Rendering Flames

February 6th

“Keep it steady.” I ignored Richie’s absence of personal boundaries as his breath brushed against my ear, while we silently were tracking a rabbit some meters away.

“I am and have been,” I grumbled, trying to concentrate. I had the rabbit in my shot, I knew I could get it. I hadn’t killed for food in a good while and had lost the stomach for it.

“Anytime now,” he grumbled back irritated that I was just basically sitting idle as our dinner wandered freely about.

“Talk again and I’ll just shoot you, Richie,” I warned him, slightly adjusting my finger that was hovering over the trigger. I focused myself again, silently thanking the animal for its contribution before I finally let a shot come out.

“Good, girl. That rabbit better be damn good for how long we waited for you to finally kill the bastard.” Richie’s comments flew over my head as I rose to my feet, my stomach aching as it found its room to breathe again after being flatten down by my weight.

“I’ll meet you back at camp. You go get the bastard.” I remarked, dismantling the rifle as I could and leaving him.

It had been a slow and rainy walk all day. Things weren’t happening as fast as I wanted them took. Richie would disappear for a few hours every day to go meet some shady person who had tips on the whereabouts of the bounty we were after. Every time we got close to where a camp could be, they would have already moved once we reached it the next day or so. It’s happened twice now and I was fearing there was a pattern forming, too much of a cat and mouse game.

Orson had been on edge with Richie disappearing, he was always told to just hang back. Personally, it wasn’t any secret that my trust in Richie was about as much as one would normally have for someone like him. He was tricky be trade and invasive by nature. Orson keeps telling me that he’ll grow on me, that one day I’ll thank him that I have connections with someone like Richie. I feel indifferent, like Richie only brings trouble and lies where ever he goes.

It didn’t take very long before we had the rabbit skinned and cooking over the fire. It has been a nightmare keeping a stock of dry wood in a blanket with the rain that had been falling. Even then, the fire would flicker further down to lifelessness on the wet ground. We all silently sat around the fire, pitching in twigs and dry paper to keep the fire alive.

“Forgot to tell you that the shadow has returned.” I looked up, thinking Richie was talking to me but he was only looking to Orson.

“Where did you hear this?” His seemed interested but not enough to look back to Richie’s gaze.

“Yesterday when I met with an informant.” He seemed oddly proud of this information that confused me but I laughed dryly.

“Are you sure you can trust you ‘informant’,” I air-quoted, ”because based on the information they've been feeding you, it's probably their own shadow they're talking about."

“My informants are as good as they can get with what the situations are at the moment, Dahlia.” His tone bit but he cooled as he turned back to Orson. “Apparently he did some dealings with Bryce a few days ago; that he’s going for the bounty too. He never was too keen on the more radical groups, thinks they’re too loud and don’t actually represent themselves like a radical group should.”

“Sounds like something he would do,” Orson shrugged, poking at the fire with a stick. “I haven’t talked to him for a few years though, can’t really remember his attitude as well as I could. Besides, he’s one to talk because his actions were unpredictable. When I knew him, he was quiet and radical but now he isn’t radical at all anymore?”

“Just relaying what I heard and saying to keep an open mind because the main point is that he’s back in the area, that’s the golden ticket. Imagine having him on your side again, Orson. People respect him, we’d get the full bounty no problem if he was with us.”

“He wouldn’t work with us. You seem to forget that he doesn’t like working with people, Rich. I only knew him for a few weeks before he disappeared and even then when talked, I never knew much about him. Except that he was almost captured by Kruger himself, barely got away.”

I quickly interjected, feeling left out completely. “What’s so special about him?”

“Well, according to his story, before he got away from Kruger he shot him. Actually got a shot at the devil himself, didn’t kill him though. He only got away by jumping off a drop off and into some lake below but not before he got shot himself. I mean, he’s special because he got to do something thousands—millions probably—want to do. He left a literal mark on, Kruger. No one can say that and survive to tell the story.”

“How do you know he’s not lying? I mean, if he’s anything like your type Richie, I wouldn’t buy it for a second.” It sounded like a lie to me, a con trying to make some money and gain a reputation.

“The bullets that Kruger uses, they’re different from any other bullets that you would just load into a gun. They have a chemical binary nerve agent, something kind of like Sarin.”
“What is, Sarin? I’ve never heard of it—,”

“It’s a chemical, a mean nerve agent. Outlawed in 1993 for being considered a weapon of mass destruction, sounds right up Kruger’s ally. But of course the king has to leave his mark so he tinkered with it. Originally, it’s lethal as hell but after some work it isn’t but it leaves a permanent mark on its victims if they live.”

For the first time since I met Richie, I was actually interested in what he was saying. I now knew that chemicals were something of a favorite for Kruger. He used them on me, on all those people that were saved and brought to the Hanger, and now his bullets. I almost didn’t want to hear about chemicals anymore because it would only remind me of what happened to me and I was doing well, I didn’t need that weighing me down now.

“Are you listening?” Richie interrupted my thoughts and I realized I had zoned out.

“Yeah, sorry.” I cleared my throat, shaking my thoughts off.

“As I was saying, normally the chemical would kill you within a minute to something like ten minutes. Kruger still has that compound locked up if he’s looking to kill but with his bullets, it’s just a class one nerve agent, extremely potent in its effects. What happened with this guy, he was shot by one of those bullets. His proof is what he was left with, a nasty scar and tremble. His hands shake terribly, I mean, at some points the poor guy couldn’t even drink out of a cup. I noticed they came and went and they got worse when he was worked up. But that’s his proof, no one else has that chemical outside Kruger’s walls because it’s only produced within them and it is watched with hawk eyes, it doesn’t leave or move without him knowing.”

“Kruger likes chemicals,” I scoffed, “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Yeah, he gets off on them.” Richie looked at me weirdly, like he knew I knew stuff about Kruger he didn’t know I knew.

“Rabbit is done.” Orson cleared, breaking up the stare down, “let’s getting eating before it gets any darker, yeah? We got an early start tomorrow if we can wake up in time.”

That night sleep did not come to me easily. Instead, the thought of my own personal torture plagued my thoughts. It was running circles in my head, the feeling I remember of those needles burying themselves into my temporal muscles. Talking about the chemical, the tortures that Kruger toys around with, it reminded me to feel like one of his experimented on puppets rather than what I’ve become to be. The thoughts of that would finally run me into a slumber but I wasn’t ready for the thoughts to remain in my dreams, once again turning me into something I was hoping no one would ever have to see.