Twist My Arm: Grit Your Teeth And Crash

[Grit Your Teeth And Crash]

Cody didn’t live that far from my place. It was maybe a thirty minute walk on a good day, though it was a little closer to the bad part of town so we normally didn’t risk it, or at least I didn’t. Cody often did and showed up randomly to my doorstep at least once a month. Usually following an argument with his shithead parents.

He was standing in the driveway as I pulled up. My hands tightened on the wheel as my truck’s headlights lit him up. He looked like he was barely holding it together, pacing back and forth along the concrete and running a hand through his hair over and over again. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder and one of his pant legs was shoved into his sock like he’d put them on in a hurry.

I was out of the truck and halfway to him when he finally turned to face me, and my stomach dropped as I saw the spectacular bruise quickly forming on the side of his face, right underneath his eye.

I exhaled sharply through my nose and he averted his eyes, looking at the ground. “Thanks for coming so fast,” he said, starting for the truck.

I caught his arm before he could pass me, staring at the side of his face. “Did your brother do this?”

He flinched in a way that hurt but didn’t look at me. “Alex, come on. Let’s just go.”

“Cody.”

“Alex, please.” He said back, an urging in his voice that told me not to do what he knew I was about to do. But I’d already made up my mind. Hell, I made it up on the way here.

“Put your shit in the truck.” I let go of his arm, turning away and marching toward the front door. I heard him call my name behind me, but I was already set on this path and there wasn’t a thing he could do to change that.

Back in my last life, I had a nasty temper. It was tied to a pretty damn long fuse but once you got it burning, it was pretty much impossible to put out. It caused me a hell of a lot of trouble in school—it nearly got me sent to juvie more than once, but I was never medicated for it and it just got better as I got older and learned that actions actually have consequences in the real world. I figured out how to keep myself level, and it had been years since I had a major blow up.

So I guess it made sense that I was overdue for one.

I found out that the front door wasn’t locked when I shoved it open hard enough that it bounced off the wall behind it. Drywall crumpled inward with a loud bang but I was already too worked up to hear it or care. I stomped inside, fists and teeth clenched as I strode past Cody’s dad’s office and into the living room.

As I rounded the corner, I caught sight of a shaved head and a thick neck inked in a stupid barbed wire tattoo that wrapped around towards the back. Cody’s brother, Christopher was leaning against the counter, phone in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. His knuckles were bruised and the back of his neck was slick with sweat. My vision tunneled.

Christopher started to turn at the sound of the door slamming open, a look of surprise on his face and my fist caught him in the jaw before he got halfway around. My knuckles popped and he went sprawling, his water spraying all over the floor as his phone was flung across the room.

A shrill scream came from nearby but I barely heard it over the blood roaring in my ears and my own ragged breathing. Before I could think better of it, I was on top of him straddling his chest as my fists came down on his face, seeing nothing but red.

I hit him again and again, as hard as I could, holding nothing back as I let out my anger in an explosive fit. My knuckles split his lip and bloodied his nose in the first few hits, causing every hit that came after to slide against his blood-slicked skin. The feeling of his bones vibrating under my fists on contact was satisfying in a way I simply couldn't describe, but even that was driven away by anger as my knuckles split on his teeth.

As I grabbed his flailing arm and pushed it out of the way to keep wailing on him, another pair of arms suddenly wrapped around me. I shrieked, thrashing as they yanked me backward, trying to get back on top of Christopher so I could make him pay.

“Let me go!” I screamed, kicking out at Christopher and just barely missing. The violent motion caused whoever was behind me to loosen their grip just a bit and I managed wrench one arm free, but only for a second. I made it maybe half a step before I was caught again, hauled back and pinned against a broad chest.

“Alex! Alex, stop!” A familiar voice screamed in my ear. It was Cody’s dad. His voice barely pierced through the haze as I watched Christopher slowly climb to his feet, holding his face.

“You don’t fucking touch him! You hear me!?” I screamed at him, thrashing even harder against Cody’s dad. “I’ll fucking kill you if you touch him again you fucking fuck!”

Christopher spat blood onto the floor, holding his nose to try and stop the bleeding. I felt viscious satisfaction at his wince. I hoped I broke it.

“Why the hell are you defending that freak?” Christopher slurred through split lips, and all off that satisfaction vanished in an instant, replaced by even more white-hot rage.

I wrenched one arm free and lunged forward, fingers clawing toward his face. Cody’s dad caught me around the middle and hauled me back, but not before I managed to rake my nails across his cheek, leaving three red lines that welled with blood almost instantly.

“Go to your room, Chris,” Cody’s dad said, his voice strained as he pulled me back. I heard footsteps and glanced back to see Cody’s mom standing by the hallway, her face white and her hand over her mouth.

“Both of you, get out,” Cody’s dad said, his voice hard and final. He released me just long enough to shove me toward the door, and another set of hands—Cody’s, I recognized by touch—pulled me that direction.

“Dad—” Cody started as I breathed heavily.

“I don’t want to hear it, Cody.” His dad snapped, looking pissed off. “Get your friend and go. You’re not welcome here right now.”

Something about that "right now" told me there wasn’t going to be a "later." I caught a glimpse of Cody’s face, and that drove all the fight out of me in an instant. He just nodded, biting his lip so hard the skin around his tooth turned a stark white, and steered me outside. I let him, not fighting as my heated skin met the cool night air.

Cody didn’t say a word to me as we walked towards my truck. Inside the house, I could hear Christopher talking to his dad, probably spinning some story about how his brother’s dyke friend came in swinging, which wasn’t entirely inaccurate. I wished I’d hit him harder.

The engine coughed to life on the second try and I threw it into reverse, swinging the wheel hard. The truck bounced over the curb and I made sure to swerve into their mailbox, flattening the thing into the dirt out of spite before roaring off down the street loud enough to wake the neighbors.

The truck rattled down the street, engine groaning, and I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white beneath the blood. My hands hurt—hell, everything hurt. I felt my heartbeat throb through a building headache and the blood seeping through my knuckles.

I needed a cigarette. My hand drifted toward the console out of habit before I caught myself and glanced at Cody. He was staring out the open with a blank expression, the wind whipping through his hair. His arms were wrapped tightly around the bag in his lap, holding it like a lifeline. I thought I heard him sniffle, but couldn’t be sure.

My hand slid past the console and cranked the radio knob until the volume was loud enough to fill the cab with some cringy alt-rock station. I rolled down all the windows that still worked to drown out the sound of the crackling speakers, letting the wind carry away some of the heat that had been building behind my eyes.

Neither of us said anything for a long time. The streets rolled by, broken streetlights and boarded-up storefronts whipping past at speed. The city looked worse at night, which was saying something considering it looked like shit in the day too.

Slowly, I began to come down, the adrenaline fading away and leaving a touch of fatigue in its wake, accompanied by the creeping realization that I might have kind of fucked up, just a little.

“Thank you.” Cody whispered, his voice rough.

I breathed out through my nose and didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

More silence. I drove without really thinking about it, my body on autopilot while my brain slowly wound down from what just happened.

“Where are we going?” Cody asked after a while, his voice a little steadier now. He was looking out the windshield at the streets passing by, and I could tell he was trying to figure out the route.

“I’d bring you back to mine but I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I said, because Danny would ask questions and Taylor would be a bitch about it and I didn’t have the energy for either of those things right now. I ran my hands across the steering wheel, taking a steadying breath. “We’re going to crash at Harry’s.”

“Oh.” Cody said, and then, “Does he know?”

“He’s about to find out.”

The Boat Graveyard was separated from the main highway and by a dirt road and some orange cones. There was a fence at one point, but it had been cut through so many times that nobody bothered to keep fixing it, leaving a wide open hole just big enough for my truck to get through.

The truck’s suspension complained as the pavement gave way to sand and gravel, the steering wheel shuddering in my hands as I navigated between the wrecks. Cody gripped the handle, his knuckles going white for a different reason now.

“You’re going to get us stuck.”

“I’ve only gotten stuck here like twice. It's fine,” I replied. His look told me he didn’t think that was very reassuring, but lo and behold, we didn't get stuck.

I took a left around a cargo container that had been tipped on its side, its blue paint faded to a chalky teal. The truck’s headlights swept across stacks of containers arranged in a rough semi-circle that blocked the wind and the view from the road. I pulled up alongside one of the standing stacks and killed the engine.

Cody climbed out, looking back at me through a fringe of blonde hair. “Coming?” he asked softly.

“In a minute,” I replied, reaching into the console and pulling out my cigarettes. He gave me an understanding look and turned off, heading towards a shipping container that had its door facing us as I lit up and took a drag.

As the nicotine calmed my nerves, I leaned my head back against the seat and stared at the ceiling of the cab, letting the smoke filter around me alongside all my regrets. Looking back, I realized that I’d just basically broke into someone’s house and assaulted their son. Didn’t matter if he was a gangbanger or not, that still wouldn’t look good to the cops. Or to Danny, when he found out.

And yet, I didn’t regret it in the slightest. Was that better, or worse?

“Fuck, what a mess.” I took another drag and let the smoke curl out of my mouth, watching it flow out the open window to join the sea breeze. Somewhere outside, I heard the sound of a rusty hinge moving and low voices.

I dimly wondered how Christopher was going to take this. Even if he was a shitheel, it didn’t change the fact that he was actually a member of the Empire. Him and his friends went around beating up minorities and shooting up Asian-owned businesses every other Tuesday. If they found out where I lived, I was kinda screwed. I couldn’t put that on Danny, and sure as hell not on Taylor. She might kill me herself if it came down to it.

The ashes of my cigarette fell onto my shirt and I wiped them away, eying the burn marks left on white polyester.

I should have just taken Cody and left. Going inside was a stupid move, and I was definitely going to pay for it, I realized that now. Too bad there was fuck all I could do to actually change it.

The truck suddenly rocked to one side, a loud bang coming from the bed behind me. alongside the squeak of the suspension. I didn’t react, taking another drag of my cigarette as an arm draped in red and gold creeped in through the driver’s side window. Gloved hands twisted with mine, slipping my addiction free without any effort at all before retreating back outside.

“Coulda just asked,” I said, blowing smoke out of my nose. The truck rocked again as a figure slipped through the passenger window and into the seat with a sigh and a jingle.

“And you coulda asked before showing up to my house unannounced,” Harry replied, looking extremely displeased through his thick layer of grease paint. He put his feet up on the dash, the little bells on the end of his colorful shoes tinkling with the motion as he cranked the seat back.

“Sorry. Was kinda in a hurry,” I apologized. He shrugged, crossing one leg over the other as we stared out the windshield at his “house”.

Yeah, Harry was Circus. Kinda blew me away when he let me in on that little secret. He caught me messing around with my powers on the roof and figured one unmasking deserved another. We’d been friends for a while at that point, but it still blew my mind that he willingly gave me that info.

I didn’t know if Coil had gotten to him yet or not. He seemed to be in business for himself, stealing whatever caught his eye without much of an agenda. Also, he lived out of a couple shipping containers instead of a swanky loft in a textile factory, so clearly he wasn’t being bankrolled that much.

I figured it didn’t really matter either way. In canon, Circus was a mercenary the same as the Travelers, only he managed to survive all the way to Gold Morning. Harry was smart enough to handle himself.

“So.” Harry held the cigarette out to me, smoke rolling through his painted lips as he quirked a brow. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

I gave him a quick rundown. When I finished, he nodded slowly, looking pretty pissed off himself.

“We should kill that fucker,” he suggested as I passed the cigarette back.

“I don’t think we’d get away with it after what I pulled. We’d be the prime suspects. Or at least Cody and I would.”

“True,” he conceded.

He tapped ash out the window. The glow of the ember reflected off Harry’s grease paint, giving his face a weird orange cast that looked pretty damn scary.

“He can stay here,” Harry said, jerking his chin toward the containers. “I’ve got the space. Nobody comes out here unless they’re homeless or strung out, and I’m pretty good about keeping them away.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it.” He grinned half-heartedly. “How long do you think he'll stay? I don’t mind the company, but I can’t keep an eye on him all the time.”

“Don’t know. A few days, maybe? I’ll let you know if the cops show up at my place, assuming I don’t just get arrested on the spot.”

Harry shook his head. “They won’t. Christopher’s got E88 ink all over him and you’re a minor with nothing but trespassing on your record. Cops’ll take one look at that and decide it ain’t worth the trouble.”

He had a point. The BBPD wasn’t particularly interested in sticking their necks into domestic disputes, what with being overworked and underfunded in this little slice of hell. Still.

“What about the Empire?”

“Then you might have a problem,” he said, throwing a glance my way. “You got a plan if they come knocking on your door?”

I stared at the windshield, watching a crab skitter along the sand and into a crack between two shipping containers, hiding from the moon.

“You got an extra couch?”

"I got a couple mattresses. Assuming you don’t mind sand in your jammys.”

“I hate sand, actually.”

“Pussy.”

I grinned, and we both went silent. We spent a minute passing the cigarette between us until it burned down to the filter. Harry flicked it out the window and lit another one from the pack on the dash with a snap of his fingers, resuming the cycle.

“You know,” he said after a while, his voice lazy and half-distracted, “for someone who says she doesn’t want to get involved in cape shit, you get into more trouble than I do.”

“This wasn’t cape shit. This was just... shit shit,” I sighed.

“Same thing around here.”

And wasn’t that the truth?