Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

Pete, Jazz and Jack were standing there looking stunned. Even Torstein looked a little pale. The crowd of people who’d come to see Torstein was restlessly looking for him, turning our way, starting to move our way. We wouldn’t be alone for long. It occurred to me that if Nikolai sent his friends on the police force or his own thugs, either one, our best chance for escape was in the crowd.

“Let’s go back into the park,” I said. “If there’s nothing we can do for Maggie and Angel, we can sit tight here.”

Pete looked at me as if I were speaking Chinese. I don’t know what he thought he could do, maybe storm the jail, call Waverling out? That would be Pete’s style, and clearly, it would accomplish nothing. But in a huge crowd of people, we had a good chance of protecting Torstein. Nobody would try anything with all these people around us.

Torstein nodded. “All right. Let’s do what we can with the time we have,” he said.

At this moment, Ferdy came running toward us. We hadn’t seen him since he stormed out of the Starbucks hours earlier. He’d been angry then, but now he looked scared, and alarmed. “Torstein,” he called, as he ran up, and threw his arms around Torstein, giving him a hug. “Come on, you’ve got to come with me quickly. Sully’s in trouble, and he needs you.” He released Torstein, then turned and started running toward a side street that led out of the downtown and toward the projects. It ran behind a big bank building, and there was a side entrance to a multi-level parking garage, which he turned into and sped out of sight.

We all ran after him. I don’t guess we tried to figure out why Sully might be down a garage — or if we thought about it at all, I suppose we thought Ferdy’s car was down there. Inside the garage we followed Ferdy down one level. It was dark in there; we’d been in spring-time sunlight out on the street, and our eyes were having trouble adjusting. We almost ran smack into the thugs Ferdy had led us to.

To paraphrase the “drunk in New York” comedian, I didn’t know how many of them it would have taken to kick our backside, but I knew how many they were going to use. And that’s good information to have. There were at least 15 Bruiser-size guys down there waiting for us. I saw in an instant when Pete’s hackles went up — and how they drooped when he counted our opponents. There were four of us. We’d be slaughtered. Before we could even react, two big guys had seized Torstein by his arms. I could tell Pete could sense the futility of it, but he launched himself at them, anyway, and punched one of the guys solid on his ear. The guy crumpled to his knees and let go of Torstein, who reached down and touched the guy on the side of his head, saying to Pete, “No, Pete. Remember what I told you. Violence can’t end violence. Only love conquers —”

At that moment another guy smacked Torstein so hard on the back of the head that he pitched forward, and two other guys grabbed him.

They were dragging him toward a big black panel van they’d had waiting. Torstein turned to Ferdy and said, “You didn’t have to do it this way. I was on the street or in the park every day. You didn’t have to —” But then his words were cut off as they threw him into the van and slammed the doors.

The remaining guys started in on us, but they weren’t figuring to kill us. They punched our faces and left us dazed and leaning crazy against the back wall of the garage while they peeled out with Torstein in the van ... I guess they took Ferdy with them, too. He was gone, anyway.

Pete helped me stand up straight, and we picked Jack and Jazz up and started staggering out of the garage. We could hear a lot of commotion coming from our street ... but I was so dizzy, I couldn’t run up the way and see what it was. Jack was younger and fitter than me. He held onto his bloody nose with his hand and ran up the pavement toward the park. The police were there. They weren’t busting heads or anything, but they were telling people they were assembled illegally and had to disperse. Anyone who gave them any back-talk they were loading into a police van.

As the rest of us caught up to Jack, we saw Bruiser shepherding Marigold out of the park. Jack waved toward them, and then we faded back down the side street. We didn’t want the police to notice our beat-up faces. Marigold stared at us in horror. “What happened?” she said. “Did the police —?”

“No,” Jack said. “It wasn’t the police. It was Nikolai’s guys. They took Torstein.”

We quickly told them what had happened, what Sig had told us about Van and Caroline ... and how Ferdy had led us to the thugs.

“No,” Marigold said. “That can’t be right ...”

“Are there any of the Dunkers in the park?” Jazz asked. “If we can get them together, maybe we could find out where they’ve taken Torstein and go get him back.”

But we all knew the answer: the Dunkers were gone again. They’d developed some new dramas and planned some new publicity stunts, then they’d formed into teams and left again. They were techno-savvy and kept in touch with each other through text messages and FaceBook ... but none of us had ever bothered to get into their grid. Jazz might have been right; with all of them behind us, maybe we could have taken some action to get Torstein back ... but just then, with the police chasing all our friends away, and with Torstein gone who knew where — it felt like there was nothing we could do.

Then we heard, above the sirens, shrieking from the park. We all knew that scream. It was Cyd, the little autistic girl. Sometimes when someone touched her, or a worm or something walked on her foot, or her dad tried to get her to let go of Torstein, she would have a screaming fit. It was a really awful scream. No one could make her stop it, either, except Torstein. She’d fling herself on the ground, totally stiff like a board, and shriek. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t like kids that just have a fit because they’re spoiled. She couldn’t control it, I don’t think.

“Cydney!” Marigold shouted, and she took off running back toward the park. Bruiser followed her, and Jack and Jazz followed them. 

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