“Look, she’s just fine,” Thaddeus said.

“She hasn’t said a word since last night,” Apollo tapped his foot against the floor with nervous rhythm. “And Dion hasn’t shown up since either,”

“What do you want me to do?” Thaddeus asked.

“Your job. Go see what’s wrong with her and tell me what happened to Dion,”

“I told you everything -”

Apollo turned in his seat.

There was a knock at the door. Hefty and demanding. Another knock. It shook what few pictures frames remained on the walls. The light fixtures laid decapitated, with their wires exposed and burned out. The walls were burrowed through. The panels of the ceiling had fallen and cracked across the floor.

Apollo stood from his chair. Aenea sat upside on the bed, center of the room. The sheets were bloodied and bundled into a ball on the feet of the bed. She stared into the wall, dead center, with a tired and almost colorless gaze.

“See? It has to be him, I told you he was alright,”

Apollo glared at Thaddeus.

“We’ll see about that,” Apollo put his had on the doorknob. An eye on the peephole. It busted open, kicked rather, by Dion who stormed the inside of the room.

Dion rushed in, pistols on his belt, a giant object on his back (which was hidden by what appeared to be bundles of blankets).

He scanned the room, Dion did, his eyes carried those black lines of fatigue. And he found Thaddeus.

"Oh, good, y-y-you're safe," Thaddeus smiled. "No need to thank me,"

Dion rushed to him. He grabbed him by the collar and threw his body on the kitchen table. With one hand he held him, with the other he reached into his pockets.

"W-w-what'd I do?" Thaddeus grabbed onto his arms for dear life. "I-I-I'm sorry for calling you slow,"

"What's going on?" Apollo closed the door and rushed to them, he put one hand on Dion's shoulder. But it wouldn't stop him, it wouldn't even compel him to reconsider. Dion kept shaking Thaddeus's body with one hand and searching his pockets with the other. He retrieved it, flashed it in front of Thaddeus and set it on the table.

The acid bullet. What remained of the "angel feather," that green, noxious, thing.

"This," Dion said. "This should never have been made,"

"Oh," Thaddeus said. Dion let go. The bullet shook on the table and fell off the edge.

"Oh..." Thaddeus repeated.

"Why would you ever design something so horrifying as that?"

"You're the one who u-u-used it," Thaddeus screamed. "I j-j-just gave it to you,"

"No one should have that," Dion pointed to the bullet. "That should never have been created,"

"I d-d-didn't make it for you. I d-d-didn't make it for war. It was meant to be used to break down c-c-c-compositions." Thaddeus said.

"So you won?" Apollo asked. "You killed Floyd?"

"Yeah," Dion's eyes lowered. He scratched his head out of some misguided nervousness. "I killed him,"

"Good," Apollo said. "We've only got four of them to worry about now,"

"You don't understand, he died..." Dion searched his memories, memories that only seemed to fatigue him even more. His eyes drooped, his mouth was slightly ajar. "It wasn't right how Floyd died,"

"Dead is dead," Apollo said. "I don't think he'd have felt half as guilty as you do now, had he killed you,"

"Does that matter though?" Dion mumbled. He sat down on a kitchen chair. One of the legs were wobbly.

Dion sat down on the table. His face rose if only to give Thaddeus a sharp glare.

“W-why-” Thaddeus fumbled. His arms extended out as he exaggerated his gestures. “Why is this my fault? We all wouldn’t have to do this is if it weren’t for her stupid family!”

He pointed to Aenea, still laying emotionally comatose on the bed.

“And we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t decide to go to hell,” Apollo looked to Dion.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Dion refocused his blame.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“I didn't blame you either.” He walked over to Aenea. “The real blame goes to you, doesn't it?”

“You have terrible bedside manners,” Aenea mumbled.

“Well, there's a reason for that; I don’t like you. You’re bourgeois scum. Pompous, obnoxious,” Apollo said. “If I could let you die, I would have. Save us all the trouble,”

“You could have just killed me,” Aenea gripped the blood stain on her abdomen. She rocked her hands left to right. Then she looked up to Dion. “You killed my brother, right?”

Dion couldn’t stare at her, he slanted his head downwards and nodded. Words weren’t enough.

“And you helped him?” She looked at Thaddeus.

"Y-y-yeah..."

“And you’re the one who’s glad,” She looked at Apollo. He grit his teeth.

“And I’m the one who slept through it all,” She clawed her stomach.

“I talked to a…thing who told me what my destiny would be like,” She said. “I don’t like that. I don’t like being told what I’ll be or where I’ll be at, and I sure as hell don’t want what dad left for me,”

She brought her knees in towards her chest. Her eyes shifted between the three, who seemed in solemn silence like a fraternity of monks.

“Maybe the real person to blame is my mother. She was a service girl at a bar. But she was really a prostitute. What a stupid way to meet someone, huh?" She laughed, though they didn't. "Boy, that pregnancy test must have a been a ticket, because she sailed and searched and flew every corner of the world looking for Mr. Thomas Wolfe,” She said. “I could never understand why she was obsessed. And I could never understand why she wasted so much money looking. She found him, after all, free of charge. Found him on the television one day, the day Mr. Thomas Wolfe was performing the grand opening of the Casino El Rey,”

She brushed aside her hair. And looked at the bed, emptily.

“She was the obsessive type, hah. And the less he wanted to do with her, the more she wanted him it seemed,” She sighed. “She collected pictures and transcripts of my dad,”

She brought her hand up, her bloody palm stained her cheek.

“I wrote fake letters for her, on behalf of a dad who never even thought of us. They were mean letters, cruel and meant inspire her to move on,” Apollo could not tell what face she made. It was stressed and scrunched, and at both teary-eyed and tightened into a growl. “I wrote, if I remember, "Don't ever talk to me again, Delilah,' Wanna know the funny thing? She collected that too. Begged for him too. Even after all that..."

—

They were struck.

“I am a slave to no one,” She said. “The only person I lived for was my mother - she’s dead now. And with her, any kind of obligation to anyone but myself,”

Apollo stood.

“Informative. Amazing. This is all great, but what are we going to do? What do you want to do? What's the plan?" He said. "Realistically, I say we fly you out and run away, let the other Wolfe's kill themselves. With you alive, with your connections, Dion and I might be able to stave off our executions long enough for you to get a grip on the situation,”

"Oh, come on," Dion said. "Stop being a jerk-"

“It's fine,” Aenea said. “I just wanted to let you know what this just isn't a fight. It's a divorce from my past. And I am fighting, now or never,”

She stood. The crusted blood fell in shavings, like small red feathers.

“And for this fight, I don’t need bodyguards, I need people who want to do this as much as me,” she said. “To that end, I’ll have my people contact your people. I'll have the money traded. The bribes made, whatever. Consider the ‘good word’ that you need, already done, because this might be the last chance I’ll ever get to put in any kind of word. If that's your only obligation to me, you're free to leave now,”

“I’m not stopping half-way,” Dion was the first to speak. “I pulled the trigger, I should see it all through, right?”

Dion looked at Apollo, his face dull.

Thaddeus inched his way closer to the door.

“Well, good luck-”

Apollo grabbed him by the arm.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He asked.

“Didn’t you hear her? We’re in the clear, let's just leave it all alone,” he said. “This p-p-place is too violent for me,”

“You’re staying and so am I,” He said. “I’ve got an interest in this Wolfe mystery,” He turned to Aenea. “Why and how your father died,”

"You sound like mom," She said.

"I am rather obsessive," Apollo smiled.

Dion brushed his shoulder.

“You know, you could have just said wanted to help,” Dion let out a sigh of relief. It was a good look all things considered. It was good in general, to be able to breathe.

“I hope you understand we’ll be going on the offensive,” Aenea said. “And I want you two for a specific job,”

“What’s that?” Apollo asked.

“Find me Turnus,” She said.

“Sure, but I’ve got a question myself," Apollo said. “Can you protect yourself now?”

♠

They were out.

“So be honest with me, why are you really helping?” Dion walked out the door with Apollo and Thaddeus. He took the lead, they were heading to the van.

“We’re in the middle of a power struggle. And I'm hedging my bet that Aenea is best for the job," He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. “Not like there’s many options,”

“Y-y-you know, it’s not good to coerce p-p-people,” Thaddeus ran up in front of them. “I-I-I’ve got a say in this t-t-too!”

Dion reached behind his back, to the object covered in blankets. He threw it at Thaddeus, who flinched away and let it drop before him. The other people in the parking lot stared.

Thaddeus knelt and cradled it.

“What’s this?” He unfolded the covers.

“Floyd’s arm,” Dion said.

“Nice joke,” He laughed and took out the final cover. He dropped it, again. “Jesus Christ,”

“I didn’t know how to get rid of it. It’s not like the rest of the crystals, they all just kind of deteriorated over time. But this?”

He walked over and grabbed the arm and threw inside the van, now opening with a loud whine. All three managed their way inside, brushing shoulder to shoulder.

“This hasn’t deteriorated or gone weak. Ever since he amputated it,” Dion said. Apollo took a puff and flicked the ashes onto the surface of the crystallized block. It looked like a museum exhibit piece, it certainly had that pristine quality of one at least. And he hated expensive looking things.

“So if you can find a way to get rid of it,” Dion said. "That'd be great,"

All Thaddeus could do was look at it and shake his head and stuff it below a few boxes and crates. Around them, the stacks of magazines and the small bed and the little areas that fashioned themselves as workstations (it was so cramped that just stepping seemed to hazard breaking something).

“Alright, alright, I guess I'm in. I can't leave you two alone, a-a-a-after all,” Thaddeus said.

They weren't even looking. Apollo was on his phone. Dion was burning a hole on the floor with his stare.

“Listen." His cheeks puffed. "Listen to me!"

"What?" Apollo asked.

"Where do you want me to drop you guys off? Do you even have a plan?”

“Turnus has no public documents on him. Lord knows how he got that to happen,” Apollo took off his coat. His knob of a severed arm twirled and flinched in the cramped air. “But I think I know how to get to him,”

“How?” Both of them asked.

He took a deep puff.

“We’ll ask his girlfriend where he’s at,”