Chapter 42 : Nothing
"What the fuck?" M.M. snapped. "Can’t you do anything right? Why the hell did you open the cell door?" They’d come here to find Compound V, not release some feral superpowered woman in the middle of the operation.
Kimiko stopped.
Her blood-covered hands hung at her sides, pieces of the dead guy still dripping onto the concrete. Slowly she turned her head toward M.M. and Frenchie.
Both men tensed immediately.
Frenchie shot M.M. a look that said, very clearly, can’t you use your brain for five seconds.
Then Kimiko moved — no warning, no hesitation, straight at them.
M.M.’s eyes went wide. "Shit—"
Mark stepped between them before either could react. He raised one hand and Kimiko’s fist came forward and stopped.
A shockwave burst through the room, kicking up dust and rattling crates, but her punch never reached him. It hit something invisible and simply died there.
Kimiko froze.
Her fist hung suspended inches from Mark’s face while the air between them distorted faintly. She pushed harder, muscles straining, and nothing changed. The barrier didn’t shift, didn’t crack, didn’t acknowledge the effort at all.
"See?" M.M. said, stepping back. "She’s fucking crazy."
Kimiko snarled and swung again. Then again. Then again. Fists, elbows, kicks — every strike hit the same unseen wall and stopped dead.
"That’s actually kind of offensive," he said.
Kimiko ignored him and kept circling, changing angles, testing the barrier from every direction with quick animalistic movements. Every attempt ended the same way.
After nearly half a minute she finally slowed.
Confusion crossed her face for the first time since leaving the cell. She stared at the empty space between them, chest heaving, blood still dripping from her hands, visibly unable to understand why nothing was landing.
Mark sighed. "Done?"
Kimiko stared at him for a moment.
Then she punched the barrier again.
Mark closed his eyes. "Right. Guess not."
Then Kimiko seemed to think of something.
She suddenly jumped backward, putting several meters between herself and Mark.
For a brief moment, everyone thought she was preparing another attack.
Instead, she spun around and bolted toward the entrance.
"Uh..." M.M. blinked. "Is she running away?"
Kimiko sprinted across the storage room at full speed, weaving between crates and debris. A second later she reached the doorway and threw herself toward it without hesitation.
Mark watched her go.
"Okay," he said. "That was unexpected."
Kimiko disappeared through the entrance almost immediately, and nobody made any effort to chase her.
For several moments the room remained silent before M.M. finally rounded on Mark.
"Why is there a fucking supe here?" he demanded.
Mark spread his hands.
"Do I look like I know?"
"Then why the fuck did you unlock the cell?"
"I mean, she didn’t exactly look dangerous sitting under a table watching television," Mark replied. "And unlike you people, I actually have basic human empathy. How was I supposed to know she was secretly a murder goblin?"
Unfortunately, he knew all of that even before he released her. That hadn’t stopped him anyway.
Frenchie immediately snorted.
M.M. stared at Mark.
"A murder goblin?"
"Look me in the eyes and tell me that’s not what we just witnessed."
M.M. opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
"Search the place," he said instead. "We came here for Compound V."
The three split up and started going through the warehouse properly. Storage crates, office drawers, locked cabinets, hidden compartments—anything that looked remotely suspicious got opened.
Most of it turned out to be useless.
Shipping records. Fake manifests. Enough paperwork to make an accountant break down in tears.
Nearly twenty minutes later, M.M. finally found something hidden beneath one of the desks.
"Over here."
Frenchie and Mark walked over as he pulled a small container from a concealed compartment.
Inside was a single blue vial.
Unfortunately, the vial was almost empty.
M.M.’s expression darkened.
"Fuck. That’s it?"
Frenchie carefully lifted it toward the light.
"There is almost nothing left."
"Which means we can’t prove much with it," M.M. said. "We broke into a gang warehouse, got shot at, nearly got killed, and all we’ve got is two drops of mystery juice."
Mark adjusted his glasses.
"When you put it like that, this operation really sounds terrible."
"It was terrible."
Frenchie remained focused on the vial for a moment before his gaze drifted toward the direction Kimiko had escaped.
"Why don’t we find the woman and ask her?"
M.M. slowly turned toward him, staring for several seconds as if trying to figure out whether Frenchie was joking.
"Frenchie, do you people lose your brains somewhere?"
Frenchie raised an eyebrow.
"She is a supe," M.M. said. "A supe who just killed people in front of us. Right now she’s running around somewhere in the city, and you want us to go looking for her?"
"She may still be useful."
"And didn’t A-Train run this operation?" M.M. asked. "If he did, then there’s a good chance he knows exactly who she is. The last thing I want is to spend the day chasing after a superpowered psychopath while A-Train is doing the same thing."
Frenchie frowned slightly.
M.M. pointed at him.
"You see how that ends for us, right?"
"I think you worry too much."
"I don’t worry enough."
Before Frenchie could respond, Mark tilted his head.
The distant wail of sirens drifted through the warehouse.
A few seconds later another joined it.
Then another.
"Umm," Mark said. "The police are here."
M.M. let out a tired sigh.
"Fantastic."
Frenchie carefully pocketed the vial while M.M. gathered the documents scattered across the desk.
"Do you want to stay here?" Mark asked.
M.M. gave him a look.
"Do I look suicidal?"
As they finished collecting everything worth taking, Mark glanced toward the doorway Kimiko had used to escape.
He could have stopped her if he wanted to.
He didn’t.
Not because he couldn’t catch her, but because he knew exactly where she was going. Kimiko wasn’t running away from them. She was hunting down the woman who had sold her into this nightmare in the first place.
And he wasn’t about to stand in her way.
*****
A/N: Advanced Chapters are available on Patreon.
👉 /Mark841
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