Marrow (5 page)

No such luck. Once the shock factor of the mess had worn off, I realized there was music playing in the back room—a chill, reggae beat. There was also a voice singing, separate from the music recording, and completely off-tune. Havoc took a brave step forward, immersing himself in the unsanitary obstacle course. I took a deep breath and followed.

The little details of this disaster area seemed to say a lot about Flex. The television was on, and Stewie was attempting to assassinate Lois Griffin. An outdated video game console was sitting in front of it, but apparently a game hadn’t gone so well since both controllers had been smashed into the nearest wall, still attached by their cords. Havoc and I stepped through food wrappers, mostly belonging to Twinkies and Ding Dongs. The hallway was littered in piles of crusty, wrinkled clothes shoved in the corners.

Havoc opened the bedroom door, and the source of the music (and the off-key karaoke) was revealed. A man was sprawled sideways across a queen-sized bed wearing nothing but his boxers. Nappy dreadlocks fanned out around his head. In one hand, he held an alcohol bottle wrapped in a paper bag. The other hand was waving through the air like a conductor leading an orchestra. The orchestra just happened to be Bob Marley playing from a beat up CD player.

“Because every little thinnnnng . . . gonna be alrighhhhht . . .” Flex sang in a slur.

Havoc seemed to be running on his last thread of patience. Marching forward, he unplugged the CD player and ripped the bottle out of Flex’s limp grasp.

“Hey, what’s the big . . . ?” Flex protested, struggling to get up. “Who do you think you . . . ?” His train of thought seemed to falter before he could finish either sentence. At least he managed to sit upright. Cocking his head sideways, he blinked and scratched the scruff on his face as he slowly absorbed the large black man towering over him. “Havoc?”

“No, it’s the tooth fairy,” said Havoc. “Flex, are you seriously drunk at one in the afternoon?”

“Drunk?” said Flex, struggling to process a response. “Psh. Naaaah.” He proceeded to laugh hysterically. “This is just a little something to wash down breakfast, that’s all.”

“You’re drunk,” said Havoc.

“No, no, no, no, no,” said Flex, shaking his head unsteadily. He attempted to become serious, although his unnaturally huge eyes bugged out of his face. He raised his hand and pointed his index and middle fingers to his eyeballs. “See these eyes? These are the eyes of a hawk. I see everything that’s going on around here.”

“No you don’t,” said Havoc. “You’re plastered out of your mind.”

Flex opened his mouth to respond, but seemed to change his mind halfway and plopped backward on his bed. “You’re right. I’m drunk.”

Havoc hardly seemed satisfied with this small victory. Raising the letter he had retrieved from the mail slot, he dropped it on Flex’s vacant face. “Checked your mail lately?”

Sputtering as he shook the letter off his face, Flex sat up. “Yeah. I like checked it last week or something.” Pinching the letter with two fingers, he lifted it away from his body like some dead thing. “What the heck is this?”

“Several months ago, you accepted an invitation from FIST,” said Havoc. “You agreed to be a potential trainer for the Sidekick Internship Program, if you were so chosen.”

“Yeah? So what?”

“You were chosen.”

A hint of realization suddenly flickered through Flex’s eyes. His gaze slowly shifted to me and then jolted back to Havoc, wider than ever. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a sec. I only agreed to that for the money. I didn’t think they’d actually be stupid enough to pick me!”

Well this just kept getting better and better. I had been pawned off to some hippie alcoholic mooching off the system.

“Well, apparently they
are
stupid enough,” said Havoc. Stepping to the side, he gestured to me. “Flex, this is Marrow. Marrow, Flex. You’ll be spending the next three months with each other. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” said Flex. “Do I look qualified to train a freaking sidekick?”

“Nope.” Havoc shook his thick bald head. “But that’s not my problem.”

With that he turned and exited the bedroom.

“Wait!” said Flex. He bolted out of bed but flopped onto the floor just as fast. Tangled in his own bed sheets, he eventually managed to free his legs and stagger upright. He cast one frenzied glance at me before chasing after Havoc. “You can’t leave this kid here with me!”

“Watch me,” Havoc called from the hallway.

I abandoned my suitcase and slowly followed the two of them as a hopeless spectator. It wasn’t bad enough that I was being dumped with a hero reject. Oh no. I was officially being rejected by the reject as well.

As Havoc started across the living room, Flex flung his arm forward. Against every law of physics, his arm stretched thirty feet like a bungee jumping cord. His hand latched onto the doorknob. If that wasn’t weird enough, he pulled back and then flung himself across the room like a slingshot. He hit the door with a weird
splat
and then puffed out into his normal human shape—which was still quite eccentric as, wild eyed, he blocked the doorway with his gangly limbs.

“I’m not letting you through here without that kid,” said Flex.

Havoc chuckled to himself. “I didn’t use the front door.”

In a subtle
poof
of wispy smoke, he vanished.

Flex continued to stand at the front door in a blank daze. His gaze slowly drifted across the living room to me. Our eyes remained interlocked for several long seconds, and we were like two wild animals staring each other down. At least Flex seemed like a wild animal. I felt more like a rat in a cage. Finally, Flex let out a long sigh and staggered off into the kitchen, rummaging through the pantry. He came away with another liquor bottle in hand.

“I’m not nearly drunk enough for this,” he said.

Taking a long swig, he shuffled back to his bedroom and shut the door.

Flex’s nasty apartment was my arch nemesis. I was dead set on defeating it.

After a fast trip to the quickie mart on the corner, I was armed with scouring pads, sponges, a box of garbage bags, and a monstrous bottle of Greased Lightning all-purpose cleaner. Heck, I even bought a carton of plug-in air fresheners. And before you go calling me a clean freak, believe me, I wouldn’t have bothered if the place didn’t smell like Flex’s dead grandmother was hiding under the floor boards.

Honestly, I’d never taken the initiative to clean in my entire life. But this . . . this wasn’t just about cleaning. It was about survival. If I was going to
live
in this hole for the next three months, it at least needed to be
livable
. Currently, it was a biohazard.

Most of the battle involved filling garbage bags. The worst part was scraping half-eaten moldy food off of a gazillion mismatched plates before stacking them by the sink. Some of them were completely engulfed in moldy fuzz, practically unidentifiable. These particular dishes triggered my gag reflex more often than not. Four trash bags later, Flex’s apartment looked practically empty.

After filling the sink with water, I dumped the toxic dishes inside. I was almost shocked to find that Flex actually owned dish soap. The bottle was practically full and looked like it had only been used once. I squirted a hefty amount into the sink and watched the foam rise before wielding my dish scrubber like a battle axe.

As for Flex’s crusty, nasty clothes lying around, I simply tossed them in a pile in front of the bedroom door. The pile became a small mountain reaching up to the doorknob. By the time I finished, I was only slightly disappointed to not find the slightest hint of a Superhero jumpsuit. Then again, maybe that just meant that it was hung up in his closet or folded up nice in his dresser.

Bam
.
Smack
.
Thunk.
My cleaning spree was interrupted as a series of sharp sounds from a neighboring apartment pierced through the thin walls. This was accompanied almost simultaneously by a harsh male voice shouting indiscernibly.

Shortly after, a girl screamed.

I rushed to the door and peered through the peephole just as the door across the hall burst open and slammed shut. A cute blonde—probably fifteen years old—with a midriff top and a belly button ring had stormed out. Not a second later, some punk kid in a white tank top and sleeve tattoos—maybe a year or two older than her—burst out as well. His hair was buzzed short, with a scraggly attempt to grow a goatee hanging from his chin. He grabbed the girl by the arm, jerking her towards him.

My hand tensed on the doorknob.

“Mia, don’t you dare walk away from me when I’m talking to you,” he said.

“Let me go!” she said, struggling to break free. “Tad, you’re hurting me!”

Tad. With a name like that, the guy was officially the king of douche bags. This was confirmed as he proceeded to twist her wrist.

“Teach you to talk back to me!”

Mia screamed. Her free hand flew out to slap him, but he caught this hand as well. Tad then released it only to backhand her in the face.

I threw the front door open.

“Get your hands off her!” I shouted.

The hallway went silent. Both Tad and Mia turned to face me with looks of bewilderment. The moment was enough for Mia to break free of Tad’s grasp, but he was too preoccupied with me to care now. His wide eyes narrowed and his slack jaw clenched shut with gritted teeth.

“You say something, kid?” he asked, chest puffed out.

“Uh, yeah, duh,” I said. “Did you not understand me? Do I have to use smaller words? Maybe I could spell it out for you?”

“What’d you say?” Tad took a step closer. “You have a death wish or something?”

“Ha! Death wish . . . that’s funny,” I said, pretending to chuckle. “Says the loser who picks on girls half his size to make himself feel tough. Seriously, dude. It’s pathetic. Why don’t you go be a juvenile delinquent somewhere else?”

Tad’s nostrils flared. Cracking his knuckles, he started towards me. “I hope you’re hungry, ‘cause I’m gonna give you a knuckle sandwich in that fat mouth of yours.”

Knuckle sandwich? Wow. This guy was as bad at comebacks as Nero.

I tapped into my bone structure and felt the pressure beneath my feet disappear. I was a feather on the ground. Tad reared his elbow back and launched a wide and extremely sloppy punch. I doubted he’d ever hit anyone but girls his entire life.

My hand lashed out, and I increased the density in my arm, tripling my normal strength. I caught his fist in my palm like a baseball. Actually, it was more like a flimsy softball tossed underhand.

Then I twisted it.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow owwy! OWWY!” Tad wailed in a shrill voice.

Yep. He really said “owwy.” Twice.

Increasing the remainder of my bone structure to match my heavy arm, I became an unbreakable anchor. “Does that feel good?” I asked in a calm voice.

Tad whimpered and shook his head vigorously. “What are you? Are you . . . ? You’re . . . you’re one of those Super freaks, aren’t you?”

The moment I noticed, it was too late. Tad’s free hand came out of his pocket with the metallic glint of a switchblade.

The blade stopped short. Something
whooshed
past my right ear, hitting Tad’s face with a
smack
. He flew out of my grasp, across the hall, and into the opposite door with a hinge-rattling
thud
.

It took a moment to register what had just intervened. Tad had been punched. I was staring at the fist that did it. But this fist was attached to an arm stretching across the hall and over my shoulder like a skinny, flesh-toned anaconda. I whipped around, and sure enough, Flex was there, standing in the middle of the living room in his boxers. From where he stood, I realized he had thrown the punch an impressive thirty feet or more. As his arm swiftly snapped back, regaining its normal length and shape instantly, he pointed his index finger like the barrel of a gun.

“You.”

He was pointing at Tad. He met Flex’s fierce gaze with his mouth ajar. A line of red connected his bloody nose and cut lip.

“Get out of here before I throw you down the stairs,” said Flex.

Tad was shaking as he staggered hastily to his feet. “Freaks!” he said. “All of you! You’ll be sorry. Just wait. You’ll be sorry!”

With that, he took off down the stairs.

Rather than lowering his hand, Flex’s pointed finger shifted to me. “You. Get in here. Now.”

Flex may have looked like a drunk hippie with his clumpy dreadlocks, scraggly face, and gangly build, but right now, he was a pissed off drunk hippie. I bit my lip and reluctantly stepped inside.

“Hey,” said Mia. She shifted from one foot to the other as I turned around and met her gaze, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “Thank you.” Her timid gaze shifted to Flex. “Both of you.”

“Stop dating douche bags, Mia,” said Flex. With that, his arm shot across the living room and slammed the door shut behind me.

I watched his elastic arm as it snapped back into place. He then proceeded to fold his arms with a stern gaze.

Hey, at least he wasn’t passed out in his room, right? And he actually looked halfway sober now.

“What was that?” asked Flex.

“That jerk hit her,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”

“Trying to help,” said Flex. “That’s interesting. Because to me, it looked like a twelve-year-old brat nearly getting shanked outside my apartment.”

“I’m fourteen,” I grumbled.

“I don’t care if you’re a hundred and fifty-two,” said Flex. “What you did was stupid.”

I bit my lip, struggling to keep a calm face. I could feel the irritation boiling hot. “I had everything under control.”

“Starting a fight outside
my
apartment is not keeping things under control,” said Flex. “What happens when that punk brings all his punk friends over to start a fight?”

“What, are you afraid?” I asked. “I could take that punk and all his friends by myself. I don’t need you.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, raising an amused eyebrow. “And was getting stabbed part of your plan?”

“I had it under control,” I repeated.

“You haven’t even hit puberty yet,” said Flex. “You don’t have anything under control.”

“At least I’m not some drunk wasting away my power,” I said.

Flex rolled his eyes. His casual reaction just made me even angrier. He didn’t appear threatened at all.

“And you’re just an annoying little brat that I have to babysit,” he said in a bored tone. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to bed. I’d like to wake up to my hangover in peace and quiet.”

“That’s it?” I said. A hint of despair crept into my tone. “You’re just going to go back to your room and pass out again? Don’t you care about anything?”

“Yeah,” said Flex. “I care about sleeping. Now if you don’t mind . . .”

Flex shuffled back to his bedroom. I found his lack of anger alarming. It was like he wasn’t really alive. Like he was a zombie or something.

Just an empty thing without a soul.