Tribe, page 3
And exaggerated again when Henry yanked the pen back down. Suction resisted for a moment, creating a wet pop when the improvised weapon slipped free from the neck’s grasp. A nickel sized hole poured blood like an open spigot.
“Oh,” the man groaned, holding a hand to his neck. “Shit. What did you do?”
His voice sounded funny. His tongue wasn’t moving right. The pen had gone deep, puncturing the man’s mouth.
Pain and confusion slowed the man’s reaction. He tried to lift his shotgun toward Henry, but the weapon was made for two hands, and Tall Man refused to let go of his chin.
Short Man flinched when the door behind them was finally kicked in, the two thugs rushing into the room, shouting commands and obscenities. He pumped his shotgun and shouldered it, looking for an angle to shoot Henry. “Fucking psycho!”
“I’m not the one with a shotgun pointed at a kid,” Henry said, keeping Tall Man between him and the assailant. He wasn’t afraid of being shot. Or even killed. The afterlife intrigued him. But he wasn’t done with Tall Man yet.
When Tall Man lifted the shotgun again, Henry saw the man’s fear flicker for a moment. He’d reached the crossroads of fear and anger, when most people throw caution to the wind and race headlong into a fight they haven’t yet thought through.
Henry twisted the tactical pen in his hands, loosening the back end. He’d ordered it from a prepper magazine. It was meant to be a life saving device, but there was nothing about the pen that couldn’t also be used as a weapon, including the two-inch blade hidden inside its body.
The package said the scalpel-sharp titanium blade could cut through seatbelts, wood, can tops, and more. What the list didn’t include was clothing, skin, and even bone.
Henry swiped. He felt awkward doing it. He wasn’t an athlete, or remotely intimidating in a physical way. But he was quick, and didn’t mind getting up close and personal with an adversary.
He barely registered the blade meeting any resistance, but Tall Man’s gurgled scream of pain and the shotgun falling to the floor was all the confirmation he needed.
Henry followed the wrist slash with a quick forward stab. The blade bounced between two ribs before slipping into Tall Man’s lung.
The man wheezed. Eyes wide. He stumbled back, all trace of a fight removed. Henry watched him for a moment, feeling sad for the man’s pain, but also confident that he’d survive. The cut to the side of his wrist had sliced more tendons than veins. The neck wound was a shock to the system, but not fatal. The lung puncture was…severe, but the man would recover if he visited a hospital—which also meant he wasn’t going to get away.
As Tall Man fell to the floor, his short compatriot—the man in charge—was revealed, shotgun leveled at Henry’s chest. Finger on the trigger.
Henry smiled. Maybe he’d get to experience the afterlife sooner than he thought. Couldn’t be any worse than the real world.
The man faltered for a moment, confused by Henry’s welcoming expression.
Then he found his resolve, shouldering the shotgun tighter and mumbling, “World will be better off without you.”
The finger squeezed—
—and so did a pair of arms.
It happened faster than Henry could process. One second, his head was about to be vaporized, the next, a pair of strong, black hands were linked over the man’s chest. Short Man’s arms were pulled down, locked in a bear hug.
The shotgun’s blast sparked off the floor.
Undaunted, Short Man lifted the shotgun, levering it up with his elbows. The recoil from firing the weapon would punch him in the gut, but the man was incensed. Not thinking.
“Move!” the Dunkin’ Donuts girl shouted, as she squeezed the man from behind.
Henry looked straight down the shotgun barrel. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t feel anything about it.
“Ugh!” the girl said, leaned back, and slammed her head forward.
The strike stunned the man, knocking off his aim. The shotgun fired again, this time to the side, shattering a window and setting off a blaring alarm.
The man was disarmed, but he struggled against the girl’s grasp.
Henry stepped forward, knife in hand.
The man saw him coming. Fought harder.
“Stop!’ the girl said. “I got this!”
Henry was about to argue the point when the girl’s arms compressed tighter. The muscles in her forearms bulged and coiled, constricting. Lacking an amygdala made him fearless, but he could still be surprised. When the short man gasped for air, it caught Henry off guard. He stopped in his tracks, intrigued.
How strong is she?
The man flailed like a caught fish. He kicked and thrashed. The back of his head slammed into the girl’s several times, but she fought off the pain with a blink.
And then squeezed harder.
Something cracked. Ribs giving way.
The arms coiled tighter.
The man’s face turned beet red. He was close to passing out, but still managed to register surprise when his body lifted off the floor. With a sudden twist the man was slammed to the floor, broken and unmoving.
Henry smiled.
“What?” the girl said when she noticed. “You don’t own a patent on shocking ways to ruin a guy’s day, do you?”
“I just—”
“And don’t think I haven’t figured out why you were here.” She glanced at the knife in his hand.
Shouting from the back room interrupted the conversation. The masculine voices sounded angry, defiant, and then surprised. But the wailing alarm and the rising sound of sirens made it hard to hear what was being said.
The girl approached him. “Henry, right?”
He nodded.
“You never actually did anything…wrong. So, you help me with the last two… Far as I’m concerned you can walk out of here.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Sarah.”
“Sarah… Are you threatening me?”
She looked him square in the eyes, far less unnerved by his fearless gaze than other people. She reminded him of the olive-skinned woman trapped in the back room.
“You’re damn skippy,” she said. “But you don’t care, do you? Fearless Henry.”
He smiled.
“How about this, help me because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Should have led with that,” he said. “Your temper gets you in trouble.”
“Not just my temper,” she said, and started toward the broken-down door.
Henry followed close. Knife in hand.
“I’ll try to knock them down,” she said. “You keep them there. But…” She glanced back at his knife. “Try not to kill anyone.”
“Never do,” he said, knowing that the phrasing would confuse her. His schedule was ruined, but he’d try to find fun where he could.
Twenty feet from the door, the pair came to a sudden stop as a heavy blur flew from the room, slid across the polished floor, and crashed against an island. A cup of bank pens tipped over the side, spilling atop one of the two thugs.
He didn’t move.
“Holy shit,” Sarah said.
“Well, that was cool,” Henry added.
The second thug followed the first, backing out of the doorway, fists raised for a fight.
“No way that’s for Susan,” Henry said.
Sarah shook her head, wide-eyed and locked in place. “Uh-uh.”
The woman wearing the white flowing dress stepped out. There was blood on her chest, but Henry didn’t think it was hers. Could have belonged to one of the guards, but he suspected it was Susan’s. The woman walked with confidence, in command, following the thug as he backed away.
Then she glanced Henry’s way, making eye contact with him, and then with Sarah, before moving her gaze to the disabled short and tall men. There was a hint of a grin on her face.
The last man standing drew a knife from behind his back. Henry saw it first, but didn’t feel compelled to say anything. He knew the danger the woman was in, but didn’t feel it.
Sarah shouted, “Look out!”
The woman leaned back as the blade swung for her throat.
The man followed the strike up with two more, each one closer than the last, forcing the woman back.
“Just give me what I want!” the thug shouted, swiping and missing again.
“We should help!” Sarah shouted at Henry.
He shook his head. “Look at her eyes.”
Sarah’s gaze snapped back to the woman. She was on the defensive. In real danger. But her eyes looked like Henry’s—fearless.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Henry said. He didn’t know who the woman was, but he understood her lack of fear. With him, it was biological. In a rare few normal people, lack of fear came from a complete command of a situation, even if it didn’t look that way to an observer.
Then he saw what she was doing.
The woman’s hand reached back. Behind her—a free standing flagpole with a weighted bottom and the red, white, and blue hanging limp in the windless bank. Her fingers wrapped around the wood.
“Show me!” the thug shouted, swinging and missing.
While he was overextended from the missed strike, the woman picked up the flagpole, spun herself around and drove the flat metal base into the man’s nose, chin, and forehead. Her form was perfect, her exposed arms powerful. While she appeared delicate, the woman had clearly spent years training in the martial arts. Henry squinted at her, straining to recognize the face of a famous female MMA fighter. But couldn’t. She was a stranger.
The thug’s body went rigid. He fell straight back, hitting his head on the floor. Henry guessed the man’s skull was fractured. He might even be brain damaged from the blow, but the steady rise and fall of his chest continued.
“Nobody move!” a middle-aged policeman shouted, his Boston accent thick as mud. He stepped through the front door with a small army of the city’s finest at his back.
Henry ignored the command, capping the pen blade and slipping the device into his pocket. He wasn’t worried about being caught with it. He’d done the right thing. Helped foil a bank robbery. They’d see it in the security footage. But he didn’t want it taken.
The police aimed their weapons from one unconscious criminal to another, slowly realizing their job had already been done.
“Clear,” the middle-aged officer eventually said. “We’re clear.” He stepped closer as officers and medics fanned out behind him. He took off his hat, scratched his head, and looked from the white-dressed woman, to Sarah and finally to Henry.
The officer grinned. “Poison. Wicked awesome. Now… What the hell happened in here?”
5
“A pen?” Officer Stockwell leaned back and crossed her arms. Unable to get comfortable, she unlinked her arms and planted her hands on her knees. Sarah couldn’t tell if she was new to the job, or just self-conscious about how tight her uniform fit over her body rolls. Sarah thought she looked good. Was working the curves. But people are their own worst judges.
Sarah glanced at Henry, being interviewed by another officer. His eyes drifted to her, lingered in his perpetually unworried way.
“I think it was a bank pen.” She wasn’t sure why she was lying for Henry. Some kind of battlefield kinship, maybe. Half of Stockwell’s questions had been about Henry. The kid had clearly been in trouble before. After checking everyone’s IDs, the officers had it out for him, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
He was going to, she thought. But he didn’t.
For now, that was good enough for her. She wouldn’t throw him under the bus. “A few of them.” She took three pens out of a nearby cup, held them bunched up. Pulled the caps off. “Like this.”
“Mmm,” the officer said, unconvinced.
“Things would have gone differently if he wasn’t here,” she said.
“The teller said the same thing about you.” Stockwell shifted from hands on knees to elbows on knees. Eyebrows raised. A smile on her face. “Said you…crushed him with your arms?”
“A chest compression. Not the CPR kind.”
“You’re a wrestler? I mean, like a real one. Not the fake stuff.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said, her stomach twisting from the lie.
“But still,” the officer said. “They’re saying you broke five of his ribs. I mean, geez.”
Sarah couldn’t help but grin. It felt good to know someone appreciated her ability to break bones. She shrugged. “I’m strong.”
“You have those fast twitch muscles. Me, I can’t do a single pull-up, but I can run for a long time.” Her face flushed. “Well, I used to. Not so much these days.”
Self-inflicted embarrassment sapped the woman’s interest in Sarah’s contribution to the foiled bank robbery. She sat up. “How long have you known Henry Finch?”
“Met him today.”
“In line?”
“Yeah, I mean, no. Sort of, but not here.”
Stockwell raised her eyebrows.
“I was working at Dunkin’ in North Station…”
The officer squinted at her, then smiled. “I think I’ve seen you there.”
Creepy, Sarah thought, but she focused on getting her statement made. Every minute Sarah was stuck in the bank left her with less time to figure out her life. “He was in line at Dunkin’. When some guy came on to me…harassed me…Henry stepped up while everyone else watched.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who needs help often,” Stockwell said.
You’d be surprised, Sarah thought, and then said, “Didn’t need it. Didn’t ask for it. Doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it.”
“So you came to the bank together?” the officer asked.
Sarah shook her head. “I was… My shift ended—”
“At nine in the morning?”
“I put my hand on the guy’s arm.”
The officer made a ‘So?’ kind of face.
“And I squeezed,” she said. A slight grin.
“You didn’t break his arm?” The officer grew tense, wondering if she’d just uncovered another crime—not committed by Henry.
Could have, Sarah thought. “No. He was fine. But I was fired.”
“Wasn’t the first time?” The officer was smarter than she looked.
Sarah forced a shit-eating grin.
“So you came to the bank…”
“Last paycheck,” Sarah said. “Henry was already here.”
“In line.”
“There was no line.”
“What was he doing, then?”
Sarah grew uncomfortable again. They weren’t asking her about the four men they already carried away on stretchers—probably to Mass General. “Why are you so interested in him?”
The officer gave a slow blink. “Afraid I can’t talk about that.”
“Because of an open investigation or something?”
“Or something,” Stockwell said, pursing her lips for a moment. “What was he doing?”
“Filling out paperwork. A deposit slip, maybe. I didn’t really look.”
“Okay…” Stockwell stared off into the distance for a moment. “And you were depositing a check… What about Mrs. At…Atree…Atreidai? I don’t know how to pronounce it.”
“Sounds Greek,” Sarah offered.
“Figures.” An eye-roll. “Did you see her?” A head shake. Stockwell didn’t like the Greek lady. People were catty like that, disliking someone simply for being attractive…and powerful…and everything they’d like to be, but didn’t have the drive to become.
“You should have seen her fight,” Sarah said. “What’s her first name?”
Stockwell looked at her notes. “Helen.”
“Kind of an old lady name,” Sarah said, getting a huffed laugh from Stockwell.
“It is, isn’t it?” Stockwell was happy now that Sarah had exposed Helen’s weakness—an old lady name. Truth be told, Sarah liked the name Helen. Made her think of Helen Mirren, who struck her as a strong and proud woman worth emulating.
“You know she’s rich, right?” Stockwell leaned in, a co-conspirator. “She came here—in Boston traffic—driving a purple McLaren. But it’s not really purple. Not all the time. I think it changes color in the sun. Seriously. It’s parked out front. And how did she find on-the-street parking?”
Stockwell leveled an unimpressed gaze toward Helen, who was being questioned by not one, but three officers, each one of them smitten. “Ugh. Look at them.”
“Well, she is beautiful,” Sarah confessed. “And rich, I guess. Can you blame them? If Idris Elba walked through that door, wouldn’t you and I both fawn over him?”
Stockwell’s eyes made a slow shift to Sarah. Then a devilish grin revealed a well-cared for set of teeth. “Oh, I’d do more than fawn.”
After a shared chuckle, Stockwell flipped through her notes, whispering to herself as she tapped her finger on the page. Then she said, “Anything else you want to add? Anything you might have left out?”
Sarah tensed. Is she talking about the pen?
“Any photos of Idris you might want to share?”
Sarah’s tension barked out with a too-loud laugh.
Stockwell shook her head, smiling. “Tell me about it.” Then she stood. “I’m going to go make sure we don’t end up with a sexual harassment suit.” She handed Sarah a business card. “If you think of anything, just give me a call.”
“I will,” Sarah said, pocketing the card.
Stockwell approached the three officers speaking to Helen. They immediately straightened up and attempted to appear more professional. Helen smiled at them, rolling her eyes. Sarah recognized the expression as how she felt watching Adam Sandler movies—simultaneously amused and ashamed for it.
Helen’s eyes met Sarah’s. Held them. Then she rolled her eyes again and gave a smile. With a look, the woman had locked Sarah down, and with a subtle shift of her dark brown eyes, had set Sarah free.
Henry was still standing beside the counter, being questioned by one officer while a second stood behind him. The second man was trying to look casual, but was clearly there to tackle Henry if need be.
