Chapter 6: Darkness

The gun in my hand twitched, but it was by my own doing, as I shifted my aim to the approaching mountain of a man, and pulled the trigger.

Unlike a pellet rifle, the smaller size of the pistol meant that the pellet that it fired could only rocket out of the barrel at just under a thousand feet per second; that translated to commercial airplane speeds, and while technically the pellet gun wasn’t a lethal weapon, it could certainly kill if used right.

For the sake of the racketeering trio, I wasn’t aiming to kill them, simply to hurt them. I aimed for their knees, figuring at such a relatively short distance, I wouldn’t have a lot of trouble hitting them. I tried for three shots each, pulling the trigger as fast as I could, while trying to keep the gun steady. All I really knew about guns was that you’re not really supposed to pull on the trigger, but I was trying to keep from having to show my secrets, and I suppose I was a little desperate for it to work.

It was a good day for me, or I was lucky; Tiny took all three of his shots to one of his knees, and down he went, squalling like a wounded buffalo. Ricardo froze, while his buddy dropped to the floor; that didn’t really save either of them, as Ricardo took two of his shots to a knee and one in his lower thigh, while the last man, Guzman-look-alike, took all three of his shots in his ass, since it was right there, and a large enough target to aim at. The two of them, Ricardo and Guzman-look-alike, howled like a couple of hyenas.

I so wanted to say something to them about not being professionals—professionals would have made sure that I didn’t have a gun to be able to shoot them with; professionals would have had guns of their own; professionals wouldn’t have let me talk my way into getting them all flustered and angry and not thinking—but their lack of professionalism was a benefit to me. I didn’t want to give them any incentive to smarten up. But I couldn’t resist needling them, just a little bit.

“So you yahoos thought, since shit’s all fucked up because people are getting superpowers and the cops don’t know how to handle shit right, that you could just start shaking people down for money, and that because you got someone with a superpower on your team that you could just walk up to someone, say, “give us money” and that they’re just supposed to be scared and hand it over? Really?” I know my tone was heavy with derision and sarcasm. “You didn’t think that somebody would maybe find a way to cause problems?” I almost added, Are you that fucking stupid? but I had enough sense not to.

And besides, the thought that crossed my mind, as the adrenaline rush of shooting the trio of shysters began to start wearing off, made me decide on a different course of action.

“So ... which one of you is gonna tell me who you work for? Tell me, and I won’t shoot you again.”

All three of the interlopers continued to groan and cry out a bit, but Ricardo managed to comment first, “Fuck you, puta!” The Guzman-look-alike managed, “No te estoy diciendo nada!” in a gravelly voice. I turned to Tiny, and he opened his mouth to speak.

“Say anything right now, and I’ll shoot you; in the meantime...” I got in close, and after balling up my fist, I leaned down and cracked him, hard, across the temple. I mean, my normal ‘hard’, not the ‘hard’ that I could really maybe do.

Hitting someone hard enough to knock them out is not nearly as easy as it might look like on television. Well, it is, but it really isn’t, at the same time; on the one hand, hit someone hard enough, and in the right place, and they will definitely go down, and likely go sleepy night-night. On the other hand, you have to hit someone hard enough to cause harm, but not so hard that you accidentally kill them; not something easily done by amateurs. And I won’t lie; knocking a person out was not in my skillset on my resume.

I got lucky.

Tiny went out like a light, after a few seconds of a glazed look on his face and his eyes slowly rolling back in their sockets; he collapsed fully to the carpeted floor, his body limp.

I turned back to the other two.

“Well, that was fun,” I growled at them a bit. “Guess it’s time to take you guys up and drop you off.”

Ricardo groaned. “Fuck you, puta!” he repeated. Guzman-look-alike just glared at me.

“Oh, Ricky,” I chuckled darkly at him, “You have got to come up with something better to say than that.” I turned a bit more, to include the Guzman-look-alike. “Now gentleman, I’m going to pick you up. If either of you try to fight me in any way, I will break your fucking arms. Capice? And if you say “fuck you puta” one more time, Ricky, I’ll break your arms just for the fucking fun of it.”

Ricardo had opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to have a moment of intelligent thought, staying silent instead.

I refrained from saying “good boy”, as I wasn’t trying to antagonize him. I needed him to be compliant for what I had in store for him. With a bit of maneuvering—and deliberately ‘accidentally’ jostling the two of them enough to aggravate their injuries—I picked the two of them up, around their backs and under their arms, and made my way out of the door.

“Where are you taking us, ese?” Guzman-look-alike finally spoke, his voice calm, but his eyes gazed upon me murderously.

With almost divine timing, the lights in the parking lot—what of them were working, anyway—began to turn on. In the short time that the men had come to my motel room to come after me, it had gotten a little bit dark outside; the higher reaches of the sky were a deep, midnight blue, while the horizon was still in a little bit of pale blue, some fushcia red, and darker royal blues. The coming darkness would work in my favor.

“Ir con dios,” I answered him, “that’s where.”

I felt Guzman-look-alike tense up, as though he were going to do something, and I tightened my grip around him. “Don’t forget, I won’t hesitate to break your arms.” I felt him go still again. “You can take it like a man, or you can take it like a puta; your choice. But you’re gonna get it either way, so I’d say to be a man about it.”

Ricardo didn’t respond, didn’t react, and I didn’t care if he was paying attention. I led the pair to the nearest darker spot in the parking lot, squatted down just a little bit, and then leapt up into the air.

That got a reaction from Ricardo, though, as well as from Guzman-look-alike; the pair swore and babbled in Spanish for a few seconds, as I rapidly put lots of air between us and the ground, before Ricardo managed, “Holy fuck- you can fly?? You got powers, too??”

I snorted, even though I didn’t know if he could really hear that over the rush of the air around us. “See what happens when you assume that everyone you’re trying to steal from is powerless to stop you,” I tossed back at him. I started heading south, as far as I could tell with the setting of the sun, though I kept climbing until I could see the glimmer of the sun again on the horizon; we were hung just below the lowest level of the clouds in the sky. I took my time, not trying to fly at my fastest speed—which I still didn’t quite know—but it wasn’t long before I was crossing out into the open waters of the Gulf with the two in my arms.