The Hero Is Unchained, But Not Free

By: Fox Under Fire

Chapter 7

“Mr. Alessi.” All of the tension seemed to drain from Satsuya’s shoulders as a small smile curved his lips. He vaulted over the counter of the bar (and he made it look so easy, I was jealous) in order to take the groceries from the fedora-wearing man who had just entered the establishment. “Sorry about...ah...” Satsuya surveyed the damage done to the coffee bar, seeming relieved that there was little of it.

The scuffle between the Uni had been less a brawl and more a tug-of-war, so not much damage had been done to the space itself. There were a few overturned chairs, and a table lying on its side. My laptop was still on the floor, but I didn’t see any visible damage to it, thankfully.

The object that had received the most damage was actually the chair I’d swung (or tried to swing) at the shadow assailant. It was lying bent at an odd angle, one of the legs broken.

It’s painful to see I did more damage to the chair and my pride than I did to the Uni...

The thought made me want to duck down behind the bar and never come back out, or sink into the floor, but my lamentation couldn’t entirely erase the fact that I was proud of myself for acting.

The old Ivy—the one who had lived on the top floor of a soaring building, who had fame and friends and family—would have never dived into an argument between Uni. Did that mean I had grown? Or was I in such despair over my present circumstances that I had lost my mind?

My body was still shaking, so I didn’t think it was the right time to judge.

“What happened here, Satsu?” The man dubbed ‘Mr. Alessi’ took one look at the somewhat broken chair and shook his head. His voice was lilting, bearing an accent I couldn’t place. He gifted Satsuya the second grocery bag, and the bartender was about to reply when Mr. Alessi held up a hand. “No, no—let’s talk in the back, shall we? We will close the cafe today, though I think it’s still a good idea to open the bar later. No out outside seems to know there was a problem. The Conscious were—ah—conscious of that, at least.”

Mr. Alessi turned to the door, hands outstretched to lock it and change the ‘open’ sign, when he whipped back to look at me, a grin on his face. “I see you’ve made a new friend, too. Will you be joining us, Miss...?”

“Ivy McLaughlan.” It was Satsuya, loaded down with groceries, who replied. My name slipped off his tongue as if he’d said it a thousand times.

I felt the heat of a glare from my side, but I didn’t turn to look at Yuuki, who had hopped up on the bar once Mr. Alessi arrived. Instead, I shrank until my nose rested at the height of the counter, wrapped in uncertainty and awkwardness.

Yuuki scoffed, rolling her eyes, but Mr. Alessi laughed, the sound reminding me of whipped cream. “So nice to meet you, Miss McLaughlan. You are welcome to some of our sweets. And to coffee, of course.” He finished locking up and officially declared the coffee part of the bar ‘closed’.

My spirits lifted almost immediately as I remembered the taste of the coffee I hadn’t been able to finish. Some part of me hoped the mostly invisible man received payback for wasting such a delectable drink.

“I’ll make you another one of those chocolate coffees if you want, Ivy,” Satsuya said, as if he had read my mind—as if we were friends, or anything more than acquaintances. He used his foot to open the door behind the bar, before he inclined his head in invitation. “I won’t force you to stay, but I don’t recommend going back home. The moment the Conscious find you alone, your life will be in danger. I’d like to say they won’t act until I give them an answer, but unfortunately I don’t trust that they won’t. And anyway, it’s not worth risking your life.” He scowled at the words, and I immediately knew what he had left unsaid.

My life is already in danger, but it will be worse if I’m alone.

I don’t want to think about what they might do to me...

The blood rushed from my face as a vision flashed through my mind: me opening the door to my crummy new apartment to find the Uni named Wars waiting for me. The shadow assailant and the mostly invisible man had been terrifying in their own right, but there was something about the calm command of Wars—about the way he had promised to completely destroy Satsuya’s life—that left my heart feeling curdled.

“Um...” I swallowed through a throat thick with fear. My voice was smaller than it had ever been before; even when faced with my father’s emotionless ire, my voice had been louder. “Actually...I’m not sure I can stand.”

Even as I muttered those words, I could feel my soul shrinking as a cold heat crept up my body, embarrassment mixing with dire dread.

Come on, Ivy. Don’t be pathetic.

You’re better than this.

You’re a McLaughlan.

You should never let anything shake you.

These were words I had heard throughout my life, sentiments both my parents had always expressed. Ours was a bold, wealthy family—a family with history (though none of us were allowed to know what exactly it was, thanks to the World Law); a family with power. We were always to put our best foot forward, to be the ones who stood above. We were never to break or bend for anyone.

And yet I had spent the majority of my life breaking and bending to try and fit my family’s mold. But no matter how many times I was reshaped, I was still never the correct design.

Deep inside, I feared I never would be.

For a brief moment, I wondered what my family was doing back home. My mother ran a leading design company, producing not just clothing, but any top-tier accessory that was considered essential for life. My father, meanwhile, oversaw the majority of the major shipping outlets. Often my parents sat in our living room together, going over papers or making calls between sips of wine.

I wondered if they even remembered I was gone—but then I recalled how both of them had kept tabs on how many of my books were selling, and felt the pang left by their latent disgust when my sales had dropped to zero for the first time.

“Ivy...” Satsuya, still laden with groceries, turned back towards me, but Mr. Alessi swooped in to shoo him off.

“Go, go. Go make that coffee, yes?” The older man chuckled as he urged the coffee god to the back room. “Yuuki, help your brother, please.”

The young girl who had perched herself atop the bar offered me a long look tinged with—was that pity or derision?—before she hopped off the polished wood to join her brother.

The door swung behind them, flapping on its hinges, but I was grateful neither of the siblings could see me as two streams of tears streaked down my cheeks.

I cried quietly as I wondered what I should do, what the future held for me; it was a stark contrast to several loud crying fits of the past, but I was exhausted by the recent events. Satsuya and his sister had just disappeared into the back room, but Mr. Alessi, owner of The Red Bar, was still with me.

“There, there.” Mr. Alessi reached out to pat my arm, a gesture I imagined a grandfather or uncle might extend. “No need to hold it in. You’ve had a trying day, yes?”

I was so overcome with emotion, I could barely nod. I swiped at the tears, hating them despite what he had said.

In less than a day, my old life had ended, and a new life had begun—a life full of Uni and danger and things I didn’t understand. I was now on the hit list of some secret organization, alive only because of chance. One wrong move, and I would be dead—or I would get Satsuya and his sister and this nice man killed.

I didn’t want this. I hadn’t asked for any of it.

All I had done was pull back a curtain and look through some glass.

Why was I being punished for that?

It wasn’t fair.

Mr. Alessi crouched down beside me, not minding the tearful mess I had become. “I remember the first time I met the Uni of the Conscious. I was terrified. I had taken in two stray children, and never expected I would be targeted because of it. I stayed up all night, shaking as I watched the door, afraid they would find us again. I told myself I should have never involved myself with them.” Despite his words, he offered me a genuine smile, not a hint of fear or doubt in it. “I’ve asked myself many times why I made that choice. It seemed so simple at the time. I saw someone suffering, and I wanted to help. I didn’t think about the consequences, but they were there. They waited for me—they found me. But I continue to make the same choice. To choose differently would be to betray myself...though another choice would be easier, to be sure.”

“B-But all I did was look out the window!” I shook my head violently, red hair sticking to my still-wet cheek. “It was nothing noble. I was just curious. How did it come to this?” I ran my hands over my face, heart racing.

Maybe if I had stayed home, things would be different.

Or maybe this was bound to happen because I made that one honest mistake.

Mr. Alessi patted my arm again before he stood, offering me his hand. “Simple and un-simple choices, Miss McLaughlan. Life is full of them, no? But we cannot run from the consequences.” His smile saddened as I took his hand, and he pulled me up, surprisingly strong. “I am sorry, my dear, but I would say you have another choice you need to make.”

He steadied me before he let go of my hand. “So, what will the choice be, Miss McLaughlan? Whatever you decide, you can keep moving forward even when you meet the consequences. I believe that a curious lady like you is also strong.” He inclined his head in a bow and turned to disappear through the nearby door.

He didn’t hold it open for me or wait, but I wasn’t offended. Because in that moment, I sensed he was giving me the space to make my choice.

They all were.

Mr. Alessi had disappeared into the back room after giving me some advice and comfort. He had left me room to make the decision as to what I would do from here on out.

It was something my parents and friends had never done. Even though I was an adult, they’d always hovered over me, offering their advice until I nearly drowned in it. And when I had made a decision they didn’t like, I would never hear the end of it. My choice would always come back to haunt me.

But Mr. Alessi had told me about his struggles, not judged mine—in fact, he had told me it was okay to be scared. Satsuya had given me the freedom to leave if I wanted, though it was obvious he was worried about what would occur if I did. Even Yuuki, the little girl who seemed so ready to give her opinion, had remained silent.

Who were these people, and why were they being kinder to me than anyone else? If anything, I was a liability for them, a problem they shouldn’t have had. All because I had looked out the window last night.

But I had made the choice to look out that window. Maybe I had only been half thinking, and maybe I had taken the choice too lightly, not knowing how serious it would be—but I had still made it of my own free will. Unfair or not, there was no one to blame but me.

Still, it feels nice to have made a decision all on my own...even if it did land me in trouble.

Wiping away the last of my tears, I prepared to make another decision. It may have seemed like all of my choices were gone, but they weren’t. My options were limited to running away or stepping through the door in front of me—or begging my family to find a way to protect me, I suppose—but the options were still there.

I could run. I could try and explain to these Conscious Uni that I had nothing to do with Satsuya, that this was all just a mistake. Maybe they would believe me; more than likely, they would kill me. But that would probably save me from pain later on, as death was already a major possibility now, and who knew what siding with my next-door-neighbor would look like.

Maybe I would come to regret my decision, just like I regretted looking out that window, but either way, I wanted to keep the newfound power I’d acquired. I wanted to make the decision, whatever the consequences would be. And I wanted to believe that I could keep making decisions despite my fear of the consequences, just like Mr. Alessi had said.

Life wasn’t like the books I wrote, where everything fell into place after a few well-timed hardships. Where the character’s decisions didn’t hold the weight of the world. Where getting together with the love interest was one of the chief keys to a happy ending (I did write romance, after all). Life was a lot harder than that, and far more mysterious. I couldn’t see the track my story would take; I couldn’t see the path unfolding before me.

But I knew I wanted the story to be good.

And so I took a deep breath, ran over the possibilities, went over to gather my abused laptop—and stepped forward towards the door Mr. Alessi, Satsuya, and Yuuki had disappeared through.