I would say this has been a long time coming, but no. This versions has only been about three weeks in the making.
Will contain: adults who say "fuck" and do adult things like taxes and grocery shopping, American politics, the American election season, crap-sack America, an unflattering caricature of Trump, i have no idea how to make trump more unflattering than he already is, 21st century racism/sexism/homophobia/fascism, allegories for racism/homophobia presented through metahumans, moderate amounts of violence, police brutality, poorly described imagery of dead bodies, Millennial shenanigans, gay panic, internalized homophobia, LGBTQ characters, race-bending, thinly veiled John Mulaney references, Clark and Lois being themselves, Clark taking a long-ass time to figure out if he wants to do the Hero Thing
Will NOT contain: Sex, excessive violence, tolerance for racism/sexism/homophobia/fascism, Superman/WonderWoman shipping (there's plenty of it elsewhere, y'aint hurting for content), actually not much shipping at all because I suck at writing romance.
Rated: T+ (would not recommend for younger teens simply because I'm not good at sanitizing my writing for younger audience. If you're something like 14 or younger, consider yourself advised to read with some caution. this warning may not apply until later chapters.)
All that said, here we go.
Chapter One: A Shivaree in Black
Clark didn't know what had woken him up, except that it must have been loud enough to make his heart try to leap out of his chest. It banged frantically against his ribs as though it was looking for an escape route while he lay there, a hand pressed against his sternum as if the additional pressure would be comforting and reassuring. His nerves thrummed to the same beat, blaring a fairly incandescent warning of danger that had his muscles twitching uselessly. Because there was nothing to run from.
He was in his room. The windows shut, the curtains drawn, and only his house-mates were up and about. They weren't panicking, though. Heart-rates a little faster than normal, but within the typical active range of the average college student. Their voices were low and calm.
Then there came the flat *bang!bang!* of gunfire and not as distantly as he would have preferred.
Clark groaned and rolled out of bed, groaning further when he caught sight of the time. It was barely past three and he had gotten into bed at midnight. He could manage, of course, since he could run on far less sleep than the average person and his eight-hour shift had been a little slow today. But it was more the principle of the matter. Three AM was no time to be woken up for rude reasons.
And Metropolis had been rude lately.
So very rude.
But he needed to know what was going on and where it was happening.
Jamming his glasses onto his face, Clark slogged his way up the stairs to the next floor and out onto the house terrace. It was a humid night, making the transition from the cool air-conditioned interior to outside managed to be both a pleasant and unpleasant experience. None of the terrace lights were on; only the orange streetlights provided any illumination, but those were shadowed by the trees and the houses on either side. If he listened closely enough, he could just pick up the shuffle of movement in the neighboring houses. His house-mates were on the far side of the terrace, low to the paving stones and behind the bulk of the wall. Three or four successive gunshots interrupted the momentary quiet. Clark tilted his head, listening to the barely-there echoes and trying to judge the distance.
Half a mile, give or take?
"Hey, guys." Clark slid into an empty spot beside them and looked out to where they were studying the skyline. The stones were still warm under his knees and his house-mates only twitched a little as he joined them. "How long has this been going on?"
"Almost twenty minutes." said Sven. Brown-haired and Swedish, not much of an accent. He had procured a pack of turkey jerky and now offered a piece to Clark. "Thought it would wake you first. You are always the first one to wake up."
"I must have been tired. Who is it this time?" Clark wondered, trying to peer past the houses across the yard. He turned down the jerky too.
"Los Diabolos." said Heiderich, completely butchering the pronunciation. Blonde-haired and German with a thick accent, just learning English had been a task for him, never mind any other languages. He had come from one of those weird purist German families who had opinions about the English language, so it had taken until college before the courses had become available to him. Out of the three of them, he was the oldest at twenty-five, with a Bachelor's degree already under his belt.
"Of course it's them. Which part of them is it, I mean." Clark corrected.
"Can't tell. Half mile off." Heiderich said, quietly stealing a piece of jerky from his Swedish house-mate. He held it like a gun and added: "Bang bang. Is not'ing stand out. Big boys haf pattern. Zis lot, no pattern. Zey shoot und shoot und run und shoot more."
"No bombs this time?"
"Bomben? Nein, nein. Not tonight."
That was comforting to know. That meant it wasn't Los Diabolos. Maybe just a pair of local street gangs have a turf dispute.
"They have not moved far." Sven added, shrugging. "It definitely started near the Cloverleaf Mall, but I think they are only moving around it." he added and a rectangle of dim light - his phone - came away from his chest. The Chirp mobile app was running, the visible chirps confirming that the gunfire was coming from near that location.
Clark nodded. The Cloverleaf Mall was just about half a mile away -- he was definitely getting better about his estimates. He knew the area around the mall. It was nothing but commercial; assorted shops and businesses that had closed hours ago. The dueling gangs would have to move almost five or six streets away from the mall before they were close enough to endanger any civilians who were probably not sleeping anymore.
Sven grunted to himself. "I bet it's new ones. New ones keep popping up. Get gunned down like that." He snapped his fingers. He caught Heiderich's eye and in stilted German, asked: "Willst du eine Wette machen?"
"Bet not'ing. You loose. Bad luck gamble." Heiderich replied with a smirk.
"Hah. I am Swede. We never lose a bet."
Heiderich leaned towards the proud Swede with a sharper smirk and said: "Want to make bet?"
Clark couldn't hear any sirens.
No, the police weren't going to show up at this one either.
The gangs weren't near the residential blocks yet, but that was the keyword. Yet. Just because they were by the Cloverfield Mall didn't mean they wouldn't start moving outwards, one gang searching for better cover or retreating and hoping to lose their pursuers in the maze of townhouses and yards. It would only take one bullet to go astray.
"Well, that doesn't sound like it's going to come anywhere near us. I'm going back to bed." Clark said decisively, getting onto his feet but not standing up.
"You haf class?" Heiderich asked.
"Yeah, at eight o'clock."
"In the morning? Ack! You poor bastard, why?" Sven wondered, looking physically pained.
"It's not my fault. The professor only had that one slot. I need to take this class. It's required for my major." Clark said, a tad defensively. He knew eight AM classes were brutal. For other people. He wasn't other people. Still, the fact that the professor was forcing everyone else into the eight AM class was really a dick move.
"Ouch." Heiderich said, then pointed at the terrace door with a stern expression. "Bed. Now. Sleep." His stern expression was almost more exasperated than serious, like he was used to arguing with younger siblings over the merits of a regular bedtime and was anticipating resistance. Because he added: "I vill make kaffee und wurst for you in morning." As if that would sweeten the concept.
"Coffee and sausage?" Clark guessed, hoping that he was translating that right. He had started brushing up on basic German as soon as he'd realized that his house-mate's fluency was still a bit shaky, but he had only started two weeks ago.
"You don't make me breakfast." Sven complained good-naturedly. "I share my turkey jerky and I don't get authentic German breakfast?"
"You not haf eight clock class in morning." Heiderich said, smiling. He helped himself to another piece of jerky. "You are fly zat vhines for fun. Mein leetle bruder vhines for sport. He makes Olympic efent-" He paused for a moment, and then with greater concentration, repeated: "Event out of yelling. Und vin gold medal. I am immune to vhiny flies."
Sven didn't respond for a moment, because he had to convert that into non-accented English and then run it against his mental translation dictionary to make sure the English and Swedish were matching up. There was always that second or two of buffering time.
"I think he insulted me." he informed Clark in a hiss.
"Sounded a bit like one." Clark agreed.
He patted Sven on the shoulder in consolation and then sort of crouched-walked back across the terrace to the door. The chances of a bullet striking from half a mile away was slim to nil, but the gunshots just sounded like they were only a few blocks down. He slipped back through the door and latched it. The insulation of the house and the hum of the assorted appliances muted the sound of the gunshots a little, but not enough to his ears. They were thunderously loud, simultaneously echoing and not.
Half a mile away... Clark looked back over his shoulder, through the door window. There's... ooh, I dunno, a dozen or so each? He couldn't pick out individual footsteps at this distance, not with half a mile of city between here and there. But the gangs were yelling at each other in between shots and that was enough to get a rough estimate. That's not too many. Not too far away either. I can be there and back without anyone thinking I was anywhere other than bed.
Clark hurried down the stairs and if he barely skimmed each of the steps along the way, his house-mates weren't around to notice. With the bedroom door shut safely behind him, he stripped out of his pajama pants and hurled them towards the direction of the bed and made his way over to the closet. He didn't know who the previous occupant of the room might have been, but they had left behind a fair amount of black gothy make-up and some clothes of the black and-or leathery persuasion.
Well, the pants were probably pleather because they slipped on a lot easier than actual leather pants would have. He had been sure to wash them thoroughly several times, but there was no getting rid of the weird fuzzy texture on the inside. A nylon-ish trench coat that was at least part raincoat with a hood to match and big ol' army surplus boots that had also been left behind. They were a bit tight around the ankles but it wasn't like he was planning to go dancing in them. The last bit of clothing Clark slipped over his head was an old ski mask. It was threadbare and fraying along the edges and it wouldn't do the job of keeping his face warm anymore, but that wasn't its job anymore.
If there was one thing that comics had taught him, it was that you didn't let them see your face.
Fingerprints too; those were another big no-no.
He had a cheap pair of gloves for that.
He was fully dressed in a span of two minutes (without ripping anything this time yay!), shrouded head to toe in black (shiny) clothes, any visible skin smeared with some of that black gothy make-up, only the bright electric blue of his eyes.
Without the glasses, his eyes just Did That.
He probably looked terrifying from the outside.
There was an elm tree growing over the sidewalk with a fair-sized crown that blocked the view from the other side of the street, but Clark still hoped that the neighbors over there habitually kept their curtains drawn. The last thing he needed was for a well-meaning neighbor see him climbing out the window and then calling the cops on a possible home invader.
And he definitely didn't need them to see that he didn't so much as fall to the ground as he floated, touching down on the pavement lightly as a feather and just as soundlessly.
Clark didn't linger, of course. He bolted up the street almost as soon as his weight had settled, sprinting too fast for the human eye to get a bead on. He swung around the next corner, to the north and towards the pop-bang of gunfire.
Someone had to stop the gang fighting. Someone had to try and keep even just a small part of this city a little safer.
Los Diabolos had been the largest gang in Metropolis. The largest and the oldest and the most organized. The most cohesive, the most loyal to their brothers. Right up until this past winter. Something had happened to drive a deep rift into the gang leadership and they had fallen into a civil war. No one knew for sure why; that was gang business. Only the streets really knew.
But the timing of this little civil war had coincided rather neatly with the sudden deaths of several former members. Murdered execution-style, tied at the wrists and ankles in the water off a Slums pier, the bodies found strapped into life-jackets and tethered to the pilings, so that they could be found. The deed had been traced back to a former LexCorp associate whose employ in the company had been terminated a month prior. Another instance that coincided with LexCorp's acquisition of another small manufacturing company.
Clark wasn't sure how the events were related- or if they were related at all. It was possible to draw lines from one thing to another. But the streets had seen a connection that no one else had and Los Diabolos had woken up screaming, aiming the full force of its rage at itself, clawing and tearing at its own leadership and structure until the cracks deepened and the faction lines were drawn.
When the dust had begun to clear on the eve of spring, three splinter groups had broken away. Los Diablos Rojos, but the media referred to them as "The Red Devils" to better differentiate them from the bulk of the remaining Diabolos gang. They had swept clean a southern portion of the Newton district, muscling out or taking over the smaller crews.
The Italian-led Demoni di Giada had claimed a few acres of Pelham and were defending their new territory with aplomb, content for the moment to keep their heads down and consolidate their power. At the least, they hadn't made the six o'clock news.
Last, the small but vicious Na Diabhal. The Irish Devils, who had retreated as far away as Highville before they had dug themselves in. Mostly Irish, at least. There was a mix of ethnicities and languages and fiery tempers that kept them venturing out to get piss-drunk and take a swing at rival crews for the fun of it.
But it was none of them tonight, Clark saw, as he came across the first gang members in the shadow of the Cloverleaf Mall. The original Diabolos had custom graphic t-shirts with a devil-silhouette emblazoned across a wall of flames and other sorts of similarly themed swag. Los Diabolos Rojos had been forced to abandon the swag, so they had adopted any kind of red head-wear, from bandanas to those horrible MAGA hats, usually with devil horns sewn on just so they weren't mistaken for any other gang. The bulk of Na Diabhal liked to affect that over-the-top Irish accent that was probably an offensive stereotype and were usually very drunk by the time they stepped out to cause trouble.
This group of three or four, watching the street from behind a parked car, was just wearing ripped jeans and mismatched shirts in varying states of disrepair. The other gangs had come to expect him now, after a few weeks. But when Clark swooped in - little more than a black smearing silhouette with unearthly glowing eyes - all they did was freeze up in terror.
It wouldn't last. Clark moved quickly through, seizing the guns (high-caliber semi-automatics how were these getting onto the streets?!) and crushing them in his fists as easily as he would crumple paper. That done, he moved on, following the road up around the perimeter of the mall. The secound group he encountered - a trio trying to sneak through the hedges at the parking lot entrance - were no more distinguishable than the first group, except that they carried some heavy-duty assault rifles instead.
Those should definitely not be on the street. Clark thought fiercely.
He crashed into the hedges without ceremony, the nylon shrieking through the almost rubbery leaves. The noise flushed out the trio of gangbangers and they leapt from the shrubbery, already screaming and blasting rounds in his general direction. Clark dodged out of the way of the badly-aimed bullets, dropping to the ground and surging forward back upright so fast that it felt like his spine was flexing.
Without any real protection, the rifles noises this close were like someone punching his eardrums directly. Clark grimaced, fighting the urge to cover his ears, and closed in on the near gangster, a underfed-looking fellow with about eight hairs to make up a mustache and a paper-white face. Skimpy Mustache screeched something in Spanish and tried to swing the assault rifle around, but Clark pounced on the fellow and bulldozed him right back into the shubbery. Skimpy Mustache crumpled under his not-inconsiderable weight, though Clark was careful not to land directly on top of the scrawny gangster. He slammed the rifle into the ground, hearing the casing crack, and the muzzle bent.
Instantly, there was a ringing silence as the rapid-fire bangbangbangbang stopped. The shrubbery rustled as Skimpy Mustache's two companions scanned the hedgegrow. They had the rifles pointed down into the hedges, but without being able to see where their comrade was, they didn't dare squeeze the triggers.
Pinned between Clark's knees, Skimpy Mustache didn't so much as whimper. The blood gone from his face and his heart a frantic drum-beat under his ribs, he stared up at the black figure, the indeterminable man-shape punctuated by a terrifying electric-blue glow. Slowly and silently and exaggerating the gesture, Clark raised a finger to his lips.
Skimpy Mustache started to shake.
Clark studied the other two. They were almost as scrawny and underfed-looking, maybe younger than him. One wore a flannel overshirt and the second had a well-worn Monarch's baseball cap on backwards. They were sweating profusely, hearts pounding, their breathing harsh and fearful.
"Lo hizo... Son ellos...?" Flannel whispered, the first to break the silence. He was trembling, sending a ripple through the leaves.
"A dónde fueron?" Baseball Cap moaned. His palms were so sweaty that Clark could hear it, the slick kind of gross squishy interaction between the skin and the rifle grip. "Lo tomó lo tomó lo llevó al infierno-"
"Cállate, no, no lo hizo! Solo está en los arbustos." Flannel said, freeing one hand long enough to smack his fellow in the back of the neck.
"Él está muerto! Lo consiguió! Ander está muerto!" Baseball Cap wailed. "Nos llevará a continuación-! No, no voy a dejar que me lleve!"
He threw the rifle down and started fighting his way through the thick branches that didn't let him pass easily, almost crying in fear. Flannel yelled something insulting after him, turning his attention away from the shrubbery, and Clark chose that moment to surface dramatically. Flannel whipped back around at the noise and a bullet went *BANG!* inches past Clark's head, the burst of its passage rustling the nylon hood. He grabbed the muzzle almost reflexively, crushing it beyond the hope of repair.
Ouch hot hot hot hot!
Flannel went "eep!". Clark waggled an admonishing finger.
Then, making sure that he had Flannel's full attention, he picked up the discarded rifle and got a good grip on it, then twisted both ends in opposite directions. The casing split like a frozen melon rind, cracking and splintering in crazy lines. It didn't take much effort; actually about as much as he would put into splitting open a frozen melon rind. With a great cracking noise, the rifle peeled apart along the center points and he dropped the two halves into the bushes.
Flannel decided that cowardice was the better part of valor and dove through the top layer of branches out of sight.
Clark allowed himself a little smirk. He turned and leapt out of the bushes, ten feet into the air and ten feet forward, landing as lightly as before. Then he was off and running again, past Baseball Cap who screamed and fell over in fright.
It was a little hard not to smile. Maybe scaring the piss out of the gangbangers wasn't the best way to go, but if it made them significantly more enthused for a quiet night in, then the neighborhood was a wee bit safer the next night. That was kind of why he was out here.
A the next corner, he turned right up the wider avenue, following the sound of an angry buzz of voices from around the far side. The mall's owners were adding a new wing on the eastern-most side, but it had spent the last year under construction and currently remained a hollow, gutted-looking shell of a building. The frame-work was exposed and the once protective tarp-like wraps had become tattered and had acquired a tendency to stir ominously in any breezes.
There were a lot of voices issuing from inside the unfinished wing. Clark slowed his sprint until he came to a halt at the line of pallets laden with unused material and crept around to the edges. A light was on inside, throwing tall shadows against the sides. He squinted until the tarps and the half-finished walls seemed to fall away and he could clearly see everyone inside.
It was the other two dozen or so of the gang-members. Half of them were clustered on one side and the other half on the other. Their apparent leaders had taken just a few steps forward to yell at each other across the middle. No signature regalia or thematically similar clothing, so most likely a pair of splinter groups having it out. Those must have been the perimeter guards back there, making sure no other gang interrupted this tête-à-tête.
Do I count? I mean, I'm not a rival gang or anything...
All of the gangsters were well-armed, handling semi-automatics with ease, bowie knives and other pointy stabby objects stashed about their persons. A few had appropriated some of the discarded construction equipment, like claw hammers and pry-bars and even a plank of wood with a lot of nails stuck through it. The two groups glared at each other and made intimidating gestures while leaders argued loudly. Clark had taken a Spanish class in high school, but the words were coming too rapidly for him to really follow what they were saying. It did sound like the two leaders were trying to convince the other to leave without it coming to blows.
He appreciated that they were making attempts at civility, but that was an awful lot of guns they had there.
Like, way too many.
Where were they all coming from?
Now, while they were distracted.
Clark charged through the tarp and through a gap in the partially-finished was nothing sneaky or graceful about his entrance. The tarp crackled and tore, while his elbow clipped the edge of the stucco, sending cracks out almost ten feet and taking out a chunk twice the size of his fist. Someone yelled and the gangsters scattered instantly. The light winked out.
Among the various things that his eyes could do, adjusting quickly to abrupt changes in light was actually not one of them. For a moment, Clark was just as blinded as the others; the construction zone reduced to dim shapes and fuzzy edges. But the scurrying footsteps and harsh breathing gave him an idea as to where the nearest person was-
*cra-whack!*
Pain like holy shit jarred up Clark's leg from the knee, all the way down to the bone. Something equally solid and unforgiving tangled up between his knee and his ankle, knocking him off balance and he skidded into the concrete flooring.
"Lo tengo! Lo tengo!" a gangster screamed triumphantly and the other gang-members cheered uproariously in response. All of the footsteps changed directions, coming right back at him.
Oh. Oh, they had set a trap for him, how clever!
Clark didn't have the time to appreciate that. He scrambled back to his feet, grappling for whatever was wrapped around his leg - a pry-bar practically embedded around the contours of his knee. He yanked it off and threw it aside, sending a fresh throb of pain rocketing up his leg. Still half-blinded by the darkness, he simply barreled for the opposite wall and crashed through the I-beams and stucco. The adrenaline shoved the pain aside and he sped away into the night, leaving the gang to shout insults.
Clark didn't make it very far. He got around the corners to another wing of the mall and well out of sight before his clobbered leg demanded that he stop running. He staggered to a halt and found a wall to lean against, taking all the weight off the knee in question.
They had set a trap for him!
He giggled a little, though he couldn't tell if he was genuinely impressed or amazed that he had blundered right into it.
Nonetheless, it had been well set up. Los Diabolos had come to expect him whenever they decided to take down some small rival crew, so actually setting the trap was simple. Some gunfire, no signature regalia, and a few rookies on the perimeter to sell the image of a splinter gang. And he had walked right into it like a sucker, well done!
Two dozen of them actually stood a chance at overpowering him, since they probably had guessed by now that he actively tried not to hurt anyone. He could throw a punch, yes, but he could also reduce someone's head to chunky salsa on accident.
He was already toeing the edge of vigilantism here.
Clark probed his knee gingerly. It stung and throbbed, but the pain was neither blinding nor debilitating. Maybe there was a bruise there, though it wouldn't last. He healed fast. His knee would be in tip-top shape by noon tomorrow.
"Jeez, I can get run over by a combine and barely flinch, but a pry-bar to the knee..." he muttered. "'S'always the little things that getcha, ain't it."
Ah, win some, lose some.
He'd try and be a little faster the next time.
Wait.
Clark tilted his head to listen better and closed his eyes. His right ear was still ringing a little from the earlier gunshot and his left ear was generally frazzled, so it took a moment for him to isolate that ululating wail from the tinnitus. It sounded like... sirens?
The police.
Of course. Now they showed up.
Clark heaved himself off the wall. His knee complained as he put weight back onto it, but he ignored the pain and set off at a light sprint. Two police cars, a few blocks out and closing at reckless speeds down the north-bound streets. He just needed to outrun them further south or detour east a few blocks before-
look out
*Screeeeee-!* went a third police car, rocketing around from a blind corner not twenty feet from where Clark was crossing the grass median. Too many trees and bushes, too focused on the other two cars back north that he hadn't heard this one-
Wait, that sound, was that a-
-rifle shell chambering in-
-the passenger halfway out the window and wow that was some serious heavy hardware the cop was packing right there-
Clark saw the muzzle-flash, saw the shell ejected, saw the bullet and its trajectory and that was where his head was about to be in two more steps and perhaps it was the serendipity of the universe that his knee screeched a protest and buckled. Gravity and the tension along either side of his spine hurled him into the muddy drainage ditch. The bullet whooshed past, six feet above his prostrate form. Glass cracked.
The reverie ended.
Time rushed back into Clark's perception, like he had gotten ahead of it and now it was catching up. Somewhere behind and above him, the third police Charger was wheeling around, the tires screeching and the cop with the what the fuck kind of rifle was that was shouting at raging volume. Another thunderous *bang* cracked through the already very disturbed night and a bullet thunked into the mud just as Clark rolled aside out of its path.
They're shooting at me!
Why are they shooting at me?!
He had never bothered the cops!
Sure they were useless and deliberately slow to respond, but he very much made a point to stay out of their way!
The mud made it momentarily difficult for him to get his footing, but Clark scrambled out of the shallow ditch before the driver could throw the Charger into reverse. The angry cop with the big gun slapped the car's roof's repeatedly, as though that would speed things up.
Half of his right leg strenuously objected to this whole running away business, but Clark mentally shushed it and proceeded to bail across the street. On the other side of the boulevard were some more high-end boutiques and specialty shops that were too posh for the plebeian consumers of a shopping mall. The fashionable retail park went too far in both directions. He wasn't going to get out of sight down the side-streets before the Angry Cop had Clark in his sight-lines.
Clark had never been shot before. He wasn't about to break that admirable streak.
He heard another bullet whistling up behind him and promptly dodged to the side, sprinting parallel to the sidewalk and away from the Angry Cop. The rooftops of the retail park were just twenty feet off the ground, the lowest along this stretch of the boulevard. If he was going to do it-
You can do it! C'mon, c'mon! It's just twenty feet!
It had to be now.
Left foot up on the curb, muscles taut and bunched think springs Clark! and jumped-!
For a split-second, there was a wondrous sense of weightlessness and Clark felt as though if he just pushed a little harder- Wall! His body slapped into it, fingers coming just a bare inch short of the rooftop lip, the army-surplus boots scrabbling for purchase against the stucco.
But he didn't fall. Maybe one boot found a place to dig in. Maybe whatever ability helped him to float down also helped him to float up. Regardless, he got his hands over the edge and all but flung himself safely onto the rooftop.
The Angry Cop spat an angry curse.
"Language." Clark whispered, grinning, flush with relief and adrenaline and a sense of giddiness.
A third bullet went *ka-pwing!*, nicking the edge of the rooftop on its way up, but otherwise it came nowhere near him. He was out of sight and the angles were all wrong. The Angry Cop yelled incoherently in frustration. It was probably time to call this one done anyways. So Clark rolled over onto his knees and elbows and crawled away some distance until he was sure that he could stand up without being noticed. He might have to detour to one direction or the other for a few blocks, just in case Angry Cop wasn't ready to give up yet.
He listened to the police Charger turning around, to the tune of Los Diabolos gang-members scattering in every direction like roaches exposed to light and the newly arrived cops struggling to corral them. For a second - just one hot second of insanity - he felt bizarrely obligated to go back and lend a hand in the name of taking a few more guns off the streets, but no. No no no. Going back there and showing up in front of Angry Cop and his rifle of too-large proportions?
Absolutely not.
Besides, he really did have an eight o'clock class and even he needed more than three hours of sleep.
-0-
5-13-2021: Touched up some sentences to reflect some of the world-building I did in later chapters.