Fire Meets Gasoline : Wildfire

Chapter Five : Choose Your Battles

 JOHN MCHALE. We reached Los Angeles around dusk, when the buildings were lit like Christmas lights, and ironically it was indeed Christmas time. There were many Santa decorations scattered around; garlands, wreaths, snow globes and angels. I couldn't remember the last time I truly enjoyed Christmas though. The years I stayed in Elpida alone with my mother we would usually just eat dinner like usual and just be thankful for each other.

"Are you okay?" I asked Jennifer as she struggled to keep still.

"Yeah. It's just-my hips hurt a bit..." She explained.

Mike heard her answer and started worrying with questions that Jennifer could not have the time to answer, it was clear she was still hurt by the Casino accident.

"I thought you said you were fine!" Lin worried.

"I am, it's just that those freaks took away my meds!"

We all looked to each other trying to find some solution, the best one was to take her to a hospital close to us, but that would mean risking the police or Red Flower finding us again. Mike tried to convince her to let him take her to some clinic, it all led to more discussions that didn't take us anywhere, even Lin was annoyed by the situation, but he was reminded about the mission we had. He wasn't forcing us to keep going, but he was alerting us about how bad it would be to stop in the middle of it.

I was more worried than anyone else, I would have to take my pride and dignity out the window in order to talk to Cian, a man who I told to leave me alone. If I knew things would take such a harsh turn I would've never pushed him away, in fact I wanted to keep in my life, he was someone new in which I could completely reinvent myself, it was a shame that had to crumble down.

"We are here!" Lin gave me a heads up.

I got out of the car and took a minute to see my surroundings, there were so many people. All going into all sorts of directions, some on their phone, some with presents in their arms, and the most interesting of all, some with their children. I didn't want to look like some creep but I did notice two parents and a child walking so happily, and that touched something in my heart. I was trying so hard to focus on the plan, but I had to stop and think of something else, family. It's no surprise to anyone that I never had that, my family was broken the minute my father was given as dead from intoxication in a run down motel. My mother became a drunk, my grandmother became ill and my grandfather died before I even had the chance to speak a full sentence. I grew up learning things by myself, and that made me make so many mistakes, and the worst of all was to confuse being lonely and alone.

The good part was that I was slowly learning to be myself in a way my father could be proud if he was ever alive, or seeing me from heaven.

I knew Cian had his own company, he told me on the second day we met, maybe that was a mistake of his. Before I was fine with the fact that our "friendship" was being a bit rushed, but it turned out that was one of the reasons it failed, there was no groundwork of trust or anything of the sort, so when the time came to me trust him or let him in my business, I shied away from him. This time, I was going to be the one asking him to trust me, and I knew many things could go wrong which would lead me to either get caught by the police or the Red Flower, but it was worth the try.

I started walking towards the front of the building, preparing all my words and gestures, but then Cian himself walked out of the front door and walked to the garage door of the building, and that was the only chance I had to talk to him. I rushed towards him, and once he saw me, I knew from the expressions he made that he was not happy at all to see me, in fact, he was hurt by my presence.