Her Superhero Lover

Chapter 8

They came in low, circling the building. Unfortunately with the broad daylight, there was little they could do to avoid detection from the army of police and media that were encircling the school. Thankfully, despite the outstanding warrant for his arrest (The Horseman, after all, had killed at least four people and assaulted dozens of others), none of the cops tried to take a shot. They had other things on their mind.

Landing lightly, Grady let her off his back and then knelt down. “Okay, silly rule, but just remember, don’t use our names inside.”

Renee nodded and looked out. She could see cops and news cameras looking at them, and she patted his arm. “You got your cell phone still?”

“Yeah, its in a pocket on my leg,” Grady replied. “Why?”

“Because we need information. Pull it out.”

He handed her the phone, and she pulled up the app market. “It’s not great, but I think we might be able to get some info. In the future, let’s get some burner phones to use for this little trick.”

Quickly downloading a voice chat program, she put in the phone number for Action Five news. “I remember it from all the times she would flash it on screen during The Horseman stories she did,” Renee whispered, before turning her attention to the phone. “Yes, this is The Horseman’s assistant. No, I’m not joking. I need you to connect me with Maria Mendoza on scene. Oh for fu*k’s sake!”

She looked over at Grady, and sighed. “They want proof.”

Grady thought, then nodded. “Tell them I’m going to fly a figure eight over the roof.”

Renee nodded and spoke into the phone. “All right. The Horseman tells me he’s going to float up and do a figure eight over the roof. Ready?”

Grady floated into the air and did a quick but obvious figure eight and landed. Renee nodded. “Got that on film? Fine, now put me through to Maria Mendoza.”

Renee waited, then spoke again, dropping her voice in a false bass. “Maria Mendoza? Yes, that’s correct. Yes. Listen, we can talk about that later, but we need help right now. The Horseman and I want to prevent these children from getting killed. But to do that, we need to know where the gunmen are. What can you tell us?”

Renee listened carefully, then interrupted. “Hold on. I’m going to put you on speaker phone.”

Holding the phone out, she pressed a button. “Go ahead, The Horseman is with me.”

“The gunmen are demanding a helicopter with enough fuel to get them to Mexico,” Maria’s voice came cracklingly over the speaker. “They say if they do that, they’ll free all but three of the hostages, with the other three to be freed once they are in Mexico.”

“There’s no way in hell those hostages will be allowed to live,” Grady said. “What sort of layout do the cops think the gunmen are in? Where are they in the building?”

“The police think that they have two classrooms, at opposite ends of the building in order to prevent the SWAT from taking the building. They’ve got three hundred and sixty degree views of the whole area.”

Grady looked at Renee and held up two fingers, then pointed them back and forth between them. “Two of them, two of us?” he whispered.

Renee thought it over and nodded. “Deal.” She raised her voice and spoke loud enough for the phone to pick her voice up again. “Any ideas on what they are armed with?”

“Police aren’t too sure, but reports from witnesses of the gunmen’s initial attack said they had at least some shotguns, and two of them were carrying what might be AK’s. Also, Horseman?”

“Yeah?”

“This isn’t confirmed, but some of the word on the streets is that the local bad guys suspect you’re not totally bulletproof. The cops are picking up a lot more gang bangers carrying armor piercing rounds and larger calibers. I’d assume the gunmen have something like that too.”

“Understood. Thank you, Miss Mendoza.”

“Hey, if you two get out of this, think I can get an interview?” Maria asked suddenly, then sighed. “Probably not, but it’s my job.”

“We’ll see,” Renee replied. She closed the phone call program, then looked at Grady. “What? If you want this little adventure of ours to continue, we’ll probably need to cultivate some information contacts.”

“Yeah, but an ex-girlfriend of mine? Can’t we find some regular reporter instead?” Grady said, then laughed. “Just my damn luck.”

Renee shrugged. “Just think, it could be worse. You know with the way we came in that some perv got an upskirt shot on me. My ass is probably going to be all over TMZ tomorrow.”

“That could be a tactic,” Grady said, smiling. “Have you jump down and distract the gunmen with your body, and when they’re all looking at your butt I’ll come up behind them and knock them out.”

Renee laughed and kissed him. “Only person who gets to see my naked butt is you. Now, which wing of the building do you want?”

Grady looked. The school was built in an old fashioned design that looked a lot like a lower case t, with a central main building that was used for the office, with the classrooms coming out in two wings. Grady nodded towards the westward one. “I’ll go west. It’s closest to the road, and if I were the gunmen I’d put more of my men there. Remember, I’m still stronger than you.”

“Be careful,” she said, looking towards the east wing. She was glad the roof was typically Californian flat, they would be able to see each other before dropping in. “Let’s go.”

Renee made her way quietly to the far end of the east wing of the building, listening for noise coming from inside the building. At the very end, she heard children crying underneath her. The harsh voices of the gunmen overwhelmed them. “Lady, get those kids to shut the fu*k up or else someone’s getting a rifle butt in the head!”

“Do you think it was really The Horseman?” another voice cut in, as the screaming child’s voice was muffled. Renee suspected either the teacher or classmates were covering the child’s mouth up, but she couldn’t tell.