“Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?”
“Hiya. I got a parking ticket and I want to know where to go to pay it?”
“A parking ticket?”
“Yeah, you know, one of those things in an orange envelope. It got left on my car. I’m not from around here and I need to pay it before I head out of town and don’t forget about it.”
“Ma’am, this is an emergency line. You shouldn’t call nine-one-one to figure out where to pay a ticket.” The anger in the dispatcher’s voice leaked through her professionalism.
“Oh, my bad, so where should I go.”
“We’re located at…” the dispatcher sent over the address, gave the caller another admonishment, and disconnected.
“Fuck you very much,” Lilly made sure the call was disconnected. She was standing next to the dead truck that she’d left Seth in. Morina was waiting impatiently in the Bronco they’d stolen.
“Are we just going to keep heading west, or are we going to get him?” The blood manipulator didn’t look like a strung-out junkie like she had been an hour ago.
Lilly hoped to be long gone by the time the cops found the bodies of Morina’s unfortunate victims, but they had to do something first. “We’re going to get him.” She hopped back into the Bronco and slid it into drive.
The car didn’t have a GPS, but it did have an actual map, which Morina was completely inept at reading. Lilly ended up doing double duty. It was a comical sight as she steered with one hand down the back-country roads and held the map against the wheel with another. It was a challenge until they reached the interstate, and from there it was a pretty straight shot.
The building loomed large off the highway, but Lilly didn’t stop. She drove past it a couple of times to get a good lay of the land. It held three distinct sections, all of which had their purpose labeled on the building’s siding with ten foot metal letters: Police, Jail, and Courts. Lilly didn’t know if Seth would be in the jail or police sections. She had no idea how long it had been since her boyfriend had been picked up.
On the third pass she exited the interstate and took the off ramp that led to the building. She was conflicted about how to proceed. On one hand, time was of the essence. If the cops identified Seth, the DVA and Heroes would be on scene in minutes. On the other hand, going in without a plan could lead to disaster.
One good sign was that the parking lot at the front of the building was empty, and the gated lot on the side was full of patrol cars. That meant the station was running a skeleton crew and so was the shift. Most of the cops probably had the holidays off, or were simply on call. In a quiet town like this, they could get away with that.
Lilly pulled the Bronco into a parking spot right in front of the door and shut down the engine. She pulled a hoodie from the bag of Walmart clothes they’d pick up and pulled the hood up over her head. She’d spotted a few external cameras on her approach, and she could avoid them easily with the clothing. Plus, it was a bit chilly out, so it didn’t look suspicious.
“Wait here. I’ll let you know if I need help.” Lilly focused, and a small blast of shadow emitted from her hands. When it faded, two weapons took its place. One was the fancy taser she’d used since really promising Seth to not kill people, and the second was a legit pistol. She didn’t know what she was going to be up against in there, but she’d rather be prepared. Just because she shot someone didn’t mean she had to kill them. Both of the weapons went into the back of her jeans.
“How will I know you need me?” Morina looked content to stay in the car, but she had a good point.
“You’ll know,” was all Lilly replied with as she hopped out of the car and headed for the door.
The two weapons rubbed uncomfortably against her ass as she pushed open the glass door with the county seal on it and peered around the lobby. As she suspected, it was empty, and the only other person was a female deputy on duty behind a pane of bulletproof glass. Lilly didn’t know that for sure, but who would build a new police station and then make the person watching the lobby vulnerable to anyone who walked in with a gun. Since that was what Lilly had planned to do, it was mildly irritating.
“Can I help you?” The deputy put down the book she was reading and sat a little straighter.
Lilly finished scanning the room and smiled at the deputy. “Hey. I got a ticket and like I want to pay it. I’ve got some credit left after gifts and like I want to get it taken care of.” She knew the excuse was lame, but she tried to play up the bimbo angle to put the deputy at ease.
“Sorry, you’ll have to go to the court building, but they’re closed for the holidays until the twenty-sixth. I also know Judge Johnson likes to take the twenty-sixth off to hit the shopping deals in Birmingham, so your best bet, if you want to contest the ticket, is the twenty-seventh. If you’re going to pay, just talk with the clerk on the twenty-sixth.”
“Wow, thanks,” Lilly added a little bit of slack jaw as she pretended to take in all the information. She looked behind the deputy at the wall of pamphlets covering everything from STD information to talking with a medical professional about rape. “Can I have one of those?” Lilly pointed to the one about teenage mothers.
She saw the deputy have to physically restrain herself from rolling her eyes, but she got up and walked the ten feet to grab the pamphlet. That was when Lilly made her move. The deputy had turned her back to the modestly disguised supervillain, but that wasn’t really the deputy’s fault. There was thick bulletproof glass between her and what appeared to be a dumb teenager who managed to get knocked up and had a parking ticket to pay. Lilly credited her acting skills in selling that bullshit.
Once the deputy’s back was turned, Lilly’s hand darted to the taser tucked in the back of her pants, and teleported to the other side of the glass. She reappeared just to the side of the deputy’s chair with the taser pointed right at the deputy’s back. The woman didn’t even notice the slight displacement of air Lilly’s arrival created.
Lilly took aim and fired. At first, she aimed at the woman’s back. It was the biggest target, but the tightness of the woman’s shirt had nothing to do with the size of her tits. She had a vest on, and hitting that wouldn’t have done jackshit, so Lilly aimed for the next biggest target.
The gun discharged the nodes with a small pop, which quickly traveled the distance, and hit the woman right in her ass.
“Uuuugh.” The deputy’s body locked up as the volts flooded her system. She toppled forward and hit the wall hard. It sounded like a gun shot in the silent station, so Lilly rushed forward to restrain the woman.
She quickly grabbed handcuffs and cuffed her hands and feet. The deputy’s eyes were still unfocused as Lilly rummaged through the doors and found some tape. It was packing tape, not duct tape, but it would have to do. She wrapped the tape quickly around the deputy’s head, but made sure to leave her nostrils clear. By now, the deputy had regained her composure and was struggling against the restraints, so Lilly clocked her in the head and knocked her out cold.
“You ok, Emily!” A voice called from the hallway outside the door.
<Come on.> Lilly sighed, and quickly glanced at the security monitors the deputy would have been watching if she wasn’t tied up and unconscious.
The cameras showed the lobby, the exterior cameras, some back door, the hallway outside the office, and the hallway the people they arrested took to what Lilly assumed was processing. Those two hallways intersected, and at that intersection stood another cop.
“Emily?” The cop asked, but Lilly kept silent.
She watched the screens closely until the cop slowly drew his own weapon and walked in what she assumed was the direction of the office. Lilly counted to three and then teleported out of the office and to that intersection.
She held in the darkness when she appeared and felt the tightening sensation, but it gave her a clear shot of the other cop. He didn’t notice her appearance, so Lilly did the same thing she’d done with the first deputy: she shot him right in the ass.
The bullets were right on target and delivered their electrical payload. “Fuck!” The man went down to one knee, and dropped his gun, but that was it.
“Oh shit,” Lilly cursed when the man got back to his feet. He wavered a bit, but he stood tall and turned around to face her.
Lilly reacted out of instinct. Her other hand darted to her back, grabbed the real gun, brought it on target, and fired. Two bullets hit the man hard in the chest. He staggered again, but didn’t go down. The vest had something to do with it, but there was more to it than that.
<Super,> she thought just as the man went to pick up his own gun off the floor. He was quick, but Lilly was already gone.
She looked to her right and teleported to the next intersection. It gave her a few seconds to read the signs and figure out what to do. <Processing or jail.> Those were the only two places Seth could be, so she followed the arrows. She teleported from intersection to intersection, which put more and more distance between her and Super cop, but she could hear the heavy pounding of his feet in hot pursuit.
Processing turned out to be empty, so she headed for the jail. She teleported just as she heard a BOOM behind her. She appeared on the opposite side of a thick-looking door, but a burning sensation had traced its way across her thigh. She looked down and red bubbled to the surface of the flesh wound.
Anger flared in her chest, and she wanted to teleport back for another surprise attack, but this time she’d shoot him in the fucking head. <Later.> She procrastinated, and focused on finding Seth. The cop had to stop and open doors. She didn’t.
It didn’t take her long to find the jail. It was bigger than she thought it would be, but nothing like the Supermax facility she’d been in. Even better, there weren’t many people in it. She counted three. Two looked like they were sleeping off a Christmas Eve that had gotten little too merry, and third was Seth. He looked upset, but that turned to surprise as an explosion of darkness revealed her arrival.
“What…?”
“Don’t talk, just do,” she hit the button on the door. “Get out of here. I’ll lead him away. Get to the bronco out front.” She didn’t wait around. The cop was closing in.
As she promised, she led the cop away from the cells and toward the back of the building. It looked like it was where they did all the maintenance on the police cars, and that gave her an idea. She concentrated, and two grenades appeared in her hands. She pulled the pins and tossed them under two cars, just as the door exploded outward. The cop came out looking pissed and ready to kick her ass. He scanned the area with his pistol raised, spotted her, and was about to pull the trigger when the two cars went up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The explosion made him stumble, and by the time he looked back she was gone.
Lilly appeared just outside the driver’s side door of the Bronco. Morina looked comfortable in the middle seat, while Seth was in the passenger’s. He slid down low, like that would help hide him.
“Let’s go.” She jumped in the driver’s seat, gunned the engine, and peeled out of the parking lot.
Alarms were blaring all over the place now, but she ignored them as she hit the interstate and headed west as fast as she could. She needed to put as much distance between her and the station as she could, because they were right back where they started.
This Bronco was going to be on every news station in the state. They were going to set up check points, monitor bus stations, and the airports in the area in an effort to box them in. All that meant that at a minimum, Lilly needed to steal a new car, or they needed to lay low for a while until Seth was healthy enough to teleport.
Either way, the last half day had been a gigantic waste of time and effort.
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