Chapter 48 The Final Severing
Aria POV
The drone eventually ran out of battery and the screen went black, which left the tech room in a heavy silence that felt even worse than the sound of the fire. I sat in the swivel chair for another hour while Jax tried to get a stable connection to the city's emergency network, but the Iron Fang jamming was still thick and made every attempt at communication fail.
I eventually stood up because my legs were cramping, so I walked over to the window and watched the grey morning light start to creep over the trees, yet the sky toward the city still looked hazy and dark with the leftover smoke from the night.
Martha had stayed with me the whole time, though she was mostly quiet while she picked up the empty tea mugs and organized the messy desk. She looked at me with a soft expression that I didn't really want to see right now, because every time someone looked at me with pity, it just reminded me that I was a girl who had lost everything in a single night.
"The fire department finally got the blaze under control about twenty minutes ago, according to the last radio burst from the scouts," Martha said, and she reached out to pat my shoulder as she walked past me toward the door.
"I'm going to go check on your Nana and make sure she has some breakfast, so why don't you come with me and try to get some sleep before Grayson gets back from that meeting?"
"I can't sleep, Martha, because every time I close my eyes I just see the front door of the bakery melting into the pavement," I replied, but I followed her out into the hallway anyway since I couldn't stand being in the tech room any longer.
We were halfway to the kitchen when my phone suddenly buzzed in my pocket, which was a shock because the service had been dead for hours. I pulled it out and saw that I had one bar of signal, which was just enough for a single text message to come through from a number I recognized instantly as Mr. Henderson's private line. My hands started to shake as I tapped on the notification, and I held my breath while I waited for the text to load on the screen.
Don't come back, Aria. The insurance won't cover the damage and the police say it was a targeted hit. I can't have the kind of trouble you bring around here, so I'm closing the business for good. I’m sorry, but you’re on your own now.
I stared at the words until they started to blur together, and I felt a cold weight settle in my chest that was much heavier than the anger I had felt earlier. It wasn't just that the building was gone, but the fact that the man who had been like an uncle to me for three years now saw me as a dangerous infection that had ruined his life's work.
I realized then that I couldn't go back to my apartment either, because if they found the bakery, they definitely knew where I slept, and I didn't want to be the reason my neighbors got burned out of their homes too.
"What is it, honey? You look like you've seen a ghost," Martha asked, stopping in the middle of the hall to look at my phone.
"It’s over, Martha, because my boss just told me I’m the reason his shop is a pile of ash and he never wants to see me again," I told her, and I felt a strange sense of finality as I deleted the message and tucked the phone back into my pocket.
"I don't have a job to go back to and I don't have a home outside of these walls, so I guess the Iron Fangs got exactly what they wanted when they lit those matches."
I turned away from the kitchen and headed toward the back stairs that led to the garage, because I didn't want to see Nana yet and I definitely didn't want to talk about my feelings over a bowl of oatmeal. I found Jax in the garage where he was checking the fuel levels on the patrol bikes, and he looked up at me with a surprised expression as I walked straight over to the workbench and picked up the heavy wrench I had been using the day before.
"Aria, what are you doing back down here? You look like you're about to pass out from exhaustion," Jax said, but he didn't try to take the tool out of my hand.
"I’m done hiding, Jax, and I’m done waiting for men in leather jackets to decide what my life is going to look like from now on," I told him, and my voice was steady and hard in a way that even surprised me.
"If the Iron Fangs want to treat me like a member of this pack by burning down my life, then I’m going to start acting like one, so I want you to show me where the weapons are kept and how to use them."
"Grayson would kill me if I handed you a gun, Aria, and you know he wants you in the cellar where it’s safe," Jax replied, though he didn't look like he was going to stop me.
"The cellar didn't save my bakery and it isn't going to save me when they eventually breach the gates, so you can either teach me how to defend myself or you can watch me try to figure it out on my own while the building is on fire," I argued, and I didn't back down when he stepped closer to see if I was serious.
Jax looked at the door to make sure we were alone, and then he sighed and signaled for me to follow him toward the small locked room at the back of the garage.
"Fine, but if the Alpha asks, I’m going to tell him you threatened me with that wrench and I didn't have a choice."
I walked into the small armory and felt a new kind of resolve, because the girl who spent her mornings baking bread was gone, and I knew that the only way to survive in Grayson's world was to become just as dangerous as the people who were trying to destroy us.