Chapter 2

I pointed the gun at her. Unfortunately for her, unlike Noah, I could not empathize with her plight. My soul was already lost.

Two years before the day the grey Donavian uniforms darkened the vibrant colors of Alexandria, I watched my husband, Eli, die on the TV. A memory that still burns in me like a raging fire.

They had called him back into service because he had once served as a pilot in the Air Force. They put him back into a jet. They put him in a jet that he was not familiar with to fight against an overwhelming foe.

Back then, I was unsure if the war would last only a day or a thousand. For me, the moment was singular. No past, no future. I sat on the couch, my hands clenched to my knees and a tight knot in my throat, watching, horrified, as a blue sky filled with the white contrails of his fighter squadron meeting the enemy.

They appeared as only dots in the distant clear blue sky, drawing dizzying circles as if to dance the waltz. They danced elegantly, but some exploded and spiraled in flames into the ocean below. Some pilots were fortunate enough to eject and float down safely. Others would not. Eli was one of the ones that did not.

There was talk of a Donavian pilot who had shot down five of our pilots singlehandedly in that waltz of death. They called her the Widowmaker. It was a suitable name. I can’t be sure it was her, but I can almost be sure that she had been the one that killed Eli. Her plane had purple tailfins painted with a pattern of white lotuses. I remember it vividly.

Losing Eli to the war was the hardest thing I had ever had to go through. But for many reasons, it never felt real. The lightning speed of the war, for instance, never gave me the room to comprehend his death. And the mass of tragedy that fell all around me made his death seem like only a single raindrop in a torrential downpour.

I remember it was a particularly pleasant day when he died. The apricot blossoms were falling then, in that gentle way they do, a rain of soft gems.

The Donavian occupiers often insisted to us that they were liberators. Likely, they really believed it. They said it invariably with a proud conviction. It didn’t matter if they believed it with all their heart. It didn’t even matter if it were true. These days, fantasies carry more weight in our lives than truths. In a nightmare, truths weren’t worth much at all.

Shortly after the ambush on the convoy, they cracked down ruthlessly on the resistance. They rounded up anyone that even looked at a soldier the wrong way. Many disappeared, some had their bodies strung up in the public squares. The purge campaign was brutal. It was meant to break our will to resist, and it worked. The Allies stopped sending us weapons. They stopped because to do so seemed only to condone self-immolation.

Yet Regan insisted on continuing the fight. But what more was there for us to do? Without the supplies we needed, we were David without a slingshot.

Before the war, Eli and I ran a bar together. It was his father’s bar, which we took over after Eli had first left the Air Force.

When the Black Roses scattered after the purge, I returned to the bar and brought it back to life. It wasn’t a very fancy bar. It was an old dive, but it had its charms. It had red brick walls covered in ivy, and I painted its window shutters yellow like the summer sunflowers that grew in the fields surrounding the city. I painted them that way to make the bar cheerful among the grey ruins of war and because I remembered that Eli was fond of the sunflower fields surrounding Alexandria. It was in a good location too for customers — right on the waterfront, across from the old promenade.

I took Noah with me to help me run the bar. Mostly, I took him to keep him away from Regan.

My regular customers never really came back. They were replaced mainly by the grey uniforms. They made the bar feel like purgatory, but at least they gave me an income. At least I was able to put bread on the table.

It was mid-summer and a windless and oppressively humid afternoon when the Skybreakers first walked into my bar. The bar was already full of soldiers. As usual, the soldiers in the bar were a miserable bunch. They sat sullen and still in their chairs, like mollusks clinging to rocks, feeding on beer like water. Most were conscripts. Most just wanted something cheap and strong and were as angry about being here as I was about serving them.

But the pilots were a different breed. They were boisterous and jovial when they came bursting through the door. They drove out the soldiers. One of the soldiers muttered, “fucking flyboys,” as he stumbled out the door.

A mousy young lieutenant among the pilots came to me and introduced himself as the ‘squadron adjutant.’ He announced that this bar was now officially the squadron bar of the Skybreaker squadron, whatever that meant. I challenged him. I crossed my arms and told him,

“No, I don’t think it is. Now go fuck off and find another bar to be your squadron bar.”

Sheepishly, he provided papers to prove that there was, in fact, nothing I could do or say. Else, I preferred imprisonment and confiscation of my bar.

It really was not such a bad deal, as the adjutant promised me whatever budget I needed to keep the alcohol flowing, and the pilots would be constant and frequent customers.

One pilot, in particular, caught my attention immediately. She was the only woman in the group. But something else about her besides being a woman caught my attention. Something that made her quite different than the men around her. It wasn’t that she was a woman or beautiful (though she was beautiful). She was different than the other pilots in the way she carried herself. Her uniform sleeves were rolled up casually, revealing arms full of colorful tattoos. Her flight suit — zipped only halfway up her chest, revealing a white tank top and dog tags that dangled into the space between her breasts. Her jet-black hair was short and swept back chaotically as if swept that way by the wind. She starkly contrasted the crisp, starched flyboys surrounding her, exhibiting a rebellious disdain for military standards and regulations. She reminded me of what my dad once told me: “The clothes you choose to wear are an extension of your character.”

Of course, when he said it, it was out of scorn for the rather skimpy sundress I once put on as a teenager

The female pilot noticed me staring and gave me a wink. I looked away and focused on cleaning the pint glass in my hand.

Noah, who had started to work for me after the Black Roses went silent, came over, wide-eyed and excited.

“That’s her. That’s the Widowmaker!”

I glanced back at her again, saw how she dressed, and stood at the corner of the bar with such nonchalant conviction. I knew he was right. It must be her. The new knowledge had an immediate effect on me. A darkened cloud like a thunderstorm over my eyes and in my heart. My hands clenched. Noah noticed it, so he whispered,

“Easy, Faye. She’s not worth whatever you’re thinking about doing right now.”

Noah knew me too well. And though he was just a teenager, he was wise. Perceptive. I used to be surprised by it. But I’ve grown used to it. He’s seen more than a teen ought to see.

I snorted at him, then narrowed my seething eyes on the Widowmaker as I pressed an empty pilsner glass into the glass washer. The way she smiled. The way she lingered by the bar piano — Eli’s piano — gliding her forefinger against the top of it, drawing curvy lines in the thin layer of dust atop the lacquered wood. It was enough to drive my mind into a frenzy. My hands shook with rage. I was tempted to march over to her and slap her. Maybe spit in her face. Then I thought of the shotgun I kept beneath the bar counter. It was meant only for self-defense and to scare would-be robbers, as it was loaded only with birdshot. But at point-blank, a blast to the guts or chest would likely be fatal.

Noah held out a hand for me. I stared at the offered hand, hesitated to take it, but took it anyway, put my hand in it, and squeezed it. Then, after looking both ways, he leaned in and whispered,

“You know, we might have a golden opportunity here,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

By way of explanation, he whipped out a playing card. He set it down on the table and slid it my way. I picked it up discretely. Its back had a crude artwork of a black rose on a blood-red background, surrounded by a wreathe of thorns. I turned the card back over and noticed the face of the queen on it. Rather than the face of a queen you’d normally see in a deck of cards, there was a photo of the Widowmaker. The Black Rose handed out decks of cards to their men with the faces of the highest value targets among the rank of the enemies. I glanced up at Widowmaker, still standing by the piano. Another pilot was in the middle of telling her a joke, which she chuckled at, but her eyes were turned to the piano keys, and her fingers ran over them lightly. The Widowmaker must have sensed me staring. She looked up, found my eyes, and smiled at me. I affected a smile back.

Nothing of consequence ever happens at my bar without it making it to Regan’s ears. Better that the information comes from me. He would want to know about the Skybreakers. He would want to know about the Widowmaker.

I quietly made my way to the garage behind the bar. The morning light still had not broken, and the mist hung low in a ghostly haze beneath the lamplights in the wet, empty streets. The garage was once Eli’s father’s shop.

“A little birdy told me you had something for me,” growled a gravel voice from the shadows. Then, a slow rasp of exhalation from deep lungs, like a bear in a yawn upon awakening from hibernation.

Regan stepped from the shadow into the slanted light from the high garage windows. I had not seen him in months. Not since the Black Roses went quiet, so I was taken aback by how he now looked. His hair had grown long and thick — a lion’s mane. His eyes were sunken yet full of coal fire. His chest and arms bulged like bound cords of steel. I had always been wary of him, but now, I felt visceral fear, as if he were a wild and hungry wolf just stepped out from the trees.

He studied me calmly. When he was done, he put his tongue against the inside of his front teeth to spit out a jet of tobacco juice onto the garage floor. I took an unconscious, nervous step back from this fierce creature but tried my best to reorient my courage to face him and eliminate the temptation to change my mind and flee. I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and said,

“It’s the Widowmaker. She’s here.”

“In my bar. The Skybreakers all came in last night. They’re going to be regulars. Figured you might like that bit of news.”

He grunted, fixated on his fingernails, and spat out another dark glob of tobacco juice onto the garage floor before he responded,

“I suppose you think I’d do something about it.”

His eye narrowed on me. His gaze was fierce.

“What would you have me do?”

I was taken aback by the question. Wasn’t it obvious?

I fished out the card that Noah gave me.

“That’s her, isn’t it?”

He didn’t take it. His eyes glanced at it momentarily, and he responded,

“She’s all yours. Just don’t destroy my bar.”

It felt weirdly calming to say it, despite that what I was telling him now would mean the death of this woman that I didn’t even know and who didn’t even know me. Nevertheless, this was what I wanted. I wanted her dead because she had killed my husband. But apparently, Regan wasn’t on the same page. He cocked his head, raised an eyebrow, and chuckled softly. His face went light.

“I got a better idea,” he said. “Those pilots are worth more alive than dead. You’re going to gain their trust. Then you’re going to keep your eyes and ears open for us. You let me know anything they say and do in your bar.”

“What about the Widowmaker?”

“Treat her nicely. Get to know her. Your job is to build rapport. That’s how you get them to tell you stuff.”

Disappointment boiled up inside me. But I refrained from protesting. Perhaps after enough time, I would get to have my vengeance anyways.

Regan smirked. His eyes stared steadily and deeply into mine as if to read my soul. I glanced downward, fearful that he might find something in there he didn’t like or couldn’t trust.

“You know what they’d do to you if they find you passing intel to me?”

His eyes narrowed. He nodded.

He walked to the door without shaking my hand. Just before exiting, he turned his head to me and said,

“For returning to the fold.”

The war had started slowly, then suddenly, as in how the leaves in autumn start to turn colors at the cusp of October, then dump all at once over a weekend. It started first with minor naval skirmishes. The Donavian coast guard vessels fired on fishing trawlers fishing in their claimed economic exclusion zone. Then the trawlers began arming themselves. Of course, there was more to the violence than fishing rights. It was more than mere economics. The fishing war was instead only the top layer of a far more ingrained irreconcilability between our two nations.