The Calling by Haneefa Muhammad (ebook audio reader .TXT) 📕

the head dead beside me and one of the robbers with a gun in his hand, the other one who still holds the cash register in his hand is standing by the door. What?
“Josh! What did you do? I thought you were gone.” The man with the deep voice holding the cash register like it’s a baby says.
“What does it look like I did I killed him, and you’re about to be next if you don’t put the register down and leave.” Tom says ignoring his other question.
“Dude, I thought we were in this together, remember we were the three amigos! The guys that will never leave each other, but you kill Chris and now you threaten to kill me! We worked so hard for this.” He says getting angrier and angrier by the second.”
“Look Mark you really don’t know me, everything I have said to you was a lie,” He takes his mask of to reveal an Asian face with black hair and brown eyes. He looks like he’s around my age. Like he’s probably 17, 18, or 19. “My real name is not Tom, and I never was really with you guys. I’m part of another group and this was an inside mission.” He says a little apologetically.
“What? You’re with the cops!?”
“Nah, the cops don’t like us either we’re separate but we help them out, only if they knew.”
“I can’t believe this...” Mark says shaking his head.
“Yeah well believe it, and put down the cash register or you’ll end up like Chris. Do that and I’ll let you go, and I better not catch you pulling a stunt like this again.” He says like he’s giving the same old boring speech he’s way to use to giving. Mark puts down the register but he still has the look in his eyes, the look of disgust, betrayal, and anger.
“You’ll pay for this.” He says and runs out of the store.
“Yeah that’s what they all say.” Mathew says and then turns to me.
“You alright, Izzy right?” I nod my head involuntarily.
“Good so you gotta place to stay?” I shake my head.
“Well I know this is gonna sound weird and it’s not really time appropriate and all but how would you like it if you could fight crime?” He says and smiles, “Doesn’t pay well and you get no health care benefits but you do get the pleasure of knowing you helped a bunch of ungrateful people from dying a horrible painful death. Oh and you get to meet Spiderman.” He says, and I smile slightly. Guy does have some good jokes kinda reminds me of Ben actually. Oh yeah Ben!
I stand up a bit too fast, because now everything is moving and I have to hold onto the wall for a minute for support.
“Hey hold on there you need to slow down, you were moving a bit too fast there, don’t want yah hurting yourself.”
“Uhh yeah thanks, look I have to go and see if Ben is alright.”
“He is, my crew checked up on him when he left, they picked him up and took him to the hospital and explained the sitch. So he knows you’re fine.”
“Oh… Great thanks.”
“No prob, you should come with me Sarah could get you looking good as new. You’re not hurt so bad that you need to go to the hospital.” He says as he gently guides me to the door. As we walk up to the door a guy and a girl around our age walks in, they nod at Matthew all business like and walk into the store as we walk out. I take a shaky breathe of fresh air. I’ve never been so happy to breathe like this before.
“Who were they?” I ask my voice sounding strained.
“They’re part of The Nation, I’ll explain later what I mean by that, but anyways they’re gonna clean up all the dirty work and explain to the cops a made up story of what happened.”
“But….. What… about the…. Security… cameras…” I say between each strained breathe. He chuckles a little and his arm around my shoulder tightens in a friendly and supportive manner.
“I said they’re gonna clean up the dirty work, cameras included, we leave no stone unturned.” He says with a smile. We hop into a small white Honda and start driving down the road the sun is just now really coming up and I can feel my eyes start to feel heavy. I know I’m safe with him so I let myself plunge into the dark warm sleep that awaits me…..


“Geez how long is she gonna take to wake up.”
“Calm down Lance it’s only been four hours her body is exhausted and she’s probably mentally exhausted to, you would be if you almost got killed.”
“Umm Sarah if you don’t remember it’s our job to almost get killed!” The voices go on and on back and forth but I don’t listen. I have a massive headache. The light behind my eye lids start to get brighter and brighter as I recover consciousness. And that’s when everything hits me like a freight train, the pain is almost unbearable. I feel like I just got ran over by a semi, banged in the head with a hammer, fell down 3 flights of stairs, and still managed to crawl on the side of a road and eat a dead raccoon.
“Hey Izzy are you alright?” The girl says, I’m assuming that’s Sarah since everybody I hear who talks to her calls her that. She has blonde hair, green eyes, a killer smile, and smooth pale skin. She’s wearing a pink hoodie and black skinny jeans, with her hair in a ponytail. She looks concerned as she looks me over all I can see is her and a bright light behind her.
“Yeah I feel great.” I say trying to sound sarcastic and funny but the statement came out dry and choked, my throat is parched. She laughs a little and looks behind her.
“You hear that Jake she says she’s a ok.” Sarah says.
“Oh really? Well if that’s true then she wouldn’t mind me doing this!”
“Aaaahhh!” I scream.
“Wait I didn’t do anything…” Jake says sounding confused and even a little nervous.
“You know what they say…. It’s the thought that counts.” I manage to croak out with a smile, showing that I’m just playing around.
“Oh you bastard, you got me good.” Jake responds equally playfully.
“Us both, I was just about ready to put you back under.” Sarah says looking at me laughing a little.
“How long have I been out?” I ask trying to sit up slowly.
“Ehh a few hours.” Sarah says
“Yeah a few hours as in four.” Jake responds.
“Well Matt says we should let her rest for as long as she wants.”
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Out doing business….” Jake says and everything goes quiet for a second.
“So…. You’re gonna join the crew?” Sarah asks trying to start a conversation.
“Matt said something about that, but he didn’t really explain in depth what the crew was, just that you help people.” I respond.
“Oh well that’s odd, but let us explain!” Jake says getting up, as he starts talking he changes his voice and over dramatically tries to play what he says out. These group of teens seem pretty immature, I’ll probably fit right in.
“We’re what you call superheroes! Yes we help people, but we do it in multiple ways. Yes you’ve been a witness of our undercover work, which is a vital part of the crew but we also have the cleanup people who go in after the job is done and make it seem like nothing happened. You have the researchers or the techs who give the inside jobbers info and new bad guys to bust and also help out when undercover. And last but not least yah got the spies who go in and receive info you might not find over the internet and they also watch the movements of our latest target. Yeah sounds bad ass right?” He asks and I nod smiling, it actually does sound pretty awesome I would love to join, but I don’t know if I would be any help. I don’t think I would be any good at any of those jobs.
“But that’s just not it, there are million of other crews located throughout the world and we keep in touch with them and all of us together are what we call The Nation. Basically we’re a bunch of lowlife, homeless teens, nobodies, street walkers, criminals, so on and so forth. So people don’t really care about us. That’s why we can slip under the radar easily.” He says and chuckles a bit like he likes the idea of being under the radar, not being able to be detected.
“So everybody in The Nation are teenagers too?” I ask.
“Mostly everyone is, that’s how you start out but we do have adults but mostly children. The youngest we got right now is 15 and the oldest which is the elder, he’s….. I don’t know 67? I think?”
“He’s 77.” Matt says correcting Jake and making his presence known. “How are you doing Izzy?” he asks me.
“I could be doing better, but I could be doing worse so I’ll take what I have.” I respond with a slight smile, I managed to get in a sitting position without everything seeming like it’s swimming all over the place.
“So I see they explained everything to you eh?” Matthew asks.
“Yupp I know all about The Nation and the crew I would love to be a part of you guys group but I don’t know where I would fit in.” I say, and they all share a knowing smile.
“None of us knew where we fitted in when we first joined, but everybody else always knew. As we say it’s our calling, those who are in the crew are chosen ahead of time.” Sarah says as she puts a reassuring hand on my arm, and it sends chills down throughout my body. Is this what I have been searching for?
“Yupp little did I know I would make a kick ass spy! But lo and behold here I am and never have been caught once.” Jake says sticking out his chest with his fists on his hips in the superman stance.
“Oh really? Because I remember that time-”
“Yeah I don’t remember it.” Jake says interrupting Sarah.
“Anyways, we already know what you would be great at.” Matt says smiling.
“And what’s that?” I ask.
“You’ll be one of the under covers.” He says.
“Wait like what you do?” I say thinking about it.
“Yeah basically, what do yah say bud are you in?” He asks, and everybody in the room stares at me. I guess I can do it, I mean there’s nothing else out there for me.
“Yeah I’m in.” And at that moment something inside of me clicked, and I knew this is what I’ve been searching and yearning for all this time. The reason I left in the first place, the feeling in my heart that wouldn’t leave until now. I finally found where I belong and in a sense I have a family too.
“Great! Time to introduce you to the rest of the crew and show yah the ropes!” Jakes says excited.
“Calm down Jake let Izzy rest.” Sarah says.
“Nah I’m cool.” I respond.
“Haha trust me you’ll need your rest you might be a born killer but we’re gonna have to get it out of yah.” Matt says patting my back. I smirk and lay back on the