Run

by James Moore

  Was that right? She frowned, uncertain. Did Joe have something to do with what had happened to her? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t asked him, and he surely wasn’t offering any information.

  Joe Bronx. He was Hunter’s other self. His Other. He was as different from Hunter as Hank was from Cody, and he was dangerous in the worst possible way. He was handsome, true, like Hunter, but so different that she could barely accept they were the same being. Bronx was smooth and confident and absolutely predatory. Every move he made was sleek and charged with restrained power. He didn’t walk; he stalked. He didn’t speak; he growled. His smile wasn’t friendly; it was a baring of fangs, and yet he still managed to come across as both intelligent and fascinating. She didn’t mind looking at Hunter—he was handsome enough. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Joe Bronx when he was around. He was larger than life. She’d never understood that saying before she met him. He was fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

  He scared her half to death.

  Tina nudged her with an elbow and nodded toward Gene on her other side. Gene had gone to sleep, his eyes closed, his mouth hanging open, and was snoring softly. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and despite the fact that he was obviously sleeping, he looked rigid with tension.

  She studied him silently for a second before lights started filling the car.

  “What the hell?” Kyrie squinted against the sudden illumination.

  She looked to the left and saw the bright headlights glaring into the side windows. Whatever was coming toward them was coming from the wrong direction and aiming for a collision.

  “Hunter!”

  The boy didn’t answer her. He was already slamming on the old car’s brakes and fighting with the steering wheel. Without a word Hank reached out and yanked the wheel toward him hard enough to take the car out of its skid and onto the shoulder. The vehicle that had been coming for them, that had almost smashed into them, rocketed past with a squeal of rubber and then straightened out and stopped behind them.

  Hank’s voice was a low, deadly growl. “Looks like we’ve got trouble.” He was smiling as he spoke. “Sweet.”

  Hunter didn’t reply. He was looking around, back at the van that had tried to ram them. The vehicle wasn’t moving yet, but no one trusted it would just sit there after trying to hit them.

  Hank opted not to wait around to find out. He opened the door of the car and slid out in one smooth step, rolling his shoulders and eyeing the van like it was a new victim.

  Tina hollered after him, “Where do you think you’re going? Get the hell back over here!”

  Hank stood still. He didn’t bother responding to Tina.

  Kyrie shook her head while Gene looked around, just coming out of his daze. Hunter killed the engine and looked at Hank. “What the hell is he doing?”

  Tina scowled. “I guess he’s gonna try to eat that van. He’s almost big enough.”

  The headlights on the other vehicle shut off, leaving all of them half blinded by the sudden darkness.

  Hunter called out to Hank: “Either get back in here or go find out what the hell is wrong with that loser.”

  Hank leaned in closer, keeping his eyes on the van. “Those losers. There are six of them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can smell ’em.” He looked quickly at Hunter. “If you can make Joe show up, you might want to. I think we’re about to be in really serious trouble here.”

  “How serious?”

  “The kind that makes me wish I knew how to fire a gun.”

  Kyrie wished suddenly that Joe was there. Joe could have done something about this. At the very least he could have woken up Others.

  Gene looked at Hank’s massive figure. Taking a deep breath, he slid out of the car.

  “Where are you going?” Tina’s voice was sharp and a little worried.

  Gene glanced her way and then gestured toward Hank with his chin. “Someone’s got to have his back.”

  Kyrie’s heart was pounding, and her ears were starting to ring. She felt the panic eating away at her. She barely knew any of the people with her, but they were all in on this together. Her knees were shaking as she crawled toward the door and joined Gene and Hank on the asphalt.

  Behind her, she heard Tina’s voice calling out, “Don’t just sit there, Hunter, get out of the damn car.”

  Kyrie didn’t turn her head. She didn’t bother looking, but she knew the other two were climbing out of the car too. A second later the latch on the trunk popped open.

  The trunk, where the loaded guns were sitting.

  Gene moved toward the trunk.

  The lights on the other van flashed back on—they were blindingly bright.

  Hank stepped forward, his savage grin returning. His expression was filled with dangerous glee.

  He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. “Rock and roll. Let’s dance.”

  Chapter Five

  Gene Rothstein

  GENE’S PULSE WAS SINGING in his veins, and his hands shook as he reached for the trunk. He knew exactly where to reach, because he was the one who’d checked the weapons and slipped them into secure spots. He grabbed a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson snub nose. It wasn’t the prettiest weapon or the most intimidating, but it was loaded with one full clip of bullets—seventeen shots total. He didn’t like the idea of firing a weapon. He didn’t like any of what was going on. But he knew that anyone who’d tried to run them off the road was going to likely be the sort that carried firearms of his own.

  Gene suddenly found himself wishing that his Other would show up. He knew he could fire a weapon. He knew if he had to, he could probably hit a target. What bothered him was the idea of actually shooting at a living human being.

  The twitch in his hand was nerves. He told himself that was all it was but suspected it might mean something more. Maybe he was going to get his wish—maybe the Other that hid away inside of him was going to come out and take care of the dirty work for him. God, he hoped so.

  Gene was used to a very different life. Most of the time his routine involved studying during school or dealing with the debate team after school (or the Chess Club, or half a dozen other extracurricular activities that were designed to prepare him for the future). This? No part of his former life resembled this. This was madness. This was insanity and delirium all rolled into one package, designed to make him feel too small for his skin.

  The doors of the van rumbled open. Only one figure emerged, just outside the halo of light that streamed from the front of the van. Gene could barely see his body—forget clearly identifying the face.

  “All of you need to calm down.” The voice was deep and authoritative. Whoever he was, he was used to being obeyed.

  Tina spit. “You need to stop running people off the road, asshole!”

  Gene ignored her. He ignored the other speaker too. He was busy noticing the sort of detail that he always noticed. The van rocked slightly; the headlights shivered and shifted just a little. Not once or twice, but repeatedly. There was no rhythm to the changes, which meant it wasn’t the engine that was causing them.

  “They’re spreading out,” he said.

  “Who are you?” Hunter called.

  “We’re here to help you.” The voice that replied was calm, level.

  “Who are you?” Hunter said again, sounding seriously stressed this time.

  In the near complete darkness of the early morning a figure darted off to the far left, well beyond where Hank stood.

  “Hank!” Gene pointed and the Other looked toward the darkness.

  Hank sighed. “Yeah. I got it.” He took two steps in that direction and then he bolted toward the shape Gene had seen, moving faster than anyone that big should have been able to.

  The figure at the front of the van called out louder this time. “Which one of you is Bobby?”

  “Who the hell is Bobby?” Tina’s voice was tense, but still steady enough.

&n
bsp; Another shape moved, this time to the far right. Gene took aim and called out, “Freeze! You come one step closer and I swear I’ll shoot you!” His hand was steady, despite the way his knees were shaking. Adrenaline was pounding through him, making him light headed, but his father had taken him to gun safety and marksmanship courses enough times that he at least knew how to keep his hands from rattling as much as the rest of him.

  The voice from in front of the the van called out, “Screw this. Take ’em!”

  The lights shut off again, cloaking everyone in darkness. Gene’s eyes had just adjusted to the brightness, and the sudden lack of light left him effectively blinded. He fired once at where the shape had been moving but heard no sound to indicate that he’d hit anything. Before he could fire a second time, a strong, feminine voice hissed in his ear, “You better watch what the hell you aim at.”

  Before he could so much as readjust his aim, the hands had grabbed him and he felt a leg sweep his legs. He was airborne and flipped over a lean, hard body a second after that. He yelped as he sailed through the air and then slammed into the ground. The impact rattled through him and knocked the wind from his lungs with an explosive mmmf.

  As he tried to take in another breath, his unseen opponent kicked him in the wrist and sent his weapon spinning. Gene let out a yelp, then felt the same body land on top of him, a knee slamming into his solar plexus and stomach hard enough to make him gag.

  “Got one!” The voice came from above him. He couldn’t protest—couldn’t argue—as the shadow rolled him easily onto his stomach and wrenched his hands behind his back. His hands were bound together a second later, a hard plastic line forcing them together. Gene grunted and gasped for breath, failing miserably.

  “Big man got himself a gun.” The voice hissed in his ear, then a fist cuffed him across the side of his head hard enough to make him see stars. “Loser.”

  In the distance someone let out a deep roar of pain and at the same time Gene heard Hank call out, “Try that again! I’ll break your damned head!”

  Tina let out a stream of obscenities and grunted a few times. It sounded like she was involved in a serious fight.

  Somewhere else, Kyrie screamed.

  Gene felt himself starting to fade, before the person he was fighting suddenly yanked him off the ground by his bound wrists. The pain was enough to make him whimper.

  Then he heard Joe Bronx scream inside his head.

  WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

  And the world went away.

  Chapter Six

  Joe Bronx

  TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE it was due, the loser had tried to do it the right way. Not that Joe was surprised to see Hunter fail. Hunter was soft, weak and easily confused by things like unexpected attacks.

  Joe didn’t have that problem. He’d been on the streets since the ripe old age of ten, and he’d run across every type of predator there was, from feral dogs to the sort of human trash that made the savages seem civilized. He knew how to handle animals.

  Joe had been watching the whole thing. That was one of his advantages over Hunter. Joe didn’t have to be in charge of their shared body to see what was happening. He’d learned a few tricks along the way and he’d been dominant for a very long time. He was capable of listening in on Hunter’s life. That was a secret he intended to keep to himself.

  Hunter had tried speaking with the people in the van. But he couldn’t even see them—his senses were too limited. Off in the distance the only Other on the scene—Hank—was holding his own against a fighter that was trained and fast. Almost too fast.

  Joe saw that Gene was down and out. The girl on him moved like a panther and slapped him senseless before he could even take a proper aim with his gun. Not that it would have done him any good. She was too close for firearms. Gene hadn’t known that, of course, thought Joe. He’d probably been trying to see past the lights on the van. Hunter had been smart enough not to look at the lights, but most people looked automatically; like moths heading for a flame, their eyes were drawn to the brightness.

  And while Hunter had been watching Gene get knocked senseless, Joe had taken advantage of the situation and forced control over their shared body. Hunter had fought, of course, but he’d been too distracted to realize he was in trouble before it was too late. Hunter still didn’t understand how it worked. Joe was the dominant force within them. He could probably hold the little bastard at bay forever, if he didn’t need to sleep same as anyone else in the world. He’d rested now, while Hunter tried to force his way through to Illinois instead of resting himself. Taking over had been easy.

  And when Joe came out, he woke the Others.

  That was a good thing, because he was pretty sure that what they were dealing with were more Doppelgangers. Different from them, of course, because these Others had been trained. They were too fast to be human, too young to be soldiers, and too well armed to be a street gang. Street gangs didn’t carry zip strips for handcuffing their enemies. Street gangs didn’t carry Tasers and heavy artillery.

  He and his associates were Failures. These were the Successes.

  And they were working together too well. They were clearly used to it. And one last thing: there wasn’t a radio among them that Joe could see, but they had broken in different directions and circled their enemies without so much as a yelled command.

  The voices of the Others rang in Joe’s head and he grinned. Joe and his associates were the castoffs. When they’d been discarded, they were thought to be merely human. They might not work the way they should, but they still got the job done.

  He looked around, taking in the details of his surroundings in an instant.

  Not-Kyrie let out a growl and drove her knee into the face of her attacker. He fell back, cursing, as blood exploded from his busted lips and nose. He’d been expecting a fight with a little cheerleader, not with an Other. They were trained, but he would have bet all their stolen mob money that their enemies were not used to fighting against other Doppelgangers.

  Not-Tina was being held in a full-nelson maneuver, with her attacker’s hands locked behind her neck and both of her arms captured within the arms of the woman holding her. By all rights she should have been stuck, her useless arms held away from her body while her attacker held all the cards. It might have worked that way, too, but the change in her shape and size had thrown her Success a bit and loosened the fierce grip she’d had.

  As Joe looked on, wondering if he should help, Not-Tina lifted one foot and drove her heel backward along the length of her enemy’s shin and then into the top of the uniformed girl’s foot. The sudden attack caught the soldier off guard, and as she tried to recover from the unexpected, searing pain in her leg, Not-Tina drove her head back, smashing the girl in her face.

  “Lost your mind? I’ll kill you!” Not-Tina was furious. All of the frustration that Tina had been feeling had been distilled and concentrated into her Other, and Not-Tina was hardly the sort to tolerate being treated wrongly. The fight was on fast and hard between the two of them, with the other girl going on the defensive as Not-Tina lashed out with wild, brutal punches.

  Joe could have called for her to control herself—too much anger would make her sloppy, and she wasn’t skilled enough as a fighter to survive that—but she seemed to be holding her own for the moment.

  He looked toward Not-Gene, who had just finished his transformation. The female that had been on him was crouched down low to the ground and studying him. Her eyes were wide open and her pupils glowed in the faint light like a cat’s. She did not attack, though she assessed what had happened to her target. Gene’s Other was larger and darker than Gene. He was also calmer than Not-Tina. While Not-Tina was swinging wildly, Not-Gene looked at his enemy with an almost serene expression on his face. The plastic that had cuffed his wrists together had broken as he grew larger. A fine line of blood dribbled down both his wrists as he stared at the girl and shook out his hands, forcing blood back to his extremities.

  Finally the girl moved
on him, charging forward. Gene didn’t strike her, but instead he slid to the side, farther from the car and the girl. She pursued, a smile forming on her face. Unlike Joe, she couldn’t see what was on Not-Gene’s mind, or she wouldn’t have been smiling.

  Joe took a second to see that, as he suspected, one of the other team was as motionless as him. He allowed himself a small smile. There it was, giveaway. The other observer was doing the same thing as he was, watching how his people acted and assessing the enemy. Probably that one was an Alpha

  The second time his enemy pounced, Not-Gene let her hit him and the two of them fell farther away from the car still, with her on top of him again. She was a good fighter—well trained—but she was also cocky. She wasn’t used to fighting anyone with the same sort of physical advantages that she had.

  She also forgot to look where the gun she’d kicked from Gene’s hand had landed. Not-Gene wasn’t that careless.

  Even as Not-Gene’s hand clutched at the pistol, the apparent leader of the other team did the math in his head. Like Joe, he’d been watching and assessing, and now he turned quickly. “Mary! Back up, now!”

  Without hesitation the girl did as told, flipping herself back and away from Not-Gene even as he spun and fired. The bullet barely missed blowing her head from her shoulders.

  Not-Gene stood up in one smooth motion, keeping the weapon sited on the girl. She wasn’t looking anywhere near as calm anymore.

  The roar that came from the darkness surprised everyone, even Joe. He’d let himself focus too much on Not-Gene and, in the process, had let himself forget about Hank and the enemy that he was fighting.

  Hank was the biggest of them, surely the most muscular, and he let out a roar as he charged toward the van. At first Joe thought that the brute had somehow grown even larger. He was mistaken. The bulk that had been added to his running form was another of the soldiers who had engaged them. This one was trapped in Hank’s arms and struggled madly to get free. Hank drove his enemy into the side of the van with enough force to rock the vehicle onto two wheels. Had he pushed any harder, the entire thing would have come down on its side. The sound of the impact was like thunder. Metal crumbled and bones snapped. And the calm leader who’d been looking at Joe as intently as Joe had been looking at him suddenly focused on the side of the van. “Sean!”