Battlecry Read online

  I mentally shouted bitter curses. I’d tried so hard to make it seem like both Old Town and Northside needed patrols; why was he pairing us? My plans for texting Benjamin dissolved into nothing. I wanted to bang my head against a wall.

  After the guys filed out to get ready, I looked at the map and started to plan our patrol. I turned to ask Ember where she wanted to begin.

  She slapped me. Hard.

  I stumbled backwards, clutching my cheek and stunned into silence.

  Ember was trembling, though from rage or hurt I couldn’t tell. Her face was white but her eyes were damp.

  “Wha…what was that for?” I was too shocked to be angry.

  “That was for telling Patrick about my training.” She choked on the last word. “And if I thought I could, I’d slap you again for throwing that tantrum when you heard you had to patrol with me.” A fat tear rolled down her cheek. “I thought we were friends.”

  I was so stupid. Of course she wouldn’t want Patrick to know, because any sane person would want to keep as much of their life hidden from him as possible. She’d succeeded for six weeks until I’d opened up my fat mouth.

  I crossed the space between us in one step and pulled her into a fierce hug. “I’m sorry for telling Patrick.” My voice was muffled by her hair. “I really didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”

  “You are the densest person I’ve ever met, Jill.” She sniffled.

  I didn’t doubt it. “My complaints about tonight had nothing to do with you, I swear. I’m sorry you had to hear that.” I pulled away from her and looked into her red-rimmed brown eyes. “Though I don’t know why you were in my head.”

  Ember wiped her nose with the back of hand. “I’ve told you, sometimes I pick things up by accident. Emotions like anger come through easily. So do fantasies, unfortunately.” Her teeth clicked together.

  “Ew. Gotta say, I’m glad I don’t have your powers.” I focused on the patrol map, determined to not think about Benjamin and the fantasies she was almost certainly alluding to.

  Ember rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. I’m sorry I slapped you, though. Just…don’t talk to Patrick about me again, okay?”

  “I won’t. Promise.” I gave her a brief side hug and then we went upstairs to prepare for patrol.

  Ember and I stood on the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Ayrlee Avenue and readied ourselves to cross into the rough, depressed part of town called Northside. Our hoods were pulled up, casting our faces into shadow so if anyone glanced at us, they wouldn’t see our masks. However, anybody could see that we were two young women walking down a city street after midnight. The chances of being hassled were high.

  Instead of walking around looking for trouble, we decided to do the wait-and-see approach to crime fighting, taking off our masks and letting our hair down so we looked like neighborhood girls. We perched on trashcans at the mouth of an alley.

  Chatting telepathically helped pass the time. We took turns asking each other questions.

  I went first. What do you do on patrol when you’re by yourself? I’d never patrolled with her, and I pictured her jumping from roof to roof, like I did in Old Town. It was occasionally awkward, but stealth was stealth.

  She snorted. Nothing like that. I talk with the residents a lot. There have been less crimes against prostitutes since I’ve made my presence known. Pimps know that if they rough up one of the girls, I’ll rough them up. Some of the local teenagers have started thinking of me as a weird older sister.

  I could understand the sentiment.

  What do you think our families are doing right now? Ember asked me while she twiddled her phone in her hands.

  I checked the time on my phone. It was zero one. Sleeping.

  Ember playfully punched my shoulder. Okay, Miss Literal. What do you think they’ll do when they wake up?

  I thought about my parents and living siblings back home, deep in the Chattahoochee camp, formerly the Chattahoochee National Forest. All superheroes were from former national forests; they’d been given to us by the government generations ago.

  Mom has a garden to take care of. Dad coordinates patrols around the border of the forest. Allison was married off to Samuel Dumont last year, so she’s probably pregnant by now. Mason is on the hunting team, but he’s also on the watch bill, so he’ll patrol with my dad.

  Sounds just like my home. Ember’s mental voice was wistful. She and Patrick were from the Oconee camp, a place I’d never been. She looked sidelong at me. Your turn.

  I decided on a question I’d been wondering since I started training her. How do you usually fight crime around here when it’s just you? I munched on an apple I’d brought from the kitchen. Ember refused it when I offered her a bite. No offense, but you’re not the most intimidating fighter. I tried to picture her “roughing up” a rowdy pimp, but couldn’t.

  Ember flashed a grin at me, the playful gleam in her eyes visible even in the gloom. Watch this.

  She closed her eyes for about five seconds. In the distance, I heard the booming bark of a large dog. A few seconds later a huge, shaggy dog turned a corner behind a nearby pawn shop and bounded towards us.

  “Hey, boy!” Ember said, sliding down off the trash can and kneeling to greet it. It licked her face, its tale thumping wildly against the sidewalk. She looked up at me. I let the neighborhood strays do all the work for me when I’m alone.

  He doesn’t look so ferocious.

  Ember grinned maliciously. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  The dog’s friendly demeanor vanished. A horrible rumbling growl ripped out of the dog’s jaws and it glared at me, its hair raised and teeth bared. I knew it was waiting for a kill order from Ember. I scrambled to pull my legs up onto the trash can. You’ve made your point, Ember.

  The dog instantly returned back its former friendly self and padded away, its tail wagging. I watched it trot down the street and across the road, where it woofed playfully at an old homeless man pushing a shopping buggy full of possessions. He kneeled to pet it.

  A shadowy figure hidden in a doorway sprang at the poor man, brandishing a gun.

  “We’re needed across the street,” I said, jumping off the trash can and pulling out my mask.

  Ember jerked her head towards the mugging and I heard the dog bark loudly, then a terrified yell that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

  Tugging on our masks, we sprinted across the street. The dog had the mugger by the leg, its fangs sunk deep into the fleshy part of his calf, while the homeless man crouched behind his buggy. Ember dashed up to the elderly man and hurried him away to safety, with the dog following close behind.

  In the meantime, I had grabbed the mugger’s weapon and hastily unloaded it, throwing the bullets down a storm drain. Ember began to dial on her phone.

  The mugger, a man in his twenties, cried on the ground and held his bleeding leg. I pushed him on his back with my boot.

  He wailed and glowered at me. “Oh, go f—”

  “That’s physically impossible,” I interrupted. “And unoriginal. Come up with a better insult. Oh, by the way, the dog is rabid.”

  It wasn’t, but I liked seeing the man’s eyes widen in horror.

  Thunder rumbled overhead, mixing with sirens in the distance. I looked up at the gathering black storm clouds slowly blotting out the few visible stars and sighed. Patrolling in the rain was unpleasant.

  The police pulled up and took over just then. After I told them what had happened and the would-be mugger was shoved into the back of a police car, I elbowed Ember. Call it a night? We stopped a crime so we’re allowed to go home now.

  Ember nodded. Man, I’m tired. I’d give anything to be able to sleep until noon. She grinned crookedly at me. Any more questions about how I fight crime by myself?

  I laughed. No, I’m convinced that you’ve got this. When you know as much as I do, you’ll be unstoppable.

  We teased each other back and forth all the way home, the clouds eventually openin
g up and emptying their contents on the dark city.

  9

  When we arrived at our broken down house, the rain had started in full force. We stumbled in the door, wringing out our hair and tunics.

  Marco came down the stairs, still in his black and green uniform, and greeted us. “Reid and I caught two men picking up underage hookers. We spent a while talking to the cops,” he said quietly, offering us a towel each for our hair. “So we decided to call it a night. When we came home Patrick was still in his room. I don’t think he left.”

  We nodded in thanks for the information and headed down the hallway towards the stairs. I passed the double doorway to the living room.

  Patrick and Reid sat on the couch watching a recorded program made by Patrick’s father, Elder Campbell. He was in an empty room, railing about something in front of a blank blue screen, the usual background for these videos. The Elders sent us programs like this to watch every once in a while, and even though they were mandatory, they made lively entertainment over dinner.

  I leaned against the doorway, curious what this program was about.

  Elder Campbell was recounting the story of how the original Battlecry, my grandmother, and her entire team had been murdered on the same day. After a minute of listening, I straightened, heat creeping up my neck.

  “…but no matter what they thought was right, they were in direct defiance of their true authority: Elder St. James! Though they called her the leader, Battlecry wasn’t a leader! Though they called her the authority, Battlecry had no authority!” Elder Campbell pounded the podium in front of him. “And so they were outside their umbrella, they were outside their natural protection, and they opened themselves to attacks from every kind of enemy imaginable.” Elder Campbell looked directly at the camera, his blue eyes cold. “They took the word of a foolish woman over the wisdom of their elder and it led them to destruction.”

  I shook with barely-contained rage. My grandmother was a hero.

  I internally cursed this man who’d twisted my family history into lies. The first Battlecry had valiantly led her team back in the years when women were still allowed to be leaders. They were all captured by supervillains and tortured for information about the camps, but they never broke.

  Though I’d never seen the video of her death, I’d heard from my mother that she was defiant and strong to the end, even though her torturers had made her watch the execution of her team before brutally killing her.

  Where did this…this jackass get off by saying that my grandmother had been responsible for her team’s deaths? I had a sudden fantasy of pounding Elder Campbell face until it was a soft mess.

  I was so engrossed in my vitriolic thoughts that I didn’t notice that Patrick had turned around until he snapped his fingers to get my attention.

  “Yes?” I said, struggling to keep my tone respectful.

  He took out his wallet. “We’re almost out of food. You girls are going to go get some. Bring back the receipt.” He tossed his card to me, but I didn’t move to catch it.

  The clatter of the card on the ground seemed very loud to my ears.

  Patrick squinted. “Did you hear me?”

  I slowly bent down and picked up the card. “Yes,” I said, my voice neutral. “We’ll go right after we change.”

  Why hadn’t I caught the card? I hadn’t even thought about whether I should catch it, I just didn’t. I supposed I was still upset from Elder Campbell’s vicious lies about my grandmother and experienced a lapse in judgment. Still, it was just a card. The fact that I was even thinking about the deeper meaning of this, as if I had failed to catch a suicide jumper—like Patrick didn’t, a tiny voice inside sneered— struck me as unhealthy.

  As we climbed the stairs to our rooms, Ember’s telepathy poked at me even though she was only a few steps behind.

  Why are you acting like this? He’s thinks you’re copping an attitude. That video has him all worked up into a frenzy.

  So I didn’t catch something he threw at me. That’s hardly an attitude.

  I caught a mental image of her slamming me into a wall by the throat. Jill, do not make that man angry. He’s about to have a meltdown and he doesn’t care who gets the brunt of it. You have to start submitting to him. He is the leader.

  I shot back with an image of me kicking her off me into the opposite wall. I didn’t catch a card. Get your head screwed on straight and think about it. All I did was not catch a stupid card.

  Ember’s real-life face was incredulous. She stomped down the hall and into her bedroom. I went into mine, my anger melting away.

  A dizzying array of emotions washed over me as I sank onto the bed and pulled my boots off. Ember was right; I was going to get hurt. Why couldn’t I ever act like I was supposed to? I never said or did the right thing. I ran off to cafés to meet cute civilians while I was on the job.

  Benjamin’s face swam to the surface of my thoughts. I saw him sitting across from me in the café, holding a café mocha and frowning in concern. Jillian, you didn’t catch a card. Big deal.

  “Shut up, Benjamin,” I hissed, punching my mattress. “Just shut up.”

  I threw my boots across the room and fell backwards on the bed, too weary to even sit up anymore. What were my other infractions? I regularly daydreamed about leaving my team when things got hard, and now I had wished harm on an elder. An elder. And then I’d gone and been disrespectful to that elder’s son. This was why I wasn’t allowed to make decisions for the team, why Patrick was always getting after me and correcting me, and why I added up to a terrible superhero.

  Ember’s knocks on my door pulled me from my misery, and I told her to give me one minute more. After I hastily pulled on a faded jean skirt and a green embroidered blouse, I opened the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  It was still pouring when got to the front door, so we decided to walk to the convenience store several blocks away, instead of across town to the only grocery store that was open at half past two in the morning.

  Ember grabbed the old black umbrella leaning in the corner by the front door, but it wouldn’t open. “I guess we’ll have to just get wet,” she said with a shrug.

  “That’s okay. If we obey the authority above us, we’ll always be under the protection of that umbrella.”

  I dodged her punch.

  The sleepy, pimple-covered cashier didn’t pay us any attention while we picked out what little healthy food there was in the cramped shop. Ember, who was experimenting with veganism, inspected food labels with increasing disgust until she simply grabbed apples from a small fruit basket on the counter. I selected several sandwiches, boiled eggs, milk, cheese, and spotted fruits from the refrigerated food case in the back of the store.

  When Ember joined me while I was choosing sandwiches, I looked from the pile of food in my arms to Ember’s sad little apples. “I’ll literally pay you to eat something substantial for once. Your thighs look like my wrists.”

  “Spend twenty-one years listening to the death traumas of animals during hunting. You’ll feel differently about your turkey and cheese sandwiches.”

  I shrugged and strode to the register. Just as I’d handed the cashier Patrick’s card, I remembered that Marco liked a certain brand of lemonade that I’d seen in the cooler. Lemonade was one of the few beverages besides water, milk, and herbal tea we were allowed to drink, so I liked to make sure it was in the refrigerator as much as possible.

  “I’ll be just one second,” I said to Ember, walking back to the cooler to get a bottle.

  My hand was on the bottle of lemonade when the store’s doors burst open with a bang. Two men with hoodies and black wool face masks ran in, guns drawn. One of them shoved Ember into the potato chip rack. The cashier’s arms shot up and he backed away.

  Both men aimed their weapons at the cashier, who was too terrified to move. “Open the register! Now!”

  My mind took in the situation at top speed: I’m at far end of store. Ember is at the register. Three
cameras, no, there’s a fourth. Only one civilian. Two guns, no knives, we aren’t in uniform. Gotta think gotta think.

  The cashier opened the drawer.

  Ember rotated her arm back, winding up for a punch.

  Two shots punctured the silence.

  I grabbed a can of dog food from the shelf and threw it as hard as I could towards the shooter nearest me. It hit him in the back of the head and he dropped. The other man raised his gun, scanning the shop for the perpetrator. I took advantage of his confusion and grabbed another can and kept low as I raced around the newspaper shelf and tackled him from behind. I hit him several times in the head until I heard a satisfying crunch near his temple.

  Everything had happened in less than ten seconds. The two men, who were probably brain damaged if not dead, lay at my feet. The cashier trembled behind the counter.

  I pointed towards the backroom. “Go! Hide in there and don’t come out.” He ran.

  I looked down and my chest tightened.

  Ember lay in a pool of blood, gasping and choking with a terrible gurgling sound I knew I’d hear again in my nightmares. Her skin was an ashy gray color that couldn’t mean anything good.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I whispered, falling to my knees beside her. “Em, stay awake. You have to stay awake.” I lifted up her blouse to see the bullet wounds. There was a perfect bloody hole above her navel and another below her right breast.

  A catalog of faces flew through my mind. I didn’t know what Patrick’s presence would do here, but it wouldn’t help. Since he was sitting on Marco and Reid at home, my mind settled on the only other person I could think of that would be of assistance. I pulled out my cell phone and called Snitch #5, daring to hope that he’d answer his phone at this time of night. After four rings:

  “Hello?” His sleepy voice was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

  “It’s Jillian. I need your help right now.” I hated the squeak that ended up in there.

  “What’s wrong?” Some of his sleepiness had already cleared away.