John Ridley: Those Who Walk in Darkness

Three loud pops. Three large holes bust open in the thing's body just before it tipped and thudded against the floor.

Hand to her throat. Soledad could feel the dead flesh peel beneath her touch.

Across the warehouse: Bo, blood leaking from his skull, held his smoking .45.

Soledad saw that, then promptly passed out.

Expense equaling excellence, Cedars-Sinai was the best hospital in the world. Parked on prime real estate in Beverly Hills, Spielberg had a wing there. So did Max Factor, the long-gone Hollywood cosmetics king. Cedars-Sinai is where the rich went for plastic surgery, movie stars went to die and MTacs got sent to recuperate. Usually MTacs didn't get to die in a hospital. Usually MTacs died on the spot courtesy of some kind of superpowered metanormal.

Soledad woke up floating above her hospital bed. Above her body. Felt like she was. The sensation coming from the painkillers that doped her up. From her vantage point, looking down at herself—her black skin counterpoint to the white sheets and gown she was wrapped in—Soledad's physical self looked like it needed all the painkillers the docs could legally feed her. Her neck was wrapped with gauze and netting. Same with her left arm. A brace on her right leg. Bruises, cuts, welts all over.

But she was alive.

Were the rest of them?

Bo, yeah. And Yarborough, probably. He got jacked up, bad, but he must've made it.

Reese?

Reese was alive. Had to be alive. It'd take more than a crack-high freak to put Reese down.

Then Soledad remembered the smoldering cavity the freak had burned into Reese's chest and wasn't so sure of things.

And that had been Soledad's first call. Four cops injured, one critically.

And the screams: the screams that came when the thing shot flame to the street below the warehouse. Had those cops lived or fried?

All that pain and suffering and death just to bring down one of them. One out of how many who lived hidden in the city? In the country?

But they had put it down. They, she, had chopped it cold. Except for being badly burned and getting her leg messed up and almost having the life choked and smoked out of her, Soledad had stopped it. Well… she had slowed it some until Bo could kill it.

Still, not bad. First call and all. This was a…

Soledad had started to think to herself that this was a learning experience; there'd be time to pick skills up and get things right. From her corner of the ceiling she looked down at her broken self. A busted, charred body is what using reality for a classroom had gotten her.

The door.

Bo came in. Flowers in hand, plastic-wrapped. Picked up, probably, from Ralphs or Sav-On. Bandage on his head.

From way up high Soledad saw herself turn, try to focus. Bo looked… he looked downright quaint. The good cop visiting the wounded partner. He looked healthy too. Broad in shoulder and barrel-chested. His hair was prematurely white and just under it, where his hairline met his forehead, was the bandage that covered some stitches. Other than that you wouldn't much know he'd just gone up against a pyrokinetic. He was a helluva cop, one Soledad wished she could be.

Flowers on the nightstand. Bo pulled up a chair and sat himself down.

"Well, now," drawl in full effect,"how you doing?" he asked. Then, quickly: "No, don't try and say anything. Doctor said your throat would be fu— messed up for some."

Soledad smiled. Her physical body smiled. It was cute to her: Bo, the BAMF cop she'd almost died with, worried about his language around her. She wanted to tell him it was cool to talk free, but the thought of speaking was enough to send a phantom of pain howling through her throat.

"But nothing too bad," Bo went on. "They said you'd heal up pretty good. Your leg too. Maybe just some… a little scarring. On your neck, I mean. Your neck and arm. Just a little."

Soledad found herself trying to lift her hand to her neck, feel the wound. She was too hopped-up to get her limb off the bed.

"Yar? He's okay." Bo dialogued with himself. "Don't think he's going to ever wear shorts at the beach again, but…"

The hint of a laugh escaped from Soledad. The hurt that came with it was monumental.

Bo caught her wincing. "Sorry. Shouldn't be making jokes."

The pain passed. Soledad knew what Bo was building to, and with sheer force of will silently asked the question. Reese?

"She's still alive," Bo answered. "You can call it that. She's got… there's… it's a hole. That thing put a goddamn hole in her chest. Had to… they, uh, had to take out one of her lungs."

Bo's voice cracked. He had to tilt back his head to keep water from filling his eyes. Something about that; something so painful about a cop, a tough cop, breaking down over one of their own… For Soledad it hurt just to watch.

"That mutie, its hand was so hot it cauterized the wound. Only thing that saved her. Even at that, a little to the left, an inch, and it would have cooked her heart."

Yeah, but the thing's hand wasn't that inch to the left. Reese was alive.

A version of it.

Virtually alive.

Soledad wanted to tell Bo that everything would be cool, that Reese would make it through okay. Maybe with just one lung, and a big fat divot where her sternum used to be, but she would make it. And then, after a long while 'cause everybody had a lot of recovering to do, he and Reese and Yar and herself would all be back together: an element again. Even though they'd only been on one call together—one that had nearly gotten them all dead—they'd be back together and better than ever. Except for the burns on Yar's body, and Bo's cracked skull and Soledad's seared flesh and Reese's missing lung, better than ever.

Soledad wanted to tell Bo all that, but her broiled throat turned her reassuring words into a sickly gurgle that meant nothing.

"She's in a coma," Bo continued, not having been able to decipher Soledad's new language. "Good thing, I guess. She can't feel anything that way. Thirty-three, you know that? Reese was thirty-three." Something in his voice. A quiver. He was breaking again."You don't think how young that is until someone dies at that age."

But she wasn't dead, Soledad thought. Thought hard, trying to make Bo hear her. Reese wasn't dead, so why would he say something as foolish as that when he knew she wasn't—

"You did a job out there." Bo looked back to Soledad. He worked up a smile, forced some dull light behind his eyes."For a probee, and against a pyro? You were really something. Really…"

Bo hesitated. A second. Hardly that. Time enough for Soledad to know what was coming wasn't good.

Bo said: "There's going to be trouble. About the gun. The one you used. I shouldn't be going on about that now. You've got other concerns. I don't want you to worry, but you should know. I think… I'm pretty sure there's going to be trouble, and you should at least know."

Soledad wasn't sure what to say to that. Couldn't say anything if she did know how to respond. So she did nothing, didn't want to do anything. The drugs that killed her pain dulled her ability to care about possible future troubles she might have. She just wanted to float. Floating was fine.

For a while longer, a good while, Bo sat with Soledad. Saying nothing. Just sitting. Just being there for her. After he'd sat for what seemed like a good amount of time, he got up and patted Soledad twice on the shoulder and left.

Soledad kept on floating over her body. She thought—or at least all the dope working in her made her think—as long as she had freedom from solid form, she should float to Reese's room, see how she was doing.

And maybe Reese was having a fake out-of-body experience too. Maybe the both of them could float and talk, get to know each other like they'd never previously done, or maybe take a sail around the hospital, because how many times in life do you get to fly?