"With your flash, yes. Don't kid yourself. If this was for real, you would've broken your neck in the fall."
A desperate high-pitched squeak jerked Jack's attention to the end of the parking lot. Straight ahead, the five guys crowded around a tree growing from a square flower bed. The thicker kid with brown hair held a rope. Another squeak. Jack focused on the end of the rope coming from beneath the hedge on the other side. The kid on the left looked back at him and George, said something, and laughed.
A fist landed on his ear. Jack ignored it and sat up. George sat up next to him.
The thicker kid jerked the rope and pulled, dragging a small gray shape into the light. It was bedraggled and filthy, its fur smeared with some sort of mud or paint.
Jack forgot where he was.
The little cat shook and hugged the ground, trying to break free of the rope. The asshole on the other end kept pulling, dragging the limp body across the asphalt.
Red flooded the world. Jack exhaled rage through his nose. Suddenly, he was on his feet and walking, and he didn't remember how he got there.
Next to him, George caught up with him, reached out, and snapped an antenna off the nearest car.
The world snapped into crystal clarity, the smells too sharp, the sounds too loud. Jack floated through it, light as a feather.
"Don't kill anyone," George said.
The bastards noticed them and turned toward them.
"You two done making out?" a tall blond kid asked.
The little cat lay on its side. He wasn't moving. A long stripe of bright green paint ran along his back, gluing his fur into small, sharp spikes. They had painted the cat. Those fucking bastards had painted the cat and then tortured it.
The Wild snarled inside him. He strained, pushing it back into its den.
"I'll make it simple," George's voice rang out next to him with icy precision. "Give us the cat, and you can go."
"Man. What a fucking dumb-ass." The blond kid snorted. "Get the hell out of here, fags."
"What's with the clothes? Are you from some sort of fag cult?" the asshole with the rope asked.
"No, man, they're from a Renaissance fair."
"Maybe they need the cat for their fag sacrifice!"
The Wild retreated into its lair and stared at him with glowing eyes.
"Yeah, be careful, they might pull some crazy satan shit on you, man." The bigger dark-haired kid laughed.
The smaller kid on the right raised his hands and crossed his index fingers. "Stay back, the power of Christ compels you!"
Jack looked at George. "Now?"
"Ooh, I am so scared." The blond kid raised his hands. "So scared . . ."
"Now," George said.
Jack charged.
OUTSIDE, the California sun hit Kaldar. He kept walking, down the path and out into the street, through the open iron gates, past the cream-colored wall bordering the rehab facility. He turned left, heading for the parking lot. He'd left his stolen vehicle there. Men in pristine black shoes did not walk; they drove expensive cars, and so he'd procured one on an off chance someone might see him arrive. And now he needed one to depart quickly because a man in his outfit would draw attention jogging down the street.
He had to find Audrey Callahan. Kaldar imagined a female version of Alex Callahan. Ugh. Likely an addict as well. If Callahan was to be believed, she hated him, so she wouldn't have helped them with the heist out of love or from a sense of obligation. No, their father must've dangled money or drugs before her, and she took it.
Family was the last line of defense. No matter what Kaldar had done or would do, he could walk through the gates of the New Mar house and be welcomed with open arms, food, and friendly proposals to rearrange his face. They would lament and bellyache and whine, but in the end, crossbows and rifles would come off the walls, and the Mars would ride out to fix whatever he'd wrought.
The Callahans couldn't stand each other. Alex despised his sister and thought his father was a sucker. Since Audrey returned the hate, using her brother's safety as leverage was out of the question.
Audrey wasn't an obnoxiously common name, and the list of PI firms in Olympia had to be somewhat limited. It shouldn't take him too long to find her . . .
Ahead, a vicious snarl ripped through the afternoon. It sounded inhuman, but he'd heard it before. That's how William sounded when he cut through people like they were butter. Kaldar sped up.
A scream of pure terror followed. A changeling here in the Broken? William could cross back and forth, so it was plausible . . . Was someone else from the Weird or the Edge here for Callahan?
Ahead, an adolescent boy, around fifteen or sixteen, stumbled out from between the hedges bordering the entrance to the parking lot. His nose was bloody, and both of his eyes sported red puffy bags that promised to develop into spectacular shiners. Red whip marks crossed his forearms and neck.
The boy stared at Kaldar, looking but not seeing, his eyes two pools of fear, and took off down the street, limping. Kaldar broke into a run.
A moment, and he turned the corner into the parking lot. Four adolescent kids rolled on the ground, clutching various limbs as a result of a savage beating. In the center of the carnage Jack stood, his arms raised in a trademark South Adrianglian style. Next to him, George brandished a car antenna.
Damn it all to hell.
The bigger of the boys moved. George let him rise halfway and whipped the car antenna. Right, left, right. The kid tumbled down.
George glanced up, saw Kaldar, and grabbed Jack's shoulder. The two kids froze.
He had to get them away from the damn parking lot before someone called the cops. Escape first, explanations later. Kaldar moved past the prone bodies to the first decent older vehicle he saw and slid the long narrow strip of metal from his sleeve. The boys followed. A second to pop the door open, another three seconds to hot-wire the car, while Jack slid into the back, clutching a small cat that looked dead, and George hopped into the shotgun seat.
Another second, and they pulled out of the parking lot and merged into the current of cars, heading out of the city toward the boundary and the safety of the Edge.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had the two wards of the fucking Marshal of the fucking Southern Provinces in a stolen car. An entire continent away from where the two of them were supposed to be. In the Broken. Where they had beat up some Broken children. Well, if those children weren't broken before, they were surely broken now.
Fate, that bloody, vicious, fickle bitch. Sometimes she loved him, and he could do nothing wrong. And sometimes she stuck a knife in his back.
Kaldar adjusted the rearview mirror until Jack's face swung into view. "What the hell are you doing here?"