Chapter 47 Ashes and Embers
Aria POV
I watched as Jax pulled a small black remote from the charging station and began tapping on a secondary keyboard, his face was tight with focus while he worked to bypass the local interference that was still scrambling our main feeds. He told me that he was launching one of the long-range drones from the roof of the clubhouse, since it used a different frequency than the radios, there was a chance we could get a direct visual on the fire without having to rely on the city’s broken traffic cameras.
I sat there with my hands gripped tightly in my lap, I didn't say anything while the screen in front of me flickered through several shades of gray and blue before it finally snapped into a clear, high-definition view of the city streets from above.
The drone moved quickly over the rooftops and past the tall office buildings that marked the edge of the downtown area, and as it banked toward the east, I saw the source of the orange glow we had been tracking on the other monitor.
The camera zoomed in as it hovered over 4th and Main, and my heart felt like it stopped beating when the image stabilized to show the Henderson Bakery completely surrounded by thick black smoke and massive walls of flame. The roof had already started to cave in on the left side where the ovens were located, and I could see the front windows that I used to clean every Monday morning were now just jagged holes in the brick wall.
"Wait, zoom in on the alleyway near the loading dock, because I see movement that doesn't look like the fire department," I whispered, leaning so close to the screen that I could feel the heat coming off the electronics.
Jax moved the joystick and the camera dipped lower, and we both saw three men wearing the heavy leather vests of the Iron Fangs standing just outside the reach of the heat.
They weren't trying to hide what they were doing, I watched in a state of total shock as one of them ignited a glass bottle filled with liquid and tossed it through the broken front door.
A fresh burst of fire exploded outward as the bottle hit the floor, and the men just stood there for a few more seconds to watch the building burn before they climbed onto their motorcycles and sped away toward the industrial district.
"It wasn't an electrical short or a kitchen accident, they did it on purpose while they knew I was trapped here and couldn't do a thing to stop them," I said, my voice sounded strange to my own ears because it was so flat and empty.
The door to the tech room opened quietly and Martha walked in carrying a tray with two mugs of tea and some biscuits, but she stopped in her tracks the moment she saw the live footage on the main screen. She set the tray down on a side table and walked over to me, she put her hand on my shoulder in a way that was meant to be comforting, but I just felt cold and numb to the touch.
"I heard the news from the scouts on the roof, Aria, and I am so sorry that those cowards targeted your place of work just to get a message to Grayson," Martha said, trying to pull me into a hug, but I stayed stiff and kept my eyes glued to the monitor.
"That wasn't just a place of work, Martha, and it wasn't just a message to Grayson, because that was the only part of my life that actually belonged to me," I replied, I didn't even blink as the sign with the little golden loaf of bread fell from the front of the building and landed in the gutter.
"I didn't have to be a 'human pet' or a 'healer' when I was in that kitchen, because I was just Aria, that job was the only thing I had that wasn't tied to a pack, a war, or a corporation like Hart Industries. Now I don't have a paycheck, I don't have a schedule, and I don't even have a way to pay the rent on my apartment once this is all over, so they didn't just burn a building, they burned the only bridge I had back to a normal life."
"You still have your life and your Nana, and Grayson will make sure you’re taken care of, so don't you worry about the money or the job right now," Martha told me, but her words just made me feel more frustrated because she didn't understand that I didn't want to be taken care of by a billionaire wolf.
"I don't want to be a charity case, Martha, and I don't want to be a liability that everyone has to watch over like a child," I said, as I watched the flames consume the interior of the shop, I felt the sadness in my chest turn into something much sharper and more dangerous.
I stopped crying and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and then I turned to Jax who was still recording the drone footage onto a hard drive.
"Can you pull up the frame where those men were standing by the alley, and can you use the software to sharpen their faces so we can see who they are?"
Jax looked at me with a surprised expression, but he didn't argue and he started clicking through the playback until he found a clear shot of the man who threw the last firebomb.
He blew the image up until it filled the entire screen, and even though the lighting was bad, I could clearly see the jagged scar across the man's cheek and the specific tattoo of a snake on his forearm.
"I know that man, because he was one of the guys who used to hang around the warehouse when I worked there, and his name is Silas," I told Jax, and I felt a cold, hard anger settle in my gut that made all my fear disappear.
"He works for Darius directly, and if he’s the one who burned my bakery, then I want to know exactly where he’s going so I can tell Grayson exactly where to find him."
"Aria, you need to calm down and let the scouts handle the retaliation, because you aren't a soldier and this is a war between packs," Martha warned, but I just ignored her and reached for a notepad to start writing down everything I remembered about Silas and the other two men on the screen.
"I'm done being a baker and I'm done hiding in cellars, because they took away the only thing I had left to lose, so now I have nothing to be afraid of anymore," I said, and I looked at the screen one last time as the roof of the bakery finally collapsed into a pile of red-hot embers.
I sat there for the rest of the night helping Jax sort through the footage, and every time we found a new detail or a face we recognized, I felt the anger getting stronger. I wasn't just some girl who needed protection anymore, and as the sun started to come up over the smoking ruins of the city center, I realized that the person I used to be had died in that fire along with the bread and the cupcakes.