A Thousand Fires

by Shannon Price

  “Community. Engagement. Fucking Herons,” he says. “They’ve finally done it.”

  “What?”

  “Valentine, this is the ultimate PR move. Think of how highly people will sing the praises of the tech-heads who end the Wars by giving gang members a…” He pauses, rereading the letter. “A second chance at life.”

  That doesn’t sound so bad, I think, but I’m not about to say that in front of Jax.

  He stuffs the paper in his pocket, eyes clouded with disgust. “This shit’s not new. Rehab programs, mental health services. If this happens, then the Herons win it all. The Boars and the Stags will be locked away, while the Young Herons are quietly shipped back to Orange County or Marin or whatever rich fucking place they came from. The Old Herons will continue to make the city a tech playground and push everyone else out. Here. Take it back.”

  I do, silently hoping for more. No “Thanks for the info” or “Good to get ahead of this”?

  He yawns, stretching his arms high. He swoops them back down again and shakes his head. “Fucking Herons.” Jax looks back at me, as if remembering I’m there. “Go … go do something, Valentine. I need to be alone.”

  I leave Jax to his storm, uncertainty welling up in my stomach. Stepping down the stairs, each one seems to creak louder than I remember, as if echoing the mess of thoughts in my head.

  It’s scary to have been spared any punishment. I don’t know what I was expecting—some brutal hazing, another tattoo that said LIAR on my forehead … or any of the myriad other thoughts I’ve had about Jax and me. It’s not like Jax to be alone. What is going through his mind? Would anyone know, maybe Micah? He said they’re pacifists. I thought maybe the TRUCE program would be welcome news, a stepping stone to getting me to the Boar that killed Leo.

  But Jax is Jax, and he wants to do this his way, and no other. He wants to be remembered for what he does with his life, I think, recalling what he told me that night we made the truce with the Boars. That must mean doing things his way.

  I’m standing on the shore with forward as my only option, no ships to bring me home. I can’t run again—Jax would find me—and I have to stay, really stay and be in this. That’s the only choice. One step at a time.

  Forward, into a black fate.

  15

  Jax gives everyone more cash except me. I keep my mouth shut, knowing it’s because I snuck out.

  Still, I already have more than enough to mail gifts home, but even then, not being with my parents at Christmastime is almost unbearable. It’s always been my favorite holiday—not so much for the gifts but for the warm feelings, glittering light, and opportunities to bake. But the best part, hands down, is Filipino breakfast on Christmas morning. Even my eat-a-salad-every-day dad can’t resist salty pork longanisa, sweet tocino, fluffy scrambled eggs, and fresh white rice.

  I try not to think of my parents on Christmas morning: just the two of them, with no reasons to celebrate. Instead I get a gingerbread cookie dough going and set to work. While the cookies are in the oven, I string the Christmas lights from my bedroom around the kitchen, then go back to prepping the cookies. Nianna’s steps sound on the creaky floorboards just as I finish the last one.

  She rounds the corner and jumps back. “You scared the shit outta me.”

  “Merry Christmas?” I reply, and we both laugh. She spots the cookies.

  “Is that … us?”

  Seven gingerbread men lie on their plates. The icing is melting a little since I didn’t leave them long enough to cool, but Nianna still recognizes hers and picks it up. “My bandana,” she says. Pointing to Micah’s, she laughs. “Oh my god, you did all his tattoos.”

  “Yep. Oh, and I made coffee.”

  She takes the mug I offer her. “Kate’s going to freak out,” she says, which I know well enough now to mean, Thank you, this is nice.

  Kate does, indeed, freak out.

  “Oh. My. God. Look at my icing hair!” she brags once we’re all awake, indicating the long yellow hair. “I have the most icing. Ha!”

  “I don’t know,” Micah says. He’s already eaten parts of his but motions to its arms. “I think I won.”

  “Glad you guys like ’em,” I say, happily eating my own.

  “How’d you get so good at this?” Kate asks.

  “Um,” I reply, thinking. “There was this one summer, I think after my freshman year, that my family didn’t go on any vacations or anything. So I was bored and watched a ton of baking shows on Food Network, then started looking up recipes online.” I shrug. “The rest is history.”

  Mako finishes his and beams. “Sweet, delicious history.”

  Jaws declines his—surprise, surprise—but I like to think he was touched, too. Jax and Micah try and make the cookies high-five, leaving the rest of us in hysterics and part of Micah’s cookie on the floor after the arm snaps. As I try to keep coffee from coming out of my nose, I even catch Nianna taking a picture of hers on her phone before eating it.

  I sip my coffee, heart high. Looking after the Stags makes me feel like a big sister again. I feel like me, like the old Valerie. It’s enough to make me forget that I’m away from home on Christmas for the first time. Well, almost.

  As the others break to find a cheesy movie on TV, I quickly get started on the dishes. Jax comes up to me and hugs me from behind. He kisses my cheek, fingers lingering on my shoulders as he pulls away.

  “Merry Christmas, Valentine,” he says. “Thank you.”

  “Sure,” I say, swallowing quickly to hide my surprise. The spot on my cheek where his lips met my skin feels like a new tattoo radiating with heat. “You want to help me with the dishes?”

  “What’s that? Oh, Micah’s calling me,” he says, leaning back and motioning toward the living room.

  “You suck.”

  “Kidding, Valentine. Here.” He doesn’t help with the washing, but he does help load the extra mugs into the dishwasher, and I consider that a victory.

  We order Chinese food from Micah’s favorite place down the street and watch A Christmas Story on TBS. By the afternoon, we’re boozy and sleepy and full of chow mein. While Jax and Micah square off in beer pong against Kate and Mako, Nianna and I flip through channels.

  I watch the group of them together. Nianna says Mako and Micah both admire Jax—Micah for his self-confidence and Mako for his recklessness. Given what Mako told me about living with his family, I can see why he’d admire Jax’s wild, devil-may-care attitude. But Micah? He seems to be sure of himself in a way that I wish I was. Then again, Micah and Jax have been friends for ages—there must be something to their relationship that I can’t pick up on yet.

  I guess I can believe that—from appearances alone, Lyla and I seem like polar opposites, with her wardrobe of oversized tees and my simple but more polished style. But when your first interaction was standing in line next to each other on the first day of kindergarten (our moms have the pictures to prove it) and you haven’t been separated since, you know a thing or two—or two thousand—about each other.

  I wonder what Nianna sees in Jax. He’s enigmatic, for sure. Proud, as if the universe tips and tilts with the angle of his hand. I guess there’s a lot I can’t figure out about Nianna yet either. Which reminds me …

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” I say to Nianna. She and I have avoided each other since our fight, but she seems happy enough now. “Why were you such a bitch to me the first time we met?”

  Her eyes go wide. “What are you talking about?”

  “Seriously! The whole ‘gut me like a fish’ thing,” I say. “What was that about?”

  “Come on, Val. Can’t I enjoy a little hazing?” she replies, sipping her wine. “If it helps, I said as much to Kate when she arrived.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why,” she replies. “Brianna. Don’t want history to repeat itself.”

  I finish my wine. “Did she like him back?”

  She shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t know. The way Micah describe
s her, she doesn’t exactly strike me as a stable person.”

  “Huh. I haven’t talked to Micah about her.”

  “You should,” she replies. “I’d talk to him over Jax. They both cared about her, in their own way.”

  In their own way. Jax is the type to burn hot or cold at the drop of a hat, but Micah’s relationship with Jax tells me he knows how to endure.

  I look over at the guys in question, all high fives and bro hugs each time one of them lands a Ping-Pong ball in a cup. Micah steps back as Jax takes his shot, looking as contented as I’ve ever seen a person. He rolls his eyes at Jax’s preshot ritual of raising the ball, and Micah catches me staring. I give a little wave, which he returns. Jax sinks the shot, winning the game, and the solace is broken but I lean into it all. Leaning in means less missing home, less missing Matthew. It gets me closer to the guy who killed Leo.

  I close my eyes and settle into this moment, like Micah did just now. You’re here, Valerie, and you’re alive.

  And today, that’s enough to get me through.

  * * *

  The next morning, I wake to a symphony of squeaks on the garage stairs, and the sound of Jax calling my name. “Valentine, wake up!”

  “Whaaat?” I say, blinking out of sleep. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m having something delivered,” he said. “We gotta move your bed, though.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I roll out of bed and immediately pull on socks and a sweatshirt to fight the cold. “This better be good.”

  A few hours and a quick rearranging of the garage later, I have my answer. They bought a pool table.

  Micah and I stand outside by the hydrangeas as the workmen unload it. I’m still in my pajamas and socks, my second coffee in hand.

  “Were you a part of this?” I ask as I sip.

  “I wasn’t not a part of it.”

  “You suck.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  The workers set up the table in the garage. Our leader gives them a generous tip and calls for Micah to play him. After watching for a few minutes and pretending I know anything about billiards, I head back upstairs, phone in hand. I couldn’t bear calling my parents on Christmas, but the day after I can. Going through the living room, I slide open the door to Holloway’s tiny backyard.

  The plants are dewy from the night before and a soothing, earthy smell hangs over the garden like a canopy. Phone in one hand, I dial home while idly pinching the cool leaves of the fern next to me. Mom answers right away.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she says, her voice small. “Merry late Christmas.”

  “Merry late Christmas,” I tell her. “How are you? Everything … good?” Any suspicious sounds? Any Herons following you, who, I don’t know, might be looking to hurt you?

  “Oh, we’re fine. Had a quiet holiday. Oh, Peter. It’s Val. Let me put it on speaker.”

  My dad jumps on, and I wish him Merry Christmas, too.

  “Did you have any tocino?” I ask.

  A pause. “Yes,” he replies, and I get the sense he’s smiling.

  Mom jumps back on. “Your dad ate a lot of it. He always says he won’t.”

  “And he always does,” I reply. It’s as much a tradition as getting a damn tree.

  We make small talk, and I smile just listening.

  “Well, I was just calling to say hi,” I say, sniffling. “I love you guys.”

  “We love you, too,” Mom replies. “Val, please come home.”

  “I can’t.” We have this conversation every call. “Not yet.”

  “I … Just keep calling, then. I need to know you’re okay.”

  “Okay. I love you.” Can’t hurt to say it twice.

  “Oh, wait. Before you go. Alex came by.”

  “Alex … Weston?”

  “Of course Alex Weston, baby. Who else?”

  “What did he want?”

  “Oh, he’s been stopping by every week or so. He and your dad watch the Warriors games. He has a fiancée, did you know that? He showed me her picture on his phone. Pretty girl, works at the hospital.”

  “Mom.”

  “Sorry. He had a late birthday gift for you is all. He ordered it online and it took this long to get here. Anyway. I told him … well, I told him I’d hang on to it.”

  My mind spins. Alex Weston has a gift for me.

  Matthew. Matthew sent him.

  “Um, hey, Dad? Can you bring it to work with you, and leave it with the receptionist downstairs? That … should be allowed.”

  “I’m sure it’s not important,” he says.

  Oh, and I’m quite sure it is. “Still, is that okay?”

  He sighs. “Yes, honey. I’ll bring it.”

  “Okay, thank you. Mahal kita.”

  “Mahal kita,” Mom replies.

  I hang up and take a breath of chilly morning air. Whatever Alex Weston has for me, it’s not nothing, and that gut feeling tells me Nianna wasn’t totally right when she yelled at me the other day. Because if I truly didn’t understand that I was a Stag, I wouldn’t be so nervous to find out what his gift is.

  I wouldn’t be so scared that I’m falling right into a Heron trap.

  16

  The New Year arrives, fresh and full of possibility. As planned, Jax sends a message to the Young Herons asking for peace. They don’t send anything back.

  Dad’s offices, closed for the holidays, finally reopen on January third, and I convince Jax to let me go on a run. Or, at least that’s where I say I’m going.

  Instead, I take an early train into downtown, watching my phone’s clock the whole way. I need to be back as soon as possible, before Jax gets suspicious and looks up where I am. Fortunately, he seemed pretty tired at breakfast, and I hope he went back to bed.

  Weary-eyed people jostle into the train car, sending the temperature rising even in the winter mist. By the time we’re approaching downtown, I’m sweating buckets under my layers.

  Dad better have remembered the gift. Alex isn’t an active Heron anymore, so he couldn’t give me anything dangerous. I think. Before I joined, I thought past members couldn’t interfere with Wars business at all. God, that was naive. I see now the gangs are larger than I’d thought, more far-reaching, and the old members must lend a hand.

  Then again, this is the same Alex who used to play-shove Matthew during family barbecues and who more than once offered to buy us booze. He went through Mom, for crying out loud. That had to mean it was safe, right?

  I reach Montgomery and slide into the exodus of commuters. I take an escalator to the street and my sweaty self is immediately met by cool air. Ahh. I practically raise my hands in joy. How people do that hellish ride every day, I have no idea.

  Cars and buses power up Market as I walk toward Dad’s office. I move through the crowd—a mixed bag of tech workers with badges bouncing at their hips, stockbroker-types yelling into their phones, and slow-walking tourists who are pretty sure they got off at the right BART stop. I break through and fall into stride with a pair of normal-looking natives like me, moving ahead of the rest. That’s the way we roll in SF—look straight, move fast, and mind your own damn business.

  The building is an imposing structure of dark stone and black windows; in my workout top, leggings, and hot pink shoes, I’m way underdressed, but Jax had to think I was going on a run.

  A sweet-faced girl greets me as I walk in. “Welcome to Monarch and Abbot. Can I help you?”

  “Hi.” I brush my hair down to make sure my tattoo is hidden. “I’m here to pick up something. My dad was supposed to have left it. His name is Peter Simons.”

  The girl frowns and starts opening and closing drawers, and my panic spikes. Did Dad forget?

  A second receptionist catches my eye. She moves the phone from her ear to her chest. “I have it here.” She slides open a shallow drawer, and sure enough, there’s a small box wrapped in purple paper. “He just came by.”

  Just came by. I’ve been worryi
ng so much about Mom that I haven’t taken a lot of time to think about Dad. It would have been so nice to see him, even from a distance …

  She hands the box to me, and I immediately want to sob at the sight of my father’s handwriting. VALERIE. Big letters. Lopsided heart.

  “Thank you,” I tell them and hustle out of the building. Finding a spot outside, I rip open the paper. My name is there again, but this time in the hard, black ink of a computer:

  Val,

  If Jax finds this, he’ll kill you.

  —Alex

  The box alone tells me what it is. I lift the lid and the phone’s screen reflects my anxious face back to me.

  Hands shaking, I press the power button and wait the fifteen or so seconds it takes to boot up. “Come on, come on.”

  The screensaver is generic, but that’s not even close to what matters. Under Contacts is a single phone number. I hit dial.

  Matthew picks up on the third ring.

  “Happy belated birthday.”

  * * *

  Matthew couldn’t talk long—something about a meeting—but he told me to call again tonight. Hearing his voice again reminded me of how he worked to keep me out of the Young Herons. On the night we were recruited, he already knew I wasn’t getting in but didn’t tell me.

  It’s one thing to know he lied by not telling me, it’s another that he broke a promise made in my brother’s spirit. He loved Leo, too. He knew what a double pinky promise meant.

  When I get back to Holloway, I rough up my hair and do my best to make it look like I at least went walking, if not running. First thing I’ve got to do is hide Matthew’s phone. Everything else is second.

  That plan changes once I walk in. Everyone, even Jaws, is gathered at the table. A newspaper is spread out in front of them.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “A Boar safe house got raided and a bunch of them were arrested,” Kate says, a lock of hair wrapped tightly around her index finger. “Like, a lot.”

  “How many?” I ask.