Chum

It's really hard to describe just how loud something as big as an overpass, even a section of it, collapsing. And it is a small section, really, only a boulder of concrete and what I can now recognize are the twisted, melted metal struts supporting it. I don't have time to take in all the details, but the metal looks charred at all the extremely important spots, like it's been set on fire numerous times, already bent and buckled, and something Aaron just did was the final straw for it.

That is to say - I spend more than enough time staring at it that I forget to move.

My last thought, embarassingly, is something like "Man, that's a big fucking rock".

Then, it vanishes. Jordan, audibly wheezing through their voice filter, squeezes the space just enough to totally disappear the falling chunk of overpass, the world buckling at an awkward angle. It has to have been at a diagonal, since the hole in the overpass would break its continuous-ness, and for a moment, I'm impressed. Then, I remember that there is still a rock falling on me even if it's temporarily elsewhere, and I scramble towards Jordan, trying to block them from getting tackled by three guys at once.

No, one of them is still freaking out over his ankle - two guys at once.

No, wait, I forgot about the bronze-skinned guy, back to three.

I scramble towards Jordan, trying to block them from getting tackled by three guys at once. I don't need to see them - the bronze-skinned one is bleeding from his nose, from what, I'd love to know - so I just grab Jordan by the hand and keep running.

"Keep the pooch busy! I've got something for the other one," Aaron shouts, finally getting up from his seat at the poker table and shoving his hands in his pockets. My heart immediately drops, as I prepare to pull Jordan down and shield them with my body from incoming gunfire, but nothing of the sort happens. No bullets, no explosions, and not any more dropping chunks of overpass. Jordan lets out a held breath, and the falling piece of overpass crashes back into the ground, manifesting back into reality at the exact spot it left.

"Here, puppy! I've got a present for you!" The white guy chimes in, grabbing his knife from the ground - stupid me, I forgot to smash it or take it. I just keep running, dragging Jordan along with me until we've got space made again, resetting everything back to neutral ground.

For a moment, the adrenaline dips, and I feel the pain of the several pipe whacks and punches I've taken. I'm just glad nothing has hit me in the head. "I'm out, dude," I hear the greasy one yell, hobbling over to the poker table. "Where's the fucking first aid kit?"

"You alright?" I ask Jordan, bending over and panting to catch my breath. They're wheezing and gasping for air after the trip I just dragged them through, but I can't see or smell any cuts, so I have to assume no real harm's been done.

"How do you run so fucking fast?" Jordan hisses between breaths.

"I play sports, dude. And I'm not wearing platforms."

"Whatever," Jordan quips, turning back around, hand on their hips. "Come on, you fuckers! We've barely got a scratch on us! You can't even win five versus two?" They shout, cupping their mouth through their helmet.

"Hey, look, tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumbass. You know kung fu, ooh, scary!" Aaron shouts, his voice getting quieter as he shoves his lackeys aside and steps within speaking distance. "It's my fault. Sorry, fellas, I'll get you some dog meat to make up for it. Should've known not to send a bunch of boys to do a man's job."

"What sort of man just sits back and lets his goons do all the fighting?" I ask, meters away from Aaron. He fixes his eyes on me.

"The kind that wins," Aaron replies. He narrows his gaze, and my arm bursts into flames.

Immediately, I'm throwing myself against the ground, having had "stop, drop, and roll" drilled into me as a kid. Aaron swivels his head towards Jordan, and the air begins rapidly filling with the smell of acrid smoke. I should've realized at the previous spontaneous ignition that he has some sort of fire power, but, stupid dumbass me, I didn't put two and two together. "He sets shit on fire!" I yell, pointing out the obvious, as I swipe gravel from my extinguished arm.

"Good job. Now suffocate and die," Aaron snarls, as Jordan's cloak lights up. Jordan runs forward, stones crunching underneath their boots, and throws the smoldering cloak onto Aaron, who stumbles back, trapped in it. It writhes with his every movement like some sort of fucked up bird, burning bright with a sharp, yellow flame, the air reeking of sulfur fumes.

"Jesus Christ. When did you get a superpower?" Jordan mumbles, while I pat my aching arm. Thankfully, the burning was only across my costume, and didn't really penetrate to the skin, but, ouch, being set on fire hurts. Ironically, it feels more cold than hot, but the patch of skin feels raw already, like it's been rubbed down with sandpaper.

"Get this fucking thing off me and get those cunts already!" Aaron roars, ripping the cloak off of him. Unlike us, he looks totally unmarred by the fire - which makes sense. I can't really poke myself in the gums with my own teeth. I imagine it's the same way. He stomps on the cloak while the other three combatants charge us.

"Alright, you fuckers, let's Oldboy this shit," Jordan calls out.

What comes next is a blur, a haze of motion and action and instinct. These guys have all fought on the streets, where you can swing at someone hard enough and they'll go down if you're the stronger of the two. And they've watched movies, judging from the way they've squared up and started trying to imitate my already piss-poor boxing stance. But I don't know if they've ever fought someone that fought back before, or if they've ever fought someone that gave them this much trouble.

I don't think they're used to it. I can see the caution in their faces. I open my mouth and watch them flinch. I taste the blood from the inside of my teeth and try not to swallow, unsuccessfully.

They're scared of me now.

As they should be.

A fist comes at me and I don't take the time to register who it's from, only that I can smell their blood. I hear the sound of a boot connecting with someone's leg, firm platforms clacking against bone, and I duck from the punch, aiming back to jab them in the jaw, sending them reeling. Pow. I lean in close, step in, and knee them in the crotch again, pow pow, the bronze-skinned one stumbles back, grabbing for his junk. "What is it with this bitch and going for the nuts!"

"I told you-" I start shouting back, only to be met with the searing pain of a knife swiping through my mask, easily cutting through the flimsy plastic and chipping into my cheek. The white guy's hand cocks back and he swishes back at me, so I step into him and grab his swinging arm, while cold warmth blooms across my face. I anchor up and press, and he starts yelling as I apply pressure to his elbow joint, just like with the other guy trying to get me with a knife. I watch as the pillars in the distance dance and split with Jordan using their power to dodge around blows, and I keep the pressure on the white guy's elbow.

He manages to flip the knife around and nick me under-handed, which startles me enough that I let go. He swipes again and catches me by the shoulder, cutting another gash through my costume, and then the ground ignites underneath me in a plume of yellow fire. I stumble back, trying not to get lit up, and Aaron shoulder rams me in the ribs, sending me soaring down to the ground. I land and roll backwards, remembering my training everywhere in my body, in my muscles, in my bones.

"Fucking freak," Aaron growls, fixing his gaze on me. The white guy gets in between me and Aaron, trying to stab down with the knife, trying to stick me good, but I lurch forward and grab for his legs, wrapping my arms around tight. His jacket ignites, and Aaron tries to swat him out of the way, but I'm holding him fast.

I feel the knife stick in my shoulder. I have to tell you, getting stabbed is a lot less of a pleasant sensation than I assumed it would be. The pain is a lot less than I thought it would be, but the loudest thing to my ears is just the overwhelming feeling of wrongness, my shoulders clenching up around a foreign body that isn't supposed to be there. I can feel every inch of the switchblade inside of me, and just how much my body wants it out. I lunge forward and slam him down onto the ground, onto Aaron, sending the two of them onto the gravel, smothering the fire between them.

I grab the knife, reaching back, pulling it out, feeling the blood come. Nobody's ever taught me what to do with a knife, but I trust my body to handle it, even as it starts screaming, the icy-cold sensation of pain flooding my shoulder at its removal. I bend down, nick the white guy on the palm, and then I reach past him, kneeling on his hips, and do the same to Aaron, before putting the knife between my teeth and biting.

The metal tastes sharp in my mouth. I spit it out, shards and broken plastic. I bite the handle in half, for good measure. Jordan kicks the dark-skinned guy onto the heap.

"I told you. I'm the Big Bad Wolf, and I'm going to bite your dick off," I seethe out from between my teeth.

"Burn," Aaron replies, and I realize that I've been making eye contact with him for too long. I clench my eyes shut and pain shoots through my face as I can only assume my eyelids have been ignited, or maybe my eyelashes, but I slap my palms over them and the cold pain ends, leaving only the world's most high-power itch. It's really, really not good.

The world exists around me only in a haze of blood and darkness. I keep my eyes shut, stumbling backwards, all the blood scattered across the gravel giving me a cursory view of the ground around me. Fuck, that hurts. "You'd blow up a girl's eyes?" I ask Aaron, watching him get up through my blood sense. "Brutal,"

"I'd pop a cap in you if your boyfriend didn't throw my gun in the fucking Delaware," Aaron replies, cold as ice. I get my fists back up, watching the five bodies meander around, getting back up from the ground. I try to shut out my sense of sight, try to turn it off from seeing the inside of my eyelids, so that I can focus on the blood. I can't see Jordan, but I can see everyone reacting to them, watching the guy I bit scrambling at the poker table and then collapsing.

"I don't think that'd work either, Aaron," I reply, charging him. He doesn't turn around fast enough, and my good shoulder rams into him by the ribs, but he's big enough to stand his ground and just grabs me by the hair.

"You've got guts. I'll give you that much,"

"You're so cliche," Jordan drawls, and I see movement, watching as the group is separated across Jordan's powers.

"Where's the fucking first aid kit?!" The greasy guy screams. He gets down underneath what I imagine has to be the table, but he's in the wrong spot for it. "Where's all this fucking dust coming from?"

Aaron swings me around like a gerbil in a sock, lifting me up by my hair, dangling me. My scalp screams in pain, and somehow this hurts more than the being stabbed thing, or at least hurts a much sharper pain, a much brighter one, that ripples over my head. I hear a fwoomf, and assume something's burst into flames. I see Aaron's hand reaching out and then stop, bumping up against something, fingers curving - around Jordan's helmet.

Then, he swings the two of us together like coconuts, and I can almost hear the comical donk of our heads colliding. The world gets spinny, and he swings his arm before letting go of me, sending me rolling around in the bloody gravel. It gets in several of my cuts, my scrapes, my stab wound, rubs up against my burn, and then I feel more flames wash over me, an encompassing chill as my costume is ignited.

Immediately, my lungs scream in protest. "Wolf!" Jordan yells, their boots crunching the gravel as they charge at Aaron. I try to say "look out", before someone's shoulder rams into Jordan, sending them into the ground right next to me, but I'm busy being set on fire. I roll around in the dirt, the gravel, the Delaware-stained muck sitting just underneath, the dust from Jordan's duplications surrounding me in a thick, unbreathable haze, and I feel stupid again.

No. I'm not stupid. I'm not going to die rolling around in the dirt.

I rip off my costume. It's not hard, given that it's cut in several places and weakened by being set on fire - note to self, ask Gossamer to make the next upgrade fire-resistant. Most of it comes loose, all of my sleeves removed, the fabric around my belly, most of my calves. I swat at my hair and grab a fistful of gravel, now in tatters, most of my padding falling out or needing to be discarded from being set on fire. My skin feels like I've been run through a cheese grater. Every part of me screams for relief. I'm left in what's left of a top, revealing the acres of scars across my belly and side, and what are probably the world's ugliest shorts, and my cleats, my gloves, my mask.

The air smells like rotten eggs and burnt skin. I feel hairless.

"Jordan, get us an escape route," I cough, unable to see Jordan with my eyes shut. I can't even tell where they are or if they're still with me - Aaron's deep, bellowing cackle gives me the impression that I just said something stupid.

I force my eyes open. They, too, feel like they've been cheese gratered.

"Look! She's really just taking her clothes off!" Aaron jeers, pointing and laughing, leaning back with every motion. The bare air hurts, the smoke stings, and every little discarded wrapper, everything flammable nearby has been set on fire, filling the underpass with the awful, vomit-inducing smoke of Aaron's powers. "Little slut. Let's put you in the dirt."

I don't reply with words. Instead, I lean back and start screaming, a scream that can't be expressed between quotation marks, my teeth bared. I rip my jawpiece off and fucking throw it at Aaron's head, and he fixes his gaze on me, the jawpiece bursting into flames between the two of us.

He can only burn what he can see. I don't bother looking around to see Jordan. I charge, head lowered, pumping my arms, blood spurting out from my shoulder, and hurl the gravel into his face. He takes one step, two steps back, hands up, trying to block me, and I jump up on him and bring my teeth down against his shoulder.

Crunch.

I don't savor the taste of blood, but I do savor not dying, the sharp tang of survival. I break something in his shoulder - maybe his collarbone - and he yells along with me, trying to focus his gaze on something he can ignite. I can read him now, like a book. His power burns things when he looks at them hard enough. I swish blood in my mouth, blood and saliva, and I spit in his face, spraying a fine mist of blood over his eyes.

He yelps, undignified, and I pull my mouth back, cracking my skull against his. He reels, he stumbles, and he falls on his ass, while I wipe fresh blood from my mouth. "Get the fucking first aid kit!" Aaron shrieks, his eyes screwing up as he tries to force them to remain open. I can see the path of sparks his gaze is tracing as he tries to look at me, so I step on his stomach and then I stomp, so he spits up something, bile rising in his throat. I stomp again, and then step back.

He coughs, sputters, and sprays spit out onto the ground. My body screams for relief, and he affixes his gaze to me with nothing but hate. I block my face with my forearms and tank it, feeling them wrapped in the familiar coating of a piss-colored inferno. If he can't look me in the face, he can't light my eyes up again. But there's not much more I can take, my skin crying in pain, so I stomp on his ankle just to get him to close his eyes and start running.

The Coyotes bray behind me, shouting insults, shouting fury and death and revenge. "Get back here!" one of them cries. "We're gon' fucking get you!" another one shouts, but I can tell, I can smell their stillness. They're intimidated, and they're too afraid of leaving their leader there to die. The only thing I can think about right now, as I try to whip and smack the flames off my forearms, is just where Jordan is. They're not going to leave me. Not yet, are they?

I breathe. I duck out into the darkness, where the light cast by the Coyote's lamps and flashlights can't travel, and immediately dive into the dirt and asphalt, not even caring as it rips my skin open, just so I can smother the rest of the flames beneath me. I lie there, cold and shivering, the earliest of the cuts having healed but my shoulder in just unbearable agony, the adrenaline starting to leave me, starting to remind me of just what I've been through.

I try not to cry. I curl myself up into a ball in the darkness and just wait for them to approach and kick me down. I get myself curled up tight, and when arms wrap around me, I don't reject them.

"Shh. I got you. I pulled this corner out. They're miles away right now, there's no way they could reach us in time," Jordan coos, my angel in black, wrapping some of their body armor over me - I guess to preserve my modesty.

"What a fucking failure," I wheeze out. Saliva dribbles from the corner of my mouth as I rock and twitch underneath Jordan's touch. My eyes are clenched shut, with nothing interesting to look at in the darkness anyway, and I feel the blood ebbing out of me. Have I overestimated how fast I can regenerate? I must've, because the wooziness hits me like a truck, and everything starts spinning.

Okay, minor cuts? Go for it, Sam. Fucking stab wounds? Don't tank those. My head roars like a typhoon, and then something cold and wet presses across my exposed skin, or cold and smooth, some sort of balm or a cream or something. Disinfectant drapes my wounds, something I can tell from the all-familiar rubbing alcohol scent and the sudden chill that rips through each cut, and gauze wraps around me, gauze and padding. "When..." I start to cough, but Jordan shushes me.

"I stole one of their first aid kits, el-oh-el. Don't worry, they have another one in the truck - I just hope they remember in time. Or call 911. Whatever works," Jordan whispers. I can't sense their blood signatures anymore, so either they're really all done bleeding, or they're really all far away, or both. Jordan's hands feel like icicles over my skin as they patch me back up, nursing me back to health. "I learned first aid because I figured one of us would need to."

"Good job," I hiss, shivering in the September evening air.

"Thanks. Oh, and it wasn't a total failure. I'd say we were rather successful, actually," Jordan muses, running a hand through my hair. "You probably scared the shit out of them, and I'm sure they're gonna talk about the crazy bitch who bit Aaron McKinley's shoulder. Plus..."

I hear rustling, and a bunch of stuff comes out of Jordan's hands, rolling onto my face. I open my eyes just enough to see stacks of green illuminated underneath Jordan's phone flashlight, baggies full of weed, baggies full of... other stuff. "I stole all their drugs. And their money."

"Jordan!" I hiss, this time not from exhaustion but from anger. "I can't fucking believe you, dude. Was this-" I pause to cough. "Was this all a game to get their shit?"

"No!" Jordan almost yells back, pulling the faceplate of their helmet up so they can look me in the eye. "I'm going to throw all the real bad shit into the Delaware and keep the weed. The money - I'd say half the money is bounty for us, and the other half we can donate somewhere, like good samaritans. Honestly, it was just all by their tables and in the truck and shit, and I didn't want to leave here empty handed in case we got our ass kicked, so..."

I look at Jordan. I blink a couple of times. I'm trying to read any sort of deception or deceit, but I can see only perfect sincerity in their green eyes. "You're fucking unbelievable."

"I get that a lot. Come on, I set up a dead drop with clothes like three days ago, let's go get a taxi,"

"Can I just sit here like... another five minutes?" I croak back weakly. "In case you haven't noticed, I just almost got burnt to death."

"Yeah yeah, you'll get over it," Jordan replies, rolling their eyes, but I can tell it's just their natural snark coming out on instinct. "Come here, idiot."

Jordan pulls my head up into their lap, and I rest, waiting for my body to heal itself enough to move.