Schism In The Safe Place

Chapter 4

   The day seemed never-ending as my father pulled up to a building an led me inside.

"Where are we going now?" He shushed me as we approached a room with voices coming from it.

"The thing is, I think it's getting worse," a woman sighed. "A cop pulled me over last week. He thought I was drunk. I swerved to miss a plastic bag. I thought it was an IED." I looked over to see the man my dad had been with when we picked him up yesterday.

"Some stuff you leave there. Other stuff you bring back. It's our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase, or in a little man-purse. It's up to you." We stepped away from the door frame as the session ended so that the attendees could leave without being bothered. "I'll see you next week. Most definitely." He smirked when he noticed my father. "Look who it is, the running man." His eyes flickered down to me. "Who's this?"

"This is my daughter, Elanor. Ela, Sam Wilson." We shook hands.

"I'd assume you two are not related?"

"Yeah, I'm adopted." I decided not to say anything about being almost five hundred years old or having wings.

"Caught the last few minutes," my father diverted. "It's pretty intense."

"Yeah, brother, we all got the same problems. Guilt, regret."

"You lose someone?"

"My wingman, Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op." I had no idea what any of those words meant. "Nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before. Until an RPG knocked Riley's dumb ass out of the sky. Nothing I could do. It's like I was up there just to watch."

"I'm sorry."

"After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?"

"But you're happy now. Back in the world."

"The number of people giving me orders is down to about zero. So, hell yeah. Are you thinking about getting out?" I looked up at my father in panic. He'd never mentioned anything about moving. I wasn't sure I could handle something like that.

"No. I don't know."

"What? You've never-"

"To be honest, I don't know what I would do with myself if I did."

"Ultimate fighting." The two of them laughed, but I turned away and began to worry. "Just a great idea off the top of my head. Seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?"

"I don't know. Aside from my family... I don't know."

"Well, your family over there doesn't look to happy, so you might want to deal with her. I'll catch you later."

"Thanks, Sam." I didn't look at my father as he came over.

"You want to move?"

"Ela, I never said anything about that."

"Would you go without me? Would you take whatever girl Nat sets you up with instead?" He came around and crouched in front of me.

"Whoa, whoa. Where is this coming from?"

"Everyone's trying to change things. Nothing needs to change, no one else needs to be put in danger, and no one needs to go anywhere. I brushed my father off of me and marched out to his bike, waiting for him to get on so that we could go. By the time we reached home, streetlights and the moon were guiding our way. I still didn't speak as we climbed the stairs. The nurse who lives across the hall from us came out of her apartment with a basket of laundry, so I had to think fast to hide my wings.