“Powers?”
“Mr. Mad,” he mumbled.
A low-level villain, he rarely managed a caper before one of the local heroes kicked the crap out of them. I flipped to the distress screen and tapped the “In Distress” button, adding information about the culprit. It’d be aminute or two before Zipper or Cobalt appeared. The fight would be over before it started.
“They’re not coming,” he added.
“Soon as you can, make it to the door. Get out of here.” I wasn’t going to square off against a lunatic and his heavily armed goons in raccoon masks, but I could at least lower the body count.
Peeking around the corner, I spotted one man in their signature red and white striped shirts. I patted the man on the shoulder the moment the gunman turned his back toward the entrance. “Go.”
He started in a crawl and quickly climbed to his feet, looking over his shoulder. He was out the door and safe. It wasn’t much, but it was one less target for them to shoot.
Pulling up the HeroApp™, I clicked the distress button again, searching the map for any local hero sightings. “Figures,” I mumbled. They were everywhere, parading around all day, but when they were needed to actually protect people, there wasn’t a hero to be found.
A blip caused my phone to vibrate. “Hellcat, really? There must be another dimensional rift nearby.” She wasn’t a slouch in the rescuing department, but unlike the majority of heroes, she didn’t possess super strength or the ability to teleport. No, our only protector was a woman with a black belt and a grudge.
“Gimme your wallet.”
Dammit. I had been so concerned with the criminals inthe bank I hadn’t seen this one sneak around the column. Pressing my back against the marble, I scooted upward. Crouched on the floor meant my options were limited. If I could?—
“Don’t move another muscle.”
“Or what?”
“I don’t want to kill you, man. Just give me your wallet.”
“I’m going to reach into my pocket…”
Lunging, I grabbed the barrel of his shotgun. Pushed high, he wouldn’t be able to shoot me in the face. Small victories. I tried clocking him in the face with my left hand, but he pulled backward. My hand slipped as he jerked the gun free. Through the raccoon mask, his eyes twitched, preparing for?—
BANG.
The shot lifted me off my feet, hurling me across the floor until another column stopped my sliding. Without thinking, I patted down my chest, ready to assess the damage. My shirt had dozens of tiny holes scattered across my chest and stomach. Shoving my finger into a dime-sized gap in the cloth, there were no holes in my skin, no blood. If I hadn’t sailed across the lobby, I might suspect he missed, but the Swiss cheese shirt told a different story.
The bandit had frozen in shock, giving away his rookie status within Mr. Mad’s operation. Was that the first time he fired on an innocent? I didn’t care about his answer, because it was about to be his last.
Hardly an ache. I crawled to my feet, standing up so Mr. Raccoon could see the tattered remains of my shirt. As I stalked toward him, he hardly moved, the barrel swaying slightly from the shivering of his arms. He was scared, and rightfully so.
Intentional or not, his finger tightened, and he fired again. I ducked low, lunging so that my arms wrapped around his waist. We tumbled, the crook landing hard on his ass. I moved quickly, climbing up his body until I straddled his chest. My first punch knocked off his mask. The second knocked blood from his lip. The bastard had shot me. No, he tried tokillme. It was the sixth punch when his body relaxed and his face transformed into a bloody mess. Not dead, but he’d be hurting for weeks to come.
“Ahem.”
Standing only a few feet away was a vigilante, a woman in head-to-toe leather. She pulled back her hood, revealing neon pink hair. The thin mask covering her eyes shouldn’t have hidden her identity, but heroes were good about squirreling away their alter-egos. Her eyes ran up and down my body, hovering at my fists covered in the criminal’s blood. Hellcat was known for her brutality in a fight. She carefully studied me, deciding if I was the threat.
“He tried to kill me.”
“You need to get out of here before the cops show.”
“I can’t flee the scene of a crime.”
“You better if you don’t want them figuring out your identity.”
Being a paramedic meant I knew a good number of Vanguard’s police force. The moment they saw me, they’d know me by name, and without my uniform, it’d be obvious that it was a day off. Her words didn’t make?—
I eyed my t-shirt. “Oh. Damn.”
“Rookie mistake,” she said. “And right now, there’s not enough of us for careless errors.”
