“You have to let me go back out tomorrow.” Eddie was pacing in front of Archer and Maria after they had gotten back from the shelter.
Archer was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, while Maria sat on the side of the bed next to the sleeping boys.
“I still don’t think you’re ready.” Archer crossed his arms and shook his head as Eddie paced in front of him.
“It’s time,” Eddie insisted. “This is a perfect opportunity. Tomorrow, we go out to the dock district where the sweeps happened tonight, and we find my friend Jefferson. He’s the most plugged-in man on the streets. He knows everything that goes on. He can get us whatever information we need.”
“Why wouldn’t we go to where the sweeps are actually happening?”
“We can do that any night now,” Eddie said, slapping the flyer. “But now that we have this information, we can go get info from a good source right after a sweep.”
“Whatever you say, man.”
“You two can figure this out tomorrow. I’m going to sleep. I have work tomorrow,” Maria said as she lay on the bed.
“Come here tomorrow at noon, and we’ll go from there,” Eddie told Archer as he opened the door to let him out.
***
Eddie paced in the room the next day while he waited for Archer to arrive. He pulled out his pocket watch, but it still said it was one-forty. It had stopped working months ago, but he couldn’t quit looking at it. Even if it always said the same time.
Knock, knock, knock.
Eddie opened the door to find Archer standing there, waiting.
“About time you got here,” Eddie said as he pushed past him and headed for the stairs.
Archer pulled the door closed and walked after Eddie at his own pace.
“I knocked exactly at twelve,” Archer said when he got to the bottom of the stairs, where Eddie had stopped to wait.
“My clock said one-forty,” Eddie responded, taking off again now that Archer had caught up.
“Sounds like you need a new clock.”
The two walked together out to the dock district, a forty-minute walk. Eddie peppered Archer with questions about what he had missed while he was ‘on bed rest’.
They walked out from behind a building and found themselves looking out at the bay. A chill ran through Eddie as the cold, salty air blew in on them.
“His post is usually at Dock 17,” Eddie said, pointing to their right at the evenly spaced-out concrete docks, walking in that direction, rubbing his arms to keep himself warm.
Dock 17 was empty, so they moved on to 18 first and then 19 with no luck. At Dock 22, they finally found someone wrapped in a blanket, sitting against a wooden pole.
“Hello, good sir,” Eddie greeted as he walked up to him. “Have you perchance seen my friend Jefferson anywhere around here today? I just checked his office, and he wasn’t home.” Eddie pointed to the other dock.
“They took him,” the man replied.
“What do you mean they took him? Who took him?” Eddie asked, color draining from his face.
The man shrugged.
After two minutes of unanswered questions, Archer finally pulled Eddie away and walked him back behind a building where they were protected from the breeze.
“You know who took him,” Archer said as the wind stopped howling.
Eddie shook his head. “There’s no way. No way they could get Jefferson. No way. He’s too smart, too clever. He taught me everything about being on the streets.”
“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice cut in as Eddie stopped to turn toward her. “Are you talking about Jefferson Wilcox?”
“Yes!” Eddie exclaimed, rushing to her. “Do you know him?”
“Everyone knows him.” She nodded.
“Can you tell me what happened to him?”
“They took him in the sweep last night. A young mother and her three kids were being cornered and harassed by some of the officers, and he rushed them so the mother could get away with her children. So, he got taken instead.”
“I knew that they couldn’t have just caught him,” Eddie said. “We have to go back so we can track them to where they’re taking people. We have to get Jefferson back.”
Eddie stepped away before looking over his shoulder. “Thank you for your help!”
Archer walked after him. “Where are we going?”
“The Bell District.”
“Okay,” Archer grumbled. “Can I ask why we’re going across town right now?”
“That’s where the sweeps are tonight. We have to find out where they took Jefferson.”
“Eddie, we need to think this through and have at least part of a plan. I don’t even have all my stuff, just a bow and a handful of arrows.”
“What else do you need?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“What? You’re a bow and arrows guy, and you have a bow and arrows. What’s the issue?”
“You cannot seriously think that—” Archer came to a stop as he talked, “—after all this time we’ve worked together, all I ever use is a normal bow and normal arrows. I have a whole setup I take out when we’re doing patrols. You think every arrow just has a wire attached to it? No.”
“Fine.” Eddie put his hands up and rolled his eyes. “We’ll go get your other arrows. But come on.”
“I still think we should take time to plan,” Archer grumbled again, but walked past Eddie in the direction of the motel.
“I’ll meet you back here in an hour,” Archer said as they got to the room.
“That’s dumb. I’ll just go with you. It’ll be quicker that way.”
“No. My place is my place. I’ll see you in an hour,” Archer said as he walked away.
“You’ve literally spent the night here, and I can’t even know where you live?” Eddie shouted, but Archer walked away without responding.
Eddie let out a long sigh and pulled out his pocket watch. 1:40. He walked up the stairs and sat on the edge of the bed, getting up to pace every few minutes before sitting again.
After what felt like an eternity for Eddie—but what Archer assured him was actually only forty-seven minutes— Archer returned, fully suited up and outfitted for the night.
“You antiheroes are such divas,” Eddie said when he opened the door, walking past Archer and toward the stairs.
Archer pulled the door to the room closed behind them and, seeing that Eddie was already halfway down the stairs, vaulted himself over the railing, bending his knees and using a hand to steady himself as he landed on the ground a story below. He straightened up and walked over to meet Eddie as he stepped off the staircase.
“We get it. You’re cool,” Eddie said before walking away from the motel.
The two were walking in the direction of the Bell District when they heard a woman’s scream from an alley up ahead.
“Get off of me, jerk!”
Eddie sprinted into action as Archer readied his bow. Eddie came to a stop as the woman stumbled into the open, and the man followed her out.
“You!” Eddie shouted, pointing at that man whose life he had saved from Archer’s arrow on top of a building almost a year earlier.
“Do I know you?” he sneered at Eddie before a scream spewed from his lips as an arrow sank itself into his right shoulder and caused him to stagger backward.
“You might remember me,” Archer yelled, readying another arrow as he walked toward the man.
“Archer, you don’t have to do this,” Eddie started, putting his hands in the air, but to no avail.
Another arrow flew from Archer’s bow and struck the man above his left knee, toppling him to the ground. The woman took off away from the scene.
“This is what happens when we do things your way, Eddie. They get right back out and hurt people again.”
“This isn’t who you are,” Eddie pleaded with him, stepping between Archer and the man to try and keep Archer from having a shot.
Eddie winced as Archer fired another arrow, this one skipping off the sidewalk between Eddie’s legs and bouncing up to catch the inside of the man’s right knee, causing the man to howl out in pain again.
Archer had pushed past Eddie and had gotten to the man, who was trying to pull himself away with his one good arm. Archer walked to the man’s side and kicked him over onto his back.
“Archer, please, you’ve come so far.”
The bowstring thwipped as he let another arrow go, this one burying itself in the man’s left shoulder.
Archer towered over the man who lay on the ground, whimpering and unmoving. He bent down, grabbed him under each arm, and lifted him, slamming him against the wall.
“The next time I see you,” Archer growled as the man shook in his arms, “I won’t have the same mercy. Leave this place and never come back. You’re done hurting people here. Understood?”
The man nodded as quickly as he could. Archer let go of him, and he immediately fell to the ground. The retching sound of the man vomiting soundtracked Archer’s walk back to Eddie.
“I thought you were going to kill him,” Eddie admitted as he got back to him.
“Me too,” Archer answered without slowing as he walked past Eddie. “We’ve had enough fun for today. We’ll take on the sweeps tomorrow night. I’m going to call it a night.”
“Don’t you think we should talk about what just happened?”
“No.”
“Seems like a kind of big fork-in-the-road moment for you that we’re just brushing past.”
“Goodnight, Eddie.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll yield. Until tomorrow, then.”
“Until tomorrow,” Archer agreed as he loosed an arrow into the gray sky that carried him above the buildings as Eddie watched from below.
The Street Rat will return with the season finale, episode 212, March 10th.
For more stories set in this world, buy The White Knight – out now! Subscribe below to be the first to know when new stories are released!
K. B. Kirtley 