Rivals

Shotgun pellets whizzed through the air, smashing across Maggie's face and shoulders. One of them went past her head and hit Brent in the ear. It stung worse than any pain he'd ever felt and he dropped her arm and went down on one knee. He reached up and grabbed at his ear, then looked at his fingers, expecting them to be covered in blood. But apparently whatever the green fire had done to him and to Maggie, it had made them tough enough that the pellets couldn't break their skin.

Maggie roared in pain but she didn't go down. For a second her hands were on her face, scrubbing at it as if she could wash away the pain. Then she brought her hands down and looked back at Brent.

No. She glared at Brent. She thought he must have been in on this. That he had betrayed her. She reached out to grab him and he saw her face was unmarked, that she had taken a shotgun blast right in the head and it hadn't really harmed her at all.

It had, however, pissed her off.

She grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. He tried to squirm out of her grasp as she pulled her arm back, but he felt weak and queasy, his body rebelling against him. Then she punched him right in the nose.

Blood squirted down the front of his shirt. His ears rang and his skull felt like it was spinning around underneath his scalp. He fell backwards, unable to stop himself, and landed flat on his back. The pain of the shotgun pellet hitting his ear was nothing compared to this - he thought he might throw up. He thought he might pass out.

"Turn around and put your hands against the wall," the policeman said, pumping his shotgun. "I will shoot you again."

All around them cops were running out from behind their cars, weapons drawn and pointed at Maggie. One of them had a taser, a flat white plastic gun with two prongs sticking out of its front. He fired and the prongs turned into darts that punctured her shirt. A pair of very thin wires were attached to the darts. There was a crackling sound and Maggie's head jerked back for a second, but still she didn't go down.

It seemed to Brent that she moved very slowly as she stepped toward the policeman, the one with the shotgun who had fired at her first. Brent saw him turning as if he was going to run away. Maggie didn't give him a chance. She grabbed him by the straps of his bulletproof vest and swung him around as easily as if he was a toy. When she let go he flew through the air, his legs and arms flailing. He hit one of the police cars hard enough to crumple its hood. Brent could hear bones snapping inside his body and saw his face go slack as he slid down to the ground.

He wasn't moving.

He looked back at his sister. Her eyes were very wide. She looked scared - terrified - by what she'd done. But she didn't stick around to apologize. The other cops were starting to shoot at her, pistol bullets and rifle rounds zipping through the air, the smell of gunsmoke filling up Brent's nose -

And then she was gone. She had jumped over the line of police cars and was running away. After a moment Brent couldn't see her anymore.

He got up carefully, worried he might have broken some bones himself when she hit him. His nose felt like it was stuffed up and it was still bleeding, a trickle of wet blood running down his lip and into his mouth. He wanted to touch it, to feel if the cartilage in there was shattered, but he thought that might not be a good idea. What if he made it worse.

"What are you doing?" Weathers demanded. He ran up and grabbed Brent's arm and shouted in his ear as if he was trying to wake Brent up. "She's getting away!"

Brent stared at the FBI man. If he could have shot lasers out of his eyes he would have, then and there.

"You have to go after her," Weathers said. "Nobody else can keep up with her. What are you waiting for?"

"You set us up," Brent said. His voice sounded like a growl.

"There's no time for this," Weathers told him.

Brent shook his head. "We'll make time, then. You told me I would have a chance to bring her in peacefully. But you just wanted to kill her!"

"Oh, please, kid. With buckshot? We knew it would barely hurt her. What were we supposed to do, shoot her with BBs?"

"You betrayed me. You tricked me into betraying my sister."

Weathers grunted in annoyance. "She is getting away. Right now. You need me to draw you a diagram? She's hurting people, Brent. I told you my job is to make sure people don't get hurt. Innocent, honest people. She's already decided she's not one of them, so I have no problem if she gets hurt, because that'll protect a lot of people who do deserve my help."

"And what about me?"

"Oh, did I hurt your feelings? Well, pardon me. I've got a girl who's knocking down houses and breaking an old lady's arm because she's so full of hormones she doesn't know right from wrong. If I need to lie to you, some teenage boy whose biggest contribution to society is that he refuses to beat up the school bully, so be it."

"I quit. I don't work for you anymore. Do you understand?"

"You never did. I don't pay you. I'd actually be happier, and my life would be easier, if you did not exist, Brent. But right now you have to go chase your sister and hit her until she stops running. Because as of right now, she has nothing to lose. She just hurt a cop pretty bad. What's next? Is she going to kill someone?"

Brent tried to think of a reply. But he couldn't. Weathers was right. Maggie's behavior had been getting worse and worse. Who knew how low she would sink before she was through? She had to be stopped, one way or another. Either the cops could try shooting her with bigger and more deadly guns, or it could be him. Brent could chase her down and bring her in.

"Well, get to it," Weather said.

Brent wanted to spit. He wanted to punch the FBI man in the face. Instead, he jumped over the cars and hit the ground running, zooming like a rocket down a crowded city street.