The Autumn Aircraft: Avery's Recruits (8 page)

              The Asian boy seemed to struggle to come up with the right thing to say, as if finding out for the first time that the big bad wolf did, in fact, exist in real life.  It made Devon feel an undeniable level of satisfaction.

              “Boy, it really is hot out here,” the kid said, looking around. He peered up at the clear, Colorado sky.  Fixed his eyes back on Devon.

              “You’re going to get in trouble man,” the boy said, but remained where he was. “I’ll call the cops.”  It was a textbook response.

              Devon chuckled. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you just go ahead and use your knife or whatever the fuck you got with you right there?  Why don’t you try to cut me down with it?  Either do that or step nigga.”

              A cold current of wind drifted by then making Devon shiver. The Asian boy’s hair fluttered lightly in the breeze as his face went blank in response to what Devon had said. He obviously wasn’t used to getting teased either.

             
Too much fun,
Devon thought, shaking each of his bruised hands, flicking out his fingers to help with the soreness caused by the day’s earlier drama. Devon wondered if he should learn to control his temper better.  If he ever did it’d have to wait for later.  The kid in front of him obviously wasn’t taking a hint.

              “My
sword
?” the kid asked, his face still blank.

              Devon’s temper flared up then. “What, are you stupid motherfucker, get the fuck o— ”

Devon lunged forward then with his arm cocked back for a punch, hoping to scare the boy enough to make him stumble back off the steps. He put all his force into the lunge too, moving to scare the kid enough to not just make him go off the steps, but to possibly shit himself as well.

              But the boy didn’t move. In fact, he didn’t even flinch. Didn’t so much as blink. And though Devon had substantial weight on the boy—all muscle, in fact, he must’ve outweighed him by seventy pounds easy—he saw for the first time that the boy was taller than him, at least half a foot.

              As Devon stood just two inches away from the boy’s face, ready to swing, the boy uttered nine words that for possibly the first time in Devon’s life, sent a genuine chill up his spine.

             
“Do you really want me to get my sword?”

             
The boy’s expression was no longer blank. And his dark blue eyes, suddenly full of terrifying clarity and haunting under his slightly furrowed brow, gave Devon the deep, unsettling feeling, that whoever this kid was, wherever he came from and whatever he was here for, it was the last person on Earth that he wanted to fuck with.  It was intuition that must’ve told him this. He didn’t believe in intuition, but it must’ve been.

              Devon licked his lips nervously. Examined the boy for a few moments, his mind running over what he should do.

             
Hit the nigga,
a voice was screaming in his head. 
Hit the nigga.

             
The kid smiled.  “Go ahead.” He chuckled. “I want you to do it.  Oh, so bad I do.” 

              Devon did nothing.

              The kid nodded. “I see,” he said quietly. “So…” he raised his eyebrows. “You were only…
talking
then.”

              Devon still failed to move.  Couldn’t force his limbs to move as the kid glared, unflinchingly at him,.  The kid’s eyes didn’t leave his and Devon needed them to. It was a crazy thought, but Devon thought that his bladder suddenly felt full.

              “Good man,” the boy said suddenly, loosening up. He clapped Devon on the shoulder and forced his way past him.  He shoved hard with his shoulder too on his way past, making Devon stumble and feel even more unease.  Whatever was under that shirt, it wasn’t just skin and bones. The boy may have not been bulky, but he was hitting the gym, doing something.  There was no way he wasn’t.

              Devon put a hand over his face, rubbed it down over his flesh—flesh that was perspiring, despite the cold—half in a panic about what he needed to do.  He couldn’t just let the boy walk through this place like he owned it.
The asshole didn’t even live here!
And he was getting away with it, his hands back on the straps of his gay ass backpack—large ass backpack that it was—and his attention no longer on Devon because…because…

              Because he’s not scared of you. Not in the least.

             
The stairs were at the end of the hall on the right—the elevator didn’t work—and Devon wasn’t going to let him make it. He turned and ran at the boy, as fast as he could.

              “You know what nigga,” he said, his muscled arms outstretched as if meaning to give the boy a hug.  “Changed my mind, go ahead and pull your sword n—”

              The boy dropped the backpack and went for his weapon so quickly that Devon’s mind did catch up until he was struck. The sword came out in something that seemed more than a swift motion; it was more like a flick.  It made a light, audible swish on its way out of its sheath, glinted under the recessed fluorescents briefly as it did a one-eighty arc, and the motion remained seamless and smooth as it cut through Devon’s left leg, like a razor through a warm block of Swiss. The limb was taken off, trailed by thick ropes of blood as it flew up in the air like a tossed loaf of salami, and Devon fell back onto the hallway floor with a thud, his leg landing nearby with a thunk of its own. He watched the boy’s continue in horror, his mind too deep in the throes of shock to respond. The boy brought the sword up like sphere then and struck down hard into his wrist. It made an almost inaudible squish and crack as it cut through the thin layer of flesh and bone. Devon wasn’t able to scream at first, it was too hard just to take in air.

              “I will sooner die, before I let someone stop me from doing what I need to do,” the boy said, his eyes now slits, both his hands clenching the rubber handle of the sword. “Now you be a good boy and don’t scream, or I’ll send my baby through that thick, muscled neck of yours.” He raised his eyebrows. “Got it?”

              Devon was still unable to speak, but his lips trembled. He defecated, the sound rolling through the hall like a drum line.

              “Yeah, you got it,” the boy said, and yanked his sword from his wrist and returned it swiftly back into its sheath. He wrinkled his nose for a moment then picked his backpack up and put both straps calmly over his shoulders, the same expression he’d worn as he’d approached the building back on his face, and turned and started back toward the stairs.

              Devon swallowed, felt like he was about to faint and tried to smack himself in the face.  He was too much in shock to even do that.  He let the Asian kid disappear up the stairs.

              “Oh my God,”
he whimpered when the kid was out of view, and was helpless to stop the tears as they started to flow from his eyes.
“Oh my God nigga…no.  No nigga no.  This nigga didn’t just…this nigga didn’t JUST CUT MY LEG OFF!” 
He cackled loudly, unable to help himself. 
“No-no-no.  Fuck…need to do something…no…” 
Devon did the only thing that he could think of. He reached into his pocket and extracted his smartphone.  If there was one thing he knew about his situation—and it seemed he didn’t know much—it was that he was losing too much blood too fast. 

With his uninjured hand Devon Bradley thumbed the necessary numbers for the police and with an unsteady voice, a voice choked to the point of breathlessness, he described the strange Asian boy with the backpack, the one that had cut through his leg with a pristine blade, impaled Devon’s wrist, then concealed his weapon and went on his way, as if it was the natural thing to do.