Mr. Hodek and His Little Minion

28

They stepped out into sight, and we were met with a face too pale to be real and a tattered gray dress stained with what must have been blood. It hit me after a moment that this person—a girl, if I wasn't mistaken—was probably just wearing a mask, like me. I went against every logical thought I'd produced in the last minute and took one step towards her respectively.

"No," Hodek whispered. I turned to see that he hadn't moved from his spot, and he was looking at the girl with exasperation. "She's talking to me. Stand down, would you—?"

I blinked, and all of a sudden he was on the ground, tackled by the girl in gray. She tried multiple times to stab him in the gut, missing all but one time. Jeff let out a pained grunt and managed to throw her off, taking out his own knife and standing up before she could try at it again.

"For Christ's sake, lay off, Jane!"

"No. Not until I know you're dead. Not until—"

"Are you deaf, or just shit at remembering?! I'm not who you think I am!"

"Don't lie to me again, Woods!"

And she charged with even more fury than before, if that's possible, but instead of fighting back, Hodek just kept dodging her. Like he knew that if he hurt her somehow, nothing good would come of it. He ducked, ran, hid behind trees, and it was all too fast for me to even process correctly. As she was about to try taking out his eyes, I finally had the nerve to run up and pull her off him by the arms.

"Jane, was it? Listen to me. He's telling the truth, this isn't Jeff Woods you're dealing wi—"

"Don't touch me!"

She broke free from my grip, whirled around and sliced at my face, almost chipping one of my teeth but missing by an inch. I fell back and hit my head on a tree root, hearing a soft crack. When I tried standing up, it ached like nothing else and a switch seemed to flip in my brain. The good news was, she'd stopped attacking Hodek. He righted himself and slowly backed away, holding his knife defensively. I pressed a hand to my cheek, feeling blood trickle down my palm. I clenched my teeth, partly in pain and partly in anger.

"What is the matter with you?! I tried to help, and you cut my face! He didn't do anything to—"

"Max, shut your mouth and stay back. This doesn't involve you." Hodek interrupted, just as angrily. He turned back to Jane, something in his gaze shifting from annoyed to pleading.

"And Jane...don't hurt him. It's me you're after. Please, just leave him alone."

I propped myself up on my arms, reaching for my pliers and feeling something even more building up inside me. "Why aren't you fighting back, Hodek? This isn't like you. If it were any other girl, she'd be dead by now."

"'Hodek,' huh?" Jane scoffed, chest still heaving from that one-sided battle. I noticed in the moonlight that her hair shone almost unnaturally, as if that was fake, too. I narrowed my eyes.

"And what happened to you?"

"Max!" Hodek said with the air of someone trying to control a misbehaving child. I didn't dare move past that. He seemed to calm down, if only by a little, and gestured to Jane with a defeated sigh.

"This is the Jane I met, years ago. The one I told you about? Kept mistaking me for the guy who killed her family, and, uh..." he bit the inside of his cheek before continuing. "...did worse to her."

"I killed him, you know," Jane piped up, her arms now resting at her sides. It looked as if she really did believe us now. "Jeff Woods, that is. Gouged his eyes out. Almost chopped off his head. But knowing him, even from that he'd probably find a way to get back up. I couldn't take any chances." She turned to Hodek, still a little wary.

"I don't get it. You...you're just like him, except—"

"Except I'm not?" He nearly laughed, though I had the feeling he didn't find it funny at all. "Why does this keep happening? I don't look like him, I'm not even the right age! I've been training myself, working to the point of insanity just to stay alive, and that little fucker is a twig. If one more person—"

"Hodek, calm down," I said against my better judgement. Another attempt to stand up on my own failed, and Jeff grumbled something to himself as he walked over to help me up.

"You don't understand," he whispered, holding me by the shoulders. "This is the disaster that's been waiting to happen. I've had a couple scrapes with death, but more than once was because people can't get the difference between me and Woods through their thick skulls. I know it sounds stupid—"

"It doesn't."

Hodek turned around, a sense of panic seeming to fill him within the second. I grabbed one of his hands and gently moved it off my shoulder. He didn't say anything, but I could tell exactly what he was thinking: She thinks I just called her an idiot, doesn't she.

Jane continued. "I know you from somewhere, Jeff...Hodek?"

"Yeah, we've met before—"

"No, not that, dumbass. I've heard your story. Something about a tub, and some acid, I think. Nasty way to go, if you ask me."

Hodek raised an eyebrow. "You say that like I died."

"And part of you didn't?"

Shit. This girl is smart.

Hodek looked just as taken aback as I was. I took the opportunity to try making out all I could of her face, but it was impossible. Her mask was completely expressionless, almost a blank slate of sorts. Even with the light available her eyes remained completely shrouded in shadow underneath the plastic, and it bothered me for reasons I couldn't place.

"...your mask. It's a little over the top, don't you think?"

"Well, look who I'm talking to," Jane said, clearly not offended but a little surprised I would even think about commenting that.

"But it covers your whole face," I protested. "You really don't need that."

"Yours has rhinestones."

"Oh, like I made that choice. Why do you even wear that thing?"

She paused like I'd just struck a nerve. I was about to take back my question when she tapped the mask as if to make a point.

"I don't think you want to see what's underneath."

"Can't be any worse than me." Hodek interjected himself into the conversation, looking a little bit afraid as to where it might have led. Jane fixed him with a blank look—well, as blank as you can get without an actual face—and crossed her arms.

"Sorry. What I meant was that I'm not going to show a couple of relative strangers the scars that ruined my life."

"Fair enough."

After a long, awkward silence, she took another step towards Hodek, to which he moved away again. She cocked her head.

"You're a funny one. He's right, your little partner; you could've easily killed me. But you didn't. Why?"

Hodek furrowed his eyebrows, fiddling with the edge of his knife. "Probably wouldn't have been able to live with it, to be honest. I know my limits."

She thought about that. "I guess that makes you one of the few who really do." With a quick glance up at the breaking daylight, she took a couple steps backward, almost reluctantly.

"Well, gentlemen, I should get going. You probably should, too, if you want to keep out of prison."

I nodded wordlessly, not that there was much more to say. Jane turned her attention to Hodek again, and though I couldn't see her face, I felt an odd sense of sorrow coming from her.

"I never want to see you again."

Hodek fiddled with the ends of his sleeves. "Likewise. You killed the one guy who was able to distract the police from me."

"I don't regret it."

"I know."

She wasted no time in fleeing after that.