SuperHard to Get

The rain in downtown Crave City did not feel like it came from the sky. It felt like it was made from the thick, greasy yellow smog that always covered the buildings. Under these heavy clouds, the giant city did not feel like a normal town where people lived; it felt like a giant, broken old machine that was falling apart. It was exactly three o’clock in the morning, which was the darkest part of the late-night work shift. The streets in the main business district were completely buried under a dirty orange glow coming from the buzzing neon signs of 24-hour bail bonds offices and cheap donut stands. Millions of gallons of dirty, still rainwater sat in puddles against the broken stone curbs. The water was filled with black motor oil, old paper trash, and the chemical smell of a rotting city. The rain did not clean the streets at all; it just made the dark soot slippery and smooth, creating a shiny reflection that mirrored the flashing lights of late-night pawnshops and sketchy adult movie theaters.

Every thirty minutes, the heavy shaking of the subway trains underground rolled right through the floors of the brick buildings. This shaking caused the still street puddles to move in perfect, round circles. The air was thick and heavy, smelling like salty ocean water mixed with the bad chemical smell coming from the metal factories down by the eastern docks. This was just how Crave City always felt—a dark, crowded place that made the people who lived there keep their heads down, their jackets zipped tight, and their eyes looking straight at the cracked concrete sidewalks.

Inside the quiet, hidden rooms of Homicide Precinct 4, the air felt just as hard to breathe. The cheap, old fluorescent lights on the stained ceiling buzzed and blinked in a broken rhythm. This blinking cast sharp, dark shadows across long rows of empty metal desks. The green tile floors were completely worn down to the black base layer in the main walkways, where generations of cops had dragged petty thieves and shaking drug addicts toward the metal jail cells. A low, constant hum came from the old heater pipes, along with the loud clicking of an automatic printer machine. The machine was printing out long lists of train logs that absolutely nobody on the night shift would ever look at or care about.

Detective Alexander Hardy stood completely still right in front of the main whiteboard in the squad room. His wide chest rose and fell as he took deep, slow breaths. He wore a clean, dark blue three-piece suit that fit tightly across his huge, muscular shoulders, and his silk tie was pulled tight against his neat white collar. His dark skin showed an expression of total focus, and his eyes were glued to a massive, complicated web of red string and index cards pinned to the wall.

Right in the middle of this giant map was a single index card with a name written in thick black marker: Nefri Mancini.

Spreading out from that center card was a huge web of secret company names, boat shipping numbers, hidden bank accounts, and the names of low-level gang members whose dead bodies had already been pulled out of the dirty harbor water over the last seven months. Alexander’s fingers had dark ink stains on them, his nails were cut clean, and he stood tall like a heavyweight boxer waiting for the opening bell of a fight. He did not lean against the office desks at all; his boots stayed planted firmly on the floor while his mind counted down the minutes until the morning court shift started its paperwork.

“The case is completely perfect, Alex. You’ve been staring at those map locations for almost five hours straight without even blinking,” a tired voice said from across the room.

James Houlder walked into the dim orange light of the desk lamp, leaning his thin, athletic body against the rusty edge of a green metal filing cabinet. He looked totally exhausted. His dark brown hair was messy, and he rubbed the back of his neck as his fingers traced the collar of his old, worn jacket. A half-empty cup of cold, old police station coffee sat right next to his elbow, and a thin, oily layer covered the top of the black liquid. “The federal government has already approved our plan to stop them, Alex. The second that cargo ship crosses into the third shipping zone tomorrow morning, our hidden phone recorders will catch the illegal trade live. We have his whole empire trapped in a box.”

Alexander did not turn his head around to look at his partner. He reached out with a large, rough hand, using his thumb to press hard on a brand-new index card that detailed the hidden business properties of the I Due Serpenti gang inside the industrial area.

“The paperwork does not have the final judge’s signature for the boundary rules yet, James,” Alexander said in a flat voice. His deep, rough tone carried a serious, professional weight that echoed through the quiet room. “If the backup judge takes even one extra hour to sign his name on these regional papers, Mancini’s expensive lawyers, like Jimmy Nordak, will tear our entire case to pieces using a small rule mistake. I spent seven long months building this investigation from the dirt up. I am absolutely not going to let a simple typo on a piece of paper let that monster walk away completely free.”

Houlder let out a loud sigh, reaching into his pocket to pull out a messy pack of mint gum. He slid a piece of silver foil across the plastic desks toward his partner. “The Captain is at City Hall pushing the paperwork through himself right now, Alex. Just calm down a bit. Getting real justice takes time to finish.”

“Real justice does not exist on these streets, James,” Alexander whispered, his dark eyes looking right at the center card on the wall. “The rules force us to keep our hands tied behind our backs while regular people get hurt and bleed in these dark alleys every single night. The gangs do not follow our legal laws, but the bosses still expect our small team to clean up the streets using nothing but broken pens and zero budget. It’s a complete joke.”

While Alexander watched the small rules of the law, a completely different, dangerous energy was waking up on the other side of town.

Three miles away, inside the wet, pitch-black alleys of the Cold Ash neighborhood, Emma Mia Ricci walked through the concrete streets with absolute, silent stealth. She wore a simple, dark rain coat that completely hid her body, and her high leather boots made absolutely no sound against the wet ground. Under her hood, her long blonde wig was pinned down tight, and her bright blue contact lenses caught the faint orange light of the street lamps like cold pieces of glass.

She worked as an independent reporter during the day, struggling to survive under a pile of late rent notices and warnings that her power would be turned off. Her mailbox was always full of pink eviction papers, and her bank account was completely empty, making three meals a day a huge luxury she could rarely afford. But tonight, she was testing a brand-new, terrifying power that had nothing to do with writing newspaper stories.

Emma stopped right in front of a rusty metal electrical box attached to the brick wall of an old warehouse. She closed her eyes, letting out a soft, tired sigh into the freezing rain as she focused her mind on her inner core. Deep under her skin, a wild, crazy electrical current started to shake, and a strange hum of pure purple electricity pulsed through her veins. The feeling was incredibly strong, a sudden physical shift inside her body that made her teeth chatter and her fingertips burn with a strange, hot heat.

She held out her right hand, her fingers shaking slightly with nervous excitement as she brought her palm close to the live power wires. She did not use a single metal tool or wire cutter; she just used her mind to bridge the open gap.

ZAP.

A bright blue flash of pure electricity shot out of her hand straight into the power wires of the electrical box. The strong wave of energy ran up her arm, lighting up her dark brown eyes with a sharp purple light through her blue lenses. Instead of her skin burning or her heart stopping from the dangerous shock, her body absorbed the energy completely. The huge power stabilized inside her cells, creating a wave of intense, amazing pleasure that made the hairs on her arms stand straight up. It felt like a hot liquid pumping through her bones, a rush of total control that completely wiped away the memory of her mean landlord’s threats.

Right away, every single streetlamp on the warehouse block flickered, broke, and went completely black, dropping the entire road into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

Emma threw her head back against the brick wall, letting out a wild, happy laugh from her red lips. “Ha... amazing,” she whispered, her voice sounding like a soft purr in the quiet alley. “The system treats me like a nobody during the day, but at midnight, I have the absolute power to turn off their whole city grid with a single touch. The rules are officially broken.”

She reached deep into her coat pocket, her fingers wrapping around her black rubber rabbit mask, while her mind already planned the exact path to the main bank vault. She was completely done trying to be a good citizen; being poor had broken her patience, and she was getting ready to use her new electrical powers to steal a fortune from the rich elite who controlled all the money in the city.

Neither the huge detective nor the lightning girl knew the real trap that was closing around both of their lives.

Deep inside a dead-end alley on Lumber Street, the dim orange light of Adio’s pawnshop sat quietly in the dark, with the window blinds shut tight. Adio stood behind his dark wood checkout counter. His clean white three-piece suit was completely dry and untouched by the rain, and his gold tooth caught the light as a slow, evil smile spread across his face. His long, thin fingers traced the strange symbols of a very old, leather-bound book, while his eyes looked right down at the detailed tattoo of a white dove on the back of his hand.

Surrounding his counter were dozens of glass shelves holding glowing red and green liquids—the magical potions made to trick desperate people. The room smelled heavily of dried flowers, sulfur, and old ash. The air was thick, shaking with a strange energy that caused the crystal decorations hanging from the ceiling to ring even though there was no wind.

“The game has officially started,” Adio whispered into the quiet room, his deep Caribbean accent dropping into a low rumble that made the glass shelves shake. “The good-hearted hero is drowning in his need for justice, and the cynical thief is ready to break all the rules just to get a ticket to Paris. Their paths are crashing together exactly as I planned. It takes nothing more than a single drop of blood... a single signed agreement... and my ancient trap will shatter completely.”

He reached out, his neat fingernail tapping against a crystal tarot card sitting flat on the wood. The Destroyer was right on the edge of waking up, and his invisible strings were wrapped tightly around the police station and the rich shipping districts. The clock was ticking, the trap was set, and the ultimate war for the soul of Crave City had officially begun.