Bad Intention by David Bussell & M. V. Stott

Author:David Bussell & M. V. Stott [Bussell, David & Stott, M. V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Uncanny Kingdom
Published: 2018-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

14

They led me out of the hospital in cuffs. Not the plastic zip ties they use to cart away protestors, but the rigid, nickel-plated shackles they use to perp walk terrorists. Given that I’m a five-six female with arms like wet noodles, it seemed a bit overkill to me, but in a post-9/11 world, the law doesn’t take any chances. Particularly when that female is covered head-to-toe in human blood and strange tattoos, and raving about a bomb in a hospital.

Two burly officers escorted me from the building and frogmarched me in the direction of an idling police car. The back door of the vehicle was already open, awaiting my arrival. If the coppers got me in the back seat of that thing it was game over. No way I was wriggling out of that trap. I had to resist. Had to stop them. I pictured myself doing that thing cats do when you try giving them a bath, making a starfish of my body, arms and legs splayed, refusing to go in. Except I couldn’t do any of that, because my hands were cuffed behind my back.

‘Guys, come on, don’t do this, please.’

The officers stared straight ahead, ignoring my pleas.

So far, so shitty.

‘Let me go and I promise I’ll explain all this later,’ I begged. ‘Just name a time and I’ll swing by the station, straighten everything out.’

More silent treatment. Yeah, it wasn’t the most convincing overture, I’ll give you that.

Okay then, have it your way.

Like a child throwing a supermarket tantrum I went limp, my legs dangling lifelessly beneath me, my body a dead weight. It turned out I’d drastically overestimated my stopping power though, and the officers carried me along with ease. Another one in the eye for peaceful protests. Fucking Gandhi.

The tops of my boots scraped against the ground as the officers continued their journey to the back of the squad car. They may as well have been toting a half-stuffed pillow for all the trouble I caused them.

Fuck this.

I struggled at the cuffs, twisting, yanking, doing anything I could to break free of the bind I’d landed myself in. Fully-charged, I’d have snapped those things clean in half, but my tats were completely burned out. I tried soaking in some of the surrounding magic to boost my strength, but got nothing back. I was a sponge dipped in wet concrete; dried and gone hard. The magic was out there, but my pores were plugged solid.

‘Miss, please don’t do that,’ insisted one of the officers.

What did he expect me to do? I had Jek’s next pointer tucked in my sock—the key to Lana’s survival—and I couldn’t even read the thing. The frustration was killing me. The checkpoints were getting ever closer, and there I was, stuck in police custody while my cousin rotted on the vine. Every second I spent in those cuffs felt like a death sentence. If the pair of numb nuts gripping my arms expected politeness, they had another thing coming.

‘Don’t say I didn’t try to play nice,’ I said, and kicked one of the officers in the shin.

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