adventure / sci-fi / drama / romance
Flatiron Angel: Part Fourteen
E verything felt sharper in the budding winter air. The sound of Rose’s boots on the pavement had a crack to them that echoed behind her with each stride. The more she walked, the more her muscles seemed to ease up and the pain cooled to a manageable annoyance. Even the cold itself seemed to be helping as the swelling had noticeably lessened over the last few blocks. Rose passed a bar she’d failed to notice on their walk home the night before. Grady’s Pub. The place had all the trappings of a dive, including a wet lipped drunk sitting at the wood that peered back at Rose through the dusty front window. He nodded his head but his eyes stared right through her. Maybe this wasn’t the way after all. Rose gave it a few more blocks and was about to call it quits when a large brown building loomed in the near distance.
CHANG IMPORTS. Rose passed under the cracked white paint and shuddered. A black feather stuck to a jagged piece of brick crumbling in the doorway she’d run from the night before. It was longer than the bits she’d cleaned from her back the night before; unmottled and pure. Had they followed her? No. The only reason she wasn’t sticking out like a sore thumb right now was because she had no wings. Three large angels with black wings wouldn’t make it a block without raising a stink. Right? The hairs on the back of her neck rose and she scanned the streets around her. A flurry of feathers shot past her and she leapt back against the wall. A large black pigeon fluttered in the air for a moment before settling on the ground a few feet from her, cooing curiously before finding a bit of refuse in the gutter that passed for food.
Rose let out a sigh of relief and gave her head a shake. Logan’s scolding shook back at her: I would’ve thought Benji had trained you better than that. Maybe he hadn’t. They’d played chess far more than they’d sparred but Rose had never felt unprepared, or unsafe. Maybe it was because she’d always had her father around, not to protect her, but to embolden her. A piece of her was missing right now and with it had gone so much of her power. The sudden void had created this vacuum that was sucking everything away from her. Her confidence. Her certainty. Whatever lay in front of her, she’d need to find that strength again or her, and her father, would never stand a chance.
Rose recomposed herself, gripped the rusted door and pulled it open.
…
Somewhere, Sometime.
Green and red lights reflected intermittently off cool concrete walls. An electronic beep persisted with the steady rhythm of a ticking clock. An aged man squinted at an array of computer monitors in front of him. His face was ghostly white and long crows feet wrinkled the skin around cloudy gray eyes. Along each monitor a steady white dot moved across it, spiking and dipping with each beep. He grabbed a bottle of multivitamins off his desk and popped a few into his mouth. The pills crunched between his teeth as he ground them down into dust. He slurped the remainder of water from an empty box of water and washed the powder down. His right hand had a burn scar on the back of it in the shape of a circle with an arrow shooting up through it. The tendons moved below the surface, warping the circle as he typed away at a keyboard in front of him. A digital read out on the wall above the monitors was counting down: 00:07:09. Above it was a second clock that read: 0W 3D 7H 22M.
The man’s back cracked as he straightened up out of the chair. A large fridge hummed in the corner. He pulled a steel wheeled trolley over to it and opened it up. Test tube racks filled the shelves, each stocked with twelve vials of murky brown liquid. He pulled out a rack and placed it on the trolley, pulling it behind him to a steel door in the corner of the room.
A red keypad clicked green when he punched in the right combination of numbers. He hummed to himself as he opened the door and stepped through. A chill rush of air cut through his clothing and he’s quick to close the door behind him. Icy crystals hung in the air with each breath. He surveyed rows of gurneys in front of him; three rows of four neatly spaced out with enough room for him to walk between with his trolley. A naked body lay on each one, their skin a pale pink and blue hue blurred the lines between life and death. Frosty air escaped from their lips and fell around their necks like foggy chains.
The man pulled the trolley with one hand, the other grazing the cool flesh of each body he walked by. He lingered on the females, running his fingers around the curve of their hips, his palm cupping the sides of their breasts. He pulled a damp rag from his back pocket and wiped away a clear splotchy residue on one of their legs before moving on. He saves a red headed woman for last, bending down until his open mouth hangs just above hers. Slowly, he inhaled the crystal air that flowed from her, his eyes rolling back with pleasure. He bent back up and traced the line of her collarbone, continuing along her shoulder and down her arm to an IV stuck in her wrist. He pulled a vial from the test tube rack and clicked it into the back of the syringe. Cracked lips wet with anticipation as he watched the liquid creep down the tube and into her veins.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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AUTHOR
Joe Shields
