Caldera

Chapter 12: Carlie/Shane

Carlie walked into the spacious kitchen area, which looked more like one of those five-star restaurants she'd seen so much of on TV. Shit, if I was even half as talented as any of those fuckers, I'd be serving lamb instead of lead.

While waiting for Tate, she wandered through the galley, looking at the pots and pans of various sizes, neatly stacked on their racks. Their users had long since fled. She was a little jealous of how they managed to clean up well, despite their panicked state.

Carlie touched one of the ladles hanging on the wall. In a different lifetime, before Carlie even knew what a hitman was, she could whip up a spicy chili that could make any red-blooded Texan cry. On one occasion – it could've been for Shane, during their salad days – she used some ground-up Spam as part of her secret sauce. She had a magical ability to make anything edible and tasty from scratch, with any ingredients she could scrounge up.

Back then, she used to be able to make him smile a few times, too.

God, she wished she had her pack of Marlboros. It was hard enough staying dry for more than twenty-four hours. On the next trip to wherever, she vowed to fill up on whatever libations she could get her hands on. Even a few nips of Bacardi would do.

She could hear Tate in the living room, talking to Shane on her satphone. Even though she tried not to care, she knew that for at least part of that call, they'd be talking about her. About how she'd be a loose cannon, hell-bent on destroying everything and everyone in her way. Especially Betancourt. That lovely collage of bullet holes that now tattooed the ceiling didn't help her cause, either.

Shane didn't say it directly to her or even Tate, but she knew he had thought of it. Even though she'd hated him for as long as she could remember... hearing him doubt her, that quietly stung. It hurt more than the 9 mm parabellum from his Sig Sauer, the one that lodged itself less than an inch from her heart and nearly killed her.

On the other hand, Carlie was surprised that Tate had vouched for her. If anything, she thought it would be the other way around, that she would be the biggest doubter. Just showed to prove how she'd gotten so many things wrong.

"Alright, sounds good. We'll be off, then." Tate ended the satlink and turned her attention to Carlie. "We're going to San Antonio."

"On to Mexico?" asked Carlie. Tate nodded.

"Flight's in two hours. As soon as the Sibs make it here, we're bugging out."

The next morning, Shane made his way through a crowded space at Palomo's Café in Inglewood. He stood in the queue before the barista to await his turn to order. Most of the patrons left after receiving their beverages.

Palomo's was a fairly new joint, meant to draw young, hipster kids from the greater LA area into the newly-gentrified Westside. By default, most of its patrons happened to be black, owing to the demographics of the area. Good for Fiona, who easily blended in; not so much for an Asian guy who stuck out like a green duck among a flock of brown in a lake. So it was reassuring for him to see that he wasn't alone.

Surveying his surroundings, he saw a group of five friends at a table – three male, two female – chatting and laughing. All of them nearly his age and Tate's. In another world, they might have hung out with them, even gone to the same colleges. But with the strange twists that defined his story, all he could do now was watch from afar.

There were times that he mused if he would've turned out differently if he had never met Tate for that first fateful encounter. And then later, remained at Hades, long after she left. Then he'd hear a voice whispering to him that all of this was of his own doing, his own fault. Tate didn't force him to quit school early and fuck up his own youth, or join the JSDF. She wasn't the one who broke his leg when his parachute failed to deploy in a combat exercise. That was all him.