A Place to Belong: Chapter Three

III.

What I Fight For

I stepped out into the night air, breathing deep despite realizing I had no need for it. I felt different in this suit. Powerful in a way I’d never felt before. The old one had been off the rack, a cheap necessity for a pitiful man scraping at the bottom of society’s ladder rungs hoping to gain a foothold. It was a costume. This suit, this one was armor. My feet moved gracefully across the pavement, and I felt the eyes of others fall on me again, only this time there was a different aura to their gazes. A respect and admiration I’d never before experienced. 

The armor is not enough… the beast whispered in my ear. For you need a weapon to wield or else you are little more than a pretender…

A pretender? That cannot stand. I died in pursuit of perfection, of being someone worth something in this world. I refused to allow this new version of myself to be a mere facsimile of the perfection I was destined to be. But what was the weapon of this world? The talking heads would say that it was guns, drugs, or money. These were too small, too… symbolic of power. A single man with a gun can’t do much of anything. Money cannot fend off the pitchforks of a million angry souls… I looked down at my suit and grinned. 

Yes…  I heard the beast say as though through smiling fangs. And you already have the beginnings of this power flowing through you. Grab it! Wield it!

I turned my attention to a nearby bar. It was an upscale establishment, and there were clearly several wealthy patrons within. Wandering through the parking lot, I found what I was looking for. A vehicle, though the name and brand were beyond my knowledge or care. What did matter was that it was sleek, black, and clearly expensive. The doors even opened vertically. I remembered a toy car I had as a child that did that. It was either a Porsche or a Lambrogini, I wasn’t sure which. Taking my time, I examined every curve, every detail, even memorizing the license plate. 

“I know she looks good,” came a smarmy voice that made me grin. “But she’s off limits, pal. Why don’t you buzz off so I can take this fine lady home?”

Turning around, I saw a man in a suit similar to my own, though his was blue and a bit more rumpled. His eyes were glassy, clearly influenced by more than just copious amounts of alcohol. I suspected cocaine or something similar. He wore a watch, and even in the dim light of the parking lot I could tell that it was a knock off of some kind. The gold plating was scratched near the clasp and I could make out the silver streaks of stainless steel underneath. 

His arm was wrapped around the waist of a young girl, probably just barely into her twenties and whose eyes were just as glassy as his own, though it was clear that she hung onto him more because she needed his support to remain standing than out of any legitimate interest. I felt a flash of anger rise in my throat. 

Manipulator… the beast growled, and I felt the sudden urge to grab him by the throat and rip it out. The shopkeeper’s face flashed through my mind and I realized the hypocrisy of what the beast whispered to me. How was this man’s drugging of this young woman any different than what I had done with these new powers?

“The difference is intent,” I said aloud to myself, and the smarmy man narrowed his eyes in confusion at me. 

“What are you talking about?” he asked, his mind clearly not in a position to process what I had to say regardless of whether or not it was directed at him. 

“Wait your turn,” I said, the edge of power entering my voice again, and he closed his mouth, waiting for me to return my attention to him. Instead, I turned to the young woman. “Do you have your phone on you?” 

She looked at me, confused, but then fumbled with her clutch and pulled out her phone, showing it to me. I smiled and stepped forward. 

“Unlock it,” I said, allowing a bit of the power to enter my voice, but not so much that I felt unsettled by using it. She complied, opening her phone, though she did so with muscle memory more than any conscious thought. I reached forward and took the phone from her, flipping through apps until I found her preferred rideshare. I summoned a car for her and selected the destination as ‘home.’ 

“There you are,” I said, smiling as warmly at her as possible and holding out my hand. “Let’s bring you over to the bouncer to wait until your ride gets here.” 

No power was needed in my voice to get her to comply. This both improved my mood as I didn’t need to use my powers on her again, but then immediately soured it as the man’s intentions and methods were becoming increasingly illuminated. I turned my attention to him as her light, doll-like frame fell into my own. 

“Wait here for my return,” I said, pushing more power than probably necessary into my voice, rattling the cage of the beast in my mind. A flash of hunger surged through me, but I pushed it down. My stomach roiled too much to be anything but nauseous at this moment. 

He remained rigid, unmoving, as I walked the young girl over to the bouncer. I explained that she was in no state to drive and was waiting on a ride share to bring her home. I showed him her phone and settled her into a seat beside him. Power wasn’t needed to influence him, as his suspicions faded when I turned to leave her in his care, my own concerns for her safety satisfied. It was the man that I felt needed my attention now. 

When I returned, he was right where I left him, still and obedient. I looked him up and down briefly, then asked him: 

“What is true power?”

He blinked at me, the power holding him in place severed. Confusion flashed across his face, followed almost immediately by anger. 

“You son of a bitch! Where is she? I spent all night on that whore!” he raged, and I felt the beast rattle in its cage again, but I held the reins tight. I knew what the beast wanted, and it would get it, but it would get it the way I wanted it. 

“I asked you a question,” I said, my voice calm despite the roiling rage within me. “What is true power?”

“Do you know who my father is?” he practically roared at me, and I smiled coldly at that response. 

“No, but it seems you’ve answered my question,” I said, my grin widening. “You see, you understand completely that you are powerless.” 

“Didn’t you hear me, you freak?” he laughed. “My father is a powerful man and one word from me will…” 

“Do nothing,” I said, cutting him off. “Your words are worthless. Wasted air, an insult to the tree that worked so hard to produce the oxygen that keeps that coked out slab of bacon you call a brain crackling with the three watts of power it takes to get your dick hard.” 

The man stood there, stunned, either because no one had ever dared speak to him in such a fashion before, or because he couldn’t fully understand what was being said to him. I took advantage of the blessed silence and continued on. 

“You see, it’s your father’s words that will set things in motion. Because, unlike you, he is the one with the influence, and thus, he is the one with the power,” I explain, knowing full well that nothing I say will matter much to him as he wasn’t smart enough to be able to understand it. “Your influence is limited to him, whereas his influence is spread far and wide. Precisely the power that I’m looking to obtain, and precisely the power I’m going to take. You see, a network of influence is worth far more than the single string you can tug on.” 

I pushed power into my words and let the anger in me surge forth with it. 

“Give me your keys and your wallet,” I said. With a sudden sense of obedience, he reached into his pocket and pulled them both out. I pocketed the keys and opened his wallet. It was slim and filled with cards. None of them were of any concern to me. It was his driver’s license that I cared about. With a dismissive toss, I threw the remainder of his wallet into the foliage around the parking lot. While examining his driver’s license, I absently gave my next order. 

“Remove your shoes, then your socks,” I said, memorizing his name, address, and then pocketed the card in case it could be useful later. “Place your socks inside your shoes, then throw them where I threw your wallet.” 

He complied as I walked over to the driver’s side door of the car and opened it, enjoying the hiss off the hydraulics that lifted it so easily. I settled into the car, adjusting the settings to my height and frame. I started the car, immediately turning down the radio and changing the settings to play real music instead of the tripe he apparently thought made him popular. 

“Good, now walk home,” I told him, closing the door and settling into my seat. I watched him turn and begin walking, barefoot, across the pavement, grinning to myself as I calculated the distance to his home in Ballantyne. From where we were, it would take him hours to walk the ten miles to his home. The sun would be coming up and his feet would be raw, blistered, and bleeding. 

“You wanted his blood,” I said to the beast, grinning to myself. “Well, he’s going to bleed, and it's going to hurt the whole time.” 

I felt the beast’s tempered satisfaction at my action. It had wanted to feed, but I did not desire the taste of taint and corruption. My mind was to remain clear, not altered by flights of escapism. In the boy’s case, he used the drugs to escape boredom. The girl, if she’d chosen to take anything beyond what had been slipped to her, probably to escape monotony. But there was only one escape in this world, and those who ran it knew well what that escape was. 

Power. Control. Influence. 

These are the things I craved. And they gave me the ability to take what I wanted. What I wanted more than anything, what I needed more than anything, was to finally live in a world where people got what they deserved. If the world wasn’t going to deal that out, then it seemed I would have to take the power I was given, gather more, and begin to do so myself, one bloodied footprint at a time.