by David Barton
“So, you want her address?”
“It would be a great help. I’ll take it from there.”
“Umm. Sure.” I grabbed a note from my fridge where I had kept her address from one of the first times we worked on an article together. “Here.”
He took it with a slight smile. “Thank you.”
“Should I be worried about someone else coming to deal with me?”
“I don’t think so. They no doubt heard what had happened to Shade.”
“Shade?”
“That was the guy’s assassin name.” He waved the piece of paper at me. “Thanks for this again. Have a nice night.”
He walked passed me and headed for the window. “Wait.” I called after him.
He stopped, not turning around before replying, “What?”
“What’s going on? I haven’t done anything and I can’t see what Felicity could have done either.”
“It’s easy to make enemies in this city nowadays. It could have been anything. If it makes you sleep better, lock the door and the windows.” I looked at the poor excuse for a window I now had thanks to the superhero. Saying something wouldn’t change anything. “See you another night.”
I watched him dive out of the hole in the window. There was a small pause before I heard a thud against the metal fire escaped on the side of the building. The sound was carried away by the soft breeze as the super man disappeared into the night. I forgot about him and went into my bedroom.
Just when I think I could have a normal day something like this takes me by surprise. Finding out about superheroes in the city didn’t turn out like I had hoped. I couldn’t even tell anyone about it.
Once undressed I dropped into my bed and grabbed my laptop. It reminded me of last Christmas. It wasn’t the first time my father wasn’t there but he had bothered to get me a present on the special day. I’d barely used it because of that fact but I couldn’t be bothered to sit in front of my computer at the moment.
Before falling asleep I researched more about Mr Henrikson. The only thing I found interesting before falling asleep was the fact he used to have a sibling that had died in the same plane crash that his parents were lost in.
I looked deeper into it but it was only rumours at the moment. My eyes kept dropping until I finally fell asleep. I was thinking about Felicity when my mind switched off to recharge. Having a blank mind was finally the peace I’d been looking for all day.
04/07/2014 PM
After making my way from the open window to a rooftop a few buildings away I looked at the note. “Get what you needed?”
I quickly folded it and tucked it away into my pocket. “Yeah, just checking in on someone.”
“You do realise I know my son lives there.”
“And what we discuss is nothing to do with you. I told you the rules. When we work together, anything personal for either of us is left out. We find this person we’re both looking for and that’s it.”
“Fine by me. I’ll stay out of it.” He checked the knot at the back of his mask. “Ready to get going?”
“Of course.”
“Just remember I might not be as fast as you.”
“That’s just because you’re old.” It was half a joke and half an insult. I may feel a little relaxed around this man now but we weren’t friends. I doubt we would ever be friends.
For the next half hour we trekked across the city looking for the address we found in the file. Finally, after a lot of looking we stopped on a roof. “Looks like we’re not going to be finding it tonight.”
“You give up too easily.”
I looked up at his half covered face. “What do you want to do then?”
“We take our masks off and go ask someone. Might sound simple but it’s worked in the past.”
“I can’t do that.” I thought about taking my mask off. Exposing myself to the world and whoever was watching. Last time my mask was off someone caught a photo of me. I still didn’t know who that someone was. My computer was blown to pieces before I could find out. I couldn’t take that risk again.
“You stay up her then. I’ll go down.”
And so he did, taking his mask off as he moved to the edge of the building. He gave me a wink before he started descending down the fire escape. I was left up here on the rooftop all by myself with the single thought of taking my mask off.
My fingers itched to touch the mask, to untie the knot. To take a better look at my face. They started moving up until I was slowly tugging on one of the strips. I felt the pressure around the top of my head release, letting in some of the cold air.
I removed the material letting it dangle in my hand. The wind that now licked my hair played with the mask. Tugging it all over the place like it was trying to steal it away and leave me exposed.
It felt good. I wasn’t hiding. There was no worry. That was until I heard a footstep. My whole body went tense, waiting for the attack. Instead, something came to me that was the complete opposite. “It’s only me. I can tell by the way you’re standing that I didn’t manage to sneak up on you.”
“It’s you.”
“Don’t sound too disappointed.”
“It’s not that.” I quickly starting wrapping my head back in my mask.
“You don’t have to do that on my account.”
“It’s not that either. I keep my identity a secret even from myself.”
“Oh right. The whole forgetting who you are thing.”
“Exactly. Keeps things extra safe.”
I could hear her steps getting closer. Even though my mask was back on and tied in place, I still didn’t want to look around. “What you doing just standing up here?”
“I think I would prefer to know how you keep finding me.”
“All the stuff in my head. Seems to come in handy when I need to chat.”
I finally turned around. Her face is a shock. One eye was black and swollen. Cuts on her cheeks and lips. She was even walking with a limp and holding her gut. As she pulled a soft smile she collapsed.
She would have hit her head and created more injuries if I hadn’t sped across the roof and caught her. I was about to order her to tell me who did this but there was no use. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was very shallow.
I needed to get her to a hospital or she was going to die. Once up on my feet, her lying across my arms I started towards the fire escape. I got two steps and my new friend appeared. His smile was gigantic until he saw the girl in my arms.
“I leave you for a few minutes and look what happens.”
“We need to get her to a hospital.”
His look turned even more serious, “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. She was limping and holding her side. Maybe she has internal bleeding.” I quickly scanned her body. “I can’t see any serious wounds.”
“You must be right then. Lie her down.”
“There’s no time I have to get her to a hospital.” My anger rolled around me.
“Look!” His voice shocked me into shutting up and listening. “Lie her down. I can help her.”
“How?”
“No more questions. Lie her down or she dies.”
I looked into his eyes wandering if this was some sick joke. Then I looked down at the fragile figure in my arms. I didn’t have a choice. “Fine.”
As I laid her on the roof he knelt down beside her. His hands moved over her body, just hovering an inch from her. As they closed in around her chest, just above her heart, I noticed her eyelids pulsating like she was dreaming.
All I could do was stand there and watch. All my strength and I felt completely useless. Watching as this man did something that I would probably watch at a witch doctor’s hut on a beach. My doubts were large and I was about to voice them when suddenly she took a deep breath. The gasp made me jump.
She still laid there, her chest slowly moving up and down with her breathing. Her eyelids were still shut and she lied there like she was in a coffin. �
�She’ll be fine. I’ve stopped the bleeding and her body is well on its way to healing.”
“How did you do that?”
“You have your abilities. I have mine.”
“And one of yours is healing people.”
“Healing a certain type of person. She was lucky her body took the process.”
“What do you mean by that?”
His mouth moved and I thought to myself I was going to get an answer. A simple process of asking a question and getting the one without riddles. Then the girl gasped a second time. Only this time she sat up, mouth wide open, sucking in air.
I dropped to my knees next to her. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I don’t know. My body feels fine but I could swear I saw a bright blue light. It was strange.” Then her eyes went to my partner of the night. “Oh, hi.”
“Hello yourself. How do you two know each other?”
I quickly interjected, “Don’t answer that.” My eyes moving to him. “You know the rules.” Hooking my arm around hers I started to pull her away to a corner. “What happened to you? Who did this?”
“I can’t really remember. I must have taken a knock to the head.”
Not only could I hear in her words that she was lying I could also hear the erratic speed of her heart when she spoke. If she didn’t want to tell me then she didn’t have to. I wasn’t going to push it any further. I was just glad she felt like she could come to me for help.
“Are you feeling okay now?”
“Yeah.” She stretched her body a little. Swinging her arms around like she was boxing an invisible opponent. “I feel fine. Whatever your friend did really works wonders.”
“He’s not my friend. I think you should go. Things are a little complicated tonight.”
“I’m starting to get that feeling. I’ll catch you another night?”
“No doubt.” I watched her leap to another building top before sliding down a ladder. As I watched her I felt like a father watching over his daughter. Which felt strange since she didn’t seem that much younger than me. I lost sight of her as she left my life once again.
I felt the towering presence of the healer behind me. “We should get going.”
“Someone knew the place?”
“Yep, we’re not too far away.”
“Good. I feel like beating someone up.”
“Close relationship with the girl then.”
“Not really. I just don’t like seeing girl’s mistreated like that.”
“A moral man. That’s good.”
“Unlike you then.” My barbed comment came out of my mouth before I could think. There was no point pretending that things between me and him were ever going to be friendly.
I still didn’t know who he really was and I wasn’t going to share my life with him. This was a one-time thing and afterwards, we would go our separate ways. Even if he was against it. I was going to walk away.
When we arrived at the address I thought there was some kind of mistake. It wasn’t an apartment building or a street full of houses. The directions we were given had brought us to a bunch of outdoor storage lockers. The kind they auction off on the television.
After double checking the address we snuck in, jumping over the gate and starting our search. “I don’t suppose your file said what storage locker it is.”
“It didn’t mention anything about this place. Just the address.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
We started walking around, taking the little alleyways in between blocks of lockers. “Look at that one.” He pointed to one of the big shutter doors to our right. It had plenty of yellow police tape over the entrance. The shutter door was also half blown out. The inside was all covered in black charred markings.
“God knows what happened in there.” I ducked down to get a better look.
“Someone messing around with things they shouldn’t I imagine.”
“Maybe someone was destroying evidence.”
“Or maybe a meth lab was miss-treated. We need to keep looking.”
“Yeah.” I carried on walking, starting to pick up my pace the more frustrated I got. That was until we came across a shutter door with a black mask painted on it. At first I wanted to ignore it but there was an uncanny resemblance to the ones we were wearing.
My new friend came up beside me after walking a few steps away. “What’s up?”
“This is the place.”
“It’s just a stupid painting on a shutter door. There’s graffiti all over the city.”
“You don’t think it’s weird that it looks like our masks?”
He studied it for longer. “Not really but if you want to break into someone’s storage unit for nothing then be my guest.”
“I will.” I walked forwards grabbing the handle at the bottom. With my strength the two large padlocks either side of me snapped like twigs. I swung it up revealing the inside of the bin. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, my ears tuned into a soft ticking.
When my mind clicked to what it was I threw my whole body back. It was too late. The explosion hit me with a strong force, the loud noise ringing in my ears. The power of it blowing me back on my arse. My ears rung like bells in my head.
Once I had my bearings I jumped to my feet, ready to attack or defend against anything else. Only, there was nothing else. That’s when I heard laughter from behind me. I turned. “What’s so funny?”
“Look.” He pointed into the storage locker. The thing that I had thought was an explosion was nothing more than a trick. As I walked closer to the open shutter I noticed a pipe at the top of the doorway. It had clearly sent out a gush of wind that had knocked me on my arse.
Speakers beside the door had mimicked the sound of the blast. Then lastly, sitting on a table just in front of me was a jack in the box. Only there was no clown, just a hand with its middle finger sticking up at me.
Anger boiled and I knocked the object off the table, smashing it to the floor. Pushing the table out the way I stomped into the bin, using my breathing to try and calm myself down. I looked around, looking at all the walls. There was nothing apart from photos.
Every inch of the bin was covered in them. Even the ceiling and they all had one thing in common. Me. Every single photo was a shot of me. They dated back quite a while as well. So far back they went into the days that I could no longer remember.
My feet pounded on the floor as I went round and round. Then I stopped. My eyes focusing on a group of photos. They were shots of me fighting a gang. Nothing strange since most of the photos were along the same lines. Only one of these had me lying on the floor.
My hand went out and grabbed it, plucking it from the wall. It showed a man holding a crowbar. It was raised above his head and he was standing behind me. My other hand went to the back of my head.
Then my ears were filled with a voice. It wasn’t from inside the storage unit. It was from inside my head. I didn’t recognise it but my mind placed it in this man’s mouth. It was him. The muffled words were followed by a deep snigger. He was the one who knocked me over the head and took away my memories.
“Are you okay? What have you found?”
“Nothing that concerns you.” I folded it up and slipped it into my jacket.
“Well, maybe this one does.” He handed me a photo. Again I was there in my night stalking gear. Also with me was the woman from the restaurant, the one that was hanging out with the reporter. The same person who was in the other photos at the motel. Were these two sent to take us out? The meat cleaver wielding man to take out the woman. This one to kill me.
Nothing made sense. I looked back at him, handing the photo back. “I’ve already got her covered. No need to worry about her any more than you already have.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw you arguing with her. I don’t know how you know her but you stay away from her from now on.”
“Why are you being so protective over her?”
“I have my
reasons and they don’t concern you.” Honestly, I couldn’t have given him an answer even if I wanted to. For some reason I felt protective over her and the reporter. There was no reason for it that I could find in my head. Which meant, if the photo was anything to go on, the answer to his question lies in the memories I no longer possess.
“Okay then, back to the person who set this up. I think he’s taunting us, well, you. Somehow he knew you would find this place.”
“I killed someone he might have known. Probably just guessed I would.”
“You don’t go to all this trouble on a guess. Look at this contraption.”
I followed his gaze. Sitting on the ceiling was the thing that reacted when I opened the door, creating the illusion of an explosion. “What about it?”
“I guess it’s lucky I’m the brains of this team.”
“We’re not a team.”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I forgot how touchy you are about me.”
“Really?”
He didn’t answer my sarcastic comment. “This thing was built from scratch with things you could find around a house. It’s all put together by hand. It’s very complicated. It would take an extreme amount of intelligence to build this.”
“So we’re looking for an evil genius? Sounds like someone from a cartoon.”
“Sarcasm aside, that’s exactly who we should be looking for.”
“Sorry but why would a genius be involved with these kind of people? Wouldn’t a genius be able to get money the old fashioned way?”
“Unless he’s not in it for the money. Maybe you pissed this guy off sometime in your life.”
“If I did I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I can’t remember.”
“I know, I know. We should get out of here before a gust of knocks you on your arse again.”
I was tempted to knock him on his arse, maybe not stop there. I had the strength to do it. The thing that stopped me was that blue light I saw last time I touched him. I felt strange after that and if he did it again god knows what it would do to me.
We closed the locker door and left the storage area. As we walked I thought about the photos and how it seemed I was always being watched. That’s when I stopped. Shutting down all my other senses and just listened to my ears.