The Quest of One

Lateral Repulsion

I wake up to the sound of heavy knuckles rapping on the window. I guess after my meltdown in that Ohio diner, we moved on again. When I sit up, I notice pale beams of light cutting into the backseat through the glass. Hilde sits in the front passenger seat with the window cracked.

"Officer, that is none of your concern," she says. Oh, great, more fucking cops. "I can leave right now—"

"You can after stepping out of the vehicle," the officer barks, interrupting her.

"I can leave right now," Hilde starts again, harsher, "but I need you to back away from our van, please."

"Ma'am, if you do not comply, we will have to force entry," says another officer at the driver's side door, staring daggers at Wade. "You have ten seconds to comply."

"You're not breaking into this van, sir," she growls. "If you don't back away right now, I'm reporting both of you for harassment."

"Hilde, I think we should get out," Wade whispers.

"No!" I hiss from the backseat. "What do you think is gonna happen if you go out there?"

"I'm coming out, officer!" Wade says, keeping his movements visible as he opens the door. Fucking idiot. "I'm opening the door. Let's just talk about this."

I look out the side door's window. The officer is shorter than Wade, and she keeps something long half-leveled in her hands that's over half her stocky body's length. When my eyes adjust, I finally realize that it's a motherfucking shotgun.

"Walk to the hood of the vehicle and empty your pockets!" she shouts, pushing him in his back with her free hand.

"Okay, this is unacceptable." Hilde unclips her seatbelt and the male officer steps away from her door to give her room to step out.

"Hilde, what the fuck—?" I start, but she turns back toward me, giving me a stare that petrifies me in place.

"Stay here," she says, then turns to the officer. "We haven't done anything wrong, sir. Like I said, I can pull the van out of here and we can be on our way."

"Who said you could step out of the vehicle?" the officer closer to Wade shouts at Hilde.

"Wood, it's fine," the other replies. "Ma'am, if I could just see license and registration for the van."

"Whoa, hold on," the officer with the shotgun notices something on the hood of the car, half-covered by Wade's receipt paper. A tiny plastic bag. Fuck. "What do you think you're doing with this?"

She picks it up and holds it less than an inch in front of Wade's face, pushing it closer when he flinches away. Through the windshield, I can see the blood still heavy in his eyes, mostly from being asleep rather than from the weed.

"You know what this means, kid?" the officer shouts in his face. He stares at me through the windshield, a strange look on his face. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"How 'bout you back the fuck off?" I ask when I start to climb out of the side door.

I'm greeted by a wall of snowy air and a shotgun leveled at me. "No one said you could move, kid! Get out of the vehicle now and get on the ground!"

"Officer," Hilde chokes out, trying to maintain a calm stance in this infuriating fucking situation, "I'm going to need you to stop pointing that weapon at my granddaughter."

"Shut up and stay over there, miss!"

"Wood, calm down," the taller officer says halfheartedly.

My veins become empty highways and I feel the blood rocketing through me at a rapid pace, Legacies at the ready. But staring down the barrel of a shotgun, I suddenly feel that same unnerving sense of mortality in my gut that I felt back in LA when that detective pulled the camera from his desk. Unlike the other eight Garde still scattered across this sick fucking planet, I've got no barrier protecting me from getting killed by human attacks.