Disruptor (3 page)

His hands were raw after hours of scrubbing
and washing. At least he hadn’t ruined his shoes this time. He bade
Mr. Thorpe good night, took one more look around to make sure he’d
put everything back in the right place, then left.

The pavement was wet and the air tasted of
rain and chemicals. At one time that chemical smell would have
indicated an all-night shift at one of the many factories in the
neighborhood. Now those factories were long shuttered. The stench
was probably a meth lab.

The least flashy vehicle he owned was parked
in the vacant lot across from the shelter. Before Kevin even
crossed the street, he could see that the rims were missing and the
driver’s side window had been busted. So much for the car alarm
being worth a damn. He swore and jogged the rest of the distance.
Each tire was punctured and flat. The stereo was missing. So was
his favorite pair of sunglasses, damn it. Kevin swore as he fished
in his pocket for his cell phone.

A circle of cold metal touched the back of
his neck, raising goosebumps on his flesh and a knot of fear in his
stomach.

“Your wallet and watch, now.” The mugger’s
voice was young, nervous, as if he were just as scared as Kevin.
The gun trembled.

“Okay.” Kevin licked his lips. “Okay, let’s
both stay calm.”

“I didn’t say you could talk. Hurry it
up.”

Slowly so as not to spook the kid, Kevin
withdrew his wallet and slipped off his watch. He held on to both,
one in each hand, and raised his arms. The gun barrel slid across
the skin underneath his hair.

Jesus, this kid’s going to shoot me just
because he’s so fucking nervous.

The mugger snatched the wallet and watch from
Kevin’s hands. “On your knees. Now.”

Kevin shut his eyes, his heart jackhammering.
“I haven’t seen your face. Let’s both walk away, okay?”

The butt of the gun slammed into the juncture
of his neck and shoulder. Kevin cried out in pain.

“On your knees,” the mugger shouted, voice
shaking. He hit Kevin again.

Kevin dropped to the ground. Gravel bit into
his palms. Pain shot through his knees. Even if he was able to call
911, he might not be alive by the time the cops finally showed
up.

Footsteps and catcalls announced new arrivals
on the scene. Hope flared inside Kevin. A man said, “What you got
here?”

The kid said, “Some fancy car. Guy’s wallet
and watch.”

Kevin rolled to his back and surveyed the new
arrivals. Hope left, leaving nothing but panic.

“You gotta finish it to get in. You know
that.”

A gang initiation. The kid was supposed to
kill him. Kevin moaned and shifted to one side as if in pain,
trying to hide his efforts to reach the cell phone still in his
pocket.

“I know.” The kid wiped his brow, gun hand
shaking but still keeping the weapon aimed at Kevin. “I was getting
to that part.”

Kevin’s fingertips slipped over the slick
surface of his phone. He was leaning so far over that his hand
barely had room in his pocket to work the phone. Sweat poured from
his hairline down his face. He blinked rapidly to get the stinging
moisture out of his eyes, fingers struggling with the phone.
Almost got it
.

He was about to hit send when a booted foot
slammed into his ribs. The air rushed out of his lungs and nausea
twisted his stomach into knots. Hands jerked him up by the
shoulders, his phone falling from his grasp and clattering to the
ground.

“Why you bother with that, huh? Cops ain’t
coming out here.” The leader laughed.

Kevin knew his chances of getting out of this
were dwindling. If he could break through the half-circle of boys
and young men forming around him, make it to the shelter – that was
the only plan he could think of. He had no weapons. One of the
gangbangers smashed his phone to bits while the others laughed, so
calling for help was out. It was either run and hope he could make
it, or scream and hope someone heard him.

“Fire!” he bellowed and yanked free of his
captors’ grip. He made it three feet before the semicircle of
gangbangers closed in on him. A single punch from a massive fist
sent his head snapping back and put him on the ground again. Bursts
of pain popped through his body like exploding fireworks as kicks
landed on his torso, his legs, everywhere they could reach. He
curled into a ball and tried to protect his head.

I don’t want to die like this.

Somebody screamed in pain. At first Kevin
thought it was him. Another scream, followed by vicious swearing,
and he realized it was the gangbangers. He looked out through the
shield of his arms in time to see one drop to the concrete, blood
leaking from the corner of his mouth.

“It’s that fucking ghost!”

“Ain’t no ghost, it’s a person. Beat his ass
down!”

One last glancing blow to his hip and then
they were too busy fighting off the Cabrini Ghost to bother with
Kevin anymore. He pushed himself up to see better, coughing from
the effort. A contact must have been knocked out, though, because
he couldn’t see worth a damn. He squinted his right eye shut and
tried to make sense of the images.

The Ghost was all in black, a hood hiding his
face. He was small, and moved like…like nothing Kevin had ever
seen.

Kevin crawled to his car. He pulled himself
up using the trunk for support, found his keys in his pocket and
unlocked the doors. Thick moisture dripped into his eyes and he
wiped it away. He brought his fingertips close to his eyes to
examine the substance, finding blood.

Shouts drew his attention back to the fight.
Between his poor vision, the blood running down his face, and the
rapidly increasing nausea, he couldn’t make out much. Four – or
maybe just two – of the gangbangers ran from the scene.

Kevin coughed and spat blood. What little
strength he had left was deserting him rapidly. He opened the car
door, leaned inside and pulled a spare phone from the glove
box.

His thumb was over the nine button when he
paused. The Cabrini Ghost was right in front of him, fighting off a
bunch of street thugs. Calling the cops could wait. He took
video.

The last of the attackers limped away,
dragging a couple of semi-conscious guys with them. Kevin might not
have been able to see well, but he knew it when the Ghost turned to
stare at him.

In seconds the Ghost was inches away, ripping
the phone from his hand. He didn’t think, just reacted
instinctively, and reached out for the hood. The Ghost was maybe
six inches shorter than he, so it was easy to pull the hood down
and reveal his face.

Her
face.

The beautiful, fragile-looking girl from the
shelter with the unforgettable brown eyes. She gaped at him in
horror and backed away, his spare phone still clutched in her
hand.

A shout came from the direction of the
shelter. The Ghost pulled her hood back up and ran.

Kevin slumped against the car as a wave of
sickening pain left him shaking. He wanted to throw up, lay down,
find a scrap of paper and draw her face.

He’d seen the Ghost. Sweet Jesus, the Cabrini
Ghost was real, and he’d seen her.

Kevin stared at the screen of his laptop,
reading through the Cabrini Ghost hashtag. He’d first heard the
rumor in the tiny, cramped lobby outside his probation officer’s
broom closet of an office. Stories of a vigilante in the South Side
intrigued him mostly because he was bored while waiting for his
appointment. The idea that Point Sable had its very own urban
legend amused him, especially such a melodramatic one. His first
night at the shelter, he’d overheard a group of kids talking about
the Ghost in hushed, awed tones. They believed the Ghost was real.
Kevin had believed they wanted the Ghost to be real. A bedtime
story about a boogie man who went after the bad guys, something to
offer comfort to people who spent much of their time trying to stay
safe from those same bad guys.

But the Ghost wasn’t just some urban legend.
She was real, and she’d saved his life.

The person running toward him from the
shelter had been Thorpe. Kevin had spent the rest of the night in
the emergency room, hoping no one called his family. But of course
someone put his name and face together and ratted him out. Olivia
tried to get him admitted but he refused, threatening to walk out
before he could be stitched up. She’d relented and called a plastic
surgeon friend to stitch the cut on his forehead.

In addition to that and other cuts and
scrapes, he had more bruises than he could count, plus two broken
ribs and a mild concussion. With slow, ginger movements he got up
from the desk and made his way to the kitchen. A bottle of
prescription pain pills and a bottle of ibuprofen sat on the bar
next to a stack of hand towels and an empty glass. He filled the
glass with water from the fridge door and swallowed one of the
prescription pills, then pulled an ice pack from the freezer and
wrapped the towel around it. He held the pack against the middle of
his chest, cringing at the cold seeping through the towel to his
bare flesh. Studiously avoiding mirrors, he walked to the living
room and lay down on the sofa.

He’d lied to the police. As many times as
he’d gotten in trouble over the years, he was an old pro at it. The
trick to lying, especially to authority figures, was to be brazen
about it. Maintain eye contact, have your story together beforehand
if at all possible, keep it close to the truth, and never hesitate.
That’s what he’d done last night, first with Thorpe, then the cops,
and finally his family. None of them had shown any signs of not
believing him. He’d left out all mention of the Ghost and his spare
phone that she’d run away with, and stressed that he’d been able to
see very little once he lost a contact.

How had a lone woman been able to fight off
so many attackers? Kevin cursed his lousy vision and wished to hell
he still had that phone. He’d give anything to see the video he’d
taken of the fight. Dark shapes backlit by yellow haze from
sporadic streetlights – that’s all he’d been able to make out when
it was happening.

Unable to relax for long, he left the sofa
and tossed the ice pack, towel and all, in the kitchen sink. Once
settled back at his desk, he logged into his cell phone account and
checked the GPS location on the spare. It was turned off, and he
was pretty sure he hadn’t done that. He also hadn’t bothered to
password protect the damn phone, so she could have easily done it.
Cops could still track it but he had no interest in getting them
involved, especially when it could mean a charge for filing a false
report while already on probation.

The pill was finally kicking in, relieving
some of the pain in his chest and everywhere else. Kevin had been
in more than his share of fights but this was the worst beating of
his life. Throwing a few quick, sloppy punches didn’t prepare a
person for fighting off half a dozen or more assailants.

Which brought him back to the question – how
had the Ghost been able to do it? Why did she even bother? The
questions circled in his head, a pair of songs on repeat.

She’d probably dumped the phone right away.
Smashed it to pieces and left it in alley somewhere in Cabrini. But
it wouldn’t hurt to try calling. He picked up his little-used
landline and punched in the number.

***

The stolen phone in Dani’s pocket buzzed with
an incoming call. She ignored it and huddled into a tighter ball. A
steady rain pattered outside a broken window of the abandoned
building she was crashing in tonight. She pulled her hoodie around
her tighter to ward off the damp chill.

Six dollars and change was all she had left.
Going back to the shelter was out. She couldn’t risk encountering
that guy again. The best thing to do was leave town but she needed
money to do that.

No answers presented themselves. Tired and
hungry, all she wanted to do was sleep but she was too nervous to
do more than doze. She’d already had to leave one building tonight
to avoid trouble. If one person could video her, another just as
easily could. She couldn’t risk something like that getting posted
online.

They would find her. The longer she stayed in
Point Sable, the more likely it was that would happen.

Just enough money to get out of town, as far
away as possible. Beyond disappearing, she had no plan. No wish,
other than a good meal and a safe place to sleep. No hope for the
future, other than to never go back to that lab again.

It was true she’d had friends there. No
freedom, but a few friends. The traffickers who’d sold her to the
lab’s first director also sold three other girls. One of them
didn’t survive that psychotic bastard’s experiments. Dani had never
learned all the details but Cassidy’s death had a lot to do with
that director being replaced with someone more science-oriented and
far less bloodthirsty. For the rest of Dani’s time in the lab,
she’d stayed close with the other two girls, Angel and Nicole. Even
now she missed them.

The phone buzzed again. She really should
ditch the damn thing. She’d already turned off the GPS but she was
pretty sure cops could still trace it. The owner would have to have
reported it stolen, though, and from what she’d read online earlier
it didn’t look like he had.

Kevin Moynihan had foolishly neglected to
password protect his phone. Dani discovered that when she turned
the GPS off. Then she deleted the video, watching only enough to
confirm it was the right one. She’d intended to smash the phone and
toss the pieces, but instead she took advantage of the data plan
and went online. A news item gleefully identified the phone’s
owner, a rich playboy doing court-ordered community service at the
shelter. There was no mention of anyone but Thorpe coming to his
rescue, so either the guy was too embarrassed to have been helped
by a woman to admit it, or…or she didn’t know what.