Bianca stumbled through the darkness, her grip still painfully tight on the steel baseball bat. Her phone was in one hand, the flashlight on. It barely cut through the shadows, illuminating just a few feet ahead of her. She walked on the outside of her feet, right on the balls, like Katie had taught her how to do. She stopped before every corner. Crouched and listened as she huddled away in the dark. At some point, she’d gotten separated from the guard, but hey, she’d admit it was her fault.
Something had told her to keep going, keep searching, to slip out of his watch when he was focused on saving other people. Ben used to call it the Ross Instinct, but that was hokey, because she could feel something wrong down to the marrow of her bones. Her mom always told her not to listen to it, and her dad would chuckle and shake his head, thinking she was just making it up, but it was true, this feeling bubbling in her gut, this sense that there was still something to find in the dark. She didn’t know if anyone was still in the complex. Olympia must still be here somewhere, searching. She nodded, not really knowing if that was reassuring or not. It didn’t matter for now.
She stood from her crouch, stalking down the corridor. Her breaths were tempered, slow, but her heartbeat betrayed her, banging against her ribcage like some siren. She couldn’t be afraid. Ben wouldn’t have been. He would have been right here with her. Hell, he would have probably beaten a Kaiju half to death with his bare hands if it so much as sneaked up on her. The thought made her smile, made her keep going. She wished she had something more than just a metal bat to use against them, but she couldn’t exactly carry around a gun or a machete, so a bat would have to do, and a whole lot of praying that she was right in following her gut instinct. Bianca hoped that same instinct wouldn’t be the reason she died here. Alone. In the dark. Please can I be right.
Bianca reached the upper levels of the shopping center and looked over the railing. The ground floor was far, far below her. A fall from up here would kill her. But she leaned over the side, anyway, straining to listen, hearing nothing but the low grumble of fighting and distant Kaiju rumblings. Not what her gut was pointing her toward, then. She turned, then silently startled when she found a midnight black cat staring back at her, its luminous yellow eyes reflecting her phone’s light. It meowed, circled her legs, then bounded away, its silver necklace jingling as it ran.
And oddly enough, this strange feeling inside of Bianca told her to follow it. She knew it was stupid on some level, but she’d climbed up trees to grab soccer balls for kids in the park before. Bianca knew what stupid was, like running in front of a Kaiju even if she didn’t have any real protection and smashing a baseball bat against its skull. Knew what brash decisions were. And following a cat wasn’t one of them, at least, she hoped it was—it was a good thing the darkness was so heavy, so leering, like it was somehow nighttime outside and the gloom was slowly seeping indoors, so nobody could see her running after a cat that leapt over chairs and stalls, darted into and out of stores. Her breaths became hotter, her muscles straining. She was an athlete, even had a scholarship, but keeping up with a frightened cat that seemed to want to vanish from her was—
She turned a corner and skidded to a halt, her sneakers squealing on the floor.
Katie was standing in front of her, a piece of bloodied rebar in her fist. She swore, then put up her hand to block the light. “Turn that damned thing down, superhero,” she hissed quietly.
“Sorry,” she whispered, lowering her phone. “Where the hell did you disappear off to?”
Or was Katie the reason she was so deep into the shopping center right now? Bianca didn’t know, and she figured it didn’t really matter. The feeling was starting to dissipate, vanish slowly.
Katie shrugged. “I was already in here trying to find the bathroom when the Kaiju attacked, then the lights went off, and fu… Hell, it’s been a long, long hour. Why the hell are you here?”
“Long story,” Bianca said. Katie tilted her head, and she sighed. “That gut feeling again.”
“Stronger than before?”
Bianca shrugged one shoulder, following Katie as they continued back down the corridor. She couldn’t even hear Katie’s footsteps, was how softly she walked. “Just like the other times.”
Katie’s eyes looked her over in that intrusive, uncomfortable way. “And now?”
“I don’t know, Kates,” she said. “It’s kinda just gone now. Like it’s turned off.”
Like I’ve got some kind of freaking spider-sense, she thought, feeling a little dumb.
Katie simply nodded, turning around to keep carving her way through the dark as if she could see just fine. The line of her jaw was sharp, the tattoos peeking out from underneath her collar coiling and long, slithering around her throat. Bianca studied her for a little bit, trying to spot where the blood on the rebar could have gotten on her arms. Her leather jacket was around her waist, and her ripped sleeveless top exposed her toned arms and littering of ink. Nothing. She was clean. Had she fought a Kaiju? No, all Katie knew how to do was kickbox, just like Ben had. Sure, she looked like a bad influence, and she was trying to quit smoking, but killing someone?
“Hey, Kate?” Bianca whispered. “By any chance, did you see a cat pass by you?”
“What? No. Keep quiet for a sec.” She slowed her walk, clutched the metal tighter.
Then she swung the rebar out in front of Bianca, stopping her dead in her tracks. Bianca gripped the metal bat, now high alert, her eyes searching, fear spiking in her bloodstream. Katie said nothing. Only watched the shadows. Probably inhaled that same saccharine stink of burning sugar in the air as Bianca was doing. Did she see something? Someone? Bianca couldn’t tell at all. She’d asked about the cat to ease the lingering tension in the air; it was something Ben used to do, even at their grandfather’s funeral, even when he was getting bad grades in the last few months he was around. Bianca wasn’t as good at it, telling jokes, but she hated tension, hated the seriousness.
But it was everywhere now, prickling against her skin. She was a superhuman, yes, but when she awakened, instead of a hospitalized occurrence, all she got was a one day flu. She’d stubbed her toe more painful than when it arrived. But it was reassurance, at least a little bit, that she could at least defend herself from a Kaiju, or maybe from some criminal taking their chance.
A dagger of ice slid down her spine, then Katie shoved her to the wall. Her shoulder smacked against brick, then, seconds later, whistling through the air, a glimmer of metal dug into the floor. Sparks spat up into the dark. Bianca blinked, breathed. What the fuck was that?
It looked like some kind of dagger. A small knife. She backed away, bat in hand.
Katie whipped around as two more high pitched whistles cut the air. Metal bit into metal, spitting sparks, as she used the rebar to deflect the daggers. She grabbed Bianca’s wrist, yanking her away, breaking out into a sprint that hurt to follow. She heard footsteps behind her, silent patters against the tiles. Her heart raced, leaping up into her throat. She asked Katie what was going on, what was happening, but she got nothing in response as she led Bianca down a corridor, into a store, out through the other side, stopped, swore, corrected herself, and ran the other way.
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“What the hell are we running from?” Bianca asked, breaths hot in her throat.
“Nothing, unless you want to get impaled,” Katie hissed.
Katie only stopped running when they got to the railing, the same railing Bianca had just looked over several minutes before. She wasn’t even panting or breathing hard. Bianca was sweaty, antsy, her blood hot in her veins. Katie looked around, listened for a moment, then took Bianca by the shoulder, quite literally grabbing her attention, making her focus on nothing else.
“You see the ground floor down there?” she asked hurriedly.
Bianca nodded. “Of course I do. What’s that got to—”
Katie grabbed her side, her arm, then heaved her over the railing. It was sudden, floating for a second, then her gut was flying as she fell and fell fast toward the floor below her. She screamed, panicked, flailed her arms until she grabbed hold of the railing two floors beneath Katie. Her arms jerked. Pain shot through her shoulders. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself over the ledge, swinging her leg over the railing and back onto the cold floor. She panted, cursed. Dragged her forearm across her forehead, trying and failing to stop sweat from dripping into her eyes.
What the hell was that?! she thought, shakily standing up. I nearly freaky died!
Then she heard a faint noise, more metal on shrieking metal. Silence from above. Bianca backed away from the ledge. Shit. She’d dropped her bat. Was Katie alright? She didn’t have the time to figure it out. A blurred figure in black landed softly on the railing, cat-like. She couldn’t see their eyes, their face; all she saw was the long, long piece of metal they held in their free hand. Blood was on its edge, dripping off its tip. Bianca’s eyes widened, felt her gut turn into a knot. She kept backing away, one footstep at a time, before a hand darted out from the dark to her right.
A blade glinted in their hold, cutting its way through the air and toward her throat.
Her body jerked backward, slamming her against a wall, missing the blade by an inch. Again it jerked, dodging the next stab and slice, her feet moving, her not in control. She swore as her body dived, missing another dagger thrown from the darkness. What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, she thought, her body picking itself up, then turning to run, stopping suddenly when a slim, tall figure pealed out from the darkness ahead, dual blades wielded in their hands, dragging them along the tiles and making this awful, shrieking sound as sparks were vomited into life.
“Hey, hey!” she said, trying to put her arms up to pause them, but finding that her fists were locked in place, her arms no better. “Hold on. If you’re looking for cash, I don’t have any. If—”
The figure pelted forward, as silent as a panther through the jungle. They lunged, blades extended, cutting a clean line through Bianca’s t-shirt as she leaped backward, somersaulting onto her hands, through the air, and onto a low table outside of an empty restaurant. How the hell did I just do that? She was athletic, but not leap-through-the-air athletic. The thought vanished as soon as the sword came cutting back, cutting clean through the wooden table with one sharp swing. She leaped away, rolled on her shoulder, and ran. Ran like hell. But the sounds of shoes were behind her. Closing in. For once in the past minute she agreed with her body, tried to push it onward.
Until she turned a corner and didn’t stop sprinting toward a ledge.
She tried to stop her legs from moving. Tried to shout and yell, telling her body to quit it.
Then she was in the air, pushing off the railing with so much force that she hurtled directly toward a banner hanging in the large open space. Her hands grasped onto thick cloth, sliding with her momentum until her palms burnt. The banner tore, swinging her onto the lower floor. But her body wasn’t done, even though her gut was very, very close to spilling out of her mouth. She grabbed onto the ledge, pushed off, spread her arms and then rolled to a stop on the ground floor. She clattered into chairs and tables, potted plants and signs advertising a new Olympia movie.
Bianca groaned, getting onto all fours. Her muscles were burning, and so was the base of her neck. She massaged it, then winced at the throbbing pain. “What’s going on with me?”
“Good, you’re here,” Katie said, suddenly beside her, scaring Bianca half to death. She took her by the elbow, pulled her to her feet. “Out through the door of the sports section, there’s a fire escape. N.O.F.D are out there helping people escape. Don’t dare stop for anything, got it?”
“No! No I don’t ‘got it,’” Bianca said, grabbing hold of Katie and…
She peeled her hands off Katie’s forearm. Her fingers came back wet and dark.
Bianca looked up from her hand, looked at Katie’s face for the first time. Blood freckled her jaw, and murder was in her eyes, gleaming dark and sultry. Bianca stepped back, mind racing.
“What’re you waiting for?” Katie snarled. Sounds from above. More were coming. Bianca looked upward—the one with the swords was standing on the railing, watching from above.
“K—” Bianca was breathing hard, panicked. Blood on her hands. She tried wiping it onto her jeans; didn’t come off, too much, too wet. “Katie, please, just talk to me. What’s going on?”
Her thin eyebrows furrowed. She grabbed her by the jaw painfully, staring into her eyes, then she swore. Maybe. It was in another language. Arabic, maybe. “Of course. Shocked you out.”
Bianca slapped her hand away. She knew she should run, but the figures in black were gathering around them, closing off the exits. Nowhere to run away to. Nowhere to hide. They crouched on the railings, on tables and the stringy wires that crossed the space between floors. They’re like ravens, she thought, her mouth dry as she stared at the one still furthest away. The one that had been just inches from gutting Bianca open from rib to rib. That one stood perfectly still, a shadow cast over their face—no, over the bronze and black mask they wore, covering their face.
“Listen, B,” Katie said, back to her now, pressed against her, protecting. “There’s a lot of shit I was planning on telling you today—sorry for swearing—and I hate that this is how you found out. I wasn’t planning on just hanging out with you today, too, but plans change, I guess.”
Bianca kept her back to Katie’s, now realizing that yes, she’d taught her this, too. Katie taught her how to kickbox, how to grapple. She wasn’t great at either, but it was fun. Bonding. It made her feel like she was getting to know more about Ben by being with someone who almost knew him better than she did. But all these months of running, climbing, lifting weights and being in the gym until late at night with nobody but Katie, was it just some kind of training? Prep? Who were these people trying to kill her? She’d never even jaywalked in her entire life, let alone made people mad enough to try and slaughter her. Was… No. The thought didn’t make any sense to her.
But… was this what Ben was dealing with in those last few months? In those late nights when he’d park his bike outside and just sit on it, staring into nothing but the shadows around him.
It almost felt like that day when she wore black all over again, like she didn’t really know anything about him. It had been closed casket, and till this day, a part of her didn’t want to believe that he was in there. That distance, that gap between reality and hope, was pushing her away from the world around her, from Katie, making her feel a little numb, blind, a little bit fucking angry.
Katie nudged her lower back. “Focus, B. I need you to focus and listen to my voice.”
Bianca’s mouth drew into a thin line as the one far above the rest descended, jumping straight from the top to the ground, barely buckling as they landed in a barely audible thud. They rose, blades extended. She tasted bitter acid in her mouth as she stared into those dark black slits.
“We’re gonna have to talk, Katie,” Bianca said to her, jaw clenching.
The one with the blades thrusted a sword outward, and then they ran forward.
Katie grabbed Bianca’s wrist painfully, pulled her close, and then clutched onto the silver necklace laced around her throat. An icy chill engulfed them both from the ground upward, and moments before she felt her body feel lighter, feel like it was floating, her world was encased in wispy darkness. The swords lowered, and the one staring right at her vanished back into the dark, but not before staring at her, unclasping the upper part of her mask to stare at her with black eyes.
When the darkness vanished, Bianca bounced on her bed and onto her bedroom carpet, smacking her head against a forgotten dumbbell. She cursed, massaged her forehead, and looked around, trying to find Katie, but all she found was a dusting of black fur all over her white carpet.
That sickly feeling was flooding her veins again, crawling underneath her skin, making her itch with nerves. Something was wrong, very wrong. What the hell am I? she thought, looking at her shaking hands, at the wet blood still brushed over her palm. What was Ben hiding from me?