Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Four
Aila turned.
Facing her was the barrel of a handgun.
In the movies, the books, true heroines stood tall in times like this. Their moment to shine in the face of adversity, to turn the tables and save the day. Staring down a gun in real life, Aila experienced no such burst of courage. Only dread, released in a quivering breath as she and Luciana raised their hands.
The unlocked aviary door slipped from her grasp. So close to escape.
In the path stood Connor—truly, fuck him—and two conspirators Aila had never seen before, young men in black attire and black gloves. The one pointing a gun at her sported the goatee classic to all douchebags. The shorter had a bald spot he’d attempted to comb over with a coif of wispy hair.
Connor regarded Aila with, of all things, an annoyed expression, that I’m-so-much-better-than-you scrunch to his brow she’d come to recognize too late. His scowl flicked to Luciana.
“Hey, Luc,” Connor greeted, flat. “You working late tonight, too?”
“Don’t fucking call me that. Prick.” Luciana’s voice was a level keel, a manicured tempest of derision. Skies and seas, let Aila borrow a sliver of that confidence.
She fought to keep her wobbling legs from collapsing. And she’d thought crowds were bad. If, somehow, she got out of this scrap in one piece, Aila vowed to never complain about public speaking again.
“Where are the chicks, Aila?” Frustration painted Connor’s words. As if that was anything new.
Aila clamped her mouth shut.
“We’re not here to hurt anyone,” Connor pressed. “If you’d have gone home like you were supposed to, this would be over by now.”
“Sure,” Luciana said. “That’s why you came armed .”
“Y-yeah!” Aila added. Very smooth. “You and your…” She squinted at the unfamiliar men flanking Connor. “Friends?”
“Friends?” Connor frowned. “Associates. They reached out to me with a business proposal, and we found mutual interests. That’s all.”
That was even worse . No camaraderie? No exciting heist montage? All of this, just for the money. Just to rip away Aila’s heart.
Goatee Douchebag brandished his handgun, impatient. “Let’s move this along, please?” The weapon pointed to Aila and Luciana, but his annoyance fell on Connor.
Beside them, Balding Coif tipped back a sleeve to scowl at his watch.
“Yeah, I get it .” Connor eyed the tote bag slung over Aila’s shoulder. “Hand them over.”
Aila clutched the bag. No doubt, Connor thought her grasp a throe of defeat, one last effort to shield her phoenixes with spindly arms. She hugged the bag to her chest, the nest of towels bulky in her embrace. Beyond that, empty. Her chicks dozed in the Bix phoenix exhibit.
A moment of panic, nonetheless.
Connor didn’t realize the bag was empty. He was about to.
As he approached, Aila’s thoughts raced into overdrive, at risk of smoke pouring out her ears. He’d look in the bag. He’d demand where she’d hidden the chicks, a gun pointed at her head. Between those two inevitabilities? A sliver of opportunity. One chance to act.
Connor walked in slow motion. One step. Two. His boots cracked against the pavement, soles sticky with spilled soda.
Oh no. Oh no. What should she do ?
He paused in front of her, that curl of hair on his temple so obnoxiously handsome. Eyes slitted. When Aila refused to hand the bag over, he yanked it off her shoulder. As he dug into the towels, her legs jittered with the urge to run.
Scowling, Connor dug deeper into the bag.
He yanked the towels out, spilling them to the concrete. When he tipped the empty bag over, his eyes went wide, the most delicious look on that punchable face.
Well. Ought to go with instinct.
With a shrill battle cry, Aila punched Connor’s stupid nose.
A wet crunch. Two yelps. Connor doubled over, clutching his not-so-handsome-anymore face as blood seeped across his lips. Aila winced at her throbbing hand.
Punching people hurt ? Why had no one ever told her?
As Connor staggered and cursed, his accomplices looked on with startled eyes. OK, but honestly? They were that surprised to see Aila put up a fight? She scowled at the insult (and her screaming knuckles).
The gun wavered, drifting sideways as Connor stumbled into its path. Aila grabbed Luciana’s hand and charged them both into the World of Birds aviary.
An excellent plan, if Aila did say so. The cherry on top came from Luciana, who had both the sense of mind and dexterity to smack the door lock closed behind them. Connor slamming into the door at full force was the second most satisfying sound Aila had heard that night, after his face crumpling.
Less satisfying: the jingle of metal as Connor ripped his keys from his belt. Curse this organized zoo and its universal aviary locks. At least Aila had a head start.
She never let go of Luciana’s hand.
The paths inside the aviary curved and intersected like the rest of the zoo, but once again, escape options were limited. Aila led Luciana off the concrete and into the cover of vegetation, wide leaves slicked with moisture from the afternoon misting, soil spongy beneath their boots. Hundreds of times, she’d trekked through the aviary plants—rooting around for Archie’s discarded toys, searching for items stolen from patrons, hiding from those same patrons—enough to know every trunk and slope as well in dark as in daylight.
Fleeing for her life, she had less experience with. Aila channeled her inner phantom cat—skies and seas, what she wouldn’t give for the ability to go incorporeal right now. Adrenaline made the shadows beneath the cecropia trees pool deeper. The vines snagging Aila’s wrists seemed alive with malice. Blinded by dense underbrush, Aila couldn’t see their pursuers.
So she had to listen.
She and Luciana paused beside a knotted fig trunk, clothes damp, shoulders pressed together in the dark. Aila strained to hear anything above her ragged breaths, the blood beating in her ears. Near the aviary entrance, her vanishing ducks quacked in alarm. Closer, the screaming mynas hopped through the canopy, following an intruder.
Aila crouched with Luciana amid the bushes, waiting to see if the interloper would pass. The aviary had two other exits. If they could find an opening, they might slip out unnoticed.
Except the thieves knew their prey were trapped. Near one door, the periwinkle prairie geese joined in irate honking. Toward another, the screaming mynas hollered with the shrieks of a middle-aged man. At the third, a squawk from Archie.
Surrounded.
Aila curled into a ball with her back against the mossy tree trunk. She’d only wanted to play with her phoenixes, only wanted to save an entire species from extinction. Was that so much to ask? Now, she wanted to hide away like she always did. She could cower here in her musky exhibit, wait for someone else to take the stage. Someone better to save the day.
But no one else was coming. Aila’s phoenixes needed her. If this was a do or die moment, she had a long list of life accomplishments she’d hoped to check off.
One of them knelt beside her.
“Hey, Luciana?” Aila whispered.
Luciana shushed her, one finger tapped over crimson lips. All that red and gold makeup since joining the phoenix program. The shades looked gorgeous on her. Most things looked gorgeous on her, but fiery colors matched a fiery personality.
“So, um…” Aila’s heart picked up speed, a hindrance to coherent words. “Would you… want to get dinner some time?”
Luciana gawked. Surprise, anger, joy, all beautiful on that face. Unfair, really.
“ Excuse me? ” Luciana hissed with such force, Aila imagined the decibels she was being spared, thanks to their current peril. “We’re hiding in a bush from armed intruders trying to steal your phoenixes, and you’re asking me on a date ?”
“Yeah, well, you see…” Aila flinched at a rustle of leaves above them. A flutter of wings. Just one of the cinnamon birds, inspecting the kerfuffle. She steeled her nerves and pressed on. “I’m not all that great at this dating thing.”
“Really,” Luciana said, flat. “Skies and seas, I never would have guessed.”
“Usually, I bumble my way into messing things up.”
“Aila, this isn’t the best time to—”
“But I like you. I think I… really like you. I don’t know how we lucked into getting you for the phoenix program, but I’m so happy we did.”
Luciana paused at that. Annoyance twitched her brow, but the expression softened as she squeezed Aila’s hand, grungy with sweat and mud. None of that mattered. Aila focused on the warmth of Luciana’s skin, that sweet of mango.
“So I have to ask,” Aila said. “Usually, I psych myself out. I get terrified of all the things that could go wrong. This time, I want to be different. I want to have the courage to at least ask you on a date, and I figure I better do it now, just in case… I don’t get to ask later.”
In case the worst happened. Aila shuddered to think, but planning for worst contingencies ranked high among her skills. Years of rejection had her bracing for Luciana’s response, the possibility of refusal. Now would be a perfect time for backtracking. What better excuse than dire peril to snuff a budding relationship that was a mistake from the start?
“First of all,” Luciana said with that mix of haughty and annoyed. “How dare you talk like that. Second of all… I’d love to go on a date.”
Aila blinked. “With… me?”
Luciana swatted her. “Who else? About time you asked me. Dork.”
The mynas squawked overhead, moving through the trees as Connor and his conspirators combed the aviary. Aila’s knuckles throbbed, and a growing chill on her ass suggested she’d sat in something moist.
None of that stopped her heart from soaring.
“Once we get out of here,” Aila said. “Once the phoenixes are safe. A proper date? Outside the zoo?”
“Wow. Splurging for me already?” Luciana’s smirk turned Aila to putty. “You have a restaurant in mind? Or would you prefer something quieter?”
“Oh, thank the skies and seas—quiet, please .” Aila could work her way back up to proper social interaction. After tonight, she’d be lucky to pry herself out of blanket cocoons for a month. She chewed her lip, working up the greatest courage yet. “We could… um… relax at my place? I’ve got a carbuncle who gives excellent cuddles. And I make a passable chicken parmesan.”
“The selling points. Incredible.” Luciana pressed a hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. “Sounds perfect. I’ll bring dessert?”
“You’re on.”
In the dark of the aviary, damp with mud and surrounded by doom, Aila kissed Luciana.
Soft lips stirred embers in her belly, a moment of desperation and unshakable calm. She could imagine it, couldn’t she? A night alone with Luciana, drowning in the depthless dark of her eyes. She ran her fingers through the tight roots of Luciana’s ponytail and imagined the curls unbound, falling against her cheeks.
Maybe Luciana would wear a dress. Skies and seas, Aila might perish.
Then Aila’s hand was on her waist, measuring the flawless curve. She could imagine more. Bare skin, hot beneath her fingers. Soft thighs. Soft everything, lulling her into oblivion.
All they had to do was make it through tonight. Aila clung to that promise, willing it to give her courage for her next plan.
“Get out of the zoo,” Aila whispered against Luciana’s mouth. “Get help.”
Luciana frowned. “Right. That’s our plan.”
“ Your plan. I’ll make the distraction.”
Aila leapt up and ran before Luciana could grab her.
The hiss of her name through Luciana’s lips struck just as hard.
Brave? Debatable. Foolish? Most likely. As much as Aila wanted to shrivel like a worm in the mud, one of them needed to escape, and the aviary was a trap. If she could drag one of their pursuers away from a door, Luciana could get out. Help might arrive in time to save her phoenix chicks from being tossed in a box and smuggled across the world.
Or freezing in a hole. Hopefully, Khonsu didn’t mind the company.
Three aviary doors to choose from. As the splinters of a plan came together in Aila’s head, she sprinted toward the door where Archie croaked in the canopy. Maybe luck would cut her a break, and she’d run into Connor again. Getting to punch that stupid face a second time wouldn’t be the worst outcome.
Luck was not so kind.
Aila skidded around a curve in the path, boots slick on damp concrete. Ahead of her, Mr. Balding Coif guarded the door. He yanked the gun from his belt and pointed at her.
“Hold it! Hands up!”
Aila froze and did as he said. Not the sharpest plan she’d ever had, but all she needed was a little time. She hoped.
Above her, leaves rustled. Archie called out an inquisitive wheeze.
Balding Coif blinked at her, baffled by the lackluster escape attempt—a little rude , but Aila wasn’t about to call him out on it. He approached on wary steps, gun level with her chest. The shiny metal caught a sliver of moonlight, lighting up like quicksilver in the dark.
Come on, come on, come on…
A squawk was his only warning.
Archie hit his target like a gray bullet. A phantom in the night. A fearless archibird with his beady black eyes locked on one of the biggest, shiniest objects to ever enter his aviary.
Maybe Aila wasn’t out of luck yet.
The gunman cried out, flinching as gray wings beat the air in front of him. Valiant Archie, eyes always too big for his claws, grasped the gun in his feet, then tried to fly off with it. This endeavor failed, owing to the oversight of said object being grasped by an adult man with more weight than an archibird. Thwarted but not defeated, Archie hollered and puffed his crest to full height. Then came the onslaught: pecked fingers, fluttering wings, ear-piercing shrieks. The gunman cursed and swatted at his attacker.
If only Archie was that easy to deter, Aila would have fielded a lot fewer guest complaints over the years.
She seized her opportunity. With the gunman pointing his barrel to the ground as he attempted to rip Archie off his arm, Aila lurched forward. Arm strength, she had none, but raw body weight was enough to shove Balding Coif off balance and tumbling through the vegetation of the adjacent slope.
Archie landed on a branch, a couple of feathers ruffled, but looking more annoyed than harmed. What a good bird. Deserving of all the mango slices and shiny buttons later.
For now, Aila’s exit stood unguarded.
She smashed the lock open and stumbled out of the aviary, making sure to bang the door behind her. The sound echoed through the glass dome, enough to alert the other thieves that she was on the move. Escaping. Better run after her, and don’t spare any mind for the hot griffin keeper who was, hopefully, hidden away until her opportunity came.
The crash of bushes and curses behind Aila told her at least one of her assailants took the bait. She glanced back to see Balding Coif lurching out of the aviary several paces behind her. Aila set her boots to the concrete and sprinted.
Escape, she wasn’t sure of. Her goal was to lead him away.
Past the smoothie shack and its judgmental mannequin parrots. Over a bed of ornamental shrubs. Through the junction to the kelpie exhibit. Aila steered the other direction, circling around the World of Birds aviary, hoping to loop her pursuer along for as long as possible. She could branch sideways at the dragon aviaries, or take a detour into the Renkailan section.
Instead, a figure charged into the path ahead, gun in hand. Douchebag Goatee. He spotted Aila and set toward her at a sprint.
She yelped and backtracked down the kelpie path.
Not good. Not good. Balding Coif was still somewhere behind her, and now Douchebag Goatee was closing fast from the other side. Boxed in. If Connor caught her from a third direction, she’d have nowhere to go.
Aila already had nowhere to go, the beat of footsteps closing too fast behind her.
“Stop running!” he shouted.
Aila might have to. Her meager muscles weren’t made for cardio. Huffing and exhausted, desperation drove her to a tight turn off the path and into the closest shelter.
The kelpie exhibit.
In the moment, the safety of the keeper corridors seemed irresistible. Aila had always been able to hide from the world here, her personal sanctuary. Not until the door shut did she realize her mistake.
Ahead of her, the corridor branched on one side into the kitchen, the other leading downstairs to the kelpie tank. Only one way in or out.
Maybe she’d lost her tail. He’d keep running, thinking she’d continued down the path.
A thud from the other side of the door made her shriek. So much for laying low.
Aila ran down the hall. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. The kitchen was too small, nowhere to hide. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, looking down to the observation window for the kelpie tank. A dead end there, too. As keys clicked in the door she’d entered through, one last option remained. One that made her blood run cold.
She hefted the heavy latch of the door into the kelpie chamber. Metal scraped concrete as she escaped inside.
Within the room: quiet.
Placid water lapped the pool. Aila’s breaths tumbled ragged out of her chest. Each exhale twisted into mist, merging with the thick fog coating the floor. Back holdings tended to be plain, this one dominated by the massive water tank. The door entered at a shelf of concrete flush with the water’s surface, scattered with algae and bones from the meal Aila left out that evening.
She tried to calm her breath, tried to keep as silent as possible. The black water didn’t move, an uncanny stillness beneath waves of fog. A good place to hide, just not for long. No one in their right mind would think to follow her in here.
In the meantime, Aila just had to get her heart rate down.
She breathed deep, grounding herself with solid concrete beneath her boots, cool metal against fingers—
Aila yelped when the door behind her boomed, a heart-stopping echo through the room. Note to self: mindfulness exercises, not superbly effective during life-or-death situations. She’d complain to her therapist later. When the latch turned, Aila planted her feet, trying to stop the door swinging inward, but her boots slipped on slick concrete.
The door burst open. She fell back, hitting the floor with ass and palms. Balding Coif strode into the room with eyes on fire, peck marks on his face, gun leveled at Aila.
“Get up,” he ordered. “Tell us where those fucking birds are, or I’ll put a fucking bullet through your head.”
He clicked something on his weapon. Aila didn’t know enough about guns to say what, exactly. She understood the threat just as well.
Only… she couldn’t quite bring herself to care.
A calm fell over her. Over the room. Her heart, once hammering in her throat, settled with remarkable speed. Her breaths slowed, smooth and quiet as black water.
Aila looked away from the gun, away from the looming man. All of a sudden, the pool seemed… mesmerizing. Inky black, though little lights danced on the surface like drops of stars. Brighter. Wider.
Two eyes peered back at her from beneath the surface, ringed in a mane of hair and algae.
The kelpie raised her head without a sound. Without a ripple.
Her black eyes fixed on Aila like a starless sky, like wells into the pit of the world. Her mane hung like mussed silk, swirling at the water’s surface. Aila wanted to run her fingers through that mane. To slip into the pool. Weightless. What a wonderful feeling that would be.
She shifted onto her knees. The kelpie tilted her head.
The spell snapped like a twig.
Aila’s knuckles throbbed. Her breaths had worn her throat raw, and her bony legs ached against concrete. Ahead of her, Maisie floated in the pool. Aila fell back on her hands, survival instinct screaming at her to crawl away from the carnivorous horse still staring, still holding her kelp-strewn head in an inquisitive tilt.
No longer hypnotizing, though. One of the deadlier ways kelpies lured prey into their native bogs. Aila had never realized a beast could break off the trance.
Or why one would.
Beside her, Balding Coif held his gun limp, staring at Maisie with unblinking eyes.
Aila’s breath caught in her throat.
She lurched forward, but not in time. The man stepped toward the pool. Maisie reached out, tipping her snout to grasp his pant leg in gentle fangs. A single tug, and he slipped into the water. Before Aila could shout, both man and kelpie were gone, the inky pool returned to a glassy surface, the room silent.
Aila sprinted out the door.
Panic and fatigue had baked her thoughts into pudding, yet a single goal drove her forward. Into the hall. Down the stairs to the base of the kelpie tank. Faster. Faster. She didn’t have much time .
Beyond the glass of the observation window, Maisie drifted like flotsam, strands of mane and tail encircling her unusual prey. Not a goat. Not severed deer legs. This seemed to intrigue the kelpie. While she inspected him, the man hung in the water as if in suspended animation. No flailing. No struggling. A single gurgle of bubbles escaped his lips and floated to the surface.
Not today.
No one had ever died in one of Aila’s exhibits, and skies and seas be damned, she was not losing that streak. Not even for a poacher. This, at least, she had zoo protocol for.
Aila slammed her palm to the gate release button. Inside the pool, the water shuddered as machinery moved, opening the gate to the main exhibit. Maisie paused from inspecting her human, casting a curious glance at the gate instead.
“All right, Maisie.” Once the gate opened, Aila moved to the window and pressed both hands to the glass. “Come on, sweetie. It’s not the usual time, but you know what to do.”
Most animals in the zoo didn’t have the training the griffin show did. Move to exhibit, move to back holding—that was the extent of it. Aila hoped that would be enough. Within the tank, Maisie hesitated, mane swirling in eddies as her hooves pawed the water.
“Maisie, please.” Aila pressed closer to the glass, until her nose scrunched the cold surface. “Go out to your exhibit. I will give you… the juiciest goat leg ever tomorrow.”
The kelpie peered at her through the glass, unable to perform any charms across the barrier, but those depthless eyes held Aila’s heart still. The silence stretched too long. Another burst of bubbles escaped the hanging man.
With a kick of hooves, Maisie flowed through the gate, into the main exhibit.
Aila’s victory shriek bounced off concrete walls. The moment the kelpie passed out of the back holding, she slammed the button to close the gate. It whined shut on hydraulic levers, falling still with another shudder of water. The pool turned placid once more.
Until the man started thrashing.
He came awake with a violent jerk, flailing arms and sputtering water. His gun already lay at the bottom of the pool, but the rest of him, Aila wasn’t thrilled to deal with. Saving his life ought to be favor enough.
While he swam to the surface, Aila ran back up the stairs to the door she’d left open in her hasty retreat. Inside the room, the man hunched on the concrete slab, coughing and spitting up water. Still alive? Excellent.
Aila slammed the door shut and heaved the latch into place, sealing him inside. He shouted and banged from the other side, but with Maisie out on exhibit, he’d be safe for now.
One down, two still lurking. Aila took a moment to gather her breath before plunging back into the zoo.