Phoenix Heart: The Last Heir

CHAPTER 4: Touch of Fire

Gabriel's mind went blank for a second and then, it kicked into overdrive because that's what happened when you spent years surviving on the streets. 

Getting caught meant jail or worse.

"Sorry," Gabriel said, trying to sound confused instead of terrified. "I got lost looking for the bathroom and some lady told me to go upstairs, but I think she was messing with me."

The first guard looked at the second guard, and the second guard looked back at Gabriel with suspicion written all over his face.

"Bathroom's downstairs," The first guard said. "Near the kitchen."

"Right," Gabriel said and gave them what he hoped was an embarrassed smile. 

"My bad. This place is huge and I've only been working here for like three hours. Everything looks the same."

He started to turn around, but the second guard stepped forward, his hand still near his gun.

"Hold on," the second guard said. "Let me see your badge."

Every staff member had been given an ID badge when they arrived and Gabriel's was clipped to his shirt pocket right where it was supposed to be, but his heart was hammering.

What if they checked the list and what if they called downstairs? What if this whole thing fell apart right now before he even got close to the vault.

He unclipped the badge and handed it over, trying to keep his hands from shaking. The guard looked at it before looking at Gabriel and then looked at the badge again.

“Come on. Just let me go.” Gabriel thought to himself, his hands shaking by his sides.

"Gabriel Monroe," The guard read out loud. "Elite Catering Services."

"That's me," Gabriel said with a smile that must have looked like a grimace. 

"Look I'm really sorry about coming up here. I'll head back down right now and I promise it won't happen again."

The first guard looked tired, like he wanted this conversation to be over. "Just go. Next time pay attention to where you're going."

"Will do," Gabriel said, turning to walk back toward the stairs and every step felt like it took a year because he was waiting for them to change their minds and call him back to ask more questions.

But they didn't and Gabriel made it to the stairwell door, opened it and stepped through. Only then did he let himself breathe. 

That was too close. His whole body was shaking now and he had to lean against the wall for a second to get himself together.

Okay. New plan.

He couldn't go through the main hallway if guards were patrolling it. That meant he needed another way to reach the vault. 

Gabriel pulled out his phone, looking at the floor plans again. There had to be something he was missing.

After looking at the plans for a few seconds, he saw it.

A service corridor that ran behind the private rooms and connected to the main hallway through a door near the vault.

It was used by staff to clean and deliver things without disturbing the family. If Gabriel could find the entrance, he might be able to avoid the guards completely.

He went back downstairs and moved through the kitchen where people were still rushing around with food and drinks.

Nobody looked at him twice, because everyone was too busy doing their own jobs. 

Gabriel found the service corridor entrance behind a door marked STAFF ONLY and he slipped through it.

The corridor was narrow and plain with concrete walls and fluorescent lights that buzzed and flickered. It smelled like cleaning supplies and old carpet. 

He moved fast and counted doors as he passed them, trying to match them to the floor plans in his head.

He found another staircase at the end and climbed it, coming out on the second floor in a different hallway.

This one was empty and quiet, and Gabriel's footsteps were too loud on the marble floor.

The vault was supposed to be behind a door marked PRIVATE COLLECTION and Gabriel found it halfway down the hall.

His hands were sweating so bad he had to wipe them on his pants before he tried the handle.

Locked. Of course it was locked.

Gabriel pulled out the lock pick set he had hidden in his sock and got to work. His fingers remembered what to do even though his brain was screaming at him to run. 

Years of practice made the movements automatic. He felt each pin click into place and after thirty seconds that felt like thirty hours, the lock turned.

The door opened into a small room that looked like a museum and glass cases lined the walls with expensive looking items inside them. Paintings hung between the cases and everything probably cost more than Gabriel would make in ten lifetimes.

But he wasn't here for any of that.

The vault was set into the far wall. It was huge and made of steel that looked thick enough to stop a tank. 

There was a keypad next to it with a small screen and Gabriel's heart sank because he didn't have the code. 

Miss hadn't given him the code. How was he supposed to get inside without it?

Then he noticed the lasers.

Thin red beams crisscrossed the space between the door and the vault.

Gabriel could see them because someone had left the lights on, and that was either really good luck or really bad luck, depending on how you looked at it. 

If he tripped, one of those beams an alarm would go off and guards would come running. This meant Gabriel would either end up in jail or dead.

No pressure.

He studied the pattern and counted the beams. There were twelve of them at different heights and angles and they moved in a sequence that repeated every fifteen seconds. 

Gabriel watched the pattern three times to make sure he had it memorized, and then he took a deep breath and started moving.

Duck under the first beam, twist sideways for the second and step over the third. 

His body remembered how to be small and quick from all those times he had to slip through crowds, or climb through windows, or run from cops. 

The beams kept moving and Gabriel kept moving with them. His heart was beating so hard he thought it might explode, but he made it to the other side without setting off any alarms.

The keypad glowed in the dim light and Gabriel pulled out a small device that Miss had given him. 

He had no idea how it worked but she said it would crack the code in under a minute. 

He plugged it into the keypad and watched numbers flash across its screen. He counted seconds in his head because a minute suddenly felt like forever.

Forty seconds.

Fifty seconds.

What if it didn't work? What if Miss gave him bad equipment? What if this was all a setup?

The device beeped and the screen turned green. Gabriel heard locks clicking inside the vault and the door opened with a hiss that sounded too loud in the quiet room.

Inside the vault was dark and Gabriel turned on his phone's flashlight, sweeping it across shelves filled with jewelry, gold bars and stacks of cash.

At the very back on a pedestal by itself was something that made Gabriel forget how to breathe.

The Phoenix Heart.

It was bigger than the photo had shown, and it glowed with its own light like it had fire trapped inside it. The red color was so deep, it looked almost alive. 

The crystal was covered in markings that Gabriel couldn't read, but looking at them made his eyes hurt and his head feel strange.

He walked toward it and his legs felt like they belonged to someone else. His hand reached out before his brain could tell him to be careful. 

The second his fingers touched the crystal, everything exploded.

Pain ripped through Gabriel's body, and it felt like his blood had turned to fire. His bones were melting and his skin was being peeled away one layer at a time. 

He tried to scream but no sound came out. He tried to let go but his hand was stuck to the crystal like they had been fused together.

Images flooded his mind. They weren't his memories but somehow they were. Gabriel saw things he had forgotten or maybe things he had never let himself remember.

A house. Not a tent or a shelter, but a real house with toys on the floor and pictures on the walls.

A woman with kind eyes who sang to him at bedtime and called him her little bird.

A man who threw him in the air and caught him and laughed when he squealed with joy.

His parents.

The images kept coming faster now and Gabriel wanted them to stop, but they wouldn't.

He saw the night everything changed. He was three years old, hiding under his bed because someone told him to hide and not make a sound.

Men came into the house and they had guns. His mother was crying and his father was shouting. There was a sound like thunder and then, his mother stopped crying.

Another sound and his father stopped shouting.

Gabriel saw a man walk into his bedroom. He had cold blue eyes when he looked under the bed, he found him and pulled him out.  

Gabriel screamed for his parents but they never came.

The man with cold blue eyes looked at Gabriel like he was deciding something, and then, he spoke to someone Gabriel couldn't see.

"He's too young. He won't remember anything. Take him to the east side and leave him there. No witnesses."

Then Gabriel was in a car, and then he was on a street corner. The car drove away and he was alone.

He couldn’t find his way back home because he didn't know where home was anymore. From the streets, he was thrown into an orphanage and back out into the streets when he was old enough.

The memories kept burning through Gabriel's mind and the crystal was melting now, turning into liquid fire that ran down his arm and into his chest.

It wrapped around his heart and became part of him. Gabriel felt like he was dying and being reborn at the same time.

The man with cold blue eyes.

Ian Siegel.

Ian Siegel murdered his parents.

Ian Siegel stole everything.

Ian Siegel left him on the streets to die.

The fire reached Gabriel's heart and locked into place and the pain got so bad that Gabriel's vision went white.

He heard himself screaming and he realized that someone would hear him and come running but he couldn't stop screaming.

It felt like his entire body was being torn apart and put back together wrong.

The door burst open and lights flooded the room. Gabriel heard voices. 

Hands grabbed him and tried to pull him away from the pedestal, but the Phoenix Heart was inside him now and it wasn't letting go.

Someone yelled to get Siegel just as Gabriel's vision started to clear. He saw guards surrounding him with their guns drawn and more guards coming through the door.

And behind them all Gabriel saw him was Ian Siegel.

The man who killed his parents, and the man whose face Gabriel had been seeing in nightmares he didn't remember having.

The man who was looking at Gabriel now with surprise, understanding and then something that might have been fear.

"It bonded with him," Ian Siegel said, his voice, losing all its smoothness. "The Phoenix Heart bonded with him. That means he's..."

Siegel's face went pale and he looked at Gabriel like he was seeing a ghost.

"Thomas Hale's son," Siegel finished. "You're supposed to be dead.”