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  I turn to Simon, who’s been unusually quiet, and discover, much to my horror, that he’s aggressively eyeing this new guy, who is twice his size. Eyeing him enough so that, simply put, there’s a thing between them now.

  “Look,” I say pleasantly, trying to counteract Simon’s insolence. “You have a little gray Jetta out there that’s mine. When this lot was called, there was no record of it. But it’s out there, and I just want to get it back. I have my ID here, and I know it will match the registration, which I know is in the glove compartment, and I also have the keys that go to it.”

  “What is this, Cinderella and her glass slipper?” Steve says from behind the window, not taking his hard-assed gaze off Simon. “If there’s an error, we’ll turn it up. We don’t need civilians in restricted areas.”

  “We saw my car.”

  Simon crosses his arms, gaze boring even harder now into the guy with the moustache. “I think our friends don’t understand who they’re dealing with, Justine.”

  I scowl at Simon. He thinks I’m going to play the mayor’s fiancée card?

  Simon doesn’t see my scowl; he’s turned his aggressive gaze to Steve. I’m starting to worry; there’s so much heat among the three of them, it’s like a fight’s already started.

  “They don’t get who they are dealing with on any level,” Simon amends mysteriously.

  “Who would that be?” Steve disappears from the window. The metal door opens and out he stomps. “Who would that be? That we’re dealing with here?” Steve goes to stand by the man with the moustache. Convenient. Simon can antagonize them both at the same time.

  Finally, Simon turns to me. “Don’t you think somebody needs attitude adjustment?”

  My mouth falls open. Simon wants me to zing my fear into them.

  “Don’t like our attitude?” the one with the moustache asks Simon.

  “Oh my God,” I say as I come to understand his plan: he’s going to put himself in danger and force me to zing them. “Ignore my friend!” I command.

  Steve and the man with the moustache ignore me instead.

  “He’s trying to antagonize you,” I plead. “Don’t fall for it. Look—” I hold up the police report. “This car is out there. How do I get it out? What are the steps? I need your help.”

  Steve smirks at Simon. “It’ll be a while.”

  “I have an idea, Steve,” Simon says. “How about if I rip off this guy’s moustache and shove it up your ass? Will that expedite things?”

  “Stop,” I say to Simon, hand on his chest. I turn to Steve and the other man. “Don’t take the bait.”

  The man with the moustache steps forward, orange vest flashing. “Nothing’s stopping you.”

  Simon takes a step forward. “The image of you, slobbering like a baby and begging me to lay off is stopping me, actually.” He’s now officially in the man’s face. The men have the fight on; it’s in their eyes. Simon will make them hurt him until I cave. “You’ll be sorry,” I say to Simon under my breath.

  “What are you waiting for? You know you want it,” Simon says silkily. Steve and the moustachioed guy think Simon’s talking to them, but he’s talking to me.

  Yes. I want it. I want to zing more than anything.

  Simon touches two fingers to the man’s orange vest and shoves. “That’s for you, baby.”

  “Don’t.” I pull him away.

  Too late. The moustachioed man pushes me out of the way and shoves Simon—hard. Simon stumbles and falls backward onto the ground, laughing.

  “Stop!” I yell.

  “That’s all you got, you pussy?” Simon grabs up a handful of slushy gravel and whips it into the moustachioed man’s face. The man’s vest seems tighter suddenly, like he’s puffed up with rage; I gasp as he lunges for Simon. He yanks Simon up by the collar and punches him square in the nose. The force of the punch sends Simon stumbling backward, back down.

  “Don’t!” I grab the man’s arm, but he pulls out of my grip. I could make him back off if I wanted to. One zing from me and he’d run off in fright.

  Simon coughs and smiles at the same time, not bothering to wipe away the blood streaming from his nostrils. He’ll let the man hurt him, and he knows I know it. He takes great joy in following through on bluffs. He grins, and then, out of nowhere, he spits at the man.

  “Simon!” I say.

  The spit doesn’t hit; it doesn’t have to. The moustachioed man’s eyes turn blank. Blind rage. The eyes don’t see, or more, they don’t take in new information.

  Steve pipes up now: “Can’t let that shit stand, Hal.”

  I grab the moustachioed man’s arm—Hal’s arm—again. His nostrils flare, like he’s readying to attack. I’m touching him now, and automatically—greedily, excitedly—I locate the surface of his energy dimension. All my fear and worry—I could be rid of it. I grip him harder, reminding myself I’ve sworn off zinging.

  The man breathes in a snort, like a mad bull.

  Simon gazes up at me with velvety blue eyes, nose vivid with red blood. He has the look of a brilliantly-colored tropical bird. A bad bird, staring, waiting, too far gone in recklessness, about to get badly injured. A part of him hates being there, but it’s where he always goes. I know. I do the same thing with fear, careening into the pit of it, over and over.

  The man jerks away from me and stalks toward Simon, who starts scrambling backward, laughing, taunting. Simon saw how close I came and he thinks I’ll give in now. He’s the most warped and brilliant student of human nature you will ever see.

  Besides Packard.

  One second is all I’d need to unload my fear into Hal; I have enough in me to turn both Hal and Steve into quivering bundles of terror. My fabulous skill, taught to me by Packard during his despot days. The fear builds higher in me—hot, jagged. One zing and I’d be free of it.

  Hal hauls Simon up by the jacket sleeve. “You think that’s funny? Spitting at me?”

  Bad question. I wince.

  “No. I think it’s fucking hilarious.” Simon says.

  The man cracks Simon on the side of the head.

  “Stop it!” I scream.

  Simon’s down again, crawling dazedly on all fours, on fire with his recklessness.

  “The spit didn’t even hit you, you jerk!” Oh, I want to zing this guy. I hate myself for it, but that doesn’t stop the wanting. I storm over to him.

  Steve’s laughing. “Christ, Hal.”

  Simon will go to the hospital. Simon. My friend.

  Hal pulls Simon up for more hurt.

  “No, you don’t,” I say.

  Simon turns his gaze to me. I expect to see a look of triumph, but there’s just pain. I start stoking it higher. It will be wonderful, delicious. We’re both sick. And I’m going to help him. I grip Hal’s shoulder. I can get to his energy dimension through fabric as easily as I can through skin.

  A loud honk! honk! stops everything, including Hal, who freezes, fist cocked in the air, like a cartoon man.

  A big, shiny, black car screeches to a stop. A back door swings open. A big black boot is planted in the mud. Black velvet pants.

  Otto.

  Chapter Two

  I step back from Hal, mortified. I was about to zing a man!

  Otto rises upward, out of the car, surveying the scene. A dark expression plays across his sumptuously large features.

  A whisper behind me. “Oops.” Steve.

  Hal relinquishes his hold on Simon, who falls back to the ground like a grinning sack of stones.

  I walk over to Otto, circle my arms around him. I have a million things to say, and nothing to say, and then he kisses me. The press of his lips on my forehead is like a sigh, his fingertips are whisper-light tingles in my hair. I breathe in the familiar rosemary scent of his hair—thick, dark curls that just graze his collar.

  “I was so worried, my love,” he searches my face with his big, soulful eyes.

  “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

  Simon addresses Otto from the
ground—casually, like we’re at a dinner party. “We found her car.”

  Otto raises his black-as-coal brows. “You did?”

  “Spotted it, anyway,” I say.

  He takes a moment to digest this. He seems unhappy about it. “You’re sure you’re all right?” he asks me.

  “I am now,” I say, though I wanted to zing that man so badly I’m still trembling with anticipation. I’m so glad I didn’t—for my own integrity, but also, I’d feel as if I were abandoning Otto, leaving him alone in our secret pit of fear. I glare over at Simon.

  Otto’s new driver, Smitty, leans casually against the car, but I happen to know he’s working, gathering impressions from the future. Smitty’s a short-term prognosticator, just like Otto’s old driver.

  Otto is doing the opposite of what Smitty’s doing: he’s in detective mode, looking at the past, assessing what happened.

  He pulls away and takes a step toward the guys, hands clasped behind his back. Before he was mayor, he was a superstar sleuth, and that’s still a big part of him. His jacket is cut long, like an old-west sheriff’s jacket; he favors old-timey stuff like that, always black. I remember staring at his picture years before I met him, marveling, imagining. Being ravished by Detective Otto Sanchez was one of my go-to fantasies back then.

  “There’s no trouble here,” Steve says. He’s got his coworker by the coat sleeve and collar. “Those two were sneaking around on restricted public property, and we’re just doing our jobs. Coulda been mutants for all we knew.” By mutants, he means highcaps—humans with mutations that produce different powers. I think how surprised he’d be if he knew Otto was a mutant. A highcap.

  Hal grumbles.

  Steve jerks him, growls a word or two, then turns back to Otto and continues: “If we’d’ve known this was some official capacity…”

  Otto’s got a hand up. He doesn’t want to hear it. Otto sees everything, and his harsh and accusing gaze is now turned to Simon.

  Steven continues. “Reacting to a legal form of assault’s all he was doing—spitting is a legal form of assault—”

  “Are we all okay?” Otto interrupts.

  “We’re okay,” Steve releases Hal.

  Simon grunts. Hal grunts.

  “Then let’s see that it stops here.” Otto extends a hand to Steve and they shake.

  “It’s an honor, Sir,” Steve says. “We really meant no harm. And I have to tell you, all us guys here are behind you all the way, for all what you’ve done. The curfew and all the rest. Don’t listen to the whiners—let’s get this job done. Let’s yank the criminal element out by the root.” Steve goes on to repeat different iterations of this message as Otto listens with keen and noble interest.

  The female citizens of Midcity have mostly approved of Otto and his flamboyant ways for years, but men like Steve didn’t warm up to Otto until he almost single-handedly ended the eight-year crime wave, first as a detective, then as police captain, performing many feats of strength and cunning, like when he personally chased down and captured the Brick Slinger, one of Midcity’s most notorious serial killers. Then, during his first month as mayor, Otto survived a brutal kidnapping by a gang of killers, participated in their arrest, and got elevated to beloved Midcity action hero.

  The inexplicable new crime wave has cast Otto in the role of the embattled yet charismatic new mayor who dared to take a stand, whereas any other politician would be seen as ineffective and weak. That’s the magic of Otto. Though his latest strong-against-crime policies, especially the curfew and enhanced police powers, have turned some against him. Not everybody wants to trade rights for safety, even temporarily.

  Hal pulls himself together enough now to shake Otto’s hand, apologizing for the scuffle and assuring Otto that everybody at the lot knows he’s doing what it takes to “put the boot down”. Otto converses with them in low, confiding tones. Hal and Steve seem enthralled.

  Sometimes I watch Otto and just marvel that we’re together. I most enjoy looking at him from the point of view of my former self, the self who so idolized him as Detective Sanchez. I like to call him Detective Sanchez when we’re having sex, and he plays along. It’s very exciting. Actually, we’ve developed a whole slew of X-rated Detective-Sanchez games. Sometimes I think it’s probably not the healthiest thing in the world for a couple to pretty much only have role-playing sex, but there’s nothing like the dirty fun of role-playing sex to take a girl’s mind off of that.

  Simon groans. I go over and take his arm, help him up. He stands unsteadily. I keep hold. “Don’t you ever do that again,” I whisper. “Ever.”

  He touches his bloody nose. “You were going to do it. You’d be glorying right now.”

  “You need to respect my choices.”

  He wiggles a tooth, and his breathing seems weird. Labored, somehow. Wheezy.

  “Hey,” I say. “Are you okay? Do you need medical attention?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  I glance over at Otto, who seems to feel my stare, and he turns his eyes slyly toward me, head tilted, as he asks the men some question. I don’t hear the question but I sure hear the voice. It’s his gravelly Detective-Otto-Sanchez voice—the one he uses when we have sex. This shot goes through me.

  Simon follows my gaze over to Otto, then he wrenches his arm from mine, like he’s really angry all of a sudden. “You were stupid not to do it,” he says.

  “You were a jerk to back me into a corner.”

  Otto comes over and kisses me on the cheek. “We’re going to straighten out this business of your car,” he says.

  Simon smiles, like he’s not in pain, like blood isn’t dripping all over his face and coat and chest. “Excellent.”

  Otto frowns. “For God’s sake, Simon.”

  I flinch as Otto slides his hand inside the breast pocket of his coat and pulls out a handkerchief.

  Quickly I look away, hoping nobody noticed my fearful reaction. Even two months after I witnessed that killing I flinch when Otto reaches into his breast pocket. It makes no sense—Packard’s the one who killed Avery, not Otto.

  “What led you two to check here?” Otto asks me.

  I say, “Simon got the idea there was a clerical error. I guess there was.”

  “Except we don’t make clerical errors,” Steve puts in.

  I give Steve a look. “Yet lo and behold, the car was there.”

  Otto turns to Steve. “I don’t care about any of that. What happens now? Do you have a process for releasing a car like this?” Otto would never ask for special treatment. He doesn’t have to.

  Steve straightens up, all business, and asks me if I can point it out on a lot map.

  “I can,” Simon says.

  Steve heads to the truck and Simon follows, slowly, listing a bit to the right. With a huff, Hal retreats to the office.

  “How’d you find me?” I ask Otto.

  He comes back with a question: “Why did you and Simon shake Max?”

  “It was just a crazy, stupid thing…” I watch a car pull in across the way. More Midcitians with towed vehicles. I tell him about the intensity of the ride, going through the electrified fence. He doesn’t like it, but he needs to accept my friends, just as my friends need to accept him.

  “You’re smiling,” Otto says.

  I realize I am. “It felt exhilarating. Being off the radar. Free. It just feels confining, sometimes, that a bodyguard is always there…and everybody recognizes me and expects me to act upstanding. It felt good to, you know…”

  “To bust loose?”

  I put a hand on his arm. “I love being your fiancée, and I love that you want to make sure I’m safe, but it’s stifling.“

  “Justine. I know you prize your freedom, but highcap crime has gone up a thousand percent. Cannibal gangs are roaming the streets at night. It won’t always be like this.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Honey—”

>   It all becomes clear: I was never off the radar. “You’re tracking me!”

  “It’s a dangerous time.”

  My face goes hot and I step back. “I won’t be tracked. I’m not a pet you can put a locator chip into.”

  “No,” Otto agrees, brushing my hair from my forehead. “You’re my fiancée who I love so much, sometimes I think my heart might explode.”

  A lump forms in my throat. I should be happy with this. It’s the life I wanted, I remind myself.

  He moves closer. “Just two months ago—”

  I fling up a hand, cutting him off right there. I don’t need a reminder of how close we both came to being killed, and I especially don’t need a reminder of how it feels to be alone and helpless, surrounded by sleepwalking cannibals, or how sharp human teeth feel when they’re piercing the tender skin of your belly. “I don’t care. No trackers.”

  “Justine—”

  “I mean it.”

  Otto looks distressed. I should’ve said “I love you” back, but it’s too late—the timing’s weird and it’ll feel like a lie, as it so often does. Sometimes I wonder if witnessing so much violence has eroded my ability to love. I used to think Otto and I were soul mates. And I know in my mind that we fit perfectly, and that I’d be insane to let him go. And we understand each other, and we need each other in ways other people can’t comprehend.

  Still.

  I brush back a curl, careful not to disturb his beret, which he wears as a protective layer. Like me, he worries a vein in his head could bulge and burst at any time. The beret is mostly psychological, but in some cases, it really could help against vein star syndrome.

  “Let’s get rolling.” Steve calls, waiting by the open back door of his giant extended-cab truck.

  I touch Otto’s arm. We head over as one and get in.

  Steve watches warily as Simon climbs in after me, probably worried about blood getting on the upholstery.

  The truck sounds like a huge semi when he starts it up, but it bounces a lot less than Simon’s car. I sit between the two men, hating the tension. Why won’t Simon just accept Otto?

  From the top of the ridge, you can see thick snow clouds floating in from the west. To the southeast, the tall buildings of downtown gleam pale yellow. Just beyond that stands the dark, hulking highway interchange known as the Tangle, looking like a skyscraper made from a snarled Slinky, encircled by misshapen buildings.