The Black Coats

by Colleen Oakes

  His room was unsparingly gigantic, with a giant king-size bed in the middle of it. Multicolored Christmas lights blinked in the dark, displaying the bottles of liquor that sat half-empty among piles of unwashed laundry, textbooks, and video-game controllers. The only neat spot in Arthur’s room was his immaculately clean desk, glowing under the reflection of a behemoth monitor and two expensive black server towers. Thea’s eyes found the bed where Mirabelle was dancing on the mattress fully clothed, a bottle of vodka in her hand. Vodka that happened to actually be water. Arthur was lying underneath her legs, a look of predatory delight across his surprisingly boyish face.

  “That’s it, girl, let me see . . . such a tease you are.”

  The team watched silently, waiting for him to notice them. He gave a hysterical giggle. “Now, hold on, pretty girl, what’s your name? Ash? Aggy?”

  “That’s right, Aggy,” purred Mirabelle.

  That was when he noticed the four black silhouettes in the shadows.

  “What the hell?” Arthur reared back, ready to leap up from the bed, but Mirabelle dropped her knees down onto his arms, pinning him beneath her.

  “Sit still, you bastard,” she hissed. “It will all be over soon.”

  He bucked his torso once before Mirabelle pulled out a knife and held it to his throat, her ice-blue eyes lighting up with power.

  Thea felt her stomach drop and said, “Steady . . .”

  Mirabelle nodded and exhaled. “I’m okay.”

  Arthur went still, his breathing becoming panicked.

  “What do you want? Money? I have it! Tons of it. We can go to the ATM! My father—”

  Thea cut him off, stepping boldly into the light. “We know exactly who your father is. In fact, we know everything about you, Arthur.” Her eyes combed over his dorm room. “So no, we don’t care about the mounds of money you’ve made selling pictures of your conquests to porn websites.”

  His face paled. “Those are just licentious accusations! I haven’t been charged with anything! I’m innocent.”

  Mirabelle grinned, the drunken girl gone and in her place a woman who stared down at her prey like a starved lion. “Oh, I don’t think so. I think you planned on doing exactly to me what you did to those other girls.” She nodded to Team Banner. “Get it done.”

  “Quickly now,” hissed Thea. Two Black Coats swept past her, as Bea searched his shelves and Casey attacked his computer.

  “What are you doing?” Arthur snapped. “Don’t . . . don’t touch that!”

  Casey pulled out a small USB stick and inserted it into his tower before she began typing like mad, her voice steady. “I’m guessing you’re pretty smart, Arthur. Smart enough to hide the files on these poor girls. Do you know, when I was in middle school, a sixteen-year-old girl started sending me messages? I told her things, things I wasn’t ready to tell my parents. After a while I agreed to meet her at a department store because I liked her. I took the bus like she told me to, and when I got there, there was no one in the parking lot, no one except for a forty-five-year-old man with a gray van. As soon as the bus pulled away, he tried to grab me.” The entire room was frozen, listening to Casey’s story. “I fought, and then I ran. I escaped, but I will always see his face in my nightmares. So you could say I have a particular hunger for men who prey on women online.”

  She leaned back in Arthur’s chair. “I’m guessing you have your victims in an innocent-looking folder, encrypted with a . . .” She laughed. “Ah, here. Found it. Did you know you can hack hidden files by setting an attribute to extract them? It’s like the opposite of a virus.”

  Arthur’s face was turning red as he stared up at Mirabelle. “How dare you? You stupid whore—”

  Mirabelle clamped her hand down over his mouth. “Yes, we’re all whores when we call you out on your bad behavior. I’m so done listening to you talk, Arthur. Twenty minutes was more than enough for a lifetime.”

  “Careful,” warned Thea. “Don’t block his nose.” She was suddenly hyperaware of how quickly this could all go wrong. So many variables were at play here. She realized in that moment why they had so many classes, so much training, because Arthur was a cat in a cage. She watched now as his hand grasped at the covers, searching for a weapon.

  Louise pinned his hand under her foot. “Nope.”

  Bea shrieked with delight from his bookcase. “I think I found something!” Mirabelle lifted her hands to clap.

  Thea stepped over to join Bea, who was running her fingers along a strange piece of wall behind the bookcase. She gave it a push and a shoe-box-size portion of the wall came crumbling out. Bea flicked a flashlight out from the sleeve of her coat, and Thea let a grin spread across her face.

  “And what do we have here?”

  Arthur was beginning to sweat. “Don’t touch that! That’s mine! You . . .” He dissolved into a series of demeaning curses, words that normally would have made Thea flinch, but now she didn’t even blink. The coat stretched across her shoulders protected her, and she let the words bounce off its wool as she pulled everything out of the hole: a dozen USB drives, along with three heavy file folders filled with photographs and what looked like emails and contractual agreements. There was also a gun. Oh my God.

  Her motions easy, Thea switched on the safety and unloaded the chamber before slipping the weapon and every item from Arthur’s secret trove of blackmail material into her backpack. The Black Coats didn’t ever use guns, but they did know how to handle them. She turned back to the boy, who was now crying fat tears as he begged Mirabelle to let him go.

  “Please, this isn’t my fault!” he sputtered. “I owe someone money, and I needed to—”

  “We don’t care,” spoke Louise quietly.

  Casey snapped her gum over at the computer, where she was digging into Arthur’s files. “You blackmailed women. You took advantage of intoxicated girls by filming your encounters and selling them. You’re a predator.”

  Fury was rising in Mirabelle’s face. “Are you sure this is a Code Morning?” She squinted at Thea. “I think maybe just a punch or two, just to knock out some of these pretty white veneers.”

  “No.” Thea didn’t even look up. “Not one scratch.”

  “Fine.”

  “Got it! Is that it?” Casey pulled out her USB drive and leaped up from the desk and began unplugging the computer from the wall.

  Thea nodded. They had been in the room less than ten minutes, but it already felt too long.

  Casey stood up from the computer desk and swiftly made her way past Thea, Arthur’s computer towers in her arms.

  Arthur let out a cry. “Wait, what are you doing with that? Do you have any idea how expensive those are? Stop!”

  With a wink, Casey opened his window and then looked back at Arthur. “Oh, you mean these computers? I actually do know how expensive they are.”

  Thea leaped forward to stop her, but it was too late; Casey shoved both computers out the window. The resounding crash of metal and plastic exploded up through the windows.

  “You bitch!” he screamed.

  Casey stared at him. “Oops.”

  Thea pulled the backpack onto her shoulders. “We need to move! You girls, go now! Get the car. Dammit!”

  Arthur turned his head to the side, defeated. Mirabelle continued to hold him down as Thea bent over him, her lips brushing his ear. “Just because they were drunk, just because they were high, just because they were naive doesn’t make this okay, you human piece of garbage. We’re going to make sure that you never, ever do this again. Dear Daddy is going to get all of this: videotapes of you with these girls, your contracts with the porn websites, and your emails back and forth with the bros who helped you.”

  She pulled back from him to look into his wild eyes. “Look for a campus-wide email soon.”

  Arthur’s lower lip began quivering. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Mirabelle rolled her eyes as she climbed off the bed. “Ugh, you are possibly the most revolting person I’ve
ever met.”

  Thea’s hazel eyes caught Bea’s, and she nodded. Bea stepped forward and knelt in front of Arthur. With the black hood pulled up and her glasses removed, she looked like some sort of mysterious druid. “Arthur?” He sat up and looked at her, his eyes red-rimmed and his face desperate—signs that it was the perfect time to move Bea into place. Arthur needed an ally, and she was going to be the good cop to Mirabelle’s bad one.

  “Hi, Arthur. I know you’re having a bad night. I’m here to help you. Can you take a deep breath?”

  He took a jagged breath, followed by a choked sob. “Yes.”

  Thea almost felt bad for him. In this moment he seemed like a scared child. Then she remembered some of the photographs she had seen in the file, and her stomach turned. Empathy melted away.

  Bea gave Arthur a kind grin. “Can you press on my hand?”

  Arthur reached out his trembling hand, laying it on her own. “Close your eyes.” Bea waited a moment before violently yanking her hand away from his, speaking the word “Sleep.” Arthur fell backward onto the bed. “That’s it. Deeper, deeper, all the way down the rabbit hole. One, going even deeper now. Two, you, Arthur Brewe, are never, ever going to do this to women again. You won’t even be able to imagine doing this to a woman. You are going to turn yourself in, leave this college, and never come back to academia.”

  Bea placed her hands on either side of his head. “Three, in a few minutes, you will wake up with a very fuzzy memory of what happened here tonight. You did this to your room when you were drunk.” She gently released him, childlike snorts changing to moans as he rolled over on his side. Bea nodded at Thea. “It’s done.”

  Mirabelle shook her head. “I was hoping for more magic.”

  Thea was the last one out. She paused, her eyes resting on the clock above his bed. It had been fifteen minutes since they’d pushed through his door. Fifteen minutes, and they had changed for the better the lives of one terrible man and dozens of girls.

  Thea shut the door behind her, and Team Banner made its way through the dorm and out into the parking lot. There was the roar of an engine behind them and they were bathed in headlights as Casey pulled the car forward. Thea didn’t need to wait for direction. She spun, throwing open the back door before shoving the girls inside, her momentum sending her skidding across the soft leather. Thea’s door wasn’t even shut before Casey was pulling out of the lot and onto the open road that bordered it. Thea let out a breath of relief when her back sank against the cool leather. As they soared home, the car was bursting with joy and disbelief.

  “That was amazing!” Casey punched the steering wheel.

  “Did you see his face,” laughed Bea, “when Mirabelle told him to sit still?” Casey opened the window and leaned her head out. “Team Banner! Yeaaah!”

  Thea leaned against the seat, letting the warmth of their bodies hold her tight as Casey opened up the roof, her heart intoxicated with excitement. She wanted to do it again. And again. She lifted her voice in a cheer as Team Banner soared out into the night, their coats flapping in the breeze.

  Fourteen

  “Hey, what are you thinking about?” Drew poked her with a sandaled foot.

  It had been two weeks since their first Balancing, and finally Thea was getting some time with him. This perfect day found them lying in her backyard on a plaid throw, soaking in the sunshine and studying for their upcoming Spanish test together. Well, thought Thea, one of them was anyway. Claiming he was hot, Drew had lost his shirt and was now lying on his stomach, his head bent over the decaying textbook and his body propped up on muscled arms. His skin was tanned gold and dotted with a few freckles, and as he studied, her boyfriend somehow turned into a sun-drenched god. He looked over at her and smiled before flipping over onto his back, his arms stretched above his head so that his ab muscles were on full display. Good Lord. Thea almost laughed. This was getting ridiculous. She sat back on the blanket and took him in, sunglasses thankfully covering her eyes. Not only could she let her eyes appreciate him more than they should, but the shades also masked her emotions as she relived the last two weeks.

  The Black Coats consumed her every thought. Even now, when a superattractive male—who also happened to be one of the kindest people she had ever met—was stretched out next to her, her mind returned to Arthur Brewe’s Balancing and the ones that had followed swiftly behind it. She had a bad habit of going over every little moment, evaluating what they had done wrong and what they had done right, trying to figure out how to best lead her team for the next one.

  Four times now, Thea had waited at the window, the sound of Mirabelle’s car coming down the street raising her arm hairs in anticipation. The adrenaline of the Black Coats was potent, and the righteous feeling of serving justice was addicting. Thea felt like she was a live wire, sparking with excitement.

  From far away, she heard someone calling her name. She felt a warm hand touch her shin. “Thea, where are you? Hey!” Drew reached out and leaned against her calf.

  Thea blinked. “Sorry. I’m just drifting off here. I’ve been so tired lately.”

  “I can tell.” Drew sat up as he gently pried off her sunglasses. “You’ve got some dark rings under these gorgeous eyes.” With a devastatingly handsome smile, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

  “Boo, that was chaste,” pouted Thea, disappointed. “Are we courting now—Sense and Sensibility–style? Is this your way of telling me to start our English homework?”

  Drew looked toward the house. “More like, I’m pretty sure your parents are watching us out the windows.”

  “Don’t worry about my dad,” answered Thea before pausing dramatically. “Worry about my mom.”

  “Yeaaahhh . . .” Drew lay back on the blanket, scooting away from her. “I guess I can handle a little space right now, even if you are making it very hard in that thing.” He gestured to her torso, barely covered by her shirt. “Is that a bikini top? Half a bathing suit? Like, what is that? You know what, it doesn’t matter, I love it.”

  Thea blushed. After class had wrapped up at Mademoiselle Corday last week, Mirabelle had surprised Thea by taking her shopping. To her further surprise, she actually loved the things that Mirabelle had picked out for her, including this outfit of a black-and-white-swirled retro crop top dotted with tiny black umbrellas and paired with high-rise white shorts. When Thea had put it on, she had felt like a sixties’ pinup. The white shorts were just right for showing off her long, muscular, copper-brown legs, which were now crossed in front of her.

  Drew let out a whistle, and Thea reached for him. “I know my parents probably are watching us, but you can at least hold my hand.”

  “It could be improper. You could be scandalized. Your dowry could be at risk!”

  “I’ll take that chance. It’s probably only antique radios anyway.”

  Drew curled his fingers around hers. “Okay, seriously, though, why are you so exhausted? Is the Tolkien Houses for Societal Reconstruction taking up that much energy?”

  Thea laughed at his butchering of the name. “No, I mean, yes. It’s a lot of work. It can be quite physical, restoring things.” She shielded her eyes, mixing a truth with the lie. “It’s more rewarding than you could ever imagine, though. It’s probably how you feel about soccer. It becomes a part of you.”

  Drew pushed himself up to look at her with a surprising intensity. “But aren’t you, like, painting chandeliers?”

  Thea bit back a smile. “That’s part of it, but it’s also being around the other girls. I haven’t been exactly social these last six months and it’s nice to have . . .”

  Drew finished for her. “A team.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Could I ever come with you?”

  She kicked her leg out toward him, narrowly missing his arm. “No! They have pretty strict rules. Besides, it’s women only.”

  Drew stared off into the distance, his eyes focusing on the horizon. “Huh.” He paused. “Well, I have a wig,” he finally
muttered. “I think I would look great as a redhead.”

  “You would.” Thea raised her glass of sweet tea and stole a glance at the boy who had captured her heart one afternoon at a time. She scooted up next to him, relishing his warm skin pressing against hers, the sun bathing them both in its generous heat. Thea brushed her nose across Drew’s. “I love being a part of my team there.” She placed both of her long hands across his stubbly cheeks. “But I’m not lying when I say that there is nowhere I would rather be in this moment than right here with you.” Thea raised her lips and pressed them against his. Sorry, Mom.

  Drew kissed her hungrily and then pulled back with a groan. “Now you’re making this really difficult.” He wrapped his arms around her, Thea feeling the hard lines of his rib cage against her own, their hearts beating inches apart, everything about him warmed by the sun, warming her from the inside out.

  From somewhere on the blanket, her phone buzzed. No, no, no. Thea ignored it, sinking deeper into his kiss, into Drew himself, into the way his hand traced across her hips. The phone buzzed again. Thea shifted, and the moment was broken. Drew sat back. “Want to turn that off?”

  Thea frowned. “Yes, it’s probably just . . .” She looked at the phone. It was from Nixon.

  BC. One hour. Meet at Mademoiselle Corday.

  “Oh no.” Thea let out a nervous sigh. “I am so sorry, Drew. I have to go. This sucks.”

  His head jerked back. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. It’s an emergency.”

  He sat up. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Yes. Sorry, not that kind of emergency.” Thea pushed her hair back from her face with aggravation. “Everyone is okay. It’s just, you know, my team.”

  He gave her a look of extreme disbelief. “Thea, what kind of emergency could a two-hundred-year-old house have? The sudden onset of oldness? Too much quirk in the drawing room?”