09-. Seeking Safety

After finishing her ice cream cone and with a slow but steady pace, enjoying to the fullest her last day off from work and with it, her last walk around town, Ronalda Manzano returned home. But when she entered the old apartment she was greeted only by a tense silence. The television, at color and recently bought at Mr. Nakamura's thrift store, was forgotten and turned off in its corner; with her husband, and surprisingly also her stepson, sitting very straight and still in front of the wooden TV.

"Roberto, what are you doing here? Did your gringa kick you out again or what?" There were no words of welcome for the matriarch or any kind of answer to her questions, Roberto, the young man only responded with a slight negative nod of his head. "Oh I see... so... Do you two know that to watch TV you have to turn it on first, or has that bullshit rotted your brains so much that you can't even do something so simple?" She commented between loud laughter, laughter that surely could be heard even from the street.

Perhaps the most sensible thing to do in a tense atmosphere such as that of the last few months would have been to adopt a more reserved and sensitive attitude when she got home, but the few sunny months that the northern country offered always put her in a good mood, and the few times Ronalda was in a good mood her serious and focused attitude turned into that of a teasing and coarse girl. After all, it was the middle of summer, the work days weren't so hard and the weather was wonderful, why not relax and enjoy herself a little? Of course, she knew what prevented her husband and son from having a good attitude and mood, and even if she hated to admit it, maybe she was the one who resented Rosa's immature decision the most...

This time she needed more than just shaking her head from side to side to get that painful thought out of her mind, she needed to distract herself urgently "You know? I'm kind of craving a popsicle... but I guess neither of us is going to want one," if either of them said anything back, she didn't stay in the room long enough to find out.

A few minutes passed, enough for Ronalda to gulp down three of the four popsicles in the freezer when the front doorbell rang... and in less than an instant the woman was already at the door, anxiously opening it wide. A voice in her head told her who had been ringing since before she could even peek her head out to the street and in doing so, it simply confirmed her longings: Rosa was standing in front of her.

The girl looked taller and a little thinner than her mother remembered her, but that didn't matter in the least to the older Latina woman, her daughter had returned home after almost two years of running away... and she would happily let her come back if the girl would apologize to her for worrying her so much.

In an uncharacteristic impulse, Ronalda pushed forward to embrace her daughter, but her arms never wrapped around her daughter's shoulders because both women were separated by a small object, a stroller.

Three seconds of silence were necessary for poor Ronalda's mind to understand that her daughter was not standing in front of her door alone. With her mouth as wide open as her eyes, she could only stare at the contents of the little pram, protected by some sheets.

"Hello, mother..." There was no response of any kind, all the woman's attention had been drawn to the baby inside the carriage. "Ehm... do you think... we can go inside?" Seeing how her mother didn't react, Rosa went on talking, "I'd already asked Roberto to let you know I was coming to visit today, didn't he say anything?"

Frowning slightly as she understood the reason for the men's tense attitude inside the house and without a word, the woman stepped aside, allowing her daughter to push the stroller through the door. Reacting at last, merely frowning even more deeply, Ronalda slammed the door shut.

Once inside the house, both Rosa and her mother didn't say another word to each other, just standing still in the middle of the room. Without the matriarch noticing, both men, her husband and stepson got up from the couch and placed themselves between her and the newly arrived woman, a little embarrassed, her stepson started making funny faces at the baby from time to time.

Unable or unwilling to help herself, Ronalda couldn't help but stare at her daughter, she hadn't seen her in over a year and a half. She looked identical to how she remembered her, maybe a bit slenderer and taller, it's true, but her daughter was still wearing, just like before in the old country, an old-fashioned one-piece dress that was quite out of tune with the local clothes, her dark hair, as shiny as ever, was a bit longer and tied up in a ponytail. Rosa's small deep eyes, adorned by those big eyelashes stared at her mother, expectantly, as when she was still learning how to cook and was waiting for the verdict of the most important judge in the kitchen... Ronalda.

"What... what's the creature's name?"

"Your granddaughter's name is Maria, ma'am," at that moment some light knocking began to be heard at the door, but no one paid much attention to it. "Would you like to hold her?"

"What? No! I mean... I don't think it's a good idea" and in spite of her words, Ronalda's arms didn't hesitate to take the baby and cradle her skillfully without waking her. "But... tell me, child, what have you been doing? we haven't heard from you for almost two years and..."

"Well, ma'am, I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, but we were very busy taking care of the baby and..." answered her daughter.

A few knocks were heard again at the front door, however, they went almost unnoticed just like the first ones.

The line of thought of the older woman stopped the instant she heard "we were very busy", almost as if she smelled some kind of stench, she jumped away from her daughter, making the baby in her arms a little uneasy, but without waking up her. "Rosa... don't tell me you're still with that asshole you ran away with... please don't... you can't end up stuck with that moron from the convenience store you used to work at... We've already talked about that... What kind of future awaits you and your little girl next to that awful musician?!"

At those words, Rosa's sad face was replaced by an expression of surprise and disappointment, before immediately becoming defensive.

"No mother, we didn't "talk" you just yelled at me and refused to listen. This is something that already happened and whether you like it or not... it's not your life, it's mine."

"That's bullshit, Rosa! What do you mean with the "it's not your life" nonsense? Do you want me to shut up and accept your actions, just like that? Because according to the laws of this fucking country you're not even old enough to buy alcohol and you're already carrying a little girl and... and the last I heard about the fucking father of the child was that he worked in a fucking canned food store... you understand what I mean? that fucking bum doesn't even have a real job, how the fuck do you plan on raising a child when you both make a pittance between the two of you?"

"But you started a family yourself when you were seventeen..."

"Look, that's exactly why I know what it's like to be a young girlfriend; a guy who's a few years older tells you he loves you, that you're unique to him and that you'll be together forever... but there's never any plan beyond taking you to his bed and when you two least expect it you end up pregnant and discover that your love nest is a dead end hole in a fucking small-ass town I don't want and I won't let you get trapped in four filthy walls too! There's a whole world out there, a world you won't be able to fully enjoy if you tie yourself to a..."

"So it was a mistake that you had me? That you raised my brother as if you were his mother?" Rose's eyes burned with rage, all traces of the closeness and respect she had felt for her mother gone in the blink of an eye. "I suppose you wished you'd never left your village in the desert, never met my dad... my problem wasn't that I fell in love, the problem was that I thought you loved us!"

Rosa's painful scream provoked the baby to start rolling around sobbing in her grandmother's arms. Trying to stop the situation from escalating into a real fight between the two women, Agustín tried to take the toddler from his wife's arms and move her a little further away from Rosa, Roberto didn't move, just like his stepsister, he looked hurt by his stepmother's words.

Three knocks, much louder than the previous ones, sounded again at the door but were silenced almost instantly by a dry laughter; Ronalda was smiling mockingly as she rocked her granddaughter as quietly as possible.

"There's my damn point, you heard me, but you didn't listen, why? because you don't know how to listen! What pisses me off is not that you fell in love young, but that neither of you thought about your situation enough before starting a family; neither you nor the stupid father of this girl have good jobs" Ronalda's constant cooing and calmer voice made the baby calm down enough to stop crying. "Tell me Rosa, do you know how to read?, because I know that out of the four of us I'm the only one who can read Spanish, let alone write English! Do you finally understand me? That's why we brought you two here, because your father and I wanted both of you to have more opportunities than we had! "

Unable to continue speaking calmly due to her growing fury at her daughter's overly simple and sentimental mentality, Ronalda closed her eyes as she felt her emotions begin to overstep their bounds and give way to hysteria itself.

Worried that his wife would irremediably lose control, Agustin tried again to pull Ronalda away from the discussion, however, it was not he who managed to disperse all the irritation from the Latin woman's mind, but the one responsible for accomplishing that feat was a slight and short movement against the inside of her elbow; the creature Ronalda was cooing at settled down a little and yawned, immediately attracting the attention of everyone in the room.

The little girl watched the woman who was her grandmother attentively, her little bald head following her every move with her eyes. That was the first time that Ronalda had seen the toddler clearly; her face was dark-brown and somewhat round, with chubby, flushed cheeks and a little pink mouth that was beginning to form a cute smile... as she stared at the creature, the woman could not help but feel love.

"Now," with tears beginning to well up in her eyes, Ronalda swallowed all her anger, "please tell me that the asshole who has been knocking and knocking on my door is the pedophile responsible for my being a grandmother...! BECAUSE IF I KNOW THAT THE OUTRAGEOUS MAN LEFT YOU WITH A CHILD...!"

"Hey, Héctor isn't a...! Well, that… ma'am" understanding her mother's offer of peace without the need for words, and much more relaxed than when she arrived, Rosa jumped to her husband's defense "please don't call him that when I introduce him to you, he's wanted to meet you since we started dating."

"He's older than you by, like, eight years..."

"So what? Dad takes you over twelve!"

A slight knowing smile played on the lips of both women, as Roberto went to finally open the door for his brother-in-law.

"You're right, I guess it runs in the family that we like mature, experienced men," a discreet flirtatious smile from Ronalda caused her husband to cough in embarrassment, "but at least tell me, please tell me, that he shaved off that Cantinflas mustache he was showing off in the store."

The only answer she got from her daughter was a guffawing.

"You'll see"

-o-

Carlos Casagrande held a steaming cup of black coffee and kept an almost cheerless eye on the man sitting next to him on the hotel room couch, trying not to make a sound, keeping to the shadows of the room that were barely scratched by the pulsating light that streamed through the windows of the bright neon signs. The noises of the city crept in as well; diesel engines that were far from working according to government air quality standards, repetitive announcements magnified by outdated loudspeakers, and the chaos generated by countless sirens blaring in the dark night... yet there was only a tense calm in that hotel room. Through the thick glass of his glasses, Carlos could see his companion, another Latino man, animatedly participating in a video call with a blonde woman noticeably younger than both men. They seemed to be getting along quite well, denoting at times that the pair of "former co-workers" had long since outgrown a simple working relationship.

Carlos didn't take his eyes off his ex-brother-in-law as he cleverly flirted with the blonde woman to try to get information out of her.

The peroxidized woman's name was Mercy Gaves; in the long list of names of agents who had worked for the S.T.A.R. Foundation in the past, hers was one that stood out from the others as she was the most active agent at the turn of the millennium, and it was also excellent news to learn that she was still holding a government position.

"It seems impossible to me that the new big dogs don't understand the importance of discretion," Arturo spoke with an exaggerated Latin accent, lengthening the last vowels of each word as necessary to generate a feigned, but quite convincing, embarrassed tone, «You're identical to your son-in-law,» Carlos thought. "It's as if so many years of experience and information gathering have been ignored by the newly hired researchers..."

"But you were also a researcher..."

"Oh no... don't tell me you're just like them, Merche! don't tell me you're also satisfied with these new leaders" the blonde blushed and smiled when she heard the affectionate nickname he used to call her when he was her superior in the organization, ending up forgetting all professional discretion when she discovered that her old platonic love also shared her opinion about her new boss; Amanda Waller, "and please don't confuse me with those vulgar thugs they've been hiring. Metahuman DNA research was serious business in the old days, they hired the best and not just any ex-soldier with an untraceable weapon."

"Don't think badly of me, Arturo. I feel the same way about the methods we've been employing lately," Carlos noticed that the blond suddenly looked regretful. He slyly wiped a drop of sweat from his face and for at least half a minute he avoided making eye contact with his interlocutor "but... unfortunately I can't question as harshly as I would like to their results, in only ten years we have achieved advances never seen before... enough to make this whole project not just a research; in only a few years we will be talking about a new organization with achievable goals."

It took all of Arthur's willpower not to look really interested in this newly obtained information, keeping by pure miracle the informal tone that had to characterize that 'casual chat between old colleagues' he kept on chatting with a smile peeking out of his beard.

"Oh... gosh, the way you talk about your work you make it sound like it's some kind of evil organization," a small laugh that was more nervous than happy escaped his throat. "What, you're telling me you guys plan to take over the world by creating monsters?"

"In fact, yes. Project Cadmus has always had as a goal the creation of an elite military team made up of..." realizing that she had spoken too much, Mercy remained silent and seemed to think things over for a moment, Carlos feared that she would end the video call sooner than necessary, however the blonde continued speaking, "Damn! You sure have a way with words, you... you're trying to find out about your daughter, aren't you? I mean, it's been too long since the incident for any of your relatives to contact you, and I know you wouldn't be at ease on vacation at the beach once they told you about what happened..."

«Well, the plan didn't work out as we had planned» Carlos thought as he cautiously approached the windows of the place to check for snipers on the nearby rooftops or perhaps a troop of patrols approaching. «I guess neither the sweet words nor the worn 'Latin lover' smile achieved their goal this time.»

"I can help you," Mercy said without hesitation as she cast inconspicuous glances to her sides, after checking that the coast was clear she continued in a low voice, "I'm not privy to all the details of what they're looking for with your girl, but I know she already incapacitated the agents we've sent to contain her, so she'll have a clear path until Monday."

"But that's tomorrow!"

"Yes, I know, first thing tomorrow morning we'll send more personnel to look after her, I don't know how many troops we'll send or how they'll be armed this time, but I do know that my superiors want to capture her alive."

A large group, made up of at least ten patrol cars, all of them with sirens on, sped past the side of the hotel, the scare that Carlos Casagrande got was intense but momentary as all the official vehicles passed by without stopping heading southwest, away from the lakes that gave the city its name and into the marginal areas of the city «What are so many policemen looking for in a poor area?» Following the patrols with his eyes, the college professor soon discovered what they were hunting; in the distance, almost covered by the black smoke they were expelling and the usual smog of the city, a couple of six and eight story buildings were starting to burn.

-o-

A scream sounded in the distance causing Ronnie to wake with a flinch. She stirred on the tiny mat she had been lying on, her back hit a metal wall and before she could sit up, she screamed in fright.

Her battle cry, hoarse and distorted by the echo of the place, stopped short as if it had come from someone else. Her bare hands trembled in the cold air that seeped into the small cage.

She was alone.

Even inside that peculiar van, surrounded by fast food garbage and the personal items that one of his deceased friends had stored in a plastic bag. The eerie howl she thought she heard was actually a lone siren echoing in the distance. She had dreamed again of fire, of the immense river and of the indefinable but obviously human forms that swam in it.

Despite having eaten a double portion of large hamburgers, Ronnie felt agitated and exhausted, as if she'd competed in some kind of marathon against a pair of formidable opponents. The memory of the last night, as well as all of her recent nights, made her want to cry and turned her stomach.

Unable to hold back her tears, Anne groped for the cell door. She pushed it with her elbow and the thick metal rectangle moved without offering resistance of any kind. Good «Good» it seemed she hadn't been discovered during her light nap, now all she had to do was... «Wait, chicharron!» a draft of icy air snuck into the cab of the van and woke her up almost instantly causing her to cough. Shoulders shivering under her thin blouse and throat burning from the lack of warm air, Ronnie discovered that it was still as dark outside as when she first entered the van.

Fully aware that there was no way that darkness still belonged to Saturday night, the girl realized that she had slept longer than she first thought; the memory of Nikki's body trying to protect her from the fall came to her mind suddenly, like the first symptoms of a fever «or a monumental hangover». She hid one of her hands inside her blouse to protect it from the cold and reached out with the other to grab the plastic bag containing the clothes of one of her friends. When she opened it she discovered two hoodies similar to the ones she used to wear, pants, t-shirts and pink underwear; it was the bag with Nikki's things.

Her mind ached and throbbed because of the suffocating cold and the incessant noise of the street; sirens that sounded continuously, desperate cries and pleas for help that never got an answer and the sonorous music of the slums and dens that profited from the life and health of the people.

«Hell on earth is what our home used to be like?»

She let that thought wander through her mind as she changed her clothes. As soon as she finished folding the hem of one of the jeans down to her calves so they wouldn't be so big, Ronnie began to feel her body heat rise. She picked up the plastic bag with the remaining clothes, stuffed her dirty clothes next to the garbage in the fast food bags and got out of the van without bothering to close the cab door. She took a few steps on the sidewalk away from the vehicle before returning to it; a better idea was beginning to form in her mind.

The people who had been chasing her since Friday, the same people who apparently belonged to the "brotherhood of blood" or whatever the cult was actually called, seemed to have a great control over the city; contacts within the police and a large arsenal of thugs doped with a mysterious substance to make them super-strong were proof enough. So Ronnie guessed that the police officers who would first attend to any fire-related cases would be the same ones who would be related to the head of the cult: Sebastian Blood.

She opened the rear compartment door with a violent yank. She took the bag full of garbage and her old clothes between her two hands and concentrating her power exclusively in her palms she set fire to the bundle of greasy paper and dirty cloth before throwing it with all her might into the interior. She wasn't sure if that would be enough to set the whole vehicle on fire, but it would certainly be more than enough to send the message "you won't get out intact or alive if you keep messing with me".

Setting fire to one of the vehicles they used for their dirty business was a good way to challenge the entire cult. Ronalda didn't really believe that the corrupt cops first on the scene would know how to interpret the message... but she guessed that even seeing the vehicle burn would help make Brother Sebastian furious.

Without stopping to see how her plan was progressing, Ronnie never noticed that the fire she had started was slowly spreading to the other parked vehicles. The girl simply kept walking with her mind immersed in her plans for her future revenge and her eyes fixed forward.

She would never know that her plan to leave a "simple message" would end up affecting and consuming two of the tallest residential buildings in the area.

-o-

Ronnie hadn't walked far when the night began to recede unevenly from the city; leaving some of the smaller buildings still submerged in gloom with the bright street lights as the only means to combat it.

Aware that at any moment the streets would become hopelessly crowded, Ronnie searched for a secluded, hidden space; finding it behind a closed newspaper stand in a nearby park. Taking care that no one saw her, she pulled out the last of Nikki's old second-hand sweatshirts. She dragged it a few times on the ground to make it look like an even older and scruffier garment than it actually was and making an extra effort to keep her mind off the grime, she pulled it on over the sweatshirt she was already wearing and pulled the hood down over her face as well. Wearing two hoodies, a large old light blue one and a slightly newer pink one, Ronnie took on the appearance of a ragged and disheveled homeless person.

Satisfied with her street-girl disguise, Anne resumed walking only to discover after a few steps that she was starting to get too hot under so many layers of clothing. Almost instantly she thought about taking off a sweatshirt, but quickly changed her mind; the constant heat would make her quite sweaty and she figured the foul odor and filthy clothes would greatly complement the beggar's costume.

Perfectly aware that she couldn't walk freely around the city forever without setting things right first; Ronnie started to think of a plan, however, after almost an hour of thinking while walking she didn't manage to form a clear idea. Apparently she would need to first give them a clear shape to her next steps and avoid being found by the cult at the same time; without worrying too much, she simply changed the course of her steps. She knew the real perfect place to think calmly and safely.

She was aware that the Church of Blood and all their followers had been looking for her everywhere since her little "scene" on Friday and she expected that the searches for her would only intensify after discovering her little "message" on Saturday night. She would have to hurry to get to her destination or else she ran the risk of being caught and ending up irreversibly at the mercy of Brother Blood and his flock of green bleeding madmen, luckily she now also had a method of going unnoticed.

She would just have to practice a little.