Free Into the Fire by Peter Liney Page B

why. He was certainly smooth, butthere was this suspicion that he saw her as nothing more than an intriguing specimen.
    “Clancy?” she said, as we neared the gate.
    “What?”
    “It’s out of the question, you know that, don’t you?”
    “Why?”
    “We don’t have any money!” she repeated. “No matter how little it costs—”
    “It’s not a problem.”
    “You wanna run that by me again?”
    “We can get money.”
    “How?”
    I didn’t answer, mainly ’cuz I’d been thinking about it all night and still hadn’t come up with anything that resembled a solution.
    “I’ll adjust,” she told me firmly. “Once we find somewhere to settle and I get to know it, I’ll be just fine.”
    “Why should you have to if you can see again?”
    We made it to the security gate and had our bracelets removed before we were allowed to leave.
    “You heard what he said. There’s a good chance,” I persisted, as we walked away.
    “Clancy,” she begged, “just leave it, huh?”
    But of course, I couldn’t, not for long. Later, back at the church, I waited for my moment, then told the others. It wasn’t exactly fair: I knew they’d be on my side and start pressuring her. I guess I was just hoping that weight of numbers would eventually tell.
    Sure enough, they all got stuck into her, telling her that even if there was only a one percent chance, she should grab it.
    “We don’t have the money!” she cried, yet again.
    “We’ll get some!” Delilah reassured her.
    “How?”
    Delilah looked at Jimmy and the little guy at me. Instantly I cut Gordie and Arturo off before they could start talking about robbing a bank again. That whole interchange must’ve occurred a dozen times in various different versions, but it always died at the samepoint—with no one having the slightest idea how we could get our hands on any money, let alone something approaching ten grand.
    Tell the truth, I didn’t know what to do. The one person you’d think would be most enthusiastic about the idea, who had everything to gain, was the one dead set against it. Several times she reassured me she was perfectly happy the way she was, that it was just her new surroundings making her insecure. In fact, she was so persuasive, I almost got to believing her. It was only later, waking up and finding her crying beside me, that I realized how she really felt.
    She hadn’t been showing any enthusiasm ’cuz she couldn’t bear to get her hopes up and be disappointed. We had no money—and even if we did manage to get some, the operation wasn’t guaranteed. It was easier for her to cope with what she had, to go on as she was.
    I pulled her toward me and kissed away those tears, tasting their salty sadness on my lips. I’d gone over and over this a million times and I could think of only one way of coming up with the money. It was madness—in fact, it was damn near laughable—but it was all I had.
    I was gonna have to come out of retirement and find myself one last job.

CHAPTER FIVE
    The following morning I was awakened by this commotion up-top, a lot of screaming and whooping. I struggled out of the sleeping bag and went up to investigate. I was immediately confronted by the apartment block across the street burning away like a billboard for Hades. Flames were leaping into the air so high they disappeared into the smoke, feeding into the general haze; occasionally exploding out in bright orange unfurling ribbons.
    Jimmy and the kids were already up there; Gordie, Arturo and even Hanna were letting out squeals of delight every time there was a new eruption, as if they were watching a fireworks display or something, while Jimmy just looked on, a puzzled frown on his face.
    “That ain’t normal,” he told me, his old eyes bloodshot from the smoke.
    “So you keep saying,” I commented absently, my thoughts still locked on finding a job and getting some money.
    “Something causes that.”
    I nodded, watching as a tongue of flame suddenly shot