gets the pass from @preludeinz and handballs it to @drdone

One of the hardest things Gordon had to learn when he started working shifts was how to sleep whenever and wherever. He’s mostly got it down, but there’s always going to be that groggy moment when he first wakes up, that brief moment of ‘what century is this?’

He’s no princess in a sleeping castle, for all that he can hear snores from across the hallway. But as he sits up in bed, knuckling sleep out of his eyes, the door opens with a slow creak and Penny comes in, a chipped mug in one hand. “You really do have an internal alarm clock,” she teases, barely whispering in deference to the woman still asleep across the hall. She passes him the mug and settles on the edge of his sagging mattress as he inhales deeply of the slightly lemony steam. “I was just coming to wake you up so you can make your bus.”

Gordon knows he should be getting up, getting dressed, getting on the road to walk the four blocks to the right stop. But he sits instead, takes a tiny sip from the tea from Penny’s secret stash, feels the warmth of Penny’s hand seep through the thin covers from where she’s rested it on her leg. “How you holding up?” she asks, rubbing his knee gently.

“I feel like I should be asking you that.” Gordon will never tell Penny, but he loves the smell of her tea much more than the taste. He takes one more tiny sip, more for the warmth than the taste before passing the mug back to her. “Thank you so much for sitting with Grandma all night, I know you worked a double yesterday too.”

She wraps her fingers around the mug, seeking out warmth as Gordon grits his teeth and swings his feet onto the floor. “You’re more than welcome, darling.” She smiles into her tea as Gordon whips off yesterday’s shirt and shorts, stands naked to paw through their shared dresser for anything that might fit. “No word from your brothers?”

Gordon glances at the screen charging on top of the dresser, but there’s only one message, from his boss confirming his leave – it had been scuttlebutt at the depot for hours that Gordon had found a brother at the crash site, he hadn’t even had to ask for the time. “Nothing,” he told Penny, his voice muffled by the shirt he was struggling into. “Besides, my brothers being open and honest and good at communicating what’s going on? That’s crazy talk woman.”

That gets a little laugh out of her, a flash of brightness in the dull gloom of the room. “Silly me,” she murmurs, taking another sip. “Are you going to be all right?”

Gordon pauses from his search for his other shoe to lean over the bed, his knee exaggerating the sag, to press a delicate kiss to her forehead. “We’ve been through worse,” he tells her, and it mostly isn’t a lie. “We’ll be fine.”

She catches his head as he went to lean back, pulling him in for a proper kiss that made his toes curl, made him want to lose the clothes and close the door. Across the hall, Grandma starts coughing, a phlegmy, throaty sound that makes Gordon sigh into Penny’s lips as she pulls back.

Penny pats his cheek, her fingers warm from the tea. “I’ve got her. You’ve got a bus to catch.” She rises elegantly, pauses in the doorframe. “Don’t forget Virgil’s charger. And I’ve made you some sandwiches to take with you.”

Gordon laughs as he finds his other shoe. “Sending me off with a kiss and a packed lunch? I could get used to this!” Her light and delighted laugh echoes across the otherwise empty apartment.

It was cold outside, and Gordon curses the lack of coffee in his system as he pulls his coat tight and crosses the nearly empty street. Dawn is just a glimmer on the horizon as he pays the fare and finds a seat, but Gordon’s looking forward to it after what feels like one of the longest nights of his life.

Several people get off at the hospital stop, but Gordon pays them no mind as he trots up to the public entrance. His work ID is in his pocket, he could take the side door, but that would mean walking halfway around the building, and the few hours of snatched sleep are already not enough.

It’s automatic to flirt with the admission clerk, winking as he strolls towards the elevator blanks. There’s a small knot of people waiting, but elevator etiquette means they all pretend the others don’t exist. Gordon thinks nothing of the footsteps that get off on Alan’s floor right behind him. They only register, a sour note in his subconsciousness, as he pauses to check the name on the chart in the slot by the door.

But by the time he turns to look, whoever was there is gone.

Shrugging, Gordon pushes open the door to take over the watch from Virgil.

continuing from here

picking up from @drdone passing off to @akireyta

Her car is not a large car, an old ‘84 Mustang. It’s nothing like a classic, it’s just old. Four people take up all four seats, and Kayo’s uncomfortably aware of the presence of a civilian in their midst. Two cops, one criminal, and one bystander, and the four of them parked within spitting distance of one of her uncle’s properties. There’ll be guards, there’ll be dogs. There might be people who know her face, though she tries not to think about that.

Because if their intel is good, there also might be the person responsible for one of the more major criminal enterprises in the city, complete with boosted luxury cars, assorted juveniles being coerced with money or drugs or whatever else, and a whole lot of cash being circulated through the whole process.

It’s no wonder this trail has come leading back to the Hood, or at least to one of his properties. But the interesting question is whether this is a partnership of equals, or whether there’s an imbalance. Whether the Mechanic is a lackey or a player in his own right. If he’s a rival, then her uncle will be looking to force him out. If he’s a lackey, the Mechanic may be looking to challenge the Hood’s own robust empire.

They’ve been sitting in the car long enough that the respiration of four bodies has started to fog up the windows, and Kayo swipes a hand irritably across hers, peers out into the darkness. In seat beside her, Brains sits quietly. In the seat in front, Scott’s brother does the same, though Kayo can hear the faint, rapid tap of his thumbs on the touchscreen of his phone, the blue of the screen the only light in the darkness.

Of Scott’s brothers, so far Kayo’s only met Virgil and Gordon, and Gordon only just tonight. Virgil she’s come across once or twice before, solely by merit of the fact that he works so much, which is coincidentally the thing Scott complains about most. It’s Gordon’s temper she hears about, and by now she knows better than to get Scott started about Alan. But she’s not sure she knows anything about John, least of all why the hell he’s here.

Currently, he’s just in between her and the passenger’s side door.

“Right,” she starts, and claps her hands on the headrests of the two seats in front of her. She gives an extra tap on John’s. “You, let me out. Either the Mechanic’s in there or he isn’t, but if he is, then he’s gonna be wondering where the hell his engineer is. That’s our in. A race got blown tonight, and if there’s as much money in this game as Pointdexter—”

“Brains,” John corrects from the front seat, and Kayo’s fingers tighten just slightly on the leather of the headrest behind him.

“—as Brains says there is, then he’s going to need to set up something new, fast. There are people putting big money on these races. He’s lost about half a dozen cars, at least that many drivers, if the rest of ’em aren’t running scared. He’ll be looking. I’ve got a car. I’m a damn good driver. If we can get someone on the inside of this thing—”

“Nope.” Scott’s let her get this far, but now he turns and gives her a hard stare. “Nothin’ doing, rookie, it was one thing when I thought we could catch this guy moving hot cars into a new space, get some decent surveillance, call it in and report it. But this is clearly an operation and it’s clearly on a larger scale than you, me, and the peanut gallery can deal with. If this is connected to your uncle? That is way over our heads. We’re not clear to—”

“My uncle owns the property. He owns about half the property in this part of town. It might be that’s all it is. But it also might be that this is a line we could use to hook a big fish.”

Scott’s jaw clenches slightly. “Yeah, a big fish who knew you when you were still a small fry. Even if you can get on the inside with the Mechanic—”

“I can.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

Kayo growls and kicks the back of John’s seat. “Let me out,” she orders, but knows better than to expect that this will happen. “Just let me go have a look around. I’ll take the Brainiac, that’s my in. He tells the Mechanic that I came by the old shop after the crash, looking for work. Told him I wouldn’t take no for an answer, took him on a joy ride around town to prove I’m serious. He didn’t have a choice but to bring me back to the boss.”

They’ve only been together a few months, but Kayo knows Scott well enough to know the meaning of the way his eyes narrow slightly. He’s thinking about it, in spite of himself.

“I’ll do it,” says a quiet voice beside her. “P-please. I want to help.”

And in the front seat, Scott heaves a sigh.

from @akireyta to me and then on to @preludeinz

you spin me right round baby right round

Scott’s going to be in so much trouble if anyone at the station catches wind of this.

Brains, aka Dr. Hiram K Hackenbacker – an engineer, of all things – had barely let Scott introduce himself before agreeing to tell him everything. His only request was protection – not only for him, but for the others who were only doing this because of a debt owed to the Mechanic.

Alan included.

Brains is too smart to think Scott can guarantee that, but he takes Scott’s solemn promise as word of God, and with no small amount of guilt, runs down what he knows.

It’s so much worse than Scott had thought.

For one, the Mechanic’s a known entity already, though he’s never been more than a rumor. Scott’s heard the name thrown around the bullpen more than once, but he’d never put much thought into it. He’s not a detective, he’s patrol, and so most of this is above his pay-grade.

But they have a lead, a real lead, and a clear look into the crime empire that the Mechanic appears to have single-handedly built. The people he’s got working for him only do so out of fear, because the Mechanic has threatened them into obedience and if Brains is right, they aren’t empty threats. Everything Scott hears about this just makes him more curious about how exactly Alan got mixed up in this, but Brains doesn’t know the details.

“I’m just the guy b-b-building the cars,” Brains had said, shaking his head. The guy seems pretty honest. Scott wants to ask what the Mechanic has on him, but there will be time for that later.

Brains has been with the Mechanic for years and knows his moving routine inside out. It’s efficient and quick, and Scott’s impressed despite himself, but Brains can lead them to where the Mechanic is waiting. They can get him there.

“If he hasn’t already left, that is,” Brains says.

John shouldn’t be here. Scott knows that, but he’s here anyway, because Scott needs him to be. He’s on his phone, typing out a text, and he looks exhausted, but he’s here and Scott knows it’s probably selfish of him, but he’s glad.

“Who are you texting?” he asks.

“Gordon,” John says, not looking up. “I forgot to tell him Virgil’s okay earlier, and Virgil wants him to bring his charger.”

“Left here,” Brains says from the backseat.

“How’s Grandma?” Scott asks, taking a left. They’re going through downtown now, and they’re well outside of Scott’s usual patrol area. He’s going to be in so much trouble.

“I don’t know,” John says. “Penny says Gordon pretty much passed out as soon as he got home, and Grandma’s asleep too.”

“Can’t say I blame him,” Scott says. “He looked pretty wrecked when I left earlier.”

“Another left,” Brains says. Scott turns onto a one-way and stops at the light. He barely knows this area. It makes him uneasy.

“Where are we going?” he asks, glancing at Brains in the rearview mirror.

Brains sighs tiredly. “We have to p-pack up shop every now and again. He had some others scope out some n-n-new places a while back. One was compromised, but this one wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, Brains,” Scott says, barely keeping his irritation out of his voice. Virgil’s words keep echoing in his head and he grits his teeth.

“There’s an old b-b-building down near an old mall,” Brains says. “It’s big and isolated enough. The Mechanic knows the guy who owns it.”

“What’s the address?” John asks curiously.

Brains doesn’t hesitate to give it to them. Scott doesn’t know it, but Kayo’s sharp intake of breath tells him she sure as hell does. That can’t be a good sign.

“Kayo?” he says.

“I know that address,” Kayo says, and her voice is low and angry. “I know who owns it, too.”

Scott almost doesn’t need her to say it, but she does anyway.

“It’s my uncle’s. It’s the Hood’s.”

@preludeinz tagged in me who will pass to @drdone

last time, in Rent Day Blues…

For all his life, John’s had a bad habit of gnawing at his nails.

It used to drive their father to distraction, the way John would lose himself in thought and, slowly, his thumb would drift up towards his mouth, his teeth scraping over the nail until their father growled and leaned over to bat John’s hand back down.

Virgil’s been thinking of those moments more and more lately, in the waiting lulls between blazes or when he’s tucked up in bed too tired to sleep. The exasperated, annoyed noise their father would make whenever one of them did something he didn’t like.

Virgil can’t even imagine the sound Jeff would make, watching John watch Alan sleep, too small in a too big bed.

John starts when Virgil closes the door as loudly as he dares. John’s hand almost bounces off the armrest as he guiltily yanks it down. “Oh, man,” he sighs as he relaxes slightly, half rising as Virgil takes the two small steps to Alan’s bedside. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”

Virgil steadies John, helps him back down. “How’s he doing?”

John’s already turned back to Alan like he might disappear again if they turn their backs. “Resting. First twenty-four hours. You know the drill.”

They all do. That’s kind of the problem. Virgil’s not sure how long Scott’s going to need, and a glance tells him that John’s not going to be levered out of that chair for anything as mundane as food or sleep.

There was a vending machine in the hall; not great, but better than nothing. He’s not entirely sure John hears him, but Virgil steps back out into the hall without repeating himself anyway.

He just needs a moment to breathe; too much has happened since he last slept. Alan, and the accident. Brains, and the Mechanic. The Mechanic and Alan. It was all pivoting on Alan, and he was in no state to answer questions.

There were edges Virgil knew he wasn’t seeing yet, but he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts, the one that told him to hit the deck just as the fire seemed under control. All Virgil’s instincts now were screaming that despite the lull, a blow-up was just about to hit with a ferocity to burn skin from bones.

He’s only got a few coins in the pocket of his jacket, but it’s second nature now to flip the gate, fool the machine to send him both snacks and his change back for another selection. He catches his reflection in the machine glass, pale and wide-eyed, hair a mess. The glass is cool as he rests his head against it for a moment, the triple thunk of gate and snacks and coins all dropping felt more than heard.

His brother nearly died tonight, street racing for a shadowy underworld figure, and he’s here getting Cheetos.

“Virgil?”

Virgil rubs his face as he exhales hard and straightens up. John’s stood in Alan’s doorway, unwilling to have their youngest out of his sight. But he’s got his phone to his ear. “Yeah? That Scott?”

John nods. “No,” he says to the voice on the other end of the line. “I can stay…Virgil is in no state…”

Virgil plucks the phone out of John’s hand. “Sending him out now. Tell Gordon to grab my charger when he comes back, would you?” John’s scowling as he ends the call. “Here,” he says, shoving the little crinkly packets into John’s hands. “Go. I’ve got him.”

John tries, but Virgil holds his ground against fire. John’s close, but he’s not yet quite a force of nature. Only when Virgil hears the automatic doors at the end of the hall wheeze out and in does Virgil sink into John’s chair and bury his face in his hands.

It’s so ingrained in him not to waste food that John clutches the packets in his fist as he wanders, almost in a daze, down and out of the hospital. Only when the cruiser’s lights flash does John see Scott, leaning tiredly against the driver’s side door.

“I’m not that tired, I can..” John begins, slowing as he takes in Scott’s slouch, the way his elbow is braced against the arm held across his belly. John’s the one who gets migraines, but the way Scott’s pinching the bridge of his nose speaks to a wicked tension headache. “Scott, what is it?”

Scott’s exhale is loud in the cool air. It’s so late it’s almost early, the air cold enough that John can see the plume of Scott’s breath. “We’ve got a lead. But it’s about to evaporate, and I know Captain Casey, she’d want to do this by the book, full inter-agency cooperation. There’s protocol and everything.”

Even drowning in exhaustion and emotion, John’s good at joining dots. “Too slow?”

Scott nods, his shoulders rolling back and straightening up. “Our source says he’s about to vanish. We’ve got one shot at getting the guy who did this to Alan….John?”

The engine is still warm under the fingers John trails over the hood as he walks around to the passenger side. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

continuing from here

@preludeinz picking up from @drdone and tagging @akireyta

sorry for the delay, halloween is a busy night for me

Scott’s waiting in the parking lot when Kayo’s car turns into the lot. He’s been standing in the shadows, well away from the door, smoking his way through a pack of cigarettes that none of his brothers know he has. Kayo does. She also seems to know he’ll be waiting for her, because she doesn’t seek out one of the spots nearest the main entry way, but parks deliberately at a distance. Scott’s flicked away a half-smoked cigarette and is already on the move as the car’s headlights dim down and the engine rumbles into silence, though the doors don’t open and no one exits the vehicle.

Scott’s still in uniform, but only because hasn’t found a moment to change. He’d been back to the precinct, met with his Captain and explained the situation. He’s got two weeks of leave, and Captain Casey had expressed her personal sympathy, her hope that his brother would recover quickly. She hadn’t let him try to expand on the details of the case, because it’s no longer something he can be involved in.

Not officially, anyway.

But Kayo’s parked her car beneath a street lamp in the far corner of the hospital parking lot, and as Scott approaches, the driver’s side door opens, and it becomes apparent that it’s not Kayo who’s parked the car, but Virgil. After a night like this one, it’s a relief to finally have the all of his brothers properly accounted for, and before Scott can say anything, Virgil holds out an arm to catch his shoulder, and then pulls him into a brief, wordless hug. A hand thumps on his back once, solidly, and then breaks apart again, like it hasn’t even happened.

It’s still the most comforting gesture anyone’s made since Gordon came up to him and said “It’s Alan.”

So Scott does his best to return the favour, and answers the question his brother hasn’t yet asked. “He’s been moved to a room. John’s with him, I sent Gordon home to crash, he’s coming off a double shift and someone needs to be with Grandma. We’re gonna need to work out some kinda schedule, I don’t want Al alone. Probably gonna be mostly you and me, but that’s gonna mean dragging John out of there. He’s taking this pretty hard.”

“It’s not his fault.”

Scott sighs and shakes his head. “No. But John was the last one to see Allie, before he left tonight. Thinks he could’ve stopped him. Thinks he should’ve seen this coming.”

Virgil’s wearing an old bomber jacket of their father’s, more because it’s sturdy and warm and it fits him than for anything like sentimentality. It makes the fall of his shoulders that much more evident, as he looks down and the toes of his boots scuff against the ground. “Yeah. Well, that makes two of this. I knew he was up to something. I was figuring it out. I wanted to know what it was before I let anyone else in on it—for all I knew the kid was volunteering at a soup kitchen or something—but I should’ve done it sooner. I pull all that overtime, I’m never around…if I’d—”

“Stop,” Scott cuts him off. “Doesn’t do any good. We know what we know now because of you, tonight. Tag outta this one. This part is my problem.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

There’s been nothing but silence from the backseat of Kayo’s Mustang. Scott’s eager to slide into the front seat of his car, to find out more about the man who’s done this to his family. But he doesn’t want his little brother around to see what that looks like. Scott doesn’t actually know what this is going to look like.

“I’m going to do my job,” he says, instead of admitting that he doesn’t actually know. “You’re going to go inside, room 333. Gordon says that’s a lucky number. Guess it’s easy to remember, anyway. If you can’t get John to go home, try and get him to eat something.”

Virgil doesn’t budge. “Kayo said they’d put you on leave.”

Scott nods. “Yeah, they have. Two weeks.”

“Then this isn’t your job.”

Scott feel his jaw set, lifts his chin slightly as he squares up against his little brother. “My responsibilty, then. I want to know what happened. And I want to know what I’m gonna be able to do about it, before there’s a thin blue line between me and the guy who’s done this.”

Virgil winces visibly. “Well, that’s not who’s in the back of this car. Scott, this guy is scared shitless. Your rookie barely put on any pressure at all, and he spilled his guts. I’m not saying good cop/bad cop is the way you and your partner work—but I can tell you, there’s already been plenty of bad cop tonight. If you don’t handle this right—”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me how I’m supposed to handle this.”

“No, I guess I’m not.” But Virgil doesn’t seem quite done, and he hesitates, hunches his shoulders up beneath his heavy leather jacket again. “I think you know better than to need me to, though.”

And with that, Virgil pats a hand twice on the top of the car, and there’s the solid thunk of the doors unlocking. He steps away from the driver’s side, nods to Scott as he passes. “I’m gonna go check on our brothers. When you get…done…with whatever you plan to do—just…just, let me know if you’ll be free to drive John home. I’m gonna work on getting him out of here.”

“Right. Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Scott.”

“Sure, Virg.”

Virgil gives him one last, scrutinizing look, then shakes his head and sighs as he turns away, makes for the hospital’s main entrance. Scott’s not sure if he’s read doubt or disappointment in the tone of his brother’s exit—but it doesn’t really matter. He still doesn’t know what he’s going to do, so Virgil’s advice just melds into the rest of the indecision. Eventaully, without really thinking about it, Scott opens the driver’s side door, and clambers inside.

continuing from here

@preludeinz tagged @akireyta who is tagging in @drdone

Virgil hung back, became part of the furniture as Kayo became the totality of Brain’s world.

Scott rarely spoke of his new partner, but when he did, it was with the kind of quiet pride he used to use for Alan. When Alan had started disappearing, apparently to places like this, that tone had vanished until Officer Kyrano had tumbled out of the training academy and into Scott’s cruiser.

This is the first time he’s seen her work; he gets Scott’s pride now. Her interrogation implies hot lamps and pressure, for all that she’s perched herself on the desk next to where Brains is sat, her body language open and friendly and interested in anything he might have to say.

Brains is street-wise enough to know he’s being questioned. He fidgets in his seat, so clearly torn between keeping the code of silence and telling them everything that even Virgil can see it.

Virgil stays out of Brains line of sight, lets her work as he drifts around the warehouse, looking for clues with an amateur eye. In his head, that dark voice dispassionately saying the words
“Tracy probably got picked up, if he’s even in one piece” kept rattling around his brain.

Virgil’s been to enough wrecks to know how easily a ton of steel moving at speed can tie itself into a knot around a lamp post. But the voice hadn’t sounded too worried, except for the possibility that Alan was now in police custody.

This was an illegal chop shop; no doubt Scott was right now breaking out the actual hot lamps to find out what the hell Alan was doing down here. In his pocket, his dead cellphone was an accusatory dead weight.

Alan had to be all right. Brains said he put in every safety feature, and there was a rack of helmets over by the far wall.

Alan had to be all right.

“Wait, The Mechanic?” Kayo’s surprise is loud in the quiet, yanking Virgil’s attention back into the moment. He drifts closer, slowing at Kayo’s almost imperceptible head shake. “You work for the Mechanic?”

Brains is hunching down in his coveralls like a grease-marked turtle. “I h-h-have to,” he mutters as he shoves his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Kayo’s voice is leonine purr. “Brains, I can only help you if you help me?” She smiles, letting the hook catch and settle before she applies the stick. “Or I can slap on the hand cuffs and have the entire forensic unit down here sweeping for whatever they can find.”

Brains sucks in a noisy breath through his nose, straightening his spine. “I c-can’t!” he almost spits at her. “I h-h-have a debt to pay. Everyone here does. Me.” He glances over his shoulder at Virgil. “His brother. Everyone.”

“What do you mean? Alan?” Virgil can’t stop himself. He knows he’s a big guy, tries always not to loom, but Brains has the answers that he needs. Brains flinches back, the desk chair squeaking as it rocks with his weight as Virgil plants his fists heavily on the scarred wooden desktop. “What debt? Who is the Mechanic? What the hell is going on?”

In the pregnant silence that follows, the buzz of Kayo’s cellphone is loud. She sighs, sounding frustrated as she slips off the desk, thumbing the call connection as she stalks across the workshop floor. “Yeah. Hey, yeah. Found your other brothers…uh huh. That’s great news. Scott, I’ve found something. Yeah. It’s the Mechanic.” Kayo turns, listening intently as she stares at Brains. “I have a witness. Potentially cooperative, if he knows what’s good for him. Uh huh. Yeah, I’ll be there in twenty.” She drops her phone into her pocket, her boots like gunshots as she strides across the floor.

Virgil fumbles the car keys she tosses at his chest. “You’re driving. Me and my new friend here,” she continues, grabbing Brains by the collar. “Are going to be having a little chat on the drive over.”

Brains seems resigned to his fate as Kayo shoves him behind the metal grating of the unmarked precinct car. “Station?” Virgil asks, adjusting the mirrors.

The look Kayo gives him goes on for far too long. “Scott’s meeting us at the hospital.” Her hand is warm where she wraps it over his wrist. “Alan’s going to be fine,” she begins gently. “But it was close. Real close.”

Virgil’s knuckles go white over the steering wheel.

“Virgil? I’m sorry, I thought you knew. Are you okay? Maybe I should drive…”

“No.” He snaps the word with more force than she deserves. He glances up, catches Brains’ eye in the mirror. “You have until we get there to tell her everything. Or I’ll do the asking, and I’ve not sworn any oath to protect and serve.” He waits until Brains, swallowing hard, bobs his head up and down. “Good.”

The tires squeal as Virgil peels out of the gravel lot and tears off down the empty streets.

continuing from here

@preludeinz tagging @akireyta!

Things like this happen to other people all day, every day.

It’s just statistical, there’s almost a theory to the chaos of it all. Some days nothing feels right until he’s had a certain number of a certain kind of call. Five car crashes sometimes won’t seem like enough. Sometimes he feels like he can just tell, before a call even connects, that it’s going to be a heart attack, because he just hasn’t had one in a while. He tallies these things up like they don’t represent the worst days of other people’s lives. To do his job well, it’s necessary to be detached, to be calm and practical and fixated on the facts of a situation, not the emotions of the people involved. Maybe that’s why John feels so numb, here and now, standing at the window with his back to his little brother.

Scott’s gone, though he’d sworn to be back as soon as possible. He’s had to go report in to his superiors, and to get permission to take some emergency leave. There’s no question that this will be granted, but it still needs to be made formal, and he has a report to make about the scene he’d responded to. Gordon’s gone home, and that’d been for the best, because their grandmother will need his attention. He’s not only the best at taking care of her, but the best at getting her to admit she needs to be taken care of. Virgil, as far as John’s aware, is still MIA.

And now that he’s finally been allowed into Alan’s hospital room, he can’t actually bring himself to sit down in the chair that’s been pulled up beside the bed. He’s barely been able to look at his little brother, because this is all wrong. He can’t sit at his brother’s bedside, because it will be too much like sitting at his mother’s bedside, and that was never supposed to happen again. Their mother had gotten sick, and her medical bills had drained every cent from the family, and she’d died anyway, only to leave them in debt they’re still paying off. Their father had slowly gone just about out of his mind with grief, and then one day he’d just disappeared. Left the five of them and their grandmother to manage without him, and to this day, even having been no small part of how they’d gotten through it, John still doesn’t know how exactly they’d managed.

But this isn’t like that. This is injury, not illness. And this is Alan, not Mom. This is sudden and sharp and shocking, as opposed to their mother’s long, slow decline. And this time around they have insurance, Scott is Alan’s legal guardian, and Scott’s got a decent health plan, such as it is.

And Alan’s not going to die. Probably. Gordon had been very careful to be clear about how lucky their little brother had been, but there’s no way around the reality that this is bad. Alan’s young and healthy and if he’s a little scrawny, that’s still probably about the only thing he’s got working against him, so his odds are good. He’ll get better.

But it’s a lot. It’s more than John can even think about right now, because right now all he can do is stand at the window of his little brother’s hospital room, watching the orange glow of the parking lot lights through the raindrops that glint on the glass. There’s no rhyme or reason or pattern to them, but he’s still trying to find one. There’s got to be more sense in rain on the window than there is in what’s happening to his family. To his baby brother. In spite of everything, in spite of what he does and the way that he acts, Alan doesn’t deserve this.

Alan’s a good kid.

It’s Scott’s mantra. And John gets it, and deep down he knows it’s true, because even in spite of everything, he knows Alan. There are still occasional flashes of the kid he used to be—smart and kind and clever and funny—but the goodness in his nature has been lacquered over by anger, layer upon layer building up over his surface, as he’d tried to make himself harder than the world he has to face.

John loves his brothers, his grandmother. Some deeply buried part of him may even still love his father, though if ever he sees Jeff Tracy’s face again, John’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to help but throw a fist at it. But Alan—

Lately he’s been hard pressed to remember the last time he even liked Alan. He hates himself for thinking it, but even here and now, John almost can’t help believing that at least something like this might teach his little brother a lesson.

John had been Alan’s age when their mother had died, over a decade ago now, and John’s about that same decade Alan’s senior. An entire ten years between them, and yet John still remembers the lost, lonely little boy who’d been so scared and so desperate after that one, horrible, final day. Their mother had died in a hospital much like this one. And from then on, Alan had been adrift, young and tiny and terrified, and in the maelstrom of grief that had swallowed their whole family, somehow he’d managed to find his way to John and latch on for dear life.

Sixteen to his brother’s six, John had suddenly become a surrogate for everything their mother had been to Alan, a source of comfort and care and attention and affection, things he’d never particularly sought from his brothers, and certainly never from their father. Most of all, he’d just needed the reassurance that he was still loved, and that he’d always be cared for.

Maybe that assurance is something that they’ve allowed to let slip. Maybe they should’ve tried harder. Maybe this never would’ve happened if they’d just managed to find some time, some energy, some way to get through to Alan. Between the four—the five of them, counting Grandma—they should’ve been able to make it work. It shouldn’t have had to come to this, to a lesson learned in a hospital room.

Better late than never, John manages to tear himself away from the senselessness of raindrops on the windowpane, and towards his little brother, still senseless in a hospital bed. The first step he takes towards the chair at the bedside actually makes his head spin, a little, and he gets the reminder that he’s been awake for what’ll be twenty four hours, come four AM. He muscles past the vertigo and drops himself into the chair at the bedside. He still can’t quite look at his little brother—all those tubes and lines and bandages and bruises make him too much of a stranger—but he can reach for Alan’s hand, can carefully stroke his fingertips across his upturned palm.

“I’m sorry, Al,” he says, softly and mostly to himself, because it won’t excuse the last thing he’d said to Alan. “I’m sorry, I should’ve done more.”

Rent Day Blues

4

[previous]

Gordon entered the bathroom and locked the door behind him before leaning back against the wall. He pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes and took a deep breath. Then another, forcing himself to keep them even and slow.

Now wasn’t the time for this.

God, but he was tired.

No doubt Scott was in the waiting room, wearing a hole in the floor from his pacing. John and Virgil were probably there, or maybe one of them had stayed home with Grandma. The waiting room wasn’t the ideal pace for her to be resting, especially with how bad the pain had been recently.

He wanted nothing more to just sink down to the floor, but he knew he had to let his brothers know how it had gone.
How incredibly lucky their dumbass little brother was. He pushed himself off the wall and turned on the sink, splashing his face with cold water. Then he dried his face and left the bathroom before he gave into the urge to yell.

Scott and John weren’t hard to find; Scott was still in uniform, and the two of them were both so stupidly tall it would have been impossible for Gordon to miss them. He didn’t see Virgil anywhere.

Scott spotted him first and immediately headed towards him, pulling John after him. Scott looked like he’d aged twenty years since the last time Gordon had seen him. John’s face was carefully neutral, but the tightness around his eyes told Gordon that he, too, was reaching his breaking point.

“How is he?"Scott asked before he’d even fully reached Gordon.

"He’s out of surgery,” Gordon said. He held his hands up to stop them from speaking. “There were clear signs of internal bleeding, they needed to open him up to stop it. He has a few broken ribs and there’s been some associated damage to his liver. They’re going to keep an eye on it, but for the moment it’s under control.”

“And?"John prompted.

"From what it looks like, he hit the door pretty hard and dislocated his left shoulder,” Gordon said. “He’s got a pretty nasty bruise from his seatbelt, he probably has whiplash. They were talking about taking x-rays of his collar bone. He has a concussion, but…it could have been a lot worse. He had a helmet on. The visor broke and left a nasty cut above his eye, but the helmet probably saved his life.”

Definitely saved his life. From the looks on their faces, Scott and John knew that as well as Gordon did. He quickly added, “He woke up on the way here. He was disoriented, but he was responsive and he recognized me. I don’t think he remembered what happened.”

“I’d rather he didn’t remember,” Scott said. His expression darkened. “After I get out of him who put him in that car.”

“Did your rookie find anything?” Gordon asked.

“She’s still looking,” Scott said, running a hand through his hair. “Can we see Alan?”

“Not yet,” Gordon said. “They have to do a CT scan, and more x-rays. It’ll be soon, I think. Grandma and Virgil at home?”

Scott and John glanced at each other, and Gordon felt his stomach sink. “What?”

“Grandma’s with Penny,” John said. Gordon narrowed his eyes.

“Where’s Virgil?"he asked.

"We don’t know,” John admitted. “He was out looking for Alan. He’s not answering his phone.”

“Oh,” Gordon said, keeping his voice steady through sheer force of will. He really wanted to yell. Virgil didn’t usually disappear like this. Virgil always answered the phone. Always. He was somewhat neurotic about it. Something was wrong.

All three of them jumped as Scott’s phone started ringing. Scott snatched it up, looking at the caller ID before he sighed.

“Kayo.”

Gordon tried not to feel disappointed as Scott answered the call. He stepped away from them.

“You should sit down,” John said, and it took Gordon a second to realize he was talking to him.

“Huh?”

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” John said. “You should sit down.”

“I’m still on call,” Gordon said.

“No, you’re not,” John said. “You’re officially off the clock as of an hour ago. I called. One of the guys dropped your stuff off about twenty minutes ago. Here,” he pushed Gordon’s phone into his hand. “Someone needs to call Penny and Grandma and tell them what happened.”

“Wait, they don’t know?” Gordon said, his eyes widening.

“Gordon, I didn’t even know what had actually happened until I got here,” John said. “All Scott told me over the phone was, ‘Alan’s hurt bad, come to the hospital’. ”

Gordon grimaced. “Ah. Grandma’s going to kill you, you do realize that, right?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Her phone sits on top of the quilt, spread over Ruth Tracy’s lap, and Penny’s just lost her third hand of canasta. John had said, before he’d left, that he’d given his grandmother a pill for the pain she was in, but whatever it was seems only to have sharpened the woman’s card sense, because Penelope’s been beaten soundly each time.

She wonders, as she peers at her cards, if Gordon’s brothers ask the obvious question of just where the pain meds come from. They must know better than to ask. Or they must not want to know. Scott would have to look so far the other way he’d probably just about snap his neck.

Penny had rumbled him the first time he’d come over to spend the night. They’d been out a few times before that, the sort of airy, unserious sorts of dates that could be afforded by a waitress and a paramedic. A movie, though what they could agree upon was nothing either of them were especially interested in. Coffee, once, though it had been in the same coffeeshop where Penny spends her workday, and so there’d been the awkward reality of all her co-workers grinning at her the whole way through. A picnic in the park, a walk along the river, and the sort of conversation that had been the clincher, because neither of them had talked around their problems. There’d been an intensity to the honest exchange of circumstances that had only served to pull them that much closer.

It had been after that particular conversation that she’d suggested that maybe the last flight of stairs up to his place might not be worth the trouble, and that maybe he ought to come in. There’d been a certain absence of ambiguity about her motives, and she was hardly too proud to admit that this was more or less what she’d been after in the first place. He’d gone to shower and she’d gone to sit on the bed in her room, where he’d left his bag.

And, well. If he hadn’t wanted to get caught at it, then he probably shouldn’t have left a full bottle of painkillers sitting so near to the top of his duffel bag. She’d only been curious to find out if he habitually carried condoms, or whether there was going to be a mad and embarrassing dash to the drug store down the street.

If he hadn’t caught her, catching him, she wonders sometimes if she would have left it alone. If she would have been desperate and lonely enough to look the other way, to draw the wrong conclusion entirely about Gordon Tracy, and the reasons he managed to stay so cheerful and buoyant and sunshiney, despite his job and despite his circumstances. Instead she’d looked up at the sound of an awkward cough from her bedroom doorway, with a pill bottle clasped in her hand and an expression of surprise.

And if he hadn’t been naked but for the towel around his waist and grinning at her sheepishly, Penny might have been afraid to have been caught by him.

But instead he’d just crossed the room and sat down on the bed, and had reached over to take the little bottle out of her hand and stash it back in his bag. “You don’t have to believe me,” he’d told her, and she’d done her damnedest to meet his eyes instead of being distracted by the curve of his torso, the way his towel sat just below his hips— “I’ve got about a million problems, Pen, and if the fact that I’m the worst kinda drug-stealing, cowardly, hypocritical bastard is one of ’em, then at least being a drug addict isn’t. I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb.”

“For your grandmother?” she’d asked softly. She’d swallowed and hoped that she knew what the answer would be.

He’d nodded and sighed. “Yeah. Umm. John, once in a while, he gets the most wicked migraines, poor bastard. If, uh. If we get to be a thing—and I’m not saying…I’m not saying we are…unless you wanna be, but you know, that’s just whatever, because that’s a whole other thing—anyway. You should come meet her sometime. Either way, even if we don’t keep doing…uh. This. You should still meet my grandma. She’s a hell of a lady. You’d like each other.”

It was what he’d said next, and the way he’d said it, more than anything, that had made her believe him. I’ve never known anybody, more than my gran, who deserved just a little less pain.

And he’d been right. Even if she hadn’t gone on to lean over and kiss him and run her hands through his still damp hair—when she’d gone on to meet Ruth Tracy, she’d seen the sort of beautiful, strong old soul that could raise five boys into the kind of adults her grandsons were, and still have a smile and a gleam in her eye from the confines of her sickbed.

So now Penelope sat on the end of Ruth’s bed, with cards spread out between them, and her phone on the bedspread. When it rings, before she can reach for it, a surprisingly quick hand reached out and caught her wrist. “My dear,” Ruth started, and her eyes were sharp and bright when Penny looked up to meet them, “I’m always happy to see you. And I’m glad that you’re here now. But if that’s one of my boys, you’re going to make them tell me just what the hell is going on, or by god, Penelope, I’ll stump out of here myself and get on a bus.”

She looks down at her phone, but the custom ringtone’s already given him away, because the bright and cheerful tones of Walking on Sunshine have filled the room. This is probably a question best put to Gordon, anyway, though in her heart she dreads the answer. “…Yes, ma’am.”

Technically, Kayo’s shift ended an hour ago, so the fact that she was in plain clothes wasn’t, technically, against regs. And Tracy had told her to follow her nose, and he was her TO, so technically this was an authorized operation.

Technically. Kayo was comfortable with technically.

Out of uniform, in skinny jeans and an old band shirt she’d found at the back of her closet, her leather jacket over the top covering her service weapon tucked away in its holster, she could still just pass as one of them. She knew the language of the street, even if these weren’t the streets she learned it on. Regardless of the city, the basics were the same.

Kayo smiled at the kid they called Shifty as she passed, letting him get a good look at her. There was always a kid called Shifty, and he always knew the score. She knew from the gossip in the breakroom that this town’s Shifty hung out by the gas station on Third, at the point where strip mall shops turned into small workshops and storehouses, the street running down to where the bigger warehouses were located.

Shifty was taller than her, but the kind of skinny you only got when meals were few and far between. Kayo went into the gas station, came out a moment later with a fist-full of brightly coloured packages, jerky and twinkies, the kind of things that kept, and could be crammed in a hoodie pocket. “Hey, Shifty,” she called out, tossing over one of the packages as her price of entry into this conversation. “What’s the deal with that crash tonight?”

A brief conversation and the rest of her snacks later, and Kayo was walking confidently down towards the warehouses. Half the street lights in this area were out, knocked out or just never replaced, and Kayo hooked her hands in her belt loops, flexed and ready to reach for her gun.

The word on the street was fear. Shifty had counseled she lie low, that ‘The Boss,’ whoever that was, was on the warpath, pissed that the big race had quite literally gone sideways into a ditch.

That there was a Boss calling the shots worried her. This wasn’t just a bunch of kids in hot cars, blowing off steam and hormones late at night, dangerous but innocent.

This was organized. That meant there was an organizer, and a reason.

Kayo slowed, ears pricking. She could just make out the faintest susurrations of voices, the tone implying a debate was in full flow. There was light, just visible under the transom of the human sized door set into the larger, hangar-style sliders.

Every other warehouse was dark, felt empty. Kayo circled her target, looking for another way in. She found it out the back, a broken window badly covered with a sheet of pressboard. A moment’s work, and she was climbing inside.

Inside was a large workshop, mostly empty but for a few cars up on roller racks so that mechanics could get at the underbelly. The arrangement of the room suggested to her that this space normally was crammed with vehicles.

This was where the race started.

Kayo flicked open her jacket, ready to draw, as she crept closer to the light pooling out onto the concrete from a little shack made of flimsy plywood and pressboard, built against the far wall.

The voices were clearer here, and Kayo listened, getting a bead on the argument.

One voice was trying to persuade the other…to do what, she wasn’t sure. The debate had descended into pleas and bargaining. She crept up to the window that looked out over the workshop and peered inside. Half-turned towards her, a small skinny figure in glasses was glancing between monitors propped up on a makeshift desk.

The figure with his back to her was bigger, taller, stronger. Kayo’s lips pursed, judging her odds of taking him in a fight. In a confined space, a gun was more a liability than a threat, but big guys fell hard if you had the leverage.

And there was a tyre iron, propped up on the wall beside her.

Kayo smiled in the dark, tucked her badge into the waist of her jeans so her shield showed, hefted her weapon and stepped into makeshift office.

“Police! Hands in the…Virgil?”

Virgil already had his hands half-up, an automatic reaction. Even so, the other figure was faster, hands almost stretching for the sky. “Kayo?” Virgil asked, blinking hard.

She lowered her weapon. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Virgil shrugged. “Same as you, I suspect.” He turned back towards the other figure, still with his hands in the air, his eyes darting between them behind his thick-rimmed glasses. “Officer Kyrano, let me introduce you to Brains.” Virgil sighed, sounding tired. “I think he knows what’s going on.”

Technically, she didn’t have enough evidence for probable cause, not enough of the pieces to make an arrest. But, she wondered, did Brains know that. She tapped her nails against her badge, an idle, casual gesture that caught and held his attention. “I think it would be in Mr Brains’ best interests if he started talking.” She let the tyre iron drag on the concrete floor as she took a step forward, saw Brains’ eyes widen.

Technically, this type of interrogation wasn’t illegal.

Technically.

[to be continued]

Rent Day Blues

3

[previous]

John was, to most of the emergency services, a voice on the other end of the line, ordering, organizing, chasing and, very rarely, yelling at them to get where they needed to go. John’s voice was the thread that linked the emergency teams to the victims, brought them together for hopefully happy endings.

His face meant nothing. But the second he opened his mouth, every uniform in the place spun around to listen.

John wanted to scream; his heart was in his throat. But as soon as he barreled into the charge desk, his training took over, and he spoke his request quickly, firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument and ruffled no feathers.

He was aware of the stares as he was whisked up to emergency. A whispered conversation between two orderlies, and a Authorized Staff Only door was being opened for him. John strode down the corridor, his new escort struggling to keep up, as John homed in on the sound of heart monitors and sharply snapped commands.

Scott looked out of place here, the wrong coloured blues, his bulky jacket the wrong shape amid the light, sleek scrubs of the surgical staff. John diverted over, his escort melting away. “Scott?”

Scott’s head snapped around, his eyes wide and red-rimmed, his breathing shallow and shaky. John took him by the shoulders, gently turning him so they stood fully face to face. “Talk to me,” John said, his voice dropping automatically into a work register.

“They took him into the operating room. Gordon…they’re letting Gordon observe, so he’s not alone. He said it shouldn’t be long, that I should wait..”

He trailed off, and John tried a different tack. “What happened?”

“Street racing. A car crash.” Even as he watched, John saw Scott flicker between being a cop and being a brother. “Those were some souped up cars, Johnny. Seriously expensive, not the usual rust buckets those kids race. Kayo thinks so. I’ve sent her to make sure. We need evidence.”

“Evidence for what?”

Scott’s eyes darkened. “They hurt Alan, John. Whoever they are, they put him in that car and now he’s in surgery. They hurt him, and when I find them, I’m going to throw the book at them so hard they’re never getting back up.” Scott blinked, looking over John’s shoulder. “Where’s Grandma? And Virgil?”

John felt his lips thin. “I asked Penny from downstairs to sit in with Grandma. I…I didn’t want her to worry, and she can’t spend a night in the waiting room, not with how she’s feeling right now.” John took a deep, steadying breath. “And Virgil went out to look for Alan, and now I can’t reach him on his phone.”

Scott’s expression crumpled. “Well—shit.”

Virgil peered out the window. “You’re sure this is where he gets off?”

The bus driver snorted. “Hard to forget. He usually walks off that way.”

He pointed up the street, down towards a row of dark, sketchy-looking buildings. Virgil could hear Scott’s voice in his head telling him stories of stupid kids wandering places they shouldn’t and ending up hurt or worse. He hoped he wasn’t about to become one of those stories.

He hoped Alan hadn’t become one tonight.

“You want me to wait?” the bus driver asked as Virgil stepped off.

Part of Virgil wanted to say yes, but he shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

The driver didn’t seem convinced, but he nodded. “Be careful, kid.”

“Will do,” Virgil said, and headed up the street.

If he’d thought it looked bad from the bus, it looked even worse up close. Most of the buildings were clearly abandoned, covered in graffiti and God only knew what else. A few had lights on, but Virgil avoided them, hoping that his kid brother wasn’t stupid enough to wander into places like that. Another had a man standing out front as if acting like a bouncer and he looked seriously pissed. Virgil carefully stayed on the other side of the street.

At the end of that block, there was a garage, and one of the doors was open. The lights were on inside, and soft classical music played inside. Virgil took a deep breath and prayed that he wasn’t about to walk into a cover for a mafia or crime ring before sticking his head in.
“Hello?”

There was a clang like someone dropped metal on the ground and a strangled shout. Virgil stepped into the garage cautiously, looking around. He took another step and then jumped backwards as a head appeared from behind the car closest to him.

“Jesus,” he breathed. For a second, they just stared at each other; the other man was clearly as surprised as Virgil was, dressed in a canvas coverall stained with oil and grease. His hands, in spite of this, were remarkably clean.

Finally, the man spoke. “Can I h-help you?”

“Uh,” Virgil had to think for a moment to remember why he was there. “Maybe. I’m looking for my brother.”

The man studied him for a moment. “Hopefully you d-d-don’t find him here.”

Virgil blinked at him, caught off-guard. “What do you mean by that?”

“You should p-probably go,” the man said. “This isn’t the k-k-kind of place you want to be seen.”

“Wait,” Virgil said, still confused. “Listen, my little brother heads out this way sometimes, this is him,” he pulled out his phone to pull up the picture, only to see a black screen. Shit, he should have charged it. “Uh, never mind. He’s about this tall, blond, answers to Alan?”

“Alan?” the man said, straightening up. “Why are you l-looking for Alan?”

“I just told you, he’s my little brother,” Virgil said, trying to reign in his frustration. “Is he here?” He looked around, somewhat hoping to see Alan pop up from behind one of the other cars.

As empty as the garage was, this seemed as stupid a question as “Why are you looking for Alan?” and the man in the coverall gave him an appropriately bewildered look. “N-no, he’s at the race,” he said, as though explaining something obvious.

“Race?” Virgil asked. “What race?”

“You don’t know?” the man looked surprised. “I t-t-thought…this explains a lot.”

“What does that mean?” Virgil demanded.

“He’s one of my b-b-boss’ drivers,” the man said. “He’s racing right n-now.”

Virgil stared at him. Things were starting to click in his mind. “Alan’s been racing?”

“Y-yes,” the man said. He held out his hand, which Virgil shook automatically. “I’m Brains.”

“Virgil.”

“The races u-usually end around eleven,” Brains said. “I’ll l-l-let Alan know you were here.”

“Wait, I’m not leaving,” Virgil said. “He’s been street racing? Scott’s going to kill him. I’m going to kill him.”

“Y-y-you can’t stay here,” Brains said, suddenly looking anxious. “If my b-boss sees you here a-a-and hears you’re asking questions, it’ll c-cause trouble.”

“I’m not leaving without Alan,” Virgil said stubbornly. Street racing. He’d known Alan had been up to something, but he hadn’t expected it to be so stupid and dangerous. And illegal. He couldn’t believe this.

“You d-don’t understand,” Brains said, moving around the car to stand in front of Virgil. “He’s n-n-not someone you want to make angry. P-please, I’ll let Alan know you were here, but -.”

“If you let him know I was here, he’ll run for it,” Virgil said. “No, it’s better if I wait.”

Brains opened his mouth, clearly ready to argue, but one of the garage doors on the side of the building started opening. Brains whirled around, then turned back to Virgil. Then he grabbed Virgil’s arm and pulled him to the workspace near them, pushing him in the direction of the desk.

“Hide,” he whispered. “D-d-don’t let him know you’re here.”

Virgil, feeling utterly ridiculous, did as told, folding himself under the desk. He could hear a car engine revving as it entered the garage, and wondered idly what kind of engine purred in that way. He almost wanted to peek out to see it.

“You’re b-b-back early,” Brains said after the car engine shut off.

“Race was a bust,” another, deeper voice said. “Lemaire’s kid lost traction, took out half the cars, including ours. Tracy probably got picked up, if he’s even in one piece.”

Virgil’s blood ran cold. Alan.

Brains tried through willpower alone not to look where he’d stashed Alan’s brother. The Boss in his best mood wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate interlopers.

Now? Brains shuddered to think what he might do.

There was a lot of money on that race, and Brains had wanted for nothing as he had souped up each of the cars. The vehicles were an investment in The Mechanic’s business, and if Brandon had not only crashed but wiped out, then that was a lot of money gone.

It wasn’t as if there was insurance for underground street races.

An angry snapping of fingers brought Brains back to the present. “I need you to pack up shop,” came the snapped order that Brains was expecting. “There were cops all over the scene, we can’t have them snooping around, not now.”

Brains nodded frantically, not trusting his voice.

At least his being speechless and panicky was normal behaviour around the Boss. With a disgusted noise, he stormed off and left Brains alone.

Brains waited until he heard the far doors bang, the roar of a motor. Only then did he relax. “Y-you can c-come out now,” he murmured, taking off his glasses to rub his tired eyes.

Alan’s brother was bigger, and taller, and utterly furious, the kind of anger Brains recognized as being driven by fear. The worst kind. “Talk,” he ordered.

Brains moved to his computers, tucking his glasses back onto his nose. The system shutdown took a while, it was the first step in his teardown pattern. “You p-probably know as much as I d-do now,” Brains said tiredly. The computer beeped, a countdown appearing on screen as Brains activated the appropriate subroutine. “L-listen, I p-put in every safety device I can sneak p-pass the B-Boss,” he stammered, his anxiety already growing. He should know better by now not to get too close to the drivers. Crash or arrest, or just burned by the Mechanic, they never stuck around for long. “G-g-go find your brother. I h-hope he’s okay, really I d-do.”

Virgil stared at him for a long time. “Are you going to be okay?”

Brains blinked, stunned.

No-one had ever asked him that before.

[next]

Rent Day Blues

2

[previous]

If Alan heard the phrase, “Life isn’t fair,” one more time, he was going to scream.

In his experience, life sucked, and he was fully aware of the fact. He didn’t need to be told it, time and time again. It wasn’t going to make anything better, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to make him okay with what was going on. All it did was make him angrier.

No shit life isn’t fair.

He checked his watch as he ducked into the garage he’d started hanging around months before. There was only one thing he really had any skill at, and it was racing. Once upon a time, he’d dreamed of being the fastest racer in the circuit, but he wasn’t a little kid anymore. Besides, he didn’t race for the fun of it.

It was hard to explain, but behind the wheel of a good car was when he really felt alive. When the world started to make sense, where he could leave his anger behind and not have to think about anything. He didn’t have to remember that his dad had just vanished on them, or that Grandma was really sick, or that his brothers were all going to be pissed when he got home. He didn’t have to feel guilty. Nothing could touch him.

And he was good at it. Really good. As in he had a reputation now as one of the best in the area. As in some of the regulars now bet on him. He’d earned his keep.

“You’re late,” the garage owner called as he walked into the room, pulling on his gloves.

“Sorry,” Alan muttered. He didn’t bother with an excuse. This wasn’t the kind of place you brought up your home life. And how was he supposed to explain that he hadn’t left until his brother had made it home because his grandma couldn’t be alone?

“Got a big one tonight,” the owner said, tossing a set of keys at Alan. Alan caught them, inspecting them.

He didn’t know the garage owner’s real name; it didn’t seem like anyone did. Everyone in the circuit just called him the Mechanic. He’d taken a chance on Alan one day when he’d been racing his brothers’ car, and now Alan was his number one driver. In exchange, Alan didn’t ask questions, and won races. That was all that was expected. Simple.

“Aren’t they all big?"Alan asked as he pulled on his jacket. The Mechanic didn’t laugh. He never did. It was a little unnerving.

He took his red helmet off of the stand it stayed on and held it under his arm as he headed to the car for the night. Alan got to play with all sorts of different cars, all of them as amazing as the last, but his favorite was the one he’d first raced in, a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, souped up, modified, and gorgeous. She was as red as his helmet and as smooth a ride as he’d ever had. He didn’t care what anyone else thought about her; his record with her spoke for itself.

"Don’t lose tonight, kid,” the Mechanic said. “We’ve got some big numbers on this one. You’ll get a sizeable cut.”

Alan nodded as he climbed in. His cut went towards buying the car he was currently getting situated in. He was nowhere near getting it, but it wasn’t like he could take the money he made home. Scott was a cop, and his grandma would never accept it. They couldn’t even know about the racing. They’d kill him.

He pulled up at the usual spot, taking his place in the line before opening his window to acknowledge the starter. He closed his eyes, pushing away all of his irritation and guilt and focusing just on the race.

After that, it was just as simple as hitting the gas.

Street racing had rules, despite popular belief. They were mostly common sense: don’t race on busy streets, don’t have passengers, don’t play dirty, don’t race in an area you don’t know. Alan knew this area very well. He’d made it his business to know every inch of every possible route. It was part of his secret of success.

There was a curve at one point, and it was a nasty thing, sharp and with a ditch just off of it. Alan had seen one guy go spinning off of it (he hadn’t been the best driver, not nearly careful enough in his turns and in a car he didn’t know how to handle). He’d survived with only his ego taking a blow, but Alan lived with four emergency workers. He knew – albeit through secondhand accounts – how nasty car accidents were. And ultimately he knew that even the glory of winning wasn’t worth doing something as stupid as taking the curve too fast.

Unfortunately, that night, he seemed to be the only one who knew that. And even more unfortunately, he missed the inside. So, when the inside guy’s tires started to lose their grip on the road, Alan was the one he spun into, hitting Alan’s front right side with his back left. And Alan was the one who lost control of his car.

Alan had just enough time to think, Oh, shit, this is gonna hurt. Then, nothing.

None of the others seem to understand why he goes out looking for Alan.

It’s not because he expects to find out where he is. It’s because he’s trying to learn to predict where the damn kid’s gonna go. And he’s getting better. He’s gradually narrowing down a list of his little brother’s favourite haunts; knows which of them are okay, which of them are kinda sketchy, which one his little brother needs to have his ass hauled out of. He usually tags Gordon in for this duty, if he’s available, and John if he’s not. If neither of them are around, then he let’s Alan slide.

Scott should be able to figure it out, being a cop and all, but then, Scott refuses to go out for detective. He says it’s because he likes patrol work, likes being on the front line. Virgil suspects it’s got more to do with the requirement for a degree. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have stopped him.

Half the time Virgil goes out, he does find Alan. Alan will be in an empty lot, skateboarding with a handful of kids he knows from school. Or Alan will be tagging meaningless graffiti in a back alley somewhere. Or Alan will have gotten on a bus and headed downtown, and Virgil will just need to wait until the same bus brings him back again, eventually.

It’s the half the time Virgil can’t account for him that’s starting to be concerning. Because Virgil’s starting to piece together a sense of structure, around the times when his little brother takes off. There’s a pattern. It’s a pattern designed to look like randomness, but there’s a shape to the negative space around the times he can’t find his brother.

He’s pretty sure it’s got to do with the reasons his brother goes downtown.

Well.

He’s finally got the time to find out.

So when Alan’s favourite bus pulls up to the bus stop, this time, Virgil gets on. He nods to the driver and drops the fare in, and looks up with a smile he’s been told is charming. He holds up his phone, hopes the crack in the screen doesn’t obscure his brother’s face too badly, and gets straight to the point, “Hey. This is my brother. He on this route often?”

The scoff and the eyeroll are as good as a yes, and Virgil winces. “Yeah. Sorry if he’s—”

He’s cut off with a grunt from the driver and the doors pull shut behind him. The older man gives him an appraising once over, challenging. “You gonna rope that kid in?”

Virgil shrugs, slips his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “If I can find him, yeah.”

A nod. “Sit up front. I’ll let you know where he usually gets off.”

“Thanks, man.”

Another grunt and the bus’s hydraulics hiss and lurch as the bus rolls away from the curb. Virgil drops his phone into his pocket and takes a seat up front.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Scott rolled his eyes, clutching his paper cup like a lifeline as Gordon picked his way across the debris-strewn road towards him. “You got here quick.”

Gordon shrugged. He had a speck of blood on his sleeve, but otherwise it was hard to tell he’d been on call all evening. “Tiny little spray of rain, and every idiot in a V8 takes a header into a ditch. Was on my way back to base when I got the call. So,” he asked, eyes scanning the scene. “What have we got?”

“Kayo’s liaising with the fire service now,” Scott said, draining his coffee and crumpling the cup. “Bunch of guys street racing. High end stuff,” he added, tapping a hubcap with his boot. “From what we can get out of the few bystanders we caught, the guy on the inside lost it and wiped out the rest of his cluster. We’ve got a bunch of drivers trapped, no idea if there’s anyone seriously wounded, but from the swearing I’d say that at least the ones we’ve found are more concussions and bruises than anything.”

Gordon was already getting gloved up. “Concussion ain’t nothing to joke about, Scotty.” He grinned up at his brother, too bright in the dark night. “You should know, brother.” He rose as Scott chuckled darkly. “Point me at the victims. The other wagon was across town, they won’t be here for at least another fifteen, even with full sound and light.”

A yell further down the slope caught their attention, and they fell into step towards the hubbub without another word. “Got someone for me, Miss Kayo?”

Kayo rolled her eyes, unaffected. “A few managed to climb out once we broke the windows, but they’re all declining treatment.” Gordon made a face; Scott knew how it irritated his brother that people, hurting or in pain, were still thinking more about their insurance, or lack thereof, than their health. “Scott, these are some high end rides with a bunch of punks and street kids behind the wheel. Something’s not right here.”

Scott frowned, brow furrowing. “Well, then, probie. Go follow your nose.”

Kayo’s eyes widened almost imperceptible, but she nodded and headed off back up the slope. Gordon watched her go. “I like her.”

Scott ignored the subtle hook. “Come on, let’s find you a willing patient. Hate to have rolled you away from your midnight coffee for no good reason.”

Gordon let out a low whistle when he saw the vehicle the fire crew was working on. “Would you look at that baby. Cherry red means she goes faster,” he added as an aside.

“Fast enough to leave one hell of a dent,” Scott replied seriously, playing his torch along the gouge the crashing car had carved into the landscape.

The now-familiar sound of the hydraulic jack was followed moments later by the door popping. “Welp,” Gordon said, tugging on the strap of his kit. “They’re playing my song.”

He nodded his thanks to the fire crew, already heading off to continue stabilizing and cracking the wrecks as Gordon knelt down next to the now-open drivers seat. “Evening there, I’m Gordon. Can you tell me your—?” the words died on his lips as Gordon’s torch played over the blood-smeared face of his baby brother.

She only knows them because they live one floor up from her apartment. 501 to her 401.

The first encounter she had with the Tracys was with the fourth of them, because he’d come home at four in the morning, and the lock on her front door had been broken.

She’d woken to the sound of someone stumbling through her front room, and her hand had fumbled by her bedside for the baseball bat, leaning against the filing cabinet she’d found by the curb, pulling double duty as a dresser, and tripe duty as a bedside table.

There’d been a tremendous crash of someone tripping over her coffee table—well, rather, her piece of plywood and lopsided collection of cinderblocks—and she’d suddenly been infuriated by the sheer nerve of anyone who’d try to break in and rob her of what little she had.

So she’d climbed off her sagging futon, hoisted her baseball bat, and kicked open her bedroom door.

It’d been the uniform that had spared him immediately having his head bashed in, the uniform that had given her pause.

Certainly it had been nothing to do with the way he’d been startlingly handsome, all blond and bewildered and sprawled out on the cracked linoleum, when she’d managed to fumble the light switch on and demand to know what the hell he was doing.

It had turned out to be a perfectly understandable mix-up. One floor off. Broken lock. Four in the morning, and him just coming off a double shift. He’d even been decent enough not to mention the fact that she was only in her underwear and a t-shirt and had accepted a hand up to his feet, sheepish and shy.

The next morning there’d been a knock on her door, and brother number three had turned up, toolbox and a brand new lock in hand, and with a few choice comments to make about the landlord. She’d made him tea (lacking much else, Penelope at least always has tea) and they’d chatted politely, and she’d met her first neighbour. He’d introduced himself as Virgil and mentioned that his younger brother was Gordon, and she’d told him her name was Penny.

By the time he’d gotten done, her door had a new lock, her leaking sink had been tightened up, and the spider that lived in her bathtub had been relocated. And Penelope had finally made friends with her neighbours, all five of them, plus their grandmother.

And sometimes Penelope will catch a ride to work with John, or sometimes there’s a lightbulb that needs changing and she’s too short to change it herself, so Scott will stick his head in. And sometimes she’ll order a pizza and split it with whoever happens to be home when she does. Sometimes she’ll just come and sit with their grandmother, missing the company of another woman, in this big strange city where she’s so obviously out of place.

It’s brother number two who’s knocking on her door this time, though at an hour of the evening when it’s usually Gordon she’s expecting. Gordon gets home late. And Gordon doesn’t knock. Gordon has her spare key. Gordon talks in his sleep and half the time he’s too tired for any of the reasons she likes to have him over in the first place, but Penelope’s beginning to wonder if it’s not just falling asleep beside him that she might like best.

But it’s not Gordon, because Gordon’s working. So it’s John.

And when she opens the door, his eyes are bright and his hands are shaking and Penny’s not sure if she’s ever seen him so badly scared.

So of course she says yes when he asks if she could possibly come and sit with his grandmother. It’s just the neighbourly thing to do.

Originally, Kayo had joined the force to make a name for herself. Or, more accurately, to redefine what her name meant. She needed to show everyone, herself included, that she was nothing like her uncle and never would be. And she’d needed a way to shut up the cruel little voice in the back of her head that sounded exactly like her uncle, mocking her every move.

Despite that, she loved it. And she’d been pleasantly surprised by her partner. Sure, she’d had to prove herself, but Scott Tracy was a good man. He treated her with respect and unlike so many people in her life, never talked down to her or treated her like she was lesser than him. He was a little reckless sometimes, a little distracted others, but he was a good teacher and a great partner, and Kayo was appreciative.

He was also extraordinarily easy to read. Which was why, when she came back to let him know what she’d found, she immediately knew something was wrong.

He was wide-eyed and pale, staring at the back of the ambulance she knew his little brother drove. Kayo had a bad feeling about this.

“Scott?” she said, ignoring formalities. If he had a problem with it, he’d let her know.

“Huh?” Scott said, not looking at her. He only barely seemed to register her presence.

Kayo glanced at the car he was still standing next to, then at the ambulance. “What happened?”

Something had to have happened. Because she’d seen Scott handle horrible scenes before, and nothing had ever shaken him like this. There had been times when he was exhausted and they came up on a crash or a fight and he’d been a little quiet and tense, but never this bad. Not once.

“What?"Scott said, and he finally looked at her. And when he met her eyes, Kayo could see the truth.

Scott Tracy was scared.

"What happened?"she asked, aware that he was superior and that the tone she was using was possibly inappropriate to be directing at him. But he wasn’t acting like her superior and Kayo didn’t know what to do.

Scott turned his gaze back to the ambulance, its lights flashing. It started to pull away, the sirens turning on, and somehow he seemed to pale even more.

"My little brother,” he said. “Alan.”

The youngest, she reminded herself. Sixteen, rebellious, reckless. The one time she’d met him, he’d seemed distant.

Scott insisted he was a good kid. Kayo was pretty sure he was biased.

Then she realized what he was saying. She felt her stomach drop.

“He was here?”

Scott nodded, still watching the ambulance. “He was…he looked pretty bad.”

Kayo didn’t know what to say. The usual things they said to families wouldn’t work here, not when Scott knew exactly what she wasn’t saying. They didn’t know how it would turn out, they would do their best, they wouldn’t make promises because some things were out of their control. Scott knew all that. And Kayo didn’t have any family to compare the way he was feeling to.

So she did what she always did, and barreled on ahead.

“I found something,” she said.

Scott tore his eyes away from the ambulance, as lights and sirens came on, the vehicle pulled away from the scene and out of their sight. “And?”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

[next]