Stay For The Encore: Act Five
Romko was driving to the hospital, speeding through the lights, his sirens blaring.
That squad car had come from nowhere, and it was eating away at his insides that he didn't see it sooner. Avery had. Avery reacted quicker, too. His last act as Police Chief was to push his biggest detractor out of harms way, taking the full brunt of the car's impact. His body had been crushed and mangled against the steps, dead before the wheels even stopped spinning.
Romko never liked the man, but he didn't want to see that happen. Hargrove hadn't been fully sent clear, either. Her fragile body had been only clipped, but the damage was done. A severely broken tibia and fibula, dislocated knee, broken forearm, and some internal injuries, but the doctors had said she should recover. She was still conscious, and Romko wanted to make sure he had all the clearance he needed to get retribution.
The Guttersnipe was going to die. Tonight. That's all Romko knew. With the Governor's blessing or not, but he thought it best to try and get some sort of validation. Hargrove was bound to be hopped up on meds as well, so Romko saw no real issue. He pulled up and parked out front, and stormed in through the front doors of the hospital.
"Hargrove." He said to the receptionist. Her eyes widened at the steel look Romko gave her, and she quickly shifted through her papers.
"Room 504. Fifth floor." Romko nodded and left. When he got to the fifth floor he found the room fairly quickly. He walked into the beeps and sounds of hospital machines and the quiet drone of the TV in the corner.
Hargrove looked like a mess as Romko looked down on her, his arms crossed. She was awake, her eyes blood shot and wet starting at the TV. She blinked slowly and turned her head to look up at him.
"I need your authority, to execute my duty, and pursue that cretin. With all the necessary discretion I need to make sure nothing like this can happen again." Romko said slowly and seriously. Hargrove blinked once more and then laughed. The laugh quickly became a wheezing until Hargrove squeezed her eyes shut in pain. Romko watched confused and slightly humiliated until Hargrove smiled softly and spoke.
"Romko. You are the new Police Chief. I signed that into effect with my good arm just an hour ago. You can do whatever you need to. I have already told my people on what to do come tomorrow. I need to rest now. I cannot be seen like this when were parade his corpse around the city." She smiled painfully once more. Romko went to speak, but could not find the right words. He simply nodded and left.
As the door shut behind him, Hargrove closed her eyes. The meds were kicking into high gear and she could barely feel the pain throughout her entire body. She listened to the rhythm of the beeps, and the quiet white nose of the television and she began to fade into a deep sleep.
Time seemed to disappear. The room went black, and all that connected Hargrove to the room she was in were the quiet sounds from the television mounted in the corner. But wait…it wasn’t quiet. The white noise was loud. It was getting louder. The volume increased and suddenly it was deafening.
Hargrove opened her eyes.
Standing in the room holding the remote for the television was the Guttersnipe. He launched towards Hargrove, his gloved hand slapping over her mouth like an iron grip, silencing her.
Hargrove clicked like mad at the distress button attached to her bed. The Guttersnipe looked down at her hands then slowly reached over and grabbed them to stop. He ran his finger along the cord coming from the distress button, then lifted it up to show he had severed it. No one was coming.
The Guttersnipe reached to his side and produced a blade.
Hargrove began to cry as the blade met with her flesh, the local news blaring all around her, showing the footage of her accident over and over again.
————
Romko had gotten to the first floor of the hospital and decided to stop and get a cup of coffee. He drank it down, black and hot. He walked out into the lobby and found another officer there as well. Romko remember the man as Reed Gregson, a relatively new officer to the force, but one that had been in Romko's unit for almost four months now. He was a good officer, and Romko would need as many as he could get for what he had planned.
"Gregson!" Romko called out. Gregson turned and walked over to Romko. Romko pulled him close as they both headed towards the exit.
"Keep this quiet, but I'm gonna need you to round up all of our unit, and other officers that can be trusted. We’re going to go after that bastard ASAP, and I need to know what kinda numbers we got, ok?" Romko said as they walked out into the late afternoon chill that was falling on the city.
"Yes, sir." Gregson replied.
As he responded the two men heard glass shatter above them followed by a woman on the street screaming and covering her head.
Romko looked up to see a body falling from the sky. The two cops backed away and watched the body slam into the top of a car parked very close to Romko's squad car. Romko reacted instantly, with Gregson following suit.
"Stay back! Stay back!" Romko shouted as he pulled out his firearm and approached the wreckage. Gregson walked out into the street, becoming the borderline of the now crime scene.
Romko approached the car slowly, and looked into the huge crater left on the roof of the car.
He slowly lowered his gun and whipped his head upwards, looking at where the window had broken out. He immediately took off running back into the hospital and up the emergency stairs.
Gregson watching didn't know what to do, so he also approached the car. What he saw made his stomach turn. The crumpled body of Governor Hargrove lay in the center of the smashed roof. Blood was dripping out of several knife wounds. On her hospital smock were words written in blood.
Stay for the encore
Gregson stayed at the car with the body trying to keep the public away.
Romko had reached the fifth floor and kicked the door in to Hargrove’s room. Nurses in the hallway shouted at him but he paid them no heed. The television inside was at max volume and her hospital bed was covered in blood. There was a trail of scarlet that lead to the shattered window.
There was also a flyer stuck on the wall near the window. Romko walked over and ripped it off the wall, his blood boiling. It was for a punk show happening that night at a club called The Grave Dance. It was billed as a cop killing celebration show, and was set to start in just two hours.
Romko left the room clutching the flier in his sweaty hand and spent the next hour interrogating the nurses and watching security cameras, but found nothing to help him.
Romko finally made it back to the street level, Gregson was still there, as were several ambulances and other police units. Gregson walked up to Romko, who looked both distraught and full of rage.
"Call whoever you can in right now." Romko said through gritted teeth. "We’re going hunting." He said, slapping the flyer onto Gregson's chest.
A few miles away, just outside The Grave Dance, a line was starting to form. In it already were Claire, Rat, and Gina, mingling with the others in line. Claire took a drag off her cigarette and looked across the street, and saw a man standing in the glow of the lamp post.
He had a black denim jacket on covered with patches and pins. He had a green ski mask on with an anarchy symbol spray painted on the front. He was cleaning off a large knife with some dirty looking rags. He looked up, his black eyes locking onto Claire. Her heart skipped a beat as the two held eye contact, the line of punks swirling around her. She knew that description, the reports…
It was the Guttersnipe.
A bus then drove by, and as the road cleared the Guttersnipe was gone. Claire began to step out of line to follow him but Gina grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.
"What the hell you doing?" Gina asked.
Claire looked at her then back to where the Guttersnipe had been. She laughed nervously and shook her head, taking one more drag of her cigarette. Before she could explain, the doors ahead of them opened and the line began to move.
STAY TUNED FOR THE FINALE THIS UPCOMING MONDAY
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