Chapter 7

-Sophia-

I walked into school and immediately noticed a crowd of rubberneckers standing in the hallway not far from Hebert's locker. A couple of guys in bright yellow hazmat suits were clearing out the wimp's locker while a policeman was talking to a few students. The police were probably dropping by out of habit - knives came out on school premises surprisingly often - but the hazmats looked like overkill. I didn't see any sign of the locker's owner, and decided that asking around and making the cop suspicious wasn't worth the trouble, even if I didn't really risk anything more than wasting my time. Besides, Emma would have heard everything by now.

I caught up to her next to Gladly's classroom, just around the corner from the hazmat tape. She was surrounded by sycophants as usual, but waved them off when she saw me.

"Hey, Ems. What's the word around school?"

"Taylor's not in school today," Emma grinned, eyes flickering in the direction of Hebert's locker. "The cops say someone snuck in when the school was closed and broke her out, but with all the filth from inside the locker they can't really tell who it was. Oh, and guess what the best part is?"

"Nobody's telling the cops anything about the little bitch?" I guessed, even though that kind of went without saying. Even the Merchant wannabes knew better than to snitch. It's not like it was worth trying to come up with something clever, Emma was clearly dying to tell me anyway.

"No! Well, yes, but that's not it. They found her clothes in the shower. All of them. And she's clearly not here, so…" she almost started cackling as she trailed off. I could imagine what the gossip train would make of that. No way Hebert's coming back after that. Maybe Emma will finally find something else to do.

"Anyway," Emma asked me after calming down a little, "doing anything interesting after school?"

"Oh, yes," I smiled. "This has to be celebrated."

Air passed through me as I jumped between buildings in Empire territory. I'd already caught three muggers and a dealer, which on top of finally being rid of that infuriating lump of weakness Hebert made my entire week. I stopped at the edge of the rooftop to look around, and a familiar-looking mane of hair caught my eye.

A tall, skinny white girl was walking down the street below, wearing an outfit I couldn't quite see well from where I stood, though it seemed like it would be rather light for the middle of winter. I had to suppress a snort at the thought that flickered through my head when I caught sight of the girl's hair. For all the jokes Madison came up with, there's no way even Hebert would dress like that. Plus, this slut walks all different, too. Head up, as if she actually had a spine. Pity about her lacking a brain, I chuckled to myself. Walking around like that at night was dumb even for a white bitch in Empire territory, but I could beat up whoever found her later. Maybe she'd even surprise me like Emma did. Probably not, but hey, speak of the devil, here they come, I thought as I spotted three skinheads turning to look at her. They whispered to each other, and started following her. The girl didn't react to being followed for about half a block while they closed in and I followed above, until she suddenly turned into an alley.

What. The. Fuck?

I nearly botched my landing, distracted by the impressive display of stupidity. Walking around late at night in gang territory without watching your six is one thing. Cutting through an alley? Jesus fuck, girl, you're practically volunteering. Steadying my feet, I crept closer to the edge, listening carefully. I could barely make out the men's voices from up here, but I'd heard that tone literally hundreds of times by now. The girl answered something I couldn't hear, but the fear in her voice was obviously faked. If this is some weird role-play shit again, I swear I'll tranq them all on fucking principle...

The laughter was more unusual. Well, not so much the laughing as the kind of laughter. Damn dude sounds like a fucking loon.

It was usually the woman that started crying next, though. Not this time. What's going on down there? I wondered, and stuck my head out to have a look, right in time for one of the men to scream.

For a moment, I thought the girl was kissing one of the men, but he went limp before my eyes and his head fell to the side. The girl held on for a few more moments, then let him fall to the ground. The other two guys were standing nearby, one laughing more and more maniacally, the other bawling like a baby. The girl grabbed the crying one first, and bit him in the neck. She held on until he collapsed as well, then let go. I was already gliding down when the cape (because what the hell else could she be?) grabbed the last guy, but she suddenly turned one ear in my direction and took off running. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I ran after her, but she was already turning a corner. By the time I caught up, there was no sign of her, just some civilian walking casually down the street.

"Shh! Can you hear that?" I hissed, raising a hand to stop Aegis. He was flying behind me as we backtracked to the Wards base. He may have had a stick up his ass about regulations, but as a flyer he could actually keep up with me on patrol, meaning I got stuck with him quite often.

"Yeah," he replied quietly, floating over. After a few moments, the wailing howl repeated itself.

"Console, this is Aegis, we're hearing strange noises from Maple Street." I rolled my eyes and jumped to the next roof. "Requesting permission to investi— goddammit, Shadow Stalker!"

"Language, Aegis!" Clockblocker chided through our comms, barely holding back laughter. "Permission granted."

The next howl led me to an alleyway, and I saw the noisemaker immediately. I aimed one of my crossbows.

"Stalker, what—"

"Hey, I see a naked guy howling at the moon," I said as I released the bolt, "I can be pretty sure he's crazy and doing something illegal."

Whatever Aegis was about to say to that was cut off by a metallic clink from the guy I'd shot. The bolt bounced right off his skin.

"Say what, Shadow Stalker?" Clock questioned uselessly.

The man looked up at us with a feral grin, and started unfolding.

"Console, that was Hookwolf! Stalker, run!" Aegis shouted.

We ran.