by Jen Finelli
See, for Save Number One, I beat up a lot of people. When you'd used your physics internship to create a Thunder weapon no one else had, that came easy. But it turned out beating people up didn't get you to the boat before it took off with all the human trafficking victims. I'd been lucky to find the docks at all; lucky to overhear Bird Nose talking about the boat that first day we saw him with the van; lucky it only took two weeks to turn my physics project to Thunder.
Luck doesn't cut it when you're dealing with some of the unluckiest girls in the world.
In the starlit now, the van swerved down an exit ramp, and I almost fell off. My emerald skater dress flapped out behind me like a signal flag: “check it out, butt below!” Ugh. Thank heavens for dark green pants and deserted nighttime streets.
Oh, no, here we pulled up alongside an old convertible full of drunk guys. They hooted at me. I could see drool.
So could the driver of my van, and he thought it was about him. “Hey, you gays wanna start? You wanna start with me?”
Oh, they started all right, started to get out of the car, pointing back at me, puffing out their chests and waving their arms. Guess they didn't agree with his assessment of their sexuality. Crap, I ducked down so low, stretching my arms all the way out, that any lower my butt would start painting road stripes. Crap, crap, crap—
The driver brandished a gun out his window. The other punks took off. I breathed a sigh of relief as the red light turned like bad sushi, and we moved on. It started to drizzle.
It always drizzles when I work, apparently. I'd say something else about luck here, but to tell you the truth I don't actually believe in luck. Luck's an excuse for people who can't face their failures. I face mine. I was too slow the night of the One Save, even though I arrived at the misty dock five minutes before the police. The cops do their best, but they can't be everywhere at once. They sure as sugar can't drive faster than my sonic blasts can catapult me through the air.
At any rate, the boat left, and when I flew out to catch it, I could only carry one person back. The lightest weight, the youngest one, with big eyes under her unkempt 'fro and skinny stick arms held out to me...
When I came back for the others, I couldn't find the boat. Neither could the Coast Guard. The traffickers disappeared into the storm, and me bouncing and flailing around over the water didn't do anything to change that.
You know what really sucked? The one face I saved began to fade in my mind under the faces I left behind.
So now I wouldn't release my grip on this van door, and soon, we pulled around to a dingy street corner, where one of the faces stood peddling her wares. As we stopped, the girl looked at me, her eyes narrowed. I tried to raise a finger to my lips, a quiet shhh—
But then I stepped off the back of the van to realize my hand had cramped around the door handle.
That's how long I'd been riding? Oh my crap, OUCH, this—I tried to peel my fingers off the metal, but frozen they remained, while the girl watched my struggle with some amusement.
The driver yelled to her out the window: “You got my money, Keisha?”
She nodded and stepped up with a wad of cash. But the man's hand waved past it, and pointed at her pocket. “What's in there?”
“Just stuff.”
“Show me.”
I kept pulling my stuck hands; the blood flow returned, and they tingled and began to burn as the girl reluctantly brought a roll of condoms out of her pocket.
Now my stomach felt sick. I yanked at my hands—
“Baby girl, you know I don't like you using those.” The man talked like a disappointed grandfather. “The Johns pay less, you know that.”
She glared at him, but knew well enough to keep her mouth shut. She hesitated.
“Keisha—”
Fwack! I finally broke free and fell on my butt on the asphalt, fingers throbbing under my rings.
“What was that?” he asked as I scrambled back under the car.
“I think that old dog that knocks over trash cans around here sometimes?” she said.
Fingers free, I dialed the police. One stiff—uuph, okay, I got this—button-push at a time. Now I had a decision to make: keep following the van, or stay to make sure Keisha didn't disappear before the boys in blue could rescue her.
I scrambled across the street, ducking down by the passengers' side of the van to stay hidden, and planted myself behind a trash can. Cell-phone out, I snapped a good picture of the guy's face as he got out to berate-slash-sweet-talk his property. Bird nose. Good, jerk, just stay right here til the cops show up.
Dang, would they ever stop talking? I couldn't see him any more, just Keisha and an actress-face that'd put even Taraji Henson to shame. Now she cried, her big contact-green eyes just melting over her nightshade-skin, now she snarled at him, flashing brilliant white teeth, and now she smiled and puckered out her lips as his big ugly hand stroked her little face. He finally took her bundle of money and I ducked back behind the trash can as he turned around. The van rumbled and clattered; with a blast of chokey-smelling exhaust right in my face it took off.
I peeked out to see Keisha's pocket still bulging. She'd managed to keep the condoms.
Holy bwaaagh, it made my thighs clench together and my girl parts just climb right up into my lungs! She. Was. My. Freaking. Age! I wanted to crushed this mo' fo' like a used soda can. I breathed hard, my back against the trash can, rage in my neck veins. Finding fiends forces finesse, right. I needed him unharmed, and free—needed to be able to follow him to his nest. Oh, Birrrd Nose...
Lights flashed down the street, and a cop car rolled up. A big burly white man with a buzz cut stepped out, hands on his holster, eyes darting here and there. Wow, sir, they should call you Livestream, because you are Twitch-y af.
“What's going on here?” he snapped. “What are you doing out so late?”
“Nothing, officer, is there a problem?” She thrust out her lips and didn't say anything about her owner. That should've been my first red flag. My eyebrows knit.
“What's that? What's in your pocket?”
“Just a banana, officer,” Keisha smirked. “It's my lunch.”
“I don't appreciate the sass, young lady. Answer the question.”
“I don't see where it's your business. I ain't bothering anyone.”
He got out and slammed the door to his car. “Alright. Raise your hands above your head. Now.”
“Hey I know my rights, you can't just search me for no reason!” She clutched the precious condoms in her pocket and dashed a few paces away from him. “Fuck off!”
“You are out of line.” He whipped a pair of handcuffs off his belt and lunged at her, teeth clenched.
“Hey! Hey leave me alone!”
“You're under arrest for prostitution!”
“Excuse me?”
“What is in your pocket?” He roared. “What is it? Drop it, now!”
Okay, whoa. “Whoa, okaaaay!” I jumped out behind him, and the little f'er almost shot me. “Hey! Relax, officer, I'm the one who called you here!”
“You called? You called?” The girl stared at me with the biggest eyes—
And then she started screaming a stream of cusses at me. And the cop was screaming at her. Everyone was screaming.
“Oh, cut that out,” I said. “Precious, if you'd just explain to the man what's going on, he can help you! Maybe he's just got a bad case of last-time-someone-had-something-in-their-pocket-he-got-shot, I don't know, let's just calm—calm down—”
She threw her fists. Oh no girl, not around Mr. Twitchy! I moved to get between them, and the cop straight tackled me!
“Hey! Hey I'm helping you, dummy, I'm calming her down!”
“You're under arrest for interference!”
“I'm helping you!” My voice pitch raised as his heavy male body on mine began to freak me out. We tussled; he got one of my wrists in a cuff and I full-on panicked. I shoved a fist in his gut and fired Thunder—he flew across the street to tumble i
nto the trash.
“Wait, wait!” I yelled as he rolled over on his belly commando-style to fire. Holy crap what was going on? This had gotten completely out of hand—
Blam.
One shot hit my breastplate and knocked me back against the other girl—the other went wide. Hoooly what that hurt, like—like—I don't know, getting beaned with a brick? Twitchy could've killed me! I gasped for breath, infinitely thankful that I'd packed armor from the very beginning. Did you know you can just order that stuff online? Hoooly. I wheezed.
“Stay down! Put down your weapon!” the cop yelled.
“Yes sir, it's down!” I yelled back weakly, my weaponized hands spread on the sidewalk, one wrist still sporting that metal bracelet he'd given me. The officer ran over, both fists still gripping his outstretched gun. The other girl blubbered under me, enraged, her face a mess of spit and tears; my head spun.
“Look, officer, this girl's a human trafficking victim,” I said, laying over top of her on my back, heaving. “I have a picture of her pimp. I called you here to rescue her, not traumatize her.”
“You saw her soliciting,” he stated, heaving too.
“No, I saw her getting scolded by her pimp for using condoms.”
“So she's a prostitute. That's illegal. The law's the law, no excuse.”
“Are you not hearing me? She's a slave, she needs help!”
“Tell it to the judge.”
Keisha sniffled under me and spat through clenched teeth: “You see now why we don't call them?”
“Because you're criminals,” he said. “Now get the weapon out of your pocket—”
“It's a freaking pack of condoms, you idiot!” she screamed.
I had less than a second to react. She threw the condoms at him, he freaked at her fast movement, his gun fired again, aaaaaaaah—
I punched Thunder into the air and knocked the bullets wide. The whole street echoed with my rumble and all our intestines shook as I wrapped my arms around Keisha's waist, hurled Thunder towards the street—and rocketed into the sky on the rebound.
The speed of flight rushed in wind past our faces as that “I left my stomach behind” feeling you never really get used to plunged through my innards. We tumbled towards a roof as my rescuee screamed.
“Hold on to me!” I screamed back, in her ear, because if we wanted to live I had to let go with both hands long enough to fire short—okay another—little—okay—blasts—of sonic power below us to slow our fall. Please don't break the roof, please don't break the roof—my internship could never pay for a cement building top—
Why are you thinking about your internship when you could DIE?
Because we landed, and rolled across the gray grit together, and we both lived. She lay beside me, panting, with long scratches on her knees and hands, and the roof didn't break.
Save Two was definitely worse than Save One.
*
Belt: One Month Ago
After what went down with Keisha, Saves Three and Four didn't want to be saved. I wasn't surprised. In my “spare” time I started taking an online class on human trafficking, and those girls? Like half the time they came from abusive families, and even if their pimps made them do stuff they didn't want to do, at least with a pimps they got fed, and they could kind of control whether or not they got smacked. It was their fault if the pimp got mad, right? They began to think he loved them. He'd get a girl a new weave, new nails, and she'd feel good, she'd feel beautiful, for once in her life like she was worth something.
He was just dressing up his product for the window-shoppers.
“You know, you never asked if this was what I wanted,” Keisha said now, leaning back in her chair as her long fingernails tickled her ceramic coffee mug. I sat across from her in the small, empty cafeteria of the safe house as morning light filtered through the sliding glass doors.
“You didn't want to stay with Birdnose,” I said.
“No, but now the blue's got beef with you on my account,” she said, sipping coffee slowly. After a long stare into her drink her green eyes flitted up at me. Huh. Not contact lenses after all.
“Just that department,” I said. “Not every district gets training in human trafficking. The guys from state are alright.”
“And they'll side with you over another cop?” she asked.
“Mmm...” I stretched out my shoulder, still sore from that huge bruise on my chest where Twitchy shot me, and didn't answer that question. I wished he'd had a body cam, that's what I wished. “How are you?” I asked.
“I've been here a month and I still don't know my next move. Everything feels so empty now. I'm...no one's...”
“No one's telling you what to do or hitting you?” I tilted my eyebrows.
“Yeah, funny how that is.” She finished her drink and stood up. “So you wanna know how to find them.”
“Mmhmm.” I remained seated.
“I was always in one basement or another. I really can't help you,” she said. “But I do remember this: everywhere we stayed, I always heard water.”
So maybe the leaders all lived around the docks. I waited with my eyes on her, to see if she said anything else. She took a few steps back from me.
“What?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Thanks for helping.”
“Well. Thanks for gettin' me outta there. Even if you are the worst superhero ever.”
I stared at her.
“What? It's true.”
I didn't react outside. I don't do that. I wanted to, I always want to, but I buried the deep gut-punching twist under lips pursed tighter than a nun's front door. Shoot, I was a wimp. I knew she'd just gotten out of one of the most horrible situations a girl can get into, knew she had a history, knew she'd say things like that without meaning them, but her statement shell-shocked me and her nonchalance burned. Worst superhero ever?
Keisha paused in the doorway. “There was this crab thing in the sky one night. A bunch of girls disappeared. The men talked about a 'shipment,' like it was any other shipment, but Thunder, they seemed spooked. Kept talking about how much money they'd made, like they had to make themselves feel better or something. With what they do for a living, what could possibly scare 'em like that?”
I don't answer questions I don't know the answer to.
“It's weird,” she said. “It doesn't feel like you took me to another state. Feels like I'm on another planet.”
At that moment, I realized I needed a belt so I could tuck my fingers in its rim and lean back in silent faux-confidence like a space pirate. Something to hold on to in these moments when I felt naked in a brave new world.
*
Tights: Three Hours Ago
So here I am, squirming on this metal chair in this bouncing van with my ceramic armor plates digging into that crease between my thigh and my butt. Blood oozes from my lip, into my mouth, and I'm excited, but my poker face doesn't break.
I'd like to say I came up with the whole “getting captured to meet the boss” schtick, but that's not exactly how it went down. Getting here was easy. With Keisha's tip I found the van again by the river. Following Birdnose from house to house I mapped out all their holding spots. With the addresses and photos safely texted to the state police, I crouched down under a window to wait.
Was that how this worked? Would they just show up and rescue everyone? They had everything they needed for a warrant now, yes? I'd busted the nest?
Maybe they wouldn't get here for a few days?
I fiddled with the grass under my boots as I called—this time, not 911, but the human trafficking helpline at 1-888-3737-888.
“We'll contact TIP-trained law enforcement in your area immediately,” they said. ETA forty minutes. That was okay; nothing was going down right now.
I waited about twenty. If I could only have waited longer, I wouldn't be here right now, but as I hid under that window, I had the misfortune of hearing cries.
Cries that intensified to pleading.
Finesse, finesse... I repeated to myself.
“Please, no!” she wept. My legs clenched together. Girl, if you get involved now, and they raise an alarm, you'll lose all the other girls while you save the one. Again. I clutched the grass. It tore under my gloves, leaving claw-marks of suburban soil.
Something thwacked against flesh.
Oh hell no.
My body burst through the window before my mind noticed. My Thunder knocked over everything in the living room: vases and lightbulbs exploded, a heavy upholstered couch tipped over on a burgundy Persian rug, and another girl my age tumbled across the floor, the button of her jeans undone.
Her attacker was plastered to the wall under the sonic waves coming from my fist.
A knock on the door. “Hey, man, you break it you buy it!”
The human-wall-hanging opened his mouth. I opened mine, just my lips, and hissed as I strode towards him: “You tell them it's fine, and you're paying double.”
“It's fine, I'll pay double!”
Someone outside chuckled, and boot-steps faded down a wooden hallway. Boots in the house? Mama wouldn't have approved. Steps gone, I released my breath.
Holy crap now what.
The girl panted in the corner, staring at me through her messed-up weave, too shocked to even notice what my blast had done to her terrific blue hair. That means she was really shocked.
The guy on the wall heaved. It was his turn to almost cry. Maybe he thought what he was doing was harmless. Maybe the pimp lied to him about the girl's will, or maybe he lied to himself. Either way, he saw himself as the victim. He breathed, and breathed, in terror.
And I breathed, as the whole world seemed to spin around me like pointing fingers on a playground. Well, now I'd charged into a house with no plan and rescued a girl prematurely. Congratulations. If I left with her, and the pimps noticed she'd disappeared, they might move everyone in the house. I was jeopardizing my whole mission.
“You, shut up,” I snarled under my breath at the John.
“I wasn't talk—”
I glared. He curled up and kept his mouth shut.