Gentles all:   The following story contains reference to a form of Japanese street fashion, the adherents to which refer to as Elegant Gothic Lolita. Note, that the term “Lolita” refers to this style of clothing. This, with Gabi's kind help, is a revised and illustrated version of the story that originally appeared on Crystal’s Storysite.

Hansel and Gretel: A Fairytale. Finale. By Sarah Lynn Morgan

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Finale

 
 

     John slammed the side of his fist into the third door, because it too was locked.

      Margaret had to stop for a breath. Her hand went reflexively to her side.

      “At least the inside doors are mostly unlocked, but we need to find a way out!” John was panting too.

      “I know that, come on, and lets try this way.” Maggie said, as she pulled him toward a room full of trash bins. She froze for a moment as several very large rats sprang for any hiding place.

      Most of the bins were empty, but several full ones stood by a large square door in the wall that obviously lead to a dumpster. John lifted a bar, and swung it aside to see if they could get out that way. It only led to the inside of a compactor. They could not get out that way either. In disgust, John pushed the door closed, and had begun to run toward the hall once more, frantically looking for a way out. When the metal door hit, and the handle flipped down, it caused a loud metallic boom.

      "Shit!” Maggie gasped over the pain, and panting in her side.

 
 

      Behind them, Ling Lau was creeping quickly but quietly toward the room where the children were supposed to be with her gun already in her hand. She could see the door on its side, and knew something had gone badly wrong. Her gun was drawn, not from fear of the two children, but because she was going to shoot the first person she saw, especially that asshole she left here to make sure that nothing went wrong. Thank god that the double outside door she had chained when she left the building had still been locked. She was almost at the small room...

 
 

o O o
 
 

     “All units, all units, subject vehicle has just pulled over! Christ, it’s the old man!”

      There was a pause of about a half a second, then came “No, don’t slow down! Keep moving. All units! Suspect vehicle has just pulled over, and the Old Man, believed to be Chin Lau is getting in the car. Unit A, alpha will move to Sixteenth Street. Unit Echo, move south two blocks, and hold. Unit Foxtrot move four blocks north and hold. Unit Bravo will pull into the Texaco Station across the street. They must not have seen us yet, so everyone just watch it. Don’t blow it now, for god’s sake… Everyone stay calm… Out.”

      Mason smiled at that one. They might just bag the old man too. If they could link him to a capitol kidnap of two minors, along with all the other stuff they had, they would be able to throw him in a hole so deep, he’d run out of air. Good.

      The slamming of the door behind him, as Jackson stormed out on indefinite administrative leave, made him smile even more broadly…

 
 

o O o
 
 

     John and Maggie had moved up the stairs, and were trying windows, but most of those had been screwed shut. The only one that that both opened, and that they might be able to climb through, was over a small alley filled with jagged metal. No way could they use it.

      John had fallen on the stairs, and had gotten a cruel bruise on the front of his shin. Now they were both limping, as they frantically searched for a way out. Behind them, they heard the sound of a shot, and then the same loud bang from the trash compactor. Maggie and John both froze, just as the blood in their vanes did.

      Even as the shot still echoed along the long corridors, there came the whine of the compactor’s powerful motors..

      Quickly, Maggie pulled John over to a corner, and pushed him down behind a desk. They had gone through a bunch of rooms that had not been used for a while, and were now back in an area was being used for some kind of storage. It was full of paper drums, and the walls were newly painted, and the lights were brightly lit.

      “Shit, Maggie” John sobbed. Maggie grabbed her brother, ignoring the pain in her side, and hugged him too her as he began to loose it.

      “Shhhhh, John. It’s Ok. This Place is huge, she can’t find us very quickly. We’ll get out before she does.” John nodded his head, but he also let loose another involuntarily whimper. “Be quiet, Hon. Please. Let Maggie think.” Margaret said gently, slipping into a tone that she had not used with John for many years. Neither, Noticed. Maggie was looking around the room, when she noticed some red boxes hanging down from the ceiling over the drums.

      “John, listen.” Maggie said quietly. “We can’t get out.”

      John started to speak, but Maggie stopped him.

      “Shhhh! We can’t get out, John! All the doors are locked. I think I have a way to get help. Do you still have the matches?”

      John hardly remembered, but instinctively shoved his hand into the little pocket, and pulled the matches out.

      “Stay here, John. When I come back, we need to go back down stairs, Ok?”

      John, just nodded again, but did not ask anything more.

      Maggie moved to the drums, and looked up at the sensor. Sure enough, it was a fire detector. She looked down hall quickly, and then bent to read the label on the drums, which read. ‘Hazardous Waste. State Regulated material. Oily solids.’

      Maggie looked at the top for a moment, and quickly figured out how to open the ring. Slipping the ring off, she lifted the drum top to find it filled with oily kitty litter, mixed with metal shavings. The second drum was the same. In the next row, she found what she needed. Rags and paper, all soaked with oil. When this drum moved easily, she quickly realized that she could find these drums just by trying to move them. Moving up and down, shaking the drums, she found that most of them were light, and quickly opened five drums of rags and paper. “Get ready John.” She said, and then looking through the window in the door leading down the hall, she quickly struck a match and lit the waste in the barrel.

      She only got to the third drum, before the whoosh of the flame in the first drum startled her, causing her to drop the matches.

      Looking back in fear, she reached for the matches, and lit the whole pack, and threw them into a bin on the other side of the room. Then taking John’s hand, she quickly made her way out in the direction she and John had been going, looking for more stairs to get down, and head as far away from the fire as they could get. All the while, she was praying that help would come in time.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     “All Units! This is Bravo. Subject turned north. Unit Foxtrot should have them in sight in sight any moment.”

      Unit F was just as fast on the microphone. “We have them. Subject, is moving to the left hand lane, and it looks like they are going to head onto the expressway north. Can anyone else pick them up?”

      Six blocks west, Unit A responded as Officer Janet Smith, who looked old enough to be detective Baxter’s mother, spun the wheel, and gunned through a yellow light as she raced for the next exit north. Baxter dropped the microphone, as he scrambled for his seatbelt. The mustang had been purchased from the state police, who had used it to chase down cars on highways that were faster than the standard police cars could catch.

      Baxter could see why, as officer smith saw an opening, the acceleration pulled Baxter’s head back against the rest. Officer Smith did not even smile at him as he looked over at the speedometer, and watched it jump from forty, and past sixty to seventy in an eye blink; or, as she straddled the white line, and flashed between two vehicles with inches to spare. Officer Smith had three children of her own…, after she had given up driving limited stock cars on dirt tracks down south. The second she hit the ramp, and saw it was clear, the needle shot past ninety-five in the space to two heartbeats…
He didn't look again.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     Margaret and John were on the stairs headed down into a particularly dark area, when the alarms went off. They were startled so much by the loud Siren, and by a flashing yellow light, that they jumped the last three steps to the floor. It was stupid, but it was lucky too. It had also startled Ling, which is why the bullet she had aimed at Maggie’s head smashed the glass of one of the doors that blocked the lower hall behind them. The Report of the gun in the closed hall was also much louder than she was used as well, and that along with the flashing amber light just above the children’s heads distracted her for a scant few moments. That was why her second and third shots also missed.

      “Run!” Maggie screamed, as she began to follow John back up the stairs. Ahead of them she could already hear the sound of the fire, and could feel the heat that followed the smoke flowing down the hall toward them. Even with several rats racing past her in the opposite direction, the curses coming from Ling as she reached the bottom of the stairs frightened her more. She had to get away, so she grabbed John, and pulled him around the corner, and onto the stairs leading to the third floor.

      Ling had just reached the second floor landing, when the drum of flammable liquid that Maggie had not seen nearby, burst. It was not a loud explosion, more like very loud whoosh, and a hiss, and the drum sprayed a mixture of alcohol, and oils all over the room. Ling hesitated, to look down the hall, even as Maggie and John reached the top of the third set of stairs, and raced down yet another long hall, seeking the opposite side of the building. Already the smoke seared their lungs as they ran.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     “Alpha, this is unit Foxtrot. They are taking exit thirty-one. It looks like they are heading west to the industrial park.”

      Captain Mason snatched up the microphone. “Unit Foxtrot, Keep going on to exit Thirty Three, or Thirty four. I know that Park. There are two gates on the main road right through the middle of it. There won’t be very much traffic, and you can see down that road from end to end. All units. Let them go. I’m going to send a Marked Unit down from the opposite end, just like a normal patrol. Wait where you are, and get ready to move in. This may be it.”

      Mason wanted to tell them to make sure to shoot that evil bastard Chin Lau, but he knew if he did, he just might have to share a cell with him. He also knew that at least two of the older men, who had been pulling sixteen-year-old hookers out of dumpsters in Chinatown for far too many years would not miss the opportunity -- if it should legitimately present itself.

      The detective on the desk with the tactical radio was already on the phone to the 42nd’s Lieutenant Benson, who they knew was standing by in his own command center to assist. One of the shadowing marked cars from several blocks to the west was already moving to the north gate to the industrial park, even as the Lau was being driven in the south.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     Maggie and John raced along the hall, until they came to another set of doors. Maggie thought for one horrific moment that they would be locked, and they would be trapped on the third floor with Ling. However, John hit the door ahead of her, and it flew open easily, showing another set stairs just beyond. Ling screamed behind them, having just reached the top of the stairs, but coughing choked off the scream. The coughing once again fouled Ling’s aim, as she loosed another couple of shots at the fleeing children. This time, her shots were quite high, hitting the door as it closed behind them.

 
 

      Chin Lau softly said, “Be calm.” to the bodyguards in the front as the police cruiser turned onto the industrial park road, and began coming toward them from the opposite end.

      The sergeant in the car was a good man, and knew the job. As he cruised toward the suspect vehicle, he purposely turned his head left and right as if he was taking stock of the facilities, while keeping his eyes on the car coming toward him. As he got closer, he shifted to face the oncoming car, and obviously gave them the once-over, just long enough, because to ignore them may have been a giveaway also.

      Even the seasoned Tong enforcers were a little unnerved by this. Lau himself was uncomfortable, but he purposely looked toward his bodyguard in the front passenger seat, to turn his face away from the cruiser, and said, “Just continue to the other end, and let’s see what happens.”

      The driver nodded slightly, and continued slowly on.

      In the police car, now well past the Lau’s vehicle, the officer picked up the microphone, making sure it was behind his body, and called his watch commander. It was an open channel, so he simply informed the commander that he had completed the pass, and was going to stop at the fast food place just outside of the south gate of the industrial park. At the stop sign, the officer veered to the right, and then crossed the street diagonally, to pull into the parking lot of the McDonalds.

      Quickly he hopped out of the car, and was inside the restaurant before he pulled out his radio, and switching to the secure tactical channel, informed all that he was in position. He also informed all listening, that the suspect vehicle had turned around, and had headed back into the parking lot of the old Goodyear tire plant. The plant, a huge complex that had been built in World War II, was now used by literally dozens of businesses.

      The officer knew it would be of the highest interest. He also knew that there was no way the suspects could tell that he had left his car running, with the door on his side left open.

      Mason felt the hand on his shoulder, which startled him, because he had been so focused on the radio speaker...

      Nothing strange there. The radio was holding the same level of attention for everyone in the room. Unlike everyone else, however, Mason was trying to make the decision of a lifetime. He believed he had a shot at Chin Lau, two of his top killers, and probably several others as well. If he moved in, he could link them to whatever was going on. If the kids were there, no matter what, it was better for them to move in soon. On the other hand, years of work could be lost in an instant, if they were not there. If he were wrong…. If he were wrong, without a capitol case against Lau, they would get him on taxes, rackets, and perhaps keep him off the street for a while, whilst the old man lived in country club splendor in some state prison, buying anything, or anyone he needed.

      Then there were the two kids? Even the interview he had taken with the stepmother, for some reason even now prayed on his mind that he might be the children’s only hope. To his credit, Mason was fully ready to pull the trigger the moment he had any indication the children were there, regardless of the consequences to the case; but, there was a very real possibility that Lau could still be leading them away from them.
It might be the only reason they could see him at all.

      Thus occupied, he jumped rather high at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, before he turned to find the sergeant in charge of dispatch standing beside him. He was another friend, and had been the voice on the radio for more years, and more tough spots, than Mason would care to count. Oddly, the sergeant just handed him a call slip, and said nothing. It was for an NYFD three station call, for the complex they had staked out. Mason’s eyes snapped to the sergeant, but before he could even ask, the man simply nodded in the affirmative. He was quite sure that there had been no mistake.

      At least the doubts and the waiting were over, because there was no decision left to make. It had been made for him. His voice was calm and deliberate: “All units. This is Mason. We have a Fire Department call to the stakeout location. ETA on the first engine company is approximately six minutes. All units start to move in. The uniform on site will call it. If Lau steps out of the car, all units will move in on his call. If they don’t get out, we move in two minutes, Unit Alpha copy.”

      Mason looked over to the detective sitting beside him at the radio. He was on a talkie with the uniform, using a 42nd assigned tactical channel listening to a blow by blow. He was also pleased to note that his detective was ordering the uniform not to move until the other units where there to move with him. He did not know who the man in the uniform unit from the 42nd was, but he was going to buy him a steak dinner, and a bottle of whatever poison he cared to name.

      Mason clicked off the acknowledgements in his head, without thinking as they came over his own precinct’s radio net. If they weren’t awake now, they never would be.

      It was only the longest forty-five seconds of his life.

      Then came an open call over the main net that everyone on this side of the city heard: “All units from Car 114, the suspects have exited their vehicle, and are approaching a door on the southern side of the building right now! One of the Big guys is carrying either a rifle or a shotgun, I can’t tell which.” The microphone clicked off with a snap.

      “This is Mason. Move, now! I say again, Move in! All units are advised, we strongly suspect there is a hostage situation at the scene.”

      “Baxter Here, Units Foxtrot, and Charlie, divert to the northern end of the building, and try to gain entry.” That was all he could get out. The Mustang was once again accelerating under the heavy foot of officer Smith, but this time Baxter didn’t even look at her. He was focused on the buildings that were just coming into sight, and the sound of sirens coming rapidly toward him from at least two other directions.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     The fire was bad. Maggie and John had made it down to the second floor, but they couldn’t stay there very long. The smoke and the heat were incredible. The choking fumes --even with the fact that she knew that Ling had to be nearby groping in the smoke like they were, her soul intent on killing them -- forced the children to retreat. They had to resort to crawling along the floor, along with the rats, before they found the stairs down to the first floor, farther down the hall behind them.

      A barrier that felt like a wall, only a few steps down from the second floor, blocked the stairs.

      In a panic, Maggie realized that she would have to retrace her steps back to the third floor, and try making it past Ling, to get down the other stairs. She tugged John back, and began crawling rapidly back the way they came.

      Once she reached the path up to the third floor, she hesitated trying to listen, but the alarms, and the fire, and the hot air rushing up the stairwell were too loud.

 
 

      It was getting too hot. They had to move. Slowly, she forced herself up to her feet - to take a step. She could barely make them move. Every muscle in them was burning, not from the fire, but from the fear-induced adrenaline that she had been lashing her system for what seemed like ages. She sobbed with the effort to make herself climb, knowing for the first time that they were probably not going to make it. Ling was somewhere up those stairs. The fire was on them from behind. They were completely trapped. If Ling didn’t get them, then the fire surely would.

 
 

      Maggie climbed though. Slowly at first, and without determination. When she reached the top of the stairs she knew that she had better not stop again. She was not sure if she would be able to force her body to move if she stopped again.

      Now she knew what they meant when they said ‘Paralyzed by fear’. She was almost there, and her side hurt. Her hand hurt where she clutched Johns arm. Her lungs burned from the fumes. Her heart ached with the thought that John would not survive either.

      Somehow, she was able to pull John back down, to crawl back to the doors in the corridor on the third floor.

      The fumes were still bad, but the heat was a lot better. The floor was hot though; hot enough to burn their hands, due to the fierceness of the fire below them. Maggie pulled John up and dragged him toward the door. On the other side, she could see the flicker of fire coming from a room off the corridor to the left. The fire had already reached the third floor. Their only hope was to run for it, hoping Ling had done the same.

      “John we have to run.” she gasped.

      “I know!” He snapped.

      “Then move!” she said as she pushed the door open, and jerked John into motion, as they both ran down the right side of the hall, in a desperate effort to gain their lives.

      They did not see Ling.

      Ling, squatting near the chained exit doors at the far end of the hall could hear the sirens approaching outside. She knew that she had moments only. She also knew that the doors on this floor were all chained for the weekend, and that the majority of these upper floors were unused, and they had been securely blocked off by the owners, to separate the various rental spaces.

      She was only a little worried about getting out, but she was very worried about being seen. She knew she probably could not avoid that, but to make the cover story work along her family’s small interest in the company that operated in this part of the factory, they could not find the children alive and able to talk. Thus, she waited. She waited until she could both hear, and see them coming.

      Baxter grabbed the door, as his car was forced to swerve toward the far right shoulder of the access road that ran through the industrial park. The marked unit 114, that had been waiting nearby had shot across the street right beside them, and continued down the left side of the road, keeping pace in the intersection only until officer smith was once again clear to accelerate while Baxter drew his gun.

      Baxter looked up to see smoke beginning to boil out of upper floors of the factory. When he looked back down at the ground floors, although still several hundred yards away, he could distinctly make out one of the goons lift the old man bodily up, and sprint with him for the car. Baxter reached down, and toggled the siren and lights. “All units, Lau is making for the car. Move! Move! Move!” However, even as he made the frantic call, he knew he had them… He could see cars were coming from all directions, sirens and lights coming on as they saw all the others go code three.

      None as yet heard the more distant sirens of the now six engine companies that were responding as every fire sensor in the eastern half of the complex first triggered, then failed.

 
 

      Ling stepped out right in front of Maggie, and Putting the gun to her face, grabbed her shoulder, and threw her to the floor away from the stairs, and into the wall. Maggie tried to scream but John had run into her side, on his way to sprawl on the floor, and all that came out was a horrible grunt of pain as she suddenly saw only a brilliant flash of light, as her mind exploded in pain. For a moment she could not see or breath, as she herself fall next to John.

      Finally looking up, she could see Ling standing over them, her gun pointed unwaveringly right at Maggie’s face. Ling, outlined by the ever-brighter flicker of the fire behind her, was smiling. Her black eyes were catching the reflection of the fire from Maggie knew not where, but they also burned with the fire of hell itself. For those moments, Maggie’s mind lost track of everything except for the darkness in Ling’s eyes that burned directly down from above her. Her face didn’t even look human.

      Then Maggie was perversely preoccupied with the question of what it would be like. Would she hear the shot? Would there be a white hot flash of pain? It seemed so important, that she even forgot to be afraid. It seemed so important, that it was her body’s instincts alone that slowly pulled it backwards, to place herself over John’s unmoving form, and to placing herself between her little brother and Ling.

      On seeing the futile gesture of her prey, Ling laughed at her. “The doors were locked?” Ling said waving a key that she pulled out on a chain around her neck. Ling laughed again.

      The horror hit her. Ling had known all along that there was no way out. She was playing with them.

      On hearing the Evil in that laugh, Maggie whimpered ever so softly. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it. Desperately, she tried to pull John further behind her, even as she closed her eyes.

      However, the shot did not come, Ling wanted just a little more, while she could walk them to the other end away from her family’s rental.

      Maggie felt Ling’s hand on her head, pulling her roughly up by her hair, and back down the hall away from the stairs, and away from their only hope for life. When she was released, she stumbled, but turned back to see Ling do the same to John, who was looking just dazed before he stumbled into Maggie’s arms.

      The fumes were making it impossible to see.

      “Move!” Ling screamed, and motioned down the hall with her gun. The sheer volume of the shouted order caused Maggie to take an involuntary step backwards. Once ling had her backing slowly down the hall, with the gun barely a foot from her face, it was inconceivable that she might stop. She continued until she could feel the heat of the fire actually burning her back. John was once again pressed behind her, silently trying to twist his body away from the heat of the fire, even as he stared in horror at the smile on Ling’s face.

      Maggie could go no further. The heat felt like it was sucking the air out of her lungs as it was. “Just shoot!” Maggie screamed.

     It was an honest to god giggle. Only Ling knew that she had no intention of shooting them. Bullets leave evidence. The fire would do the trick. Then, even if the children were ever found, there would be almost nothing substantial linking the causes of death to her. It would be circumstantial. She wished she had thought of the fire herself.

      Ling, glanced past the girl toward the door. They were almost there: at the door of the room where the fire had broken through the floor. Ling knew that it had been unused for many years because it had been deemed unsafe, which was why she had unlocked that door while she waited for the children to come back down the hall.

      Suddenly, with a loud snapping and popping sound, the floor shook, and a rumble sounded from inside the room. One of the heavy machines had crashed through the ever-weakening flooring, and into the inferno below. A puff of sooty smoke billowed around the doors, but they held firm, because they were designed to swing in. The heat coming from the room was instantly increased many fold.

      Ling knew that as much as she enjoyed the looks on their faces, it was time to get this over with.

      They were all startled by the sound; only Ling was much less so because she had been half expecting it. She never allowed the gun to waiver from Maggie’s face, as she held it in her outstretched hand.

      Maggie saw Ling’s expression suddenly changed. She had been enjoying their terror. She had been excited, yes, like a cat with a trapped mouse. Now she was more like a shark. The humor in her eyes died, even as they still blazed with the very same fire that would take their lives. Maggie could hear a loud groan from the thick glass in the doors, as the temperature in the room behind them shot up hundreds of degrees in just those moments; and yet, she could not tear her eyes away from Lings face.

      “You’ve cause me a lot of trouble, little girl,” Ling said, in a voice as devoid of emotion as her face. “So I give you a little payback, before I kill you. I let you watch your ‘little sister’ here die when I kill him first!”

      With the last word, Ling reached out with the speed of a rattlesnake, seizing John by the hair, and began to brutally try to throw him through the doors into the inferno beyond; but, it was not like in the elevator, where she had grabbed John from behind. This time, with a howl of pure terror, John began to thrash with all of his strength, as he attempted to fight his way past Ling, and away from the fire.

      It was Maggie, however, who finally stopped Ling; as with an inhuman shriek she launched herself bodily at her, and attempted to actually claw her eyes out. Ling tried to shoot her, but Maggie was already inside of her reach, and was unhampered by any thought of survival, she only thought to kill Ling with her bare hands in a desperate attempt to save John.

      Ling was forced to let go of John, as she instinctively tried to shield her face from Maggie’s gouging fingers, even as she struggled to turn the muzzle of the gun to Maggie’s shrieking face. John, who stumbled because of the sudden relaxation of the grip that he had been struggling against with all of his might, went down against both Ling’s and Maggie’s legs, striking his face cruelly against someone’s knee.

      Ling was forced to try and step over John in a futile attempt to regain her balance, even as Maggie was stumbling over him too. With animal instincts she had never felt before, Maggie sensed she had Ling now, and she pushed with all of her might against the woman’s chest trying to knock her off her feet. Ling heard her own flesh sear, even before she felt the pain of the hot door, but it was too late. She grabbed for Maggie in a futile attempt to save herself, and almost succeeded in dragging Maggie to her death also.

      It was John, who blinded by the pain of smashing his face, had grabbed Maggie’s legs and tripped her to the floor, thinking they were Ling’s. A piece of the lace on Maggie’s dress tore away in his hand, even as the door opened, and a gout of flame shot above Maggie’s head. It barely missed her immolating her, sparing her life, even as it engulfed Ling’s upper body.

      Though Ling’s scream only lasted until she fell through the floor beyond, it was a sound of inhuman torment, a foretaste of a hell that few humans ever see, and that would haunt both children’s memories for all of their days.

      Maggie could no longer breath, but she could feel John frantically trying to drag her across the floor, and away from the fire that was not burning then on every side as the glass in the doors finally exploded out from the flame.
Sending pure deadly fumes billowing into the third floor hallway with the children.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     Baxter stood in front of Lau, as the company commander of the lead engine company yelled at him. “God Damn it! Is there anyone inside the building?”

      The old man continued to just barely shake his head no, and shrug, after first flicking his eyes to Baxter. Baxter wanted to spit in his face.

      Behind them, one of the bodyguards was face down on the old, and broken pavement, a puddle of blood beginning to spread from a half a dozen bullet wounds.

      The other thug was face down over the back of the mustang, the unformed officer from unit 114 holding him there with his gun pressing harshly into the thugs ear, even as the officer wiped the blood away from this own pulped lower lip.

      Four other officers stood within two feet of them, guns drawn, but not one moved to interfere.

      “You have the right for me to blow your worthless brains right out of your fucking head if you move a single finger! You have the right to keep your fucking mouth shut! If you waive the right to keep your fucking mouth shut, nothing you say is going to fucking matter, because even if they don’t fry you, you’ll never see daylight again. If you live long enough to make it to the station, and you desire to have and attorney present, but have not made enough money by beating little girls to death to be able to afford one, I’ll make sure that the court appoints the most incompetent fucking asshole in this city to represent you. Free of charge!”

      “Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you? Shit Bag!” the officer hissed through his teeth, as a small trickle of blood began to well below the muzzle of his gun. The thug just nodded. Behind them, a detective the uniformed officer didn’t know, lay slumped behind the steering wheel of unit C. The poor bastard had never even made it out of the car, and his killer had never taken another breath after he had opened fire.

 
 

      Maggie was barely moving, but she was chanting just as she had the night before, “Run, John. Run.”

     John moaned, and then began to scream at Maggie to move. He struggled to half drag her down the stairs, even while he tried to get her up to her feet, but she seemed to be mostly unconscious. John could not give up however, and continued to scream at her, until her eyes flickered open, and glanced dully at him…

 
 

      Baxter was oblivious to what was happening to the thug behind them. He was painfully aware of the fallen detective, but he could not bring himself to look at, or think of the man right now. His eyes were on the Fire Department Captain on front of him. “Can you get us in?” He asked him.

      Even as he did, he could see two firefighters running from their Engine to the door, carrying a metal cutting saw. Detectives and firefighters both began to gather near the door, as the fire fighters started the saw, and quickly cut into the chain sealing the door, and then the door itself. One uniformed officer, lifted his sidearm and stood over them to aim it at the door, hoping to protect the firefighters working below him. He was quickly followed in kind by several of the detectives who waited frantically to move in, even though the NYFD company commander was yelling for them to get back.

      Baxter himself had just walked up to the door, when suddenly a window fifty feet to their left shattered, and a small office table clattered to the ground. Everyone was startled, as the firefighter closest to the window, rushed over, and began to break the rest of the glass out of the frame, and frantically began to pry the protective grill off the window with the head of his entry tool. Within a second, a police officer had picked up some piece of metal and was trying to help, even as a small hand reached from the inside for the grill.

      By the time the fireman had dropped his ax, and reached into the window to pull out a young woman, aided by a smaller girl inside; several other fireman, and a paramedic had rushed to the window as well. Baxter ran for it too.

      As he arrived, the fireman reached in and pulled out a younger girl, and quickly thrust her into the waiting arms of the paramedic, before pulling himself up to the window to yell for anyone else who might be there. One fireman dived to his knees, heedless of the glass that covered the ground, to allow the man to stand on his back in an effort to make sure no one else lay trapped or unconscious just inside.

      The other firefighters, those with the children behind him, were urgently hustling the children away from danger, and toward the ambulance. The fastest, gently lowering his charge down onto a stretcher.

      The older girl was just lying there in the arms of the fireman, who was petting her hair, and telling her gently that she was safe now; but, her eyes were unblinking and stared straight ahead, even as she still held her arms rigidly above her chest in a pugilistic pose.

      Baxter turned to the other girl, who was sitting on a blanket that had been thrown hastily on the ground to receive her. As his shadow fell on her, she looked up at him, her eyes squinting from the tears that ran down her swollen eyes, and across her soot covered face.

      Without any warning, it dawned on the detective. “John?” Baxter asked softly.

      The girl nodded her head.

      “Shit.” Baxter said, even more softly, making the swear sound more like a fervent prayer.

      The boy dropped his head as the paramedic prepared to wash his eyes. “John is there anyone else inside.” The boy coughed again, unable to speak as the paramedic slipped an oxygen mask on him, but clearly shook his head in the negative. Baxter nodded silently, even though the child was no longer looking at him. Baxter did not know what else to say, but tried to muster at least a sense of conviction as he told the boy “You are safe now, son. Everything will be OK.”

      The paramedic just looked at him like he was insane, but continued to work as fast as he could to begin treatment, while another firefighter held the little girl upright to keep her breathing.

      Baxter then looked at the older girl once more, and knew then that it would never be completely Ok again, for either of them. He just did not know what else to say. As he walked back to the officers waiting to enter the building by both the door and broken window, one of them called out urgently: “What about the boy? Wasn’t there supposed to be a young boy too?”

      Baxter understood the confusion. “That’s him on the ground. We have them both. You men get back out of the way, and get these cars back.”

      The Incident commander from the fire department nodded at Baxter began to give orders to have two teams sweep the lower floor as far as they safely could, and to give orders to set up to fight the fire from outside. He was not about to loose a man to save a building owned by some damned hoodlums.

      Baxter turned away to see the old man, in one of his precinct’s unmarked cars. For the first time, he showed real emotion, as his suddenly very old, and very pale face stared at the children. Baxter’s eyes were then drawn back to the car with the dead detective, to see the second paramedic straighten up slightly shake his head at Baxter, while stripping off his rubber gloves. Baxter just acknowledged with a slight nod.

      Finally he looked back at Lau. Softly he said to himself, “You may have survived today, but you’ll burn too, you bastard. You’ll burn too.”

      The last team of firefighter to exit carried the body of the younger hood with them. The body of Ling was tentatively identified some weeks later by accident, but she had been in the hottest part of the fire, which had burned for the longest time, and no one was looking for her. Officially, the identification had hinged on the testimony of the two eyewitnesses. The seven companies that eventually responded to the blaze were able to contain the fire well enough, but were unable to save the old mill. Officially, the cause of the fire was never discovered.

 
 

o O o
 
 

     At the hospital, John tried to sit up as the paramedics lifted him out of the back of the ambulance. He wanted to see Maggie, but the female doctor who stood over him stopped him with a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder. “No, Sweetheart. You be a good girl and lie still for me. I have to take care of you now. Your sister is just fine. She has her own doctors.”

      John asked to see Maggie, but the doctor shook her head. “Your big sister is Ok, Honey. She’s inside. We’ll take you to the room beside hers, but I need to check you first, to make sure there are no surprises. OK?” She looked at his face quickly, worried by everything from the soot he’d certainly inhaled to the redness around his eyes, nose, and mouth from the fumes.

      She also looked to see that he was listening. “I’m sorry I’m going to have to cut your beautiful dress off, but it’s already ruined. I’m sure your Mom and Dad will get you another one when they hear what a brave little girl you’ve been.”

      The doctor gave a very startled looked at him, as he began to chuckle. When she looked like she was going to ask, he just shook his head, and chuckled again as he gave up and relaxed back onto the stretcher. She was in for a surprise, all right.

 
 

      Thirty minutes later, John was sitting up in the same bed as Maggie, when his Father and Joan walked in. Maggie still had an oxygen mask on, and her eyes were closed, but she was awake. She periodically squeezed her brother’s hand in hers, as if to make sure he was really there beside her.

      “John, is she OK?” His father asked.

      Maggie’s eyes opened, and her head turned toward her parent.

      “Oh, thank god,” her father said, but only slowly began to ease around the bed “Are you Ok, too, John?” He asked seemingly as an afterthought, and John nodded that he was.

      John’s eyes slid to Joan, who did not move any closer, but on seeing him looking at her, asked him in an unsympathetic tone: “What were you two thinking running away like that!”

      So much for absence making the heart grow fonder, John thought. Even his father turned to stare at Joan.

      It was Maggie, however, who answered her weakly from behind the oxygen mask.

      “I was thinking…, that if I let that Chinese Bitch blow my little brother’s brains out all over the sidewalk…, that I might not get to go to the convention this weekend…. Not to mention the embarrassment and trouble it might have caused you, …”

      Only John was close enough to hear the soft “you bitch” that had completed the sentence.

      Joan looked like she was ready to reply, when their father said, “For god’s sake, Joan!” Thankfully, she just shut her mouth, and looking angry. She could do that well enough they supposed, as she turned to move over to the side of the room that was farthest from the children.

      Baxter, who had been waiting nearby, walked through the curtain, as soon as he heard the voices. The look on his face as he made eye contact with both parents left little doubt as to why he was there. Then to John’s great surprise, his father quickly bent down to kiss Maggie’s forehead, before walking around to his side of the bed pulled him into a hug.

      John did not resist, but then neither did he move. His arms did rise slightly out of reflex, but that was all. His expression barely changed. It was Margaret’s face that changed the most, as the look she gave her father became a mixture of surprise and poison.

      “You gave us a scare.” He told the children.

      The situation might have gone down hill from there, but it was just then a young nurse walked in chuckling. “Well, that’s one resident who won’t think she knows everything for a while,” she said smiling at John as she admiringly brushed his hair on the side of his head to a neater position back behind his ear.

      John smiled weakly back. Perhaps it had been mean, but he could still hear the tray of instruments hitting the floor, as the doctor who’d come in to do the vaginal smear cried “Oh, Jesus!” As the nurse had whipped his Panties and what was left of his tights off of him.

      John smiled back at her as she gently placed her palm on his right cheek.

      “Is that nurse OK?” he asked.

      “Oh she’s Ok, except for the fact that I think she just took up smoking again. She even asked for a picture of you, which is when your doctor, Dr. Helene lost it.” The young nurse chuckled once more. “Well, do you two need anything? Would you like another drink?” she asked. “You can have anything you want…, except Scotch, which the OBGYN resident just finished off.”

      Both children shook their heads, and murmured “No thank, you,” at which the nurse reached across John to slip the oxygen mask off of Maggie to watch her breathing, before reseating the mask more comfortably.

      “Well, I think we can get rid of this soon, but you tell me if you feel short of breath, or if you feel light headed or any headache. Ok?” She said brightly.

      Maggie sat up, beside John, and nodded at her, while she rubbed her nose and eyes with both hands.

      The nurse, reached over, and pulled up the rail on the opposite side, and with a pat on Maggie’s thigh she headed toward the curtains.

      The wicked stepmother, Joan, chose the lull to chime in again. “Well if she can talk, perhaps she would like to explain why she felt it necessary to make him look like that?” The disgusted gesture she directed at John made it obvious to which she referred. “Or perhaps John could explain the message he got from a girl calling herself, Me-You, or some such silly thing, and saying that she had gotten permission from her father to go out to the movies with him this week, and for his sister Aya to come over next Friday for a sleepover?” She finished in a huff, and then just stared accusingly at the children.

      No one else said a thing, much to Baxter’s surprise, but he had had enough. He caught the eye of the detective standing at the door, and nodded at Joan across the room. Quickly the detective moved over to Joan saying, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to intrude, but we still have a few questions we need to resolve, and we need your help.”

      Joan looked at him as if he were a bug, and turned away saying “I’m not going…”

      However, the detective had slipped his hand under her arm, and hauled her to her feet “Oh, don’t worry, Ma’am. It’ll only take a few minutes.” Joan never had more than one foot in contact with the floor, as he practically hauled the dumfounded woman from the room.

      Their father, looked shocked to, but said nothing. The Children just looked at the doorway with expressionless faces, before they both looked down toward the floor.

      The silence in the room had grown almost unbearable, when it was shattered a few moments later by a very soft voice from the door. “Maggie-sama?” a badly trembling, but still unmistakably voice asked, just loud enough to hear from across the room. Both children looked up to see Noriko standing, with her hands clasped tightly together in front of her mouth, her brown eyes a universe of fear and uncertainty in a drawn colorless face.

      An older man was smiling behind her, and holding her with both his hands on her shoulders, to steady her as tears ran down her face.

      “Noriko?” Maggie began to cry all at once as well, and fought weakly to get up, but Noriko was at the bed before she had moved very far. Noriko paused only for a moment to look at Maggie’s and John’s faces, before fiercely hugging the girl to her breast.

      Maggie could no longer speak, but clutched at Noriko with all the desperation of twelve years of loneliness and of yearning. Noriko, in between sobs of her own, whispered “Kimi wo Usinatta to Omotta.” She repeated this softly several times, before more firmly finishing with, “I thought I’d lost you.”

      After a few moments, Noriko opened her eyes, to see John sitting close beside them. Without lifting her cheek from the top of Maggie’s head, she reached out to slip her hand behind John’s head, and pulled him into the embrace as well. “I’m so glad you are safe. I don’t know what I would have, if…” but she said no more. She didn’t need to.

      The three men watched in silence as the woman lovingly rocked the weeping children in her arms. It was doctor Helene, now standing at the door, who looked the most pleased to see the children finally letting go, and who motioned the two police officers out of the room. Their father just stood there looking uncomfortable.

      The doctor asked Mason, as he passed, if Noriko were the children’s real mother, but he just shook his head before he left.

      Their father did not look pleased, but to whom could turn, he had no idea. No one in the room would look at him. There was always Joan, he thought, as he walked out of the room to look for her.

      After the others had left, the doctor just stood there, silently watching. The girl would need some serious support counseling to get through this, but this was a good start, and she was very strong. They were both very strong.

     Doctor Nancy Helene had spoken at length to the young detective who had brought them in, and had witnessed some of the interaction with the father and stepmother. She was relieved to find that there was at least one source of comfort and love outside of the love the children obviously had for each other - no matter who she was. She listened a little longer to the girl, weeping out all the tortures that she had been through; tortures that she was far too young to have been forced to bear.

      The doctor heard John say softly to the woman. “You saved our lives, Noriko.”

      “I cold have gotten you killed, John.” The woman sobbed softly while trying to wipe her eyes without letting go of either child.

      “Yeah, but you didn’t.” John sighed, “and, at least now I have a real date next Friday for Aya.” Noriko pulled back just enough to shift her other cheek to the top of his head, “So after next Friday, I’m really going to have to leave town…”

      All three laughed through the tears, along with the doctor herself. The doctor appreciated the joke, even though she didn’t fully understand everything that was said. She did believe how John had completely fooled everyone.

      Noriko just shook her head, and pulled the children close once again, and held them as they should have been held, since that awful day, so long ago.

 
 
      As Dr. Helene walked silently past the two detectives, and back down the hall, her thoughts turned more serious. The case appalled her. No matter how many times she saw this kind of thing, it still shocked her. The children were, smart, polite, well spoken, and even pretty. Any sane person would be thrilled to have children as nice as these; and the parents acted as if they were a plague. She saw it often enough, but she never got used to it. Well, she thought bitterly, thank god that most children were so much stronger than most adults gave them credit. She could only assume that God had planned it that way for this reason.

Of one thing was certain. If and when she finally had children of her own, and they somehow and for inexplicable reasons burned down the house, she would remember these two, and she would remember to love her own all the more.

 
 

      Mason and Baxter watched the doctor walk down the hall before Mason turned to put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

      Baxter had not had time to think about the day’s events, so he was actually shocked to see the look of pride in the older man’s eyes. When Mason started to speak, Baxter thought he was going to say something about his loosing a man the way he did. He was only a little right.

      Mason looked down at the leather case in his hand, and rubbing his thumb across the top of it, before again looking Baxter in the eye. “I want to give you something. It’s been pretty important to me for quite a long time now, but I guess I don’t really need it any more. I think that you just might be able to put it to good use some day. I only ask for one thing in return, that when that day comes, you make damned sure you still remember what it’s used for.”

      With that, Mason pressed the leather case into the younger man’s hand, and without another word turned to walk out of the ER. He would have to make a call on another man’s widow tonight. He would tell her just what he would tell Baxter in a day or so, when he knew the man was thinking clearly again. He would say that when you go after bad people with guns, that sometimes the bad guys shoot first. There is nothing anyone can do about it. What mattered was that if you had to go, that it was worth the sacrifice.

      To do so saving the lives of two good children was at least a small compensation. He knew that the dead detective would have thought so. He only hoped, that in time, the man’s widow would come to understand that it had been worth it as well.

      “Sir!” Baxter yelled, causing the older man to turn and look back at him from the door.

      “Sir, was it worth it?”

      The captain knew what he meant, but how could he answer the questions in the younger man’s eyes that he would surely have to face on his own. It was worth it to save a friend who watched his back from my first day in uniform. It was it worth it to know that his friends would still be ok, and able to look out for each other when he was gone. It certainly was worth the lives of those too little ones. He grinned weakly then. It might even have been worth it that he got just one guy who might have messed that all up.

      Perhaps, he thought finally as he looked into the younger man’s eyes, it’s worth knowing, that if you ever face the same choices, you’ll now know just how it’s done.

      “Yes, son. It was.”

      It was only after Mason was out of sight that Baxter looked down at the case in his hand. Today he understood why it had always felt so heavy. Tentatively, he flipped it open and ran his fingers across the gold Captain’s shield that lay there shining up at him. Looking back up where his boss had gone, Baxter slipped it reverently into his pocket, before he took one last looked back through the curtain, toward the three still sitting on the bed together.

      Baxter did not know if he would ever get the chance that Mason alluded to. He couldn’t see himself ever wanting it. All he knew for sure was, that if it were ever offered - he would take the job.

 
 

Fin.     By Sarah Lynn Morgan [email protected]

 
 

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