Mauler lay flat beneath the metal beast. His face stained red with blood. I peered over the dashboard to get a better view of my hunter. The forklift's metal teeth pinned his shoulder to the floor, just as I hoped for.
I did it. Holy shit, I did it. Not Cindi or Dharia, or Jesse or Lynn. This was me. All me.
I rubbed my hands, still hot from the spark. I--I have a super power…a fucking super power! My heart pumped bashfully. This must have been how Cindi felt. Like I was standing on top of the world.
After stepping out of the forklift I surveyed my accomplishment. Warmth expanded out from the center of my chest. I had a hard time gauging just what kind of feeling it was, but it reminded me of when we bested Brady and his lackeys. Pride?
"A lot of talk for a cat with no claws," I taunted. An unfamiliar laughter enveloped me. It just rolled out. It was probably because of the stress. "Not so strong now are you?"
I kicked his foot.
He stirred. I leapt back instinctively, like a scared cat.
"You should be out ice-cold."
His eyes blinked open.
I felt like someone just shot me. I just watched him, shocked. "How the hell--"
Mauler's muscles constricted, like a python wrapped around his prey. He pushed on the concrete floor. Teeth grinding. He pushed with all his might until it looked like his muscles were going to pop. The forklift shrugged.
"Oh no." I stepped back. "You couldn't have just pretended to be knocked out?" I laughed nervously.
He growled. The veins on his forehead looked like they were going to pop. I took another step back and twisted my body so that I could sprint for the front entrance.
Mauler's cat-slit eyes lit up the dark. They were a little red, but he pried them open through sheer force of will…and wrath. He managed to make it onto his knees, shouldering the machine like he was lifting a barbell.
"You coward," he growled. "Can't fight fairly--"
I ran.
He shouted after me, teeth gritting through the effort. "Wherever you run, wherever you hide, I'll find you! The hunt is the best part!" He cackled violently. His laughter raced across the warehouse walls and ceiling like a prism of light splitting in all directions.
I vaulted over a box, ran past another forklift, and dodged a hanging wire. The front door loomed just a few feet away now. Its rusted hinges seemed old enough that a heavy hit from my shoulder could break them. I invoked the spirit of Cindi when she slammed into Lynn all those nights ago. In lowering my shoulder I braced my arm and my core to take the blow of what looked like a steel reinforced warehouse door, the likes of which I've seen busted down in cop movies. "Hands up! 'Cops are here!" a detective would say as soon as he smashed it open. Or even "Freeze!". What would I say? Wait, should I even say something? That's kind of stu--
I slammed into the door…and down onto the floor.
My knees buckled and pain shot down through my chest.
I gasped for air while clutching at my stomach. I writhed on the ground like I had the wind knocked out of me.
Mauler's haunting cackle loomed behind me. It slowly dwindled until nothing more than my exasperated huffing filled the silent void.
Click.
The door clicked. Its handle rattled from the outside.
I scrambled onto my feet. The rattling stopped.
Then, the door creaked open.
Light first came through, blinding me like the headlights of the forklift.
I stepped back and the door swung fully open.
Five figures approached me. The person in the center held their flashlight aloft, kind of like a cop; They were anything but.
The figure holding the flashlight was a woman. She wore a purple shirt under a canvas jacket. Spikes crowned her shoulders.
"Go," she said to the other four. They fanned out into the warehouse in swat formations of two. Each of them wore similar outfits, each employing a shade of purple, like their colleague.
"You with them?" she said. Behind her, bound in zip ties and mouths stuck with yellow bandana gags, were two boys. They were two of the people following us in the car.
My hands shot up. "Wait--wait--wait! No. I'm not with the Saints."
She studied my reaction. Clearly, she didn't believe me.
"Look," I said as I unzipped my hoody. She reached back, fumbling for something on her hip.
"Don't you dare fucking move, kid," she ordered.
I tried to show her my white t-shirt. Thankfully I didn't have a spot of yellow on me. She looked at me like I was crazy.
"See? No yellow…" I felt like an idiot grasping at straws. I was thinking of anything I could do to get on her good side. Anything to show I wasn't a threat. It only made me look more suspicious. I slowly brought my hands back to a neutral position in front of me.
"I'm not the threat, alright? It's him, back there." I nodded behind me. "I think he calls himself the Mauler--"
I felt something slam into me, knocking me off of my feet. I opened my eyes and saw the woman looking down at me. Her boots were the last thing I saw before falling unconscious. The last words I heard were: "Don't make me wait for too long."
The room I found myself in once I woke up didn't stand out to me in any particular way. It was dark and cramped. No windows or furniture occupied an inch of space. All that it contained were myself and a guard--a guy wearing a purple bandana.
He glared down at me with arms crossed across his chest. On his back he stowed a wooden baseball bat.
"Finally awake?" he asked. I didn't answer.
My hands were bound by a small, tight constraint. I assumed that they had tied me up with the same kind of zip ties as those thugs. I struggled against them, tried to squeeze my hands free or find some sort of leverage against them. They would not budge. They were so tight in fact that even trying to wriggle free of them drew a bit of blood.
I snapped my fingers. Maybe I could replicate what happened with Mauler. Nothing happened. I snapped twice more and still nothing happened.
The guard knocked against a door behind him.
A minute passed and he stepped over to the side to let another person enter the room. The woman from before sauntered in. The jingle of her jacket's zipper reminded me of the chain that Lynn wore. She nodded and the guard left the room in a hurry.
"Care to explain why I'm tied up?" I asked.
She studied me quietly for a moment.
I continued. "Uh, hello? My…uh, brother knows I'm missing. He's probably looking for me right now." I bluffed because I didn't know what else to do. If she suspected that no one knew I was gone, I could be taken advantage of. Leaving it up to her whims only limited my options of escape or negotiating.
I wondered where Cindi, Dharia, and Lynn were right now. Did they get out alright? Were they ok? I had to get out of here and see for myself.
Now that I could actually see her face, I recognized some of her features. I cringed when I recognized her nose, her cheekbones, and even that rough-looking grimace. Her hair too. Blonde, but not dyed like Cindi's. She looked like Brady if he had been born a girl.
"If you're not a Saint then why were they flocking to you? Maybe you pissed them off." She knelt down to look me straight in the eye. "Or maybe you have something they want?"
How would she know that?
She smiled. "Right on the money, it looks like. So what? Drugs? Guns? Did you steal some dough?"
"What? No…" I started to say.
"No no no, let me guess. You skinned that neanderthal-looking ass's faux fur lining."
"Why would I do that?"
"I can't think of another reason why he was so adamant about…well, skinning you."
"Did you ask?"
"Well, he wasn't exactly talkative when my boys ran into him. I inferred it from context clues."
I sighed. "So what happened to him?"
"Now hold on. I am the one asking the questions here," she emphasized. "He didn't stay long, if that's what you mean. He left soon after we entered the warehouse. Slipped right out after knocking one of my crewmates on his ass. Maybe you can shed some light on what happened so me and my boys can deal with whatever he has planned."
"I don't even know who you guys are. Will you let me go if I cooperate?"
"Again, questions. But sure." She stood up. "If you cooperate, of course. You really don't know who we are?"
I suspected it at the warehouse, but now that I was face to face with her. I made an educated guess.
"You're with the Royals, aren't you?"
"Is that a question?"
"Let me rephrase," I said. Damn. What was her deal? "You must be working with the Royals."
"Right on the money," she said. Her canines flashed behind a smug grin.
"First of all," I said. "I'm feeling a little claustrophobic. Can you remove these?" I shook my bound hands. She arched her eyebrow.
"Come on, that one doesn't even really count. It was a request, not a question."
"Nope. Talk first, then I'll alleviate that issue of yours."
"You're afraid I'll fight back."
"Nope. I'm afraid that if you do something stupid then I'll do something stupid. Nothing ever good came out of two stupid reactions."
"Fine. I was walking home when I noticed a parked car." I then went on to explain the rest of the night. However, I made sure to keep Cindi, Dharia, and Lynn's involvement out of the story. It was tough to dance around what happened in the canal, but I managed to make something work.
During my explanation, she studied me and patiently waited for it to finish before giving her input.
My heart raced. What if she caught on to the fact that I wasn't telling the whole truth? What if she suspected I was in league with the Saints? So many worries crossed my mind that I could hardly stay on track.
"Interesting story," she said. "Still doesn't explain why they attacked you." She walked behind me and knelt down. I heard a knife sing as she pulled it out of her pocket. I braced myself for the worse. Instead of stabbing me where the sun don't shine, the zip ties snapped. my hands slipped free of their bondage. The torn zip ties fell to the floor like nothing more than discarded peanut shells.
I rubbed my wrists. They were sore from the constrainment. A red outline circled them like wristbands.
"Thank you," I said. "They were looking for me because I did something very stupid."
"That tends to be the case," she said.
"I guess they targeted me because I figured out one of their meeting spots. Learned it from one of their own." I paused and waited for her to take the bait.
"Oh? Don't let me stop you."
"This is some delicate info. What if I tell you and word gets back to the wrong ears? Let me answer that question. My friends--my family could get hurt."
"What's the harm? They already want you dead. And regardless, they're not the ones you have to worry about right now."
"True. Though you also risked your men to help me out. You know there's something to gain from working with me."
"I wouldn't feel so confident about that."
"I can show you their hideout, bring you there myself."
"Or you can point to it on a map and we won't dump your body into a canal."
"Fair point."
"So that's a yes?"
I nodded. "But--"
"No 'buts'. Do what I say and you walk. Don't do it and I'll make the next few hours a little more 'uncomfortable' for you." She placed a finger on her chin. "How about metal cuffs for instance. A little more uncomfortable than plastic zip ties, don't you think?"
I nodded again. She took it as a sign I was willing to cooperate. She knocked on the door and told one of the guards outside to track down a map for her. We waited together in silence until they returned.
"So you'll let me go when I show you guys where it is," I said.
She said, "I didn't say that. First we have to corroborate your information. Then we'll let you go."
"Are you planning on taking them out?" I asked. "Or is asking questions still off the table." Surely they weren't thinking of going there tonight. Especially not in full force. It was too reckless.
She sighed. "That's for us to figure out."
Eventually one of the guards came back with a folded up tourist map of Easttown. I think I saw the same type of map at the souvenir shop we went to get footage from the security cameras. Gaudy and stylistic with big bold letters and highly detailed landmarks.
She gave me a red marker and I circled as close to the lot as possible. It wasn't actually too far from where we were. Just a little closer to the center of the city with a sequestered enclave of parkland nearby.
"Now that's something," she commented. "How many people?"
"Deal was the location. Not numbers."
"You drive a hard bargain, kid."
"'Kid'. You can't be that much older," I said. She looked like she could be in high school too. Maybe a few years ahead of me. "If I'm going to be in the Saints way--work with their rivals, that is--then I need protection. Can you protect me?"
"You're not 'working with' us. You're working for us. There's a difference. I need something else if you want 'protection'," she said. "I doubt once we've scoped out and dealt with this one cache they'll leave you alone anyway…probably. They've been more active in northern Easttown since last week."
What would she want to hear in order for me to sweeten the deal? I could give her what she wanted--how many people I counted there. But maybe there was something else I could use.
"I can give you a rough estimate," I said. "I can also tell you who's calling the shots."
"Oh?" She arched her brow. She stopped crossing her arms. Her body language was far more open to hearing me out now. Her smug faltered. Something about what I offered made her uneasy.
"Promise you'll look out for me in the meantime…and anyone I know."
"I can say with certainty we'll look out for you, kid. Only you. We're not babysitters running a daycare."
Information. I needed information.
"Why were you at the warehouse tonight?" I asked. The question caught her off guard.
She hesitated. "A concerned citizen pointed us in the right direction. The Saints have been making moves recently. Exploring old factories, warehouses, and abandoned commercial districts. Looking for something."
"And so you're saying that the info I have is what you could use to leverage your goons to actually act?"
She scoffed. "And here I thought you were on to something." She turned and stopped just in front of the door. "When I come back, you better have some names ready for me." The door slammed behind her on the way out. She left me alone with my thoughts.
I closed my eyes in an attempt to dream but thirty minutes went by and no Dharia came calling. I was alone. I needed to think of a way out on my own.
I sat down on the floor with my back to the wall. The back of my head felt cool against the plaster.
I snapped my fingers. Maybe I could make another spark, like before. How did Dharia do it?--How did Cindi?
There was a guard outside the door. He wasn't very responsive to my pestering.
When they knocked me out they took my phone and everything else I had on me. David was probably worried sick. I couldn't return his texts or calls even if he did check in on me. Sometimes I thought he trusted me too much.
Dharia wasn't returning my dream-calls so I had no way of getting in contact with anyone. Maybe I had to dream about her or something. Send up a smoke signal in Dreamland.
I stood and knocked on the door. I asked, "I gotta whiz. Can you let me out?"
"Do it in the corner," the guard said. That was probably the longest sentence they've said to me tonight. "I'm not looking. You'll be fine."
"Can you escort me to a bathroom or something? It's kind of awkward. Or, like, can't you just get one of your friends to do it?" Keeping my ear on the door, I had the sense that the guard was the only one outside. Some footsteps passed by every five minutes or so, but for the most part it sounded like he was the only one watching out for me.
Now that I remembered it, there were only four people with her when she found me. But there could have been more waiting for her at this little hideout. If it's true that the Royals were a gang originating in Vaux, then would it have been likely that they'd have a large following this south of the Ward? There couldn't have been more than twenty, since that's about how many Saints that prowled around the abandoned lot. Why would a large sect of Royals so far from home lead an assault on a smaller splinter group of their rivals other than to keep them out of their territory? But we weren't even close to Vaux, so it would have been territory that they couldn't keep for long. They would have had to secede it eventually.
A turf war was brewing between the two groups. If these gang bangers were hoping to speed things up, then launching an assault on a hideout so deep in enemy territory would be one way of going about it. My read on their captain though didn't tell me that that was what she was going for. In fact, it kind of felt like she was hesitating to call herself one of them. I got a weird vibe from her.
If they were still holding onto those two Yellows, then they were likely being watched by another guard. If I was still going by the idea that there was five–or at the very least five–Purples here, then that meant three were unoccupied, including the captain. Maybe one was keeping a look out. One could have been interrogating their captives.
I snapped my fingers. Still no spark. How did it happen last time? I retraced my steps in my head. I was in the forklift. I tried to hotwire the lift. Static, a spark. My hands went hot like holding a lit candle.
I tried to visualize the feeling. A taser bite. The shock of a solar bug zapper. Frozen numbness so cold that it was warm, otherwise known as the paradoxical temperature sensation that derived from a body's thermoregulation system. Heat. Energy.
I snapped and felt a spark of energy.
I snapped and it grew.
I snapped the air. The space between the door and I ruptured, like a flush of hot translucent vapor. The air shimmered as energy fluctuated through it.
I laughed. It started out as a giggle but eventually became something more. Raw emotional relief.
I flexed my hand. Power. Real power.
My hand brushed against the smooth steel of the door.
Energy, I thought. Power.
Heat extended from my hand and into the core of the door until it began to expand, bubble. The door popped open in a flash of light, like a microwaved metal pan. As the chunk of metal fell from its hinges and onto the floor with a loud thud I found myself staring face-to-face with my guard.
"Oh fuck."