A Thousand Fires

by Shannon Price

  I shift in my seat. The Boars sound like me. All Elliott wanted was revenge for someone he loved. “That’s not really Aaron’s fault, though.”

  “He got his girlfriend really fucking high, then she drowned,” Kate says with a shrug. “I’d be pissed.”

  “I’d be pissed,” Mako echoes.

  Nianna goes on. “Once the police got involved, things got even worse. SFPD was—and still is—desperate for cash, and the Herons could give it to them. The Boars felt betrayed by the city that was supposed to protect them. The people’s people and all that. They lashed out, Herons retaliated. On and on. That’s how the Wars came to be.”

  “Wow,” I say. Here I was thinking it was all about money and status, when in reality the city was undone by something as simple as two people falling in love.

  “A few years ago, the Boars recruited that one,” Nianna says, pointing at Jax.

  The guy in question stares out at the horizon like he owns it. “The longer I was in the Wars, the more I realized the Boars had lost their way. No one even knew Annie or cared about their original purpose. They just wanted to get back at the Herons for how they were changing the city. Which is a worthy cause, but they weren’t being smart about it. So I bided my time and waited as I rose through the ranks. After a while I realized the Boars were never going to be the group I wanted them to be, even if I led them. So I left, and took another Boar with me.”

  Jax’s chest rises and falls—it looks like he’s going to say something, but instead he shakes his head. “Anyway, the Boars and Herons have forgotten their way, and they’re taking the city down with them. So I’m going to do the one thing that they—and the police—can’t do.”

  “Which is?” I ask.

  “I’m going to end the Wars.”

  What? The flatness of his words brings me back to my senses. “I don’t understand.” And I’m starting to get real freaking tired of that feeling.

  “Despite appearances, Valentine, you’re sitting in a car with a bunch of pacifists.”

  Wait, what? “Really?”

  “Pacifists might be a bit strong,” says Micah. “With Theresa’s help, we get ahead of the Young Herons’ plans and stop them from moving forward. We protest, we create chaos, whatever it takes. And when the Herons are stuck, there’s nothing for the Boars to retaliate against.”

  “And every month on the first, Jax sends them both a message asking them to end the Wars,” Nianna finishes.

  “How do you do that?”

  “When I left the Boars, I stole one of their IRIS machines,” Jax replies. “It’s this old prototype comm machine one of the first Young Herons built—Interpersonal Relay Internet System. When the Boars were founded, the two gangs agreed to use it to talk to each other. Only for official dealings between the two groups. The kid who made it was a genius. Each comm gets a unique encryption, and every time you send a message it routes it across half a dozen connections. You can’t see it if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and it was never on the market, so…”

  I don’t know whether I should be impressed or what, but I am stunned. What have I gotten myself into? “But on the news, the Stags are just as violent as the others.”

  “Well, we don’t take shit lying down,” says Nianna, like duh. “If one of the other gangs fucks with us we obviously fight back.”

  “I fight back,” Jax corrects, his voice rising. “If another gang does something against you, I’ll let you handle it. But if it’s against the Stags, I take the action.”

  All the blood stays on his hands. Next to me, Micah turns and looks out the window. “Okay,” I say.

  “I fucking mean it,” Jax snaps, suddenly. “I’ll take the hit.”

  “Okay,” I repeat. Did I say something wrong? “But my revenge for my brother is mine?”

  “Yes,” Jax says, with a nod of his head. His word feels like a vow somehow, like it’s inevitable that I’ll be able to find the Boar that killed Leo.

  “Society says we’re bad, but we’re doing what the police can’t and the other gangs won’t,” Jax continues. “We’re what the Boars should have been, but are now too big and disorganized to be. We’re smarter than they are, and doing the right thing.”

  Doing the right thing, just the wrong way.

  “Anyway, you’ll start your schooling today, Valentine. The binders first. You have to know every face and name in the other gangs.”

  Binders with faces and names. Riveting.

  “Binders, range, following orders. That’s your life, until I say otherwise,” he goes on. Until I’ve earned my place. Until I’ve earned the knowledge of who killed Leo.

  “Okay,” I say.

  He takes a vape from his pocket and inhales deeply, cracking the window just enough to let a wave of cold air in and the vapor out. “You know the buses?”

  “Most of them,” I answer.

  “BART?”

  “I’m a native. So, yeah. Honestly the only thing I’m missing is more black clothes.”

  Micah gives me an approving smirk, but Jax is apparently too busy getting high to bother with me anymore. Or at least I think so until he says to Jaws, “Take us downtown.”

  * * *

  If you’d have asked me what I’d be doing on my second day in the Wars, I would not have said shopping.

  Yet here I am, in a dressing room of some boutique off of Union Square, tugging up yet another pair of black pants. These have a leather stripe down the side—real leather, not the knockoff stuff at Forever 21—which makes me feel like a badass girl superhero. Sexy, I think, though it’s not a word I usually use to describe myself.

  “Well?” Kate shouts from the next fitting room.

  “They’re good,” I say, shimmying off the leather-stripe pants and sliding back into my own. I gather the bundle—two jeans, a pair of black leggings, plus a couple of midnight-colored sweaters—and exit. Kate’s waiting for me, a form-fitting running jacket hanging over her arm.

  “Grabbed this one for you, too,” she says. “Medium?”

  “Yup,” I reply, but my heart is sinking. I recognize the swirling lettering of the label—that jacket’s not cheap. “Wait,” I say. She hands it to me. “Kate, this is nearly two hundred dollars. No way am I getting this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s two hundred dollars for something made for me to sweat in.”

  She laughs—ethereal and eternal. “It doesn’t matter what it costs. Jax is paying. Don’t forget what we told you about his mama. And besides,” she says, “this is an independent business. Jax has met the owner, Kailin. The more we spend here, the more likely they can afford whatever rent the Herons charge here now.”

  Kate yanks the jacket back from me and tugs the rest of the bundle with it. She heads for the register, and I follow right behind.

  Seeing us, Jax gets up from where he was playing some game on his phone. As the cashier rings us up, all I see are numbers getting higher and higher.

  “Jax,” I say as he counts out bills. “I can put some of it back.”

  He pauses. “Do you like them?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  He turns and hands a wad of hundreds to the cashier. “Thank you so much.” In one smooth move, he hooks his arm around my shoulders—well, more around my head. He pulls me close and kisses my hair.

  “Don’t worry about it, Valentine. Anything you want is yours.”

  The Boar who killed Leo, I want to say, but I know he’s talking about stuff, not information. Not yet.

  “Thank you,” I mutter, then duck out of his grasp.

  “Told ya,” Kate says triumphantly. “Now let’s go get coffee. Nianna says this place is super bougie but has the best espresso.”

  We go, Kate texting the others down the street that we’re on our way. I rub the sheeny ribbon of the bag—I never thought I’d ever have so much from such a fancy store. Maybe if I saved up and wanted to splurge on something, sure. But not like six things plus the orchid
-colored lipstick Kate threw in at the end.

  The air is cool, the clouds above us every shade of bruise-blue and impenetrable, like a long curtain draped over the city. I shiver. Coffee is starting to sound better and better. Walking behind Kate, I admire the latest of her fancy braids—a fishtail that somehow blends seamlessly into a regular braid, with a perfect curl at the end.

  The streets are as busy as ever. I sidestep a vendor hawking some skincare line and have to quickly pivot out of the way of a man pushing a cart full of garbage bags. The latter’s dog follows closely behind, tail low.

  If there is ever a place where two opposing forces meet, it’s on the streets of San Francisco. Tourists dodge vagrants, then pose for pictures next to the cable cars on Market. At night, concertgoers and theater lovers skirt past discarded needles and sprawled bodies on the ground at Civic Center Station. The situation was bad years ago, but has been made worse by the influx of money into the City by the Bay. The cries for change are louder, but that change often comes at the expense of those without the means to fight it.

  I figure, if anything, the city’s myriad ailments help the Wars. It’s like a cancer—there’s no easy fix, and while the state and local governments tangle themselves in red tape, the Wars go on as a newer symptom masked by others.

  We pass under the shining marquee of a private hotel and residence, and Kate slows as she studies the map on her phone. The click clack of heels on the pavement sounds from behind us, and I wonder why on earth anyone would walk in heels when the pavement still glistens from the morning’s rain.

  The clacking stops, and I realize Jax is no longer right behind me. I turn around.

  Jax is frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, one hand already at his back where I know a handgun is concealed. Squaring off with him is a girl our age with black hair shining down to her waist and eyes I can only describe as blazing. There are two guys right behind her like soldiers flanking a queen.

  “Well, look who decided to wander my way,” the girl says, her voice purring. She narrows her perfectly shadowed eyes, cocking her head to the side to look at me. “And you came with some friends.”

  “Holy shit.” Kate grips my arm, yanking me back toward her. “That’s Camille Sakurai. Leader of the Young Herons.”

  The ground swells and shakes. We’re downtown—of course the Herons would find us. Matthew! Is he here? Is he close by?

  “Hey, Camille,” Jax replies, as if he’s greeting an old friend. “We’re not here on business. Just passing through.”

  “Just passing through,” she repeats. “Oh, okay. Don’t mind us, then.” She folds her arms across her chest, the bronze-colored bangles at her wrists gleaming in the light from the storefront. “You never just pass through.”

  “Showing the newbie what’s what.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You got a new recruit, too.” Camille locks her eyes with mine. A moment later, Jax steps back in front of me, blocking me from her sight. “Hi, Valerie,” she calls. “So lovely to meet you in person.”

  “How does she know—” I whisper frantically, but Kate squeezes my arm and says, “Not now.”

  “Tell you what, Jax, I’ll make you a deal,” Camille says. Her tone is riddled with a savageness that cuts like steel. “I’ll forget I saw your face tonight for two minutes with your recruit.”

  “No way,” Jax says instantly.

  “You’re not exactly in a position to negotiate,” she says. “And you’re on my turf, asshole.”

  “And you’re on camera, Your Highness,” Jax says mockingly, tilting his head toward the hotel. Surely there are hidden cameras all around us. “The longer you stand here the sooner someone is going to wonder why the daughter of a self-driving-car mogul was talking to a couple of punk-ass high-school dropouts.”

  Camille’s look is murder. “Fine. Fuck off, Jax. And don’t come back.” Turning, she clicks her way into the hotel but pauses on the first step, her bodyguards pausing as she does. “Oh, and Valerie? I’ll be sure to tell Matthew everything about this. He’s right upstairs, you know.”

  Upstairs. Without thinking, I look up, wondering which of the glowing windows has Matthew somewhere behind it. Jax and Kate whirl me away from the site of the standoff, Jax’s hand on the small of my back.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I reply. “Are we, uh, safe?”

  “Safe enough, but we shouldn’t hang out here much longer.”

  Kate navigates us to the coffee shop. Inside the air is warm and the mood quiet as workers take orders and patrons hunch over their laptops.

  Micah’s sipping what looks like a simple Americano when he sees us. “What’s wrong?”

  “Camille found us,” Jax replies. “Let’s go.”

  We gather up our stuff and hustle out of the café just as fast as we entered it. The van pulls up and we hop in. This time, Nianna takes the front and Jax sits next to Micah, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

  “Lighten up,” he says to his friend.

  Micah shakes his head. “It was dumb to come here.” He adds something else right into Jax’s ear. I don’t catch it.

  “I know,” is our leader’s reply, and none of us will ever have any way of knowing whether Jax was agreeing to Micah’s statement or to what was whispered. I’m just glad to be safe.

  I look out the window as we pull away. The farther we head from downtown, the brighter the lights of the hotel seem to burn against the gray cityscape—like a thousand fires reminding us of the Young Herons’ grip on the city, and on me.

  Matthew is a Young Heron now. And if what the Stags have said is true, then they’re our biggest enemy. I should hate him.

  But how can I? Even at the peak of the breakup, I didn’t hate Matthew. Not really. And no matter how painful it was, it didn’t erase the years in which we’d forged our bond. Our stories are intertwined, I remind myself. Is that still true, now that we’re on opposing sides?

  I think of Annie Boreas—what was it like for her to forsake the world she knew and dive into the great blackness of the unknown? She left behind her brothers, and probably the rest of her family ties. No matter how strongly her heart was drumming that what she was doing was the right thing, was getting what she wanted most worth the risk?

  * * *

  Hours later, Kate, Nianna, and I sit around the kitchen table. Nianna fidgets like an impatient cat as Kate paints her nails a deep purple. Micah plays video games in the other room while Mako’s gone out for a run.

  Jax asked to be alone.

  Three plastic monstrosities sit before me. I’ve flipped through each a dozen times, but the memorization is excruciating. I’m good with names and faces but not that good.

  Besides, I still can’t get over what happened downtown, or what the Stags told me as we were leaving Twin Peaks.

  How come Matthew never told me about what happened with Aaron? He only ever said that Aaron was the black sheep of the family and that he loved his life in Tahoe. He didn’t tell me about Annie, how she died, or the choice she made before she did. Love over family—did she ever regret her decision? Speaking of …

  “What happened to the guy Jax left the Boars with?” I ask. “Am I gonna meet him at some point?”

  Nianna and Kate both pause. After a glance at the hallway door—toward Jax’s room—Nianna exhales. “Jax didn’t leave with a guy. The Boar he took with him was named Brianna. He’d had a crush on her for ages and, well, he’s Jax. He gets what he wants. But shit got messy fast. She wanted out of the Stags. It became this big thing, because at that time the Stags were like, brand-new, and Jax couldn’t let her go home. It’d ruin the small reputation they’d earned so far. Then Brianna was kidnapped by Boars. Fuckers rear-ended her car, and when she got out they swooped in.”

  Chills run down my spine. There are only a few things that can happen to a woman when she’s kidnapped—and none of them are good.

  “Jax went ballistic. He tried to meet with the Boar leader, but they refused. Brianna
was theirs for who knows how long.”

  I exhale, shaking my head. “Fuck.”

  “Eventually, they let her go. She said they didn’t harm her, that they were only holding on to her to piss off Jax, but who knows? Once they let her go, Jax never went to find her, at least not that I know of.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “Didn’t he like her?”

  “Yeah, he did. And I bet that’s why he didn’t go. He was furious that he’d let it happen. Jax is as proud as they come, and her getting caught made him look bad. Anyway. Nothing good can happen from being close to Jax, so don’t get any stupid ideas about trying to change him or start envisioning what your kids would look like, whatever.” She sees my face at the word kids and gives a half smile. “I dunno. You straight people are crazy sometimes. Anyway, that’s the dirt.” She shrugs. “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Back to binders,” is her reply.

  Yes, ma’am. I grab the Boar binder again and search for the three that Micah and I saw on the train, but my thoughts linger on Jax. There’s no way he loved Brianna, otherwise he would have gone to her after the fact. Maybe she didn’t want him, after all. Not like Jax would ever admit something like that.

  Focus, Val. The three Boars.

  I shiver when I remember the sight of Leo’s name. It looked like blood. But it couldn’t be. It was paint and nothing else. Paint that distracted me from the guy’s face. The Boar had greasy blond hair and a wide grin—but hell, that doesn’t narrow it down much.

  “Jimmy Finesman,” I whisper, tapping a photo that might be him.

  “What about him?” Nianna asks.

  “I think Micah and I saw him on BART yesterday. Him and a few others. I think.”

  “All the way in Ingleside?”

  “Yeah.”

  She absorbs the new information with a nod. “Interesting. I bet Micah told Jax, but if shit like that happens when you’re on your own, always report it.”