“Who is hiding?” my mother asks.
He grins and slaps the end of the bat into the palm of his hands. “This is going to be fun.”
My mother moves so fast, I squeak with surprise. She’s a blur, and before the man can react, she has his bat. She breaks it over her knee and throws the two ends across the room. As his eyes bulge in shock, she snatches him by the front of his red shirt and gives him a shove. He flies through the doorway, crashes into the hallway wall, and explodes through the plaster into the apartment on the other side.
His gang charges into the room, swinging their weapons and stabbing at her with knives. She weaves away from every attack, ducking and dodging, and delivering her own vicious destruction. Bones crack, noses are broken, and kneecaps are crushed. She kicks one of the punks so hard in the leg, it snaps and the man topples over.
A lucky swing with a pipe slams into her shoulder, and she hunches over, gripped with pain. She may be as strong as Superman, but she does not have skin like steel, and while she’s recovering, the others pile on, tackling her in an effort to drag her to the floor. If they get her down, she won’t be able to fight back. I cry out for her, sure that they will kill her, but again she races across the room at a speed my eyes can’t track. There’s a flurry of punches and the men fly across our apartment. They smash into our cheap furniture, turning it into trash and splinters. One man flies headfirst into the air conditioner, and it tumbles out the window, vanishing from view.
“C’mon,” my mother demands, grabs my father’s pack, and leads us through the door and into the hall, tossing men twice her size out of our way. Soon it’s just the three of us and Mrs. Novakova. The old woman cowers before us, her eyes full of terror but still full of disgust.
“I did what I had to,” she barks.
My mother rears back and kicks the old woman. Her fleshy pudge of a body flies down the hall ten yards and slams into the wall, toppling a potted plant.
“Bex, decide,” my mother says as she pushes the Down button to call the elevator.
My friend looks from her to me, dumbfounded, afraid, probably convinced she’s going crazy.
“Come with us!” I plead.
“No more secrets?” she asks.
“There’s a lot to tell, but I won’t keep anything from you,” I promise.
She turns her back on us and I whimper.
“You’re going to have to put that other backpack on me. It’s huge,” she says.
My mother flashes me a smile, then helps Bex hoist the pack over her shoulders.
When the elevator opens, we pile in and I press the L button. The doors close.
“When we get outside, we’re going to have to run,” my mother explains. “Leonard has a car. Once you see it, get into it and keep your heads down.”
The elevator doors open, and the three of us dash as fast as we can with the heavy packs until we’re outside, and—just great—it’s raining like crazy and the wind is intense. As promised, my father’s squad car squeals to a stop right outside. He gets out and opens the doors, then tosses our packs in, helping my mother get into her seat while Bex and I scamper into the back.
“We’ve got to be at the blockade in five minutes,” my father says. “Chuck and Nick know we’re coming.”
“Who?”
“Doyle set it up,” he says.
He turns on his flashing lights and siren, then guns the engine and rips down the flooded road. The car blasts through a red light, hydroplanes, but avoids a spinout.
“Denver, right?” Bex says.
I turn and nod, then feel my body jerked, my head snapping back violently as something slams into our car. Glass shatters and metal screeches, but we’re still moving. I look to my left and see a pickup truck full of Niners trying to drive us off the road. They make another attempt, scraping the doors. This time their bumper catches ours and they yank it off the back of the car.
“Leonard, there are more of them,” my mother screams, and then my whole body is upside down. I slam my head on the roof of the car and then onto the back seat. Something in my shoulder burns. The back window implodes and showers me with glass, and there’s an odd calm, as if the entire world has stopped what it was doing to see if we’re okay. All I can hear is the steady rotation of the tire outside my window and the clicking of the turn signal.
“Dad,” I whimper.
He lets out a terrible groan. “I’m here.”
“Mom?”
She’s breathing hard. “Yes, I’m okay. Can you get out?”
“I can,” Bex says as she pushes her door open.
My window is shattered, so I slide out onto the street, totally discombobulated but with enough sense to not put my hand in all the shards of glass. I’m wobbly but I can stand, so I help my mother out and then my dad. He cries out in agony and collapses on the asphalt, wrapping his arm around his abdomen.
“I’m sure I’ve broken a rib,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Leonard, you need to stand,” my mother begs.