Baptism By Fire

It wasn’t long before she began to calm down, steadying her heart rate and sinking back into the couch that she’d finally caught a whiff of. It was his cologne, something that he used to wear that reminded her of her old life. Her father had given Bernard and Edgar the same cologne for some reason, she wasn’t sure why. Considering he had jar after jar stashed away from all the gifts that people had given him throughout the years, the male probably figured the two would have enjoyed it more than he would. Although the couch was comfortable, she wasn’t able to relax. Her leg bobbed up and down for a few moments than the other leg would start. She felt cagey, like an animal who had just been taken from the wild. She couldn’t contain herself in this situation- and the thought of Randy and the gang as well as Teddy out there made her stomach flip.

“My goodness, look at you” Mortimer sat in the chair closest to Finley, “why, you’re all grown up. How long has it been?” He asked Finley.

“A month.” Edgar groaned, showing little enthusiasm for Mortimer’s presence, especially around Finley.

Mortimer rolled his eyes and waved his hand at Edgar, “I know that dear boy, but I mean just look at Finley here. She looks a lot like her mother!” Mortimer sighed reminiscently, drumming his fingers on his knees. “Did your father ever tell you about your mother? Hm?”

“Mortimer.”

The realization of everything he had just said started to sink in. They would be ready and Teddy wouldn’t have a chance against them. She swallowed hard, tasting bile and finding it hard to catch her breath. Something felt like it was stuck in the back of her throat like she was unable to choke it down. A heavy weight sat on her chest for a good portion of the silence that followed and soon enough she was gasping for breath. She had no idea what he would do with her, be it that give her up to higher authorities or brain wash her like they did him. But the one thing she couldn’t live with was Teddy dying because of her, and she wouldn’t let that happen.

Edgar gazed at Finley, the way she said “worse” so strongly. She was so much different since the last time he saw her. Not in the fields that day, but the last time they had spoken like this, sitting. So naive and unsure of the world around her, then thrown into everything at once. “Finley, I--” Edgar was stopped short from a loud series of taps at his door. He rubbed his chin and sluggishly answered it, “Mortimer?” He said.

“Afternoon,” Mortimer tapped at his bracelet and murmured as it beeped then died, “or morning actually. I really should get this damned thing looked at.”

“What are you doing here?” Edgar asked.

“Here to check on the girl,” Mortimer said quaintly, “see if she’s comfortable and the such.”

Edgar hugged the door close with one of his arms, “Now’s not a good time.” Mortimer rested a hand on Edgar’s shoulder and squeezed lightly, “I’m just here to check on her. Ask her some questions my boy. That’s all.”

Mortimer’s fingers stayed there for a while, Edgar looked at the floor then at his uncle, “That’s all.”

She couldn’t look at him while he told the story. Her eyes focused on the mug that he had been sipping and stirring– the spoon glinting in the dim light of the apartment. Finley wasn’t sure if he did it on purpose, left the apartment in this manner so it looked as if no one was home at the moment. He could be monitored that way, she guessed, but she didn’t know what a top ranking agent could get away with and what they could be scorned for. The government didn’t care if their agents roughed you up or shot you dead, all that mattered was cleaning up the streets so nobody would notice how truly bad it was. It was the same for Finley until Teddy opened her eyes to what was actually going on around her. 

Edgar stuck the mug in between the plates in the dishwasher and whirred it shut behind him. He took his seat across the table in the living room, picking up where they left off. “I’m counting on it kid. Teddy... He’ll raise hell to find you, he’ll shoot up every checkpoint and blow up every truck just to get to you. And I’m gonna be waiting for him.” Edgar said coldly. He just sat there looking at Finley, he thought hard enough to make the scar behind his head burn. Could he have done something differently? Done something to make things the way they were, when it was just him, Finley, and Bernard in the park?

His composure was no longer warm with affectionate nicknames or caring words but clipped ones, harsh ones, ones that he would use with a captive.. a criminal. Finley Scott never thought of herself as a criminal nor did she think what she was doing was wrong. She was barely a participant, hardly a foot solider in this war between the people and the government. She was a messenger girl, but he twisted it into what he claimed he knew about her then shoved it back in her face. “You think you know everything, but you don’t. You have no idea what you’re talking about and what you think you know is wrong.”

She spoke to him directly, taking her eyes off of him from time to time but it wasn’t because she was nervous or afraid- she was so riled up, so angry that she had been caught that it almost felt like it was on a technicality. She was so close to being free of her old life and it just came back to haunt her.

 “When I was about fifteen or sixteen years old,” Edgar took a smaller sip from his coffee again, “my baby brother Roderick and I went into a restaurant looking for a job. It was one of those fancy places you saw in Valiant Magazine. You paid fifty credits for a meal the size of your palm.” He chuckled. “Roderick hated it but it was the only place we hadn’t checked out yet. I mean, we were willing to do anything to get some food in us. We were tired of table scraps in alleys”

 “So we walk in there, and the first thing the host says to us, the first thing, is is ‘the trash eats out back’.” Edgar was still holding his mug and waving it around, “Roderick and me, we just--we look at each other and we walk out. We come back in with paper bags over our heads and two empty pistols we had on us. Robbed the place and every single rich son of a bitch in there for ten-thousand credits.” A laugh escaped Edgar while he told the story, darting his eyes between Finley and the table. “We ate like fucking kings that night. So I make a few calls, and we get a crew together. Started out with just me, Roderick, and Charlie, but got a couple more as time went on.”

Edgar finished his coffee and put the mug down. “We hit anything that had money. Stores, trucks...Eventually we hit the credit banks. Jesus, I mean nothing could stop us. We had so many credits, that--that we just started handing some out.” His voice began to fall, “They put our faces up everywhere, The Nott Family Gang. They knew us, yeah they knew us.”

“One day we get in over our heads, we ambushed a Kill-Unit convoy thinking it was a credit transport. We lasted about two minutes before me, Roderick, and Charlie are all bleeding out in the middle of the road.” Edgar grabbed the top of his mug and squeezed, like it was a magic lamp that he wanted a wish out of. “I spent a year rotting in some Government prison. Eating whatever they gave me. All because one of my crew sold us out, lead us right to those fuckers knowing what we were doing.”