Chum

The door groans as it's slowly pushed open. The silhouettes of four individuals cut through the dim light. Two of them are dressed in pristine, clean-cut suits that seem at odds with their surroundings, in navy blue, with a black undershirt. Their posture and demeanor scream authority. Another figure, appearing more disheveled with a bloodied nose and his arms bound, is escorted forcefully between them, trying to say something through what look like socks stuffed in their mouth, lips forced open like a cooked pig sucking on an apple, teeth splayed out. One of them is missing, dyeing the entire sock wad red with gums-blood. The last individual draws my immediate attention; he's got a bulky, chubby frame draped in a sweat-stained wifebeater and a brown paper bag obscures his face. My gut clenches in recognition.

"Mudslide..." I breathe out softly, ensuring my voice doesn't carry, "How's he out of jail?"

Jordan doesn't answer, but the unease in their eyes is evident. As the four make their way to the center of the main floor, their conversation becomes audible, while Jordan passes me their phone. "Bail? Parole?" is typed on their notes application. I glance at them and shrug my shoulders, trying not to let my eyes bug out too much.

"Say, Mr. Williams," one of the suited men begins, voice dripping with faux amiability. "You know, you wouldn't happen to be related to that, uh... What's her name, Miss Liberty Belle, would you?"

"What? What makes you think that?" Mudslide growls, his voice sounding stained with strain and cigarette smoke. "We don't even have the same skin color, man."

"Same last name. You might be half-siblings or something. You know, just making sure you aren't about to do anything stupid. You understand, Mr. Mudslide," the other man says, dragging the captive squarely to the center of the main room. The moonlight puts an eerie pallor to everyone's skin, and the struggling captive notices at the same time as I do that the distinctive brick-brown stain on the floor is probably not just regular dirt. Jordan's body visibly clenches up as they process the same thing I'm seeing - the gun holsters on the suited men, each one fitted with a ginormous looking pistol. Sunglasses cover their face, one of them black, the other Caucasian, but both with well-maintained, short-trimmed hair and their own varieties of facial stubble.

Mudslide just looks at them with an expression I can imagine even behind his brown paper bag mask. It's what are you, stupid? But instead of saying that, he says something else. "If you know her name, why haven't you just popped a cap in her while she sleeps?" he deflects.

The black suited man laughs, his salt-and-pepper hair looking almost glittery in the moonlight. "You've got a lot to learn, Mr. Williams, but I'll spell it out for you. You know what cops do to cop killers, right?"

Mudslide rubs the back of his head through his brown paper bag. "You don't last long."

"Right you are. Just because you can get Liberty Belle's full name - which, should you be curious, is Diane Williams - through a FOIA request, does not mean you have the right stuff to assassinate her. You know what cops do to cop killers, now imagine what they do to the superhero killers," the black suited man explains, kneeling against a disused piece of machinery.

The captive lets out a muffled whimper, eyes darting around in panic. The other suited man, the white one, swats him on the side of the head, knocking him down onto the ground where he wiggles like a fearful earthworm. I try to keep my breathing as quiet as possible, and grab for Jordan's phone. I pull off one glove just enough to type with it. "They have guns. We need to leave. Fight's off."

Jordan grabs the phone from me and nods. They type back "I know. We need to wait until they leave first. They'll catch us otherwise."

I tune back into the conversation. "Look, Mr. Mudslide, it's a simple yes or no question. Sate my curiosity. Do you, or do you not, have a relation to Liberty Belle?"

Mudslide grabs for his forehead, brown paper bag mask crinkling under his rough fingers. "No. I do not. Williams is a common last name, dude," he growls just loud enough to be heard.

"Good. Thank you," the white one says, running a free hand through his dark black hair. "Now that the pleasantries are over with, I'm sure you know what comes next.

"Let me guess, I need to fuck up this little creep?" Mudslide asks, cracking his knuckles and rolling his neck until it pops, every joint singing a quiet echo through the room.

The black one laughs. "You have to kill him. We need to make sure you have the balls and that you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. I'm sure dirty hands won't be an issue for Mr. Mudslide?" he jokes, and my heart drops even further into my stomach.

"What, so you have blackmail material that's enough to put me back in jail?" Mudslide asks. I curl up into a ball a little bit and try not to move an inch. I know my vest is impact resistant, but I don't want to test it against real life, actual bullets. Every second that passes makes me feel like my own heartbeat is going to betray me.

"Yes, exactly. Now ice the motherfucker," the white one answers, full honesty, adjusting his sunglasses.

"With pleasure. Gimme a gun," Mudslide asks, reaching a hand out to them expectantly. They both look at him like he has two heads. "What?"

"We asked if you were prepared to get your hands dirty. Are you a supe or not? We don't have room for regular run of the mill purse snatchers in the Kingdom," the white one answers.

Mudslide sighs, taking two steps back and positioning his hands in front of his face, letting his fingers hang open. "Sure. Fine. With pleasure."

He twists his heel, thrusts one hand forward, and the struggling captive is suddenly lodged a foot into the liquefied ground, the side of his face sucked under along with half of his torso and all of his legs. He writhes and squirms, and I feel his heartbeat accelerating, faster and faster, panic beyond panic overtaking him. I grab Jordan's phone out of their hands. "We have to do something."

Jordan looks at me, stern, and shakes their head. "We'll dig him up once they leave. Don't be stupid. Don't turn this into triple homicide" they tap into their phone.

I feel my nostrils flare. My entire body feels weak, shaky, ready to fail at any time. I have to do something, but without any ranged powers like Jordan has, I can't do anything. "Use your powers" I tap, trying so hard not to drop the phone and make it clatter.

Jordan sighs - I don't hear it, but I feel it and see it. They pocket their phone and raises both of their hands up, trying to remain hidden behind the catwalk's railing. "Well? We don't leave bodies half-buried in the Kingdom, Mr. Mudslide. Finish the job," the black one orders. "Pussy."

Mudslide's entire body goes through a quiet, full-torso twitch, and he squeezes his hands shut. The captive goes down, sinking the rest of their body all the way up to their neck in the ground, leaving only a single eye and a single nostril exposed. It's clearly trying to suck in air, but it's not able to get enough, especially not withhout inhaling liquefied concrete, and I feel their heart straining to compensate. "There. We done here?"

I watch as the captive slowly - slowly - drags towards us, the space between the three criminals and us growing. "Does your power stick like this if we leave? We need to know what's going to happen. Part of why we scouted you is because we figured you'd be good at burying bodies, but if this body is going to jump back up at us, we're going to have an issue," the white one says, and if it's possible for my heart to drop even more, I think it has. It's bottomed out. There's no further distance for my heart to go.

"I don't know. I've never buried someone before. Not all the way down like this," Mudslide says, looking away from his own crime.

"Well, put him six feet deep, then. We don't have time to second guess this," the black one says. Mudslide clenches up his shoulders and brings both hands down, and the man completely vanishes. I feel his blood signature, going deeper, deeper, until I can't feel it anymore through the layers of ground. Tears well up in my eyes and I try not to vomit.

"How about thirty feet deep, smartass?" Mudslide challenges, rolling his shoulders. "God, that shit aches. Takes effort! It's like digging through the thirty feet myself."

The ground visibly re-solidifies. No body emerges. Mudslide drops his arms and goes slack, and I can tell his power isn't active anymore.

The white one claps him on the back. "Welcome to the Kingdom, Mr. Mudslide. What's your favorite strip club, we'll treat - huh?"

He looks up. The other two look up. Jordan and I look up, to see a camera drone, red light beeping, staring at them through the broken windows. "Mr. Nothing, how long has that drone been watching and, apparently, recording us?"

Oh, fuck.

The world seems to shrink around us, time slowing down as all gazes are fixated on the hovering drone, its red light blinking accusingly at the scene below. The crimson indicator feels like an alarm - a beacon of exposure, of danger.

"Alex..." Jordan mutters under their breath. Their friend was supposed to stream their playful confrontation, not become the inadvertent witness to a murder.

Mudslide, still disoriented from his recent exertion, squints at the drone, clearly unfamiliar with the device. But the two suited men seem more attuned to the implications. "That's been recording for..." The white one tilts his head, processing, "the entire time. From the beginning."

Mr. Nothing's cold gaze shifts between the drone and the vast space of the factory, his dark eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Has it? Do your powers work on drones like that?"

"No, but we need to make the assumption that it has been recording the entire time, and act accordingly. Mr. Williams, I'm afraid to say that there's a very high likelihood you will be arrested and put in jail for murder if whoever owns this drone witnessed what you just did," The white one explains. "Thankfully, we have an easy solution to the first part of this problem."

The drone begins to hover backwards, like it's trying to back away, camera fixated purely on the suit-wearing men. I'm not even sure if Mudslide is in its field of view. Mr. Nothing pulls out his gun, and before I can even react to it, shoots the drone - it bursts into a spray of metal and plastic, totally demolished with a single precise shot.

A couple of minutes ago, I was considering doing something - anything, really, to save that man's life. To jump out and make myself a target, to force something to happen. To be a hero. But the gunshot rings out louder than anything I've ever heard before in my life, and I have to resist the urge to slap my hands over my ears, just standing still, trying to look like furniture, watching the horror unfold in front of me. They have real bullets in their real guns. In the dark of the night, they wouldn't be able to tell that I'm a little girl, and honestly, I don't think they'd care.

I think these people will kill me if they find me.

I glance over to Jordan's phone screen, which is lit up at its lowest brightness setting with text messages. I only make out the name - Alex, of course - and the latest message before Jordan puts it away inside their costume: "Run"

The white one steps out into the center of the factory floor, lit by moonlight, and stretches his arms out, while Mudslide looks around nervously, skin covered in a sudden layer of sweat. "Whoever's there, if you make yourself known right now, I promise, we will not kill you. I am physically incapable of lying. Mr. Mudslide does not have permission to kill you yet, and neither I nor Mr. Nothing will fire our weapons at you," he says. I see Jordan take two slow, shuffling steps backward, and I reach out to grab their wrist. "This is not a jackass genie sort of situation. You will not be harmed if you show yourself right fucking now."

"What the fuck, man, what the fuck..." Mudslide mutters to himself, grabbing for his head and then stumbling backwards, nearly tripping over a piece of machinery. "You fuckers said you could get me out of jail! Now I'm on camera murdering a guy! Fuck you!"

"Relax, Mr. Mudslide. Mr. B is the best in the business. You're not going anywhere," Mr Nothing says, pulling his gun out and sweeping it slowly, both hands on it, neither one on the trigger. "Consider yourself lucky. We pay overtime."

I'm guessing that the other one is Mr. B, but something about Mr. Nothing's tone of voice makes me think otherwise. Either way, Jordan jerks their wrist away from my hand, I guess because I didn't realize how hard I've been squeezing it, and slowly starts to move themselves closer to the office. "Fuck this, man, this is ridiculous..." Mudslide stammers out, grabbing for a piece of machinery to steady himself with. "What? What do you want?"

"Isn't it obvious? There's someone here. Drones like that don't have an exceptionally large range. Go find them," Mr. Nothing orders, pointing his gun out in front of his face. I almost have to laugh at the impulse that rises in my throat, to correct them - this drone does have a large range, and it's been streaming, not recording - but I shove that down hard. Being a smartass and correcting someone is not a good reason to get shot. On the other hand, their misinterpretation might get me shot anyway.

"Safeguard, we have to go. Now," I whisper, taking a couple of steps back from the catwalk railing as the three men below us fan out. I turn back, and Jordan has made it into the old, crumbling office, while I'm stuck on the upper floor, trying to move slowly enough so that I don't make any noise, easing off the catwalk and onto the wood.

"Can I at least have a gun?" Mudslide protests as his heavy, lumbering footsteps begin working their way up the stairs, gingerly tapping down to avoid breaking through any of the rotten wood with his sheer bulk. "You two palookas have powers, but you get guns. Fair's fair."

"Mr. Mudslide, we'll get you a gun after all this is said and done. Promise," the white one says, fanning out across the bottom floor, while Mr. Nothing takes the other set of stairs. I breathe the shakiest sigh of relief I humanly can, pressing myself against the wall and trying to become invisible in the darkness, while the upper floor stretches out beneath me, slowly expanding. I catch sight of Jordan in my periphery, behind a wall, slowly stretching the space out to put more distance between Mudslide and I.

I feel relieved because Mudslide is someone I've dealt with before, and because he doesn't have a gun.

I slowly sidle along the wall as he passes by me, heart racing, his heavy footsteps clattering onto the metal catwalk. Any noises I could make now are disguised by the loud clanging of Mudslide trying to cross the catwalks, sweeping his head left and right, and I make it into the office, pulling myself around the wall and exhaling.

Jordan doesn't speak - they just show me their phone screen. "We need to jump out window. I can lower us."

I don't like it, but right now, I don't have a better plan. I nod to them, and the two of us start slowly padding across the floor of the office, towards one of the broken windows. Each step feels more perilous than the last, as I keep my head on a swivel, looking out for the three men that would each kill us given the opportunity.

Then, my foot busts through rotten wood, right next to one of the administrative desks. The next couple of seconds happen in slow motion. The weight of the metal desk collapses the rest of the wood beneath it, and it comes falling down with me. The noise, of course, is obvious, ripping floorboards and the sound of a heavy metal desk hitting the ground, but the worst part is that it falls directly on top of me, pinning me by the ankle right behind one of the rusted machines on the first floor. I can tell already that I didn't fall the full way, that Jordan collapsed the space so it would be a shorter drop, but I still land right on my tailbone, and I'm still trapped with one leg caught under a heavy metal desk, straining to get it out.

I manage to squeeze loose, but my shoe is caught, leaving me in one sock - I reach out and manage to pry it out, so I'm not stepping on shards of broken metal and glass. Jordan stares at me through the hole above me, and I don't need to think twice to know what they're thinking - run.

BANG!

Metal and dirt sprays up into the air in a thick cloud as a bullet embeds itself in the ground next to me, deflecting into the nearby wall. "I didn't want to waste a bullet, but I did feel the need to make you aware that if you move, I will pop a cap in you, as the kids say," I hear Mr. Nothing's voice behind me, and all my hair stands on end, my body trying to make itself bigger to no avail. My ears are ringing, and I look up towards the hole, expecting to see Jordan again.

I see nothing.

I curse myself for literally trusting a supervillain, and begin to make my peace with G-d.

"Hands up, girl," the white one's voice calls from the distance, and I slowly raise both of my hands. "Behind your head."

I put both of my hands behind my head. I'm going to throw up before I die, which is really, really uncool. "Now turn around, real slow-like," the white one calls out, and I do just that, baring my face to the two of them.

"Well, well, well, well-well-well-well-well. If it isn't the pooch," Mudslide calls from above me, peering through the hole down at me with his brown-paper-bag mask. I can't see his face, but I can feel his grin in the energy of his words, feeling it course through me like a vile hex. "What a surprise, that you're being a pain in my dick again. Did you stalk me all the way here?"

"You two have history?" the white one asks, walking over to me. Mr. Nothing gestures for me to back up with his gun, so I take a cautious step back until I'm up against the wall.

"You could say that. This is the bitch that put me in jail. Bloodhound," he drawls, his voice full of malice and hate. Ordinarily, I would point out that he put himself in jail by holding a bunch of people hostage and leaving them alive so they could call him out in court, which is what happened, but I think I will definitely get shot if I don't keep a lid on the smartass behavior.

Mr. Nothing and the white one glance at each other. "How serendipitous," Mr. Nothing says to nobody in particular.

"Bloodhound, right, got it. Not a name I'm familiar with. Bloodhound! How much of that did you see?" the white one says. They each step closer, Mudslide hopping down onto the desk that is now to my right, looming over me. He twists his hands and my feet go into the ground, sunken in all the way to my ankles.

"How much of what?" I ask back.

"Jesus christ, that's a child," Mr. Nothing mutters, shaking his head.

"So you won't kill me, right?" I ask, sweating bullets. "You're not going to shoot a kid."

"I bet she followed that creep. She can smell blood, that's her power. Don't let her fake you out," Mudslide jeers, speaking from experience. "She smelled him bleeding."

"Quiet, Mr. Williams. I'm trying to do an interrogation here," the white one says, pointing his gun directly at my center mass. "First question. How much of the previous events did you see? Second question, did you smell the man bleeding?"

"Yes, we will absolutely shoot a child. Just to be clear," Mr. Nothing says, pointing his gun at my head. "My partner here is named 'Polygraph' for a reason, so we'd appreciate your honesty. We will shoot you if you lie to us."

The more this goes on, paradoxically, the better I feel. I don't know what sort of manic energy is building up inside of me, like an engine that's about to explode, but I feel more comfortable with every uncoordinated sentence. "I'm glad I know your name now, because in my head he's just been 'the white one', and that feels weird to me. Like, I don't want to identify the two of you primarily by your race. Mr. Polygraph and Mr. Nothing, that's better."

They glance at each other. Mudslide raises his hand, and I sink an inch deeper in. "Answer the fucking question, girl," Mr. Polygraph says, nodding his gun at me. "Questions, plural."

"I saw you shoot that drone, and I did smell someone bleeding," I say, trying to word myself around Mr. Polygraph's power. I don't know if it checks on heart rate or what, but I can tell he's working around the magic question - did you see us kill someone. He can't say it out loud.

I need to keep that advantage. He doesn't know everything, and has to work around incomplete information. "Before you say anything else, I want to make a confession. I think it will make this interrogation go easier for everyone."

"I like this one, she's lively," Mr. Nothing says, taking a step closer nonetheless.

"She's annoying," Mudslide interjects. "Annoying little goody-two shoes cunt. Psycho bitch."

"Behave yourself, there are standards with your new job," Mr. Polygraph says. He aims his gun at my shoulder. "Go ahead, Bloodhound."

"I'm... streaming the audio. I wouldn't say anything you wouldn't want to hear played back at you in a court of law," I half-lie, praying that it doesn't trigger Mr. Polygraph's power.

He grits his teeth, his face growing visibly redder and redder, before he lets out a scream of frustration and shoots one of the nearby machines.

BANG!

I flinch, trying to keep my body as still as possible even as my ears start screaming back at me in bright tinnitus tones. Mudslide does a stronger, full-body flinch, and I tug one foot free of the ground, silently placing it on a more solid patch. "God fucking damnit. They sent in a fucking toddler wearing a wire. Grragh!"

He swings his gun around wildly, with Mr. Nothing ducking out of the way. Mr. Polygraph stamps his feet and shakes his hand, holstering his gun. "A fucking girl scout with a wire!" he screams, pounding one fist into his palm, then going to punch the broken machine he shot not thirty seconds ago. I see a glint out of the corner of my eye, and I notice that the distance between Mr. Nothing and I... got bigger.

"RUN!" Jordan shouts from the other side of the room, and I wrench my other leg free of the liquid ground, diving down as a bullet goes sailing over my head.