Okay then.

  I’ll start breathing again any moment now.

  Yep.

  I’m pretty sure she pulled that punch. When she works out, the heavy bag bends nearly in half at every blow. I’ve seen her spar in the ring, her opponents windmilling through the air in all directions, flying into the ropes, flopping to the mat. She could’ve hit me so much harder, true, but it still hurt.

  You know what? I’m done.

  I doubt I can get her transferred or whatever. The Paranormal Assessment Unit, our department in the FBI, isn’t that big, but I’ve had it. Maybe I should report it to HR. It’s what I would tell somebody else to do.

  Finally the breath comes, later than I always think it will, even with all the practice I’ve been getting lately. I spend some time just choking down as much beautiful air as I want.

  Could I check in with the SAC?

  No. That’d be unprofessional. I’m supposed to go to Cal, my immediate supervisor, but she and Monica have been partners for years, and I wonder how objective she could be. Yeah, I have to see Cal about this. She can’t make the right call if I don’t give her the chance. Afterward, if it doesn’t go the way it should, I can ask for an appointment with the SAC. I’ve never met Special Agent in Charge Pomerantz, and it’s probably past time I should.

  A pair of legs comes into view. Monica’s feet are bare. They’d taken her shoes.

  She says, “The scene’s secure.” She sniffs. “You got a radio on you?”

  Is she crying? I can’t tell behind her glasses. Hell, I’d be crying too.

  “Coms in the helmet,” I croak and gesture toward the SUV that brought me here. To her rescue.

  She leaves to go get it.

  The scene is secure, she said. That means the Sidorovs are all dead or in handcuffs. Or both, knowing Monica.

  I’m just going to sit here where I fell and wait. My phone’s in a pocket on my upper arm. If it still works, I should order breakfast. Eat it right here, if I’m ever hungry again.

  Something taps me on the head.

  “Ow!” I say, more out of surprise than pain.

  It’s Monica holding out my helmet, her mouth in a grimace, her finger following one of two long grooves burrowed into the carbon fiber. “What are these?” she says. “Did you get shot? Again? Stand up.”

  I shake my head. “Look, I just want to—.”

  “Stand up!” She punches the helmet into my chest so I’ll take it and gets me under my arm. It’s doubtful she can lift me from that angle, but I know it’ll get damned painful because she’s damned sure going to try. I can’t tell if her expression is anguished or furious or what, but her eyebrows are dueling into furrows deeper than anything in my hat.

  I stand up.

  “Twice in the head?” she says. “Oh, and look.” She plucks something from the front of my vest, winces, then drops it. “Still hot? Just now?”

  I nod. “Not sure which one of them did it,” I say, nodding at the dead. Since I’ve looked at them, I can’t seem to look away. Seven heaps cooling in their blood in Yingling’s parking lot like so much trash on the curb, and I put them there.

  “Hey.” Monica steps back into my view, eclipsing all those corpses. She’s examining my vest with a critical eye. “Jesus, how many times did they--? How’re your ribs? Did I—?”

  “No, no,” I say. “It hurts, but it’s not bad, thank you.”

  She spins me around, and I nearly fall over.

  “Three more in your back plate,” she says.

  “I thought it was two.”

  “Three.” Now her hands are all over me, searching, probing for wounds, calling my attention to every cut and tear, including the hole that knife made in my boot. When she’s done, she stands off from me, staring out toward the runways and terminals in the near distance.

  “Did you call it in?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “You do it.”

  Fine.

  I put the helmet back on my head.

  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

  Pretty soon everybody that was at the airport waiting for the Sidorovs is now in Yingling’s slowly filling parking lot. Agents are busy with their crime scene tape, talking with Yingling’s security and administration, not talking to me.

  I’d sat back down when Monica walked off after I called it in, so I have time to go through my phone.

  There are three new notifications from the App.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  +1 to Skateboard.

  +1 to Luck.

  +1 to Nerve.

  None of that surprises me, in particular. I should be happy. That’s a lot of improvement, right? Plus, I haven’t leveled up anything in months. Instead, I feel heavy and tired.

  My character sheet now looks like this:

  Name: Benjamin Pierce Walker

  Sponsor: None.

  Age: 24

  Prime Attributes

  STR: 2    DEX: 3    CON: 3

  INT: 3    WIS: 2    CHA: 3

  Learned Attributes

  PER: 3    STA: 3    EDU: 2

  Skills

  Brawling +2

  Computers +1

  Dodge +2

  History +1

  Library +1

  Listen +2

  Luck +3

  Nerve +2

  Psychoanalysis +1

  Psychology +1

  Skateboard +1

  Slingshot +1

  Write +2

  CURSED!

  Malocchio 4

  Good Eye 4

  Fine. Good. Yay.

  I scroll up. I scroll down. Click on some links there on the sheet that I’ve been meaning to read, but I can’t concentrate. I should probably find something else to pretend to look at while Monica, Cal, and Amir huddle up to talk by the kid’s surveillance van. From their glances, it’s easy to tell it’s me they’re discussing. I’m sure it’s just as clear to them I’m pretending not to be watching them.

  Monica’s angry. She wields her index finger like a rapier, pointing it up for impatient emphasis, slashing it horizontally in negation, stabbing it down in assertion.

  Amir says something and Monica levels that digit at the kid’s dominant eye and speaks very slowly, like she’s menacing an idiot. I’m pretty sure she’s swearing at him.

  What is her deal?

  Cal’s had enough and holds up both hands in a calming gesture, patting the air.

  When the finger comes around on her, Cal barks some kind of dismissal at Amir, who spins on his heel and leaves, while Cal takes Monica by both shoulders and guides her so that the smaller woman’s back is against the van. When Monica objects, Cal pushes her into it so that the whole thing rocks.

  Cal is a big woman, built on a different scale than most. At six feet, four inches, she towers over the little Latina, and while Cal’s got soft curves, she’s also hugely strong. I’ve seen her at the agency gym too. She bench presses twice what I do.

  Not that I’m any kind of athlete, but still.

  Monica does not like whatever Cal is telling her, but she nods anyway.

  Cal points over to where the ambulances have parked and Monica, sulking, goes. My boss glances over to where I’m sitting, takes a moment to gather herself, and then approaches.

  She looks down at me a long time. “I thought I told you to stand down,” she says with a smirk.

  “Well, Calliope, I—.”

  “Really?” She puts her hands on her hips and smirks.

  “Yep. Amir told me.”

  She sighs and smiles. “Dad was a classics professor.”

  “Calliope’s one of the muses, right?”

  “Got it in one.” Cal sits beside me there on the tarmac, even though it’s a long way down for her and that pants suit looks expensive. “Big name. Lots of syllables. Mom says I grew into it.”

  I smile then wince. “I did, you know. I stood down and came here to wait. Everybody thought they were going to the airport. The universe had other ideas, I guess.”

  She nods, her long brown hair falling over an eye. “We think they knew we would get there first and had the helicopter meet them here.” She pushes her errant locks back into place and looks over at me. “She’d have been gone, Ben. They’d have disappeared into the wind with her and we’d never know what happened to her.”

  “She really hates me.”

  Cal says nothing.

  I wasn’t expecting that. Should I tell her she hit me? No, I just can’t. God knows what I’d do right after something like that. “Am I in trouble?”

  “Hard to say.” Cal looks over at the ambulances. “This operation was mine, and it went as sideways as it could go, yes, but we’ve got the Sidorovs all wrapped up. How we did that is important, but this’ll help. If anybody’s in trouble, it’s most likely me.”

  “Because of me.”

  “No, I included you when I didn’t have to. My call.”

  “But you did that because you have to babysit me.”

  “I still could have—.”

  “No, that would have cost you people from this operation that should have been here. You’re under orders to keep close. Things went wrong because of me. Monica was grabbed because I was there. The restaurant, that school, the church, several stretches of road, and now this parking lot… all on me, because of what I can do. What I did do.”

  She swats me in the head.

  “Hey!”

  “Did you make all the choices for these assholes too? Did you forget about that busload of people you saved? How many lives did you save this morning? Amir’s drones were instrumental in keeping track of everything, finding the bad guys, and you rescued him and another bus full of people not that long ago, besides saving my life and Monica’s I don’t know how many times during that escapade, all because of what you can do.” Her eyes were flashing and her mouth set. “And how many people have we rescued the past few months that you helped track down? Who got Dr. Linn and Stacy Nostrum’s organization up and running and funded? All because of what you can do?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I can’t imagine what it’s like,” she says in a softer tone. “And I have to watch you go through it, which is a lot less fun than you’d think. I’m sorry about what all this is doing to you, Ben, how it makes you feel, and maybe we can work on how to go about this a little better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’ll be some people in the agency that’ll want to use you as a one man SWAT team after this.” She frowns, her face grim. “I think that’s a failure of imagination, using you as a kind of one-man tactical nuke. I think that would be a really bad idea, and you’d hate it. That’s not you. It sure isn’t what we’d want for you, but it would be irresponsible not to take all this.” She holds her hands out to the mess in the parking lot. “Into account. I need some time to think about it. You should do the same because, wow.”

  I nod.

  She stands. “You take it easy for a bit. I’ve got FBI stuff to do.” She turns away, then turns back. “You could go sit in a car, Ben. Or maybe Yingling’s got a nice lobby or something.”

  “I’m good.” I honestly don’t know if I could move if I had to. I feel like I’m three thousand pounds.

  She walks off, and I watch her go when I hear the scuff of a shoe. Amir is hurrying over. He nods at Cal’s retreating backside. “Man, if she didn’t play for the other team, I’d let her break my heart.”

  I snort. “She’s twice your age.”

  “So? There’s whole nations on the stickier places of the internet dedicated to women older than that,” he says, sitting down.

  I kind of just want to vegetate here, but I don’t have the heart to tell the kid to get lost. He’s checking on me.

  “Or so I’ve, you know, heard.” He laughs, but then his face grows serious. “Ben, you got to quit doing stuff like this, man. At one point, on the highway, I about shit myself watching you.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to do… any of that.”

  “I only spilled my Mountain Dew, but still, dude. Holy fuck. How can you be okay after all that?”

  I look away and snort.

  “I’m an asshole,” he says. “Of course you’re not. I’m sorry. You hungry? I’ll get you something. You know my van’s got the snackety-snacks, right?”

  I shake my head. “Amir, I’m sorry I scare you.”

  “No no no,” he says. “Uh uh. Man, ain’t none of us scared of you. Nope.” He makes a game show buzzer sound in the back of his throat. “For you. You brought a skateboard to a car chase and boarded a motorcade full of cutthroat human traffickers that make the fuckers you took me from look like schoolyard bullies, man.”

  I nod, but can’t think of any way to respond.

  Amir shrugs. “Anybody knows you, ain’t scared of you.” He points over at the seven corpses. “They the ones scared.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He doesn’t say anything to that.