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rogueshadeaux · 5 months

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Chapter Twenty-Six — Crossfire

I could see a bit of the sky now from where I was, since we were on the edge of the bridge. I couldn’t really see the stars anymore, something I’d grown accustomed to in Chapman’s ruralness and reinforced by Salmon Bay. It was the dead of night, and I couldn’t wait to get off of the floor and sleep the rest of the way to wherever this guy lived, even if that’d only be another hour. But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

4.9k words | 16 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Canon-typical violence, Erosionverse-typical violence, guns, shooting, arguing, depression ? is that a tw?

It took three and a half days before we even crossed the border into Louisiana.

Brent, Dad, and Dr. Sims would rotate who would drive — Brent only allowed to do so at day — and when I begged for a chance, not only did Dad brush me off, but he wouldn’t even let me leave my spot in the back of the truck. Every pit stop, every leg stretch, every dine-in at some fast food place — Dad was there, closer than my own shadow, policing everything I could do in that moment.

I was about to fucking lose it.

I get that something was wrong with me. I understand that he’s seen me have a breakdown more than once in the past few days and was probably worried. But I wasn’t glass! He used to be big on independence, on letting us make our own mistakes and touting how he wanted us to live how we wanted, and just wanted to give advice when we wanted it. Now? I had no space, at all, and was seconds from going feral.

Brent could see it. He didn’t say much at all, not audibly, but he did at some point message me are you okay? and sighed when I shrugged. I laid the phone back on my lap and it stayed there for all of seventeen seconds before it pinged again and I flipped it, a screenshot in the messages.

Mei and Brent were still chatting away, Mei explaining how no one from the original group talked to Tommy much at all anymore. Even Cat stopped signing to her cousin. We’re all really worried about Jean, though…you’re sure she’s okay? We thought we saw her die in that footage of the seattle fight.

She’s fine, Brent promised, just a bit banged up.

Reese wants to talk to her. I mean we all do but Reese…well, you know her. She’s been at my house since new years and its been a challenge trying to get her to eat. Do you think Jean would want to reach out to her?

In the textbox was Brent’s message to me, a simple would you wanna? that he knew I’d see.

And I looked at him and shook my head, turning away to look back out of the window before he could convince me otherwise.

I couldn’t take the concerns or questions right now. I didn’t want to explain to them how something was wrong with me. And, God, how do I face them after what I did to Seattle? Why would they want to know someone like me, someone who could wipe them off of the face of the earth in an instant on some stupid mistake?

They were safer in Portland, with me in their past.

I was surprised by just how warm it got the farther south we went. Like, sure, I knew some people would rush to the south during winter to avoid the snow — but it was spring weather down here! Sixty, seventy degrees Fahrenheit! We didn’t get those sort of numbers in Chapman till May. I even threw off the woven blanket at some point, storing it on the floorboard simply because it felt too good to need the extra heat.

As we made a gas stop in Baton Rouge and everyone got out to stretch, Brent stripped off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, complaining. “God, it feels gross out here,”

Dad seemed to agree, and Dr. Sims was too far away to join in the conversation — but he also stripped off his coat as he walked towards the convenience store, slinging it over his shoulder.

Was it warm? Sure. But it didn’t warrant the forehead swipes or the gripes. “Maybe your steel insides have changed how you deal with temperature or something, because it feels amazing,” I said, hopping up from the tire so I could sit on the edge of the truck’s bed.

Brent looked at me like I was insane. “Are you serious? It’s so muggy,”

“That’s gotta be the marshes,” Dad hummed, rolling up his own sleeves.

“You’re both dramatic,” I teased. “I’d kill for Portland to feel like this,”

Brent’s bewilderment on his face grew as Dad regarded me for a moment before a half-smile broke on his face. “Do you feel the humidity?” he asked me.

“What humidity?”

He laughed, sliding the gas nozzle back into place. “That’s why you feel good — you’re probably in Conduit heaven. It’s humid right now, Jean. There’s so much water in the air it feels sticky,”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

Well, now that he mentioned it, that soreness between my shoulder blades I could never seem to shake was nearly gone, and my wounds weren’t all that itchy or in pain. I even felt confident enough to move around without the arm sling, my braced arm free to the elements. That’s what Dad concentrated on — my exposed arm with no support. “Jean, you should put your sling back on—”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I swore, hoping I’d be able to stop this in its tracks before it got bad. I hopped from my place on the truck and said, “I need to go to the bathroom,”

“Hold on, let me get—” Dad started, reaching into the truck for something.

“Dad.” I deadened. “I’m just going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”

I scurried off into the dark before he could protest more, desperate to catch fifteen seconds to myself.

We were so close to this special person that supposedly had all the answers. I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, I was always bad at that — but I did remember how Dr. Sims insisted he was important. He’s the closest we will ever get to talking to Cole MacGrath.

Cole MacGrath. The DUP had spent so much time painting him as a demon that even now you’ll find people that consider him a terrorist. They’d always point to the footage of him blowing up that section of Empire City and scream how he killed thousands. But there were stories from refugees from New Marais or people who snuck out of Empire City before it was decimated that touted him a hero. Footage from some old newscasters that snuck past the quarantine line to interview survivors of the explosion that happened in the city repeating the same: that he was a champion. Saving people, defeating rogue gangs that rose up in the aftermath of the explosion.

The other side would always scream back That he caused!

After the DUP fell and the government had to declassify a bunch of documents in their UN case, people were forced to acknowledge he actually wasn’t that bad a guy. How different was he from Dad? Not much. And that’s what I held on to initially; he was a guy trying to do the right thing. Even if he fucked up, he did more than others. Definitely more than the government did during the quarantine. Isn’t that enough?

I wonder how much guilt he carried to the end over everyone he couldn’t help.

Either way, he was the first recorded Conduit, apparently someone who’s seen tar like Augustine’s, and we’d have to go to the next best source to learn more since we couldn’t ask MacGrath without performing a séance. What kind of guy — normal guy, apparently — was a good enough replacement source for the Cole MacGrath?

There was a sudden knock on the door of the women’s restroom and both the woman walking towards a stall and the one washing her hands with me froze. We glanced at each other the way strangers in situations did; awkward, wordless side glances as we debated whether or not it was worth speaking up to talk to each other. Who knocks on a multi-stall restroom door?

Unfortunately, I knew exactly who.

“Jean?” Dad’s voice called from the other side. I felt like I was going to explode from embarrassment, my face in the mirror quickly turning red. “You in there?”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, thinking about going humid on the spot and never returning to my solid body. He could not be doing this and not see that it was absolutely humiliating! The other women definitely sensed my embarrassment, both turning to regard me as I mumbled some sort of apology, shook my hands out till the water from the sink seeped in, and gripped the handle of the door with white knuckles, barely able to take a deep breath before opening it.

Dad was there against the wall, barely allowing enough room for anyone to pass — and closing that space immediately when I stepped out. “Hey, there you are,” He greeted, like he wasn’t trying to infantilize me. “I told you to wait for m—”

“I can piss on my own, Dad.” I snipped, shoving myself into that small space between him and the wall and slipping past, briskly walking away.

Dad caught up with ease, falling in step beside me as the automatic doors to the gas station’s convenience store opened. “You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone right now,” he stressed, ignoring my bite. “You’re not…”

“I’m not what?” I demanded, spinning on him. “Capable? Competent? It’s the bathroom, Dad! I get that I fucked up and I’m broken now—”

“Jean, don’t curse—”

“—And that I can’t do anything right, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to treat me like a toddler! I’m not going to drown anyone while washing my hands.”

Something in Dad’s eyes changed. “That’s not what I meant—”

I didn’t want to hear it. Any excuse he would have given me would have just made it worse. I shot a hand up to stop his tangent, and demanded, “Don’t, Dad, just — how far’s New Marais?”

Dad’s eyebrows sewed closer together. He had that look, that expression he’d reserve for analyzing people on the stands. “It’s about an hour and a half away.”

“Let’s just go,” I said stiffly, walking off towards the truck. The sooner we got this over with, and the sooner we found a fix for whatever in me was fucked up, the sooner I’d get Dad off of my back.

Still, I put in my headphones and made sure my music was loud enough that everyone else in the car could hear its reverberation, just to make sure I didn’t have to deal with anything else along the way.

Brent got to drive us towards New Marais, and not only because he was Dad’s special little Conduit that wasn’t a walking hazard sign; in between choruses in my ears, I could hear Dad and Dr. Sims begin debating on whether or not we would be able to take back roads the rest of the way. “They don’t have cops that can do something about that?” Dad asked from the passengers’ seat.

Dr. Sims shrugged beside me. “There’s not enough of them. Too many older cops are retiring without any replacements, and those that do replace the old ones…well, there’s a big turnover rate. Criminals and wanna-bees have figured this out and—”

“And now they snipe drivers?” Dad scoffed, amazed that’s where their criminal minds went.

“Why am I driving, again?” Brent asked sheepishly.

“Because you’re the only one with built-in armor, and it frees Eugene and I up so we can protect you both. There’s really no other way?” Dad spun in place to ask Dr. Sims.

Dr. Sims shook his head. “Not until we cross the Lake Bonheur Causeway. It’ll take us into the city center and we can ride the backroads to the reclaimed swampland.”

“Man couldn’t live in a condo,” Dad grumbled, turning to face the front again.

I took out my headphones and put them away, the clack of their charge box catching Dad’s attention. “Jean, hey,” he started. “We’re—”

“I know,” I cut off. “I heard.”

Something simple changed in his eyes as he looked at me, but he didn’t mention it, instead continuing, “Okay, good. I’m going to need you to get on the floorboard.”

I blinked. “The—Dad—”

“You can’t be in view of any windows,” he cut me off with that aggravating finality in his voice, honed by years of law bullshit. “Eugene will be able to protect you if something happens, but you need to stay low.”

“Stay out of the way, you mean.” I grumbled.

Not low enough for Dad not to hear. “Stay safe. None of us are outrunning a bullet, but you’re the only one that’s not gonna recover.” The truck did that slight lurch as we went from asphalt to concrete, the start of this infamous Bonheur Causeway lit up in the night by the amber lights screwed to the suspensions above. I remember this bridge from one of Brent’s infodumps; it was one of the longest bridges over water in the country, no land for miles. Just concrete, steel, water, electric roadsigns — and four Conduits that could control them all.

Not that Dad wanted me to. “Jean.” He commanded, voice firm. “Down. Now.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes and undoing my seatbelt. “Better hope Brent doesn’t crash either,” I snipped.

“Hey—” Brent started. I didn’t get to hear much else, I was already trying to fit myself in the small space between my seat and Brent’s.

This was humiliating. I was stored away on the bottom of the truck’s floor like some wine cooler they didn’t want the cops seeing, and I was, what, supposed to just be okay with it? I was shoved next to the plastic bag that held our trash — and right now, felt no better than it.

The cab of Dad’s truck flashed amber as we passed under lamplights, and Dad rolled down the windows of the truck, letting in this damp and dank smell that was part salt and part rotting egg. The smell definitely was enough to get a reaction from Brent. “Eugh, Dad—” he began to complain.

“Shh.” Dad commanded immediately.

I could see Dr. Sims from my spot on the floor — he was really the only thing I could see. He leaned over ever so slightly so he could look past the front seats and out of the windshield to the bridge, eyes scanning from behind the glare of his glasses. His one hand crept to the middle seat, closest to my head, and tensed, like he was preparing to call those angels up any minute now.

I couldn’t remember how long the bridge was; I was sure if I asked Brent, he’d be able to rattle off a number down to the centimeters, but I didn’t dare break the silence of the truck’s cab. Not even as my legs began to cramp from how I was crouched and the bridge gained some light from more variable-message signs appearing, directing the flow of traffic to different parts of New Marais. “Merge left,” Dad simply said, the click of the turn signal coming on almost immediately.

“We’re almost off the bridge.” Dr. Sims muttered above me. I didn’t realize he meant it to be a reassurance until his eyes flashed down to look at me.

Good. The sooner I could get out of this uncomfortable crouch, the better.

But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

The truck hit another crack in the bridge, rocking around a bit with the force. The things in the back bounced around a bit, the ice in Dad’s cup rattled — and, under it all, something clicked. Dr. Sims heard the noise too as it rang around very slightly outside of the windows, warning, “Del—”

He was cut off by the back windshield suddenly shattering, a bullet flying through the space between Dad and Brent and impaling the radio, sending sparks and glass flying around. I shielded my head as glass rained down on me, poking away at my arms as Brent yelled, “Dad!”

“Just keep driving!” He demanded, unclipping his seatbelt. The window began to roll down as he added. “Steel on, now!”

Dr. Sims’ arms lit up and he spun in place, looking through the shattered window and out to the bridge. “D, we’re being followed!” He warned.

There was sudden tire screeching, and Brent cursed under his breath before the truck jerked right. “Dad!” He shouted, more urgent this time.

“Keep going, get off the bridge!”

“Where are you going?”

I could barely see the bottom of Dad’s feet from where I was as he pulled himself up onto the roof of the truck through the window. It creaked a bit under his weight, a resounding thunk that barely covered up the sound of a handgun cocking. I could feel the vibration from Brent’s hit as he smacked his driver’s side door, the plastic of the cab’s interior being overtaken by rapidly-growing steel, the encasing just finishing its growth as it became dented from bullets. Dr. Sims had a hand out of the gap the shattered windshield left, the blue around his wrists spinning like Doctor Strange gauntlets before pulsing bright and shooting off actual swords towards whoever was behind us.

I was thrown over onto Dr. Sims’ feet as whoever was on the right of us slammed into the truck in an effort to make it spin out, Brent’s overcorrection throwing me back just as quickly. I went from being on my knees, to my face, to my ass — all in perfect time to see Dad’s form as he fell from on top of the roof.

“Delsin!” Dr. Sims yelled out.

Dr. Sims was too distracted; he watched what I assumed had to be Dad’s body as it hit the pavement, concentrating more on that than whoever was behind us now returning fire. He was hit in his right arm, in that meat just below the elbow, the bullet tearing through him entirely and lodging into the back of the passenger side seat. Dr. Sims choked out a couple choice curse words, gripping his arm close and slouching down out of the view of the back windshield.

“Does anyone see Dad?” Brent demanded from up front before cursing again. The truck jerked around once more as he avoided something — or someone. “Jean, do you see him?”

I shook my head like Brent could see me, panic beginning to settle in my chest as I looked at the bit of sky the broken windshield allowed me to. Where was he? Dr. Sims looked all but useless; his face was going gray as he looked at the wound, and he made no move to sit back up and keep fighting. Could he even do it with an injury like that? There were pieces of tissue hanging out of the hole in his rolled-up sleeve. There was another bullet that blasted past and narrowly missed Brent’s head, taking out the front windshield instead.

I couldn’t stay here and just wait to see who’d recover or die first. I couldn’t stay on this dirty and glass-covered floorboard waiting to see what happened to Dad. I had to do something.

There was a stint I went through in Sophomore year, where action movies were my everything. I had just gotten into the idea of comic writing, and wanted something thrilling. Something exciting, something that’d catch an audience’s attention enough that they’d ditch the Valentine Crime Noirs and maybe I could bring an interest back to the storytelling form. Dad was all for it; it gave him the chance to introduce me to some of his favorite movies, and while some of them absolutely sucked, there was one that I adored watching with him again and again: John Wick. This guy had reached his limit after everything was taken from him, and God, the fight scenes — they were something else entirely. Not just action packed and exhilarating, but accurate.

It was there that I learned a bullet is useless in water so long as you’ve got a few feet between yourself and the gun. That’s all I needed to give us — a few feet of water.

I pushed up from the floorboard and laid my hand on the seat, a nice shard of glass immediately introducing itself into my palm through the space in my cast. I didn’t let that stop me, nor when Dr. Sims seemed to try to make some sound of objection through his sharp gasps; I flitted through the shattered window on my own wave of water, landing atop someone’s bag and nearly tripping as I resolidified.

There were two trucks, one directly beside us and swerving to try and push us into the guardrail of the bridge, another behind with at least four masked people in them. All armed.

No Dad. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Jean, what the fuck are you doing?” Brent yelled from the truck.

I steadied myself and rose, trying my best to look at the hood of the car behind us without worrying about the fact that everyone in it looked ready to mow me down with their weapons if given the chance. I definitely was giving them plenty. Water pushed down from my shoulders and began to swirl around my forearms as I let that tenseness push into my chest, a hold binding my ribs closer and closer until I pushed out and the pressure burst away with it.

A halo of water expanded quickly, this giant forcefield of wet that washed over me and everything else in the back of the truck, pushing over its roof and all the way to the front and farther still. I extended my arms from in front of me to beside me, holding them as steady as I could as I built more into the bubbling shield, trying to pile on enough to make it an actual wall and not just a barrier.

It felt…different, this time. Something about pushing around this much water…it didn’t feel like it used to. There was more strain to it, an ache in my shoulders even though I knew, without a doubt, I didn’t need to drain. The truck on our left inched closer still, tried to push past that barrier I was making and force its way into my little bubble, and a hole opened up in the siding Brent had built so he could stick his hand our and shoot a volley of steel spheres, the metal rusting the moment they hit my water and exploding upon impact with the highway robbers’ car. The windows shattered with the hit, causing the truck to swerve away with a squeal of the tires.

Even with the swirls of the swell I tried to keep the water clear enough to see through. I wasn’t exactly wanting Brent to drive the truck straight into a median barrier, after all. But it left things clear enough for me to see the muzzle of an assault rifle settle on the center console of the truck behind us. I was suddenly back in that alley somehow, a gun pointed at my forehead, at my family, the threat that tore so much apart in the blink of an eye.

I was not going to be the damsel in distress this time.

I moved my right hand in front of me, pushing more water into the barrier between us and the truck following close behind just as their gun let off a volley of bullets, shattering the windscreen on the front of their truck and sending a good dozen bullets straight for me.

The first three managed to make it through the water, each narrowly missing me — one even snagged the flannel I had tied around my waist, shredding a hole through the fabric. But as the water caught up with my intentions and became denser, the other bullets stuttered to a stop in their shots, wavering in the water before slowly falling away and onto the road.

There was a sudden shift in the shadows, a flash in the darkness between street lamps, and Dad was on the roof of their truck, smoke dissipating from his form. He gripped the barrel of the gun sticking out of the truck and pushed some sort of heat into it from his blackened hand, the barrel going red-hot before he bent it to a ninety degree angle. The people in the truck reacted to his presence, shouting, one lifting another gun, but it didn’t stop Dad; he turned back into a plume of smoke and darted into the truck from its shattered windscreen.

I could only describe what happened next as a movie scene; Dad disappeared and reappeared again and again, choking out someone in the backseat as a cloud of smoke, solidifying to kick the other one in the side of the jaw. He was gone again and suddenly in the front, elbowing the person in the passenger’s seat before grabbing the steering wheel and trying to fight it away from the driver.

The driver gave him a hard time, managing to land a headbutt that sent Dad reeling back and prompted him to turn to smoke. The embers and ash rushed out of a window and to the top of the vehicle, resettling as Dad on the roof again.

The smoke didn’t dissipate from him; it stayed close, swirling around him like a twister, pulling in as he stayed crouched, the ash around his arm turning bright red as it shifted to literal fire. Could he control fire?

The guys on our left swerved suddenly, and pushed into the side of Dad’s truck, throwing me off balance — and making the water shield around us disappear. I had to drop fast in order to not be thrown out of the car, something roughly popping in my side and making me cry out in pain.

“Jean, get back in the truck!” Brent demanded somewhere behind me. The guys beside us had their own guns, and an entire clip was emptied just over my head. I ducked low, covering my head with my arms, barely able to see Dad through the gaps between them.

He jumped, a plume of ash and red-hot embers as he shot to the sky like rockets, all burning fuel and smog. He was nearly touching the peak of the bridge’s suspension arch when he formed from the ash, suspended in midair for only a moment before turning in the sky, aiming for the truck behind us, and shooting down like a missile, heat on the tail of his form.

There was this brief half-second of calm that came in the pause of the guy in the truck beside us reloading his gun that gave me the chance to turn into a small wave and flit back into the truck, landing on the cushion of the back seat — and sorta on Dr. Sims’ leg. “Shit, sorry,” I apologized immediately.

He didn’t care, he wasn’t even paying attention; he was looking out of the back window at Dad’s form as it zeroed in on the hood of the trunk behind us, yelling, “Hold on to something!” before blue light took over his arms.

I couldn’t really keep track of what happened next.

Dad slammed into the hood of the truck behind us, his body sinking away into smoke and ash the moment it touched the gloss of the truck. Smoke coupled and pushed out as the truck’s front pushed down into the street under it, axel snapping away. Then there was blue, a wall of hard light as that smoke billowed outward in all directions, a blast force behind it.

The back of the truck lifted, the smoke hitting the near-opaque wall and pushing around it. Unfortunately, this also pushed the truck around, and before I knew it, I was thrown into the door as it flipped on its side, the steel on it barely doing anything to cushion me. My vision blacked out and I wasn’t sure if that was from the smoke, the rolling, or simply from me.

The truck skidded some ways before it stopped, Dr. Sims only kept from landing on me by the seat belt around his body. There was no sound outside of the truck. All I could see past the window was the remains of smoke as it dissipated in the air, and smelt nothing but burnt rubber and fumes. I let my head settle, sucking in a shaken breath and coughing out the exhale, lungs screaming for air that didn’t burn. Brent was visible from where I was, head leaned against the steel wall at his side, unmoving and unsteeled. “Brent?” I coughed.

He didn’t move.

#infamous second son #infamous erosion #delsin rowe #brent posting #jean posting #infamous 2 #infamous #cole macgrath #Eugene Sims #I FINALLY GOT TO WRITE AN ULT THIS WAS SO FUN BRO #fanfic #sucker punch productions #hey wanna watch me get hunted for sport when my friends reach the cliffhanger?#god I love putting guys in situations

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