I looked to the right as she came closer, screaming at me. “I’m currently having a discussion with Emilio, Bridget. You want me to keep having this discussion…because when I stop, I’m going to have tell you, your daughter can burn to a black crisp in front of my eyes, and I would absofuckinlutely do NOTHING to save her!”
Her eyes wide
ned. Her head snapped back to where her daughter was coughing on her knees. Bridget rushed to her, but in doing so, she triggered the springs I had wired caused the fire to spread more. Her daughter screamed as the flames burned the sides of her arms and face.
“MARY!”
I looked back at Emilio, shaking my head. “I tried to warn her, didn’t I? Now, where were we?”
His reply was to take the knife he’d been hiding and try to stab me, but his grip was loose. The knife fell to floor beside me. He began breathing harder.
“Do you know why you’re sweating so hard?” I asked him, knowing he couldn’t answer. His pupils were already dilated. “It’s not the fire. It’s not the heat. I’m sure that has made a little impact. Even I’m getting a bit warm. But the true reason is because I laced my bullets. The drugs right now are confusing your whole nervous system. So when I do this,” I pushed the gun into his eye socket…causing him to inhale sharply, “it feels like someone is squeezing your lungs, right? Isn’t it cool? The things medical science can do nowadays, right?”
He tried to breathe but only ended up coughing due to the smoke.
“My brother wanted to kill you off and be done with your family for good. Luckily for you, he was too busy at the time. That is how insignificant you are. Now I’m going to tell him not to worry.”
“Get…it…over…w—”
I moved the gun down to his shoulder, pulling the trigger…watching as he gritted his teeth. “You still don’t understand, Emilio. You do not make the rules. You do not command me, and you sure as all mighty fuck don’t tell me what do. Don’t worry…by the time I finish with you, you won’t sleep, eat, or even shit without asking for my permission. So get used to this position, you’re my dog now.”
Letting go, I watched as he fell over onto his side. I rose from my chair, looking at the flames around me. Watching as more than a few of the younger children, weaker women, and less healthy men fell to their knees, putting their hands over their mouths, or tried to keep children calm. A few of them even began to pray. Meticulously walking on every other tile, then the third on the left and one up, until I got to where Bridget sobbed, her hands burned and bloody as she held on to her also burnt and bloody daughter…the pain must have been so bad the poor girl passed out, but not before wetting herself.
“So mothers really will walk through fire for their children,” I said, looking down at Bridget.
The tears rolled down her face as she looked up to me.
“You devil!” she said in Irish
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Bridget,” I responded in Irish before turning my attention to any person still conscious or not withering on the ground in pain. Pulling out my phone, I dialed in the code. Suddenly, the fire prevention vents sprung to life, sucking the chemicals, fumes, and visible smoke—which was mostly carbon, tar, oils, and ash—out while the sprinklers showered every single square inch with water. The fire wires I’d set in place now off.
As the water beat down on me, soaking every inch of my clothes, I said to them all loudly, “Let this be a reminder to all of you! Whatever your anger is, whatever your issues are, you PLEDGED LOYALITY! So I, and my family, shall demand loyalty! Italian, Irish I don’t give a sweet Mary mother of fuck!” I walked through the maze of their bodies as they sobbed, heading to the front of the door. “You will be loyal. Because this is no longer a ‘I-burn-you-with-me’ relationship. It’s now a ‘I-don’t-fucking-burn-but-you-cock-munching-bastards-still-do’ relationship! My family climbed to the top, but we never stopped preparing for you at the bottom. We don’t need you anymore. You aren’t the only families or people who want our support. We chose you, we kept choosing you, we defended and provided for you because WE’RE BLOOD OR KIN! If that no longer means what we have always thought it to mean…then we will destroy you all.”
At the doors, I didn’t even have to reach out and touch them. At the push of the button, all the doors sprang open. At the push of another button, I lifted the phone to my ear.
“Thank you, Commissioner McCoy, Chief Mataka, you can send them now.” Hanging up, I turned back to them as I stepped aside. “Well, you all are free to go. Thank you so much for making time to hear me out. I look forward to our next get together.”
THREE
“Now I can go back to being ruthless again.”
~ Robert Francis Kennedy
WYATT
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for waiting,” the chief of surgery said into the microphone beside me. “I’m Doherty Han, Chief of Surgery at Chicago Medical. Yesterday at four p.m. central time, a fire broke out at the Orlando-Sedric Community Center, injuring approximately sixty-two people…fifteen children and forty-seven adults. Their injuries ranged from serve burns to smoke inhalation. I’m happy to report to you that there are no causalities, in part thanks to the quick actions of Dr. Wyatt Callahan, who was also among those in the fire, luckily unharmed. He will be joining the Chicago Medical Trauma Center as a trauma surgeon…Dr. Callahan.”
Nodding, I stepped forward behind the podium and spoke into the microphone. “I’ll answer any questions…but please be gentle. As you know, I am a Callahan, and I have no experience with the press.”
A few of them laughed; others glared. But I just smirked, pointing to the left, toward the first woman to raise her hand.
“Mr. Callahan—”
“It’s Dr. Callahan, Mr. is everyone else in my family,” I joked, though she didn’t seem amused as she rolled her eyes at me, before parting her lips to ask.
“Dr. Callahan,” she stretched, and I nodded for her to go on. “The Orlando-Sedric Community Center has marketed itself as having state-of-the-art technology that prevents fires from spreading. As I recall, your family has claimed it was fireproof.”
“Dr. Callahan is answering questions regarding patients—”