Two uniformed officers watched as Siren approached the barricade.  “Do we let her in?” the younger one asked his partner.

“From what I hear, I don’t think we could stop her,” he whispered back.

“Do you mind if I come across?” Siren asked.

“Of course not,” the younger cop said, reaching out to pull the painted wooden sawhorse to the side.

“Don’t bother,” Siren said, vaulting agilely over it.  “Who’s in charge?” she asked.

“Sergeant Ray Sandusky’s running point Miss Siren,” the older partner said, pointing to a tactical van where a bald man in a bulletproof S.W.A.T. vest was barking orders.

“Just Siren will do,” she said.  “Thank you.”  She made her way across the street.  

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing here?” the Sergeant asked.

“Are you Sergeant Sandusky?” she asked.

“Yeah.  Again, what are you doing here?” he reiterated.  Several of his officers reached for their guns.

“Easy,” she said.  “Don’t point your weapons at me.  I just want to help.”

“You can help by getting lost.  I gotta tense situation here and I’m trying to keep the variables down.”

“I respect that, I really do.  But we want the same thing here.  So I’m asking you to let me help you.”

Sandusky wiped sweat from his brow.  “And if I refuse.”

“Then I tell you to let me help you.  But this will go a lot smoother if you do it willingly.”

“So you’re not really asking.”  It was a statement, not a question.

“I just want to make sure no one dies today.  I want you to do your job and get the people in that bank out safely, and I want to do whatever I can to help facilitate that.”

“You should let her.”  Siren spun as someone spoke up behind her, seeing Detective Merrick stood behind her.  He gave her a small nod.  “It can’t hurt to at least hear her out.”

Sandusky sighed.  “Fine.  But I’m still in charge.”

“That’s why I asked first.  Do you mind bringing me up to speed?”

Sandusky led her to the back of the tactical van.  Siren snuck a glance back at Detective Merrick, mouthing a quick thank you.  Perhaps she had underestimated him.

There were five armed robbers, and they had fourteen hostages between the bank staff and civilians.  They hadn’t killed anyone yet, but the security guard had been shot in the leg, though his injury seemed minor, and they were making arrangements to have him released.  The robbers had a clear line of sight out the front and sides of the bank, and S.W.A.T. wasn’t willing to risk the hostages in an attempt to breach the back of the building, but they were on standby, as well as snipers on the adjacent rooftops.  As per the robbers’ request, they had a bus coming, and were clearing a road to the harbor.

“So how does your thing work?” Sandusky asked her.  “Can you just tell them to surrender?”

“If they let me get close enough without killing any hostages, but that seems unlikely.  Do you have blueprints of the bank?”

“Yeah,” he said, pointing to a laptop.  “But even if we could get you inside, they’d see you coming.”

“Maybe not before they hear me coming.  You can’t get a sharpshooter in there, but I don’t have to worry about line of sight.  Could you get me to the ventilation system?”

“That might work.”  He sat down in front of the computer, pulling up the blueprints.  “We just may—” he was cut short as the phone rang.

“Is that them?” Siren asked, looking at the phone on the table.

“Yeah.  Put a pin in that.”  Sandusky took a deep breath before picking up the phone.  “Hello?”

“What’s going out there Ray?” the leader of the bank robbers, Clive, said, his guttural voice over the speakers sounding both panicky and angry.

“We’ve got your bus coming, just like you asked.  It’ll be another ten minutes, maybe more.  You’ve attracted quite a lot of attention, our guys underestimated traffic,” Sandusky said.

“Anything else Ray?  Like maybe how you’ve got a super heroine with you?”

“Shit,” Sandusky hissed, covering the receiver with his hand.  “Where’d you hear that Clive?”

“Don’t bullshit me Ray.  People are texting the hostages saying that fucking cunt Siren just showed up.”

“God dammit!” Sandusky mouthed.

“Listen Clive, this doesn’t—”

“Gimme the phone,” Siren said.

Sandusky glared at her as he handed the phone off.  She realized she hadn’t asked, but the damage was done.

“You’re Clive, I take it?” she said, taking the phone.

“And who is this?” Clive asked, angry.

“This is, as you put it, that fucking cunt Siren.”

There was a click as Clive hung up.

“The hell did you just do?” Sandusky asked, his voice rising.

“I’m sorry.  Impulse.”  Her face felt hot.  She’d screwed up in record time.

“I better be able to fix this.  I want you out.”

Siren started to get up when the phone rang again.  

“Hello?” Sandusky answered.

“Let me talk to the fucking cunt.”

The feeling of victory Siren felt was undercut that by the realization that this nickname wasn’t going to play well in the news or police reports.  But a win was a win.

She raised an eyebrow at Sandusky, not wanting to overstep her bounds again, but he reluctantly passed the phone to her.

“Hello again,” she said.

“I’m guessing your little trick doesn’t work over the phone, otherwise you’d have used it immediately.”  Clive sounded more confident.

“Maybe I wanted you to know whom you’re dealing with.”

“No, I think you need to be in here to do anything.”

Sandusky grabbed a pad of paper and hastily scrawled “He’s trying to keep you on the phone so you can’t get inside.  You need to get the phone back to me.”

She read the note.  “Maybe you’re right.  But it works fine out here.”

“So you’re going to be waiting for me the moment I step out, is that what you’re saying?”

Siren laughed.  “Not at all.  You see, I care about those people you have with you.  ONLY those people.”

“What are you doing!?!” Sandusky wrote, furiously underlining his question.

She pushed the pad away.  “Give me a minute, I’m working on something,” she hissed, covering the receiver.  “I don’t care if you get to keep the money you stole or even if you get away.  To be fair, Ray here and all these cops really would like to do anything to keep you from killing any hostages, but there’s a lot of red tape out here, you know what I mean, Clive?”

“I do,” he responded.  She could tell her was intrigued, and Sandusky did as well, relaxing slightly.  He was still counting down the seconds until the minute Siren had told him to give her was up, but with less urgency.

“I’m pretty sure they’ve got a bus on its way here, but I also get the feeling that it could have been here by now.”  Ray shot her a look.  “Now this isn’t Ray’s fault, but somewhere up the line, someone’s jamming things up, and I can unjam them.”

“Well played, fucking cunt.”  Her nickname was quickly getting old, but Clive sounded very interested.  “I’m assuming you want something?”

“I want everyone to get through today alive.  In terms of specifics, do you mind giving me five minutes to figure out what exactly I’m working with on my end?  I’m still playing catch up.”

There was a pause on line.  “You’ve got three.  And you’d better be ready when I call back.”  He hung up, ending the call before Siren could try to negotiate for more time.

“You had me worried there for a bit, you still do, but this might work,” Sandusky said, letting out a long sigh.

“What’s he going to want next?” Siren asked.  Her heart was racing.

“Some sort of proof you’re backing up your end.  And when you do, you need to get something from him.  Get them to release a hostage if you can.”

“If I can’t?”

“You can.  You’ve established yourself as his friend.  Make him reciprocate.  He doesn’t need fourteen hostages, and he knows it.”

Siren nodded.  “Where’s that bus he wants?”

“I’ll worry about that; it’s on its way.”

“I told him I’d worry about it.  Now get it here.”

“Henson, Bridges, get that bus here now!  No excuses!” Sandusky barked outside.  The two officers scrambled to make it happen.

“I feel like you didn’t need me here to do that,” Siren said.

“You were right, we were stalling.  There’re only so many places you can hide a guy on a school bus.”

“Will you still have time—”  The phone rang again, cutting her off.  “Jesus that was fast.”

Sandusky nodded to her, and she picked up the phone.  “Hello again.”

“What’s going on out there, fucking cunt?  Is my bus on its way?”

“It is.”  Outside officer Henson held up five fingers.  “Five more minutes.”

“You haven’t really sped things up at all on that front.”

“I can control people, not the laws of physics.  But what I can do for you is make sure your bus isn’t tampered with.”

“What are you doing?” Sandusky hissed through clenched teeth.

She held up a finger.  “I’m sure they were delayed trying to make sure the boss would stall or something like that, but I can make sure it’s in working order for you.”

“You really don’t have a problem throwing the boys in blue under the bus, so to speak,” Clive said.

“You’re funny,” she said dryly.  “This isn’t a free service.  I want you to release some hostages.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Clive said.

“Come on, it’s not like you’re going to try and take all fourteen on the bus with you.  Start letting them go now.  You do something for me, I do something for you.  That’s how this works.”

“You’re trying to make sure there’s less chaos when we move to the bus.  I think I’ll hold onto all my chips for a little longer.”

“Do you have anything else of value to me?”  Sandusky was giving her a hesitant nod of approval.

“I have everything of value to you.  How would you like me to shoot another hostage?  More than just a flesh wound this time.”

Siren rubbed her temple.  “We haven’t taken the time to discuss what happens if you kill any of the hostages.  For the cops, it drastically lowers your chances of getting out of that bank alive, and if you do, it adds quite a few years to your prison sentence.  But I’m going to make sure you get out alive.  And the cops and the justice system will get their turn with you.  But I’m going to make sure I get a minute alone with you first.”  Her voice was a low growl.  “You’ve been calling me a fucking cunt, and I’ve let it slide, but I need you now to understand exactly how much of a fucking cunt I can be.  I will make you rip your own goddam dick off.”

Sandusky stared at her, open mouthed.  There was silence on the other end of the line.

“How about you give me a hostage?” she asked.

There was a pause before Clive responded.  “Yeah, I can give you one.”

“Screw that.  I want two.  And then I make sure your bus will get you where you want to go.”

“Two it is.  Final offer.”

“That’s fine.  I’ll get the rest.  After that, you’re not my problem, and you can get away for all I care.”