The Fire Triangle -- Part II, Oxidizer

The Fire Triangle: Book II - Chapter 54

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The Fire Triangle

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Part Two:

Oxidizer

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Chapter 9: Conor's Story
(Continued...Part 6)

♪ Well, that voice might come when you're taking your pleasure
The voice might come when you're resting your bones
Seek you out when you're sad or smiling
Drags you down when you think you're alone.

Just when you think that your horses are running
Just when you think that you're fixing to win
There's that wandering deep inside you
Who's gonna save you from the rattle within? ♫

Richard Thompson - The Rattle Within

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Erin Hopps felt as if a pair of scales had dropped from her eyes; at last, things were becoming clear. Yes, Conor had poisoned that poor Okapi kid-but it hadn't been his fault; he'd been tricked into doing it. And even then, he hadn't offered up that can of pop to Chester Whatsisface; the big jerk had MADE him give it over.

And yet...after all that, after all this time, still he blamed himself for what had happened. And that, the young doe-bunny suspected, had been only the first of many more guilt-trips to come. At long last, she was beginning to understand what had motivated that crazy silver fox to come up with...a...

Well, you couldn't call it a loan-shark scheme, not anymore...not if that was all the 'interest' he'd charged. But even so...finally, she got it; the whole thing had been an act of atonement. While she didn't necessarily agree with Conor's moneylending op, at least now she understood the reasoning behind it.

To a lesser degree, the same held true for the way he'd drawn first blood in his fight with Judy. The more she heard about Granite Point, the more it sounded like the kind of place where if you didn't move first, you never moved again!

But still...

By rights, she should hate that fox-kid's guts for what he'd done to her sister. Truth be told, a part of her still did. Except...ever since the other night, when he'd come to her aid against Craig Guilford, her animosity towards him had been fading by degrees. And now it was rapidly disappearing. If the alternative to going on the attack against Judy had been going back to that horrible place...Ohhhh, she had never felt so torn.

"You don't know what kind of kid I am," Conor had told her once, and she hadn't-not then, anyway. But now, finally, she was beginning to get the idea.

Conor Lewis was a survivor, pure and simple; a fox who wasn't going down without a fight...all the way to the finish line. He'd do anything to protect himself and never think twice about it. The fact that he was here, with her, after getting his face broken, being sent to Granite Point, and then finding himself Shanghaied into The Enforcers by that psycho sea-mink, Wez McCrodon-that was all the proof she needed.