Unexpected Superhero (Adventures of Lewis and Clarke Book 1)

by Kitty Bucholtz

  The kid ducked her shots, candy hitting him in the face and shoulder, unable to keep the gun aimed any more. Tori marched toward him, too pissed off to think. Out of ammunition, she pointed her finger at him like a kindergarten teacher. “Put it down now, mister!”

  The kid looked at her like she was crazy. Then with little hesitation, he put the gun on the counter.

  A split second later, Eddie had the baseball bat against the robber’s throat. As the guy clawed for air, the front door burst open and police officers crashed in, flowing through the room like a dam had burst.

  Tori jumped out of their way, her hand pressed to her queasy stomach. Police threw the robber to the ground and cuffed him. One officer checked the man who had been shot while another asked Eddie if he was okay. Tori noticed Eddie’s bleeding head. When had that happened? The police waved in EMTs who worked on the guy with the bullet wound.

  The hero of the day. Tori hoped he was okay. That was amazing the way he just – just stepped in and saved everyone. The guy was a real hero. And so was Eddie.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” Tori felt a policeman shake her shoulder.

  “The guy that was shot…” she said, still watching the EMTs. She couldn’t see the man himself. God, please let him be okay. She tried to focus on breathing, in and out, don’t look at the blood.

  “They’re taking care of him. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Are you hurt?”

  “No, I – no.” Tori tried to swallow but her mouth was bone dry. She noticed her hand hurt and looked down. Her fist had wrapped her purse strap in a death grip. She looked up at the policeman. “I thought he was going to shoot the baby.” There was no way she could ever, ever let someone hurt a child.

  The policeman smiled and said, “The baby is fine. See?”

  Tori followed his pointing finger to see the man rocking his little girl, talking to another officer. They both looked fine. Then the man looked at Tori and pointed at her as he spoke.

  It only took Tori a moment to realize why. She looked down at the floor littered with peanut M&Ms – yellow, green, blue, red, brown.

  The policeman laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone take down a gunman in quite that way before.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tori didn’t know what to say. What had she been thinking? She never would have interfered like this a few months ago. The policeman questioned her about what had just happened, but Tori’s mind darted around like a chickadee. Since she’d stopped seeing her psychiatrist and stopped taking her medications, she felt better than ever. Freer and more alive. But maybe she shouldn’t allow herself to be quite so free. Walking up to a man with a gun!

  The meds kept her from any kind of spontaneous action or uncontrolled emotional response. Maybe that was better than, than…whatever just happened.

  “Are you okay?” The policeman looked at her closely.

  Tori wasn’t sure of the correct response. She was alive – thank God – and she was going to see Joe again, and day eleven of married life. But…she wasn’t exactly feeling well. Her stomach was calming down, but she felt herself beginning to shake from the inside out.

  “Let’s sit you down for a minute, shall we?” The policeman took her arm and escorted her outside toward his car.

  The bitter cold night air helped clear her head. As they walked past the stretcher where the wounded man lay, Tori paused. Had everyone thanked him? He certainly deserved their gratitude. She bent down. But she didn’t know what to say. What words were enough?

  “You’re very brave,” she murmured, touching his uninjured shoulder briefly. “Thank you so much.”

  He glared back at her. “What? Your suit at the cleaners?” he whispered fiercely, “Or is this your day off?”

  Tori pulled back a little. “What?” Why was he attacking her?

  “I’d think a guy with a gun would be enough that you could use your powers before someone gets shot,” he spat at her. “But no, had to be the hero, huh? Had to wait till you were the only superhero who could save the day. That’s why I work alone. Superheroes like you are just superegos. You don’t care about anything but your media image!”

  The EMT moved Tori out of the way. She heard the man moan as they hustled him into the ambulance.

  What was he talking about? When she called out to the gunman she was just…worried, scared. That’s all. It was probably a stupid thing to do, but it distracted him enough so that Eddie could grab him.

  The policeman put his arm around Tori as she swayed on her feet. He tucked her into the back seat of his police car. “Why don’t you put your head down?” he suggested.

  Tori shook her head. She just needed to get her bearings. The car was warm, and she closed her eyes, leaning back into the seat. She let her mind wander as she tried to relax. She tried not to think about what kinds of people had been sitting in the back of this police car lately. Could lice survive the winter? Ugh, best not to think about it.

  Her thoughts returned to the conversation with the man who’d been shot. It hit her then – was he saying he was a superhero? Tori’s eyes flew open and she turned in time to see the ambulance pull away. She’d met a superhero?

  She flopped back against the seat. No. Impossible! Her parents had always insisted the “superhero” stories in the news were publicity stunts. Crime was on the rise and the city government would say anything to look like they had it under control.

  She’d heard her mother’s voice saying a hundred times over the years, “There’s no such thing as superheroes. A few freaks out there who want to be more than they are, but no one has any kind of supernatural power.”

  Tori accepted this version of the world. It made sense. It was logical, orderly. To believe that people might have supernatural abilities opened the door to possibilities Tori didn’t want to consider. She and her sister Lexie had enough freak factor with the strange things that sometimes happened around them.

  This guy accusing her of being a superhero did seem a little freaky, that’s true. Of course, he’d been shot, lost blood, was probably out of his mind with pain. But that other guy…

  Tori’s mind drifted back for a moment to Halloween. Some kid had grabbed her purse and taken off. Tori chased him, but she tripped and fell. Moments later a man dressed as Zorro appeared, gorgeous and thrilling. He helped her get her purse back, and picked her up like she weighed no more than a doll. Then he kissed her like–

  Tori shook her head and opened her eyes. Sure it was a great kiss, but she never saw him again. She met Joe a couple days later, fell madly in love with him, and married him on Christmas Eve.

  She straightened her shoulders. She had no intention of thinking about another man now that she was married. But she wondered if her parents were wrong. Maybe superheroes did exist. If so, they weren’t all freaks. Not Zorro anyway.

  Still, why would this possible “superhero” accuse her of being a superhero? Maybe in the pain of getting shot, he…got confused. In her mind’s eye, Tori saw the look on the robber’s face as he put the gun down. There was something about it, something familiar. Her mind tripped and twisted with roiling emotions and panic-infused imagination. She needed to stop this crazy thinking.

  But her brain wouldn’t stop working on it. Now she remembered. Last night when she and Joe had stopped over at her sister Lexie’s and little Ben wouldn’t go to bed, she’d used her Aunt Tori voice and forcefully insisted he go to bed. He’d looked at her with that same funny look on his face. Then he did. The barely-three-year-old turned and went to his room without another word.

  And a few months ago. When Lexie told her that it wasn’t just that Tori could convince people of things, but that she could force people to do things. And Lexie had only said that because – oh my gosh, that’s right – Tori had insisted that Lexie tell her what she was thinking.

  Tori felt her breath coming quicker but she couldn’t catch it, she couldn’t breathe. She kept trying to breathe, but the air just kept going in and out of her mouth without hitting her lun
gs and she couldn’t get a breath and–

  The door opened and the policeman said something but Tori couldn’t catch his words and then he was pushing her head onto her knees and still talking and she thought she heard, “That’s it. Breathe.”

  Tori gulped in air, then tried to slow down and get the blood to stop pounding in her head. It’s not possible. It simply wasn’t possible to live for twenty-seven years and not know…not make the connection.

  She’d test it. Then she’d know. It wouldn’t work, and then she’d know her mother was right. There was no such thing as superheroes. No such thing as super powers.

  Tori looked up at the cop. “I need some M&Ms. I went in for M&Ms and I need them, please.” She knew she was jabbering, but she had to know. “Please get me some.”

  “Just take a deep breath and–”

  She glared into his eyes, hoping and terrified and feeling very, very alone. Her gut burned with heat. “I need M&Ms! Please!”

  The cop stopped in the middle of his sentence. He looked at her for a moment, then stood up and turned back toward the store. When he came back with every kind of M&Ms flavor the store sold, Tori fainted.

  CHAPTER 2

  SLAM!

  The bullet hit Superhero X in the shoulder just before he tackled the younger man. X had jumped at an angle that would allow him to bring the man down without a full-on tackle. But the bullet hit him hard enough to change his trajectory. He tried to break his fall so he wouldn’t hurt the guy. But the vision of Tori and another gunman caused X to lose his focus. For a moment, he was just Joe Clarke, a regular guy with a new wife and strange new fears.

  He felt the snow on his face. Damn, but his shoulder hurt. He changed his mind about not crushing the shooter and let his weight fall a little heavier on the guy until he heard him groan.

  Someone shook his aching shoulder.

  “He’s been shot! Call an ambulance!”

  Work. He was at work. He forced himself to focus. Superhero X, helping to keep the streets safe. Finish this job and get home. Hold Tori safely in his arms and rest in the assurance that the vision wasn’t real.

  “Powerhouse, get down there!” Tick Tock’s voice barked in X’s ear. “He’s not responding.”

  X pushed himself off the gunman. The man coughed and gasped for breath. Having the equivalent of a 260-pound steel beam fall on him had probably cracked a few of his ribs. That’s what you get for shooting a superhero who absorbs the power of metal, you imbecile.

  Half a dozen police surrounded them. The officer who started it – a new guy obviously – kicked the gun away, then cuffed one of the kid’s wrists. Two more officers grabbed his other arm. Three more crowded around X, firing questions at him. He waved them off and got up, dusting the snow from his super suit.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Just had a–” A what? A vision? A hallucination? A premonition? “A moment,” he finished lamely.

  His shoulder was killing him. He forced himself not to groan as he inspected the hole in his suit. It was important that the men in blue trusted him to protect them. If they worried that they needed to keep him safe along with the rest of society, they wouldn’t be as effective a team.

  “Okay, we got him,” one of them said.

  “You okay down there, X?” Tick Tock asked in his ear.

  X gave half a wave toward the roof. “Yup.”

  Powerhouse jogged up then. His body language played it cool, but his eyes drilled into X’s. He walked over and casually pulled X a few feet away from the bustle. He didn’t say anything, just raked X over with his eyes. For a moment, X felt like he was a kid in school with the teacher reading his face and knowing what he’d done. By day, Bull had super-teacher powers as well. High school history teacher and wrestling coach, beloved by all.

  “I’m fine!” X wished Powerhouse would turn off the teacher look. He didn’t want to talk about whatever had just happened. He looked down at his shoulder and probed the area with his fingers. “Ow! Hurts like a son of a gun!” This was not part of the night’s plan.

  Tick Tock chuckled in his ear. “I told you not to play with him.”

  “Want me to beat him up for you?” X turned to see Powerhouse grinning at him. The teacher look was gone. In its place was the brothers-in-arms let’s-give-em-hell look familiar since grade school.

  X forced himself to grin back. “Tempting,” he said, watching the police shove the glowering young man toward one of their patrol cars. Looking back at his friend, he said, “You didn’t even break a sweat, did you?”

  “The passenger just about peed his pants,” Powerhouse said. “You shoulda seen him.”

  “You should see the car,” Tick Tock said. “He ripped the door right off it.”

  Powerhouse shrugged. “Car was totaled anyway.”

  X laughed and clapped Powerhouse on the back. “I gotta see this.” They walked back to the alley, letting the police finish doing their job out front. X focused on the work at hand and tried not to think about the disturbing image he saw when the gun went off. His beautiful new wife standing in front of a shooter. He couldn’t decide what scared him more – the idea of Tori in danger, or the fact that she didn’t look that frightened.

  “Thanks, X, Powerhouse,” one of the cops called from the parking lot.

  “Tell Tick Tock ‘hey’ for us,” yelled another.

  “Tell them I said ‘hey’ back,” Tick Tock said in their earpieces.

  “He says get your sorry asses down here sooner next time,” Powerhouse shouted to them.

  The officers laughed and waved. One of them waved toward the roof.

  “And explain to the new guy how this works, will you?” X called, reproach in his voice.

  “Will do, sorry about that X.”

  Tick Tock met them in the back parking lot. “Cop got in the way, huh?”

  X pressed his lips together to keep from saying something rude. He shook his head. “You think?”

  Tick Tock and Powerhouse both chuckled. “Baby,” Tick Tock said.

  “Just because it didn’t break the skin doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt at point-blank range,” X growled. He’d be fine. He knew he sounded like a whiner. After all, he’d been shot plenty of times.

  But Tori – there was nothing to keep her from getting killed. His spine tingled and he stretched his shoulders to try to get rid of the feeling. The concern he felt for Tori wasn’t the kind that moved him to use his powers to protect the community. It was more like…an imperative.

  Whatever it was, all he wanted was to hear her voice. Better yet, hold her in his arms. Then he could breathe easy again. He’d been itching to get out and back to work tonight. But now he was itching to get home.

  He walked out into the alley with the others to see the wreck of a car. The hood had folded up and in on itself, and the front engine mounts had snapped when the force of the collision shoved the engine back several inches. The windshield, while technically still intact, looked like a spider web. The front wheels had turned in at an odd angle. X bet the front axle had snapped. Warm engine fluids dripped into the snow, hissing and steaming.

  An unexpected laugh burst from his throat. “Geez, Powerhouse!”

  “It’s a beauty, eh?” One of the officers going through the car and cataloguing its contents looked up at the superheroes and back at the car.

  X recognized him as someone they’d worked with before. This cop would’ve stayed out of the way, let X protect him and do his job. X shook his head. He needed to snap out of it. But it was making him cranky, wondering if Tori was okay.

  Of course she was okay.

  He forced himself to join in the laughter and conversation as the men looked over the car and its contents. The passenger door appeared to be missing. No, there it was, a couple yards away.

  “When he ripped the door off,” the officer said to Tick Tock and X, “we had a clear view of the baggies under the seats. Regular pharmacy on wheels – crystal meth, coke, roofies.” He pointed to the o
ther officer, inventorying the drugs at their squad car. The other cop nodded and went back to what he was doing.

  “Excellent!” Powerhouse beamed. “My favorite kind of bust, making the streets safer for my boys.”

  While the cops probably thought Powerhouse meant that he had sons, X and Tick Tock knew he meant his boys at school. He was intense when it came to those kids. He had no problem using his stature to scare them when he lectured them about staying out of trouble. But X knew more than a few of them had called Bull instead of their parents from the police station. Most of the cops had no clue, though, that Bull and Powerhouse were the same man.

  Powerhouse looked longingly at the damaged vehicle. “I don’t suppose you’d let me play with it some more,” he asked the cop.

  “No,” he said with a laugh, “I gotta have it hauled down to the yard. Maybe you could move it outta the way a little, though. Put the door on the roof or something?”

  “Sure thing.” Powerhouse walked over and picked up the door with one hand and laid it on top of the roof.

  “Show off,” Tick Tock called out.

  Powerhouse waved as he moved the garbage bin back to its usual spot, whistling as he went.

  “I tried moving that Dumpster,” the cop said in a stage whisper. “I couldn’t even budge it and I’m a big guy! Holy smokes, he’s strong!”

  X chuckled with him. He pointed at two six-inch impressions in the asphalt. “Did you see the holes where he dug in his heels?” The cop’s jaw dropped.

  Tick Tock took that moment to examine the bullet wound.

  “Hey! That hurts!” X pulled back, curbing his urge to push the smaller man away. At about six feet, give or take, Tick Tock was several inches shorter than X and he didn’t have any physical powers. X tried to be conscious of that at all times so he wouldn’t accidentally hurt him. Or anybody else for that matter.

  Powerhouse, bigger than both of them at probably six-seven and 275 pounds, was even more careful. X thought of him as the sleeping gentle giant. He’d never seen Powerhouse riled up, and wasn’t sure he’d want to.