Sapphire Flames
Alessandro backed Celia against the pavement roller and sliced the chain saw across her stomach. A horrible scream tore out of Celia. She threw herself at him, and the sheer weight of her took Alessandro off his feet. He fell, buried under her bleeding body.
No! I ran like I’d never run before in my whole life.
She opened her mouth and aimed for his face.
I drove my gladius into her neck. The sword slid into flesh and found bone.
Boom!
Bullets tore out of the back of her skull. Bone and brain exploded, spraying me.
I yanked the gladius out and brought it back down with everything I had. The blade carved through reinforced vertebrae. Celia jerked and collapsed. Who is your pretty little lamb now?
I dropped to my knees. “Alessandro?”
Please be alive, please be alive . . .
Celia’s body shuddered, rose, and Alessandro heaved it aside, pulling a Smith & Wesson 460XVR revolver out of her mouth. He stared at the massive gun’s fourteen-inch barrel and then looked at me, his eyes incredulous.
“It’s a hunting revolver.” I slumped back. “It’s for big game hunting.”
“Texas,” Alessandro said, loading a state’s worth of meaning into a single word.
The Alfa still worked. It wasn’t as fast or as smooth, and riding without a windshield in a tiny seat with every bump jabbing a spike of pain through my hip was a new kind of torture, but we made it off the exit onto Frontage Road.
I hugged the dog to me with one hand and dialed our lawyer with the other. Sabrian listened to my recap without a word.
“Any injured civilians?”
“Not that we know of.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m on it. I’ll be emailing you documents. Read, print, sign, scan, email back, get the originals to me by courier, today.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, just be on time with papers and payment.”
I hung up.
Next to me, Alessandro drove as if we were enjoying a pleasant excursion on the Pacific Coast Highway, winding our way through picturesque hills with a blue ocean on our side. A relaxed smile played on his lips.
“What are you so happy about?”
“We’re alive. I told you it would work.”
“Your car is ruined.”
“It’s just a car. It’s replaceable. You’re not.”
What did it mean? Why did he even care? He saw me for fifteen minutes during the trials, then for another fifteen minutes when he showed up asking me to go for a drive, and then we hadn’t spoken for three years.
“How are you involved in this?”
The smile died. It was like the sun being turned off. I felt like a moment of silence was in order.
“Not that again,” he said.
“Yes, again. I have to find Halle.”
“What part of ‘drop it’ don’t you understand?”
“The part where you keep interfering with my investigation and shooting people I need to interrogate.”
“Interrogate? I must not understand the meaning of that word, because from where I’m sitting, you blunder around asking people questions until they try to kill you.”
Oh, you ass.
“You haven’t even thanked me for the elephant. When someone saves your life, you’re supposed to be grateful. Do they have laws against expressing gratitude here?”
Argh. “Thank you so much, Alessandro, for providing help I didn’t need. I so appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule of Instagram posing and luxury car wrecking to murder every person who could conceivably shed some light on this investigation. Thank you ever, ever so much.”
We glared at each other.
He raised his eyebrows. “Wait, I know. Since you insist on doing the opposite of what I tell you, let’s try this. Don’t stay home, Catalina. Don’t drop this case. Don’t stay safe. Is it working? Please tell me it’s working.”
“God, you are an asshole.” It just kind of came out.
Alessandro drew back. “Such a dirty mouth. Oh, the possibilities.”
“You have no possibilities with my mouth! Nobody has any possibilities with my mouth!” I did not just say that.
He laughed. He laughed at me.
“Halle’s seventeen, Alessandro. She’s innocent. Whatever her mother did or didn’t do, she shouldn’t be paying the price for it. Tell me what’s going on so I can find her. Don’t you have any compassion at all?”
“The sooner you realize that I’ll tell you nothing, the easier it will be. Give up, Catalina. It’s being handled.”
He turned onto our street.
“Stop the car.”
The Alfa slid to a stop with a metallic groan. I unbuckled my seat belt.
“Catalina, let me take you to the door. I know your leg hurts.”
I climbed out of the car clutching my dog and my sword.
“Don’t be a hero,” he called.
I wished I had a free hand so I could flip him off. I marched toward the security booth, grimly determined to not limp.
“Hey,” he shouted. “At least we finally had our drive.”
“Drop dead.”
I marched to the booth, the grinding noise of the Alfa driving away receding behind me.
The two guards in the booth stared at me. I saw my reflection in the glass as I passed them. Most of me was covered with a uniform layer of dirt and dust from lying on the floor of the mall. Blood splattered my face, my neck, and my white turtleneck. Bits of Celia’s skull and brains hung in my hair. Two bullet holes punctured my coat, right in the middle of the chest and a little to the left.
Terrific. Just terrific.
The dirty, matted dog whined softly in my arms.
“I know, right?” Some pair we made.
If I walked like this through the front door, my family would suffer a collective apoplexy. I needed to clean myself up. My best bet would be to go through the motor pool, at least wash my face and hands, and then try to sneak upstairs to my room. That meant circling the warehouse.
I turned into the narrow space between the warehouse and a concrete wall separating it from the next parking lot and limped on.
Ow. Ow.
I never quite realized how large our place was.
Ow.
Did we really need a warehouse this big?
The little dog whined again, overcome with some sort of canine sadness.
“Shh. You’ll blow our cover.”
I finally turned the corner. The huge industrial bay doors stood open and the motor pool inside seemed deserted. Everything was in its regular place: Brick and Romeo, Grandma’s pet tank, covered with tarps, the armored Humvee we used for dangerous jobs, and Grandma’s latest commission, a medium-size track vehicle waiting in the middle of the floor.
A lopsided tangle of blue yarn on circular needles lay on the worktable. Nevada once told Grandma Frida that other grandmas knitted things for their grandchildren. Ever since then she made valiant efforts to knit presents for each of us, and the current Gordian knot was supposed to be my sweater. Usually she took it with her when she was done for the day.
I stopped and listened. The motor pool lay silent. Nothing moved. The coast was clear.
Maybe Grandma Frida had run inside to use the bathroom.
I limped through the doors and headed toward the sink. Grandma Frida chose that moment to jump out of a track vehicle’s cab. She stared at me, her blue eyes widening.
I had to distract her, quick. “The Honda might be totaled, but I left two Guardians without drivers at Keystone Mall. They’re all yours, just don’t forget to disable their GPS . . .”
Grandma Frida walked past me and pressed the intercom.
“Please, please don’t,” I begged.
My grandmother mashed the intercom button. “Penelope, the baby is hurt.”
I wasn’t a baby. I was twenty-one years old, but it didn’t matter. To Grandma Frida all three of us would always remain babies. “I said please.”
Grandma’s eyes held no mercy. “She’s got two bullet holes in her coat and someone’s brains in her hair. Come quick.”
Damn it.
The world was full of interesting words used to describe complicated things. There was tartle, a Scottish word for the panicked pause you experience when you have to introduce someone, but you don’t remember their name. There was backpafeifengesicht, a German term for a face you’d love to punch. There was gigil, a Filipino word for the urge to squeeze an item because it is unbearably cute.
I didn’t know if there was a word for the whirlwind my very upset family created while they tried to treat my wounds, clean me up, and interrogate me all at the same time while talking over each other, but if there was one, I would definitely have to learn it. I refused to answer any questions until after they let me shower. My demand was met with howls of protest, but I held firm in the face of adversity, and when Bug conveniently sent the drone video of our fight with Celia, the family surrendered and released me so they could watch it.
The little dog was a girl. It took fifteen minutes of strategic mat cutting to reveal that fact. After I trimmed the worst of her fur, I had taken her into the shower with me. At first, she cowered in the corner, but by the end of it, she decided bath time wasn’t so bad. The water that ran off her on the first rinse was black and smelled like a sewer. I had to shampoo her with Dawn dish soap twice.