Chapter 2

I thought going to the police station was because Jennings wanted to continue talking about the two people who attacked me. Boy was I wrong.

When Thurgood brought me in, he escorted me to an interview room. I wasn’t under arrest but sat alone for a long time. I had plenty of time to study all the details that weren’t there. There weren’t any decorations. The walls were made of cedar brick and painted white. The floor looked like marble and was very shiny, but I was sure it was only very well-polished linoleum on top of concrete. There were no windows, and the door was heavy wood. There wasn’t any paper on which I could write, nor a pen to use. There weren’t any officers or detectives to whom I might talk about what happened. Oddly, there wasn’t a large mirror behind which someone would be recording my every move and utterance. The only furniture was a plain, wooden table, and two plastic-on-metal chairs, on one of which I sat.

I didn’t have my phone, nor a watch. There wasn’t a clock in the room. I had no way of knowing just how long I sat there. The passing time allowed me to replay what happened on the trail over and over. They were sent to kill me. Someone wanted me dead. Who? Why? Worse, they said they would be back. They hadn’t accomplished their mission.

The door opened and Detective Jennings came in, carrying a file folder and a cup of coffee. “Sorry for taking so long,” he said as he sat down across from me. He set down his coffee and opened the folder. He arranged some papers in front of him. I recognized many of the forms from working in the file room. He pulled out a little notebook and a pen. He wrote down the date and time, and asked his first question, “So, tell me, Mr. Sutton, where did you find those weapons?”

I swallowed my fear. The pair that came after me on the trail wouldn’t attempt anything while I was inside a police station. I had to focus on what was going on in front of me. I stared at him with a severe frown on my face. “I didn’t find those weapons. Somebody else brought them to the park.”

He didn’t write anything down but continued with a different question. “So, you bought them?” he asked.

I studied the detective’s aura. He was certain I had fired those weapons. “No. I did not purchase them. They were fired at me.”

He looked down to write something but then stopped and looked at me again. His eyes darted over me, examining me for injuries. “You aren’t hurt. You don’t have a scratch on you,” he said.

I recalled the daggers sticking out of my shoulder and upper arm. I also recalled healing. I pulled down the blanket and turned to show the detective my shoulder. “That pink hole in my shoulder is where I was hit by a hand-thrown dagger. There’s another on the back of my upper arm.”

He frowned at me. “Those look weeks old.”

I grimaced and glared at the door. “Talk to Officer Thurgood,” I said. “He saw why they look the way they do.”

He shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“I can heal myself of minor wounds,” I said. “Thurgood was standing behind me when I healed the scrapes and cuts on my back and arms. He stood closer to me than you are now.”

“He never mentioned anything like that,” Jennings said, pulling the paperwork on the table to himself.

“That’s because he’s not sure what he saw,” I said with less vehemence. “Other than in movies, you don’t usually see cuts close up in front of you. He will, very likely, leave it out of his report.”

Jennings looked up from the pile of paperwork and studied me for a minute. “Are you accusing him of lying on his report?”

I shook my head. “No, nothing of the sort. I have, however, talked to several other officers. I’ve trained with them and worked in the filing room at another precinct. One tenant of belief is to run with the simplest, most obvious answers to questions. In this case, Thurgood would ask himself if he saw the cuts on my back close up and heal over. His answer would be no. I may have had red marks on my back but they disappeared just like on anyone else. He’s not going to report something he cannot prove.”

Jennings wrote more notes in his notebook. “You worked in the filing room of which precinct?”

I told him.

“Is that what made you feel you could get away with firing weapons in the park?” He asked.

I pulled the blanket back over my shoulder for warmth. The room was cold and this line of questioning was going nowhere. “Once again, I did not fire those weapons. I never touched those weapons. I fought the two people trying to kill me. I don’t know who they are or why they were after me, but they are out there. It would be my luck to argue with you about it here and now, only for them to gun me down in the street while waiting for a bus after I leave.”

He looked up. “Who said you’re going anywhere?”

“Am I being charged with a crime?” I asked, getting angry again.

“I haven’t filed charges, yet,” he said.

“Then either ask me about the two people who attacked me, or I’m leaving,” I said.

He stared at me for a moment. I stared right back at him, allowing myself to cool down again. “Very well,” he said slowly. “You say two people attacked you, but you don’t know who they are or why they attacked you.” His voice was flat, which told me he was only patronizing me.

“That is correct,” I said.

“Did they say anything? Such as demand your wallet, or give you a message from anyone?” he asked.

I recalled how the incident started and what was said, emphasizing the woman’s urgency to kill me quickly so they could leave. The detective seemed reluctant to take notes but I kept reminding him. Once he had that down he looked them over.

“You say they fired those weapons at you,” he said, and I had to correct him.

“No. He fired the weapons at me,” I said, emphasizing the pronouns. “She threw some kind of daggers or throwing knives at me.”

“Right,” he said, but continued with his original question, “If two people attacked you with weapons, then why aren’t you hurt? Even standing behind a big, sturdy tree, something should have hit you.” Then he snapped his fingers and said sarcastically, “That’s right. You can heal minor wounds.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t hide behind a tree, but the bullets and buckshot never hit me.”

“Are you suggesting they were that bad at aiming their weapons?” he asked in that same tone.

I frowned harder. “One of the officers spotted the pile of bullets and buckshot I left on the ground. I doubt the forensics techs would have missed it. If the man had missed every shot, it would have taken me days to collect every bit, restore them all to pristine condition, and pile them up like that.”

“And how do you explain this miraculous collection?” he asked.

“At the scene, I told the officers about my shield,” I said. “Additionally, when the officers came out of the woods and barked at me to put up my hands, my shield reappeared.” I scooted back from the table. “I’m simply going to show it to you now.” I stood up, pulled off the blanket, laid it on the table, and summoned my shield. It winked into existence and hovered over my arm.

Jennings stared at my face for a moment, looking unimpressed. Then he looked directly at my shield. “Neat trick.”

“This is not a trick,” I said and began to wonder why he didn’t react to the shield’s instant appearance. However, I stepped closer to the table and tapped the top of the table with the edge of my shield. “It’s very real and it catches bullets.”

He looked up at me. “You mean it deflects bullets?”

I shook my head. “No, it catches them and holds them until it disappears. Then, everything it has caught falls into a pile on the ground.”

“You say he was shooting at you, and she was throwing daggers,” he said, standing up and looking me over. “Were they standing together?”

“Oddly enough, yes,” I said. Thinking back on the situation, their tactic to stand together made no sense. But then we hadn’t gotten to the part about how he could conjure doorways in mid-air that allowed him to shoot in one direction, but the bullets and buckshot come out somewhere else in an entirely different trajectory.

“So, they were both close enough that your shield caught everything?”

I nodded, standing in front of him with my shield in front of me.

He looked it over. “It may be big, but it doesn’t completely cover you. Why didn’t they go for a headshot?”

I nodded. “I didn’t give them the chance. I dropped to the ground like this.” And I showed him.

He studied me for a second and then said, “And you said the shield catches everything?”

I stood up again and said, “Yes.”

He turned away, but then spun toward me and threw something.

Instinctively, I held up my shield, and a pen stuck to it, ball-point first. I crouched in a ready position and watched the Detective, waiting to see what he would do next. His speed and accuracy surprised me. Yes, he could have hit me in the neck. My only real relief was that he didn’t. On the other hand, there was his thought process. If I had been lying, he could have injured me with his pen. Either he wanted to prove to me that I was lying or prove to himself that I was telling some truth. I just didn’t know which.