2. Cooper
2
COOPER
S O THIS WAS what it was like to stare death down and wonder what the hell was going to happen next.
I’d always been curious. I’d even researched it once—not because I was morbid but because my journalism course had led me down the path of UFOs and the afterlife in university for a few months—and now here I was getting firsthand knowledge, and I suddenly realized it was nothing at all like what I expected.
I’d been told about bright lights, warmth, and feelings of love encompassing your being. Of being greeted by friends and family who were there to welcome you and assure you that everything was all right.
I’d also heard about voids. Blackness. Silence and nothingness.
But none of that was happening right now.
Not even close.
Instead, I found myself staring up at a tall, masked, hooded figure who’d just melted out of the shadows, and as a fan of the movie Ghost I was starting to get worried I’d done something really shitty in my life that I couldn’t remember until…
The high-pitched whistling of something flying through the air caught my attention right before the thug who had a death grip on me cried out and let me go. My knees gave out and I hit the ground with a hard whack .
Fuck, definitely not dead, if the pain shooting through my left knee was anything to go by. But that was quickly forgotten as the masked figure bore down on the man who’d just been holding a gun to my head.
Quick as lightning, the hooded man gripped the muzzle of the gun, disarming my wannabe murderer faster than I could blink, which sent the rest of the dealers scrambling to escape. Whoever this was, they clearly had training, the lethal kind—or maybe they were some kind of avenging angel sent here to save me. I wasn’t being dragged off to some underworld. This wasn’t the end of my life as I knew it. I was being saved.
By a masked vigilante.
My eyes locked on to black boots, then traveled up long legs as the hooded man stopped beside me and aimed a gun at the cowards trying to work out how someone had gotten the jump on their dumb asses.
“Now. We can do this the easy way…or the hard way.”
The deep voice sent a shiver skating up my spine, as my savior revealed at least one thing about him self. He was a man.
The kickass, take-no-names, fear-nothing kind of man who instantly made people back up a step. Yet here I was, paralyzed at his feet feeling nothing but safe.
Safe, in a cold, dark alley where I’d just had a gun pointed at my head.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Get up.”
What? Oh, he’s talking to me.
My eyes flicked to my phone, and I swiped it up and shoved it in my pocket as I clambered to my feet. He angled his body in front of mine as he kept the gun trained on the dealers.
A couple of them chose the easy way he’d offered and dropped their weapons, but the others looked riled up and ready for a fight. I briefly wondered whether I’d be able to shoot straight if I managed to get my hands on one of the firearms that had been kicked toward us, but the bigger question was, would I actually pull the trigger?
Before I had a chance to think that through, the masked man issued another order.
“Go.”
One of the dealers started to move, but the masked man’s growl stopped him in his tracks.
“Not you.” He cocked his head slightly. “Go home, Scout. Run.”
I didn’t even have time to wonder why he was calling me Scout, because it was clear that shit was about to pop off and if I didn’t want to be on the wrong end of a gun again, I needed to get gone.
I backed away, almost tripping over myself in my haste to leave, but I didn’t dare turn my back on any of them. Not yet.
A deep, reverberating snarl echoed through the alley seconds before the masked man made his move, charging the group with a series of maneuvers that incapacitated each of them, one by one. Somehow the hood on his trench coat didn’t move, staying perfectly in place to conceal his identity as he brought the men to their knees. Their cries didn’t last long before being cut off with a swiftness, and I couldn’t tell if they’d been knocked out temporarily or…well, something else.
As I reached the end of the alley, I watched the masked man grip the final thug standing by the neck, and this time he was facing in my direction so I could see the moonlight gleaming off his mask. In a move so quick I couldn’t tell how he did it, he snapped his wrist to the right and the dealer fell like a rag doll at his feet.
My breath caught in my throat as the hooded man looked in my direction. I couldn’t see his eyes, but it felt like they were still somehow holding me in a trance.
You need to get out of here. Run, like he said.
The sound of the van’s engine starting broke our stare. He took off toward the driver, and my feet finally became unglued from the pavement.
I turned away and began to run, the pain in my knee an afterthought as I focused on getting somewhere safe.
Queens wasn’t my neck of the woods, and in my rush to get away, I hadn’t retraced my steps. It was probably better that way. I didn’t need anyone following me—if anyone was still alive to do so.
Shivers racked my body, and I pulled my jacket tighter around me with shaking hands. There was a subway stop up ahead, and I ran toward it, looking behind me every few steps until I reached the safety of the stairs leading underground.
Ha. Safety. It wasn’t like the men I’d followed tonight had any respect for rules, and if anyone was still following me, I wouldn’t put it past them to end me anywhere at anytime.
No. That’s not happening. He took care of them. No one is following you.
I continued looking over my shoulder anyway, even as I pushed through the turnstile and followed the signs to head back into Manhattan.
Shit, maybe I should’ve stayed close by for when the cops came. I’d gotten a few photos of the deal going down before losing my balance trying to get a clearer shot and knocking into the dumpster hard enough to cause a scene. That was evidence they could use. Or maybe I should go to the police department in Manhattan instead and say it hadn’t been safe for me to stay.
And then what? They’d ask me how I got away and I tell them some masked vigilante saved me? They’d think I’d lost my mind and watched too many superhero movies.
Hell, maybe I had.
I ran an ice-cold hand over my face as the train came screaming to a stop, and then boarded a car that wasn’t completely empty. For some reason, being alone in a train car seemed like a bad idea.
People had warned me about coming to New York, that I wasn’t cut out for the big city, but I’d brushed that aside, believing they were imparting their own fears on me. After tonight, however, I was starting to think there might be some truth to it.
The last thing I’d expected was to get caught up in an action scene that belonged in a John Wick film. But maybe that was my own fault, following some seriously bad guys. That was my job, though, to track down the important stories, and this one was particularly important—and apparently particularly dangerous.
I let out a sigh and collapsed onto a seat, trying to block out the fear as the train headed back to my side of the city, and where I thought my mind would be filled with terror over what I’d just been through, all I could seem to think about was—who was the man behind the mask?