Free Grounded (Out of the Box Book 4) by Robert J. Crane Page B

to the scene of an explosion. I had my badge in hand and was prepared to identify myself. When they pulled up, though, they totally bypassed us at first, the first two cop cars on scene screaming up to the wreckage of the van and ignoring us completely.
    “What’s that?” Augustus asked, like he couldn’t quite hear me.
    “This,” I said, trying to clarify. “This whole … this being a meta thing. Trying to help. It doesn’t … it’s never a smooth thing, without consequence or …” I just shook my head. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
    He gave me a sidelong look. “Well, that makes two of us, because I don’t have any idea what you’re saying, either.”
    The first patrol officer came over to us then. I waved my badge at him and he nodded. His nameplate said Delaurio, and he was a big boy. “You see what happened—” He caught sight of the blood on my shoulder. “Jesus!”
    “Not exactly,” I said. “Sienna Nealon. The men in this van attacked me, and in the process of repelling their attack, I accidentally set off some explosives they were carrying.”
    “I gotta … call this in,” Delaurio said, taking a few steps back. I could tell he wasn’t sure quite how to handle the situation. He eyed me again. “You need, like … an ambulance or something?”
    “I’m fine,” I said, letting my badge flop to the curb at my side. I looked at Augustus. “You need anything?”
    “No,” he looked at me strangely. He looked at Delaurio. “I’m fine, too.”
    Delaurio nodded toward Augustus. “This your sidekick?”
    “I am not a sidekick,” Augustus said, suddenly outraged.
    “Concerned citizen,” I said. “Hero, really. He just saved a lot of lives by helping me contain the blast.”
    Delaurio nodded. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind waiting right there …”
    “I got nowhere else to go,” I said, shrugging. Augustus’s lips pushed tight together. “What?” I asked him as Delaurio edged away, making a call on his shoulder-clipped radio in hushed tones. I could hear every word. “You got somewhere else to be?”
    “I’d like to go home,” Augustus said, and he shivered. It had zero to do with the weather.
    “Crimes scenes make me nervous, too,” I said. “Especially after a fight like this. You always wonder which direction the local authorities are gonna go.”
    He froze in place like I’d hit him with an ice beam. As a side note, I would like an ice beam. Should have absorbed Winter when I had the chance, I guess. “Could we … I mean … we were the heroes in this. We’re not going to get arrested, are we?” he asked.
    “Nah,” I said. “And if we are, it’ll get sorted out quickly.”
    This only seemed to increase his agitation. “I can’t get arrested.”
    I shrugged. “Why not?”
    He looked at me like I’d gone nuts. “Because I’ve never been arrested before, and it’s a streak I’d love to keep going all the days of my life.”
    I snorted. “I broke that streak a long time ago. It’s NBD, as my brother would say. Don’t sweat it, it’ll all turn out all right, especially for you. You didn’t even engage in the fight, all you did was shield the locals from a potentially hazardous outcome.”
    That didn’t seem to settle him down much. “Maybe now I’m starting to get an idea of what you were talking about before, with things not going quite like I expected them to.”
    “The problem with being a hero,” I said, staring straight ahead at Officer Delaurio, who was still speaking into his radio, “is that the system doesn’t really know what to do with them when they’re outside the traditional structure.”
    He gave me a look that asked for further elaboration, but an unmarked car pulled up and squealed to a stop before I could. Marcus Calderon popped out of the passenger side like a jack-in-the-box, leaning on the door and staring at me, shaking his head. “Your rep is clearly well earned.”
    “My rep?” I