A Thousand Fires

by Shannon Price

But we still have hours to go.

  Next to me, Kate makes a small noise in her throat. She shifts her gun. Then, out of nowhere, she laughs. “I just remembered what this place is called. It’s the Spreckels Temple of Music.”

  “Really?”

  “I read that somewhere. Spreckels Temple of Music. Spreckels. Like sprinkles.” We both laugh—nervously, desperately. Then she adds, “Hey, Val?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry for how I treated you. I know you were just trying to help.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, reaching over to give her hand a squeeze. She takes it and squeezes right back.

  That’s the last we say for a while. I think about calling Mom and Dad to say goodbye. Or maybe just to hear their voices. I decide not to.

  Micah knew this would happen—me, choosing not to reach out. I didn’t get why he thought that then. I do now. I’ve changed. I don’t want to call home and have my parents realize that for themselves.

  Stars poke out in the dark mantle of night, and I shiver again and again. The flavor of the air changes. Nighttime sets in, and every sound sharpens my senses until I’m a living, breathing X-Acto knife.

  The Boars come first, their figures appearing from behind the museum. I watch as they hurry past a sculpture of three colored figures with their hands over their heads. I spot Adam Yglesias alongside a burly guy who keeps his head down, hood up. Quick, purposeful strides tell me the Boars mean business. Do they want peace, or revenge? Aren’t those our only choices, now? A few of them walk down near Jax, giving him a wide berth.

  I notice the first Heron at the columns. Even in the low light, I recognize Aure’s pale face and fine features. She’s dressed head to toe in black but a white undershirt peeks out at her wrists.

  Matthew appears by her side. He’s dressed just like Aure—as are the five other Herons crowded around them. Matthew says something to Camille, and she shakes her head. Then Aure goes down the steps with the others toward the benches, leaving Matthew with Camille beneath the coffers of the half dome.

  Has Matthew risen in their ranks so fast? Or was Aure demoted because of what happened at Green Apple? I try to think of it like Jax would, and not like I would. Camille is playing to their position and history as a show of strength. To everyone else, Matthew is the next Heron leader, so it’s only natural he be up there.

  Over at the benches, our leader stands up. He stretches and kicks at a loose stone on the ground then goes up and stands across from Matthew and Camille. Jax is grinning but not in a cheerful way. More like a maniacal, you’re-going-down way.

  I find the handle of the gun in the holster around my leg.

  “Wait for the signal,” Kate urges.

  “I know.” But she doesn’t know what Jax and I planned.

  Suddenly, worry for Jax burns in my chest. Jonathan Anthony Wilde—Theresa’s precious baby boy. He’ll be in the middle of it all. What if someone’s coming here with a vendetta against him?

  I take careful breaths as I watch the leaders talk. Kate whispers to wait for the signal, and I nod each time. I wish I’d called home.

  Then something happens.

  Police cars materialize from the roadway, their headlights blinding in the pitch-dark. Oro en paz, fierro en guerra.

  “Oh my god,” Kate says, pulling herself up from the ground. “Val, we’re—”

  “Surrounded.” Caught in the oval bowl of the concourse. Police floodlights come to life with dull pops. The trees around us cast misshapen shadows over the benches. Over me and Kate. Over Jax. They’ll take us all and the Wars will be over, all my chances at revenge for Micah and Leo lost in red tape.

  Without another thought, I sprint toward the platform just as police megaphones tell me what I already know: there’s nowhere to run.

  26

  I don’t know who takes the first shot, but when I fire Ty falls and I stagger at the feeling of a weight being lifted, and a new one crashing down. It’s done. I’m done.

  Jax fires, too, and Camille falls back. Somewhere behind us, a Young Heron shrieks. Matthew dives, shouting as he pulls out a gun, but the Boar next to him lunges forward and punches him hard in the jaw. Another shot rings out, and I swear to God I hear Jax laughing.

  I have to run. I have to run right fucking now.

  The police rush in from the other side of the pavilion. Two officers slam Adam Yglesias down from behind, but the Boar leader screams bloody murder and somehow lands a punch. In the frenzy, I keep my eyes on Matthew as he disappears around the other side of the pavilion.

  I sprint to the left side of the pavilion and bound up the steps to the columns. Garbled sounds from the police megaphones blend with the gunfire. I want to drop my gun and run, but instead I press my free hand into the column. It’s ridged, like a soup can. More stupid little things to notice when you’re about to die.

  Adrenaline thumps through my veins. I can feel it pulsing, feel myself pulsing, radiating. My hands shake and I am dead but so, so alive.

  Someone races up the steps behind me. I turn—but not soon enough. A Young Heron twice my size rounds the other column and slams his fist into my stomach. I choke on my own bile and double over. He yanks the gun from my hand.

  “Fucking Stag!” His spit lands hot on my cheek.

  I shove him forward, but he hardly moves. He lunges at me again and I snap my knee up. He grunts as I hit his groin, but he keeps his grip on me. He slams me against a column. I pivot to do the same to him, but he just laughs. He puts the cold lip of a gun against my side. A shadow materializes from behind him. I give the Young Heron’s arm a final, desperate shove as Jaws shoots.

  But not fast enough. The shot leaves me deaf and the pain leaves me blind.

  Agony. Absolute agony. I look down at my hip and see red.

  “Jaws!” I scream as life rushes from me.

  “Go,” he says, leaning down to pull me back on my feet. I take a few steps toward the safety of the dense trees beyond. He turns back, looking for more Herons or police, and then someone shoots him in the chest.

  I watch his body hit the ground.

  My ears feel stuffed with the densest cotton, ringing at the same time as I stumble backward until I’m in the half-street between the temple and a thicket of trees. There’s a break in the static: someone yelling.

  “Weston!”

  Jax races after Matthew. Their bodies rush deeper into the park, swallowed by the night, by the leaves and woods.

  No! I can’t leave Jax, not now. I find a steady gait somewhere between a fast walk and a jog. My fingers are slick with blood, and the wound sears my side with pain. I can feel it right at my hip—a chunk of my flesh missing—but I can’t stop. Not now.

  Within seconds, I’ve lost them in the shadows cast by the streetlamp ahead. I press on. The footpaths by the main road are easiest to run on, but they’d leave me wholly exposed. I cut across a bed of grass, watching, listening, and begging God to help me find them.

  A gunshot sounds from up ahead toward Stow Lake. I take a few more breaths before I straighten up and hobble toward the sound.

  I hear a car door slam from the street to my left, and I freeze. A band of police cruisers waits in the dark. A cop stands beside the first one, a walkie-talkie in his hand. The lights spin in a dizzy wash of color. Another wailing—an ambulance?—gets closer. I duck into the nearest tangle of foliage. My wound oozes more blood, and I want to lie down, to be still. The chopping of a helicopter sounds from overhead as sweat trickles down my forehead.

  “Over here! Here!” a woman shouts, and I brace myself to be found.

  But she’s not yelling about me. An officer comes into view, her arms tucked under the armpits of a limp body with lithe, pale limbs. The second officer carries the feet. My heart seizes.

  They place Aurelia Saint-Helene on the ground. The first officer shouts for the ambulance then leans down and places two fingers at Aure’s neck. The officer shakes her head.

  The tears are hot on my chee
ks as I take my chance. She was kind, once.

  Turning away from them, I make a beeline for the next row of trees beyond. If I can make it toward Stow Lake, maybe I’ll have gotten away in time.

  Fog descends in weighty clouds as I reach a staircase. The earthy, wet smell of the lake fills my nose. I’m so close. Gripping the railing, I ease myself up as quickly as I dare, but each step is steeper than the last. Sweat drips down my forehead, my chest, my back. Between breaths, I try to listen for sounds of my being followed. I don’t catch any.

  Leaning against the metal bar, I take off my jacket and pull at the thin inner lining until it tears. I grit my teeth and tuck the bundle of fabric between my waistband and my shredded skin. I cry out—but hell, any bandage is better than no bandage. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost. I don’t think I want to.

  The trail splits. I can’t decide left or right so I pick middle—which keeps me in the foliage but means another blast of pain from my side. I suck in a hissing breath and look out onto the glassy surface of Stow Lake.

  Directly ahead, across the water, comes a shout.

  There’s another shout—I’ve been hearing those screams for the past two days.

  “Jax!” Head light and heart reeling, I dart for the path to my right. It’s out in the open, but it’s the quickest way to the falls.

  I take it.

  My footsteps seem to echo in the silence—there’s no other sound, until a matching set of footsteps sounds from my left.

  Someone is running toward me. I take in his height and hair. Even in moonlight, gold is gold.

  Jax throws his arms around me at once. I shake and cry, and my side radiates pain, but here he is. I decide then and there that I love Jax. I love him because Micah loved him, and because he doesn’t say anything as we hold each other. We’re back at the bridge, the two of us, him comforting me. His hand is on the back of my head, the other at my side.

  Jax kisses me, soft and forgiving, and I lean in for a minute before I pull away.

  “Where’s Matthew?” I gasp.

  “Somewhere by the falls,” he says. “I lost him. Stay here. I’ll find that fucker and—”

  “No,” I say. “Let me.” Jax exhales, and the shrill moment stretches. I pull away from him. “He won’t hurt me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. I can do this.”

  He sighs, but nods. I walk closer to the waterfall beyond. The lake’s surface is still, broken only by the insects skittering across its surface. The sirens are still blaring from the concourse, but I can see their light flashing in the distance. I don’t have a lot of time.

  “Matthew?” I call out, keeping my gun at the ready. Silence. “It’s me.”

  I count the beats of my heart. Boom boom, boom boom. Finally—

  He steps out from a wall of calla lilies. I take in his cropped hair, the Heron white of his shirt beneath his jacket. Most of all I take in the gun in his hand, which he doesn’t let go of as he approaches.

  Looking at him, my heartaches outnumber the stars. Neither of us move. I think how far we’ve come from that night at the Young Heron headquarters, where nothing kept us apart. It wasn’t all that long ago yet I feel I’ve changed so much, like every cell in my body has become something different—more driven, more alive. The Stags gave me grounding, gave me a voice. So I use it.

  “Did the Herons kill Micah Obin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Camille put a hit out. It was supposed to be her last move before she went home to Japan.”

  My voice shakes. “Micah was innocent.”

  “He’d been a Stag for years. You think that guy didn’t kill anyone? You think he didn’t ever send someone to the same hospital where we found him?”

  The hospital. Of course. But what hits me hardest is Matthew saying we.

  “That guy was my friend, you asshole. He went to that hospital because he was kind and selfless.”

  Voices shout in the distance. Even without him in my sight, I know Jax is telling me that we’re running out of time.

  “Matthew, we’re getting nowhere.” I keep my eyes on the gun. “I mean, what are we even doing?”

  “What do you want me to say? You’re the one who hasn’t put down her gun.”

  “But what if I did,” I say carefully. “We can both do it.”

  Second pass like years. One. Two. Three.

  Matthew starts to lower his arm. Suddenly, Jax steps out from the bushes behind me, gun raised. “Not so fast, Weston. You people killed my best friend. You killed my brother!”

  Matthew raises his gun again, but his aim is less steady. “It was you we were going for.”

  “Jax,” I say, but he doesn’t look at me. No one in the world exists except him and Matthew, and nothing I can say or do is going to change it.

  “Say his name!” Jax yells.

  “I don’t owe you anything,” Matthew replies. “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t give the order.”

  “You have the goddamn tattoo,” Jax fires back. “You people hurt my girl, you rape this city, and you killed my brother.” His voice is unnatural. Inhuman. Fear and adrenaline keep me upright, but not much else. “I’ll give you three chances to admit it. I want you to fucking own what you did.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Matthew says.

  “That’s one. Say. It.”

  Matthew looks to me. “Val, get away from him.”

  “No,” I reply, putting both my hands out like stop. I move in front of Jax. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “You know it does,” he replies. He looks back at Matthew. “That’s two.”

  Matthew puts a second hand on his gun, steadying himself. “I didn’t do it.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Before I have the chance to protest, Jax lunges and puts his whole body in front of mine. Two shots ring out, like the beats of a heart.

  Then silence.

  27

  Ten years ago I moved into my grandmother’s old house. I hadn’t wanted to leave my school, my friends.

  Then I met a boy, and he was in my class. I met a boy, and we grew up at each other’s sides. I met a boy, and in time I fell in love with him. Our stories were intertwined. I loved that.

  But that story ends here—with rage and a bullet and a broken heart.

  Because Matthew Weston just fired a gun at me, or at Jax, and maybe I’ll never know for sure. But I do know that Jax is clutching his arm as blood spills from between his fingers, and Matthew is on the ground, unmoving.

  Gripping the back of Jax’s sweatshirt, I scream as my ears ring with a blank, high-pitched tone.

  I don’t move until I’m sure it’s over. When I open my eyes, I start to go to Matthew but Jax grabs the side of my head and pulls my forehead to his.

  “What have you done?” I say. Tears slide down my face, onto my lips. Salt and sorrow.

  “I ended it. It’s done.”

  “I have to look at him.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Jax releases my cheek. I take a shaky breath, then look.

  Matthew lies on his side, totally still. I think I can handle the sight but I just can’t and instead I fall to my knees, my body bending into itself. My heart shreds itself in half over and over until there is nothing. The night is so cold.

  “He fired first,” Jax says, crouching beside me.

  “I know,” I reply, but the voice doesn’t feel like my own. This person is empty, and broken. Gently I reach out and try and look at Jax’s arm, but he pulls it back.

  “I have to go now. Give me your gun.”

  When I don’t move, he takes it gingerly from my hands. “Let’s go,” I say.

  “No.” He lifts his good arm and pulls my head close, kissing my forehead. “I have to go, alone.”

  “Jax?”

  “Goodbye, Valerie.” Then he goes.

  I call his name, aware I may be
marking myself to the police. I’m alone, me and Matthew.

  Somehow I make it over to him. Put my head on his chest and wait for the steady beat of his good, good heart even though I know it won’t come. The fabric of my jeans soaks with his blood.

  I am gutted.

  I do not know how long it takes them to find me, and I don’t know how they do. Mako lifts me like I’m dead, and I smell Kate’s perfume as she checks my pulse.

  The godless heathens leave the dead and take me home.

  EPILOGUE

  Gravel crunches under my feet as I walk toward the house. Barking carries into the cool, pine-filled air.

  A woman opens the front door. She’s in an oversized sweatshirt and jeans. I pull out my ponytail and let my hair cover my neck. Just in case.

  “Hi,” I call out. “Are you Leah? We spoke on the phone. I’m Valerie.”

  Leah shakes my hand. “Good to meet you. Find the place all right?”

  “Yes, the directions you gave were perfect. Thank you.”

  She leads me through the house and into an expansive backyard. The dogs swarm me, sniffing and nosing my hands. Leah points to a smaller pen where the puppies are kept.

  “There are three males and two females up for sale. You were looking for a male, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  The puppies are so adorable it hurts. They bounce around the yard, yipping and following one another. Leah catches my smile.

  “Yeah, they’re cute as buttons. Great parents, too. AKC certified, both of them. Let’s see—the ones with purple, green, and yellow ribbons are males.”

  Yellow catches my eye first. He’s a feisty one that never stops moving. Purple joins him, and they yap and skip with each other a while. Two of their sisters—Pink and Red—join in on the fun.

  The last of the puppies whines by the door of their shed, his nose poking into the air. It’s a short step, maybe five inches, down to the dirt. He sticks out a paw tentatively. He waggles it around a moment then tumbles forward. Green gets up quickly and scampers toward his siblings.

  Leah lets me wander around the pen, picking up and snuggling with each, but Green’s won my heart. He squirms in my arms and I wince—the scar in my side isn’t quite done healing—as Leah gets out the paperwork. I sign my name, pay her the adoption fee, and head out to the car.