Chapter 7

New Years Eve was the worst, I danced by myself in the living room while my tears flowed. When the clock struck midnight I told Anita good bye for the last time, before walking upstairs and crying myself to sleep. Once again I dreamed of Anita, she kept telling me she wanted me to live my life to be happy.

I woke up New Year’s day feeling better about life, not good yet but better. Mom seemed to be able to tell, for the first time when she put food in front of me I actually ate it instead of playing with it. While I was eating Dad came in with a smile on his face.

“Baby, we got a break on the people attacking Paladins, a small one but a break,” he told me, still smiling.

“What happened, how?” I asked him, amazed that we had finally caught a break.

He laughed and pointed at me, “The men Bohica and you captured, we had a means to break one of them. He confessed everything even that they had a schedule, for when they could and couldn’t attack. It seems the ‘BOSS’ wants to be in town when the attacks happen,” he told me. I could tell there was more he wasn’t telling me but not what.

I spent the rest of the day with my parents. I did make three calls, I called Clint, Bohica, and DI. They had all asked me to call them today. Turns out they all had the same idea and I liked it, they would each take a night or day of my choice and join me for a training patrol in the Docks.

As they say time waits for no man, it was time to go back to school. Wendy and John were waiting outside for me when I arrived. I hadn’t seen them since the funeral. Wendy walked up and hugged me while John did the guy thing and awkwardly patted my shoulder.

Wendy finally asked me, “Are you doing better?”

I gave her a small smile and a nod, John just smiled. Classes were, well classes. The high point of the day was lunch. We had sloppy joes. Wendy did manage to during the course of the day get my patrol plans out of me. She is sneaky that way. After school I headed home, did my homework and had supper with the ‘rents. Dad insisted on that. At 8:00 o’clock I headed out to meet Di for our first patrol, we had agreed to meet at Ray’s. When I arrived Di was eating a burger, I’m not sure what Fang was eating.

The Docks are actually one of the smaller areas to patrol, but a lot happens there. After we stopped and had arrested a couple of pimps that thought since Scarlet was gone they could do what they wanted, Di wanted to talk.

“You know I asked to have this first patrol with you for a reason. I told you about killing the Slasher, but I didn’t tell you the whole story,” she said while looking off into the distance.

After a moment she continued, “One of his victims had been my lover before I met Doug, I swore that I would find and punish the person that did it. Well, I did just that. I even carried a sword and used it for that purpose. I want to let you know that you captured the person that took Anita from you, he was in the car Bo and you captured. When he found out about Scarlet only being 15 something in him broke. He is the one that gave us the leads we are following up on the BOSS. He cried when he read a copy of your eulogy from the funeral.”

“Let me guess the DA’s going to give him a DEAL!” I yelled at her.

She looked at me sighed, “There will be no deal he has already pled guilty, he even asked for the death penalty,” she replied softly. I was shocked by what she said.

After walking a little farther and thinking I told her, “No he doesn’t get the death penalty. I have to live with the sorrow of her loss, he doesn’t get out of living with the guilt.”

Di smiled, “I was hoping you wouldn’t be that filled with hate,” she said giving me a bow.

I looked at her for a moment, “Don’t get me wrong Di, if this BOSS was in front of me right now I would end him and dance on his corpse without having to think twice about it,” I was snarling by the time I got that all out.

Di with that same serene smile just nodded at me, before continuing our patrol. There was still ice and snow on the ground in the shaded area so we had to be careful where we stepped but it wasn’t too bad. That is what led to the worst and funniest event of our patrol.

Di and I were talking to a prostitute named Kathy when I heard tires sliding on ice. I wrapped Di and the girl up in my wings, turning my back towards the sound bracing myself as best I could. The car hitting me didn’t hurt but did throw me forward where I landed still wrapped around Di and Kathy, the girl we had been talking to. I tried to get up but Di was laying on one wing and Kathy the other, and neither of them were moving. I managed to get my wing out from under Di crap she was knocked out and was Dianna not Dire Wolf.

Kathy was also knocked out but seemed okay other than that. Fang transformed back into Jangles, walked over and started to lick Di’s face. She started moving so I knew she would be alright. Finally able to get up I looked at the car that had hit us, only to see another car hit the same patch of ice and slide into it.

The problem was the driver of the first car had gotten out to come check on us. The second car hit his pushing it into him and launched him into the air towards a wall. I managed to catch him but he was really hurt.

I went to get my Control phone out of my fanny pack only to realize nothing in it survived the car hitting me. Running over to Di who was still too out of it to transform herself, I grabbed her phone. Hitting the big red button on it, I was immediately put through to Control Dispatch.

“Dire Wolf, what is your emergency,” I heard the dispatcher saying.

“This is Dark Angel. I have a multi vehicle accident on Port St. just south of seventh, Dire Wolf is down. Possible concussion, the same for a young lady named Kathy. I also have a man who looks to be about thirty years old with impact trauma, possible multiple broken bones. I haven’t had a chance to check the other driver yet but he isn’t moving from what I can see,” I reported to the dispatcher.

“Dark Angel, I have police and ambulances on the way. Do what you can do to help the injured until they arrive,” she told me in a very business-like manner.

Looking around I saw several people starting toward us. Moving quickly I got Jangles harness adjusted into its service dog configuration, before getting Di’s sunglasses out of her pouch and tossing them to the side like they had been thrown there by the accident. Looking up I saw a young girl standing in the entrance to the building.

“Young lady do you have some blankets I can borrow to cover these people up with to help prevent shock,” I asked her.

She nodded and ran off inside. She returned a couple of minutes later with blankets for every one. I covered everyone up walking back and forth keeping an eye on all of them, and the driver of the second car seemed to be passed out drunk. I could smell it from outside the car, so I left him where he was. It took about ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive with the cops right behind them.

Meanwhile Di had finally gotten it together enough that she was sitting up holding onto Jangles, someone had found her glasses and given them back to her. I walked over and handed her the phone and told her I had used it to call the police since mine had broken in the accident. She smiled at me and nodded before huddling up tighter under her blanket.

It took over an hour to get the scene cleared, Kathy did have a concussion and was sent to the hospital. Di was put into an ambulance and left the scene but returned moments later as Dire Wolf. The driver of the first car turned out to have a broken hip, both legs were broken as well. Of course the only thing that happened I thought was a good thing was when the driver of the second car woke up. I don’t know if he just didn’t see the police, or was too drunk but he started up his car and drove it into a police car. All I could think to myself that was a Youtube moment with no one filming.

Di spoke up just as the tow trucks left with the cars, “I’m alright, my healing fixed me once I managed to get away and change. I have had enough excitement for tonight so we are going home. This patrol was a success and Thank you, you doing what you did probably saved me from major injury if not being killed. Oh yeah, take your old phone to Control in the morning and they will issue you a new one,” she hugged me tight before walking away.

Well I flew home. I’d about enough walking on ice tonight. I told my parents about my night, Dad laughed so hard about the drunk hitting the parked police car he shot coffee out of his nose. I told them good night after that and headed to bed.

The next morning I got up early so I could go by control for a new phone. I ran into my first problem when I tried to go in the roof entrance. Apparently the car had hit me hard enough it bent my registration card so it didn’t work in the scanner. At least there was a guard there that knew me and buzzed me in. I showed him my bent card and he just looked at it and shrugged.

I went to supply where I was told I had to get my ID card fixed before they could issue me anything since they had to scan my card for the record’s. So I had to go back upstairs to HR and get a new card issued which they didn’t want to do. Since I had my card it took them trying to scan it like six times and it not working before they finally admitted that it was broken and issued me a new one.

After that I didn’t have a problem other than supply wanting a detailed account of how I broke it. When I explained about getting hit by a car right on my fanny pack, they all laughed about me getting slapped on my fanny by a car. That stopped though when I mentioned the first guy to slap my fanny went through a wall, and the guy that did it with a car got hit by the same car. I think they decided it might be bad luck for men that thought too much about my fanny.

It seems reporters had found out about what happened last night. I had not seen the news before I headed out this morning, and the accident happened after the news time last night. John had seen it and apparently told Wendy, they confronted me when I got to school.

“You had an exciting patrol and I had to hear about it from John, who only saw it on the news. Why didn’t you call me?” Wendy demanded as soon as I got close to her.

“Well I didn’t want to call you after midnight to wake you up, and as for John he needed all the beauty sleep he could get,” I replied while grinning at John.

Wendy laughed and hugged John before teasing him, “To true, to true but I think I’ll keep him anyways since he does have other redeeming qualities,” she remarked before sticking her tongue out and wiggling it.

Blushing John gave a sheepish grin. We all had a good laugh, before Wendy demanded to know what happened. I told her all of it except the part about Di, since not everyone knows about her. John laughingly told me I shouldn’t carry my phone in my fanny pack since it seemed my fanny was such a tempting target. I chased him as he ran into the school laughing like a loon.

I realized something that morning, family and friend’s are what make life worth living. And I have a good family and great friends. At lunch Wendy held John for me while I tickled him until he said uncle. We had a good laugh about it before heading to class.

The rest of January went by slowly. We had snow and ice it seemed like every other day. I can fly in snow but not freezing rain or sleet, those stick to my wings. The other Paladins and I continued my patrols of the Docks but because of the weather we did most of them on foot. I noticed the girl that had brought me the blankets, always managed to be in her building’s doorway to wave and smile at me as I went by.