Vigilante 01 - Who Knows the Storm (3 page)

The people back on the Avenue were dressed like what they were—the poor working class who built new hotels and casinos and cleared debris and delivered packages. They weren’t even good enough to be hired to clean in the District—businesses imported people from the mainland for that. These were the idiots who’d never left, who’d never bothered to find better lives on safer shores.

This was where the crime was.

Creels aren’t cowards
, his dad would say with a shade of sarcasm, as if he didn’t entirely believe the statement to be true in Cade’s case.

So Cade walked, feet pounding against the concrete until he reached the front gate.

There was a latch, simple to unhinge. Leather gloves holding slightly trembling hands, he reached out, worrying all the time that it was electrified or triggered a silent alarm or….

Nothing. No bolts or jolts. Cade unhooked the latch and then pushed the gate open. It creaked, but no machine gun turrets appeared. No snipers with rifles. He took a deep breath.

He stepped over the threshold.

Still nothing.

Cade tucked his hands in his pockets, pinching his thighs through the fabric to try to control his anxiety.
Knock on the door, hand off the message. Get the hell out of there
.

A thin layer of sweat began to form between his body and the sweater/jeans combo he’d donned for this foolhardy trip. His boots clacked on the stairs. How was he so noisy? People would peek out their windows; everyone would see him. And those window boxes would turn out to be diversions when these people came out of their houses and killed him.

He pulled back his hand, whispered “fuck” under his breath, and knocked three times on the gray metal security door.

Nothing stirred inside the house. The curtains—dove gray and heavy—didn’t move. No sounds could be heard.

Cade tried again, battering his gloved knuckles against the door.

This time a rattling followed, as if locks were being disengaged. Cade sucked in some air, stepping back slightly.

Hand over the envelope. Get the hell out of there.

After what seemed like forever, the sound of metal scraping signaled someone had heard his knocking. It pulled open only about six inches, then a young man’s face appeared in the opening.

“Hey, hi. I have a delivery to make?” Cade tried to smile as warmly as he could.

The dark-haired kid didn’t blink, amber eyes behind thick-rimmed black glasses, the collar and logo of a District messenger uniform visible and hanging loosely on his slender frame.

Ironic—he was delivering a letter to a messenger.

“We—we didn’t order anything,” he stuttered out. The door started to shut.

“No, wait. Um, it’s for Sam? Are you him?” Cade asked quickly, trying to stop the door closing in his face. “It’s from a friend of mine—Mr. White?”

No sign of recognition on the Mr. White part, but his eyes widened at “Sam.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Sam opened the door another few inches, still wary, from the look on his face.

“Great.” Cade reached into his pocket slowly, then pulled out the letter. “I’m supposed to make sure you get this.”

The kid reached out tentatively, like Cade was offering a snake. Or a snake offering an apple. He touched the corner, then snatched it away.

“Thanks. I think you should leave now,” Sam said, his voice shaking. The door slammed a second later, almost knocking Cade backward off the stairs.

“You’re welcome,” Cade yelled before turning to leave. Seriously? All this effort to be treated like a delivery man?

“Not even a tip,” he groused, jogging down the stairs. If he hurried, he’d be early for the staff meeting and could actually get something to eat before he had to get ready for his shift.

He walked back the way he came, the wind picking up as he got closer to the river. The people he’d seen before were gone, he assumed due to the approaching curfew. He
hoped
it was because of curfew, and not because they knew something he did not.

No, he wasn’t doing that again. He would not see shadows or hear noises in the rapidly approaching twilight. After all, the worry he worked up on the way here turned out to be so much bullshit. His brother would probably count this as a “two punches for flinching” situation.

Next time he went for a visit (for the holidays… some holiday… at some point), Cade would bring this up to get a laugh from his family. Maybe a slight headshake from his father.

Of course you were scared
, he’d think.
Pretty boy in a bad neighborhood.

And then Cade would brush it off with a brag about his gorgeous apartment or latest electronics purchase, because that was how he and his father communicated.

Ah, home. Maybe he’d just call his mother for Christmas.

Something caught Cade’s vision—a fleeting shadow on his left. He didn’t slow down or move his head because he wasn’t giving in to paranoia.

So what if he walked a bit faster. So what if he tried to remember the last time he ran for speed and not just to keep his body looking good.

Up ahead, shadows were moving, and Cade’s hands tightened into fists. Paranoid or not, he couldn’t explain away what was clearly a group of youths in matching jackets trying to stay hidden—and failing—a few hundred yards from his path.

Should he go back? Maybe the kid would open the door for money—Cade had some in his pocket, and he liked the odds of that over dealing with whatever was happening up ahead.

A particularly hard gust of wind knocked him a few steps to the right; Cade stopped to pull his collar up a bit higher. He regretted the lack of a hat right now. And maybe a gun. He should turn around now and make a run for the gray house.

In the middle of the fussing, he heard footsteps behind him.

Chapter Two

N
OX
B
OYET
followed the man for five blocks, far enough away not to alert him to his presence. It was twilight, not his usual patrol time because the dealers wouldn’t be out yet, but then it wasn’t normal to find a stranger on his doorstep, talking to his son.

The jaw-clenching anger coursing through his body got him into his leathers and heavy boots before he could register what he was doing. He pulled his hood on, stuck the blackjack in his pocket, and waited for Sam to go into his room. Then he set off from the back entrance of the brownstone.

The man’s expensive coat and shoes said “District.” The neat shave, perfectly styled short hair, and pretty-boy face said “model.”

Nox tried to reason out why he was there and why or how he knew Sam. Overly suspicious, Nox sheltered Sam to an almost obsessive level—homeschooling and hiding him away from the city until he couldn’t justify the isolation to an ever-curious teenager. Reluctantly, he allowed him to take a very part-time job in the District, delivering documents to casinos and hotels.

The innocent answer to all this was that the guy wanted to sleep with his kid. The paranoia-induced alternative of someone knowing who Sam—or he—was made Nox walk faster, his soft-soled boots quiet against the uneven pavement.

They were nearing the narrowing of the street; damage, time, and neglect had turned everything between Seventieth and Fifty-Ninth into a concrete jungle, ignored by the city and useless to the residents because of the mess. It signaled the netherworld between the neighborhoods—and Nox’s territory—and the edges of the District, where no one lived or worked except the junkies and their dealers.

Up ahead, the guy began to speed up. The darkness gathered in each corner of the sky, dropping shadows all around them. The curfew siren would sound in less than twenty minutes—but more pressing than that? Out of the corner of his eye, Nox could see some youth gang members loitering up ahead. Lying in wait.

Sam’s mysterious visitor was about to get into trouble.

When he stopped near a partially collapsed building, Nox made his move.

Nox didn’t blink—he crossed the twenty feet that separated them with a few quick strides and grabbed the man’s shoulders. He shoved him into the small space between the remaining wall and a pile of broken concrete, deep in the shadows, slamming him against the wall.

The man froze—from fear, from shock—for a moment and then kneed Nox in the groin.

“Wearing a cup, but nice move,” Nox grated out. He spun the kid around, then pushed him face-first against the wall, keeping his head down as he used his weight to hold him still.

“You want money? You want my watch?” the kid snapped, all indignant fury under that pretty-boy exterior. “Take it and get the fuck off me.”

“Calm down—I just want to talk,” Nox said smoothly, his voice modeled low and raspy, head bowed so the kid couldn’t get a good look at his face. “What’s your name?”

“Fuck you.”

“Seriously? Must’ve been rough for you in kindergarten.”

Nox adjusted as the kid moved continuously, like a prizefighter, trying to find the right angle to break Nox’s grip. If he wasn’t getting so damn annoyed, Nox would have been impressed.

“I’m going to scream this place down until the cops show up!” The kid was stronger than he looked, shoving back and squirming as Nox held him pressed against the wall.

“Stay still,” he muttered, throwing his body weight into it and pressing his captive against the wall, molding their bodies together in a mockery of a lover’s intimate cradling. “And shut up.”

Close up, Nox finally recognized his little captive—every visit to the District meant seeing his face on the wall of the Iron Butterfly. A model, and a semifamous one at that. So what the hell was a fancy hooker doing chatting up his son?

“Cade, right?” he asked—which immediately stopped the struggling as the kid looked over his shoulder in surprise.

“How the hell….” Cade twisted, but he was clearly tiring out. “Let me go.”

“Believe me, you’re better off here than out there.”

“Fuck you. The cops are gonna come up here and arrest you and I’m pressing charges,” Cade spit out, struggling valiantly. Nox had a brief moment of nearly pitching over, so he dug his knee against the kid’s balls until he grunted.

“The cops haven’t been up here since the mayor’s dog got kidnapped, which shows their priorities,” Nox said, chatting casually as Mr. Creel turned redder and redder beneath him, one cheek pressed against the wall. “Take a breath before you pass out, sweetheart.”

Pretty boy held his breath—out of spite, Nox suspected, and he shifted his weight the tiniest bit. He’d raised a toddler when he was seventeen years old—nothing this kid could throw at him would elicit a reaction.

“What are you doing up here, young Cade? This isn’t really your territory unless you’re trying to score something….”

The kid finally let out a breath, coughing a little at the end of the exhale. He shook his head. “I just came to—to see the area. I’ve heard things and I, uh—I just wanted to see it. I’m not from around here.”

Nox cocked an eyebrow down at him. “That’s your story? It’s nearly curfew and you decided to take a walk to the Old City? You lived here long?”

Mr. Creel flinched, but his voice stayed perfectly convincing. “Three years.”

“And after three years you decided to come see how the other half lives?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then. I better let you get on your way.”

Big blue eyes blinked up at him, surprised. Nox slowly slid off, letting Cade’s hands go last. “Just be aware there are, like, five or six gang members about two hundred yards down the path. They probably won’t be as understanding as I am.”

The pretty boy turned and swung a haymaker in Nox’s direction, missing a quickly dodging Nox by a hair. He nearly fell forward into Nox’s arms.

“Fuck you,” Cade wheezed.

“You keep saying that.” Nox put his hands up in surrender. “Tell you what—you give me some information, and I’ll make sure you get back where you belong.”

The look he got in return was withering. Cade fixed his coat collar and scarf with shaking hands, then smoothed his disheveled hair. “I told you. I was just looking around up here and now I’m going home,” he said breathlessly. “And I’m telling the cops you accosted me.”

“As we discussed, the cops aren’t interested in this part of town, so I handle things on my own.” Nox gave him a quick salute, for which he received a serious scowl in return. “Those baby gangbangers probably aren’t armed, but one look at your expensive clothes and they’re gonna fall on you like wolves on a lamb.”

Actual fear crossed Mr. Creel’s expression. “Go fuck yourself.”

“You really need a new insult,” Nox drawled.

Cade stormed out of the alleyway but only got about twenty feet before stopping. He looked from side to side then ran a few more steps.

“Jesus Christ.” Nox huffed out annoyance as he followed Cade, a few yards behind. In the distance, the shiny jackets of the Habanos were flickering in the setting sun’s last rays. Their attention was focused on the young man frantically run/walking toward safety.

It was like watching an old nature documentary as a pride of lions stalked a gazelle.

Nox adjusted his pack, increased his walk to a trot. He veered off the path Cade was on and put himself in the sightline of the Habanos.

Their attention snapped to him, fear blooming in their eyes.

“This isn’t your turf,” the leader said, all gangly arms and legs and a shock of bright red hair.

“Turf? Seriously?” Nox took a step toward the youngster, using every bit of his broad-shouldered frame to intimidate. “Unless you want me to make it mine,” he said, low and intense, “I suggest you let my friend pass without any problems.”

No one said anything to that. They were all looking at the redhead, but he just shrugged.

“Don’t let me see you around here anymore,” the kid said, all bravado and a false sense of power.

“Deal.” Nox refrained from laughing in his face.

Nox stepped back, his gaze never leaving the redhead’s face. When the kid looked away, Nox knew he had won.

When he turned around, Cade was just a dot in the distance, well on his way to the District.