by Alex Ziebart
With a blue flash, he wasn’t in her arms anymore. The semi blew past, horn wailing like a banshee. Kristen flinched away from the truck’s slipstream. When she looked up, the man was gone.
She cursed and turned to run. Shouts came from the helicopters like a voice from the heavens. “Stay right where you are. I repeat: Stay where you are. Do not move.”
Kristen hesitated. She could feel the trembling in her legs, a bone-deep exhaustion. Could she get away? They had a helicopter. How could she hide from a chopper?
The police arrived in a whirlwind of deafening sirens. Their cars flew by in a blur of black and white, screeching to a stop. Cops emerged from their cars with guns drawn. They screamed at once, no one voice discernible from the next as they barked commands. “Get on the ground! Don’t move! Drop your weapon!”
I don’t even have a weapon, she thought. She surveyed the scene in a daze. Blood stained the highway and pooled around the bodies of naked men and women. No bears. No tigers. No serpent. No owls. Just human bodies.
She felt so tired.
They kept screaming. Fear gathered in the pit of her stomach. She tried to put her hands up and surrender. They shouted at her for that, too.
“Don’t move!”
“Drop the weapon!”
She looked past them. Another semi-trailer barreling down the highway. No, not another one. The same one. Coming faster this time and not slowing down. No horn this time. Did the police see it? She didn’t think so. They assumed their barrier of vehicles and flashing lights would protect them. “Get out of the way!” Kristen cried.
She saw fingers twitch on their guns. Her heart thundered. The lights were suddenly blinding.
Just go.
Kristen kicked herself into a dead run. Not away from the police, but toward them. Their gunfire was a hailstorm. She felt each and every impact as a dull thump against her body, but there was no pain. She closed the distance in seconds and grabbed an officer by the shoulders. She spun and tossed him aside, rolling him across the highway. Without looking, she jerked back the other way, wrapped her arms around another officer, and heaved him off of the ground. She kept running, carrying him along. Inches behind her, the truck roared past like a raging bull, demolishing the officers’ car. She felt the wind on her neck. Glass and metal peppered her back. She stumbled and fell. Her pants tore at the knee as she slid on concrete, dropping the man in blue in the process.
Kristen set a hand to the highway and forced herself to her feet again. The police were panicked, scattered by the truck’s passage.
Once more, she ran.
Chapter 7
“Morning, sunshine.”
Jane?
Holding her head, Kristen groaned. She had to have been hearing things. Why would Jane be there? She tried to recall what happened after the truck.
She remembered running. A lot of running, as liberating as it was terrifying. She couldn’t recall how she’d escaped the helicopters’ sight or even how long they’d followed her. She supposed a truck smashing through a barricade of squad cars might have been more interesting. The exhaustion was still clear in her mind: burning lungs, thundering heart, light head, trembling limbs. Sweat and blood.
Where had she run? Eyes still closed, she tried to remember. Not the bank. She didn’t know how to get back in once she’d left, and nobody would have been there to help. Not her apartment. There was no getting in there without her street clothes. Even if no one else in the building saw her, Emma might have been there. Where, then?
Bernice’s house.
Her first question echoed in her mind. Jane?
Kristen forced her eyes open. The room was dark save the slivers of light slipping in around the blinds. She laid on the couch, fully clothed in what appeared to be her own pajamas. Heaving herself upright, Kristen braced for pain. Nothing. She pressed her hand to the places she vividly recalled impacts the night before. Not even tender.
“You need to stop getting shot.” Jane sat with one leg crossed on a plush recliner on the opposite end of the room. She held something dark in her hand, but Kristen couldn’t tell what it was. It seemed innocuous, at least. The shoulder holster she wore, less so. “It’s getting cliché pretty fast.”
Kristen grumbled. Her head swam. “Doesn’t seem like it actually matters.”
“You’re not dead, no, but I’m pretty sure it still matters. At the very least, it can’t be good for you. How do you feel?”
Kristen ran a checklist through her head. Pain? A headache, but otherwise, no. Dizzy? Yes. Tired? Yes, but the sort of tired one felt after oversleeping. Hungry? Yes. She swung her legs off the couch and set them flat on the floor. “Starving. Do I get lunch money again?”
Jane didn’t answer. She tilted her head, watching Kristen’s leg. “Do you always do that?”
She looked down. Her leg was bouncing like a toddler on a sugar rush and she hadn’t even realized it. She made it stop and felt suddenly anxious. Jumping to her feet, she paced across the hardwood. “Just energetic, I guess.”
“Why don’t you grab something from the fridge? Bernice won’t mind.”
Kristen jogged toward the hall to the kitchen, but stopped short. “How do you know Bernice?”
Jane stood and tossed the item she was holding onto Bernice’s glass coffee table. She flapped a hand to urge Kristen onward to the kitchen, walking and talking. “I wouldn’t say I know her. We met this morning. I needed to find you, and you left your phone at work. I called around, said you left your phone in my car, and Bernice knew who I was already. I’m guessing you told her.”
“You aren’t going to give me shit about that, are you? I had to tell someone. She’s my best friend.”
Stepping into the kitchen, a modern affair of pure whites, blacks, and copious stainless steel, Kristen beelined to the refrigerator. Her hand grabbed a bag of deli roast beef before she could even process the thought, tearing it open and shoving a slice into her mouth. She listened as she gathered sandwich supplies.
Jane leaned against the kitchen counter. “No, I’m not that sort. I think everybody in our business should have at least one person who knows what they do. It keeps us sane. Too much skulking around and we turn into the kind of person you’d expect to be skulking around. You trusted her enough to come here, so I’m not going to whine about it.”
Kristen folded a piece of rye bread in half, stuffed it with roast beef, and ate half of the slapdash sandwich in one bite. She spoke with a full mouth. “You know what’s weird?”
“The fact that I tracked you down so easily?”
“Yeah, but not that. I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that didn’t result in food.”
Jane’s face scrunched. “And that’s weird why?”
“Why is it always food? Sneaky meeting? Ice cream. Panic mode? Cheeseburger. Get shot? Raid the fridge.”
“Do you actually want me to answer that?”
“Is there an actual answer?”
Jane nodded. “There sure is. Given your fitness background, I’d guess you could answer it yourself if you were more awake. You do spectacular things. That energy needs to come from somewhere. If you’re going to be out there kicking ass, you need calories. Vitamins. Minerals. I took you for ice cream before asking you to tear the roof off of a warehouse and smash in some domes. Notice what you grabbed from the fridge?”
Kristen looked at the cold cuts on the counter. Roast beef. “Iron?”
“A restless leg is a strong visual symptom of iron deficiency. You bled a hell of a lot. Your body must replace blood way faster than a normal person or you’d never have made it here. The material for it must come from somewhere. You’re probably anemic and dehydrated, and if you don’t stay on top of that, you’re a dead woman. If you don’t already take daily vitamins, I’d really recommend it.”
“I do, actually.” Kristen looked between the bread—whole grain—and the roast beef. She made another sandwich. “Makes sense. Unless I’m made of magic, the e
nergy comes from somewhere.”
“And not just the energy, but the raw materials. I’d say that’s a small price to pay considering whatever a normal human can do, you can do better.”
Kristen could hear the tune in her head. Anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you. She stifled a smirk. “I never get a look at myself before I’m all patched up. You know, the holes. How bad were they?”
“Considering how many hits you took? Not bad at all. Barely any penetration. The rounds break the skin, hit the muscle, dig in a little bit, and that’s all she wrote. As far as I can tell, all you need is a little Kevlar and you’re as close to invincible as I’ve ever seen.”
Kristen grimaced. “Body armor? That doesn’t really fit the motif, does it?”
The moment she said the words, she realized their absurdity. Whining about wearing body armor? When she’d been shot? Not just shot, but shot repeatedly. Wearing body armor really was the obvious thing to do, even if it didn’t fit the fantasy.
“I’m not talking about body armor, Kris. I mean if your shirt was Kevlar instead of spandex, you would’ve been bulletproof.”
“Is my name Jane Fonda? No. It’s not. It isn’t spandex. It’s synthetic cotton, alright? I don’t wear spandex.”
Jane held up her hands. “Okay, okay. I guess I won’t be the one to tell you there’s spandex in Under Armour. Now I’m afraid to ask the hard questions.”
Kristen eyed Jane’s holster. “Hard questions?”
“What the hell happened last night?”
While explaining in full, Kristen took a tall glass from a cupboard and filled it from the ice maker, talking over the audible grinding. When she finished, Jane took over.
“Let me make sure I have the story straight. Some guy carjacked a woman in the parking lot you happened to be watching. Apparently, he can teleport.”
Kristen held up a finger to stop her. “I don’t know if I’d call it teleportation. I want to call it blinking, but I’m not sure if blink is just a nerd word.”
“What’s a blink?”
“It’s like teleportation, but only short-range. In RPGs, it’s a skill typically given to wizards or mages. Stalkers can do it in StarCraft, too.”
Jane stared in silence for a few seconds. “Right. Short-range teleport. Anyway, you chased the guy for five miles—you didn’t specify why you did that, by the way—and it turned out the changelings were after him, too.”
“Do I really need to specify? Number one, he stole a car. Number two, he could teleport. Pretty straightforward.”
“Fair enough. So the changelings beat him half to death before you could scare them off. You act like you’re helping him to his feet, but you steal his wallet and stash it in your bra.”
Kristen nodded. “When I caught up with him, I think he was trying to change getaway cars by blinking into one on the highway, but couldn’t pull it off. I was afraid he might. If he had an ID, we could find him.”
Jane rubbed her forehead. “That’s actually brilliant. Your bra, though? Seriously?”
“Well, yeah. Gym clothes don’t have decent pockets, I’m not fighting crime with a purse, and you haven’t given me a fancy utility belt yet. If I can’t use my boobs as a purse, then what are they good for? Why are you so fixated on my breasts, anyway?”
“Fixated? I’m not fixated.”
“You talk about them more than most guys do.”
“What? I’ve mentioned them what, twice? In the context of completely legitimate questions?”
“I like zero better.” Kristen spread her hands. “Oh, heck. While you’re here, why not ask my cup size? I can write my measurements down for you. That won’t make our professional relationship weird or anything.”
“Actually, that would be useful.”
Kristen peered at her. “Excuse me?”
“Kevlar?”
Kristen rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Did he have an ID in his wallet or not?”
Jane gestured for Kristen to follow and led her back into the living room. She picked up the wallet from the coffee table and tossed it to her. Kristen caught it—a thick, beast of a wallet—and flipped it open to look for the ID. The sight of a driver’s license made her break into a mad grin. “Holy shit, my scheme actually worked.”
“It did. Well done.” Jane picked a tablet up off of the floor beside the recliner. She rattled off the information while Kristen read it from the driver’s license. “Todd Schumacher. Six foot four, 220 pounds. Green eyes. Brown hair. Born October 1985. Not an organ donor. Married with three children. Triplets. Fertility treatment gone awry. I’d say something like poor bastard, but I feel worse for his wife.”
Kristen glanced up, brow high. “I don’t think that last part is on his ID.”
“Nope. I went digging online while you were asleep. He doesn’t put much about himself on the Internet, but his wife Katy does it for him.” Jane passed the tablet over to Kristen. An open document presented endless details of Todd Schumacher and his family. “The guy’s had an awful run of bad luck. Laid off four times in three years. First time was a month before his kids were born. Electrician to construction to cable installation to spring seasonal at a home improvement shop. Now he’s working as what his wife calls an independent contractor, but I think he mows lawns and paints fences for a few bucks an hour.”
“Jesus.” Kristen blew out a breath. “Can’t blame him for getting desperate.”
“And it isn’t a coincidence he turned up in the parking lot where you work. The two of you live less than five miles apart, and the Temple branch where I set you up is right in the middle. He has a house in a quiet little cul-de-sac nearby. Even if his address wasn’t on his driver’s license, his wife has posted geotagged pictures of their house.”
Kristen laid the tablet on the coffee table with a grimace. “I really can’t handle the creepiness levels lately. You can’t just steal this guy’s information off of the Internet.”
“Kris, you stole his wallet.”
Somehow, it felt different to her. Kristen wasn’t sure if she was only trying to justify her choices or not, but making a snap decision so they could find the man later seemed downright heroic, good judgment in a tense moment. What Jane was doing seemed more like harassment than heroism.
Jane went on. “Anyway, given your description of what he can do, he sounds like he could’ve been the guy who stole that ring. But the message in the box sounded personal, and I’ve never met him before. Are you feeling better now that you’ve eaten?”
“A bit, yeah. Why?”
“Think you’re up for paying a visit to Todd’s place?”
Suspicion coiled in Kristen’s chest, and she couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice. “And when we get there, we do what?”
Todd knew about Temple. Not only did he know about them, he hated—or feared—them. Obviously, they’d done something to him. What that something was, she had no idea. A friendly job offer didn’t seem likely. What was the plan, then? Take him down? Drag him in for Temple’s benefit? Interrogation? Torture?
“That’s up to you.”
Kristen jolted at the response. “Really?”
Jane gathered her things. “Yep. I told you, this kind of thing isn’t my specialty. Temple picked you to be the face of what you are. That entails more than being on the news. The way we met wasn’t the best, I know. If you have a better method, this is your chance to practice. This is your job now. You’re the recruiter.”
“So you want me to recruit him?”
“I said that’s up to you, and I meant it.”
“And where are you going?”
“I’m going to check if Temple actually knows anything about this guy.”
“Should we do that first?”
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take. Safety is our first priority. His safety, his family’s safety, and the public’s safety. We can’t drag our feet. So if you’re up to it, get moving.” Jane heaved a duffel bag onto
her shoulder. “There’s change of clothes for you in the back room. I think it’s your last set of black, so try not to ruin it. The car keys are back there, too.”
Kristen winced at the thought of ruining another set of gym clothes. Jane was right; she’d be down to her last set of black. After that, all she had left was pink, and pink didn’t seem very heroic. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll call you with any updates.”
With that, Jane left. Minutes later, Kristen was on the road.
She flipped through radio stations as she drove and couldn’t find a single station playing music.
“Have you seen the footage? It looked like something straight from a movie set. Personally, I think it’s a load of crap. We’re all being had.”
She changed the station.
“This Maiden Milwaukee chick went from hero to menace overnight. The entire town was in an uproar when the police chief called her dangerous, but he’s having the last laugh.”
She changed it again.
“The scene of the crime was downright satanic, wasn’t it? Blood, guts, and naked bodies all over the highway. It’s sickening. That’s the only way I can describe. Sickening. What was she doing out there?”
Another change.
“I’m not still not convinced she’s some murderer. Come on, did nobody see that truck? This woman risked getting gunned down to save these cops’ lives. I think she got set up. There’s no other explanation. Why would she murder that many people in the middle of the highway and then stop to help the police, especially after their boss called her a dangerous vigilante?”
Kristen turned off the radio and took slow, calming breaths. Her chest shuddered with each exhale. At the next red light, she grabbed her phone, plugged it into the auxiliary jack, and hit play on her Happy Thoughts Workout playlist. The very moment the music started, she danced in her seat, mouthing along to Kimbra’s “Cameo Lover.”
This is nonstop baby, you’ve got me going crazy, you’re heavier than I knew.
Kristen glanced out her window. The guy in the next car over stared at her. She stuck her tongue out at him and threw her shoulders into the dance. Whatever concern she had for the world melted away.