother's training drilled into me like a program, keeping me calmer than I should have been.
It was a strange disconnect, like I could see through my own eyes, but not worry as much about things I really should worry about, such as getting killed. Where others might panic and lose their heads and start shooting wildly in a battle, the chaos and threat of death seemed to pull me out of myself and allow me to see the clearest way forward, or at least the logical progression. The panic of crazy situations tended to come down on me later, in the form of a pulse that elevated after the nutso shit was done.
Coming down off those highs, after a mission, after a case? Yowch. Sometimes it made getting to sobriety seem like an easy thing. I'd crashed after the war in Revelen had drawn to a conclusion, just as much from non-stop adrenaline finally stopping after an extended hard pump through my veins as from injury.
Being trapped in the hatchback raised my pulse only a few beats per minute, pushed my mind into a faster circle, running the track of logical possibilities with great speed and only a little unease bleeding through. That would all come later, after the crash, and I had a feeling – given that I hadn't yet processed at least the prison break or the war and probably not even the cartel thing, I was in for a nice, long emotional crack-up once this was all done.
Still, ways forward: two side windows, one that would bring me out right in front of the lady with the Magnum, one that would bring me out on the opposite side. Either way, breaking it would make noise and draw attention to me, and they were so small I'd have to wriggle out and almost certainly get shot in the process. Non-optimal.
Go back under the seats. Also not-optimal, because I'd cross under Magnum mom's steady, searching field of view, probably, and she'd plug me. Even if she didn't, I'd be stuck in the middle of the van, no exit, little cover. Nope.
Then there was the hatchback. The window was partially busted where I'd forced a hand through to try and open it. Forcing myself through was a possibility, but not a great one. I'd get my ass – literally – caught as I was squeezing through, hips snugging on the glass as I made my way out if I did it quietly. If noisily, I'd be launching myself through the air and the element of surprise would be wasted.
Nope, nope, nope. All bad options.
That left me with one: go out the hatchback without opening the window.
Ding ding ding. We had a winner, and I came to a conclusion on that one pretty quickly, as I tended to do during battle.
Added bonus: I might be able to do some damage in the process.
I thumped onto the small of my back, tweaking that shoulder blade pain that had been nagging at me since Walmart. I gritted my teeth and ignored it, pulling my knees to my chest. I was only going to get one chance at this, and I needed to focus until I heard-
A footstep through the shredded glass as Magnum mom stepped in front of the hatchback. Guess she'd missed me at the side window. Yay for heavy tinting.
I tightened my legs to my chest and then unleashed an unholy double kick into the hatchback. Both feet slammed into the plastic lining and destroyed the interior covering. I pushed through in a millisecond and hit the metal beneath, transferring all the force of my mule kick into the hatchback.
Steel buckled and whined as the force of my strike ran through to the three primary points at which the hatchback was sealed – two hinges and a lock. Two at the top, one at the bottom.
Every last damned one of them gave under the strength of my super-meta mule kick.
The door exploded off the rear of the minivan, catching Magnum Mom as it flew like Henderschott had been launched across the Walmart. I saw her surprise for a flicker before it caught her in the chest and sheared her legs and head cleanly off, carrying her torso with it thirty feet to crash into the car behind me.
I rolled out of the van and landed on my feet. “Whew,” I said. “It was getting a little stuffy in there.”
A cry of muffled outrage burst out to my left, and I looked. Cargo Shorts Dad was standing his mouth open, hands burning bright with blue plasma. Over his shoulder, Sullen Teen Daughter already had an early tear streaking down her face, and her eyes were glowing. Cyclops type.
“Oh, so she actually was the matriarch of the family? That was legit? You aren't just a traveling assassin group posing as a family?” I asked as they both ripped their attention off the hatchback, which had finally come to rest, a smear of blood beneath it. “I guess I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but – seriously, who brings their family on an assassination mission?”
I didn't have a chance to dwell much on the effect of my inflammatory words, because Cargo Shorts Dad lost his shit and let out a scream of grief that would have been worthy of a Klingon funeral. He came at me fast, and I dodged around the van, hitting it with a spin kick as he tried to skirt the back corner-
It clipped him as the van's back tire jumped the curb from the force of my hit, and he went flying, blue plasma fading to bare hands as he went. He crashed through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that separated the Arrivals terminal and baggage claim from the hot, sticky Iowa summer. Or used to. They might have to cool the outdoors, now, but it was nothing but an improvement, for sure.
“I didn't come looking for trouble from you people, little girl,” I said, ducking behind the van. I'd been on the receiving end of cyclops beams before. Just this week, in fact. Or...twenty years hence? Whatever, it was like yesterday, when I'd gone up against Adoncia, the pissed-off cartel former moll/current leader. “And you've picked a fight with the wrong person.”
She just screamed and blasted, shredding through the minivan. I'd anticipated this, teenagers not being renowned for their reason at the best of times, and definitely not after they'd watched their parents get murdered by some random stranger.
I went low in a roll, came up behind the van's tire as she cut it in two. Cars were honking behind me, tires were squealing in front of me as people hurried to get the hell out of whatever was going on here. I had a feeling the Des Moines PD would be explaining this one as a gas leak or something similarly lame, since word of metas hadn't made it
out into the world yet. Kinda like the time western Kansas had burned and the government had blamed brushfires or something stupid like that.
“Well, damn,” I said, looking around for an easy answer to my pissed-off teenager problem. Kicking the van up over the curb was not going to be a simple solution. She stopped her eye beams for a second, loosed another inchoate roar of anger, and then started slicing the back section of the van to ribbons. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the front of the van was next, and that it'd only take her a matter of seconds to finish her work on the rear of it.
There was no cover behind me, no cars left for me to duck behind once my current vehicle was finished being annihilated. No pillars within easy sprint, nothing to hide behind, and I was running low on things to throw.
My only option left?
Charge.
I steeled myself and rounded the bumper just as she was finishing up her slice-and-dice on the rear of the car. The odds were very, very good she was going to whip around and blast me into my component atoms when I came at her, but since I was dry of other options, I readied myself for the sprint. If I could make it to her before she turned, I might be able to...well...pummel the shit out of her. It'd be hard to slice me up with her eye beams if she couldn't open her eyes.
As plans went, it was not my most confidence-inspiring, but it was what I had, so I lunged off the bumper and over the curb. I'd reach her in about three long steps at meta-speed, a matter of seconds or less.
She could turn her head in a fraction of a second, though. And I doubted my flesh and bone would survive a beam that cut through a car body.
Her eye beams stopped for just a beat, and she turned and looked at me, steam rising off her cheeks where the eye beams were heating her ceaseless tears.
Then she set her jaw, and the glow began in her pupils as she prepared to destroy me.
A thunderous punch knocked her sideways, putting her lights out and closing her eyes for me as she tumbled ass over teakettle into the wreckage of the van where she stayed, still and unmoving.
My grandmother stood just behind her, fist cocked, as her eyes fell to me.
“So,” she said, “you must be Sienna.”
19.
“I can't tell you how good it is to see you,” I said, feeling a little muscle tension slacken in my neck and back, that radiating pain from beneath my shoulder blade starting up again. “I'd offer a welcome-to-Iowa hug but...it's Iowa, and you've already been in battle after being here for all of twenty minutes, so...” Sirens rang in the distance, the clarion call of Sienna Nealon. sounding through the arrivals area. “Maybe we should skedaddle in case Omega has any more trouble heading our way.”
She stared at me for a second, assessing, then loosened up, un-cocking her fist. She had a suitcase in her hand, and her posture returned – mostly – to normal, just a thread of alert stress still keeping her stiff. “Okay. Where to?”
“I don't know – exactly.”
She paused in contemplation. “Okay. How do we get out of here?”
“Not sure yet,” I said, looking around for an answer. “How'd you know I was in trouble?”
“Saw a guy in cargo shorts go flying through the window inside. Figured it might be you.”
“Good guess,” I said. “Can you believe his wife let him go out in those? With those legs?” I stole a look at where I'd caught her with the hatchback. Her lower body was still there, twitching, separated about mid-thigh and bleeding out onto the pavement.
And beyond that were cars and witnesses, staring, paralyzed. These were people who hadn't run because they'd been too afraid.
“I don't like the look of cargo shorts, either,” my grandmother said, stepping off the curb to join me. Her hair wasn't as curly as it had been in Revelen, more straight like my mother's. I hadn't really thought about it, but now that I did, it sort of reflected an evolutionary pattern – mom still cared that her hair wasn't straight, so she flat ironed it like a fiend to keep it in order. My grandmother, by the time I met her in Revelen, didn't give a shit anymore, and thus let the curl come out so she looked like, well, Sigourney Weaver in certain movies.
Me? I didn't have time for hairstyling, so mine was always either up or dealt with, to avoid frizzy strands falling into my eyes at inopportune moments.
“What now?” my grandmother asked.
“Let's do some GTA,” I said, and nodded at the cars down the way.
“...GTA?” she asked.
“It's a popular game in my day. Grand Theft Auto. Named for the criminal charge of the same name.”
“Hmm.” She didn't seem convinced.
“Come on,” I said, and broke into a run toward the waiting cars.
When they saw me coming, most of the people who'd done the freeze thing instead of flight changed their minds and ran. It was like startled pigeons bursting out of a thicket. There were only a few cars to choose from, and I listened for the sweet sound of a running engine.
I found one in a small Nissan Sentra. I waved to my grandmother to follow me, but when I turned to look back she was barely a step behind, keeping up, sweat already beading on her forehead.
“I hope this thing has AC,” I said, slipping around the open door. Keys were in, it was running, over a half tank of gas. Annnnnnd...a cool breath of air blew out of the vents. “Hallelujah! Finally a lucky break.”
My grandmother slid in next to me, depositing her suitcase in the back seat. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I've kinda had a run of crappy luck lately,” I said, “maybe it's finally turning around though, since-”
Something heavy and black landed on the front of the car, smashing the engine and killing it instantly. The crunching of metal sounded like the world's worst auto accident, and I was thrown forward into the steering wheel, which popped me in the nose, no airbag to save me from a blow to the head.
“Nope,” my grandmother said, bleeding from the forehead as she raised her head.
I was bleeding some, too, warm, sticky liquid rolling down my upper lip. “Yeah,” I said, puckering my lip and spitting out a tooth. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
Waiting there on the hood, back in his complete armor and looking at me with pure fire through the eye holes...
Was Full Metal Jackass.
20.
“Someone has really got to give me a vacay after this,” I said, leaning back, ripping the steering wheel free and hurling it into Full Metal Jackass's chest through the open air between us. The windshield had mostly been shattered by Henderschott's landing, offering us a perfect view of him leering down, with only spiderweb-cracked remnants of glass filling the edges.
“Vay...cay?” my grandmother asked, ripping the door off the glove box and hurling it through the windshield. It rang out against Henderschott's head, causing him to wobble slightly.
“Don't ask,” I said, “the English language is a mess in the future. I blame cell phones and texting.”
If she wondered what those were, she didn't ask, probably because she was too busy slamming her shoulder into the door and throwing herself out of it. I followed her fine example, ripping mine free to use as a shield. I noticed her do the same, planting a foot against the frame of the car and tearing it from the hinges with a simple pull.
I nodded at her, she nodded at me. Then we both turned our attention to Henderschott, who was alternating between looking at each of us in turn, waiting to see what we'd do.
“I hear you have a pretty face, Henderschott,” I said, circling to my left as he stood in the center of the crushed hood. My grandmother moved behind him. The strategy was simple, if unspoken. Flank him, charge him, tear him apart. Easy stuff, even for two near-strangers like us, and communicated with but a look.
He started to wheel when he heard my grandmother move behind him, but I lurched into motion, door held high in a ramming motion, planning to Captain America's shield him if he turned and making my move flashy enough to distract him so he didn't.
He
nderschott picked the worst of both worlds – he made a half turn and then hesitated when he saw my aggressive motion, trying to decide whether he should deal with me or deal with grandma.
Big mistake.
I made a hard feint at him, turning it into a real charge once I realized he was hesitating to commit. His focus was split, trying to keep an arm at each side, in position to deal with us both at the same time.
Circling a little more behind him, forcing him to commit, I finally got him to turn his back on my grandmother so he could deal fully with me-
Grandma did not hesitate.
Lethe threw herself at him in a headlong charge, pouring on the speed in a leap that turned her into a blur.
Henderschott was decided at that point, though, because I was about five feet from him, and both his arms were angled to deal with me. There was no way he was going to be able to pivot or reach behind himself to get to her in time.
She slammed into him, and the hard crunch of metal meeting metal rang like an artillery shell bursting. The remaining glass in her door-shield shattered as she crashed into Henderschott and sent him forward off the hood of the car and falling toward me.
Not to be outdone (or crushed), I took advantage of his sudden momentum shift to keep moving, get under him, and spring up-
I slammed my shield into his chest while he was stunned, arms pinwheeling from his failure to keep his balance. I drove into him with all my force-
Henderschott flew into the sky like he'd been launched from one of those Punkin' Chunkin' catapults, a black-limbed projectile. He sailed over the terminal, and a crash in the distance heralded his landing.
“Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again,” I said, lowering my door shield, “Unidentified flying jackass, this is tower. You are cleared for crash landing.”
“He didn't even get any peanuts,” Lethe said, completely serious, as she hopped off the wrecked hood of the Sentra.
Flashback (Out of the Box Book 23) Page 10
