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Brian and Aisha walked home in silence, the sky just beginning to darken. This was the second time in as many months that Aisha had run away from his father’s place. This time around, he had mistakenly assumed she was out with friends, as had his father. When the hour had gotten late and there was no trace of her, Brian realized she probably wouldn't come back on her own. He slipped out and found her waiting at a bus stop an hour later. The route would have taken her to their mother's house. He couldn't fathom her rationale for doing so.
What really got to him was that she wouldn’t even say what the problem was. That was always the issue with the two of them. If Brian pushed, she'd shut down or run away. And if he didn't, they wouldn't have much to talk about.
Brian had tried to act natural, be decent example for her. It was what they were both used to, after all. But Aisha clearly wasn’t responding to that, and lately he felt an itch to do something more proactive. More productive. He just needed to figure out what.
“Ya know, it's funny,” Aisha eventually said, finally breaking the silence.
“What's funny about this situation?” Brian asked. She confounded him sometimes.
“That you noticed I was gone.”
“Why wouldn't I notice you were gone? What gave you that idea?”
“God, it doesn't matter. Shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“It matters. It matters that you went out at night when we live downtown, and now you won't-”
Brian was interrupted by a scream piercing the night. It couldn't have been more than a block away.
“That's probably the Empire,” Brian said, his confusion banished by urgency. “We need to get home.”
He offered Aisha his hand and she took it without protest. Brian picked up the pace, though he was limited in how fast he could go with Aisha in tow. He kept his head on a swivel, eyes peeled for danger.
“You and Dad are just in your own worlds, okay? You don't get it,” Aisha continued.
“I'm in my own world?” Brian's tone turned harsh. “I'm out on a school night, looking for you because you ran away again.”
“That's not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Another scream. Not the same nondistinct cry of distress. A word, this time.
“Help!”
Brian stopped in his tracks. A thought popped into his head, a foolish one. The police weren't around. There probably weren't many people around at all. If he was careful, nobody would notice if he went over to check out the sound.
“Should we be worried about that?” Aisha asked.
Well, one person would notice.
“We keep moving. Whoever it is, we probably can't do anything for them.” As Brian said it, he felt a pang of guilt. But he had his sister with him. He couldn't just rush in; he had to stay where he was needed.
Despite all that, the cry for help didn't leave his mind. It didn't leave his ears, either. As they walked towards home, the noises only got clearer and clearer. Soon he could make out the sound of a blow hitting flesh, and the accompanying cry of pain.
Voices followed soon after. They sounded familiar. Not in the sense that he recognized the voices themselves, but that he recognized the tone. The kind of tone someone would take on when they wanted to feel big, and they usually did it by making someone else feel small.
He'd heard it a thousand times at the gym, usually alongside a scathing remark about someone else's progress. He'd heard it at his part-time job when his manager felt the need to single him out, the only black employee there. He'd heard it at his mother's house, when one of her boyfriends would come around while his father was out and she was either too high or just didn't care enough to stop them.
He'd heard it there just a couple of months ago, standing between Aisha and one of those men.
Brian stopped in his tracks. He looked at Aisha, who turned to meet his gaze.
“Dude?” she asked quietly.
Without a word, he led her by the arm into a nearby corner store.
“Brian, what are you doing?”
“I'm gonna see what I can do. Wait here.”
“What?”
He turned to leave, then turned back towards her. He fished some cash out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“Buy something if the owner starts giving you crap about loitering. You have your phone?” he asked.
“Yeah, I-”
“If I’m not back in 20 minutes, call Dad. Then call the police.”
“You’re sure?”She looked at him, incredulous.
“If I'm not back by then, they probably can't make things much worse.”
“But you- I-” she stammered for a moment, still not caught up. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don't know. Whatever I can, I guess.”
With that, Brian left the corner store and began jogging towards the sound. He was moving without a plan, he recognized. Without proper consideration. His father had worked hard to drill that out of him.
You can't rely just on instinct. You need the knowledge, the observational skill to put that instinct into use.
His father's words echoed in his head, but did nothing to slow his pace down the sidewalk.
He soon found himself at the source of the noise. Three young men, all white. Just a bit older than him. They were ganging up on a black kid, had him backed up against the alley wall. They didn’t notice his arrival. The boy seemed terrified, his eyes darting between his three tormentors.
A million reasons to walk away ran through Brian’s head. He was outnumbered. He hadn't practiced enough. He couldn't afford to get in trouble again. None of it was the truth, he knew.
The truth was that he was the only one who could help that boy. This was his responsibility.
Darkness flooded the alley, and the men whipped around in confusion. Their first mistake, because they immediately lost their orientation.
Brian's first instinct was to rush in and take them down, but his father's words rang in his ear again. He stood back for a moment, and watched.
Seeing things through his darkness wasn't the same as seeing things normally. It was hard to describe how, exactly, but certain details were emphasized over others. Like someone had painted a picture of what he should be seeing, and they hadn’t quite gotten it to match.
He hadn’t imagined it would be much use at first. But as one of the men ran headfirst into the opposite wall, Brian noticed a tattoo on his arm that the natural shadows had obscured. Empire, like he suspected.
If he just shoved them around, then grabbed the kid and ran like he was planning, they'd come looking again. Whether they found the kid again or settled for someone else, they’d hurt their victim worse without anyone there to stop them.
If he wanted to put a stop to them, he had to make them regret it.
Brian took a deep breath, then started walking down the alleyway. Two of the men had managed to find purchase against one wall while the third was cradling his head, slumped against the other. The boy, a bit further down the alley, was in the process of slowly crawling away. Brian wasn't sure whether he was being wary because of the darkness, or if he was hurt too badly to go faster.
First, he strode over to the lone injured thug. He was a good enough first target since he was already isolated. Brian stood next to him for a moment to size him up. Leaning against the wall for dear life, bleeding from his forehead, he looked so much smaller than he had before. It gave Brian pause for a moment. Just a moment, though.
Brian grabbed a handful of the man's hair to hold him in place, and rammed a knee into his nose. The man’s cry was accompanied by an audible crunch that made Brian sick to his stomach, but it didn't stop him. He let the man fall to the ground, writhing, and followed up with a kick to his stomach. The man kept writhing afterwards, but made no signs of moving to get up.
Brian kept walking forward past the other two men, then turned around. He'd taken the first step already, he told himself. He couldn't back out now.
He took a deep breath, then swept his arms forward to clear the darkness in the alley.
The two men that were still upright let out a slew of slurs and curses as they took in the scene, their bloodied comrade on the floor and Brian in front of them. There was another scream from the kid behind him, but he didn't turn around. Had to maintain the image.
Brian figured he was doing a decent job of looking scary, because the thugs weren't approaching him yet. He'd cleared the darkness in the alley, but kept it flowing off of his body. He couldn’t imagine how he must have looked. It gave him some confidence to know it wasn't the real him they were looking at.
“You want what he's having?” he taunted, firing a blast of shadow at the Nazi on the ground. His voice sounded different through the darkness, he realized. A strange kind of distortion that, while unexpected, was wholly welcome in his current circumstances.
“You did this?” one of them yelled, having about as much reasoning ability as Brian expected.
“And I'm about to do it two more times.”
He covered the furthest goon in darkness again, leaving a misshapen cloud behind the one that had spoken. Either the fear or the anger was enough to spur him into action, and he surged forward.
It was the most telegraphed swing Brian had ever seen. He ducked it easily and retaliated with two quick strikes, one to the chest and one under the chin.
The man folded like paper. To his credit, he started trying to get back up, but his attempt was stifled by Brian's foot on his elbow. Another crunch, and he was down for the count.
There was no room to breathe, though. Right as Brian looked up, the third was charging at him, having found his way out of the shadows.
With no time to duck the swing, Brian blocked as best as he could. He inhaled as he felt the hit rock him. He'd protected his head, but it still rattled his teeth. The guy could throw a punch, and he wasn't letting up. Brian barely managed to dodge the follow-up aimed at his stomach, nearly falling over as he backpedaled. He had to finish this fast.
Brian spread fresh darkness over the alleyway ahead of him, leaving the man blind. He moved forward to follow up, then he felt a sudden pain on his jaw. Brian backed off, incredulous, and saw the man wring his hand before swinging again.
Caught by a blind, completely random punch. Brian was glad his father hadn't seen that one.
He waited for the Nazi to whiff another punch, then moved in for the finish. He swept the man's legs out from under him, then aimed a kick at his ear. The man yelled in pain, grabbing aimlessly for Brian's leg and missing each time. Brian followed up with another kick to his ribs, then another. The man stopped fighting and cradled his chest, his body trembling.
He had won the fight, but that didn't mean he was done. He had planned to make them regret this. He needed to be sure.
Brian cleared the darkness except for his own personal cloud, and took in the scene. The three thugs were injured, scared. One good push would send them running.
“I'll be back for you if you try this again. And it'll be worse next time,” he roared, trying his best to sound intimidating. “Go home, lick your wounds, and forget this shit.”
They started picking themselves up, slowly. They seemed unsure of what to expect, whether he would really let them go or not. Or worse, they might have been contemplating a second round.
“Go!” he yelled, and they picked up the pace, leaning on each other as they limped out of the alley.
With the Empire goons dealt with, Brian turned his attention back to the boy. He hadn't crawled any further. That same terrified look stayed on his face, and only got worse as Brian got closer.
“Are you alright?” Brian asked. “Can you walk?”
“Please,” the boy pleaded, too exhausted to scream. “Please, don't hurt me.”
“I won’t hurt you,” Brian reassured, but the boy seemed unconvinced.
The problem was evident. It was just something he had wanted to avoid. With a sigh and a lingering feeling of apprehension, he banished the last of the darkness and let the boy see his face. The confidence he had felt faded, replaced by a wave of agitation.
“See? Regular person, just like you,” he said, trying not to let his worry show. “Now, can you walk?”
“I think so,” the boy replied.
Brian helped the boy to his feet. He was shaky for a moment, almost falling back down before righting himself. The boy seemed less apprehensive than he had a few moments before. More surprisingly, he didn’t seem as injured as Brian had thought.
“Thank you so much,” the boy said.
“You alright? You need the hospital?” he asked, just to be sure.
“No hospital. My mom says we can’t afford it.”
“Alright, then you need to get home. Shouldn’t be out this late,” Brian said.
“We needed bread, and the corner store is still open.”
“That urgently?”
“My dad said so, yeah.”
Brian felt a pang of sympathy for the kid. His mother never sent him out into Empire territory at night, but keeping him safe wasn’t exactly at the top of her list of priorities.
“Do your parents live close by?”
“They do, yeah.”
“Then l’ll walk you there,” Brian offered, even as he felt his time limit creeping up on him. He figured the guys he had beaten wouldn’t be coming back any time soon, and he’d left Aisha back in the corner store. He had to be back for her soon. But it clearly wasn’t safe for this kid to make his way home alone.
“Lead the way,” he said, and the boy started walking.
They were silent at first, which Brian appreciated. It made it easier to keep track of the streets so he could find his way back.
But soon, he was distracted by a noise coming from George. He looked over to see the kid wipe away a tear and stifle a sniffle. George just hid his face when he noticed Brian’s eyes on him. Something was going on, and Brian wasn’t gonna learn about it without prompting him.
“Kid, what’s your name?”
“George.”
“George, are you sure you're not hurt that badly? Because I'd rather help you out with the money than let you get hurt worse.”
“That's not it. It's just… I don't know what to do! People keep picking on me, coming after me. It happens at school too.”
“And you can't talk to your parents about this?” Brian’s breath caught as he waited for George's answer. He wasn't sure what steps he was supposed to take if the parents were part of the problem.
“I try, but they don't have the answer.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I wish I could be like you.”
“What?” Brian asked, surprised.
“You were so strong, and brave. You can fight. I'm sure nobody picks on you.”
Brian was silent for a moment. He didn't want to mislead the kid, but the truth was ugly. Not something he liked to dredge up.
He turned to look at George's face, and his heart dropped. The tears were streaming plainly on his face now. The truth, he decided. He couldn't conscience lying or shutting the kid down.
“I did get picked on, actually. There was this man, a friend of my mom's. He didn't like me so much. He came after me, sometimes.”
“How did you stop him?”
“I didn't. It kept happening. Only really stopped when my mom stopped hanging out with him. He came back a couple years later, and… yeah. Things were the same.”
“But you fought off those guys!”
“That was different.”
“So there's nothing you can do?”
“I'm just speaking from my own experience here. But sometimes, in the moment, yeah. You can't do anything about it. But I survived it, and now I work towards my own goals. Make life better for the people around me, minimize the damage that kind of guy can do. ”
“And that's why you're a hero?”
“I'm not a hero.”
“But you saved me!”
“This isn’t something I do regularly. You needed me, so I was there. I’m not planning on making a habit of it.”
“Oh,” George said, clearly deflated.
They walked a bit longer in silence, then he perked up.
“Oh! This is my house.”
They were outside a small place, not dissimilar from the kind his mom lived in. A bit nicer, maybe. But that might have just been him rewriting history.
“Well, stay safe, George. Sorry if I didn't have the answers you were looking for.”
“Thanks for your help. And I think you should think about being a hero.You'd be good at it,” George said.
With that, George turned away. He fished a spare key out from under a nearby rock, unlocked the door, and slipped inside.
Brian smirked as George left, then started making his way back. He was glad he had tried to help the kid. George didn’t seem like he had anywhere else to turn. And talking to him wasn’t so bad, either. Somehow, the anxiety he had been feeling after the fight was quelled during the walk. The kid was naive, but he had gotten Brian thinking.
What if he made this a regular thing? He’d had other ideas about how to use his powers, but it had felt good to help someone. He felt apprehensive about joining the Wards, but that wasn't the only path available to him. Could he pull it off without letting it get in the way of his plans for Aisha?
On his way down the street, Brian reached into his pocket and grimaced when he saw the time on his phone. It was going to be close. He was just about to start running back to the corner store when he heard a voice behind him.
“He seems nice,” Aisha said, just a few steps down the sidewalk.
“Aisha? What the hell?”
“I know, I was supposed to stay in the store.”
“You weren't supposed to hear any of that. Or see- how much did you see?”
“Pretty much the end of the fight, as much as I could see. How long were you gonna wait before you told me you had powers, by the way?”
“It's dangerous out here, Aisha. What if those guys had noticed you? What if someone else had caught you?”
“You didn't notice me,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I was focused on the kid. Someone else could have seen you,” Brian sighed. “It doesn't matter. Let's just go. Forget you saw anything.”
“So you'll talk to that kid, but not me?”
“I talk to you plenty.”
“You ask me about school and stuff, but we don't talk. I didn't even know any of that happened to you, with that ‘friend of mom’s.’ Does Dad know?”
“No, Dad doesn't know. It’s not something I like to talk about, especially without a reason,” Brian said. “I only told George because he seemed like he needed to hear it.”
“But-”
“This conversation is done,” Brian said. “We really do need to get home.”
She walked alongside him, but Brian could tell she was disappointed. Part of him still couldn’t believe she had overheard. He felt like her image of him had been unsettled, and he wasn’t sure how to correct it. What must she think of him? How would she listen to him now? It had been a mistake, telling George anything.
He couldn’t expect her to take him seriously. He had put in so much work to make himself respectable, and now he had shown that he was-
He was as scared and unsure as she must have been.
It felt like floodgates had opened in his mind. He had been willing to extend that vulnerability to George, but not to his own sister, when they had gone through the same thing. It seemed nonsensical in retrospect, even as he remembered how hard it had been to open up to a stranger. But putting on a good front and trying to lead Aisha hadn’t been working. He needed to try something new. He took a deep breath, then spoke.
“You were there.”
“What?” Aisha perked up, turning towards him.
“When I got my powers, you were there. It was that night at mom's house. It was the same guy who would go after me when I was younger, and- yeah. It must have happened during the fight.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I was scared. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them, didn’t understand why I had gotten them.”
“But you never tell me things. You never listen to me either, unless it’s an emergency. You keep leaving me alone.”
“Is that why you keep running away? Why you were headed back to mom’s house?”
She didn't respond.
“I'm sorry, okay? I want to do better. But you can't do stuff like this.”
“It's not like I want to. But between you and Dad, I just…” she trailed off, but Brian caught her meaning.
“I want to be a better brother to you, Aisha. I want to be there for you, and I'm going to do my best. Okay?”
“You promise?”
“I promise. But please, don’t run away again.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He took a step closer, and she didn't step away.
“Can I?”
She nodded.
For the first time in a long time, Brian reached out and hugged his sister. She returned it tightly, her arms wrapped around his stomach.
The two of them walked the rest of the way home in comfortable silence. Brian felt energized, despite the late hour and the events of the night. He had told himself he couldn't help everyone. He had convinced himself that he could only help one person, and it hadn’t even been in the way she needed. But things had changed. He could be responsible for so much more than he thought. It wasn’t going to be easy, and he wouldn’t hit every mark. Definitely not right away. But he wanted to try.