Little Hunter

Trent looked left as Dusk snapped. Jerked right when Dawn stabbed a claw into the couch between his thighs. Nanku kept him guessing. Unsure where the next shock or demand would come. Off-balance. Unable to brace himself he would say the first thing that came to mind.

Nanku hoped that would be the truth.

"Why would his wife come to you?" she pressed.

"Same reason the cops did!" Trent Bragg answered. "She thought I did it but—But I didn't! Swear to god! I had nothing against Dan! He was a good guy!"

"He fired you," Nanku growled.

"And he let me finish the month so I could collect unemployment!"

"Then you killed him."

"I didn't do it!" The man shook his head frantically and squirmed against his bindings. "I swear I didn't hurt Dan! I was pissed okay!? It was bullshit I didn't deserve to be fired but that wasn't Dan's fault! Lacy's the one who caught me!"

Nanku tilted her head. "Lacy?"

He nodded energetically. "Y—Yeah! It was dumb too! Everyone fudges their time card! Everyone does it! I swear!"

Nanku slammed a fist into the couch by his knee.

He flinched, eyes wide and fixed on her. Shaking and wary. But quiet enough.

"Fudging?" Nanku asked.

"Yeah. You know. Fudging? What? Capes don't do that at work?"

Nanku growled. "What is it?"

"You know. You work an eight-hour shift but you need to make rent so you say you worked nine to get a little overtime."

Nanku needed to puzzle that for… Longer than she wanted to admit. Shifts. Overtime. Rent. Nanku didn't really deal in those things.

"You were stealing," she surmised.

"It's not stealing! The Association charges to the client!"

"Then who pays the overtime?"

"The association!"

"Stealing."

"No, no. It doesn't work that—"

Nanku punched again.

She had no interest in whatever lies he wanted to tell. Stealing was stealing. She wasn't close to dumb enough to believe otherwise.

"He fired you for stealing."

"He—He said he had to let me go, okay? Fine. Whatever. Shit happens. Maybe I pushed too much or whatever. I don't know! Danny didn't seem to care that much."

"He didn't care about you stealing?" Nanku didn't believe him.

"I mean—I mean he kept looking at the time cards and stuff the whole time so I don't know. He had to see everyone was doing it. Just fired me to make a point. It's cool. I get it. It happens! I didn't kill Danny! I swear! It wasn't me!"

Nanku glanced away and rose from her seat.

Time cards? A man was stealing from him and instead of focusing on the man himself, her father was focused on time cards?

Nanku tilted her head. "You said a month?"

"Y—Yeah. Why?"

A week. "Did you stop working before or after he died?"

"B—Before. Why?"

Did it mean nothing?

Nanku turned back. "Everyone did this?"

"I said that already!"

"But he only fired you?"

"Jesus. What, is his wife on a radio or something?"

"Why?"

"She did the same thing you're doing. Getting all weird and making me repeat shit." He swallowed. "And then she let me go. A—Are you going to let me go?"

His date for the night was still tied up in the shower. Nanku didn't think the woman had even seen much. Trent Bragg had seen much, and Nanku didn't want him saying too much. It might warn her prey she was coming.

But that was what the code was for.

If you just did anything you wanted to do, you were no different from a mad dog.

Nanku was not a mad dog.

"Best you pretend this never happened," she warned. Dusk and Dawn snapped their jaws and Trent whimpered. "I don't have a reason to come back. Now."

She could pretend.

Going to the bathroom, Nanku untied the woman. Who actually lived in the apartment. And looked like she was utterly furious but too afraid to act on it.

"Sorry."

Nanku sat her down in a more comfortable position and tied her back up.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"I will fucking scre—"

Fortunately, she'd left her clothes on the bathroom floor and Nanku pushed them into the woman's mouth. It was her own fault. Nanku was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until she said she'd give Nanku away.

So she could sit in her shower and wait until Nanku left.

Trent Bragg struggled and squirmed on the couch when she returned.

"So"—he jerked away from Dawn—"are you taking your, um, pets with you?"

"Yes."

"Can I get up?"

"No."

"But—"

Nanku pointed at the window. "I'll be gone once the sun sets."

"What? But—What about—"

Nanku sighed.

She decided to just make things simple. It's not like the two of them hadn't been intimate already.

Nanku tied Trent up, dragged him into the shower, and dropped him beside his date. And she gagged him too.

"Be quiet," Nanku said. "I'll untie you when I leave. Never see me again unless you give me a reason."

The building appeared normal. Since her arrival there had been no significant change in the behaviors of anyone inside. No eyes looking at the room from anywhere. No police. No flying parahumans. All was quiet and seemed set to stay quiet.

And Nanku settled in to wait.

She did not think this through.

The woman apparently made none of her own food. The contents of her kitchen were crackers, spices for food she didn't have, and lots of wine and ice cream. Which wasn't going to feed anyone.

Nanku had to get creative.

"Melanie" had money, fortunately. And clothes. None of them fit Nanku well but there were some sundresses that seemed to work. Nanku shut the bathroom door, threw one on, and stuffed her armor to the side.

When the pizza guy showed up she took her boxes and gave him his money. With correct change.

Except he stared at her like she'd kicked him.

"What?" she asked.

"No tip?" he asked back.

"I paid for the pizzas."

"But—"

Nanku shut the door and shook her head.

Humans were so selfish.

Tossing the dress aside, Nanku got her armor back on and set two of the pizzas down for Dusk and Dawn. They dug into and tore the pies apart. Meat lovers. Extra meat.

The third pizza Nanku took to the bathroom.

She set it down and glared from behind her mask. "Make any noise besides eating and you can go hungry."

No food for a day wouldn't kill them.

Not that they didn't complain anyway.

"I'm Vegan," Melanie said angrily.

"What?"

"She doesn't eat fish," Trent said.

"That is not what Vegan is," Melanie growled.

"Sorry?"

"You're going to be more—"

"Eat it or eat nothing." Nanku had no interest in a lover's spat. "Keep it down."

She could see Melanie thinking about it.

Which was a good time for Dawn to poke her head into the bathroom with tomato and cheese all over her face. It did look suitably gory if one had no idea what gore looked like. Melanie paled, took some pizza when given the chance, and picked the cheese off the top.

So Vegan was someone who didn't eat cheese?

That seemed weirdly specific.

Nanku let them eat and drink and tied them back up. She was willing to be kind, but not stupid.

With them and the Twins taken care of Nanku ate her own food. Melanie lacked a widescreen but that was fine. Nanku found animal planet, turned it on, and used the oddly soothing narrator's voice as background noise.

She had a lot to think about. It seemed as good a time as any.

Time cards.

A man was stealing from the Dockworkers—her father's other child—and he was more interested in the timecards than the man who was stealing. What did that mean? It meant something. Taylor had been a child when her father died but she knew how timecards worked and she knew her father treated them very seriously.

Paperwork.

More paperwork.

Catching Trent was the start of something. Her father went looking at the timecards—Trent claimed everyone fudged them—and he found something. Something that led him to a strange shipment that either did or didn't exist, and then his death.

Did that help her, or make it more complicated?

It had been nearly three months now. A quarter of her time on Earth and she was still chasing trails.

And her mother.

Her mother had already found Trent? How. He wasn't in the police file. Did she simply do what Nanku did? No. No, she found him on the Internet. Barely looking. She'd simply followed some basic clues.

Surely the police would have—

Nanku shot to her feet and hurried into the bathroom to remove Trent's gag.

"Can I get some water?" he asked.

Nanku didn't care. "The police came to speak with you?"

"Yeah? Duh?"

"And Annette Hebert?"

"Yes? Her too? Wha—"

She gagged him and left the room with a cold stare.

Her mother didn't mention Trent Bagg in the slightest. He wasn't in the file on her father's murder either.

…

The file was doctored.

They gave her a fake, or at least, they'd removed some of the conten—No. The file had an inventory. They'd manufactured one that wouldn't look weird to her. All of the papers. Everything. How much of it could she even trust?

Her mother knew.

She knew.

She knew who killed her father and she was… Doing nothing?

Nanku sat and stared. Bid her time. Stuck to her plan.

It was no time to overreact.

She inhaled and waited with her soon lukewarm and then cold pizza. The day was long. Arduous. Downright agonizing. She paced and grumbled to herself.

She could believe a lot of ill things about her mother.

That the woman would outright sabotage her—willfully obstruct her—was new. Behind the bitterness, Nanku knew what motivated her all those years ago. Fear. Desperation. Pain.

She wasn't a monster. She was terrified.

This?

This was different and Nanku wanted to scream.

She didn't. It would draw attention. She was in no mood. Something would happen she'd regret.

So she sat. And waited. Scratched Dusk and Dawn and brewed. She did improvise briefly. Melanie had plenty of clothes. She could spare a few.

When the sun went down and Nanku could finally leave, she sent Dusk and Dawn out the window.

Nanku left through the lobby.

A bus took her close to her mother's apartment. She played the moment by ear. Swept the streets with bugs. Thoroughly. She moved back and forth across several blocks, surveying a wider area than her power covered, and searched for any sign of someone waiting just out of her range.

There were some suspicious vehicles and some observation equipment. Nanku used alleyways to avoid them and had a fly temporarily land on one to obstruct its view. Nanku passed by while it couldn't see her clearly and sent the fly away after she'd passed.

The apartment building itself was not being observed. Nanku guessed no one expected her to come back.

It was so obviously a terrible idea.

That didn't stop Laserdream from flying overhead. Dusk and Dawn had to hide but the woman hovered about for a minute and then left.

Kid Win could see through her cloak. Nanku would assume all of the Protectorate could.

But she wasn't cloaked.

She was on the street among dozens of others.

No one paid her any mind as she approached the apartment.

Rose was inside, and the boy. Dauntless' son. Rose's half-brother. There was no sign of their parents. Good. That meant Nanku could simply go in and find what she wanted.

It had to be somewhere and Nanku had a good idea the apartment was the first place to look.

She kept her swarm active and watching as she went up the elevator and down the hall.

She knocked.

"Who is it?" a boy's voice answered.

"Pizza delivery," Nanku lied.

Rose shot to her feet and hurried to the door before her brother could stop her.

She opened the door with a smile and a, "Hi Nanku."

"Hello, Rose."

Nanku entered quickly and Rose blinked.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No," Nanku lied.

She would not make her anger Rose's problem, she told herself. She wouldn't do what her mother did. "Where are they?"

The boy looked at her and paled. He jumped to his feet and hurried across the room while Rose closed the door.

Before she could answer, the boy moved between Nanku and Rose with a stern expression.

"Addison!" Rose complained.

"You need to leave," he said to Nanku. Firmly. With certainty. A lot of it for someone shaking so much. "Or I'll call the PRT."

Nanku gave a slight nod of approval.

And proceeded into the bedroom.

"Hey!"

"I'm looking for something."

She sent bugs into every nook. Every corner. She'd been to the apartment before and found nothing too strange. Maybe it wasn't kept in the—

A spider crawled into the back of a drawer. Nanku had seen it before but she paid it no mind. Or she just didn't notice. Or it was new.

In either case, the drawer went too far back. It was bigger inside than the dresser it was in.

Nanku went around the bed and nearly ripped the drawer out. It was bigger. How did it possibly fit? There wasn't a hole in the wall behind the dresser. It just fit?

Parahumans.

Nanku removed a false bottom because it was deeper too, but she found her file.

With a snarl, Nanku ripped it out and quickly searched through the contents. It looked more or less like the file she'd already gone through. Same pages. Mostly. Same evidence. Mostly. Either her mother thought she might find the real file and prepared a second fake, or she'd doctored one that was mostly right while hiding the real one away.

The real one had a few extra pages. A longer suspect list and more interviews.

"I'm done." Nanku clapped the file closed and turned to leave. "Have a nice night."

Addison backed up and kept Rose behind him.

The news was on the TV.

Nanku saw the fire and the explosion first. The bright light against the dark street drew her gaze. A building was burning and taking out a pair of cars next to it while a huge hulking creature roared at a pack of men in costumes.

Typical parahu—

Nanku stilled again.

She read the headline three times.

'Brawl in Captain's Hill: Hellhound Sighted'

"What happened?" Rose asked.

Addison continued standing between Nanku and Rose.

Bitch rode one of her dogs, a bat in hand while she shouted at the capes. Nanku couldn't make out their costumes. Not the Protectorate. They'd have help from the PRT and lots of flashing red and blue lights. Nanku didn't see any of that in the video so it was someone else.

Nanku called Dusk and Dawn to the balcony and grabbed the backpack from Dawn.

Addison stared with a pale face.

Rose went up and scratched the Twins under their jaws like they liked.

Nanku went around a corner to hurriedly change and left the bag and dress behind.

"Go inside," she told Rose.

Dusk and Dawn beat the air with their wings and flew off.

Nanku activated her cloak and jumped as the shroud enveloped her.