Estranged (31 page)

They ducked into an alley when rush
hour hit, waiting out the manic flood of people while Jenna scared
away would-be muggers with a black-nailed bird for each. When the
foot-traffic finally subsided, they stepped out and finished the
trip to Chi’s.

Chi’s Diner was a small place, wedged
between an electronics shop and a small convenience store. All
three looked desolate and run-down, but Kalei knew from experience
that Chi’s had the best lo-mein in town. She practically had to
force feed Fenn the first time she brought him here to try out the
cuisine. Kalei’s swirls tightened at the memory, and she quickly
pushed it from her mind.

Across the street, Josh and Jenna sat
down in front of an empty storefront, while Kalei continued to
stand beside them. She crossed her arms and settled her weight
comfortably between both legs, something she had become accustomed
to as a cop, standing guard at many large events and Estranged
crime scenes. Beneath her mask, Kalei’s eyes carefully followed the
pedestrians walking by, alert for any sign of a threat, be it a
SWORDE Agent, a Tusic spy, or even just another Estranged out to
cause trouble.

A man in a striped jacket walked along
with his hands in his pockets and his hood pulled up over his head.
He glanced at Kalei as he approached, but when his eyes found her
mask, he flinched, his eyes widening in surprise, then he quickly
ducked his head and hurried past. Across the street, a couple
exited Chi’s Diner, takeout in hand, cheerfully bantering as they
walked down the sidewalk. Their umbrella caught a gust of wind,
twisting inside out and fighting against the man’s grip as the wind
tried to pull it away. They laughed and exclaimed and fought with
the umbrella for a brief moment before discarding it in the nearest
trash can and running to escape the light rain.

Kalei pulled her hood lower. It was
painful, watching these people go about their lives, oblivious to
the danger Kalei and her companions posed. And not just Kalei;
anyone on these streets could be Estranged. How many times had she
walked down this very sidewalk, just as ignorant as the rest of
them? She had always thought she was safe. She had always believed
that an Estranged would stick out from the crowd, a crazed and
hungry lunatic who chased down anyone in sight. In her police
academy, they had always warned her that anyone could be an
Estranged, but they had described Estranged behavior as erratic,
impulsive, violent. Of course, they weren’t exactly wrong, but...
the fact that an Estranged could also be calm, collected, normal;
that was something she had never imagined.

Kalei was ashamed of how ignorant she
used to be.

A sharp, wooden clacking sound drew
Kalei’s attention back to her companions. The juveniles had found a
pair of discarded chopsticks, and a fierce, miniature sword fight
was underway. Kalei couldn’t say she was surprised.

She listened to the small clack-clacks
while she resisted the urge to rip the mask from her face. In some
ways, it was worse than the paper bag. It clung tighter to her
face, the moisture from her breath collecting on the plastic rather
than absorbing into the material as it would have with the paper
bag. Her face felt hot and irritated from the humidity, and the
heavy hood of her sweatshirt only captured the heat, amplifying the
problem. Below the mask, a cool breeze blew against her exposed
neck, fueling the temptation to throw the damned piece of plastic
into the gutter. But she put a lid on the impulse and felt her
temptation turn to irritation.

The clacking ended with a sharp SNAP!
as Josh cried out. Kalei looked down at the boy and saw him waving
his hand rapidly to shake off some injury. He said to Jenna,
“Sheesh, you’ve got some skills with the chopstick!”

Jenna leaned back against the shop
doorway and crossed her arms behind her head. “I know.” The
teenager’s smug smile sat content on her face as her eyes wandered
out across the street to take in the drug store. The smile slid
away as something caught the girl’s attention, and Kalei followed
her gaze to see a middle-aged man stepping out of the
shop.

Jenna asked, “What time is
it?”

Kalei heard Josh shift positions
before he replied, “Seven o’clock.”

Then Jenna asked Kalei, “And what time
are we meeting your buddy?”

Kalei wasn’t sure why the man had
caught Jenna’s eye, but she turned her attention back to the
conversation at hand. She looked back at the two and found them
watching her.

She answered, “Ten
o’clock.”

Jenna let out an exasperated moan.
“Dammit. We’re gonna be here all day!” Jenna rolled her eyes, and
then her attention caught on a passing woman. She followed the
woman’s footsteps for a moment before slumping back against the
storefront and saying, “Why don’ we go do somethin’ ‘stead of
waitin’?”

Kalei uncrossed her arms and stuck
them in her sweatshirt pocket. “Like what?”

“
Anythin’. It beats
sittin’ out here all exposed, waitin’ for the good guys to roll up
and take us away.”

“
The good
guys?”

Jenna threw up her hands in defeat,
then climbed to her feet. “Eh, good guys, bad guys, they all’s out
fo’ us now. Whatevs, let’s jus’ get outta here.”

Josh stood up as well. “Y’know,
there’s something I’d like to check out. It’s not far. It would
only take a minute.”

Jenna clapped her hands together.
“A’ight! We got a place to be. Let’s go.”

Kalei stepped in front of them,
raising a hand to stop them before they could run off. “Wait a
minute. Where are we going?”

Josh avoided Kalei’s eyes as looked to
his right, then pointed. “Uh, just up the road, about three blocks
down Fifth Street.”

“
That’s not what I
meant.”

Josh shrugged, looking at his shoes.
“I know, but it’s personal.”

Kalei crossed her arms again and
waited for him to look at her. When he finally glanced up, she
asked, “The kind of personal that’s going to get us into
trouble?”

Josh laughed, and his eyes lit up.
“No, she’s the last person to cause trouble.”

Jenna stepped in, dropping a hand on
Josh’s shoulder as she demanded, “Oooo, she? Who is she? C’mon,
spill!”

Josh pulled away. “What?”

“
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”
Jenna poked him in the arm each time.

“
Fine! She’s my mom. I
just want to see her, alright? I haven’t seen her since... I want
to make sure she’s doing okay.”

Kalei uncrossed her arms and returned
her hands to her pockets. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Meanwhile, Jenna’s upbeat attitude
fell away. She gave Kalei a sideways glance, then asked Josh, “You
said we’re jus’ gonna see her, right? We’re not gonna talk to her
or nothin’?”

Jenna’s change in behavior surprised
Kalei. It concerned her as much as it confused her.

Josh said, “Well, I would like
to—”

Jenna cut him off. “You don’t want to
talk to her. It’s better if you keep your distance,
bro.”

“
Why wouldn’t I—” Jenna
held up her hand. Kalei could only see Jenna’s palm from where she
was standing, but she knew what Josh saw. The black steering wheels
on Jenna’s nails were navigating some invisible mountain road,
never able to return home. Never able to be normal
again.

Josh’s shoulders and face drooped like
a sad flower. “Oh.” He looked down at his own nails, still covered
with Jenna’s gloves. “I guess you’re right.”

Kalei broke the brief silence that
followed. “Well, let’s go. We can still check on her.”

Jenna glanced at Kalei again, her eyes
somber, then quietly followed as Kalei and Josh headed in the
direction he’d indicated.

It wasn’t long before they came to
Josh’s street. It was a quiet road, with several tall apartment
buildings squeezed in together, and a few modest cars parked on
either side. Josh pointed to a narrow gateway on the left, wedged
between a pair of brick walls. The gate was an intricate wrought
iron backed by chain-link, and the walls were over ten feet high,
with wrought-iron spears at the top to deter anyone from climbing.
Built into the wall beside the gate was an intercom panel, a large
metal square with a speaker and rows of buttons paired with names.
Kalei walked up to the panel and asked Josh, “What’s
the—”

A quaking yell pierced the air.
“Josh!”

The three turned and saw a middle-aged
woman fifty feet up the sidewalk, clutching an armful of groceries.
Her mouth struggled to form more words, but none came
out.

“
Mom?” Josh started to run
toward her, but Jenna caught him around his midsection. “Let me go!
That’s my mom! Mom!”

Josh’s mom dropped her groceries and
hurried toward her distressed son. Her mouth finally asked, “Josh,
is that really you? What is happening? What’s going on?”

Kalei carefully pulled the darkness
back from her arms and hurried forward to stop the woman. They met
about ten feet from where Jenna was struggling with Josh, and Kalei
held up her hands in an official “Stop” gesture. “I’m sorry, ma’am.
Please don’t come any closer.”

The woman stared at Kalei for a
moment, then her own face turned into a mask of anger. “What do you
mean? That’s my son! Let me see him!” The woman was only a few
inches shorter than Kalei, lean and pretty despite the budding
wrinkles and laugh lines that placed her somewhere in her late
forties.

She tried to push past Kalei, but
Kalei stepped in front of the woman, cutting off her path. The
painful confusion, the relief, the love, the hot concern in the
woman’s eyes made Kalei wish she could let this woman go hold her
son. But she knew better. It would not end well for anyone if she
let that happen. She said, “I understand you want to see him, but
you cannot get any closer.”

Cries rang out from both Jenna and
Josh as their scuffle continued. Josh yelled out again, a
high-pitched shout of pain and surprise. The mom gasped, struggling
to look past Kalei, to see what was happening. Tears in her eyes,
she demanded, “Why are you letting that girl hurt him!”

With renewed fervor, the mother tried
again to force her way past Kalei, but this time, Kalei grabbed her
by the shoulders and held her in place. “You really—”

Jenna cursed and there was
a loud
thunk.
Jenna screamed, “KALEI!”

Kalei spun around and saw
Josh charging at them in full frenzy. Her instincts screamed, a
dozen commands roaring through her mind at once—
tackle him, stop him, keep the mom back, stop
him
— but her eyes met his and she froze.
He was only a couple feet away and closing, but she couldn’t move.
What she saw in those clear green eyes, the intensity of
it...

BOOM!

Josh’s face exploded in an eruption of
blood and gore. His body flew violently into the ground as the
momentum of his dash continued to push his corpse forward. On the
sidewalk, several feet behind the remains of the boy, Jenna lay on
her back, gun raised, shell clinking as it landed on the
pavement.

Josh’s mom screamed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Separate Ways

They stole a car from a witness and
escaped with Josh’s body while his mom lay crying in the street.
Josh’s corpse bled out in the back, painting the seat red as Kalei
and Jenna sat in the front, shaking.

“
Shit.” Jenna looked out
the window. Kalei had no words. “Shit!” she repeated. “We need to
get out of this car. There were
way
too many witnesses out there. We need to get the
fuck out of this car!”

Kalei kept her eyes on the road as her
hands twisted at the steering wheel. “And go where? Where can we
go! We’ve got the entire fucking town after us!”

Jenna paused and bit her lip. “What
about your friend? Damn, what was her name...” Kalei opened her
mouth, but Jenna cut her off, jumping forward in her seat. “Lecia!
I know she didn’ pick up yo’ calls, but if we show up at her place,
then she’s gotta take us in. She’s all sorts a’ pro-Estranged,
operatin’ outside the law. She’d open her doors wide open to a
couple Estranged refugees!”

“
And how the hell am I
supposed to know where she lives?”

“
She didn’ tell
you?”

“
Fuck no. She may be
stupid, but she’s not that stupid. She doesn’t give out her address
to Estranged.” Kalei cut off Jenna before she could respond. “Even
old school acquaintances.
Especially
old school acquaintances,
if you know anything about our past.”

Jenna sat back in her seat and
replied, “Yeah, well, I know where she lives.”

Kalei looked at her sister. “What?
How?”

“
When you was in time-out
downstairs, Terin had me tied down to camera duty. And y’know,
you’d think monitoring the ear cams would be hella fun. Spyin’ on
the whole town, get to learn everyone’s dirty secrets... fuck no!
That shit was boring as hell! No dialogue? Shit, and ain’t no one
pointing their ears at each other so you can get a proper lip-read.
Shit, and some of the stuff I did see, man, there was shit that
even
I
didn’
wanna know!” Jenna glanced at a car passing by, then continued,
“Anyway, your girl Lecia made a friend that followed her home one
night. Had to send a few Wardens to take care of it. Take Main
Street. We’ll ditch the car at that used car lot up
there.”