Into the Fire

by Cheree Alsop

  “Have you figured out how to kill everyone in here?”

  My gaze shifted back to Officer Donaldson. I gave him a wry look. “Work with Galdoni often?”

  He shook his head. “You’re the first, actually, but with that look in your eyes, I wouldn’t mess with you.”

  I dropped my gaze to the table. He may have been joking, but I really did have a plan that involved the napkin holder on our table, a glass mug near the cash register, and a few moves considered beneath the training at the Academy. I wasn’t proud of the fact, but it was life. When every day from birth was spent learning how to defend oneself from any attack, it came as second nature.

  A woman came over with a pad of paper in one hand. “What can I get for you?” she asked in a forced bored tone even though her eyes lingered on my wings for the briefest moment before flitting back to her paper. Her hair was in a messy bun held in place by a pencil, and her hands were red and cracked as if they were often in water. Her crooked nametag said ‘Mel’.

  “Coffee and a Joe Burger,” Donaldson ordered. He glanced at me. “It’s like a normal hamburger with an egg on it. You should try it.” At my nod, he said, “Make that two.”

  “You got it, honey,” Mel replied. Her black flat shoes gave a squeak when she turned and walked away without looking at me.

  “It’s okay to relax.”

  I shook my head at his tone. “It’s okay for you to relax,” I replied. “Your badge and uniform tell everyone not to mess with you. My wings, on the other hand, scream target and tell people to either run away or attack.”

  “Did Jake teach you that?” he asked, his tone gentle.

  I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t used to being contradicted. I let out a slow breath. “Call it the product of a violent upbringing. If you assume everyone is out to get you, you’re not surprised when it happens.”

  “So being out a year and a half hasn’t taught you differently?” The curiosity in Donaldson’s voice took away any sting the question might have held.

  I told him the truth. “It confirmed my feelings. This world is run by greed, just as ours was. Violence is an end result of fear, which is in turn the product of ignorance. If people realized just how easily their money can be taken away, maybe they wouldn’t value it so much.”

  Officer Donaldson nodded. “Good observation. So you’ve learned something during your time as a burglar.”

  “How to avoid fire,” I replied dryly, lifting my hands.

  He smiled. “The chemical traces from the Molotovs you used helped us link the thefts together. Twenty-four, if I’m not mistaken.”

  That triggered my curiosity. “Twenty-seven. The first were a little sloppy because we used gasoline before Jake began experimenting with Molotovs. So why not press charges?”

  He shrugged a bit uncomfortably. “I think you’re a bit young for solitary.”

  I picked up my fork and toyed with it. “I’ve been in solitary more times than I can count.”

  I saw his eyebrows lift out of the corner of my eye, but kept my gaze on the metal tines.

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Donaldson replied. “The Galdoni who are thrown in prison don’t survive long. Apparently quite a few inmates were into gamboling. They started putting Galdoni in solitary for their own safety.”

  “They should do the same for our entire species,” I muttered.

  “You don’t really think that, do you?” he asked.

  There was an innocence to his tone that angered me. He shouldn’t trust us, any of us. We were worse than the humans, and that was saying a lot. I met his gaze and he sat back at the sight of my rage. “Do you really want Galdoni around your kids?” I gestured toward the mother and her two little children at the other end of the small diner. “Every time a Galdoni walks by, he’s already figured out how to kill you. Do you truly believe that’s healthy in society?” I spread my gauzed hands. “I stole because I was so afraid,” I spat the word, “to go back to the Academy that I would do anything to stay out. I knew burning houses was wrong, but I didn’t care. I hated the families who lived within the walls so safe and secure in their world that they couldn’t care less about people being raised to kill for no reason other than the greed of a money-hungry society.”

  I dropped my voice so that he had to lean closer to hear me. I watched my reflection in the spoon near my hand. It showed my head and body small and upside down with massive golden wings emphasized by the metal’s contour. I grimaced. “Killing a child when I was only a child myself took something from me. Call it my heart, my soul, anything you want. I’m broken, and I shouldn’t be here. I should be in solitary where I’m not a threat to anyone, because if I can’t kill myself, I’ll surely hurt someone else.”

  There it was; the bare truth. It had been swirling through my head since our release from the Academy. I had never spoken it aloud before. Fear that I couldn’t control it surged through my veins. I was a born killer along with every other Galdoni in the world.

  My heart skipped a beat. Every Galdoni but Alana.

  I took a shuddering breath. Officer Donaldson’s hand touched mine. He opened my gauze-covered fingers and removed the spoon I hadn’t remembered picking up. My hand ached and fingers trembled from the pain. I slipped it under the table where he wouldn’t see it. He pretended not to notice.

  Footsteps crossed to our table. I didn’t have to look up to recognize the sound of the flat rubber soles. “Burgers up,” Mel said. She slipped two plates of burgers and fries in front of us, then filled up our white mugs with strong-scented coffee. “Enjoy,” she said flatly before she turned with another squeak and walked away.

  The scent of the burger rose tantalizingly to my nose. I wondered how I had an appetite after spilling what was left of my soul to Officer Donaldson, a stranger who probably was wishing he had never invited me to take a bite.

  “Take a bite,” he said.

  I stared at him, surprised to hear my thoughts repeated when he should have been calling for backup or shooting me.

  He lifted his hamburger. “You won’t regret it.”

  “You might,” I replied before I could stop myself.

  He gave me a searching look before he took a bite out of his hamburger. The sound of the pickles crunching was loud in the air between us and he smiled with full cheeks. “Try it,” he said, his words sloppy.

  I sighed and gave in, picking up the hamburger gingerly to keep my gauzed fingers clean. The bread was soft and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The hamburger was at the bottom of several tomatoes, pickles, lettuce leaves, orange cheese, and the white outline of the egg. It looked almost too good to be edible.

  I took a bite, then closed my eyes. A tidal wave of flavors rushed over my tongue. The seasoned meat was tempered by the mellow flood of the salted and peppered egg. The tomatoes were crisp along with the pickles, touching my taste buds with the perfect mixture of sweet and sour. A hint of ketchup lingered in my mouth when I swallowed. I heard Officer Donaldson chuckle and opened my eyes.

  “As good as I said?” he asked.

  “Better,” I replied. A grin spread across his face. I took another bite.

  “You’d miss it, right?” His tone was serious again.

  At first, I thought he meant the burger, then I realized he meant the world. I wanted to lie, to tell him I wouldn’t miss a thing if they threw me into solitary and tossed the key like I deserved. One glance told me he would know if I lied. I chewed slowly, enjoying the flavors as much as I knew I would hate the bitter taste of the truth.

  “I’d miss everything about it,” I said quietly.

  “Which parts?” he pressed.

  I lifted my wings slightly. “Flying, especially.” He smiled and nodded for me to continue. “Warm sun. It was always a bit cold at the Academy; made us keep moving to stay warm. Couches.”

  “Couches?” he repeated, surprised.

  An unbidden smile touched my lips. “I’ve been sleeping on one at the Galdoni Center. They’re very comf
ortable. I’ve never slept so deep.”

  Officer Donaldson’s smile deepened, but his eyes were touched by sadness. “You should try a bed sometime.” He took a sip of his coffee. “What about the food?”

  I pretended nonchalance. “It’s not the best.”

  Somehow Mel had managed to reappear just as I spoke. She gave me a look of distain. “I’m just, uh. . . .” I couldn’t find the right word.

  “He’s kidding,” Donaldson supplied. “Saro’s very sarcastic.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure.” She marched away with her pot of coffee after ascertaining that our mugs did not yet require refilling.

  Officer Donaldson burst out laughing. It caught me in a wave and I couldn’t fight the chuckle that rose from my stomach and turned into a full-throated laugh. I held my sides; they hurt, but I couldn’t stop until tears filled my eyes and my face ached so much from smiling that I thought I would be sore the rest of my life.

  Donaldson leaned over the table and slapped me on the shoulder. “You’re alright, Saro.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I replied. “But you’re the one who needs a psychological evaluation.” His eyes held his questioning amusement, so I expounded. “First you try to shoot me and your companion succeeds in nearly knocking the sense clean out of me, then you stalk me outside Jake’s place, hiding in the shadows and acting all suspicious, and now you’re eating dinner with someone deemed fit for a five by five cell and no windows. You sure you’re alright?”

  He looked quite pleased with himself. “More than alright.”

  “Why is that?” I asked suspiciously.

  He grinned. “Because anyone who can laugh like that has something left of worth in him. If you can laugh, you can cry, and if you can cry, you can get rid of all the pain from the past and move on. You’re better than the lot you’ve been given, Saro. You just need a chance to believe it.”

  We finished our burgers in silence. I let his words fill me. I didn’t believe them; I couldn’t. Yet they soothed the tattered pieces of what was left of the little boy on the screen with the tears running down his face and his friend dying from his sword at his feet.

  Officer Donaldson left money on the table and I followed him to the door. The mother and children were gone, but my muscles tensed when we passed the table with the three men. They didn’t speak, but the hostility in their eyes said enough. We walked up the road. It wasn’t toward Jake’s apartment or Donaldson’s car, but it was casual, as though we were wandering. I liked the feeling.

  “I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to fly,” Donaldson mused.

  I glanced at him; his eyes were on the dark sky. I knew there were stars out, but they were hidden above the light pollution of the city. “Like there’s nothing in your way but the wind and any whim you want to take.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not for me. I’m afraid of heights.”

  That brought a smile to my lips. “Then why do you wonder what it’d be like?”

  He grinned. “I wonder if I would die of fright or from the fall because I’d be too terrified to remember to flap my wings.”

  I chuckled. “You’d forget your fear the minute you were in the air. Trust me.”

  We walked in silence for about a half hour before we turned back toward the car. Officer Donaldson glanced at me. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the houses you hit? Anything that links them together?”

  I thought about it for a second. “They were nice houses, rich, definitely well to do. Some had kids, some didn’t.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The pictures on the walls.”

  Donaldson nodded. “There must be something that ties them all together, or else why those houses?”

  “It could be random, couldn’t it?” I asked. Curiosity was getting the better of me. Did Jake have a hidden motive besides money when he picked a house?

  Donaldson’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “In cases like these, it’s usually not random. There’s a reason behind it; we just don’t know what that may be.” He glanced at me. “What was in those safes you opened?”

  “Money, usually cash, sometimes gold bars.”

  His eyebrows rose at that, but he continued walking in silence.

  “There were also envelopes. If I forgot the envelopes, I got whipped.” The admission stung. I shouldn’t have let him do that to me. I should have fought back; but at the time, he was all I had. His little apartment and my bed of blankets on the floor represented my only security in the world.

  “Envelopes,” Donaldson mused, his tone interested. “I wonder what was so important about them.” I was grateful he didn’t ask about the whipping. The scars on my chest gave a dull throb. I ignored them.

  “He cared about them more than the gold, I suppose.” I thought back. Why hadn’t I been more curious? It could have saved us a lot of trouble.

  “Did the envelopes have anything on them? A crest or name of some sort?”

  I nodded. “They did. Each had the letters ‘AC’ in red on the front right corner.” I glanced at him. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll run it through the system and let you know. It’s something to go on.”

  We were walking past the diner when a man ran out followed by Mel the waitress. “They stole our money,” she cried when she saw us.

  Indignation flared in my chest. The man turned down the next alley, his footsteps loud in the night. I pushed down hard with my wings, flying faster than a man could run.

  “Saro, wait!” Officer Donaldson called.

  I landed at the entrance of the alley because my wingspan was too large for the buildings. All three men were waiting. It was a trap.

  I ducked a punch and threw an elbow into one face, dropped to my knee and knocked the legs from another, and rose with another elbow to the last man’s jaw that carried the force of my momentum and dropped him like a dismembered dummy. I drove my head into the stomach of the first man and slammed him against the wall; he fell gasping to the ground. Something hit the side of my head. I spun and kicked, connecting with the second man’s face. When I landed, I drove an elbow into his groin. He doubled over and I slammed another one into his back.

  “Saro!” Officer Donaldson shouted as he and Mel rounded the corner. Both of them stopped at the sight of the fallen men. Mel’s hand flew to her mouth.

  I stepped around them. “Don’t worry. I didn’t kill any of them,” I told the officer. A plastic bag near the wall caught my eye. I picked it up and glanced inside. “I think this is yours.” I handed the bag to Mel. Her hands shook as she took it from me and looked inside at the money.

  “They set you up,” Donaldson said, his eyes on the groaning men.

  I nodded. “I’m just glad they didn’t have a gun.

  He let out a half-laugh that didn’t carry any humor. “They meant to kill you, Saro.”

  I shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

  He shook his head, but the humor returned to his eyes. “I need to call for backup. We’ll have to report this and take these guys in.”

  “I’d better get back to the Galdoni Center. I told Kale I wasn’t going to be very long. Need any help?”

  The shadow of a smile touched his mouth. “I think you’ve handled it. Take care of yourself.”

  “You, too,” I told him, surprised that I really meant it. I was glad I got to the alley before the officer. If they had jumped him, I would have one less friend in the world, and friends were hard to come by.

  I stepped back to the street and noticed the elderly man and woman from the diner standing with the other two diner employees near the door to the café. I was about to spread my wings when a hand touched my shoulder. It was too soft to mean harm, but I still had to fight to keep from defending myself with the adrenaline that raced through my veins.

  I turned to find Mel, her eyes wide and hands clutching the bag of money. “I just wanted to say thank you,” she said. �
��That was very brave. I didn’t know a Galdoni would do that.”

  I smiled, feeling more like myself than I had in a long time. “I’m not sure all of them would, but I was happy to help.”

  Officer Donaldson’s smile and nod over the head of the waitress filled me with warmth as I spread my wings and soared over the city. I couldn’t explain why I had gone after the men; I hadn’t thought, just acted. A smile wouldn’t leave my face even after I landed at the Galdoni Center and made my way to Alana’s room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My smile faded when I saw her lying there in the same position, the tubes still connected and machines beeping disharmoniously. I let out a slow breath and stepped into the room. A chair had been pulled next to her hospital bed. I wondered who had sat with her while I was gone. A pang of guilt rose at the thought that she might have awoken when I was away. I shoved it down and sat on the chair, letting my wings relax on either side to ease the healing ache from the burns that still irritated the joints.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with me, Alana.” The words broke out even though she couldn’t hear what I said. It felt right to talk to her, as though she was awake and smiling her beautiful smile, her brown eyes filled with light. “I chased down robbers today.” I snorted at the thought. “Me, catching robbers. I think for the first time in my life, I understand true irony.”

  I chuckled. “I didn’t even think about it. It just happened, and Mel was so grateful. I’ve never had anyone look at me that way before, as though I had just given her life back and made everything right in the world. Things are definitely not right if three grown men are robbing nice little diners.”

  The side of my head itched. When I reached up, I found a good-sized knot where one man’s fist had connected. I grinned. “I’m feeling more like myself every day.” A thought tickled my mind, chasing the grin from my face. “Except I’m not. I’m different, Alana. I can’t explain it.” I shook my head, trying to make sense of how I felt. “It’s like the more others expect of me, the more I change; yet it’s not like I’m leaving me behind. The me that’s filled with the need for violence and revenge is still there waiting for its chance.”