Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
Aila had to escape. She had to save her phoenixes.
For the dozenth time, she jammed her arm through the aviary bars, pivoting her shoulder against unyielding metal until her joints ached. Reaching. Reaching . Her hand swiped empty air several inches from the keypad lock. For all her pride at their renovated security measures, she’d never foreseen them betraying her like this.
With a cry of rage, Aila paced the aviary, searching for options. She tried the smaller gate that opened onto the phoenix exhibit, hoping she’d gotten lazy and left it unlatched. Another pipe dream. Meticulous, obsessive Aila had checked and double-checked all her locks, ensuring everything was closed up tight for the night.
Aila returned to the bars and shouted for help. She screamed obscenities at Connor and his piece of shit personality. When no one responded, Aila melted down to her knees, a puddle on the floor. Less effective than a puddle, which could have escaped beneath the gate.
Hands raw, coated in aviary dust, Aila drew her legs to her chest and scrunched into a ball. Tears ran hot down her cheeks, tightening her throat until she labored to breathe. She was supposed to keep these birds safe.
She’d failed.
While she cowered in a cage, they’d be whisked away in front of her.
What would she tell Tanya, when her friend arrived too late?
How would she explain to Maria that she’d lost their phoenixes?
Not just lost. Aila handed them to Connor like an educational slide presentation, complete with a question-and-answer session on phoenix nabbing.
She flinched when the door across the room clicked open. Connor returning with the portable incubator? Aila couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to watch her phoenixes taken away. She clutched her knees, wincing as boots tapped linoleum.
A confident stride.
Familiar.
“Aila?” Luciana called out.
Aila stood up so fast, her elbows slammed the metal bars. The impact shot through her bones.
“Luciana!” she shouted through the pain, through the tears. “Here, here, here, I’m back here !”
She’d never beheld such a beautiful sight: Luciana frozen in the center of the room, mouth agape and brows raised to the ceiling as Aila bounced inside the aviary, screaming at her via some half-intelligible combination of words, laughter and sobbing.
“Aila?” Luciana hurried toward her. “What are you doing in there ?”
Aila didn’t pause for breath.
“The eggs hatched but Connor is evil and he cut off the live camera because he’s been planning to steal the phoenixes all along and when I figured it out he locked me in here and he took my phone and my radio and he’ll be back any minute for the chicks and you have to get me out of here now now now !”
“ Excuse me? ” Luciana’s manicured nails flew over the keypad, typing in the combination. “The phoenixes hatched already? And Connor is doing what ?”
“He’s trying to steal the chicks. My chicks, Luciana! We have to stop him!”
When the gate clicked open, Aila hurled herself onto Luciana, wrapping her into a desperate hug. Fresh tears slicked Aila’s cheeks as she buried her face in Luciana’s neck, warm skin and the comfort of mango. Her fingers dug into Luciana’s back, tighter when Luciana’s arms wrapped around her. Solid. Safe.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Aila said, her throat thick. “ Why are you here?”
“I was working late with Ranbir,” Luciana said through a mouthful of Aila’s hair. “Then Tanya called, insisted I check up on you.”
Tanya, that clever tropical parrot. She’d never let Aila down.
Time was short. Aila sprang out of the hug so fast, Luciana yelped in surprise. Again, when Aila dug through Luciana’s pockets like a mute monkey with no concept of personal space.
“Aila! What are you—”
“Aha!” Aila held up Luciana’s phone. She clicked the screen on. “ Fuck! No service?”
“It went out in the middle of my call with Tanya.”
“Fucking cell phone jammer. Ugh, what a prick !”
Aila could have yanked her hair out. She shoved the useless phone back into Luciana’s hand, then hurried to her incubators. The phoenix chicks dozed inside the heated compartments, oblivious to the threat awaiting them.
“OK, no phones.” Luciana spoke slowly, a woman trying to piece together mad ramblings. “You said Connor locked you in there? Like, the dragon keeper, Connor?”
“Yes, him ! Lying piece of shit bastard doesn’t even care about—”
“Shhh.” Luciana patted hands to Aila’s cheeks. “Focus time, Aila. Where is he now?”
Aila was starting to understand Luciana’s gift for calming angry animals. She forced a deep breath, focusing on the grounding bite of nails curled into her palms. “He left a few minutes ago. I think he’s working with someone, heard him talking on the phone. They’re supposed to bring a portable incubator to transport the chicks.”
“OK. OK…” Luciana’s words trailed off. As the situation sank in, her posture stiffened, worried eyes on the incubators.
“What do we do, Luciana?” Aila bounced from foot to foot.
“Why are you asking me ?”
“You’re the responsible one of the two of us!”
“Sure! That doesn’t cover how to apprehend criminals!”
Luciana was supposed to be the adult in the room, the white knight coming to Aila’s rescue. To see the queen crack her cool stoked Aila with fresh terror. Her phoenixes weren’t safe yet. Not by a long shot.
“We need to call someone,” Luciana said. “Let them know what’s happening?”
“Right. Right .” Aila scanned the room, weighing options. No phones, no internet, but… She squeaked and pointed to Luciana. “Your radio! We need to call zoo security!”
“Shit! You’re right. Sorry.” Luciana scrambled to pull her radio off her belt. Under less dire circumstances, it would have been cute, seeing her so flustered. She held the radio up, finger poised over the call button.
Then hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” Aila asked.
Luciana’s face soured. “Does Connor have his radio on him?”
“Yeah… and mine, too.”
“Do you want him to know we’re on to him?”
“What other options do we have?”
Aila stamped her boot, an insulting squeak against the linoleum. Luciana was right. Of course she was right, but what good did that do them? Still out of options. Still clicking down on time. Aila dug fingers into her hair and snapped her eyes closed. Thinking. Thinking. Sure, the zoo had whole binders of protocol for animal escapes and fires and patrons falling into exhibits, but not for black-market poachers stealing phoenixes in the middle of the night? What a frustrating administrative oversight.
“So we go in person,” Aila said. “To the staff office. If Antonio isn’t out on patrol, he should be there, right?”
“Right!” Hope lilted Luciana’s voice. “He should know what to do?”
“Maybe even have a working phone?” Aila matched her enthusiasm.
“Let’s go, then.” Luciana clipped the radio to her belt and headed for the door.
Aila stayed, unable to move.
“Aila?” Luciana’s hand paused on the handle. “Come on. Connor could be back any minute, right?”
“Exactly.” The dread growing in Aila’s stomach threatened to crumple her to the floor. “He could be back any minute. If he comes before we find help…”
She faced the incubators. Watching her phoenixes whisked away in front of her was unimaginable, but to lose them while she wasn’t even there to fight back? Never. She couldn’t leave them behind.
“We need to move, Aila,” Luciana pressed.
“I can’t abandon them!” Aila’s heart tore in two, pulled by her phoenix chicks in one direction, their salvation in another.
“The best we can do is get help . They won’t survive outside the incubators, will they?”
Flashcards flicked behind Aila’s eyes. Temperatures. Cooling curves.
“They can,” she said. “Not all night, but… for a little while at least.”
She looked to Luciana with wide eyes, not just pleading, but a question. Was she making the right decision? Was she being stupid?
“You’re sure?” Luciana asked, a quiet to shatter what remained of Aila’s heart.
“I think so,” was the best Aila could offer.
Luciana didn’t question her further. No hesitation. No doubt. With a nod, she hurried to fetch the fireproof gloves.
Aila might be a little bit in love with this woman.
The phoenix complex had no portable incubators. Aila had to scavenge. From her desk, she dug out the phoenix tote bag she’d brought from the gift shop, thick canvas with convenient carrying handles. Inside, she stuffed every insulating towel she could fit, creating a nest.
With a silent plea to skies and seas, she popped the first incubator open. Heat blasted outward, a hit like a raging campfire as Luciana reached in with her protective gloves. The sleeping chick, now covered in poofy gray down, peeped in protest as it was stuffed into the towels. Aila and Luciana assembled the chicks in a pocket to keep as warm as possible. Last, little Rubra, wriggling and covered in awkward pin feathers.
“She’s so small,” Luciana breathed, cradling Rubra a moment before slipping her into the bag with the others.
Aila wrapped the towels over the top. Not a full incubator, but the set-up would keep the chicks warm enough for the journey to the staff office. She slung the bag over her shoulder, impossibly light. Impossibly precious.
Luciana led the way outside.
Once again, the dark zoo pathways met Aila not with their usual calm, but an ominous quiet. Too empty. Too many shadows. All but the most essential path lighting had been dimmed for the night, leaving her and Luciana to navigate via memory. They crept from one junction to the next, careful not to tread too loud against the concrete.
The smoothie hut passed them by, mannequin parrots on the roof looking down like phantoms. In the trees above, leaves shifted, wild purserats and racoons disturbed by the human interlopers. The zoo exhibits sat quiet, all the animals herded into back exhibits for the night.
No sign of Connor. Aila couldn’t decide if that was a comfort or a worry.
As they neared the staff office, golden light slanted out the door. Salvation. Emboldened, Aila jogged the last several paces, phoenix tote cradled to her chest. She burst inside to beautiful beige walls, the boring rows of protocol binders and bulletin board with staff notices.
At the desk, Antonio leaned back in his chair, dressed in his security uniform. Snoring.
“Antonio!” Aila stumbled against the desk in her haste. Caught herself. She grabbed the man’s arm and shook it. “Antonio, wake up! It’s an emergency!”
He didn’t budge. Aila shook him harder.
“ Antonio! We need your help!”
“Aila…” Luciana said behind her.
“Are you kidding me?” Aila grabbed him by the collar and poked his cheeks. “No one has any right to be this hard of a sleeper. Antonio? Antonio!”
“ Aila .”
Aila turned. Luciana stood across the desk, nose wrinkled over a coffee cup.
“Does this smell like lavender to you?” Luciana held the cup out.
Sure. Not like this was a situation wrought with dire peril, or anything. Plenty of time to waste on sniffing coffee . When Luciana insisted, Aila took an impatient huff.
“OK,” she said as the most delicate lavender aroma lifted above bitter coffee. “Super weird flavor combination. Not a great time to judge, Luciana.”
Luciana glared back. At least one of them could think straight. Aila stumbled way too long before the realization hit her.
“Periwinkle prairie goose lavender?” Aila spit out. “You think someone drugged him?”
Not normal sleeping pills, either. Concentrated periwinkle prairie goose oil was a small step down from medical grade anesthesia. Judging by Antonio’s snores, how hard Aila had shaken him, they’d be lucky to see him awake by morning.
Luciana swirled the cup. “Seems these thieves have really planned out—”
“ Argh! ” Aila snarled as she pushed past Luciana to the landline on the wall (a cheap plastic telephone, pastel blue and green in imitation of a peacock griffin). Aila yanked the headset off its cradle and pressed it to one ear.
She was halfway through punching in the emergency number before she registered the lack of dial tone.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Aila slammed the useless phone back to the cradle. The next time she saw Connor, he was getting punched in his stupid, clever face.
Within her tote bag, the phoenix chicks peeped. Whether in protest of the cold or Aila’s shouting, she didn’t care. They needed a new plan. Luciana tapped a red nail against her chin while she thought.
“We leave the zoo,” she proposed. “We’ve got the chicks. If we can get to the parking lot, we can drive to the police station. Or at least get out of range of that cell phone jammer.”
Thank the skies and seas Luciana showed up. Aila’s brain was too much rage pudding to generate a coherent strategy. Leaving the snoozing security guard behind, they delved back into the zoo, heading for the gate to the employee parking lot. Not a long jaunt from the staff office. Aila pulled her tote bag close as they power-walked, eager to lend any body heat she could.
They rounded a corner, the employee gate lit by a solitary lamp post.
Half a yelp escaped Aila before Luciana clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged them both into the shadows of some shrubbery.
Connor stood at the open gate. With friends. Two men Aila didn’t recognize spoke to him in hushed tones, their attire all black, gloves and long sleeves unsettling on the warm summer night. One wore a clunky backpack, box-shaped with plastic siding. The portable incubator. Such a cramped space would barely fit the full clutch, but of course, scum like this wouldn’t care.
That wasn’t the biggest problem.
Both men wore handguns on their belts. Dark metal glinted in the harsh overhead light, making Aila’s breath hitch.
“Luciana,” she squeaked.
“It’s OK, it’s OK.” Even Luciana’s voice shook.
The three men turned, setting a brisk pace toward them.
Luciana pulled Aila along the path, back into the zoo.
They had nowhere else to go. The immersive layout of the zoo stressed meandering pathways, a feeling of faux wilderness, but the core design remained artificial. Patrons were herded from exhibit to exhibit with little opportunity to stray, a track with masked edges. Aila and Luciana hurried away from the intruders, but also away from escape. At the first branching path, they shifted onto the walkway across the entry lagoon, hoping they hadn’t been spotted. Hoping Connor would lead his accomplices back to the phoenix complex.
With the men no longer in sight, Aila flinched at every shadow.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she hissed, cowering behind the cover of a frozen banana billboard. “You think they saw us?”
“Hopefully not.” Luciana peered around the corner, scanning the path they’d come from. “We can let them pass. Sneak behind them and still make it out of the gate?”
“But what if they spot us?” Aila worried.
“We might have to take that chance. Where else can we go? Once they see the chicks are missing, they’ll be on to us.”
And what would the thieves do? Cut their losses and run? Or would they comb the zoo, searching for their prize? Aila hugged her bag of phoenixes to her chest. Risking herself in the escape was one thing, but delivering her birds into Connor’s hands, she couldn’t stomach.
“We can try to sneak past them,” Aila said. “But not with the chicks. We need to hide them somewhere, in case anything goes wrong.”
Luciana made a frustrated huff. “Hide them? Where?”
Great question. As much as Aila despaired to think of parting with her precious chicks, she flew through a mental map of the zoo. Somewhere warm. Somewhere safe, where those poachers wouldn’t think to look. They didn’t have to stay there long, just enough for her and Luciana to escape and get help.
Aila straightened like a rod.
“Holy shit,” she breathed. “I think I know the perfect place.”
She pulled a startled Luciana after her.
The glass aviaries loomed ahead, both danger and salvation. Aila wouldn’t last five minutes in most action movies, her heart too frail, temper too timid, but she did feel a little badass sneaking down zoo pathways, peering around every corner as if Connor the Jackass might be waiting to slam into her again. They passed the sleeping mirror flamingos, beneath the dark banyan trees of the Renkailan section, arriving at a dark, quiet aviary.
The Bix phoenix.
Aila pulled out her keys and unlocked the door. Moonlight brushed the exhibit pool, the feathery papyrus reeds along the shore.
“Are you sure about this?” Luciana whispered.
“Like, eighty percent?” Aila hissed back. Not as high as she’d like, but…
She clutched her tote bag and clambered up the muddy incline, too quiet with the waterfall shut off for the night. When she reached the hole in the rocks, a tattered sheet of metal lay over the opening, screws bent, the remnants of Tanya’s latest defeat by her stubborn bird.
“Horns and fangs.” Luciana poked the metal, warped as if by a water jet. “Is this what she’s always complaining about?”
Persistence at its worst. And best. Aila braced her shoulder against the metal sheet, pushing it aside enough to look into the hole.
Khonsu, the Bix phoenix, greeted her with an irate croak. He roosted in the back of his cavern, head tucked against the gray feathers of his body. Cheeky little bastard.
“Khonsu,” Aila whispered.
He croaked again, angrier.
“No, no, no, it’s OK!” She held up a hand in peace. “You can stay this time.”
A softer croak, irritated, as he pulled his head down tighter.
“But I have a big favor to ask. Like, the biggest favor ever.”
Aila reached into her bag. The interior of the towels was like an oven, hot against her fingers. She scooped up a protesting phoenix chick, then leaned into the hole, offering it to Khonsu for inspection.
His head lifted, cheeks puffed in alarm. With neck extended, he twisted an eye to peer at the crying baby bird. Khonsu had never raised a nest himself. Tonight, Aila relied on instinct.
She nudged aside Khonsu’s breast feathers and slipped the phoenix chick underneath, into the warm pocket of down. Khonsu clucked in protest, but after a moment of puffed feathers and swiveling head, he settled down. Beneath him, the chick’s peeping quieted.
Aila could have kissed this muddy bitch of a bird.
One by one, she moved the rest of her charges into the hole. Khonsu shifted atop the new occupants, but so long as Aila wasn’t trying to drag him out of his den, he didn’t protest. Luciana watched from the sidelines, silent. Only once Aila finished did she notice her companion’s mouth agape.
“Incredible,” Luciana said. “They’ll be safe here?”
“For a bit. Bix phoenixes run cooler body temperature than Silimalos, but not by much. Nice and toasty.”
Aila hoped. It was all gambles and hope at this point, but Luciana’s proud hand-squeeze offered a boost of confidence. Within his cave, Khonsu croaked, then settled his beak against his back, dozing. With the chicks safe (for now), Aila slung the empty tote over her shoulder and snuck back out of the aviary.
They’d still not seen the phoenix nabbers, but by now, Connor must have made it back to the complex. He must have seen the empty incubators, Aila vanished from her prison. Time pressed her and Luciana faster than before, hurrying toward the staff entry gate.
“Short cut?” Aila suggested, pointing to the World of Birds aviary. They could cut through the exhibit, out the door on the far side. At Luciana’s nod, Aila pulled out her keys, fingers shaking as she slid them into the lock.
Before she could pull the door open, footsteps sounded behind them. Luciana went rigid.
“Shit!” Aila scrambled for the door handle.
Then froze at the sound of a cocking gun.