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I remember to hit the lock button on the car before I slide out and join Lelani in the shadows. It wouldn’t do for us to have our ride stripped and dismantled while we’re on a vigilante spree. Back pressed up against the still-warm metal of the warehouse, I peer around Lelani to the parked Jeep Cherokee.
We wait—I’m pretty sure I’m standing in a pool of straight pee and gasoline from the smell of it—patiently for long minutes while nothing happens. Then, as if he’s some drug-bearing ghost, the guy in the jeans and T-shirt arrives, this time from down the street.
“He never approaches from the same way, they don’t want people knowing where the stash is,” Lelani says in a whisper so quiet, I barely hear it. “But after they drive off . . .”
As she speaks, the driver and the guy shake hands and the car pulls off down the street, splashing through puddles of whatever I’m standing in.
“. . . they don’t have to worry as much,” she finishes, pulling out her binoculars and using them again. “Let’s go.”
Leaving me no time to do anything except trail her, she walks with whisper quietness up behind the guy. In one quick swoop, she sweeps his feet out from under him. He goes down onto the ground with only a small cry, and she motions me forward, and points to his chest, even while he’s still falling.
Like, does she mean to kill him? She wants me to stab him? She grabs my hand and yanks me down until I’m basically sitting on his chest. Oh.
The guy starts to struggle in earnest, and it takes all my give-my-dog-medicine-he-doesn’t-want energy to pin both shoulders to the ground under me.
“I don’t have any on me!” he yells.
“We don’t want any, I just have a question.” Lelani’s voice is quiet, and really . . . with her height, build, and slightly deeper voice, it’d be hard to pin her down as man or woman. It’s brilliant, really.
The guy stops moving. “Don’t kill me,” he says.
“We won’t. I promise. I only want to know the name of your supplier. I want a meeting with your boss.”
He snorts. “Are the cops this desperate these days?”
“I’m not a cop or you’d be in cuffs,” Lelani says patiently. “Give me a contact name, and we’ll let you go.”
The guy pauses, obviously thinking. “No,” he says finally. But it’s a question, like he’s not sure.
“Wrong choice,” Lelani says, and out of her pocket she produces a length of cord which she proceeds to start to wrap over his chest.
“Sit him up,” she says to me, and I grab his hands and yank. It’s like trying to pull an eel; the guy is really struggling at this point.
Lelani is efficiency itself though, and shortly the cord is wrapped around his torso from shoulder to hip and back up again. She attaches it to itself at the back, using some sort of clever clip device and steps back.
It’s an arrow clip. Honest to Thor, it gives me chills to see her clip it in place.
He manages to gain his feet then, and I’m shoved backward. However, he happens to be standing on my feet, and as I drop to the ground, I unbalance him. I pull my flats out from under his feet, and it’s enough for him to land back on the ground. Somehow, I’m able to regain my feet smoothly, and feel a smug sort of accomplishment when I step my foot onto his chest in what I assume is a classic superhero move.
“Who are you?” the guy asks, gaping up at me.
“No one of consequence,” I answer.
“I’ll tell you, okay? You need to talk to a guy named Pookie. I—I think his real name is Steve. He’s the guy I work for, not the supplier, but maybe he’ll know. If I go inside, I bet I can get him to come talk to you.”
“Not likely,” Lelani says. “But thanks.”
She pivots and walks off.
“Wait, you said if I told you, you’d let me go!” he yells after her. He turns his face to me.
“You had your chance,” she says without turning.
I shrug at him, then scurry after her. She’s already on her phone, calling in an anonymous tip to the police department.
“Can’t they trace—” I start but as we approach our vehicle, she tosses the cell phone onto the street.
“It was his phone,” she said. “I used the face ID to open it after we tied him up.”
I gape at her, then scramble into the vehicle because I’m one hundred percent sure she’d leave without me.
“That was . . .” A rush of warmth sweeps over me. Euphoria. Adrenaline. “That was awesome. Let’s do it again.”
Lelani throws me a look. “Let’s get going since the police will be here shortly.” She pauses as we shimmy down an alleyway barely wide enough for our vehicle, and then down another side street—zig zagging our way through the district.
“I had my doubts, but you handled yourself well. That move where you knocked him down was quite impressive. Consider your trial over, we got our information. That name is a step in a ladder. It likely won’t be enough to get Ryan out of jail . . . but it’s a step closer. We were successful.” She levels her eyes out the front window and I can practically feel her flexing her fingers against the wheel. “Next, we’ll go after this Steve guy, and see what it gets us. We’ll need to do research and some scouting, but you’re up for it, I assume.”
“I am.”
Nothing more needs to be said beyond setting a date for our next after-hours rendezvous. I’m fairly buzzing as we make the return trip to Lelani’s apartment. I—MG Martin—actually knocked down and tied up a drug dealer. We’re a step closer to getting Ryan his plea deal, and I am living my fantasy of becoming a real live superhero.
MG, Golden Arrow, at your service.
****
“What . . . are you doing?”
I pause mid-modified-push-up to peer up at Matteo. “Working out?”
He goggles at me as if I’m a person he’s never met, and he’s not . . . wrong. I can count on one hand the times I’ve ever done a workout willingly aside from riding my bike. And that’s more an aversion to traffic and a money-saving proposition than any grand design on the fitness of my person.
“I thought you were working,” he says, wiping his hands on the dish towel tossed over his shoulder. He’d eaten in town tonight, and apparently had just done the dishes from my super fancy PB&J dinner.
I can’t really just out and out tell him that I fought a real drug dealer tonight and that I thought I might need to start beefing up, so instead I say, “I do this when I need to think. Sometimes.” I follow it up with a smile. “Gets the mental juices going, you know? Like at my house, I have these little plush toys I squish when I’m thinking. I don’t have my normal stuff here, so I thought maybe some pushups would help.”
“Oh.” His brow wrinkles, and I sense that I’ve somehow hurt his feelings.
I jump up to my feet, and pad over to him, offering a hug. “There’s nothing to ‘oh’ about, this is just all a change, and you are a delicious host.”
“I think you mean delightful.”
“I do not,” I say, nibbling on his neck playfully. He lets me knot my hands into the front of his work shirt and pull it loose from his waist band.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be at the station today with you,” he offers, wrapping his arms around me.
He must feel my muscles tense beneath his hands. “We don’t have to talk about this, I know you’ve had a long day. Did it go okay?”
“Why don’t you ask Rideout?” I retort, more acid in my voice than I’d like while I’m nestled into Matteo’s sphere.
“I did. He said it went okay. I haven’t listened to the recording yet, but did it? Go okay?”
I relax a little again, assured that Matteo isn’t going to grill me about my interview or my tidbit about Ryan and me fake-dating. “Yeah, if by okay you mean a grumpy and ill-spirited questioning. I know, I know. He’s just doing his job. He just upsets me. Hence the pushups.” I say, deciding to put a bow on it. I squeeze him closer, willing his calm to seep into my bones.
“If this is what a few pushups will get me, then I’ll buy a home gym,” he says, wrapping his arms around me.
I laugh, and rest my head against his chest, content for the very first time that day. I slide my hands up his chest under his shirt, feeling his steady heartbeat. “I hate gyms. I’m old school. Body resistance or bust.”
“Mmm, I could go for body resistance,” he agrees with a laugh. But we don’t move for a long time, and I get the sense that he needs the contact as I do.
“How’s your project going?” Matteo asks.
“Pretty good,” I say. I start to pull away, intent on grabbing my notebooks strewn on the bed to show him, but he squeezes me tighter. On a laugh, I pull him with me, shuffling to the bed. He purposefully tangles his legs with mine so that we fall onto the comforter.
“It’s pretty difficult to show you how my project is going if you’re doing that,” I say as his hands start to roam my back and backside.
“Ah-ha! You minx, it was your plan all along to avoid showing me. I’ll say it again, you can have your way with me anytime you want.”
He kisses me, but my head thunks into my notebook, and the corner digs into my temple. Matteo sits up onto his elbows and grabs the one that’s under his backside and hands it to me. “I don’t want to . . . er . . . wrinkle anything important with what I have planned.”
“I appreciate the concern,” I deadpan as I gather the books together, intent on setting them on the bedside table. One falls open as I wiggle around on the bed covers, and Matteo reaches out to look at it.
“This is gorgeous, MG.”
It’s the sketch I’d been drawing when I realized that I shouldn’t be the one telling the Sassy Dragon’s story. “It’s basically Lawrence,” I admit. I wait to feel weird that he’s looking through my book, but he is being so careful . . . all I feel is proud. Is this what it’s like to have someone to trust? I wince as I ponder how untrustworthy I’m being in return.
“I asked him to co-write it with me,” I say by way of yanking my brain back on track.
Matteo’s eyebrow raises.
“It was the right choice. I want to be an ally. It’s essentially Lawrence’s story to tell, not mine. I’m the sidekick,” I say, reaching over to flip a page and show off another one of my idea sketches. My eye runs over the lean suit full of handy pockets that I’d imagined I’d wear. A far cry from the J. Crew athleisure-wear of my real-life crime fighting.
Matteo reaches up, taking advantage of my prone position and puts his lips to the pulse point on my neck.
“You’re pretty amazing,” he says.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I say as I push the books onto the table by feel.
And for the next while, I’m entirely too caught up in enjoying life with Matteo to worry about my vigilante adventures.