“We gotta do something about the fucking pigs this time,” said the man holding Malcolm down. “I’m sick of them thinking they can fuck with us whenever they want.”
“Hold on just a second,” said Malcolm. “This is just an honest misunderstanding. See, I came here because-”
The man on top of Malcolm pushed the gun harder against his skull, the metal painful against the back of his sensitive scalp. He winced and tried to keep his anger in check.
“Motherfucker,” said the man. “Do you know who the fuck we are?”
Malcolm laughed.
“Hey, I hate to turn your question around on you, but do you have any idea who the fuck I am?”
The room was silent with surprise for a solid second. It was all Malcolm needed.
He pulled the wind to him and exploded it outward in a dome of force, not to hurt anyone, but to knock loose pistols and scatter the weapons across the room. The man on top of Malcolm gave a shout of surprise, which was cut off halfway through by Malcolm’s elbow connecting with his nose.
Malcolm stood up, smiling. He held his hands out in front of him, trying to calm people down so he could start his appeal over. He wasn’t there to fight. He was just there to take a look around.
Who’s to say a heavily armed gang of criminals can’t be sensible and reasonable, if given the chance?
Another gang member jumped out from the hallway, shouting and leveling an assault rifle at Malcolm’s head. He reacted out of pure instinct, slamming up a shield of wind deflection over the barrel.
The bullets began spilling out of it, loud enough to make everyone in the room momentarily deaf. Malcolm deflected each one of the bullets, careful to make sure that they angled up and away from any houses or cars on the street outside.
Rose appeared beside him, and Malcolm was suddenly thankful for the disgusting living room’s poor illumination. The man who’d originally been on top of him had pulled a knife, and another man stood up from the couch, both of them attacking Malcolm at once.
Wind manipulation was infinitely useful in most contexts, but when it came to a knife fight in a confined space, there was only so much it could do. Malcolm tried to knock loose the blade of the nearest one, but the man had learned his lesson from earlier, and held it tight.
The unarmed man threw a fast punch at Malcolm’s face. Drawing from his vast hand to hand combat experience, Malcolm blocked it solidly with the side of his skull. Stars exploded into his vision, but he was still alert enough to see the knife wielding man pulling his weapon back to stab it into his stomach.
Malcolm slammed forward with the wind, knocking the armed man back through door leading outside. The man tumbled down the porch stairs and let out a scream that suggested he’d accidentally taken the point of his own weapon into his own body.
Another gang member tried to pull Malcolm into a bear hug. He shot up toward the ceiling with a wind assisted jump, spinning and kicking at the same time. The result was like something out of a Tarantino movie, and Malcolm’s foot caught the man directly in the jaw. He crumpled to the ground without complaint.
Malcolm looked across the room to see Rose taking on four men at once. It wasn’t anything like a fair fight, and Malcolm felt a sudden sympathy for the men. One of them was sobbing uncontrollably, not even engaging Rose, but huddled on the ground in fear, and for good reason.
Rose had called shadow tendrils from every dark corner of the room. She had them wrapped around one of the man’s necks, and had broken the arms of one of the others, contorting them at horrible angles. It was an intense scene, and the casual, confident way Rose held herself in the middle of the violence only made it that much more terrifying.
Rose held the fourth man aloft with her tendrils, and was slowly pulling at his limbs like a sadistic child might torture an unlucky spider. Malcolm watched, feeling more than a little uncomfortable.
She isn’t actually going to do it… right?
“Rose,” said Malcolm. “Hey… Remember why we’re here?”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten.” Rose was smiling. She slowly drew the man she held in the air closer, until his face was only a few inches from hers. “Tell me. Have you seen me before? Do you know why I’m here?”
“I… I…” The man’s eyes were wide, and he was trembling visibly. “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Let’s take a more general approach,” said Malcolm. “Whose house is this? Can anyone answer that, to start?”
The man who Malcolm had kicked in the head made a grunting noise and slowly sat up. He looked as though he was summoning all the courage he had just to keep his eyes open and face the room.
“It’s mine,” said the man. “Well… I mean, technically it’s not mine. But I’m house sitting for the owner.”
Rose let her shadow tendrils dissolve, dropping the men in her grasp to the floor. She walked over to Malcolm and stood next to him, staring down at the man speaking with a curious expression on her face.
“Who is the owner?” asked Rose. “Can you give a name?”
“…Leah,” said the man. “Leah Westward. My ex-girlfriend.”
Malcolm raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Rose.
“Does that ring any bells?” he asked.
“It’s… my sister,” said Rose. “At least… I think it is?”
She bought a hand up to her forehead. Malcolm put a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yeah,” muttered Rose. “It’s just… a very weird sensation. I can’t remember much, and it’s all jumbled up.”
Malcolm was about to ask more when a new figure emerged from the hallway, wielding a pistol in each hand. Acting purely on reflex, he threw himself down to the floor, pulling Rose with him and tossing up a wind deflection shield.
Bullets tore through the air. The men in the room started screaming, the fight already having gone out of most of them. Malcolm was trying to keep himself in front of Rose. He reached a hand back to make sure she stayed near, only to discover that she’d disappeared into the shadows.
“You fuckhead!” screamed the new attacker. “You think you can fuck with us and get away with it.”
“That’s exactly what I think.” Malcolm whipped the wind across the man’s hands as hard as he could. One of his pistols came loose. The man raised the other to fire another shot, but it was easy to keep him from holding steady aim with the wind.
The man fired a couple more times before the gun went empty. He threw it at Malcolm, who deflected it upward with the wind and then caught it in his hand.
“There are so many other, smarter ways you could have gone about that,” said Malcolm. “Sneak attacks are pretty formidable when you’re, you know… sneaky about them.”
“Fuck you!” The man screamed and charged forward. Malcolm slammed the wind into his chest, pushing him into the wall behind him hard enough to knock him out and leave an impression of his body.
Rose reappeared next to him, arms pulled tightly across her chest. She frowned at him and gave a quick shake of her head.
“I looked through most of the rooms,” she said. “There isn’t anything else here that I care about.”
“Did it stir up any new memories?” asked Malcolm.
Rose shook her head again.
“No,” she said. “At least… not any that make much sense to me.”
Malcolm looked over at the man he’d been talking to before.
“Your ex-girlfriend,” he said. “Where is she now?”
“Leah…?” The man winced. “She left me for some chick.”
Malcolm furrowed his brow.
“Really?”
“I’m not fucking with you,” said the man. “She was some religious bitch. One of the crazies from that stupid Awakened Children Church just outside of the city.”