by S. A. Beck
Police ombudsman Jerome Clarke stated yesterday, “While we ask all citizens to be vigilant in spotting and promptly reporting crime, we do not condone the actions of this young man. What he is doing is highly dangerous and could result in his serious injury. It’s best to leave police work to the police.”
Police have no suspects in any of the three cases.
Jaxon sat back, her eyes smarting from trying to puzzle through the words.
Well, that sure was a different story. At least that one was interesting, although a bit weird. She started working on her essay, gritting her teeth as the word processor underlined practically every word with an angry red squiggle.
It took her an hour to finish the essay and wrestle with the spell checker to make sure all the words were correct. Spell checkers offered alternate words depending on what the user typed, perfect for people who didn’t have dyslexia. If the mind mixed up the letters of everything that was read, though, then the computer might not offer the correct word, and if it offered more than one choice, the user was sunk.
And sometimes, Jaxon’s spelling was so horrible the spell checker had no idea what she was trying to write.
A knock on her doorframe made her jump. She turned to see Isadore Grant, her foster mother, standing in the doorway. She was a glamorous woman in her forties who had made her fortune in disaster insurance. Jaxon hadn’t heard her approach. Isadore had a freaky habit of making no sound when she walked, and Jaxon got the impression that she had been standing there for a while. It wasn’t the first time Isadore had snuck up on her like that.
“All done with your homework?” Isadore asked.
“Yep. Thanks for letting me use the Internet.”
The Grants didn’t let her get online unless she needed to for homework. It was one of their million rules. They had some dumb idea of living an all-natural life and staying away from electronic media and processed food. It didn’t stop them from living in a mansion in the middle of the biggest, most polluted city in the country, though. Adults had a habit of making convenient exceptions to their morals in order to get what they wanted.
“You’re really getting through your homework quickly now. That’s great!” Isadore said in that faux friendly tone she had. She was usually as cold as ice, but she did seem to be making a conscious effort to be nice to Jaxon in her own awkward way. “Once you’ve sent in your assignment, bring me the laptop. It’s time to go to bed.”
Jaxon looked at the clock. It was barely past nine, but she knew it would be pointless to argue. There was nothing to do in that house anyway. No TV, no Internet, the Grants had taken her phone…she might as well go to bed.
Half an hour later, she lay wide awake in her darkened room, waiting for sleep to come. She thought about how different her life was compared with a month before, and how much it was the same. The Grant home was only the latest in a series of foster homes. It was by far the richest—the Grants were multimillionaires—but in the end, it was just another hotel.
She couldn’t count how many foster homes she’d been in. Some had been okay, and some had been terrible. The Grants were in the middle. Stephen Grant didn’t check out her body or try to get close to her as some foster fathers had, and they weren’t religious nuts like some of the other placements, and yet there was something disturbing about those two. They were like actors playing a part. They obviously didn’t want a child of their own and had never adopted, so why had they volunteered to be foster parents? It turned out she was their first foster child.
She wanted to know why they had decided to take her, but something prevented her from asking. The Grants were secretive sometimes. Several rooms in the house were off limits, and the Grants were vague about their past and their work. Jaxon had the feeling that if she asked why those two busy, antisocial people had volunteered to be foster parents, she wouldn’t get an honest answer.
She missed her last group home. As with the foster homes, she’d been in countless group homes. She was always getting shifted from one place to another because she was a “problem child.” At sixteen, though, she wasn’t a child, and the problems were all other people’s fault. People picked on her because she was mixed race, or because she was the new kid, or mostly because she didn’t quite fit in. It was as though they sensed she was different from anybody else, even though she had done her best to hide her unusual powers.
Her last placement, at the Forever Welcome Group Home, had been no different at first. A snobbish girl with the usual flock of followers had singled her out and made her life hell. That was nothing new. There was someone like that in every new school or group home.
But there had been something different about that place too. She’d gotten her first boyfriend, Otto Heike. He’d accepted her from the start, and the two had grown close so quickly. She hadn’t even had a chance to kiss him before it all fell apart.
Otto had been in the group home because he was a pyromaniac. He was as addicted to setting fires as some at her new school were addicted to cocaine. It gave him a rush and took him away from his problems. He seemed pretty normal to Jaxon, though. Maybe all he needed was to get away from his nasty parents to get better. She’d met them once. If she had had to grow up with that pair, she’d have wanted to get addicted to something too. Anything would be better than having to deal with those two.
They were always trying to find fault with Otto, and they sure got their chance a couple of weeks ago. A lance of pain went right through her heart as she thought about it.
Jaxon was finally finding a place to belong, finally coming out of her shell with someone she liked and felt she could trust, and then disaster struck. It was during the visitation weekend, when the parents who bothered to come could have a big picnic with their messed-up kids, and everyone would paste on smiles and pretend they cared about each other. Otto had wanted to get away from his mother and father, who had only shown up for the sake of appearances, and so they went to the greenhouse.
Jaxon had loved that place, although as with everything else, her love was mixed with dread. She had been doing some gardening therapy in order to calm her nerves, and while she was handling the plants, she had discovered a new ability beyond the super strength she already knew she had. She could make plants grow just by touching them. She had shared that secret with Otto, the only person she had ever told about how truly different she was.
Otto was amazed but didn’t reject her or run away in fear. It made her realize that she didn’t have to be alone for the rest of her life.
They had gone to the greenhouse so she could get away from the bullies and he could get away from his unloving parents. Jaxon’s heart had been racing. She thought that if she was ever going to get her first kiss, it would be then.
And then they’d been attacked. Six burly men had tried to abduct her. Why, she didn’t know. Of course girls got kidnapped sometimes. There was no shortage of perverts out there, but they usually grabbed a girl in some isolated place. She’d never heard of six guys breaking into the grounds of a group home to carry off one of the residents.
They had to fight them off. Otto had tried to help, but it was Jaxon who did most of the work. She had the strength of an NFL linebacker and the speed of a black belt. She’d knocked all of them flat, and she and Otto had run to get help.
By the time they had alerted the group home staff, the greenhouse was in flames.
Of course no one believed their unbelievable story. Of course they blamed Otto.
Otto was already eighteen, so he got sent to prison. Jaxon, knowing those men would come back for her and fearing for her life, had gotten her roommate, Ginger, to make some calls to people she knew in Child Protective Services and get her reassigned.
So there she was, in a cold mansion with its cold occupants, pretending to be grateful for getting to go to an exclusive school filled with coke fiends and snobs. She was alone again. She was alone, as usual.
So what was in her future? More of the same? Jaxon didn’t see what e
lse she could do.
Her thoughts went back to that kid who was running around the city at night, stopping crime. He sounded as messed up and alone as she was. No one pulled a stunt like that unless they were pretty out there. But at least he was doing something useful.
The paper said he knew martial arts. She was studying that too. It could come in handy if those men came looking for her again.
The house had gone quiet. Stephen and Isadore usually turned in early. She couldn’t see any light coming from under the crack in her door.
A strange feeling came over her, a restless energy that was so unlike her usual depressed laziness.
Jaxon got up and parted the blinds. The lights in the greenhouse were off. Stephen wasn’t working late as he sometimes did. The house had a large backyard screened with trees to give the illusion that the place was out in the country. The trick worked if someone was standing on the lawn, but if she looked out a second-story window as she was doing then, she could see the lights of Los Angeles twinkling through the branches. Not far off, a highway ran like a bright ribbon through the night, the lights of the cars making an almost continuous glowing line. A whole city was out there, and she was stuck inside.
Jaxon turned away from the view in disgust. What a boring life she lived. She had all sorts of strange powers, as if she were a mutant or a superhero or something, yet all she had ever been was some orphan, some high school loser.
On impulse, she walked to a corner of her room and bent forward. After placing her hands on the floor, she edged her feet up the wall until she had almost all her weight on her two hands, her toes barely touching the wall.
Not too impressive. Lots of kids in gym class could do that. But how about something a bit harder?
She centered one hand and pulled the other away. Her body wavered for a moment until she found her equilibrium. Jaxon pulled one foot away from the wall so that even more weight was on her one hand.
The only thing challenging about that was keeping balance. Her arm barely felt the strain at all.
Just how strong was she, anyway? When she was nine, she had broken the wrist of one of her foster fathers for trying to mess with her. That had gotten her labeled a problem child. It had also made her fear her powers and hide them. She had learned her lesson—being different only got her in trouble.
So she had never really tested the limits of her abilities. Steadying herself, she flexed the fingers of her hand until she was holding herself up on her fingertips.
Impressive. Maybe some gymnast or yoga master could do that, but not the average high schooler.
How far could she go?
One by one, she pulled her fingers away. Her eyes went wide with astonishment when she pulled them all away except for her index finger. It held up her entire weight, its tip white with the pressure.
A sharp crack sounded beneath her, then came a pain in her finger, and she tumbled. On instinct, she somersaulted and landed on her feet, then brought her finger to her mouth and tasted blood.
She looked down at the floor and saw she had poked a hole through the wood. She’d put too much weight on too little space and punched through the floor. She was lucky she hadn’t broken her finger.
Or maybe her finger was unbreakable. She’d never broken a bone before. She’d never even had a sprained ankle.
She could bleed, though. Her finger had a big gash down the side. Jaxon was not invulnerable.
Still sucking on the wound, she crept to the doorway and listened. No one was coming, unless Isadore was spying on her again.
Jaxon opened the door a crack. The hallway was shrouded in darkness. It looked as though her little stunt hadn’t woken up her foster parents. She’d need to think up an excuse for the hole in the floor, though.
She tiptoed to the bathroom to get a bandage. As an experiment, she actually walked on the tips of her toes. It didn’t tire her at all.
In a few minutes, she was back in bed, her finger wrapped in a bandage, her mind whirling with possibilities.
I could teach that vigilante a thing or two about fighting, she thought.
It took her a long time to fall asleep.
Chapter 3
JUNE 17, 2016, MOJAVE DESERT, NEVADA
12:05 PM
Yuhle slammed on the gas, and the Subaru tore down the isolated county road. The dust cloud behind them loomed closer. Otto peered out the back window and could see it was pretty big, as if it was being made by more than one vehicle. Up ahead rose another dust cloud, smaller and more distant.
“We’re trapped!” Otto shouted. “What do we do?”
“Fight. What do you think?” Vivian said. She bent over the duffel bag at her feet and pulled out a compact Uzi submachine gun.
“You’re going to shoot them? They’re American government agents,” Otto said, shocked.
“They’re going to shoot us. What do you suggest I do, honey, blow them a kiss?”
“Can’t we just stun them with our Tasers or something?” Otto said. He reached under his seat and pulled out the Taser that Grunt had trained him to use. The hulking mercenary had trained Yuhle as well, and Otto knew that an identical Taser sat under the driver’s seat.
“That would be nice, honey, but I don’t think they’ll get close enough for that. They’ll shoot at us from a distance. No need to get up close and personal.”
“Then we should surrender,” Otto objected. “I don’t want us all to die.”
“Surrendering is the best way to make sure we all do die,” Yuhle said, his face set in grim determination. He’d put his foot on the gas, and the Subaru shot down the narrow two-lane county road. The dust cloud behind them grew closer, however, and Otto could make out a gleam of metal in the distance.
“They’re going to catch us,” Dr. Yamazaki said. “Give me a gun.”
“No way,” Vivian said, giving her a hard look. “I’m not a hundred percent on you yet, girl.”
Otto pulled his Taser from under his seat and opened the window. He could see that there were actually two vehicles behind them, white Range Rovers with powerful engines that made their little Subaru look puny and pathetic by comparison. The Range Rovers were gaining fast.
Otto looked at the stun gun in his hand and suddenly felt inadequate. While he was only an okay shot with it, he had never fired at a living target. And how was he supposed to hit someone inside a car anyway?
Vivian must have noticed his expression because she nudged him in the shoulder. When he turned, she dumped the contents of her purse in his lap—a half dozen grenades.
He’d been trained in those too. Otto checked the color-coded dots on the bottom to see what kind they were. Two had black dots showing they were tear gas grenades, three more had yellow dots showing they were flash and stun grenades, and one had the red dot that told him it was an incendiary grenade.
Otto’s heart pounded as he gazed at the little black metal sphere. He looked at Vivian and saw she was busy loading her Uzi. She had been in such a hurry she must not have realized she had given him the firebomb. He held it, enchanted at the possibilities. His mouth went dry, and his vision became hazy. So much fire…
Yuhle jerked on the wheel and brought him back to his senses. Puffs of grit and pavement burst in a regular line in front of the car. It took a moment for Otto to figure out what he was seeing.
Impacts from bullets. Their pursuers were shooting at them!
He turned in his seat. From the passenger’s seat of the leading Range Rover, a man in a black suit was leaning out the window and firing with some sort of automatic weapon. The steady flare of the muzzle was like a flame. But not the kind of flame Otto liked. That flame was trying to kill him.
Yuhle swerved again, trying to take evasive action, but had little room to maneuver on such a narrow road. Bullets plinked off the rear and roof. One took off the side view mirror.
To his credit, Yuhle didn’t waver. The scientist hunkered down in his seat and kept weaving back and forth, doing what little he cou
ld to keep them alive. It was up to the other members of the team to do more.
Vivian opened her window and readied her Uzi. Otto was quicker. He leaned out his already open window, pulled the pin of a tear gas grenade, and tossed it in the path of the oncoming Range Rovers. The little metal orb bounced along the road and burst, sending a thick cloud of yellowish smoke over the entire road and blotting the pursuing vehicles from view.
Otto let out a cheer and pumped his fist to the sky, then stopped as the vehicles drove right through the gas.
“You got to do more than that, honey!” Vivian shouted. “They’re going too fast to catch more than a whiff of that.”
Otto took a flash and stun grenade and tossed that next. It burst just in front of the lead vehicle, the one from which the gunner was still leaning, replacing the magazine on his machine gun to give them another burst of bullets.
After a blinding flash, the gunner jerked and dropped his weapon. The driver swerved, and the Range Rover took a sharp turn, went off the road, smashed through some bushes, and bumped over the hard ground before slamming to a stop against a large rock.
“Whoa! I hope everyone is all right,” Otto said.
“You’re too nice for this game, honey.” Vivian laughed. “They won’t be so nice to you.”
She leaned out the window and gave a burst of fire against the second vehicle. It swerved and slowed but didn’t stop.
“Car ahead!” Yuhle shouted.
Otto turned and saw a car parked parallel to the road, blocking both lanes. Two men in black suits stood behind the front—Otto remembered Grunt telling him that the engine block was the only bulletproof part of a car—leveling their pistols in their direction.
Both pistols flashed. A bullet smashed the windshield. Otto felt it rush past him before it exited the rear window.