I was at training with Ophell and Ruhamah when the urgent call came. There was enough fear in Taralom’s voice that despite the insult to my partner and my teacher, I left without a word.
I arrived on Earth in the hall just outside Miranda’s apartment. There was such an air of tranquility all around me as families of all different shapes settled down for the evening. Against this, the blaze of fear from a familiar heart was striking and almost painful in its urgency.
I darted through the Spillers’ half-open door and found the small living room filled with people. Alex was off to the side with Evan, trying to push the belligerent boy behind him and down the hall. Across from them, Warren was grinning at them from his seat at the desk, while Dan stood by the door with his arm slung casually around Miranda. In his other hand he held a gun, which was pressed against her side.
I’d arrived mere seconds after the danger had shown itself—it had only taken that long for Warren and Dan to push their way into the apartment. I could see that they have been following Alex, trying to find something to use against him to get out from under his blackmail. Now, because Alex finally submitted to Miranda’s determination to host him for dinner, they had found it.
“So,” Warren said, “this is why you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing. It’s kind of cute in a way, Alex. Or at least it would be if it wasn’t so sad.”
I circled the scene, trying to see if there was a way to disarm Dan. There was no touching his thoughts, I could see that—both he and Warren were acting out of desperation, and they were too exultant at having found an escape to let it go. No point in trying to draw anyone else’s attention in the complex, either—that would not guarantee Miranda’s safety.
“Well, good for you,” Alex said, his voice deceptively calm. “You should both be proud. So why don’t you let her go and we can talk about this?”
“That’s likely,” Dan said.
“Alex, just take Evan and get out of here,” Miranda said, her voice cracking twice.
“We’re not leaving you!” Evan cried.
Both Warren and Dan flinched and looked towards the door. “You better keep him quiet,” Dan growled, dragging Miranda back so he could shut the door. She gasped as the barrel of the gun dug into her ribs.
Alex put an arm around Evan’s shoulders and covered his mouth with the other hand. “Don’t worry, kid,” he whispered into Evan’s ear. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I saw his plan, then—he meant to give himself as leverage, to put himself into Dan and Warren’s power. That would provide an escape for Miranda and Evan, at least for now, but I could see for myself that the two men would never let him go. And once Alex was dead, they would come back to this place. Why is it that the justice of the wicked never satisfies them? Why must they continue to find victims to suffer for their own suffering?
I could not see a better path. Dan and Warren had left themselves a car still running in the parking lot, and they’d broken the hall light to hide their flight with a captive, or a body. They had hope that if they could get Alex to Mr. Hill and tell everything that he had done, Hill would not only spare them, but also help protect them from legal consequences.
Alex straightened and stepped carefully around Evan. “So you’ve got me,” he said. “I admit it. I guess you’ll be wanting all the written information I have about you two?”
“Not just us,” Warren said. “We’ll take the whole lot, and we’ll be hanging onto Mrs. Spiller until we get it.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Alex said. “What exactly are you going to do with the kid, then? Take him along? He’ll bolt the first chance he gets, and then you’re in trouble.”
Dan glowered at Evan. “You keep him with you.”
“Nah,” Alex said. “Think I’ll send him to the cops instead.”
“Then we’ll take them both,” Warren said impatiently, getting to his feet.
Miranda jerked in Dan’s hold, and Alex growled, “Over my dead body.”
The two men glared at one another, and death hovered over them all. I swept calmness over them all, desperately trying to keep the peace a few moments longer.
Alex reached out to straighten Warren’s collar. “Let’s be reasonable,” he said. “You let her go, and she and Evan will go to bed like nothing’s wrong. And I’ll go with the two of you to get my stuff.”
“You think we’re just going to let her go?” Dan demanded.
“Well, you can’t shoot her, because then you have no more leverage over me,” Alex pointed out. “And you can’t take all of us without attracting attention. And you can’t leave me or the kid because either one of us will go straight to the police. But as long as Miranda and Evan are safe, I’ll give you everything I have. We’ll take their phones with us and everything will be fine. I swear it.”
Warren and Dan looked at one another, and I saw with a jolt of despair that they were going to agree. And Miranda and Evan would remain to live in numbing dread, waiting for their enemies to come against them, while Alex disappeared from the face of the earth.
It should not have been so difficult. Alex was not my charge, after all, and he was willing to go into this fate for their sake. But I wanted to protect him, too, and I know I would not have been able to abandon him.
Thanks be to the Father, I did not have to.
“Would you like some assistance, brother?”
Startled, I looked up to see both Ophell and Ruhamah standing at my back. “My brothers,” I cried in glad welcome. “Do you see a way that I can save them all?”
Ruhamah took one good look at the scene, and I could sense him riffling through the thoughts of everyone present, gauging the situation in an instant. “If these enemies are rendered into the hands of the authorities,” he said, “they will choose to stay in confinement, I believe, rather than face their commander. But you will have to move quickly afterward, if you want Alex’s plan to succeed. Hill will ask questions once he learns of this encounter.”
“Then how do we expose them without letting them hurt anyone?” I asked.
Ophell swept across the room to examine Dan’s weapon. “Are you familiar with guns, Asa’el?” he asked. “They have several moving parts. If just one of those parts does not move as it should, the gun is just a lump of metal.” He glanced up at me with a smile.
My heart leapt, and I sprang to Miranda, filling her with a rush of determination. “You are not alone,” I told her. “Protect your boys.”
She clenched her teeth, and when Dan began to lower the gun from her side, she lunged for it. Dan shouted and jerked away, lifting the gun into her face and pulling the trigger. Evan screamed, but there was no other effect—the safety was back on the gun, and it did not fire.
Safe under my wings, Miranda did not even flinch. Seeing Dan’s astonishment, she snatched the gun from his hand and turned it on him. “Don’t you move,” she snarled, backing him against the wall, “because I will shoot you, you bastard.”
Warren saw that the way to the door was open and took flight, and Evan went streaking after him, footsteps pounding down the dark hall.
“Evan!” Miranda cried, turning to the door.
I was with Alex then, speeding him across the short distance. He seized the gun before Dan could get it out of Miranda’s hand, and this time it did fire, an accidental shot that went into Dan’s arm and raised screams in other apartments. Dan went down, and Miranda went after her son with Alex on her heels—all too late, for Warren had reached the car and snatched up a second gun from the passenger seat. Even I, even Ophell, would not have been fast enough to stop him from aiming the gun out of the window and firing straight at Evan.
But Ruhamah was there, spreading all six of his wings in front of the boy. The bullet flew through the air, but I saw its inexorable path bend right before my eyes, so that it flew harmlessly over Evan’s shoulder and lodged in the concrete stairs.
Evan ducked and tripped, crashing to the ground. Calmly Ruhamah bent over him and lifted up his head, so that as the car went streaking off out of the parking lot, Evan could see it clearly.
As Miranda flung herself down beside him, desperate sobs of fear bursting from her mouth, Evan sat up in exultation. “I got it!” he cried. “I got the license plate, Mom!”
Miranda had no words. She ran her hands over Evan’s arms and chest, searching for the wound she could not believe he had avoided. When she finally found nothing, she threw her arms around him and clutched him to her chest, sobbing with delayed fright. Just behind her, Alex crumpled onto the steps in relief, Dan’s gun dropping from his numb hand. Miranda twisted on her knees and dragged Evan across the short distance so she could hold Alex, too.
After that everything was a confusion of people peering out of doors and windows, police lights and ambulances, reports given, questions asked. Dan was taken to the hospital under guard, and a pair of police cars went after Warren, the officers having assured Miranda that he would be found.
I thanked Ruhamah and Ophell, of course, and I thank them again, here and now. Without you I would not have been able to save them all, and this night would have been tragedy rather than triumph.
“How did you know to be there?” I asked Ruhamah. “How did you know where you would be needed?”
He shook his head. “It was only logical. Knowing what you and Ophell intended, and seeing Warren’s cowardice and Evan’s courage, it was clear what would happen next.”
I am in awe. Where I could not see a solution, Ruhamah had seen it clearly, and what had taken me weeks to learn, he saw in an instant. I am all the more honored to have the chance to learn from him.
Of course, the danger has not passed. Miranda wanted Alex to come back inside with them, and he did, but he refused her offer to stay the night. “I have a lot of work to do now,” he said. “Hill’s people will look into this and want to know why Warren and Dan attacked me. I might be able to put them off, but not without putting his guard up. I have to finish the plan now.”
“Can you?” Miranda asked. They were in her kitchen much later that night, with Evan looking anxious and tired as he tried to follow the conversation.
“I think so. I have enough money, just. And once the debt is paid—”
“But they won’t just leave us alone if they have reason to be suspicious of where that money came from.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t have reason—or at least that they’re more worried about something else.”
“And that’s what I’m worried about,” Miranda said. “You said you needed more time to make yourself safe in all this—to be sure you’ve got them. If you move too soon, you’re at risk.”
“Don’t worry about me—”
“I do worry about you,” Miranda said sharply.
“Me, too,” Evan said.
Alex looked at both of them, and his heart swelled. He came around the table to put his arm around Miranda and his hand on Evan’s shoulder. “I can do this,” he said. “And when I have, we’ll all be safe.” He kissed Miranda’s cheek, then ducked his head and started for the door. “We were lucky tonight,” he said before he left. “I’m betting that luck will hold.”
I am, too, because it wasn’t luck. Alex is not working alone, and I am not about to abandon him now.