Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) (14 page)

“What you looking at, bitch!” one
of the girls snarled, clearly trying to provoke something. Emily ignored her,
and continued to size up her friends. The girl stepped toward her, trying to
look tough.

“I said, what...,” she started up
again, by this time right next to her. Emily looked her in the eye darkly and
cut her off in mid sentence.

“Don’t you have anything better to
do, honey?” she said contemptuously.

The girl reached up to grab Emily’s
hair. There was no way this girl in her pretty clothes was going to be able to
stand up to her, she thought. She was the ringleader, the tough chick, out with
her friends. Emily caught her hand, twisted it down then up. She writhed in
pain and sunk down to her knees on the pavement, trying not to cry. She tried
to yell “Let me go!” as loud as she could, but hardly any sound could escape
her mouth because of the pain. The other girls started to rush over. Emily
glared at them sternly and shook her head. They understood perfectly and
retreated. Emily looked down at the girl, helpless beneath her and hissed:
“This will get a lot worse for you if you stay.” The girl’s eyes were wide with
terror. Emily released her and she tried to edge away without completely
standing up. Emily took a step towards her and said “Run!” The girl jumped out
of her way and ran back to the restaurant, visibly shaken. Her friends followed
her.

The boys were preoccupied with
their fight and hardly noticed what transpired among the girls. Emily was at
last the only spectator left. She mused on the difference in how boys and girls
fight. Boys fight for dominance, she thought. This means that at some level
they understand that they must preserve their defeated enemy. Otherwise
dominance will not have been achieved. But girls fight to injure or eradicate.
They have no use for a defeated enemy. Girls are much more malevolent than
boys, she concluded.

The boy Wayne originally punched in
the chest finally regained his breath and picked himself up from the pavement.
He had a look of focused anger in his eyes. Emily noticed as he took a knife
out of his pocket and worked his way around to Wayne’s blind side. Before he
had a chance to react, Emily intercepted him with a quick, short kick to the
back of his right knee. He crumpled to the ground. As he went down Emily
grabbed his right wrist and twisted it out and away from his body. She wrested
the knife from his hand and tossed it into a nearby dumpster, then released him
with a sneer. He stood up in anger and made a move to grab her. Just then,
Danny stepped between them and spat out “Why don’t you try me, tough guy!” The
other boys saw that the girls were gone and ran back to the restaurant. The boy
who had the knife spat on the ground and slunk away towards his friends. “I
thought so!” Danny snorted triumphantly. They all looked at each other. Emily
and her friends were alone in the parking lot. They laughed out loud for a
moment, and then all piled into Billy’s SUV.

On the ride home, the boys regaled
each other with accounts of their exploits. “Did you see how I blocked that
guy?” Or “Did you see how I took care of that really mean looking dude?” “That
was amazing how you dodged that guy’s kick!” “Yeah, he almost fell over from
missing me!” “I couldn’t believe it when you blocked both those guys into each
other!” But there was no vaunting over injuries or pain inflicted on their
assailants. They didn’t understand fighting in those terms, even though the
kids they were up against clearly did. As they saw it, there was no glory in
hurting an adversary, only in defeating him. Emily reflected on the character
of her friends. She had only come to know them by chance, but they were all
such fine young men. When circumstances pressed upon them, they looked inside
to see what to do, and what they discovered inside themselves was essentially
good. This was the character of someone who does the right thing just because
it
is
right. It was marvelous to her
that they had found each other. Was it just chance? Or had it been some sort of
destiny? Or perhaps just the unseen operation of their natural sympathies. They
might as well have gravitated toward each other naturally, not randomly or
magically. Whatever had brought them together, Emily rejoiced in it.

Billy dropped off Emily and Danny
around eleven, and then took Wayne home. As she approached the stairs to her
apartment she became suddenly much more circumspect. She looked for any sign
intruders had been there, but she saw none. She went into the apartment and
changed into a dark sweatshirt and sweatpants. With her sleeping under her arm
she found a dark spot in the backyard behind a couple of overgrown
rhododendrons. From there she could see her staircase and the top of the
driveway between the leaves, though she was pretty much invisible. It was just
a precaution for one night, in case Meacham or Burzynski knew where she was.
She woke up at dawn, went upstairs, showered and prepared to face the day.

As she was coming down the stairs,
Mrs. Rincon called from the backdoor to invite her in for breakfast. They sat
in the kitchen and shared coffee and toast. Danny had told his mom all about
the plan to go to Charlottesville before going to bed.

“Emily, thank you so much for
encouraging him to go,” she said. “He needs to start making plans soon.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Mrs. Rincon. We’re
all going, Billy and Wayne, too.” Emily was bemused. After all, she had tried
her best to discourage any of them from going with her. And here was Danny’s
mom thanking her anyway.

“I don’t believe that for a second.
If it weren’t for you, none of them would be going,” Mrs. Rincon insisted.
“You’ve been a very good influence on them all. I know Danny would kill me for
telling you, but he’s been much more focused on his schoolwork since you moved
in.”

Mrs. Rincon was beaming at her, but
Emily found it just a little oppressive. She knew the guys depended on her in
lots of ways they perhaps were not aware of, and she probably depended on them
too. But she didn’t want to be responsible for them beyond that. She was really
torn between wanting simply to release herself into the joys of normal social
life, and the need to hold herself aloof from her friends in order to confront
the danger no one else saw gathering around her.

“You’re being too kind. I’m sure he
has his own reasons.”

“Well, maybe. But I’m sure you
figure in those reasons somehow. Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thanks,” said Emily. “I’ve got
to get on the road if I’m gonna meet those guys later. Thanks for breakfast!”
she cheered as she headed out the kitchen door. In the driveway she hoisted her
backpack on and got on the bike. She brought a change of clothes and a few
accessories. She also had the paperwork for the truck in her pocket as well as
a couple of thousand bucks. She was considering selling the truck to one of the
mechanics at the shop in Harrisonburg, in case it became necessary.

She kicked over
the engine and sped out of the driveway and down the street.

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Chapter 12:
Students Everywhere

The got to the auto detailer’s shop
was already a beehive of activity at a quarter to nine. She walked around back
to the bays and saw Hector, the mechanic she had left her truck with.

“Is it ready?” she asked. “The
green F-150.”

“Oh, yes, it’s definitely ready,”
Hector replied. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

He led the way back to the yard
where seven or eight vehicles were lined up with shiny new paint. And there was
her truck, in forest green. She had chosen that shade because it was completely
different from the original white, but also in part because it would be easier
to hide in the woods if it ever became necessary. Hector motioned to her to
look at something in the cab of the truck.

“Miss, we found this inside the
rear bumper during the final inspection this morning.” He handed her a small
transmitter with a short pigtail antenna. It was meant to attach magnetically
to the metal parts of a vehicle. “We weren’t sure if you wanted us to re-attach
it, and I didn’t want to break it.”

“Oh, yeah. That looks like one of
my Dad’s anti-theft gizmos. I’m sure it hasn’t worked for a while.” She stuffed
it into her pack.

“Well, he sure did a good job
hiding it. I was surprised my guys didn’t find it when they removed the bumper
during the first pass. But there it was plain as day when I checked it over
this morning.”

“The paint looks great,” she said,
trying to hide her relief. From Hector‘s account, it seemed as if it must have
been attached while it was in the shop’s lot. She hoped that meant whoever put
it there didn’t know where she was living.

“Have you thought about my offer?”
Hector asked. “I could really use a bigger truck, and yours is pretty good.”

“Yeah, I know. My dad was real
careful about stuff like tune-ups and oil changes.”

Hector had offered her a swap for
his little four-wheel-drive pickup plus some cash. She put him off then, but
the news of this transmitter gave her second thoughts. If Meacham or Burzynski
had done this, it would mean they had checked the registration. Her identity as
Emily Hsiao was no longer safe. The little truck was barely big enough to hold
her bike in the bed, but it had an extra panel in the tailgate that folded out
to become a ramp. That would certainly come in handy. And it would just be a
lot easier to conceal a little truck than a big one.

“I can up the cash to five
hundred,” he offered hopefully. It wasn’t a good deal. His truck was in good
mechanical shape, but the interior was chewed up and the radio was busted. To
anyone else, those would have been decisive considerations. But to Emily they
were irrelevant.

“Let me drive it around the block
to test it out,” she said.

He handed her the keys and she
drove off. They were in an industrial section of town, near where she had
earlier seen a large shipping complex with a lot of long haul trucks backed up
to a loading dock. She parked at one end and walked along the dock, pretending
to look for someone in particular. On hearing a driver say he was heading out
west that afternoon, she quietly attached the transmitter inside the front
bumper of his rig and drove off. On the way back to the auto shop she popped
the clutch a few times and decided it was in good shape, though the four
cylinder engine seemed a little underpowered to her.

“You have the cash and title on
you?” she asked Hector when she got back. He went into the office to get it.

“You cover the cost of the paint on
the F-150 and you got a deal,” she told him.

He winced, but finally accepted. It
was still not a particularly good deal for her, but she had other
considerations. When they exchanged paperwork, she told him to leave his
license plates on the little truck. She’d turn them in when she went to the
DMV, and trust him to turn in hers. Actually, she didn’t care what he did with
those plates, as they were connected to a registration and identity she would
never use again.

With her bike in the back, she
drove directly to the DMV and settled all the paperwork for the new truck. She
wore a very self satisfied smile plastered across her face for taking care of
this loose end so efficiently. It wasn’t even ten yet. One last task: before
heading over to Charlottesville, she climbed into the back of the truck to
inspect the bike for tracking devices. There aren’t a lot of places to hide one
on a dirt bike. But she was still concerned.

After the business with the
transmitter, Emily became rather more preoccupied with disguising her trail.
Instead of driving directly to the campus, she parked the truck at a shopping
mall a few blocks away. A short ride later deposited her at the Rotunda, where
she stowed the dirt bike, before walking circuitously to the admissions offices
which were in the complex behind Newcomb Hall. Once there, she ducked into a
restroom, changed into one of Andie’s outfits, and pulled a large school-logo
hoodie over everything. She tied her hair back into a low ponytail and put on a
pair of large sunglasses. Camo complete. In this guise she walked around
Newcomb Hall, familiarizing herself with the layout of the building and
examining the crowd. She looked for anyone who didn’t fit in. Most of the
people she saw looked like students. They carried backpacks full of books, and
talked like high school students, only cooler. A few older people were visible
here and there, custodians, kitchen staff, office workers, all easy to spot, by
their dress, as well as their demeanor. They were preoccupied with doing a job,
or not doing it, which marked them off pretty obviously from the students. One
last distinctive group she took to be the teachers. Older than the students,
but resembling them in other ways: they dressed a bit more conservatively
perhaps, but carried backpacks full of books, and were similarly oblivious to
their surroundings.

No one Emily saw set off any alarms
for her, but she wasn’t deeply confident she could spot a trained operative. It
was a relief to see that the students looked a lot like her. They dressed more
or less like her, and didn’t look significantly older. She could lose herself
in a crowd here in a pinch. Since it was almost noon, she decided to go to the
upper terrace to survey the patio for a man in red pants. A few students were
milling about, but the real crowd would probably emerge when classes let out at
noon. She began to sense that hers was a hungry vigil, and decided to go down
to the food court for something to eat. It would be a good cover, make her look
more like a student. She got a salmon teriyaki rice bowl and a bottle of water.

By the time she left the food
court, there were lots of students buzzing about, and no empty tables on the
patio. Along the edge on the far side she spotted an older man looking foolish
and annoyed in red pants sitting by himself. She walked up blandly, asked if he
minded sharing the table, and sat down without waiting for an answer.