#WritingWonders 5.28 — What was the worst thing the MC has done to you? Friends Amongst Thieves, story by R.S.

[Bolt, day angel, secondary character:] I didn't want to do this! You don't learn why you don't want to join gangs until you're too deep in, and they're too deep, and you can't just walk away because there's comrades and debt—and evidence they hold over you. Crabs in a bucket; none climb out; they hold each other back.

This is my life.

A few crimes was an easy way to my dreams, right? Yeah, I'd gotten gold stashed, but they don't call them a crime boss because they'll compassionately say, "Okay. I unnerstan. Ya don't haven'ta do that."

No, they poke you in the chest, saying, "Deliver it. Get it done before midday. Or a stone might hit your wing while flying. Understand?"

And. You. Sweat.

I sweat.

I couldn't just fly away. In my seven years working, I'd learned enough to know the boss had mob connections in other cities. "Friends." If you could call them that. When the boss found Night Mare and recruited her, he knew about her. Not innocent, that devil-girl. Not ordinary, despite her ordinary looks.

Special. Time did tell.

Yet. Last week. She told me to tell the boss, "I quit."

Even cleaned up (and I wasn't), I couldn't enter, let alone fly over, the residence compounds. Or the university because research went on there. Night Mare did attend school: The Home Academy, and it might be the only reason she remained in the city. Thaumaturgy, beyond the few tricks that paid like lighting up buildings, required rare skill. Most became accountants or computers. It paid better.

Attending school. Tuition. Both Night Mare's weaknesses, which the boss exploited.

And, now, so did I.

She walked out the south residence block. She'd have been camouflaged against the lawns but for her bronze hair. She walked to the Academy, which was outside the walls, levitating an open book as she chomped on a cinnamon roll.

It felt like I had a bone in my throat, recognizing her. Hair in pigtails, she looked too young, but when we'd first met, she'd convinced me she was thirty and dangerous. Half a year later, I'd been in the other room when she exploded a deadbeat for the boss, only to state cheerfully that she didn't think thaumaturgy could do that.

The boss had insisted I dress with all my piercings and chains, with my hair spiked up, visibly disreputable; wrong for downtown. I'd thought of Night Mare as a friend even before she had told me not to believe everything I saw, referring to the murder as she quit. Before and after, she'd insisted in frightening or only minimally roughing up folk in her enforcer role.

Having dreams destroyed by becoming a blackmailed criminal is something you can bond over. I wanted to start a moving company. She had been offered a medical scholarship.

Now I wondered if the boss wanted her to kill me.

I signaled my buddy across the street and swooped down as she entered the school grounds. She'd pause before involving other teenagers? Right?

I braked, blowing the downwash from my wings in her face.

She swatted at me with her book, emerald eyes on fire.

I fluttered back, keeping aloft. "Hey! Hey! No shooting the messenger, Nighty!"

She kept heading onto the quad, not stopping even if I might hit her with my wings (and I tried), even as every student peered at us.

"Get out of my way!" she yelled back, shoving the book in her messenger bag.

"I'll follow ya inside. See if'n I don't."

"Not in this lifetime you won't!" Energies whirled around her head.

Somehow, not quavering, I asked, "Ya gonna shoot me? Stop! Please!"

Her halo snapped and the nebula dissipated.

"Nighty! He's forcing me, honest. Please?"

"Fine."

I heard rapid-fire boot falls. I glanced. A constable ran toward us, copper badge gleaming.

"Quickly," she hissed.

I held out a blue folded paper. "Boss said give this to you." I pinched the paper when she tugged. Instead, I said, "Look right."

She did.

My metal camera gleamed from across the avenue. Unmistakable. Boss' proof captured. I let go of the note, saying, "Boss don't trust me neither."

Night Mare slapped me—hard enough that my feet touched the ground.

Hand on my burning cheek, I streaked into the air, the constable's whistle following me aloft as I pumped my wings. It was the worst thing she'd ever done to me. No understanding of me or my burdens. Were we ever friends, now, nevermore.

###

Later, after I'd developed the celluloid in my aerie loft above the News Building, I saw her expression: Neutral. In control. Calculating. Me: sweating like rain, out of my mind. Oblivious.

My hand shot to my cheek, which dripped with sudden tears.

The slap?

Intentional.

She'd saved me from being caught by the constable by shocking me into the sky.

[Author retains copyright.]

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