The General -CH2-

Sitting alone in his house Warner was contemplating what to do.

He knew what he wanted to do, but he had no idea how to go about it. The most violent thing he’d ever done in his life was a fight in high-school that ended in a strange wrestling match.

For much of his life Warner had avoided conflict.

There just wasn’t any room for it in his life.

Then again, would I even have married Asa if I’d been more confrontational? She kind of ran the relationship from the get-go and I just… let it happen.

Shaking his head, he didn’t really want to think about his ex-wife. He still hadn’t managed to get a hold of her since the accident.

Which wasn’t that surprising since technically it was her fault.

Maya was supposed to be home with Asa, sleeping. Resting for another day at school or doing homework at the worst.

Not out wandering the city at night and getting hit by a car.

Warner quivered in an absolute and sudden fury, his hands clenching together. He wanted to lash out at both Asa and Travis. The two responsible for Maya being harmed.

Standing up, Warner growled and walked to the other side of his living room.

Only to walk back to his chair and feel the helpless rage eating away at him. Like a festering wound beneath the surface of his skin that he couldn’t get at. Couldn’t lance and drain away the infection.

Hanging his head he stared at his feet. Closing his eyes he tried to quiet the angry flame of injustice that burned inside his heart.

It’d been a week now since office Frias had given him Travis Pattin’s name. A week to sit and hope the DA would do what they were supposed to do.

Their job.

Except nothing had changed. Nothing had happened. Everything was exactly what Althea Frias had claimed it would be.

Swept under the rug, even as attorneys began preparing for a civil case against the city of Fletcher and office Pattin.

The city was trying to get Warner to take a deal of course. One that was cheap in comparison to how much his attorney thought they could get.

He wanted to take action against Travis Pattin immediately. To find the man and show him his rage.

To just… get my hands around the little mortal’s neck and wring it. Wring it until his neck breaks and justice is wrought.

Blinking Warner turned to one side as if to get away from the thought he’d just had. It’d felt alien to him. Like it was someone else having that thought despite it coming from his own head.

Except there was more behind it. There was more to the thought.

A driving force that was demanding action from him. Demanding he do something.

Do it right now in fact.

Before he realized what was happening he was driving away from his home. Driving straight for the city of Fletcher.

As if on autopilot Warner didn’t actually know where he was going till he got there. And when he did he regretted it.

Pulling his car into a small parking lot Warner closed his eyes and put his forehead to the steering wheel.

He was on the street Maya had been hit.

In fact, that particular spot was just behind him on the road. He’d driven right past it to turn into this lot.

Everything was rather quiet right now though. Which really wasn’t abnormal given the time. At one in the morning, most people were long since asleep.

Except for thirteen year old young girls who really should have been home sleeping.

Where the hell are you Asa? What the fuck were you doing?

Why the hell weren’t you watching our daughter?

Were you chasing a new boyfriend again? Out partying the night away? I swear to go-

There was a loud clack next to his head that obliterated his thoughts. The sound of someone tapping on a glass window was what he’d heard.

Looking up he found himself looking into the barrel of a gun.

Moving to the side the gun barrel tapped onto the glass twice more.

Turning his eyes upward he found the owner of the gun. A young man holding the front of his hoodie over his face. Warner was pretty sure it was a man given the lack of breasts but one couldn’t always be sure.

All he could see of the young man otherwise was that he had white skin, and brown eyes. Standing next to him was another young man holding his hoodie up in the exact same way, though he had dark skin and brown eyes as well.

“Get out of the car before I fuck you up,” said the man with the gun.

Oh shit I’m being robbed.

Oh shit. Oh fuck.

Holding his hands up in front of himself Warner slowly undid his seatbelt, unlocked the car door, and got out of the vehicle.

“Great, good for you, fucker, now gimmie your wallet,” said the man with the gun, pointing it at Warner’s face.

He’d known this area of Fletcher wasn’t the greatest, but he hadn’t expected something like this at all.

Reaching down to his back pocket he pulled out his wallet and held it out to the young man.

“The watch too, give it over,” said the second young man.

Frowning, Warner glared at the man without the gun. A lot of the fear he’d felt burned off in that instant. As if it someone held a match to a balloon filled with hydrogen.

That fear had rapidly become a small angry ball of fire.

There was no way he was giving anyone this watch. It’d been a birthday gift from his daughter several years ago. Before everything had started going wrong for him.

“Did you hear him? The watch,” said the first young man.

Turning to look at the speaker, Warner felt an itching feeling spreading across his back and spine. Like his skin was peeling and needed to be thoroughly scratched.

No one’s taking Maya’s watch from me.

“I said-”

Warner’s right hand came up in a blur and snatched the gun away from the young man. There was a hideous crackling noise at the same time.

Screaming, holding to his wrist, the first man stumbled away from Warner. Turning he started to run away, not bothering to look back.

The second young man was scrabbling for something in his waistband.

I-I-I what’d I-

Finding what he wanted, the man started to pull his hand back up. Clutched in his hand was a pistol.

Extending his arm, Warner put the gun barrel of his own weapon to the man’s forehead.

Freezing up, the man stopped, the gun still only pointed toward the ground.

“Yo… I uh, I just wanna go now,” said the man. “I didn’t do nothin’ and I just wanna go.”

There was a lie in his words.

He’d done plenty. Plenty of things.

Warner could see it. Could feel it.

Knew it.

This man had robbed, assaulted, dealt drugs, raped, and maimed other people. This man burned with injustice. That he’d skated through all of it because those he’d wronged never went to the police.

Warner didn’t know why they didn’t, but he didn’t even need to understand that. What he understood was this man in front of him was no different at all than the one who’d run his daughter over.

Justice needed to be done.

And in that moment, Warner pulled the trigger.

With a boom the revolver went off. A red mist and chunks sprayed out behind the man’s head and he went to the ground in a pile.

Reaching down Warner grabbed up the pistol the man had been holding, along with his own wallet the first man had dropped.

Stuffing both weapons and his wallet into his pockets, Warner got back into his car, put it into gear, and got out of there. Driving away from the scene of the man he’d just gunned down, Warner felt very odd.

He felt vindicated.

That he’d provided the world with a resolution it needed.

There was no fear in him that he’d done wrong. No fear that he’d killed an innocent.

He was elated.

His only regret was he hadn’t killed the first man.

Hearing his own thoughts Warner shivered and kept driving. He didn’t stop till he got twenty minutes away from the scene. Only then did he pull over into another parking lot. This one was much better lit and clearly had people going in and out of the twenty-four hour grocery store.

Warner felt his entire body trembling.

From head to toe he was shivering, his hands quivering as soon as he let go of the steering wheel.

Shifting into park, turning the car off, and letting out a breath, Warner got out of the vehicle. Standing there outside his car he felt the heavy weight of the two hand guns in his pockets.

Pulling both out he set them down on the floorboard of his vehicle before he closed the door to his car.

Pressing a hand to his mouth he felt like he needed to scream. He felt like a man torn.

In his mind he could still clearly feel the glorious vindication he’d felt in killing that man. Though there was also a growing and very uneasy sick feeling.

He’d taken someone’s life for absolutely nothing. For what was little better than a gut feeling that the man who was robbing him wasn’t a good person.

What have I done?

***

Typing quietly on his laptop Warner was doing his best to focus on his work.

His murder had made the news and was currently being run all over. Family members and friends were being asked to talk about the deceased.

Over and over they just couldn’t believe he was dead. That he didn’t deserve to be shot down like a dog. That whoever had killed him was little better than a psycho and should turn themselves in.

Others presented that it was an inter-gang problem and that the victim had actually been running for the wrong crew in the wrong area.

Gritting his teeth, Warner shooed his thoughts away from it all and back to the customer email he was responding to.

Moving his finger across the mouse-pad on the laptop he sent the email off and then sighed. Leaning his head back against the chair he looked up to the ceiling of the hospital room.

“No improvement?” asked a voice from the door.

Standing there in the door was a young woman in street-clothes that looked rather familiar. Wearing a blouse, jacket, and jeans, she looked like any other young woman he’d see somewhere, but he couldn’t place her.

Then he realized he was looking at officer Frias.

“Officer?” Warner asked feeling pretty weirded out seeing the police officer without their uniform on.

Lacking her official and visible status, humanized her. It also made it a lot harder to deny she was rather attractive and well put together.

“Call me Althea, or Thea if you’re looking for a nickname,” said the police-officer walking into Maya’s room.

“Thea, then,” Warner murmured. He really had no idea why she was here, and out of uniform on top of that. “And… well, there is a few changes. Her brain activity has been spiking lately. She’s been moving as well. They’re pretty sure she’ll wake up soon. Which is great news because I’m almost positive they were going to put a feeding tube in her soon.”

“Probably,” Althea said walking over to Maya’s bed. Her eyes were stuck to Maya for several long seconds. Finally she looked to Warner. “DA’s going to release a statement today, but after he calls you. He’s not pressing charges on officer Pattin.”

Blinking twice, Warner ended up bitting at his tongue, his breath coming out in a soft wheeze. He’d been expecting that to happen eventually, but he’d been hoping to be wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Althea said, shaking her head. “Not what you wanted to hear I’m sure. But I… felt… like I owed you that. Telling you before you got the phone call out of the blue. Give you some time to figure out how you want to respond.”

“Yeah… yeah. That’s… really kind of you,” Warner said and meant it. He knew officer Frias didn’t owe him much of anything. She was being rather nice. “I’m… really not sure what to do about it. Other than maybe not answer my phone at all. Maybe disable my voicemail for a time. Or change my number. Make it that much harder for him to contact me.”

Chuckling darkly at that, Althea grinned with one side of her mouth.

“I like that,” she said. Then she shifted her weight from one leg to the other and pulled a card out of a pocket. “Here. The one marked as emergency is my personal cell. You only have my work extension right now.”

Taking the card Warner looked down to it. The phone number listed as “emergency” had been circled.

She prepped this card for me specifically.

“Thanks. I appreciate that,” Warner said, looking back up to Althea.

“Of course,” she said, smiling at him. Then she turned and looked to the tv in the corner of the room, having caught her attention. “Ugh, they’re really running that one into the ground.”

“Huh?” Warner asked, craning his head around to look at the screen. He’d muted it a while ago because he didn’t want to hear anymore about the man he’d murdered.

Unsurprisingly, it was still going on about the murder he’d committed.

“Yeah, been on the news all day,” Warner grumbled.

“The guy was a scumbag,” Althea growled. “Everyone in the entire precinct knew him. They’re making him out to be a saint when his rap-sheet is longer than he was tall.

“You name the crime, chances are he was suspected of it or did it.”

“Suspected,” Warner repeated.

“Yeah, suspected. Because he had a tendency to make witnesses go away, one way or another. Pay’em off, kill’em, vanish’em, they just… didn’t make it to the stand,” Althea said then flicked a hand at the screen. “The shame of his family. Justice was served and whoever pulled the trigger did the world a favor.”

I see.

So… I… was right?

The strange feeling of vindication he’d felt just after he’d pulled the trigger started to surge up inside him again. Heady, energetic, and rather bright, it raised his spirits considerably. 

Like the world wasn’t as problematic as it was only a few minutes ago.

Crackling softly the TV had a bout of static, followed by several machines in the room blipping, or beeping.

Everything quickly returned to normal though there was one change Warner noticed immediately.

Maya’s eyes were open. They were parted slightly, her dark brown eyes scanning the room she was in.

“Maya?” Warner asked, setting his work laptop down to one side and immediately standing next to her bed.

“Dad?” asked the young girl. Her voice sounded scratchy and dry.

“Yeah, sweetie, I’m here,” Warner said with a slight catch in his voice. Grinning from ear to ear he took her right hand between his.

“Mom?” Maya asked, looking to Althea.

Where Maya was of an asian background, Althea was more of an islander. There were quite a few similarities, but they were just as many differences.

Even if Althea was more of handsome-type of pretty compared to Asa’s delicate beauty-type of pretty.

“Ah,” Althea said, looking completely unsure. She looked from Warner then back to Maya.

“Oh, you’re not mom,” Maya said, her eyes opening wider as she focused in on Althea. “Who are you?”

“That’s Althea,” Warner said, squeezing Maya’s hand. “She’s a friend of mine. She was just checking in on us.”

“Okay,” Maya said, turning her head toward him. “Everything hurts.”

“Yeah… I bet. You tried to shoulder tackle a car. You didn’t win,” Warner said, doing his best to make light of it. Maya always responded best to him cracking wise.

“I did? Damn,” Maya said, closing her eyes. “I thought I was good at that. Coach said so.”

“Well, cars are a lot heavier than little pre-teen girls your own size,” Warner said.

Chuckling softly, Maya let out a slow breath.

“Yeah,” Maya murmured. “How long have you been dating your ‘friend’?”

“Uh,” Warner said then shook his head with a grin. “Not dating her. She really was just checking in on us. Besides, you have guy friends. Why can’t I have girls who are friends?”

“Because I don’t want to date them,” Maya said, her voice drifting off at the end. Then she started to snore softly.

Taking in a quick breath, Warner let it out with a much better feeling than he’d had for quite a while.

Maya had woken up and had been coherent. It’d been brief, but it’d been far more than he’d been expecting out of today.

“Well, that’s goods news,” Althea said, coming to stand next to Warner.

“Yeah, it really is,” he said, nodding his head. “Really good news. Made my day. Best day I’ve had in a while in fact.”

“Mm, I can certainly understand,” Althea said.

“On top of that… on top of that, pretty sure I can use this entire incident to get full custody,” Warner said. He’d been in contact with his divorce lawyer. Documenting everything as it came in and making sure to get statements from everyone involved with the situation.

With Asa being nowhere to be found, Maya being in her care during the time of the accident, and that she wasn’t responding, it was going to be an easy slam dunk.

“Ah, your ex-wife never turned up?” Althea asked.

“No. She didn’t,” Warner said, shaking his head. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. Maya’s awake, and that means I can probably take her home soon enough.”

In his pocket he could feel his phone vibrating against his leg.

Pulling it out he already had an indea who it was.

Glancing at the number he saw it was restricted.

“And that’s probably the DA,” Warner muttered. Not doing anything with the call, he simply locked the screen and put it back in his pocket. He’d let it go to voicemail for now. He didn’t want to tarnish this moment.

The injustice of that call would probably make him seethe with anger all over again.

Thoughts of everything that’d happened yesterday from the point that he’d gotten angry over the DA’s likely position flooded his mind before he could stop it.

He relived pulling the trigger on the young man and ending his life.

Catching his reflection in the mirror over the nearby hand-washing station, Warner saw himself staring back.

His brown hair cut short and parted at the middle, his gray-eyes and clean shaven face finished off his “customer service” persona he had to keep cultivated. He couldn’t always work at home which meant he had to remain presentable.

There was something different though. He swore he could see a faint yellow glow in his eyes. Around his pupils.

The face he saw in the mirror was and wasn’t his anymore. It was someone else.

Behind them a pair of golden wings spread out slowly as their eyes slowly became brighter and brighter.

Then it was all gone, and it was just Warner in the mirror again.