| |
IT WAS nearly nine o’clock at night when Vix knocked on Dorfman’s apartment door across town. Practically on the county line leaving Moon Bay, the place came across pretty scuzzy, but she wasn’t in any position to judge. At least his complex offered assigned parking and actually had a trash dumpster behind a fence outside. Her place expected bags to be piled on the curb each Wednesday.
Not hearing anything, she knocked again. Clearly anxious, Opera was practically piggybacking on her, her hot breath hitting so close and warm on the back of her neck she shivered.
A mumble and then a shuffling sound came from inside before the metallic screech of a chain being slid off its track. With a slow creak, the door teased open and the left side of Dorfman’s face came into view. Gotcha.
“You guys?” He eyed Vix and her crew of misfits. Gails, Takon, Morgan, Mateo, and Opera had all come along. Ijemma had to get back to her kids, Blanchard was a shit, and Huy worked third shift at a nursing home.
Instantly, Vix wedged her foot against the open door. “Yeah, I missed you, wanted to chat, and I brought some friends.”
Dorfman laughed. “No thanks, you’ve already done enough.”
As he went to push the door shut, the six of them shoved inside, sending him staggering backward.
“It’s important, alright?” Vix said, always the first in line to break and enter.
The guy raised his hands as if they were cops aimed and ready to fire. “What do you want from me?”
“Are you the only one here?”
“Yeah.”
Vix nodded toward his couch. “Have a seat. Get comfortable.”
“I’m not doing anything you say!” Spit flew from his mouth as he yelled. Just the size of the guy was intimidating, now he was raising his voice to her.
“Dude!” Time for a little Compelling. “Sit down!” she screamed and shoved some intention behind it.
With a smug expression, he sat on his couch, beefy hands on his knees. “What?”
“First,” Opera said, pushing to the front of their pack and approaching him. “I want to apologize for taking your body.”
“You did this?”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
His mouth scrunched like two worms beside one another, wriggling. “What’s your name?”
The Marva girl started to talk, but Vix grabbed her shoulder and shook her head. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember if they used their names in front of Dorfman before or not, but she didn’t want to go refreshing his memory either.
“That’s not important.” Vix strolled to the other side of the couch and plopped down, displaying every bit of confidence she didn’t feel, and propped her feet on the guy’s coffee table between a bottle of beer and a can of soda. The couch alone reeked of fast food with onions. “What’s important is that you understand it was all a big accident. Nothing intentional or malice to it.”
He didn’t speak, but she definitely had his ear.
“Then, I got worried,” she said, probably laying on the good cop routine a little too thick. “I started to wonder if you’d go to the cops and tell them what happened, or if you’d just go home and resume your life as if nothing happened.”
“My family was terrified I was dead or something. I sure as shit thought about going to the cops.”
“Thought? But you didn’t go?”
“Not yet.” And he drew out that ‘yet’ like slowly pulling a bow to open a present. The ‘yet’ worried her. He glanced around the room, almost like sizing them up. “Although this is feeling pretty threatening right now. I’m wondering if I should.”
Vix turned her attention to Morgan who leaned against the shut door. “You’re saying you’re on the fence, Josiah?”
He wrung his hands. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know if you’re on the fence?”
Gails came forward and crouched, putting his face inches from Dorfman’s. “Listen. All we’re looking for is a guarantee you aren’t going to talk to the cops. It would confuse them anyway. I mean, would they even believe you? I can promise, however, that if you can give us that, then we’re all cool, and you’ll never see us again.”
While Gails stood, the dude stared at the ground, hard. No doubt mulling his options.
In the end, he nodded. “Fine. I won’t talk to the cops as long as you guys leave me alone, but if you ever come back here again, I’ll snitch like a four year old.”
Vix rose, stuck out her hand. “Deal.”
Breaking the energy they’d built, a sneeze came from the other room.
“Who the hell was that?” Gails asked, simultaneously pointing at and walking toward a closed door on the other side of the room.
Dorfman jumped to his feet. “It’s nothing. I have thin walls.”
“You said you were alone.” Vix stomach twisted. Why would he lie to them?
The sounds of a scuffle and a few grunts, and Gails came back out of the room gripping the shirt collar of some goth-punk looking guy.
The hell?
Vix eyes trailed down to the black t-shirt rising and falling with the kid’s panting breath. Circling an emblem of a star, there in big, bold, block gold letters were the words Crystal College.
––––––––
“YOU LYING COCKSUCKER!” Vix wanted so badly to punch Dorfman in the face and then use his head as a kickball. The dude lied to them, and this Crystal College kid was for sure trying to get him to tell the police about his out of body experience.
“It’s not what you think.” Dorfman started to approach Gails and the punk.
“What do you think we think it looks like? Dorf. Man.”
Mateo stopped the guy in his tracks, a hand braced against his chest. “It looks exactly like what I think.”
“Can I talk, please?” the skinny Crystal College student with the black-ringed eyeliner asked.
Just as Vix turned her attention to him, the kid swooped under Gails’ arm, breaking his hold, and bolted back into the room where he came from.
“Stop him!” she yelled at Gails.
The sound of breaking glass, and the kid was out the window and scaling the fire escape.
“Stay here with Dorfman.” She pointed at Mateo and Opera, then motioned for Takon and Morgan to follow her. “Let’s go.”
Skipping the fire escape, the three left out the front door and hauled ass to the back of the building just in time to watch Gails and Marilyn Manson zip by them under the streetlights. Like a cheetah at a racetrack, Vix took off, determined to eat the bait alive.
As she gained on the kid, Gails began to slow. Who would have thought all of those years of running from mall security would pay off?
As the punk dodged around cars and laced through the parking lot, Vix passed Gails who wheezed and coughed. Morgan kept pace, while Takon trailed.
“Don't let him get away,” Takon yelled.
Vix breathed hard, shoving cool autumn air through her lungs, as she pushed herself to run farther and harder than ever before. Well, except maybe one time when she'd swiped a bra and panty set, but that was different. Bras were expensive.
“What do you think we're doing?” she yelled back at Takon.
Twenty feet ahead of them, the kid jumped a chain-link fence and landed on his feet.
Morgan practically growled as she sped past Vix. “You want to catch him, don't you, Takon?”
“Of course.”
“Then do it!” she shouted over the sound of their pounding feet. “Get off the fence!”
“What?” But Takon's voice broke up as he started to scream.
Vix scrambled to scale the chain-link, Takon behind her, but when she landed and searched the darkness of the park ahead of them for the kid, she witnessed Takon also gaining on the guy.
Tromping the dew-covered grass, Vix double checked, and sure as shit Takon was alongside her, whimpering and crying, while he also overtook the punk and tackled him to the ground thirty feet ahead.
The fuck? Was Takon in two places at once?
“What are you doing?” she shouted, trying like hell to not slow down.
“I don't know,” he screamed.
Other Takon tumbled in a scuffle with the goth guy. “I need help,” he called to them.
Takon replied, “We're coming. Just hold him.”
God, this was too weird for words.
Reaching the pair, Vix grabbed her knees and panted. Both Takon A and B wrestled the guy's hands behind his back and pinned him belly to ground.
“Who's got a belt?” one of them asked.
Morgan's hands instantly went to work unlatching her belt and dropping to the ground to tie the punk's hands behind his back.
Although she knew she should be helping, Vix couldn't take her eyes off the two Takons.
“Let go of me,” the kid ordered.
A couple strolled along a paved pathway on the other side of the night-covered park. God, what would they think they saw? The last thing they needed was to bring the police closer.
“We need to get out of here,” Vix said, “Let's take him back to Dorfman's apartment.”
“You aren't taking me anywhere,” the kid in the Crystal College t-shirt said, calm, eerily confident as the Takons flipped him onto his back.
Then, like something out of a movie, the dude started laughing as a swell of orange light glowed around his body. With a shout, the energy released like a bomb in a pulse which knocked Morgan, TakonDee, and TakonDum onto their asses.
Instantly, Vix dropped to her knees and punched the guy in the face. He groaned, rolled his jaw.
“What the hell, lady?”
“Settle down,” she said, “You're coming with us. Try that shit again and I'll black your eye.”
“Alright, shit, lady.”
She spat on the ground as she stood. “And don't 'lady' me.”
Glancing around, searching for that couple again, ensuring no one else was watching, she realized the second Takon had vanished.
––––––––
NO ONE SPOKE ON THE way back to Dorfman's apartment, and the thing which kept circling in Vix's mind like circling a drain was how this Crystal College guy had used magic against them, and none of them did as they had been instructed. None of them let it filter through them to reduce the impact. Only hours earlier LaRiche showed them Energy Protection, and like good misfits and stubborn assholes, they'd already forgotten the lesson. Time and again, the reality of how she'd been living her life met her at every turn.
Vix didn't knock when they reached the apartment door. Instead, she let herself in, and the three of them shoved the dude into a chair.
But the living room was empty.
No Opera, no Mateo. No Dorfman.
“Hello?” she called, searching the kitchen, then the bedroom.
Nothing.
She returned to the living room and dropped onto the couch opposite the kid. “What's your name?”
“Finn,” he spat.
“Finn what?”
“None of your business.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Fair enough.” She nodded toward Gails. “Take his wallet.”
Finn scrambled back into the chair. “No. Lay another finger on me and I'll call the cops.”
“If you live,” Morgan said with a teasing roll in her voice.
Vix stared wide-eyed at the chick. Killing Crystal College students was so not part of their plan to stop Dorfman.
A high-pitched zipper sound and Mateo stepped into the room from . . . nowhere. Behind him, Opera and Dorfman appeared in the room.
“Good, you're back,” Mateo said. “Dorfman was going to run so I kept him in holding, so to speak.”
“Nice work.” Vix smiled. A part of her suddenly felt like an actual team. Damn, they really were working together. Well, most of them were.
She circled Dorfman, a hand trailing across his shoulders. “You have a lot to answer for, Josiah. Care to start talking? Maybe start with you lying to us and then work your way toward the truth.”
“I don't know what you mean,” Dorfman's voice shook.
Gails helped himself to a beverage in the guy's fridge, offered Vix one as well. She waved it off. “How about we start? We were under the impression we could trust you to not report our little issue to the police, but strangely . . .” She stopped in front of him. “Very strangely, you have Crystal College right here in your house.”
He lifted his thick hands as if to show his innocence. “Look, when we started fighting at the Lancer, I had no idea you guys were from the other school. I promise.”
That’s when it clicked. The “other” school.
Dorfman wasn't just hanging out with a CC student, he was a CC student.
Oh shit. Wallstone and LaRiche were going to kill them.
“And we haven't done anything,” Finn offered. “You guys have, so why are you treating us like we’re the criminals?”
She glanced around the room, trying to gauge what damn angle to even go for with this. The old Vix would have burned cigarettes into the guy's couch, broke the door lock, and spray painted his car. The new Vix had no clue what she'd do.
No. She'd go for information over reaction.
“Who else knows what happened to you?” she asked.
She guessed strength in numbers really was a thing, because Dorfman's eyes darted around the room, taking in the sight of the six of them, then swallowed hard. “Only Finn and Dean Checks at Crystal College.”
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
Okay, a small enough number, if he was telling the truth, and two of them were present.
Compelling worked once before. “Well, all we want is for you two to keep a lid on it. What happened, that freak accident, can stay between us. Okay?”
The two kept eyeballing each other in a way which made Vix's pits sweat more than they had already running through the night.
“This isn't a difficult decision, guys.”
Still neither spoke.
“All we want is to ensure our school doesn't pay for what happened. You and I both know the school had nothing to do with this. It was a slip up, of which you played a big part, but look. No harm, no foul.”
“What?” Opera piped up from the corner of the room. “No harm? How can you say that?”
Vix tilted her head, thinking, no, no, no. Opera shouldn't have come. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” She stormed her thin frame to the center of the scuzzy room where she stuffed a finger in Dorfman's face. “I died! I don't have a body anymore because of you, and you.” She swung the finger around to aim at Gails. “You two caused this. With your fighting, with your macho bullshit. And I lost. If anything, you're more responsible for my death than I am, or Pent College. You created the scenario that killed a girl and left her to fend for herself.”
Opera stepped forward and Dorfman leaned back as if she were shoving him, but the two weren't touching. A blue haze began to lift from his body, like his spirit leaving, while a green one teased from Opera's chest and reached for him.
No. Not good.
Vix felt her heart pick up speed in a way she didn’t care for.
Opera kept pushing toward him. The haze from her body vibrating with energy. “You go to the cops, and I promise you something worse will happen to you. And you,” she yelled, turning her attention toward Finn. “You have no business even thinking about whether or not the cops should be told, let alone knowing about the horrible act your friend committed when he knocked me out of my own body!”
The haze began to settle back into her, as Dorfman's lowered back to him. Opera stepped halfway between the two men. “This isn't my body, by the way! It's a loaner. You don't want me to take yours.”
Holy shit.
Vix realized she'd been holding her breath, and finally exhaled. Opera was fierce, and she was both making the situation better and worse at the same time. Dorfman caused this, but ‘don't make me take your body too’? Hopefully they didn't notice that slip.
Finn nodded. “I don't have anyone to tell. I got nothing.”
“What about you, Josiah?” All of the spunkiness of Opera would have been cool days ago, but wasn’t needed now.
The guy shook his head, his neck so thick it didn't look like he was moving it. “You won't hear anything from me.”
Opera nodded Marva's head. “You're damn right.”
And with that, she simply walked away, left the apartment, and shut the door behind her.
Gails tossed his beer bottle into the sink, the glass shattering and splashing over the counter, then followed Opera out.
Everyone else went behind them, one by one, until only Vix remained, standing in the doorway, a finger pointed at the pair. “Remember, not a damn word.”
It was only after she left and reached everyone else in the dark parking lot that she wondered if they hadn't just fucked everything up and made it all worse.
