A Soaring Crime Scene
“Ok. So I know what you’re probably thinking.
“Ohhh nooo, this little girl is gonna get herself shot by a lunatic! Oh, it almost happened once, but I can kick pretty high.”
Crystal looked at the rip in the boot she was holding.
“Darlin’,” she said with her charming southern accent, “I recognize you know what you’re doin’, but you need to stop kicking stinkin’ knives outta people’s hands.”
Aurelia, who owned the boot, sighed. “Yeah, I know, but Chrysie, he was trying to stab the poor grocery worker.”
She snatched the boot out of Crystal’s prying hands. “I didn’t want him to die.”
Crystal laughed. “Sugar, you coulda got your toe cut off!”
Aurelia sighed. “I know, but I have to do my job.”
Crystal pulled her into a tight hug, and whispered, “Just be careful out there, ok?”
Aurelia hugged her back. “I will, aunty. I promise.”
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Aurelia didn’t like keeping secrets, especially if anyone can find out ANY TIME. She always wore a mask, but she always feels that once in a while; when a criminal stares into her soul.
Once, someone did successfully guess her identity. She ended up hitting his head so hard he got weird in the head and was never the same.
Not all of her patrols were successful. Sometimes she sees something that she thinks is a real issue but it ends up being nothing.
She hates going out at night when she just fixed her prosthetic wings. She often clips it when flying. In fact, she clipped it just yesterday, and she was in her basement fixing it now.
“Damn these fancy tools!” She cursed, fiddling with a state-of-the-art tool that she was still trying to master.
She pulled her right wing out from her closet and laid it on her worktable. The cold basement was her space where she worked. She parted the feathers and stared at the slight bend.
She mumbled something about “dumb wireless antennae” and began to bend it back into place when it snapped.
“AUGH!” She groaned loudly and ran her hands through her hair. She stared at the metal bars and began to think back to when it happened.
Well, she thought. I was at the police precinct, dropping off Mr. Robber. Then…
Her eyes widened. That cop!
She sat down on her stool, and closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. He was a monster… what kind? Oh, a skeleton… yeah, that’s right…
She stared at the wing and where it snapped. He had distracted her enough to not watch where she was going and clipped her wing on the wireless antennae on the roof of the precinct.
She thought for a moment and had an idea.
“Brilliant,” she muttered to herself. “That’s much better than using regular bars of metal.”
The night before, she had to half fly, half walk home. It was awfully hard to fly home when half of her wings were partially inoperable.
She got off the stool and walked up the stairs to her kitchen.
She bent over the sink and washed her hands. Sometimes her hands got slightly irritated because of the feathers.
She sat at her tiny kitchen table and opened her laptop. That cop’s build had inspired her to change almost everything about her wings.
If she fashioned her wings’ metal like a bird’s bones, it’ll likely be stronger. But they can’t be hollow so that they can support her properly.
“Skree!”
A sharp trill came from behind Aurelia. She turned around, smiled and said, “All right, all right, I’ll feed you!”
Her pet hawk shrieked in gratitude as Aurelia got up and walked to a small cage full of small mice. She gently picked one up and opened the cage the hawk was in. The bird hopped out and flapped to her arm to perch. He gently nibbled her ear in affection. He snatched the mouse and flew up to his spot in the rafters of the ceiling.
Aurelia smiled up at him. He was a small little fellow when she got him. A hunter shot his mother, and since they were endangered (he was a Red Tail hawk), the man ended up going to jail
He was the reason Aurelia had become the Nighthawk. She had witnessed him shooting the poor bird when she was on a hike with her friends on an August afternoon. It was bloody hot, and she was sweating up a storm.
She had gotten a little…
Well, lost. She thought as she stared at the empty cage. She thinks about this stuff every feeding time, and it feels… nice to think about it.
She had grabbed the hunter, wrenched his gun out of his hands. Then, she punched his face so hard, he got knocked out. She had stared up at the trees, then at the poor little bird that was lying on the ground, with a hole in her chest….
Aurelia shuddered, recalling the memory….
She had found the little tyke calling out for his mother. He had fallen out of the nest and broke his wing. She picked him up and put him in her pocket.
Then, she buried the mommy hawk. She picked up a stick and carved into it with her Swiss army knife, “May her wings be remembered” and stuck it into the ground where it was buried.
Aurelia doesn’t really remember what happened next, but she does know that she got the man to the police station (or was it a precinct?) and dropped him at the door. The man had put up a slight fight, but Aurelia was in shape and quick (but still pretty short) and was easily able to take him down.
When the police took the man and listened to her story, she felt amazing. She felt a rush of excitement and wanted to do it again.
She dropped off the hatchling at the veterinarian and she had to keep him. He wouldn’t survive out in the wild on his own anymore, and he was motherless. Not only that, but he was so adorable.
Aurelia named him Tobias, after the kid in Animorphs who was stuck as a bird. Tobias usually stayed in his cage, but she lets him out when she is home.
Aurelia turned back to her laptop and researched on how bird wings were shaped.
Then she started a lot of coffee. She was going to stay up almost all night, and she was going to have caffeine help her do it.