Wally fell onto the bar stool and put his head in his hands. He felt too old for this job, which was ridiculous, since he was only twenty-six. He knew men in their sixties who were still going at it—granted, not many, but they existed.
"What can I get ya' sugar." said the bartender, a middle-aged, dark-haired woman with tattoos covering both her arms and no emotions written in her expression.
"Nothing, sorry." he looked up at her with a smile that wiped away every trace of doubt and exhaustion from the corners of his face. "I only came in for a bit of shade." It was a convincing lie, as his shirt was completely saturated with sweat from the sweltering sun outside. "If I'm a nuisance, I'll leave."
The woman looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, assessing him, and then said, "I'll get you some water."
Wally gave her a grateful look before she turned away again, then he went back to brooding. Sometimes he thought he wasn't cut out for the field. He had started out at nineteen working in the labs with the other scientists on wonderfully innovative technologies of defense, but four years ago someone had glanced at his file and seen something that changed his entire career with the company—he had been nationally ranked in high school track. Normally, such a thing meant very little—all the field agents were extraordinary in some way athletically, it's usually how they got involved with the company in the first place. The problem was that he wasn't a field agent.
"Here you go, just what the doc ordered." the bartender said, setting a sweating glass of water down in front of him. He smiled at her again, and she nodded in welcome before walking away. He gulped the water down in seconds and then settled in to chomp on the ice cubes.
He remembered the first day they inquired about his high school track career. Some stiff higher-ups in trim black suits had come into the lab to speak with his supervisor. No one knew what they were doing there; the sight was either very bad or very good, and it made everyone anxious. They pulled him out of the lab and took him to a training facility he didn't normally have clearance to use, one with a full track and every possible convenience. Then they told him to run.
He was out of ice. He stared at the empty glass for a moment before standing up and reaching for his wallet.
"Don't bother, sugar." the bartender said, waving him off.
"I'm not in the habit of accepting favors." Wally replied, smiling, before setting some bills on the counter and placing the glass on top of them. Then he sauntered out the door into the crippling heat and pounding sunshine.
This island, though quite notorious for being the retirement home of many an international criminal, was one of the most peaceful he had ever set foot on. No one had any quarrels with anyone else, and everyone had money—it was the perfect setup. It was beautiful too. White beaches and brick roads, mortar-washed houses and yachts on the horizon. It was a twenty-minute ride to the mainland, the perfect distance for commerce but never trouble. The government knew, of course, but would never do anything for fear of what would happen to them in return. Wally didn't have much of an opinion on it one way or the other, he was just here to do his job.
Training for the field was hardly a walk in the park. The ability to run fast only helped with a portion of the skills required to be a decent agent. They had put him through combat training and rifle training and software hacking and so many simulations that his head hurt to remember them. He was a quick learner but a terrible marksman-he preferred hand-to-hand combat. It had taken weeks of simulations to repress his preference for flight over fight, but eventually he got the hang of it.
As he turned left and began to walk down a shady alleyway, there suddenly came the piercing sound of a siren whirring down the street behind him and he turned to look as a fire truck flew past. Were this his home city, he would feel a bit of curiosity and then dismiss the spectacle altogether, but on this tiny island such a sight was rare and important. So instead of cutting through the alley to his hotel, he turned and slipped back into the bar and asked the bartender what was going on.
"I just got a call about that. There's a fire up at the Crock mansion, whole thing's gone up in flames, apparently. They didn't say why." she shrugged.
"Crock?" Wally asked, sounding the unfamiliar name out to see if it fit anything he was supposed to be looking into while he was here.
"Old family money, rumor is they got into the diamond trade about two hundred years back and have been sittin' pretty ever since." Wally could tell she was lying because everyone on this island lied about the origins of money, but he didn't bother pressing her about the truth because he was more curious about why someone would set fire to a house on an island like this. He thanked her again and left.
He could still hear the sirens, so he followed his ears, running up the street and over the crest of a hill. There, from this vantage point, he could plainly see the house in question. It was a sickening sight. The entire thing was a blob of orange and grey billowing upward into the darkening sky. The firemen had just made it and were pumping the building with as much water as they possibly could, but Wally knew they wouldn't be able to save the house. Squinting, he watched one of the firemen hold back a woman who was trying to get back toward the flames. She was yelling and kicking with such force that the fireman had to call for backup, forcing another of the firemen to put down his water hose. She didn't seem to realize that she was hindering them so much.
Wally didn't think. If he thought, he wouldn't do it. If he so much as paused to consider how many company rules he was breaking he would turn around and walk away.
But he knew he would regret it.
He ran toward the burning house.
The woman was younger than he had thought from a distance—and stronger, apparently, because he could have sworn she was winning her battle with the two larger firemen. Her very long blonde hair was coming loose from its binding and her eyes were wide with horror and a kind of desperation that made his heart sink. They tried to corral her as she screamed relentlessly at the flames; she was screaming for her mother.
Wally paused only briefly to catch her gaze, stilling her efforts to escape. He knew she saw the intent in them because all at once she burst into body-wracking sobs and sank to the ground. In the next instant, Wally had turned toward the flames and broken into a run. The firemen shouted behind him, but he was too fast and wasn't listening. His heart was pounding in his chest, pumping adrenaline through his bloodstream, from his feet to his brain and back again. This was crazy dangerous, but for some reason he knew that this was the greatest moment of his life.
Seconds later he disappeared into a wall of smoke.
Artemis fell into the plastic chair and put her head in her hands. She was too young for this—too young to be sitting in a hospital room next to the unmoving body of her mother. What would Jade say if she could see her now? She'd probably laugh, because that's what Jade usually did.
"How are you?"
Slowly, she looked up at him, at his bright red hair and sharp green eyes and blank expression—it was silly how grateful she was to this stranger. Her heart swelled just to sit in his presence. If he hadn't come when he did, her mother would be dead. He had saved so much more than he could ever dare to guess.
"Hello." she began, standing shakily.
"Hello." he replied, crossing his arms.
She held back. What else was there to do? They didn't know each other. She wasn't sure that was what she wanted. Is that what he wanted?
Stop it, she told herself sternly.
"Thank you," she blurted suddenly, then shied away again, wringing her hands. "Thank you for rescuing her. The fact that you risked your life...I can never repay you for that." She sniffled and walked closer to the bed to take her mother's still hand. "That house and my mother are all I have here on this island. Houses can be rebuilt, but if she was gone...I'd—" her voice broke as her eyes filled with tears.
"Stop," the man said, but gently, not harshly. She understood. He was telling her to be strong. Another day, in another situation, having someone question her strength would've made her want to rip their head off, but right at this moment she was able to appreciate the advice.
Sniffing again, she shuffled back to the chair and slid into it, wiping her cheeks off with the back of her hand. She hated crying—"the overflow of weakness" as her father had once so eloquently put it—but today was a special circumstance and she was sure that if she could just cry a little she would be able to suffer the rest in silence.
"Here," she heard the man say, and she looked up at him. "Drink this."
He was holding a styrofoam cup filled with ice water out to her like an olive branch, his his eyes searching her own.
Silently she nodded her thanks and accepted the offering, feeling irrationally guilty. The resentment of pity and charity and debt was something rooted very deep within her. Even though she could tell herself to accept help from others, she still couldn't tell herself to feel happy about it. Here she was, a weapon from birth, sitting crying in a hospital room next to her unconscious mother, accepting help from a stranger and feeling like the lowest form of life for it.
Oh, how she hated this about herself. What was worse, perhaps, was the way she knew why she was like this. Her father's training had never been reasonable, but that didn't mean it wasn't effective, even if she had refused him in the end. It had been conditioning more than training, really, because he didn't just teach her how to fight—he taught her how not to feel, how to turn off her humanity, how to loathe things that were right and good about the world. If she had never met Green, she would probably have ended up worse off than her sister.
Stop it, she told herself again, and took a drink. The faint tinge of salt on her lips brought her back to reality.
"What are the doctors saying?" the man asked, somewhat causally, after a minute of silence.
Artemis took a deep breath. "She will never walk again—all the muscle and tissue damage...They almost had to amputate, but held off. I don't know if that's better or worse, but she still hasn't woken up." She took another gulp of water.
"I'm sorry." he said uselessly, and she could hear a faint trace of vulnerability in his voice, one he probably didn't want there. A normal person probably wouldn't have picked up on it.
"Not your fault." she shrugged him off without mentioning it.
The next few moments of silence were spent with each of them looking anywhere but at each other. Then the nurse walked back into the room.
"Ms. Crock?" she said gently, glancing between her and the man with an uncertain expression.
"Yes?" Artemis answered.
"I'm so sorry, miss, but we can't allow you to stay here tonight." To her credit, the nurse really did seem sincere in her apology. This must've been an issue before.
Artemis nodded in understanding and stood again, walking to the bedside and leaning down to kiss her mother on the forehead before exiting the room. The man followed behind her and the nurse shut the door. She stared at it for a moment, at the simple wooden texture on the surface, the lack of reinforcements. The logical part of her knew her mother would be safe here, in this hospital, for one night at least, but the attack on their home had been unpredictable, and even though she didn't think another was imminent the emotional side of her was still going to worry all night.
"Do you have somewhere to stay?" the man asked when they were alone in the emergency waiting room. Artemis searched his face for some tell-tale emotion, wondering why he wanted to know, before remembering that, of course, her house had just burned down and he had watched it happen; he had risked his life for them, it wasn't too far of a stretch to imagine he might be worried that she was out on the streets for the night.
Hesitantly, her mind already formulating a plan, she said, "I have to make a call."