13. We’re the Good Guys
We’re the Good Guys
SNOW
Ifinally catch sight of Seven after an hour of patrolling, and he’s tailing a tall guy with a backpack who is speed-walking in a way that tells me he’s scared. Based on his jacket, I can tell he is a courier. Though it’s a bit late to be trotting around with packages...
My head swivels, trying to locate any HAM assholes nearby. If Seven is following him, that must mean he’s in danger.
They’ve got distance on me, and before I can catch up, the guy ducks down the stairs that lead to an old abandoned MBTA station. Seven follows him into the subway station, and I do the same.
The smell hits first. Old concrete and standing water, with something metallic underneath.
I descend one level into darkness and turn toward the faint amber glow. Light from the adjacent active line seeps through gaps in the old brickwork, casting a dim sour gold over everything.
Enough to see. Not enough to see well.
The platform stretches ahead of me, most of the old white station tiles with a green border cracked or missing entirely.
Water stains run from floor to ceiling in long brown streaks.
The vaulted brick ceiling arches overhead, lower than I expected, and in several places sections of it have fallen onto the platform floor in small piles of rubble.
Seven is at the near end of the platform.
The courier stands at the far end with his back to the wall.
The backpack is still on, eyes rolling in his head with panic, his chest heaving from either panic or exertion. Both?
The courier’s gaze finds me the second my boot hits the platform, hands already up but not in surrender.
A slight crackling sound emanates from him just as hair-thin lightning or static rolls over his arms. Whatever charge he’s packing fills the air with a stinging sensation that makes me want to sneeze.
"Get away from me," he says, and his voice bounces off the tile and comes back from three directions at once.
The Seven twists to look at me. A pair of green eyes flash into white. Six morphed into One before my eyes without blinking. As difficult as it is for me to keep my eyes off the curly-haired guy I’ve been obsessed with for days, I face the scared man. He can’t be much older than me.
"Hey." I keep my voice low. "Nobody's here to hurt you."
The courier’s eyes cut to Seven and back to me. "You're the ones taking people. I've heard about you. Everyone has. Mages going missing, magic people who were just out and then they're just—" He stops. Swallows. "You're not getting me."
"You need to get out of here, little stalker," One’s voice comes from directly beside me. I didn't hear him move. He's not looking at the courier.
He's focused on me.
In the amber dark, his pale, near-white eyes flash, his jaw set.
"I'm fine," I say quietly. "We can help him."
One doesn't answer.
I take a step toward the courier, hands out, palms open.
"Listen to me. That guy next to me? He's out here every night. Same as me. We're not the ones taking people, we're trying to stop it. Whatever you've heard, whatever you think this is, you've got it wrong."
The courier's eyes stay fixed on The Seven.
"He was following me."
"Because those HAM assholes are roaming the streets and he wanted to make sure you were safe." The words come out steady. "He's like me. He's one of the good ones."
I wonder if more places than Poison Apple got hit tonight. After the HAM attack, Fireopal said this was just the beginning. She wasn't only talking about the bar.
I keep my eyes on the courier. "What's your name? I’m Snow."
"Don't." His voice cracks on the single syllable. "Don't try to—"
The static charge on his arms is climbing. The amber light catches the current running over his skin in brief, hot flickers.
"Snow." Seven's voice is very quiet and very close behind me. "You need to leave."
The sound the courier makes isn't a scream. Lower than that. Both hands come up, and the charge releases all at once.
The blast hits the air between us like a wall.
The tiles behind me explode in a spray of ceramic. The vaulted ceiling groans, one long complaint that travels the full length of the arch, and then a section lets go.
A mass of old brick and plaster drops fast, and it falls straight through One like he isn't there at all. His eyes are purple. He’d switched to Two just before it all came down on him.
More debris falls through his chest and shoulders without resistance, his form flickering at the edges where the material intersects him.
The same debris hits me at full weight.
It must have been the echo of the underground or instant head injury, but I hear what sounds like a bunch of men shouting my name at once.
The platform comes up, and my head follows it down. The amber light goes sideways and then bright, too bright, and then nothing at all.