I walked into a clearing surrounded by trees. Wind blew through me, sending a chill up my spine. In the center of the open space was an inviting campfire. I approached it hungrily, eager to dispel the freezing darkness, but a cold breeze buffeted me, threatening to extinguish my life along with the dwindling fire. Not again, I thought, recalling an impression. A memory came to mind of a small flame that went out, leaving only a tendril of smoke. I pushed against the wind with all of my being, refusing to lose what may be my final hope at saving myself. After a brief conflict, I’d made it to the fire. A deep breath of its warmth was enough to combat the cold. I couldn’t remember why, but I knew I had to keep moving. I picked up the dry ends of the wood wet with fire and carried it with me into the forest.

My face was pressed against something hard. I was exhausted. I didn’t have the strength to lift myself. Time passed in a blur, and I couldn’t tell how long I laid there. A car slowed and pulled up next to me. It wasn’t the first that had passed, but it was the first to stop. The driver door opened, and heels clattered toward me.

“For fuck’s sake, Jesse.” Came an annoyed feminine voice.

“Language.” I slurred as I was pulled to my feet and pushed into the passenger seat of a silver sedan. It wasn’t until the driver got back into the car that I saw Al in her business attire. It had been torn up and had blood all over it.

“Hey Al.” I managed to get out. “How was your day?” She grunted. It sounded almost like a laugh.

“Here,” She said holding out her arm. “–but don’t take too much, I’ve barely recovered.” I reached out to grab her wrist but only bumped it with my stump. I shook away some of the fog. Concern passed over her face briefly.

“Oh yeah.” I said blearily and rested my arm on hers, pulling in what I could. Apparently, her ‘barely recovered’ was more than my usual reserves, but I heeded her request. I took only what I needed to think clearly and feel somewhat normal. After removing my awkwardly resting stump from her arm, I took a deep breath in and released it.

“Try not to get my car too dirty.” Al warned, but there was amusement in her voice, and perhaps something more. Relief? I looked down to a familiar sight. My bloody, muddy, orange prison garb with a hole in the chest, and a couple tears. I was about to turn to smile at Al but stopped myself. I was afraid she’d remember the phone call and it’d ruin the light atmosphere in the car. It felt that if our eyes met, I’d draw the ire of the pack leader who’d mistake the innocent eye contact of a foolish cub as a challenge for the top. Instead, I looked back to see a motley crew of an uninjured Dale, an unconscious Cara with a shiner forming around one eye, and a bloodied, bruised, and puffy Shawn.

“Hey guys.” I handlessly waved with a smile.

“Hey Jesse.” Dale replied jovially. “Looks like you’ve had as much fun as we have.”

“I’d say I’ve had even more fun.” I said, matching his demeaner.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” He replied looking at the back of Al’s head. From the corner of my eye, I saw her scowl.

“Well – I guess we can trade stories when we get back to my apartment.” I commented.

“About that…” Dale said drawing out the words. He averted his eyes. “It kind of got destroyed.”

“Even more?” I asked incredulously. Dale looked sheepishly at the back of Al’s head again.

“We may have blown it up.” He said. “And by that, I mean Al may have blown it up.” I was all out of reactions for the day, so I just settled back into my chair.

“Oh well.” I said. “It wasn’t like I had anything of value.”

“We’re going to my house.” Shawn said between two swollen lips. “Just turn right here, then in a few miles, turn left into the Prestige Community. Go straight for a few blocks, hang another left onto Dazzling Lane, and my house is the third one on the right.” All of us pursed our lips. He rolled his eyes. “I know – shut up.”

Al silently followed his directions and pulled onto a driveway lined with privacy trees. There was a long path which led to a wrought iron gate with a guard station. We slowed and stopped next to it. Al rolled down her window and a man leaned in to inspect the interior of the vehicle. Surprise was plastered across his face, especially when he got to Shawn’s battered appearance.

“Master Ellison!” The guard exclaimed.

“Just let us through, Andy.” Shawn said with a weak wave.

“Yes sir. Right away sir.” The man replied, rushing back to his station. The gate opened, and we drove inside.

Even more driveway led to a massive building made of aged blocks with ivy draped over it as if it were a modern Italian castle. It couldn’t even be called a house. The pavement led under an overhang in front of the entrance. Past it was an area the size of a small parking lot. The driveway curved in one direction and down into the mansion, as if its basement were a parking structure. There were also two detached garages, each the size of a house.

Al ignored all of it and parked right in front. Several butlers came to open each door, but Al didn’t wait. She got out and walked past them toward tall, intricately carved double doors. She went inside as if she owned the place. I shook my head, and patiently waited for the butlers’ gentlemanly gesture of holding open my door. They proceeded to guide us into the chateau if that term was interchangeable with castle mansion. It was the first time I’d seen such an extravagant home. I mean, Al’s condo was nice, but it was minimalist with most of the space allotted for training.

Shawn waved away the servants, but I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to be treated like royalty. After the day I’d been having, I could use a bit of pampering. I rose my only hand and cleared my throat obnoxiously to get their attention.

“I’m starving. Hey Jeeves – Jeeves’, do you have any of those tiny sausages with toothpicks in them? I have a craving for them. Also, bring us some of those little pieces of bread with tomato and cheese and other stuff on them. And honestly, what gathering doesn’t have jumbo shrimp?” I requested, looking at Dale who clearly agreed. He had Cara draped over one shoulder. “Do rich people eat pizza? Dale, you want anything?”

“Naturally.” Dale said in his best haughty accent with a flair of his hand. “No meal is complete without caviar and truffles.” I nodded appreciatively. To my surprise, Al joined in our order.

“Wine. Get me wine. Red.” She commanded.

“Yes, and bring me a glass of your finest scotch.” I added. I didn’t even like scotch, but I always wanted to say that. The Jeeves’ looked over at Shawn, who rolled his eyes, nodded, and waved them away. Dale and my smiles filled our entire faces.

“C’mon.” Shawn said lacking our enthusiasm. He guided us to a sitting room with furniture that looked like it had never been used. The couches were a pristine white. I didn’t hesitate to leap onto one and rub my face into an uncomfortable decorative throw pillow. The sofa was no longer white after my antics. When I sat up to look at Shawn’s unamused face, he asked, “Are you done?”

“Of course not.” I replied with an unapologetic smile. He sighed and rolled his eyes again. I sighed. “Fine. Why don’t you guys tell me what happened to you?”

“Oh my god, Jesse.” Dale punctuated excitedly. “It was crazy.”

“Cara escaped, we had to fight your neighbors, we beat her, and now we’re here. The end.” Shawn droned. Al scoffed from halfway across the room. She sat at a long fancy table, looking bored.

“If you’re going to tell it, tell it right.” Dale replied. “Here’s what really happened.”

“Al had to go do some lawyery things to get you out of prison and me and Leah had to go home. She works third shift and hadn’t slept yet. Also, we had to take a shower. I smelled like smoke, and she was impressed by my television stardom.” He winked at me. I snorted.

“Anyway, we left Cara with Shawn, and I gave him specific instructions not to act like himself and screw everything up. As usual, he didn’t listen.” Dale shook his head at Shawn, then continued. “So, me and Al get back to your apartment around the same time. Shawn is just standing there, in the middle of the room, next to an empty chair. He nodded to me in greeting, then out of nowhere, rushes Al. Being the badass that she is,” I crossed my arms and gave him a nonplused glare. “Sorry, being the – what’s another name for that?” He asked.

“Monster.” Shawn and Al replied at the same time; Dale and I looked between them with curious expressions. Al slammed a glass of wine which was attentively refilled by a Jeeves. The manservant stood next to her holding a bottle of red as if he had no other task assigned to him. Before I could feel disappointed at her special treatment, the other butlers started delivering our requests as well. Dale continued his tale.

“She dodged and punched him in the back of the head, sending him to the floor. We tried to ask him what he was doing, but he just ignored us and kept trying to fight Al. Finally, she went to end the fight, by stuffing him into the floor, but then he hit her with lightning. That’s when she got serious and threw him out the window.” Dale said. My face brightened with glee. I hastily swallowed a jumbo shrimp before jumping in.

“Fatality.” Trying to imitate the iconic video game phrase. “Too bad, he didn’t fall into a pit of spikes.” I said in my regular voice.

“I thought so too, but when I looked, he wasn’t dead. He started crawling back toward the building! You believe that?” He said.

“Actually, yeah. He’s like a cockroach that keeps coming back.” I nodded, stuffing another shrimp in my mouth, while Shawn looked away, crossing his arms defensively.

“Anyway, we start searching for Cara, but your neighbors started showing up. For some reason, they were only interested in fighting Al, so she told me to find Cara and knock her out. So that’s what I did. But when I got a couple floors down, there was a huge explosion that shook the whole building. That’s why I said your apartment got blown up.” He explained. I grimaced, knowing exactly when that happened.

“After a few floors, I found Cara and punched her in the face before she could use her mojo on me. All the fighting stopped thanks to me. Knocked her out in one hit; the day saved by TKO.” Dale said with pride. I nodded furiously, impressed. “The elevator was out from the explosion, so Al and I met up and went down the stairs together. When we got to the lobby, Shawn was waiting all confused, as if he hadn’t just been thrown off a building.” Dale gestured to Shawn. “As you can see, Al woke him from his stupor and taught him a valuable lesson.”

“Yeah, not to piss me off.” She scoffed before taking another sip. Dale nodded.

“Bree was recording the whole thing, but I wasn’t about to have a video of me on the internet carrying a white girl over my shoulder, so I smashed her phone. I can’t tell how satisfying it was. When we got outside, there were a bunch of people in the street staring at the burning building. Most of them ignored us, but some guy came up and handed us a pizza, staring at Al with his mouth wide open. We tried to walk away with the food, but he said he had a message for us and handed us a note. Why didn’t you just call us instead of ordering pizza?” He asked. I looked away sheepishly. “I ate it all in case you were wondering. FYI, next time, just put everything in the main message. You can maybe use, like, one P.S. Not eight.” He complained. I shrugged as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Al looked super annoyed when she read it, then told us we had to go bail you out, Shawn was conscious at this point as well. If that wasn’t all great enough, here’s the best part.” Dale said, as if building suspense to deliver the punchline to a joke. “The pizza guy held out his hand for money, but Al stared directly into his eyes, looked down at herself, then back at him and goes: ‘You already got your payment.’ And walks away without another word.” Dale put his hands next to his head and rose them into the air as if his mind just exploded, sound effect and everything. I scowled.

“Al, you can’t pay for pizza with your body.” I admonished. I realized my mistake as soon as the words came out of my mouth. Dale stared at me aghast, but with a secret eager anticipation. I turned slowly to look at Al with my mouth agape and fear in my eyes. To my surprise, she smirked and shook her head knowingly.

“I didn’t have any cash on me.” She defended with a shrug. “There, you’re all caught up. Satisfied? Now, are you going to heal me or not?”

“Oh, corpses. I forgot you got stabbed.” I said sympathetically. “I got stabbed too. A guy hit me in the eye with a kitchen knife earlier. It really sucked.” I stopped gorging myself and went over to stand next to her. Her attention stayed on her wine. I rested my still existing hand on her wound and turned to others.

“That was cool and all, but my story is so much better. It started when I got to the prison. Everyone respected me almost immediately. They were so impressed that they gave me an awesome nickname. Ghost.” I smirked. Then I shrugged nonchalantly. “They wanted to call me The Revenant, but I guess it was already taken by a guy upstate. My cellmate was this guy, named Bucket.” Suddenly, Al winced in pain.

“Is this some kind of sick joke or payback?” She growled. I pulled my hand back reflexively. When I looked at her arm, her wound was inflamed and oozing puss. I looked down at my hand and it had a strange greenish wetness to it. I stared at it with confusion then up at Al, whose face lit up with fury. She bared her teeth and backhanded me across the room, knocking the wind out of me.

She rose from her chair and flames exploded from the gash in her arm, most likely both cleaning and cauterizing the wound. Her heels struck the floor with purpose as she slowly stalked toward me. I felt too groggy to understand what was happening. My head lulled to one side. There was shiny piece of art next to me that curled and flowed around itself.

It looked like a portal, with the face of a man surrounded by motes of ominous greenish-gray smoke. His face was thin and gaunt, as if a vampire had sucked all the blood out of him. The looping metal sculpture made his face look disjointed and broken. I moved my arm to feel my face, and my rounded stump touched my cheek. The gesture was mirrored by the man that looked back at me, he was also missing a hand.

When I met his gaze, I wasn’t sure whether to feel horror or despair. His eyes – my eyes, weren’t white, or silver, or gray – they were black.