The video that the other students had taken of the fight went viral on the internet overnight, which made Steve into a bit of a local hero. His dad had had to work late that night, so Steve didn’t have a chance to talk to him about it until the next day, after the video had already been up for a few hours.

“So, what do you know about this girl?” his father, Eric, had asked once Steve had told him the full story. They were seated in the living room of the house, which was small but comfortable. The house itself wasn’t particularly large, but it had two floors, three bedrooms, and all the necessary conveniences.

“She looked like she needed help…” Steve replied vaguely. His dad wasn’t prone to start shouting matches, so he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do.

“Did you know that the kid you confronted, Arnie Rodriguez, is part of a gang?” Eric asked, staring hard at Steve.

“No,” Steve replied. He remembered that Arnie had had tattoos, but he hadn’t realized at the time they were gang-related and he wasn’t about to tell his dad that.

“Yeah, well, he was,” said Eric, emphasizing the ‘was’. “Luckily for you, you interrupted part of his canonization, so he’s the one that’s gotten into trouble with them, rather than you. You lucked out this time. That, plus the video has given them a good reason to leave you alone.”

That confused Steve. It wasn’t the MO of any criminal organization to just leave aggressors alone. “Why?” was all he could muster in response.

“Why?” Eric repeated, as if not hearing correctly. “Oh you mean ‘Why not tie up loose ends?’, don’t you? Well, some people prefer to stay out of the limelight and avoid bad publicity. Attacking you would be their version of admitting that one of their noobs screwed up and got himself and two of their guys a trip to prison. Taking Arnie out of the picture would be the easier way for them to mop up, if you catch my drift. Besides, they know it’s only a matter of time until the school gets the video taken down for violating school policy. Lucky for you, I convinced the principal not to do anything to you and Hannah greater than detention. I know the guy and he owed me a favor.”

Steve said, “Thanks for that. By the way, Hannah asked me if I’d be willing to assist her in some investigative work. She didn’t really take no for an answer.”

Eric’s face took on an inscrutable expression. “Great,” he said sarcastically. “The last time she got involved in so-called ‘detective work’ it was a major headache for us.”

“What happened?”

Eric sighed. “It was my fault, pretty much. I was talking with her about something unrelated, and she overheard another officer telling me about this big case I was working on. Organized crime stuff, specifically about a witness wanting to talk. So she went and staked out the guy’s house looking for info to get involved. Then the guy got grabbed for wanting to talk, and she provided us with key details on what happened. We tracked down the car and were preparing to go raid the place when a civilian called to alert us of a commotion on the premises. Somehow Hannah had tracked them down on her own and snuck in, but they caught her and were prepared to do the same thing to her as their guy.”

“And?” Steve asked after his dad hesitated again.

“She mopped the floor with them. All of them. The gang leader fled in the chaos, but she got everyone else. All fourteen.”

“Fourteen?” Steve asked, thunderstruck.

“Yep. Didn’t have a scratch on her. I’d never seen anything like it. I’d have said it was completely unbelievable if the witness hadn’t corroborated her story. After what happened on the bus, I’m beginning to understand more.”

“Understand what?” Steve asked.

In response, Eric pulled up the video on his computer and showed it to him. Steve hadn’t actually seen the video before. He figured since he’d lived through it, he didn’t need to. “Right here,” said Eric. “Watch her.”

The playback started right after Steve had turned away to deal with his guy Doug while Hannah dealt with Chris. Chris attacked first, trying to punch her, but Hannah ducked the blow and punched him in the knee with the base of her palm, making him stagger. Then she stood up and, using seats as leverage, raised herself up as she kicked straight up, getting him right in the chin with all the force she could muster. The guy attacked blindly, still seeing stars, but she easily dodged every attack like she saw it coming. She didn’t even have to block; she just dodged. Then she landed another strong attack with a kick to his stomach, making him double over in pain. She used the time to get up on the seats and finish off with the heel drop attack.

“Wow,” was all Steve could say. “She’s quick.”

“Yep; her agility is through the roof,” his dad agreed, shutting off the video. “So she can take care of herself, no problem.”

“So what do you say about me helping her out?”

“As an officer, I’m forced to forbid it,” he said solemnly. “If you want to hang out with her, that’s your business, but just because we both know she can handle herself in a fight doesn't mean you should actively seek them out. If you think she’s doing something reckless or if you’re in danger, call me immediately.”

“Call you about what?” his mom, Ava, asked, walking into the room holding one of their many cats. As a vet, she was an extreme animal lover, which is why they had three cats and two dogs. The cat, upon seeing Steve, tensed up and tried to bolt, but Ava held it firmly against her body, preventing its escape. Then her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you got into another fight, Steve!” she exclaimed, looking hard at him. Steve hadn’t told her anything because she had a tendency to overreact.

“Relax, Ava,” said Eric, getting up and relieving her of the still-squirming cat. “He was just telling me about someone he met yesterday. There’s no need for alarm.”

Ava looked at them, fear still clearly showing on her face. Her dark green eyes stared both guys down as she tried to determine if they were lying to her. Both Eric and Steve knew that telling her the truth was a bad idea, which is why they’d just lied. “Well, just don’t do anything rash, OK?” she said, apparently deciding to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Steve gave her a thumbs up, so Ava nodded and left the room, leaving Eric stuck with the cat. “Why do these dang cats hate you so much?” he asked irritably, struggling to keep hold of it.

“I…should probably leave,” said Steve, heading for the door. Once he left the room, he heard a quite audible sigh of relief. He didn’t really care, though; he hated the cats just as much as they hated him. The cats were also pretty smart, which is why he always had to keep his guard up; you just never knew when a cat was waiting on a cupboard or something waiting to pounce. Sometimes they left hairballs right outside his door for him to step in first thing in the morning. Keeping an eye out, he headed upstairs to relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

XXX

That afternoon, he sent Hannah a message that he would be happy to help her out. Almost immediately, she sent him a message back asking him to turn on his camera for a face-to-face chat. When he did, he was startled when he saw exactly where she was.

“Is that a crime scene?” he asked, astounded. He couldn’t see anything gory, but he did see cops everywhere. Plus there was yellow crime scene tape surrounding a house.

“I never have a boring day,” she responded, sounding slightly more cheery than Steve would have expected.

“So what’s up?” he asked.

“I haven’t found out yet,” she said sadly, shaking her head. “They aren’t letting me in to see, which isn’t anything new, but it’s still annoying. I was just thinking of climbing a tree for a better view when you called. Thanks for agreeing, by the way. I was a bit nervous when I asked, so I thought you might have had second thoughts about the whole thing. By the way, have you seen the video?”

“Unfortunately,” Steve grumbled.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one getting flak for it,” she muttered, picking up on the fact he wasn’t too happy about it. “The reason I asked for your help is because I’ve been keeping tabs on a local counterfeiting ring that I think it’s about time to blow the whistle on. It would take another month before I could get any hard evidence just by myself, but I figured with you along I might be able to speed up the timetable.”

“Wait, I thought you wanted help with something minor. Why would you ask me for help with something like this?” Steve asked worriedly. His dad may have been right about her getting reckless and getting into stuff she shouldn't be.

“I asked you because you are the son of a cop who makes it his business to look into the criminal organization that runs it,” she explained. “You know, the Syndicate?” She stared at Steve’s blank expression for a moment before saying, in an unbelieving tone, “Wait, don’t tell me you don’t know about them?”

“Sorry, but no,” Steve replied, feeling foolish.

Hannah sighed before beginning her explanation. “Well, the Syndicate is just the informal name used by the police to identify the collaboration of various criminal organizations, like street gangs, drug runners, and people like that. They all do their own thing normally, and from the outside it looks like nothing is different, but there’s this one guy in charge. Let’s call him the Leader for now. He ignores them mostly and is generally pretty hands-off, but when he asks somebody to do something, they do it, no questions asked, even if they would normally hate each other. The guy showed up out of nowhere seven years ago and just intimidated them singlehandedly. He scares them to death, and nobody has ever seen his face. If one organization goes down, it doesn’t affect him at all, and there aren’t any ties to any of the others except him. That’s how secretive the Syndicate is. The police were distracted for years because they never dreamed that people fighting over turf, money, or drugs all the time would ever cooperate. They only realized he existed within the last year.

“Anyways, the guy’s a ghost, but he does take a cut of the money and he does coordinate joint operations. The counterfeiting operation I’m looking into is one of them. It’s run jointly by the three main gangs in town, but only their leaders know it. To the guys in each gang, it’s theirs and theirs alone. They don’t even know the Leader exists, and that’s how he likes to stay. They divide up the days of the week when each of the gangs guards the location, so it’s hard to bust since if you get one gang, the others will pick up the pieces. You get why I need help now, right?”

“Well, yeah. But it still seems too much for both of us to handle.”

“Oh, that’s just because you’ve never worked with me before. I’m a lot more capable than you think, Steve. So let me prove it to you! It’s one thing, Steve; you can do that, right?”

“OK, fine!” said Steve, giving in. “And I already agreed, so why are you trying to convince me again?”

“Oh right, I did. I’m sorry, but I’m just so pumped right now. I’ve been backed into a corner every time I get near them, so I figure that maybe with you along, I might get a shot. You’re pretty badass by yourself, whether you like admitting it or not. That means that we’d be perfect for a team-up. It might be making me a bit giddy, though, so maybe I should just head home for the day since I won’t be able to concentrate.”

“Wow, she gets riled up easily,” Steve thought. Maybe girls were like that, though. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked, distracting himself from his thoughts.

Hannah began her explanation immediately. “The counterfeiters have holed up in the old newspaper building, where the paper newspapers used to be printed before everything went online and they went out of business. It’s a fake money operation, so it’ll be pretty simple to bust them if we can find evidence. The cops know about them, but without proof they can’t get a warrant to nail them. It’ll take at least a couple of months before they get proof, but I thought we could speed up the process. After all, if the police were to receive an anonymous donation of good evidence, they won’t need the warrant to search the premises anymore; they can just arrest the counterfeiters immediately. Let’s meet at 9AM tomorrow in front of the school to go over and look around the building. Bring a flashlight just in case, OK?”

“Uh, sure,” Steve replied. Hannah cut off the conversation, leaving Steve to wonder yet again if what he was doing was particularly smart or not.