Robert Crane - Untouched

“You catch on quick,” I said. “Was it the ‘POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’ written in big letters that tipped you off or the fact that there’s a smear of blood on the sidewalk that looks like someone slaughtered…well…you?” He shot me an acid look that brought a big grin to my face. “What’s the matter? Am I annoying you?”

“Annoying is the Facebook statuses my twelve-year old niece posts. You are a hazard,” he said, shaking his head. “‘Like for a rate’—what does that even mean?”

I frowned. “A rate? Like an hourly rate? Like a hooker?”

“It’s for photos,” Zack said. “They ‘Like’ your status and you tell them how you think their profile picture looks.”

Kurt nodded his head as though a mystery of the universe had been revealed. I looked at the two of them and asked the dumb question. “What’s Facebook?”

“You don’t need it,” Hannegan said. “You have no friends.”

His barb hit home and I tried to ignore it, not bothering to come up with a reply. It’s not like he was wrong.

We parked and walked to an entrance after passing the police line for a quick look. “Without a chance to look over the forensics, checking out the scene won’t do us much good,” Zack said as we entered.

The mall was much more crowded than it had been the last time we were there. It felt like there were people packed from wall to wall in the place, a throng that was moving, bustling. There was a hum as we passed the food court and the smell of all sorts of goodness reached my nose. I stopped and sniffed, feeling a little bit of salivation in my mouth.

“Come on, shut-in,” Hannegan said, passing me. “We’ve got work to do.”

“I’m hungry,” I said. “I don’t know if you heard about it, but someone got into this big fight that destroyed the cafeteria and so I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.”

Zack shook his head, stifling a laugh. “Let’s sweep the place once and we’ll grab you a burger as we come back through.”

“But I want a burger now.” I looked plaintively at the restaurants and took another deep breath through my nose. “What are the odds some meta killed two people earlier and decided to hang around the scene of the crime?” My gaze drifted to a couple cops, standing off to the side, watching the crowd pass by.

There was the sound of breaking glass behind us and I turned as people started screaming and someone went flying through the air toward us, tossed like a child would throw a toy. “Good odds, apparently,” Zack said, reaching into his coat and drawing his gun. “I’d take ‘em.”

The crowd started pouring past us, women and men alike shouting and crying out. I jumped onto a nearby planter to get a better vantage point. I made it up in time to see two policemen go down hard under the assault of a familiar figure—a guy with metal plates on his body. “Damn,” I breathed. I used the planter to vault over the retreating crowd, leaving Zack and Kurt far behind.

Full Metal Jackass held one of the police officers by the arm. The guy was screaming and crying, probably because he was on his knees and his arm was twisted in a way that would not be comfortable at all. After a moment, Henderschott yanked him up in the air and brought him down with sudden, violent force. I heard the snapping of bones and sinews and the officer went still. I stared at Henderschott, he stared back at me, those eyes glaring at me from tiny slits in the metal helmet. “I feel like we haven’t been formally introduced,” I said. “I’m Sienna, but you probably know that. And you’re David, right? David Henderschott?”

He froze, then nodded once, slowly. He had yet to make an offensive move toward me. “So, David—hope you don’t mind if I go on a first name basis with you, since you’re trying to kick my ass—you’re all alone in the big city, you’re supposed to hunt down a girl, and so you decide to murder a couple of locals to draw out the group she’s hiding with, get a bead on them and follow them back to where they work, am I right?” He nodded. “But something happens you couldn’t possibly suspect—they actually bring the girl with them! What fortuitous luck! You must be having the best day.” I stared him down. “What a contrast with your life thus far.” He was frozen in place. “What’s the matter, David? Wolfe got your tongue?” I smiled at him wickedly.

That lasted about two seconds before he grabbed at his belt and threw something at me. It was small and circular, and I flipped back as it sailed only an inch over my nose. I hit my back and sprung to my feet like Mom taught me, already in a fighting stance. I heard a strangled cry from behind and chanced a look.

Kurt and Zack had made it through the crowd and were standing behind me. While I had dodged what he threw, Hannegan hadn’t. It was a collar of some sort and it had caught him perfectly, locking around his neck. He was shaking like a cartoon character caught in an electrical current, screaming, and I could have sworn I smelled urine and worse. Zack took a step toward him, but stopped, afraid to touch him as the big man fell to his knees.

I turned back and dodged another thrown collar. I watched it sail by and as I got back up, Henderschott charged at me. I jumped on top of the planter closest to me, vaulting up and running down the side of it toward him. I came off in a running jump side kick, the kind I used to break boards with Mom. I hoped the heavy sole of my boot would protect me from hurting myself on his helmet.

It mostly did. I hit him where his face would be and I felt the shock of the impact up my leg. It hurt, but not too badly. My knee was locked into place and it held. He had been barreling toward me full steam when we hit and the strength of my kick lifted him off his feet, delivering him on his back as I landed just past him. My leg buckled when I hit the ground, but I managed to stagger and recover, keeping my footing as I swung around to deal with him.

He was flat on his back, legs and arms in the air as he tried to rock to his side. “So, who are you really, David?” I said as I took a couple steps toward him. I reached down before he could roll over and grabbed him by the bottom edge of his helmet. I hoped two things—one, that Wolfe hadn’t lied to me, that his skin wasn’t going to unstick to his helmet while I was doing this; and two, that I was strong enough to pull off what I thought I could. “Just some asshole working for the same people as Wolfe, hunting down innocent metas who don’t stand a chance against your superior experience?” I heaved him up and swung him by the head like a hammer at a track and field tournament (thank you, Olympics).

He flew twenty feet through the air and made solid contact with the wall, crashing through the plaster and leaving a massive hole. I knew I had to press the attack now, while he was dazed, or risk getting stomped when he got his bearings again. I didn’t know if he was stronger than I was, but he certainly didn’t take damage like I did, not with his armor on. I stepped through the hole and saw him on the ground against a concrete wall. We were in a passageway only a few feet wide, with lights overhead.

“Or are you just some sick douchebag who got a hard-on reading Iron Man comics as a kid?” I grabbed him by the leg, dodged the kick he aimed at me, heaved him into the air a few feet and brought him down on his forehead. “Were you the kind of guy who got way too excited at the thought of being Tony Stark? You know he’s not a real person, right?” I repeated the process twice more, producing a satisfying clang of his face meeting the concrete before he managed to twist and kick, sending me flying back.

I blasted through the drywall and hit the floor out in the mall. With a cringe, I rolled to my feet.