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Phoenix

Phoenix

Member

Phoenix had been tracking the ring for a week. She was following a trail of missing people reports that seemed to match up with a gang she had been suspicious of. It hadn’t been anything concrete until one of the men she was following snatched a pretty young blonde off the street, unaware he was being watched from the top of the building across the street. From that moment on, she kept her eyes on them, following them at night and well into the morning.

Then, Saturday night, they had pulled out of their old steel mill, one of those ones that was renovated to be an actual storefront, with a box truck, and a large one at that. Scum would be scum, but Phoenix could only think of how pissed off she was every time she saw the young woman’s face in her mind.

She followed the truck from high in the sky, passing through the low-hanging clouds for cover. It didn’t take them long to get to one of the more abandoned parts of the warehouse strip. She came in low after the truck, ducking behind some stacked shipping containers. She wouldn’t move until she was sure. She could scare them off if she was wrong about what was in the truck. But Phoenix got the distinct feeling that she wasn’t wrong.

That truck was full of at least women, maybe more. Maybe children. And the idea of there being children in that truck made her burn hotter than anything else.

The woman’s name was Maria Georgie, and she was last seen that day Phoenix had seen her abducted. Phoenix knew the names of everyone who should be in that truck. Karly Jenkins. Deborah Hoover. Abigail Trevor. Sarah Abdual.

If even a single one of those women wasn’t in that truck, Phoenix would be breaking some kneecaps that night.

The clattering of the bars on the back of the truck being undone caught her attention and she focused, leaning just far enough that her black hood and mask would be exposed. Just enough to see. She adjusted the grip on her hammer. Lethal or nonlethal, that was always the question. For the most part, Phoenix usually went nonlethal. She wasn’t trying to hurt people. But these guys?

Fuck these guys.

They were getting full hammer, not handle. So with her hammer in hand, she got herself into position for a leap, a leap that would place her right in the middle of the men should the truck be full of people. Then, she waited and watched.​
 

The two dogs were really what made Phoenix decide to strike. The howling of whatever was there caught their attention, those bastards by the truck, and it lent itself to the perfect opening. She wasn’t sure what was out there with them, but it wouldn’t be anything she couldn’t handle. That, she was sure of. So she backed up a few spaces from the container she hiding behind and with a hop, a skip, and a jump, Phoenix threw herself into the air using a quick thermal burst, then used it to slow her descent through the air.

For a half second, she was backlit by the moon above them, jacket spread around her, her shadow crossing over the space the men stood in. Several of them looked up toward her, guns raising, but they were too slow. She came down with her hammer, swinging it immediately for one of the guns, causing bullets to spray wildly away from her. One of the nine men screamed as a bullet shredded his leg.

She immediately dropped low and spun, knocking one of the men to the ground. Then she brought the hammer down hard on his shoulder, hearing and feeling a familiar crunch. He screamed loudly, cursing her out as she skipped back away from the crowd who had started to train their weapons on her again. She paused, crouched low to the ground, hands supporting her and ready to push her up into the air.

“What’s wrong, boys, not used to a woman who fights back?”

Her eyes darted to the still-closed back of the truck. It was one of those box trucks that was made of thick steel, so she was confident none of the bullets would pierce it, even if they did stray that way. But Phoenix’s goal was to get them to chase her far enough away that she could let go and rip them apart the best way she knew how– sheer fucking force. So she straightened out a bit, tensing imperceptibly as she prepared to fling herself to the side when they opened fire again.​
 


Connor wasn't expecting the girl.

He felt the heat first, then a very strong waft of smells as the girl came down from the air. Apples, cinnamon, she smelt faintly of vanilla and jasmine too. She smelt familiar. More importantly, she smelled really fucking angry.

He watched her, patiently, as she fell down; hammer in hand and struck one of the men down, causing panic amongst the others. Connor titled his head, she could... fly? And was very... hot, she was clearly producing heat, like a fire, but it radiated like the sun. The crunch of a man's shoulder and his scream in pain made him life his bushy eyebrows, she was capable too.

“What’s wrong, boys, not used to a woman who fights back?”

A taunt? Did everyone in this city do that? Local custom perhaps? Connor frowned, this was the second person who was... different he'd seen in this city. She didn't feel like the last one, this was not a predator, but she moved with definite experience. Her posture and stances were learned, her footwork expert, she was a fighter if nothing else. But a threat was hard to say, by what she had already done she was clearly able to do a lot of damage, and Connor didn't want to know how hot she could really get. Logically, he figured, he should just leave and let her take care of the rest of them.

Yet something stopped him, something told him she wasn't a threat, but also these were his prey. It wouldn't sit right in his gut if he walked away, no, this was still his fight. His mind was made up, strange as it was, it didn't make any sense if this was the wild but in the wild he was no longer.

So as the man began to recover and aim their weapons at the girl, he pounced forward from the shadows. Covering the distance extremely fast, he chopped his sword down and removed the nearest man's arms with a clean slice just above the elbow. He screamed, and the remaining men were frightened again. Connor unhinged his jaw, revealing his canines, and he almost seemed to grow as his hair puffed up, and his muscles seemed to bulge as he stood tall in the moonlight, and he let out a loud growling roar. Making it very clear who's hunting ground's it really was.
 
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Phoenix was not expecting the man. If a man was really what you could call him. For a moment even she froze, something in her brain screaming that she shouldn’t fuck with this one. That moment quickly passed as she realized that the men were equally as frozen as she had been. She moved, heading straight for the man at the back of the pack. She slid in and swung her hammer, taking out the right kneecap of the man. He fell back and screamed in pain as a sickening crack broke the silence left behind after the man’s roar.

The men finally kicked into action– several of them turned and ran past Phoenix, and the rest raised their guns on herself and the terrifying “man”. The one whose arm he had taken off had fallen to the ground and was trying to stop the bleeding, his friends basically ignoring his cries for help. The three who had turned on Phoenix had opened fire, and she quickly danced through the fire, feeling a single bullet catch her left leg as she twirled. She hissed out a breath as it glanced off her suit, leaving what she was sure was going to be a nasty bruise on her leg. Todd would definitely notice that. He would get that look in his eyes and playfully ask about it, but she knew that he was just happy she’d made it home each time.

Worrying Todd was one of the last things Phoenix wanted, so the thought that her leg was likely going to be black and blue made her even angrier than she already had been. A new rush of heat erupted from her, and she used it to push herself forward and between the men firing at her. She swung and clipped someone’s shoulder as she breezed past. One of the men shielded his face from the heat while the other dropped his gun to hold his now definitely shattered collarbone.

As she came through them, she caught sight of her new fighting companion and called out, “Hey there, bruiser, what brings you to a party like this?” She couldn’t help that her usual flirty quip had lost all of it’s flirt. It didn’t feel right unless it was Todd. So instead it came out as just a quip, just a normal “what the fuck are you doing here, man”.​
 

The man didn’t reply to her, and when he chased off after the men who had run, she went through and kicked the heads in of anyone still awake. She couldn’t bring herself to care too much about how many of the men were actually dead. In her mind, anyone who treated women like prey, women who had no idea what was awaiting them, deserved death. If Sam hadn’t told herself when she left Columbus that she wasn’t going to kill anymore, well. There’d be a lot more dead traffickers right now.

She searched their pockets until she found a phone. It had a finger-scanning lock, so she took the man’s hand and unlocked the phone. She had just stood back up when two more bodies came flying in. She stared at them for a moment and then looked up impassively at the “man” who had brought them. She was trying her hardest to not show how her hair was standing on end looking at him.

Then, he stepped back into the shadows and emerged as a normal man, if heavy-set. Strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, and every bit a normal looking man. But Sam had seen what he really was, and even if she hadn’t, there was something about the eyes that held a bit of the violence she had just seen.

“No, this isn’t part of my usual patrol.” She crossed her arms, the leather of her jacket pulling over her black hoodie. The hood had fallen down, and her long curls had slipped out, but it was dark enough, and the sky was cloudy enough, that what light was there would make it hard to see her eyes through the makeup and mask. Unless he had enhanced vision, like some people she knew, and then he would see her very distinguishable golden eyes. She got the feeling he wouldn’t say anything about her to anyone, however, given he himself was not wearing a mask or hood of any kind. She made a gesture toward him with the stolen phone. “Is this on your route, or were you after the traffickers as well?”

Then, she paused, looked him over, and asked, “And what do you call yourself?”​
 

There was something about the way he titled his head and the quizzical look that told her that something was going on. But that wasn’t the thing she was most concerned about at the moment. She gave him a funny look in return as he told her his name– his real name. She started to speak, to tell him not to do that, but stopped. The phone in her hand was going dark, so she quickly tapped the screen. She looked up at him again. “Just a moment, and then we should scram. I would like to talk if that’s alright. I try to talk to all other vigilantes I run into.”

She dialed the police, and in her best stressed and high-pitched voice, she exclaimed how there were men dead and women in a truck by the warehouse district, and please come quick. She rattled off the address and the warehouse number before ending the call and dropping the phone into the pile of bodies.

“Alright, follow me.” She took off at a light jog, following the lines of warehouses until they were far enough away to not be tied to the scene of the crime. Then she turned around while she slowed down, walking backward to look up at the guy. She undid her ponytail and started redoing it, feeling how much give the elastic had to it.

“Alright, Connor. You can’t just go around telling people your first name. That makes you trackable. What alias do you use? Or what do people call you? You said you tracked them all the way down from Montana? That’s a long trek. You’re quite devoted to your cause.”​
 
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Phoenix paused and then smiled. “Then it’s good to meet you Wolfhound. I’m Phoenix.”

Montana was a long way away. More than a full day’s drive, if you skipped sleeping the way Phoenix did. Something told her this guy definitely needed to sleep, unlike herself. She thought for a minute. She was trying to decide the best questions to ask him next. There was always the question of “so what exactly do you do?” but Phoenix had seen what he did. She still wanted to ask that, because surely he would have an explanation for what she had seen.

There was also the question of why he had decided to track them all the way from Montana if Montana was home. Surely he hadn’t wanted to leave his forest for so long. This guy had asked if this part of the Strip was her territory. Clearly, he considered his home to be a territory, and himself a predator who protected it. So nodded thoughtfully at that. Yes, that sounded right. This guy was a “predator”, in much the same way that Todd was. She wondered if they were the same kind of predator– quick, strong, superhuman in every meaning of the word.

She still didn’t know about that last piece of Todd’s powers. Maybe it was similar to this shift that she had seen tonight with Connor. That would make a lot of sense. They had started patrolling together after that night on the rooftop, but he had yet to do something like that, but then Todd liked to be nonlethal, same as her. And Connor’s jaw had looked like it could tear a man’s throat out. She was reminded then of their first lunch together when Todd had eaten the rib bones. Yeah, they must have been the same kind of “predator”.

Phoenix didn’t realize how long she had actually spent puzzling this out. She’d left plenty of room for Connor to speak again, should he have chosen to.​
 

Phoenix went to ask her question, but just as she opened her mouth, Connor asked her a question that threw her off balance. Literally. She stumbled over her own feet and paused, looking at him. Her mind started racing, but it was short-circuiting too much to really accept what was being said to her. Connor knew Todd, and he could smell Todd on her. Connor didn’t say his last name, as though he knew she would know who he was talking about. So she stopped and looked him over.

Maybe he had met him at the shop. Maybe he had met him at some other place. Todd went places sometimes when Sam went patrolling, and while they usually told each other where they were going to be for the night, she was sure that there were some things he didn’t tell her. Such as meeting a wolf man. She didn’t always ask him where he was going to be on nights he didn’t patrol. Maybe it had been one of those nights?

That didn’t really matter, the where or the how. What mattered was she was surprised that she smelled enough like him to have it be noticeable. That he just assumed she would know who Todd was also freaked her out, just the slightest. But like he said, they had never met before. There was no way he would know her as Sam Walsh. So she let the tension flow out of her in the two breaths it took to come to the conclusion that the smell was just that distinct. Todd could smell people too, like he had on Halloween with Nat and Adelyn. Even more evidence that they could be similar kinds of “predators”.

“I… Yes. I know Todd. He’s mine.” The words came out before she had properly thought them. Her face changed from neutral to wide-eyed surprise. She opened her mouth to correct herself but stopped, her head tilting as she thought. Was there really any reason to change what she had said? No, if anyone was going to understand mine it would be a wolf man. So with fair more conviction and passion in her voice, she reiterated, “Todd is mine.”​
 

Connor offered her an explanation– one that actually soothed her a little– and then another question. This one made her eyebrows shoot up. To say it shocked her would be a light way of putting it. She wasn’t so much shocked by the question as she was her immediate reactions to it.

The rational part of her brain was saying “what the fuck”. Who just asked a question like that? Well, at least she knew that he understood their usage of mine. But why phrase it like that? She swallowed, her eyes searching the ground. Because while the rational part of her brain was confused by his decision to use that terminology, a much deeper part of her wanted to answer that question.

That deeper part of her, the part that screamed mine when she saw Todd, that part recognized the word “mate”. It made something in her chest burn hot and bright, almost like a kind of joy. It not only recognized the word, but it told her that was the closest word in the human language for what she felt about Todd. Boyfriend, while it had been the term she had used for Nat, was too watery and loose a word for what they really were. Honestly, even if they got married, a thought that surprised her as it crossed her mind, even husband wouldn’t be quite right.

Mate described the almost animal hunger she had for him. It spoke of the intensity of her feelings for Todd, the way she shook for him. It was the closest human word to the desire she had to be so close she was under his skin, to own his heart so completely that she could rip it from his chest and he would let her, the same way she would let him. It was the closest word for a want, a need, a desire so intense she didn’t know how to express it other than giving him everything she had and was. It was the closest word, other than mine, for what she felt they were.

“Yes. Todd is… my mate.”​
 

She watched as Connor turned and started to walk away. She involuntarily shook her head and blinked. His retreat was quickly followed by the sound of her big fuck off boots slapping the ground as she caught up to him. She almost reached out to grab his arm, but at the last moment decided against it. He didn’t seem like the type who would be alright with being grabbed like that by someone they had just met.

“Hey wait!” She stepped out so she was visible to him again and gave him a look. “What the fuck? You can’t just ask really personal questions like that and then just– and then just– fuck off?!”

She crossed her arms and huffed. There was a faint blush on her cheeks as she realized what she had actually just told Connor. But still, she was determined to ask him questions. Maybe he could give her the answers that Todd was hiding from her. So with that, she uncrossed her arms and gestured toward him. “Tell me about your power. What do you do exactly? What was that back there?”

Phoenix– no, Sam stood and waited for the answer. Even if he wasn’t exactly like Todd, her perfect Todd, he might be a close enough meta to give her more hints. So she didn’t blink as she stared him down in his green eyes, her own golden ones shining with just the tiniest bit of hope.

Because Sam would do anything to understand Todd’s distancing.​
 

Sam listened to the answer and felt a small twinge of frustration followed by a moment of clarity. Honestly, it made a lot of sense. Todd had always had moments where he seemed more than or different than human. When he had smelled her on the rooftop and when he had identified Nat and Adelyn on Halloween. The way he had threatened to tear out Obsidian's throat for her. The way he looked at her sometimes, with a hunger that rivaled her own.

It would make sense if he was “more beast than man”.

She nodded her head and crossed her arms, this time in a thoughtful way. She closed her eyes for a moment as she thought, then opened them back up and smiled. “That helps, yeah. That helps a lot, actually. That answer helps.”

She looked up at him again and uncrossed her arm, running a hand up the back of her neck. “Thank you for answering me. I know we just met, so I appreciate you answering my questions. Why did you keep tracking them after they left your forest, anyway? All the way down to Pittsburgh of all places?”​
 

So it was a territorial thing. Given he had already said he was in possession of the spirit of a wild dog, territorial made sense. Then he asked his question, and she smiled, sharply. It had been a long time since she had gotten a question like that. She was honestly surprised that Todd hadn’t asked her about it yet. So she tilted her head to the side, the smile still in place, a flash of white teeth in the darkness.

“I hunt people who prey on others. Traffickers, rapists, abusers, serial killers, the like. Human predators. I want to rid the world of scum like that. That’s why I was after them. They deserve to have the shit kicked out of them by a woman half their size.”

She tilted her head back and laughed at that. It wasn’t exactly a joyful laugh or even a gleeful laugh. There was an edge to it, an almost bark that left it sounding spiteful. She looked back over at him, a hardness to her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Anyone who treats humans like prey, they deserve the worst. They deserve shattered kneecaps and severed arms and scorched burn marks.”

As she spoke, the temperature around her began to rise, a testament to her passion. She raised a hand and heatwaves rose from it as she spoke. Some people, Sam firmly believed, deserved the worst punishment imaginable. There wasn’t enough justice in the world to make them pay for their crimes. So sometimes, people like Sam and Connor had to take care of that. She thought of the dead men in the pile of bodies back by the warehouse.

She honestly couldn’t say she was mad about it. She had a strict nonlethal policy for herself– not for others. After her stint in Columbus, she had promised herself that no matter how tempting it might be, she would never actively try to kill someone ever again.

With one exception.​
 

“You’re both different. You’re predators of predators. You hunt the same people I do. Why would I think what you both do is wrong when I do the same thing? Didn’t I just fight those sad, pathetic excuses for ‘people’ with you? You guys don’t need grace because you’re not monsters.”

This seemed like the obvious answer to Sam. Besides, the only one of them who was a monster was herself. She was the one who had taken such joy and had such an intense release at the death of others. While that was in the past, the violence still gripped her heart like a vise. She still felt the desire to crack skulls open and watch them bleed out as she crushed them into unrecognizable states.

She felt that violence less now, less as her anger slowly ebbed away. Todd was bringing her a kind of peace that took the space the anger occupied, slowly pushing it out of her like an antibiotic fighting a festering infection. She shivered a bit just thinking about how he had pulled her from the void, the void that had looked back at her with such malevolence. If it wasn’t for him, for his touch, for his smile, for his eyes, Sam would have slipped again. She knew it. She could feel that rage overflowing

A wave of heat rolled off her, hot but mild, as she thought of Todd, as her passion for the situation leaked out of her. Her stance only served to highlight her belief in the statement. Then, she smiled, placed her hands on her hips, and shifted her weight. Her ponytail swung and she said, “Besides, the world needs some monsters sometimes. So even if you were monsters, the world still benefits from what you do. That makes you different from the predators who only destroy and hurt and– you’re different. That’s all it boils down to.”​
 

Sam paused and listened to Connor speak. Really listened. A small frown took her face, but before she could respond to him, a pair of massive dogs trotted up. She immediately focused in on them, her left foot tapping quickly. She hadn’t forgotten what Connor had said– she just needed time to put her thoughts in order before she responded to it. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

She was given the perfect opportunity to put off answering when one of his dogs approached her, his tail wagging. A wagging tail was good. Sam tried not to vibrate too hard as she dropped down to her knees and immediately started giving the dog scratches all over his head and jaw. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? Is it you? I think it’s you!”

She didn’t use the baby voice that some people use when they talk to animals, but there was a definitive change in her inflection. It was softer, warmer, and there was a crooning quality to her words. It was obvious she was enamoured by the dog. As she scratched behind his ear, a soft look in her eyes, she finally spoke again.

“You need to find the right people. People are… not great. They’re not really ready for people like, well, us. Metas. Not all people understand or want to understand us. Just because we’re different, they can fear us. It’s not fair. Not at all. But that’s why you have to find the good people, the ones who will accept you. I think if we show them we can do good with our gifts, well. I have some semblance of hope that they will at least let us exist.”

She paused. She hadn't meant to be so serious about her views on metahuman-human relations. But, here they were, and now she felt the desire to say exactly one more thing. She hesitated. She scratched Mac’s chin and then she looked up with her golden eyes so full of gentle concern. I wouldn’t throw you out. If you wanted to try and be friends?”​
 

Sam felt a twinge in her chest at Connor’s words, even as she turned her free hand to the second dog’s ear. She scratched them both across their heads, crooning more compliments and praise at them. Connor’s words struck a chord somewhere inside her, and she shook her head. She got up from her knees, her hands staying in the general vicinity of both dogs.

“Just because Todd and I belong to each other doesn’t mean I can’t have friends, Connor.” She gave him a look that clearly said “come on, man”. She finally withdrew her hands from the dog, placing them on her hips. Her expression turned thoughtful for a moment, and then she pulled out her burner phone from her back pocket. “How about we meet tomorrow? For lunch? I know a great steakhouse with a decent portion-to-cost ratio. I’ll buy. We can try this friendship thing.”

She opened the phone’s information screen to get its number. There was a kind of sadness about Connor that spoke deep to Sam’s heart. There was this air of someone who had been rejected and expected nothing but that. That had been clear in his words, as well as his body language and facial expressions. Everything about this wild dog of a man spoke of sadness, loneliness, and self-isolation. Sam would know all about those things. After all, she was the queen of self-isolation. Before Todd, that was.

She paused and looked over at Connor, shaking her phone a bit before asking, “You have one of these… right?”

Something about him said the chances of him not having a cell phone were… higher than they should be.​
 

Sam chuckled a little as Connor struggled with his ancient phone. She took the number and added it to her contacts, then she paused and looked up at him. He seemed so… nervous. Or maybe that was shyness? Either way, his slow and paced speech made her smile softly. She sighed and scratched her hairline. “Well we’ll be going to the right place then. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know where to go”

She started to walk backward, away from him, and then she stopped and smiled one last time. “My name is Sam, by the way. I’ll see you tomorrow, Connor.”


The next day, Sam called Connor at eleven a.m. and gave him the name of the restaurant. At eleven-thirty she was there, waiting just inside the doors on one of the benches. They had offered to seat her twice while she waited, and while Sam was fairly confident that Connor could find her in the restaurant even with all the different people and food, she didn’t want to risk the off chance he couldn’t. So instead she waited by the door.

It gave her some time to reflect on the previous night. She hadn’t learned much about the man himself, given the questions she had asked had been, well. More ways for her to figure out Todd than for her to figure out Connor. She would have to change that. Friends asked friends about themselves– she thought. It had been years since she’d had a friend. What she had with Todd, the mine, was about as far removed from friendship as you could get. She was going to have to relearn friendship.​
 

Sam’s face lit up and she stood up. She looked small swaddled up in a black turtle neck, a hoodie, and a leather jacket on top. The hoodie was overside on her, reaching halfway down her jean-clad thighs. For the beginning of November, she was way overdressed, in a way that should have left her sweltering. And yet, she seemed perfectly fine in it.

Not only did the layers hide the way the suit contoured and compressed her body, but they also kept some of her heat in and prevented it from flooding the spaces she entered. She gave a little wave, and the leather jacket pulled back just enough on her wrist to show the stuffed sleeves of the hoodie. Not a single hint of red could be seen through the layers. “Hi, Connor. Ah, I realized after I had hung up that I hadn’t exactly told you how to get here, so I’m glad you made it! Come on, let’s go get a table.”

Sam led him inside the restaurant and to the hostess’s podium. They were quick to pass them off to a waitress who led them to a booth a little ways away from any of the other diners. The place was quiet, the lights a bit dimmer than the outside sun, which let Sam’s eyes rest. She refocused her eyes, allowing her pupils to expand. While they were looking at the menu, a different waitress appeared.

“Hello, welcome in, can I get you guys something to drink to start with? Are you guys on a date? A couple of redheads is so cute!”

Sam looked up with sharp eyes, an immediate feeling of… something filling her. She didn’t like that insinuation. Not even an insinuation, but a blatant assumption. She smiled, all teeth and nothing friendly about it, and looked up and said in a flat tone, “He’s my brother.”

She didn’t know why she lied instead of just correcting her, but between Sam’s sharp smile and her lie, the waitress paled and apologized, took their drink orders, and left. She sighed softly, trying to let the tension and strange feeling ease out of her. She looked across the booth to Connor and gave a sideway, apologetic smile, this time without teeth and more warmth. “I’m sorry about that.”​
 

Sam looked up from the menu and at Connor. She winced a little at being called out about her lie, but she still wasn’t entirely sure why she had said it. She made a popping sound with her lips and then sighed.

“Yeah that’s– that’s what I’m apologizing for. I felt… A certain way that I can’t really explain? I think I don’t like the idea of anyone assuming I’m with anyone but Todd. I don’t know why I lied instead of telling her that we just aren’t like that. But, I have… you have good vibes. I think we’re going to be friends. So maybe I said it because I believe that.”

She gave a sheepish smile, watching him despite his downcast eyes. After waiting a moment to see if he would return the smile, she looked back down at the menu. Yeah, it was definitely strong feelings about anyone assuming she was anyone but Todd’s. Strong and negative ones. Was she mad? It wasn’t like that poor waitress could have known that. And yet, some deep part of her was still seething, still tense and ready to snap again.

“Have whatever you want. Get as much as you want. Like ninety percent of my monthly budget is just for food. I’m going to be ordering half the menu myself, so really, get as much of whatever you want.”

She set the menu down and waited for the waitress to return with their drinks. She had looked fairly spooked, and Sam wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t been because of the feral look she had given the woman at the mere suggestion she could have been anyone but Todd’s. No, it was definitely the look. Sam hadn’t even been aware she could make such a look. But then, she had never felt that strong of an indescribable emotion before.

She shook her head and sighed, letting the tension flow out. With it, she realized she had been burning. She flushed a little, feeling the sudden decrease in the warmth of her clothes. She wasn’t sure how much of it had slipped past, but it looked like not quite enough for Connor to have commented on. Connor. Here she was thinking about Todd when she was trying to make a friend. She gave a soft smile and asked, “So where are you from, Connor?”​
 

“Ireland? Well, you’re a long way away from there. What made you move to the States?” Sam gave him a sneaky once-over. Yeah, he looked like an Irishman. Sam’s grandmother Mallory had taken her to Ireland twice for what she had called “a small family reunion”. The O’Nolan (or as her grandmother insisted they called them, the Ó Nualláin) family gathering had been dozens of people. It had been overwhelming as a child, but a little more manageable as an older teen.

Sam wasn’t very connected to her heritage. It wasn’t from a lack of trying. Grandmother Mallory had constantly made traditional Irish food, which Sam had liked, played Celtic music for her, and helped Sam with several genealogy reports. Sam had spent years researching the Irish culture but it just never clicked for her. She knew a lot– she practiced none of it.

“My family is Irish as well. I’ve been a few times. Really nice place, I can’t imagine moving from there to here.” Which was honestly the truth. When Mallory had moved back to Ireland when Sam was eighteen, when she was still in that period of not really knowing what to do with herself, of being in school, she had offered Sam a place in her apartments. She had said Sam needed to get away from Colombus. That if Sam didn’t leave that city she was going to be a hollow shell of a person.

She was right, of course. The person Sam had become after she left had been an empty and fractured version of the Sam that had existed at seventeen. She had given herself over to the violence and the rage and for several years had done nothing but chase down leads of Obsidian and Slate. She had wiped out several smaller sects, like the one that had been in Colombus, but she hadn’t been sure she was up for the task of taking on Obsidian directly, especially not when she realized how many metas he’d had on his side.

For now, though, Pittsburgh was where she was meant to be. By Todd’s side, in his arms, at the gym, training people how to defend themselves, and now, hopefully, standing by Connor, arm in arm as they wrecked this human trafficking ring they were apparently both after.​
 

Sam stared at Connor for a moment, some sadness in her eyes. God, he didn’t know how he got to the States? Was he trafficked? That would explain his hatred for that trafficking ring. She leaned forward a bit, her hands coming up under her chin, folding together to support her head. God, what did she even say to that? She felt like she should address it and not let it just pass by.

“I don’t know what happened to you, but I’m sorry. If you didn’t choose to leave, I imagine the circumstances must have been bad. I hope you’ve at least been able to, ah, find a place for yourself here. Though it sounds like that’s been hard as well.”

Then she listened to his question and nodded her head, leaning back into the booth’s seat again. “I’m personally from Ohio. Second-gen American. My grandmother’s a direct immigrant and, well. She moved back because she hated it here. She just wanted a good life for my mother. Can’t blame her for that, or for leaving. America was just never what she wanted it to be. But I’m from Columbus, basically. Born and raised and lived until very recently.”

Sam didn’t mind talking about her life, especially if it helped Connor relax a bit. She was pretty much an open book, with the exception of the vigilantism. That, she tried to keep under wraps in public. She could get int oa lot of trouble with the law for what she did, so keeping quiet about it was a necessity.

She was about to ask him another question when a waitress showed back, a different one than before, and passed them their drinks. Per usual, Sam got a Coke without ice. Ice was a waste of time when your body temperature naturally ran in the hundreds and you put off so much heat that you could melt it within minutes.

“What can I get started for you two? Any appetizers?”

“No, but I’m going to warn you now that we’re going to order a lot of food.”

“Hungry today, I get it. Go ahead and shoot.”

“I’ll take the country fried chicken, the bourbon grilled salmon, and the twelve-ounce sirloin, the sixteen-ounce ribeye with the Jack Daniel’s Lynchburg Glaze, and for all of the sides I’ll do fries and seasonal veggie mix, and then finally I’ll also take an order of the jumbo fried cheese, please. Connor?”

Sam smiled at Connor, giving him permission for whatever he wanted. The waitress looked astonished, but looked to Connor for his order.​
 
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