Flaming Wrath

It had been a long day attending the trial of a drug trafficking case as the lead detective. Things weren’t going our way: two of our witnesses were suddenly unwilling to testify.

That evening, Trudy, my childhood friend and the prosecutor of the case, said we should have some drinks at our usual place. The bar was in my sights when I suddenly got a call from Trudy’s emergency phone.

I rushed to my car and raced to Trudy’s house in two minutes. When I arrived near her house, parked at a safe distance across the street, I found three men escorting her to a van. One of them was holding her arm and pointing a gun at her under his coat.

Pulling out my gun was not an option; she’d be dead before I could do anything. The neighbourhood was quiet and barren at that hour, but I couldn’t risk a full transformation either. I tapped into my dragon core and dashed across the street, knocking the assailants unconscious in a split second and taking Trudy to my car. I then called for backup and rushed over to cuff the men.

I asked Trudy to stay at my place that night and had some officers stand guard outside. We had a few glasses of whiskey that night while talking about the case.

“They’re getting desperate, Mel. We don’t know who they’ll go after next. Maybe you should use your powers and get rid of them all at once.”

I chuckled. “You want me to commit mass murder?”

“The system’s rigged, these crooks keep getting away. There’s just no end to it. Maybe your powers are exactly what we need.”

“I don’t know, Trudy. Things aren’t that simple.”

I understood where Trudy was coming from, but I couldn’t fully agree with her suggestion, even though deep down, I felt it might be only a matter of time. I shoved those thoughts down and drowned them in another glass of whiskey.

Things only got worse in the weeks that followed. Witnesses that were willing to step forward despite the death threats were found dead, and it seemed that even the judge began leaning towards their side over time. We were losing.

One day, when the court was adjourned, Trudy glanced over at me, her eyes heavy with concern. It was the most exhausted I had ever seen her. But it wasn’t just her—I had grown more and more disgusted with everything myself, and I hated that I was the only one who could truly put an end to this. Would it be worth it?

Guess I’ll find out…

I tracked down the drug traffickers’ safe houses and started setting them ablaze, one by one. The more I reduced their secret bases and facilities to dust, the better I felt. It was as if all the weight that had been holding me down was being burned away as well. It took me a month, but I erased every last one of those crooks from the face of the earth. The next time the system failed us, I knew what to do.