Winged

Chapter Four

As it turned out, the girl wasn't hard to find. She sat on the steps outside of the hotel, going through the pictures on her camera. She looked up when the trio approached her, seemingly frightened. Cairo didn't blame her - the expression on Luc's face wasn't exactly friendly.

"She's a witness," Luc stated, looking at Cairo. "We'll need to get rid of her."

The girl's eyes widened. "No- Wait- What?!" She scrambled to her feet, holding her arms up defensively. Angel and Luc both looked to Cairo, waiting for his order.

"Of course not!" Cairo exclaimed, astonished by their reaction to this. "Wait, you guys want to kill her?!"

"No," Angel began, "Not if you don't-"

"Of course we're going to kill her!" Luc interrupted forcefully. "We don't have a choice, she's a witness. Letting her go is a ridiculously dangerous idea - imagine if this got out! The type of target we'd have on our back-"

"We're not killing anyone," Cairo insisted. "Absolutely not!"

"You know we can't-"

The girl took this moment to make a run for it, not getting more than a few steps before Luc grabbed her arm, pulling her back and pushing her to the ground. He glared scathingly at Cairo, snatching the girl's camera.

"You can't do this!" She cried, her voice breaking. "The police would find you! My mom would find you."

Luc sighed in exasperation.

"We're not going to hurt you," Cairo said, trying to calm the girl down."

"I'm not stupid," She proclaimed in annoyance, attempting to swallow her nerves. Cairo held out a hand to help her up. She took it rather reluctantly, brushing herself off. "And I'm not afraid of you." Her voice shook when she spoke. Cairo could tell she was lying, but was also slightly confused by the change of attitude.

Luc cursed, plucking the girl's phone out of her pocket. "You called the police, didn't you?"

"I texted them," she admitted defensively.

Luc shook his head. "Doesn't matter," he told himself, "We'll be gone before they get here."

"What's your name?" Cairo asked, attempting to take control of the situation.

"Melanie," the girl hissed irritably. "Why?"

"You have to promise not to tell anyone about this," Cairo told her steadily.

"We can't trust her," Luc argued.

"I promise," Melanie said, nodding. "But you have to tell me what's going on, first. Why does he have wings?" She asked, pointing at Angel.

"We're not going to tell you anything," Luc replied.

"Oh, come on! He has wings! I can't just let this go!"

"You can, and you will."

"But-"

Luc dropped her camera into the fountain vindictively.Melanie flinched.

"Did you really have to do that?" Cairo asked. Luc didn't respond.

"We need to get going. If we're not going to kill her, then we need to get as far away from here as possible," he said.

"Wait," Melanie interrupted. "What if I could help you?"

"Help us?" Luc laughed. "Why would you do that? This really isn't something you should be getting involved in."

"But I can help! I can get you weapons. My mom owns a gun shop I have the keys. You're fighting something, right? The other one? If you explain all of this to me, then I can get you whatever guns you want."

Cairo looked to Luc. "Do guns even work on winged?" he asked.

Luc nodded. "They do, and she does have a point, but tell me..." He took a step closer to Melanie, threateningly. "What do you plan to do with information? You cannot tell anyone. If you do, we will all die."

Melanie nodded. "I won't. I already promised."

Luc muttered irritatedly under his breath. "Alright," he announced. "But if you die it's on you. Let's get going before the police get here."

"But my car's broken," Cairo said, still not very happy about it.

"Which is why we're walking."

Cairo frowned, but followed him reluctantly. Melanie grinned ear to ear, trotting at his side, while Angel fidgeted with his sweater.

They passed by a few blocks before Luc started speaking again. "We need to come up with an offensive plan."

"Isn't that kind of your job?" Cairo asked. Luc had sort of already taken the role of leader- which made sense, him being the only one that really had the full story.

"Once we have weapons, we'll be able to fight back against this godling," Luc continued, ignoring Cairo, which in turn proved him right. Melanie showed no sign of having the slightest clue of what was going on, but was silent anyway. "But the hardest part will be finding them- and getting to them without being found."

"We aren't going to kill them though, right?" Cairo asked, doubtful.

"We'll worry about that when we get there," Luc said, not helping to cease Cairo's suspicions. "But another thing- we'll also need better disguises. Who knows how easy it would be to recognize us."

"Ooh," Melanie's smile widened. "Disguises!"

Luc gritted his teeth. "Please don't speak for the rest of the time you're with us," he said, making his annoyance clear.

"Fine," Melanie huffed sassily. Cairo couldn't help but giggle, making Luc shoot him another glare. What a weird dynamic.

Cairo turned his gaze to Angel, who walked a short ways behind them. He didn't talk or express much. Cairo felt as if he was constantly wondering what he was thinking- or if he was thinking at all.

Once Luc had decided they were far enough from the hotel, he had Melanie give directions to her mother's shop. Cairo couldn't help but think it would've been easier had they done that in the first place, as opposed to just walking in a random direction, but hey- you didn't argue with the guy who knew what he was doing. Or at least Cairo hoped Luc knew what he was doing.