“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap,” Geo said, pushing his right foot off the pavement as he rode down the street on his skateboard. The gray minivan in pursuit would catch up in seconds, and by the half-crazed looks on the faces of the guys up front, they’d run him over if he didn’t stop. His two friends were starting to lag behind him and if they got caught, he’d have no choice but to fight. “Pick up the pace before we get wrecked out here!”
“Geo, man, this is nuts!” Jamie yelled over the sound of their wheels scraping against the concrete. His long dark bangs were whipping in the wind with such intensity that Geo doubted his friend could see where he was going. “We should duck indoors.”
“Nah, we stop, and they beat the hell outta us. It was just some M&M’s. There’s not even a scratch on that window.”
“I-I’m gonna call the cops,” Wilson said, huffing and puffing like he was on the verge of an asthma attack.
“They don’t got time for this. I already called for help, we just gotta get a little—”
Geo skidded to a halt as the minivan drove past him, then pulled to a stop in front of them. He turned, getting ready to skate off in the opposite direction, but his crew didn’t have his stamina. They had been skating at top speed for blocks, desperate to get away, and were exhausted. A trio of grown muscle-heads got out of the car, one of them holding a crowbar.
Geo glanced around at the few people passing by, none of them wanting to get involved. Everybody was all kumbaya in those first few weeks after the invasion, donating clothes and offering shelter, but that had quickly worn out its welcome, and now compassion was at an all-time low. He pulled his chrome bo staff with blue accents from his half-zipped backpack and spun it to extend it to its full-length. Back when he was younger, he’d done some Karate for a couple of months before losing interest, but he’d at least learned to use the staff competently. “Yo, I’ve faced down demons with this thing. Think I’m scared of you assholes? You best fall back.”
The guys in front of Geo snorted with laughter at his bluff. He must have been shaking. Despite both being older and taller than him, neither Jamie nor Wilson were scrappers. One-on-one, he was pretty sure he could take any of these guys, but this wasn’t a movie, and murder-rates were through the roof. One of them made a run at Geo, so he smacked his staff into the man’s ribs.
The man swore, taking a step back. As Jamie and Wilson whooped from the sidelines, Geo’s confidence soared. “See? What’d I tell you? Keep testing me and you’re gonna regret it.”
The other two ran at him and Geo swept his staff in an arc, aiming for the legs of the one with the crowbar. As the man jumped over it and raised the forked piece of iron above Geo’s head, he grasped that this entire string of events were not some of his better life-choices. Wilson was sprinting toward him, but even if he didn’t have all that blubber weighing him down, he’d never make it.
Before the crowbar could hit its mark, a teenager with dark blue hair, shaved short on the sides and back, caught it in his gloved right hand. “You’re seriously about to bludgeon a kid for throwing some candy at your car? Don’t think that’s going a little overboard?”
Geo exhaled and drew back, standing by Wilson on the sidewalk to watch the show. This was gonna be good.
“Dude, who’s that?” Wilson whispered. “I thought you were calling Jett so he could put some of that boxing to use. That guy’s smaller than me.”
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Geo chuckled, then realized that with the long-sleeved shirts Rodrigo was forced to wear now, it was impossible for a stranger to tell how much muscle he had packed on recently. “That’s my cousin. Trust me, he’s got this.”
“One of that Karma kid’s groupies? You actually think you can do anything alone?” the man with the crowbar asked. Caity Wright, news anchor turned host of the world’s most popular talk show about all things supernatural, had unintentionally given Rodrigo the name with her ill-timed, overexcited cheer, ‘Now, that’s karma!’ She had been reacting to his first appearance footage from the Bloodstone hotel, a video that had now racked up over a billion views online.
Rodrigo released the crowbar and held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I don’t really want to find out. Look, you gave them a good scare, and they learned their lesson. I doubt they’ll do anything like this again. How about we just call it—”
The guy that Geo had hit in the ribs, took a swing at Rodrigo. Geo could tell his cousin had to slow his reaction time for onlookers as he side-stepped the blow. With his left hand, Rodrigo curled his fingers inward and using the heel of his palm, struck the man in the nose, smashing it in a spurt of blood. In his right hand, Rodrigo caught a kick from the other unarmed man and shoved his foot up, knocking him to the ground. Crowbar-guy, who seemed like the ringleader, was the only one still standing.
“Now,” Rodrigo said, all levity leaving his voice as it dropped in pitch. “Get in the car and drive away before you get something you don’t want.”
The crowbar-guy must have seen something in Rodrigo’s hazel eyes, convincing him that pushing things further would end badly because after his two friends collected themselves, he listened.
“Is my girl’s brother a gangster?” Jamie asked, nearly cowering behind Wilson’s bulk.
Geo turned to him and blinked. “What?”
“I mean, I’ve been wondering cuz he stays wearing black and purple...he’s even got the dyed hair. Those are the Dusks colors.”
“The Dusks ain’t a gang, they’re vigilantes.”
“Still, he’s one of them?”
“Yeah, I guess. He doesn’t talk about it,” Geo said. Being able to blend in with a group of teens and young adults inspired by Karma was a convenient cover for the real deal to continue dressing the way he did.
“If you guys are going to cut school, how about staying inside and playing video games?” Rodrigo asked as he came over to them. “This isn’t the old days when you could go around pulling dumb-ass pranks.”
“Thanks for the save, dude, but ‘the old days’ were only five months ago,” Wilson said. Geo wondered how Rodrigo would react if he mentioned that this was the Wilson who told him about the house on Swan Street where Jett said some creature had nearly killed them all.
“Exactly. What the demons did is still fresh. People are pissed and looking for any excuse to go off the deep end. Don’t be the ones to give it to them. Especially, when you’re not ready to face the consequences.” Rodrigo fixed Jamie in particular with a hard stare as he said that. “Anyway, I’m taking my cousin home. You two stay safe.”
After Geo gave them each a fist bump, Wilson and Jamie skated off.
“You’ve got to stop doing this,” Rodrigo said.
“Are you serious? You don’t even go to school anymore,” Geo said.
“Because all that needs to happen is for someone to say or do anything to set his highness off, and my secret’s out. Besides, I’m not talking about cutting class. This is the third time you’ve called me to have your back and the situations keep getting worse. If I showed up a second later today, at best, you would be on your way to a hospital.”
Geo sighed. Rodrigo was getting a bit preachy lately. Probably because his alter ego was a bigger deal right now than virtually any celebrity, athlete, or politician. Most Americans thought Karma was a gift from God, others imagined he was the devil himself. Funny how close to the truth the second of the two was. Still, so long as Rodrigo didn’t rat him out to his brother, he’d gladly keep enduring the sermons.
“I don’t get why you won’t call Jett. Even from his school he could make it to you way faster than I could. Better punished and alive than dead, you know?”
“Okay, okay, I got it. I’ll call him next time,” Geo said, though really he was wondering whether Adena cared about him enough to come through if he needed her. “So, are we going to the base or what?”
“Yeah. Come on,” Rodrigo said, and they started walking.