Freaks in the City (28 page)

Jay’s hand snaked out and grabbed the blade,
ripping it from his grip and tossing it aside. “I don’t think so,”
she told his saucer-eyed, slack-jawed, unshaven face.

“Oh, look at that. I’ve cut my hand. How
careless of me.” She held his gaze as she licked the welling blood
from her palm. The gesture served two purposes, Firstly, to
intimidate him, and secondly, to assist her natural healing
processes via the healing agents in her saliva.

The man took a step back. His Adam’s apple
bobbed as he swallowed.

Jay rewarded him with a feral grin. “I’m
sure whoever dispatched you will be most displeased if you don’t at
least
attempt
to intimidate me further.”

He goggled at her, blinked, swallowed again.
“H-how did you—”

“I have my ways.” She didn’t want to
continue this discussion. Their voices were low but sound carried
and Tyler was edging closer. She couldn’t risk him overhearing and
drawing conclusions that might provoke him to act rashly. Provoking
this smelly man who needed some lessons in personal hygiene,
however, was another matter.

She dropped her hands to her sides and stood
perfectly still. “Go on,” she said. “Give it your best shot. Unless
you want to go running back to him with your tail between your
legs, bleating how the scary girl took your knife away from you.
Kinda pathetic how ineffectual you are if you ask me. He should
have been a bit more choosy.”

He gaze narrowed. She’d pricked his pride.
This was going to be ludicrously easy—so easy that she wouldn’t
even have to release targeted pheromones to increase his aggression
levels. He lunged for her and she let him grab her around the neck
and start to squeeze.

His eyes were slightly bloodshot. His breath
smelled of beer and the burger he’d eaten earlier. She could detect
cheese and meat and ketchup and pickle. Yuck. Pickles.

Jay pried the man’s fingers from her throat
and bent them backward until he howled and gave up on the choking
idea. When she released him, he retreated and then regrouped. He
flexed his fingers, managed to curl them into fists, and stepped
forward to swing a punch. She blocked it, waited for the next one,
and blocked that, too. She didn’t wish to completely incapacitate
him. She merely wished to make a point and a send a message. So she
jabbed him in the diaphragm with her fingers, just hard enough to
wind him and make it difficult to catch his breath.

“Need any help?” Tyler’s slightly anxious
voice rang out.

“I’ve got this. Just call out if you spot
anyone approaching.”

The man was bent over at the waist, gasping.
She grasped him by the collar of his cheap windbreaker and jerked
his head up. When she’d caught his gaze, she inserted her hand
beneath his chin until she had a good grip of his neck. And then
she lifted him up, and up, until her arm was completely extended
and his feet dangled off the ground. “Whatever he’s paying you, it
isn’t enough. Do you understand?”

He couldn’t reply of course. All he could do
was struggle and kick while she walked toward the Dumpster. A
particularly useful human invention, Dumpsters. This wasn’t the
first time she’d deposited human trash in one.

The man got in a couple of good kicks to her
torso but she ignored them. She didn’t feel pain, and although her
dermis and tissues could bruise, any damage would be fleeting and
would quickly fade—just like the slice to her palm, which had
already knit together.

The man was unconscious by the time she
reached her destination but she’d been careful not to crush his
windpipe or do any permanent damage. She released him, and as he
collapsed, she grasped hold of his collar and the seat of his
pants. She swung him once, twice, and on the third swing she let
him go and watched him sail over the edge of the Dumpster.

The thump-woosh sound of his body landing
atop the plastic packaging and other discarded rubbish was very
satisfying indeed.

Tyler materialized by her side. “You
okay?”

“Of course.” She hooked her arm in his and
tugged him away. “I just have to get the—”

“Got it already.” He passed over the knife.
“I, uh, didn’t want him grabbing it and coming after us or
anything.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” she said, injecting
enough light sarcasm into her voice that he would know she was
kidding.

“Just cleaning up after you, Super-Chick,”
he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

As they walked, Jay examined the knife.
Nothing special. A cheap, generic weapon.

“What’re you gonna do with it?” From Tyler’s
tone, he didn’t like the idea of keeping it around. She didn’t
blame him. If she were to carry a knife, it would be a far superior
weapon to this cheap blade.

“Dispose of it.”

“Might not be so great for someone to find
that
in the trash,” he said.

“Hold this for a minute.” She snapped off
the point and handed it to him. He didn’t say a word as she snapped
the blade from the hilt before handing the hilt to him, too. She
bent the blade first into a lopsided U shape, and then bent over
one end. When she held it up it made a perfect sideways S.

“Works for me,” Tyler said. “Of course,
would’ve worked even better for me if you hadn’t cut your hands on
the blade.”

Jay handed him the mangled blade and
examined her palms and fingers while he disposed of the now useless
knife in a trash can. She bent to wipe her hands on a patch of
grass and then licked one palm and rubbed both together. “The cuts
are already healing,” she told him. “See?”

Tyler examined her palms. “Nice trick.” He
slung an arm round her waist and she did the same with his,
inserting her hand into the back pocket of his pants.

“Helluva way to work off a meal,” he said.
“So. I’m guessing we don’t need to report this guy to the
cops?”

“No. He’s become somewhat discontented with
his current line of work. I believe I’ve encouraged him to find
something else to occupy his time when he regains consciousness.
After the bruises fade and he can eat solids again, of course.”

“You scared the living daylights out of
him.”

“You could say that.”

“That
definitely
works for me.”

Jay smiled at the darkly dangerous tone of
his voice. She liked that he didn’t flinch when she did what needed
to be done. She liked that he hadn’t tried to intervene and thus
put himself at risk during the encounter. And she appreciated that
he didn’t fuss unnecessarily over her small injuries. He truly did
accept her for what she was, and that was a precious gift
indeed.

The only thing that could have made the
night even better would be banishing the unsettling feeling that
she was being watched and evaluated. And that the watcher was as
good—if not better—than she at hiding her presence, because she
could neither see nor hear him anywhere. All she could detect was
that same faint odor she’d recognized from the car-parking
building.

~~~

What people said about phones ringing in the
middle of the night was absolutely true. Tyler sat bolt upright in
bed, his heart thumping so hard he swore he could hear it echoing
in his ears.

Jay had already answered the phone. “Hello?”
She passed it to him. “It’s your mother. It’s urgent.”

Foreboding slammed him, snatching his
breath. His stomach twisted and then plummeted to his toes. “Mom?
What’s wrong?”

His mother’s voice sounded unnaturally calm.
“I’m spotting. Mike’s not here. He’s out of town on a teaching
course. I’ve rung him and he’s heading straight for the airport,
but even if he grabs the first flight out he won’t be here for
hours. Caro’s too far away and she has no transport of her own.
She’d have to get Matt to drive her.”

Spotting? He shook his head to clear it. Oh
shit.
Spotting
. Like, the baby was coming or…. Or there was
something wrong. “God. Mom. I’m—”

“I’m scared Tyler. I’ve rung the hospital
and I’m heading there now. Can you…? Can you come?”

“On my way. I’ll meet you there. It’ll be
all right, Mom. You’ll see.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, and then cleared
her throat. “It’s Edgewater Maternity Unit, the next county over.”
And before he could ask how she intended to get there, because
please God, she wasn’t gonna try and drive herself, the line went
dead.

Jay had already thrown on jeans beneath her
t-shirt, and was pulling on a pair of sneakers. “I’ll drive. I can
get you there in around two-and-a-half hours.”

“If you drive like a complete maniac.”

“Yes. Get dressed and then lock up and I’ll
meet you out front with the SUV.”

He did as he was told, and through the fuzz
of worry, managed to remember to grab his wallet. The car trip was
reduced to hellish flashes of headlights and traffic lights
splitting the night, and the blares of horns as Jay broke every
rule in the book, plus a few that hadn’t even been invented
yet.

They pulled into the visitors car-park at
four sixteen a.m. He knew it was four sixteen because the entrance
to the maternity unit sported a digital clock beneath the signage.
A blink, and the next thing he knew he was standing at the
reception desk and Jay was explaining to the staff member on duty
that Tyler was Mrs. Marissa Davidson’s son and she’d phoned him a
few hours ago to say she was on her way here.

He snapped out of his daze when Jay turned
to him and said, “They have no record of your mother checking in.
Give me your phone so I can call home and see whether she’s still
there.”

His tension levels sky-rocketed and his head
started to pound with images of things that could have gone
horribly wrong. “I’ll do it,” he said, thinking that his mom would
be even more stressed if she had to talk to Jay.

The call wouldn’t connect. Worry gnawed his
innards, and he had to swallow the panicked tirade that bubbled up
in his throat. He snatched a breath. And another. “Can’t get
through.”

She squeezed his arm. “Stay here in case
Marissa is still in transit. If she turns up, she’ll need you to
stay with her until your father arrives. I’ll head to the house to
check whether or not she’s still there. I’ll call you, okay?”

He patted his pockets. “Where did I put my
cell phone?”

She extracted it from his clothing and
pressed it into his hand.

He didn’t want to stay here and wait.
Waiting was not his thing. The urge to take action rippled beneath
his skin in hot-cold-hot waves. But he knew she was right. If
anything had happened to his mother en route, Jay would be the best
person to find her and help her and get her to the hospital. He
gulped and nodded. “Okay. I’ll wait here.”

And then she was sprinting for the exit,
leaving Tyler to cope with sympathetic gazes from the reception
staff and the nightmarish images in his own head.

~~~

Jay pulled into the driveway of the
Davidson’s house and screeched to a halt with an inch to spare
before the bumper smacked into the garage door. She leaped from the
SUV and sprinted round the side of the house to peer in the window
and check whether Marissa’s car was still in the garage.

It was. Along with the smaller car Michael
had purchased to make the commute to Hillside Prep each weekday
morning.

She’d already called up a list of local taxi
companies as she ran to the front door and tried the handle.
Locked. No deterrent to a cyborg, even if she didn’t know where the
spare key was hidden… which she did. She fished it out from
underneath the potted plant and unlocked the door.

“Marissa?” Her shout hissed off the walls.
“It’s Jay.”

She sniffed, and smelled amniotic fluid.
Marissa’s waters had broken.

She heard a groan and took the stairs three
at a time. And when she burst into the master bedroom she found
Marissa sitting on the floor beside the bed, hunched protectively
over her stomach and puffing short sharp breaths from between her
tightly clenched teeth.

“Where’s Tyler?” Marissa glowered up at Jay
through a curtain of tangled, sweat-soaked hair.

“Waiting at the hospital in case you turned
up there. How’re you holding up?”

“Not good,” Marissa said, and grit her teeth
to ride out a contraction. “Need to get to the hospital. Phone line
dead. Cell phone not working, either.”

Jay pulled out her cell phone and tried to
place a call but the signal was down. An unhappy coincidence or
something more sinister? The former, she very much hoped.

She scooped Marissa off the floor and into
her arms. Ignoring Marissa’s shocked gasp, she straightened and
proceeded downstairs at a run, careful not to jostle her
burden.

She deposited Marissa in the back seat and
jumped into the driver’s seat. But when she turned the key in the
ignition, the engine gave a loud click.

Dead. Definitely something sinister, then.
And she could not risk leaving Marissa so exposed.

She exited the car and opened the rear door.
Marissa met her gaze, this time with fear instead of a glare. She
gave a grunt and clutched her belly. “Baby’s coming. Now.”

Jay didn’t argue or check for herself.
Marissa had already birthed two children. If she said the baby was
coming, it was coming, and there would be no time to either beg a
car from a neighbor or hotwire a convenient vehicle. She scooped
Marissa up again and ran back to the house.

Cradling Marissa in one hand, she shut and
locked the front door. As she jogged back up the stairs she
accessed her databases for childbirth information. When Jay laid
her on the bed Marissa grunted again, a pain-filled and protracted
sound. Her face scrunched, her eyes begged Jay to do
something—anything.

“I can deliver this baby for you, Marissa.
It’s healthy and strong, and although it’s decided to enter the
world a little early, there’s unlikely to be any problems I can
foresee. But you’re going to have to trust me enough to let me help
you. Can you do that?”