Chapter 15
Stucky felt like everything was happening too fast. The only thing he remembered after being propelled through the air and landing on the car was getting taken out of an ambulance. There were multiple doctors and nurses around him shouting things he couldn't hear. He wondered if he'd gone deaf, or if he about to meet his maker. He glanced down at his body, viewing at least one external wound. He knew the damage was mostly on the inside. Stucky wasn't sure how high and fast he'd flown to clear the entire road, but he figured it had to be some kind of record. The body board pressed against his back, which sent a burst of pain radiating through his body as he was placed on a rolling medical bed. He watched his view change from the ceiling of the ambulance, to partly cloudy sky, to hospital fluorescent lights.
Stucky's mind shifted back to when Nigel returned from the dead. After the man with half a face disappeared, the bullets fell to the ground as if they'd been misplaced, not lodged in Nigel's abdomen. When Nigel's eyes opened up, the first thing he did was smile. Stucky had seen Nigel smile before, but it was never like this. He looked more like a devil than a friend.
"Hello, everyone."
Yarrick and Carter dropped their guns and backed away from their newly living friend. Stucky stood still, and Tank was the only one who approached. He offered Nigel a hand and helped the Brit to his feet.
"We didn't know what that guy was doing," Tank said. "He made me stab you."
Nigel took off his blood-stained jacket and t-shirt. He tossed the soiled clothes to the ground and patted Tank on the back. Stucky noticed that Nigel's upper torso didn't even have a bullet wound on it.
"I didn't feel a thing," he said. "Nigel, on the other hand, was in great pain."
Stucky and Tank shared a glance. Despite his somewhat inflated ego, it wasn't like Nigel to speak in the third person.
"But aren't you, Nigel?" Stucky asked.
Nigel laughed as he stretched his arms up into the air. When the resurrected man walked toward Stucky, he couldn't help but back away. Nigel laughed.
"I am and I'm not."
Nigel moved toward the wall of their cavernous hideout. He reached ahead and tore off a chunk of rock the size of a basketball. He then smashed his hands together with a grunt and turned the stone into pebbles.
"I've inherited a few extra abilities," Nigel said.
Stucky pictured Nigel using his special skills on the four of them. Yarrick and Carter were probably doing the same, judging by the way they kept glancing over to the room's exit. Tank's eyes were fixed on Nigel.
"What happened to you?" Tank asked. "One minute you're on the floor. The next you're making everybody wet their pants."
Yarrick and Carter tried their best to laugh.
"My pants are dry," Yarrick said.
"Mine too," Carter said. "If you aren't Nigel, than what do we call you?"
Nigel cleared the rest of the dust off his hands.
"Call me Nigel, it's too confusing otherwise," he said. "That'll be our rule when all of you cross over."
"You mean, we all have to die and come back like you did?" Stucky asked.
Nigel rubbed the symbol on his arm. He looked around as if the world was all new. As if it was his.
"In due time, my friend," Nigel said, as he began to pace around the room. "The last few years we've done OK for ourselves. We've gotten some big scores and some heavy losses. If you agree to follow me today, the five of us will never lose again. While money is temporary, power makes us strong. And freedom. Freedom will give us purpose."
Stucky wasn't sure what Nigel meant, but the rest of the group looked convinced. They were focused on following their leader.
"What kind of purpose, Nigel?" Tank asked.
Nigel picked up the sword the faceless man had left behind.
"We're going to start the world over again," Nigel said.
Nigel sent them all home after that. Stucky and Tank walked together down the cracked sidewalks of their neighborhood. The calm smile on Tank's face made Stucky feel queasy.
"If it's not even Nigel anymore, how can we trust him to do what's best for us?" Stucky asked.
Stucky and Tank had lived together for most of the last decade. They didn't say much to each other at home, but the two of them were known to exchange a few words on their walks.
"Did you see him crush that rock?" Tank asked. "Do you know what we could do with that kind of power?"
Stucky loved his brother. Tank had always looked out for him, and now Stucky felt it was his time to do the same.
"So, you want to be like him?"
Tank laughed.
"Being me only gets me so far."
The two of them turned down a dark alley. It was a path Stucky didn't enjoy taking alone.
"You really want to erase everything you are, just so you can crush a rock?" Stucky asked.
"Crush a rock. Crush a skull. And make my skin resistant to bullets. What's the downside again?"
Stucky already missed the way things were before. They'd do a job, have enough money for a few months and then pull something else when they ran out of funds. Stucky thought back to his first encounter with the faceless man. He wondered if the man had put the bullets in Nigel himself.
"I'm just not sure if we can trust him. Nigel isn't human anymore."
"That's right," Tank said. "He's a god."
The conversation ended there.
The next day, Nigel explained that the symbol on his arm allowed something else to cross over into his body. He talked about a war and being on the right side of it. Stucky took the temperature of the room. Tank nodded his head to every word that came out of Nigel's mouth. Yarrick cleaned his gun and Carter looked off into the corner of the room.
"So, are you going to make us all into copies of you?" Carter asked.
Nigel rolled up his sleeve to once again reveal the symbol.
"We'll all get this symbol. It will give you all a second chance in case you die for the cause."
Carter seemed to like the idea that death wouldn't be the end of him.
"War is tricky business," Yarrick said. "It is not always so easy to choose sides."
Nigel stepped toward the Russian, who finally looked up from his weapon.
"If the opposing side wins, nothing will change. You'll go on being exactly who you are, living job to job and hoping for something better."
Nigel put his arm around Yarrick's massive shoulder.
"If we win," Nigel said. "We get to remake the world just how we want it. Do you want to keep living the same old existence or have a chance at greatness?"
Yarrick put his gun away and fixed his attention on Nigel.
"Change is good," he said.
Nigel had one target left. Stucky had never liked being the center of attention, but he could feel a glare from most of the gang members.
"And what about you, Stucky?" Nigel asked.
Stucky pulled at the collar of his shirt.
"He's my brother. He'll do what I tell him to do," Tank said.
Nigel ignored Tank and zeroed in on Stucky.
"Is that true, little brother?" Nigel asked. "Speak now or forever hold your peace."
He nodded. One nod was all it took, and within a few minutes the entire group got the same symbol placed on their arms. Stucky felt the burn of the mark deep into his arm. The pain made him want to take his answer back.
"Now, I need one of you to do as I did," Nigel said. "I need one of you to become something greater."
Stucky tried to catch his brother's eyes before he pushed his way to the front. Tank was standing in front of Nigel before Stucky even had a chance.
"Only a death by human hands will let the soul cross over into your body," Nigel said. "Are you prepared to die?"
"I'm in, man. Do what you have to do… Stucky?"
Stucky froze in place. Tank handed him a gun, but his brother wouldn't take it. He started to shake his head.
"I haven't killed a man yet. I don't intend to st
art with my brother."
Nigel rolled his eyes. Tank stuffed the gun into his back pocket.
"Fine. I'll get Yarrick to do it. But I'm gonna be mad at you when I come back."
The flow of the hospital fluorescents brought Stucky back to the present. The people around him felt farther and father away. He pulled off his oxygen mask.
"You've got to keep me alive," he said.
Stucky shook as he spoke.
"Sir, please keep your mask on."
"I'll come back a monster."
The nurse pulled back Stucky's hands with ease and made sure the mask stayed firmly on his face. He started to breathe faster as he watched the overhead lights stream by. The bed passed through door after door until it stopped in a blue room. The doctors lifted him onto another bed. The sharp pain nearly made him lose consciousness.
After Yarrick choked Stucky's brother to death, nothing happened for a few moments. Stucky wanted to reach for Tank and cry over his body.
If only I'd had a lighter, he thought, none of this would have happened.
Less than a minute later, a familiar blue light shot into Tank's body. The symbol glowed and Tank began breathing once again. Stucky did everything he could to hide the tears. He expected Tank to act like his favorite team had just won the pennant, jumping up and down and making the world know just how happy he was. That was how his real brother would react. Instead, Tank was calm when he stood up, and he took Nigel's hand in his own. They embraced like kin, and Stucky realized the only family that he had was gone.
"What's it like?" Stucky asked, as the two of them walked home.
Tank looked at least three inches taller, as the slouch he'd always walked with had been cured.
"There are two people inside me," Tank said. "One of them is so powerful I might explode."
Tank had always been strong. Stucky wondered if being even tougher would go to his head. And he had every reason to worry.
As they walked down the dark alley, a jogger dressed all in black nearly ran into the two of them. Before the sweaty man could apologize, Tank began to stomp toward him.
"What the hell, man!" Tank said.
"Don't take up the whole road," the jogger said.
"How about you come over here and say that?"
"It's not worth it, bro," Stucky said, pulling Tank's arm back in the direction of their apartment.
Tank pushed his brother to the ground, and Stucky hit his head on the pavement. He could feel a welt begin to form as Tank motioned for the jogger to approach. When the jogger swung his fist, Tank caught him by the arm, grabbed his head and broke the man's neck. Stucky looked away from the broken jogger and spied his brother. Tank's eyes reminded his brother of a kid on a carnival ride, wanting nothing more than to do what he'd just done over and over again. The two of them left the dead man lying in the alley.
"Sir, your injuries are life threatening," a doctor said. "We're going to do everything we can to save you."
Stucky hadn't realized it, but he was pleading with the doctors to save him. He must have begged 50 times in the last few minutes alone.
"I'm not a good man, but I'm no murderer."
Stucky's eyes darted around the room, but everything was too blurry to focus.
"We're going to give you something to help with the pain."
The doctor placed a different mask on his face. It made Stucky feel light.
"I don't want to die," Stucky said through the plastic.
"Now count down from ten. 10, 9, 8…"
Stucky passed out.