Chapter 4 - LEVEL GROUND
Eli stood frozen on the dry edge of the asphalt.
The wind ruffled his unruly brown curls, his breath misting in the cool morning air. He looked at the jacket—its worn blue fabric lying in the muck, soaking up the muddy water, completely ruined for the day. Then he looked down at his own legs.
He looked at the black carbon sockets, the titanium pylons, the mechanical ankles that had failed him thirty seconds ago.
He looked back up at the girl. His jaw tightened, a shadow of his earlier defensiveness creeping into his voice.
"You’re not gonna carry me?" Eli asked, the question laced with a strange mixture of disbelief and lingering hurt.
The young girl tilted her head, her brow furrowing into an expression of genuine, unvarnished confusion. She looked at him as if he had just asked if the pond was made of chocolate milk.
"Why would I?" she asked, her voice light, clear, and utterly devoid of pity. "You said you can walk."
Those six words struck the clearing like a church bell ringing across an empty valley.
Standing three paces behind his son, Ronan Vale felt something give way behind his ribs. A sudden, unexpected tightness gripped his throat, burning behind his eyes with an intensity that shocked him.
You said you can walk.
For three agonizing years, the world had treated Eli Vale with an unbearable, suffocating fragility. The teachers at his private academy lowered their voices when he walked into the classroom. The physical therapists spoke to him in high, sing-song voices, clapping at every basic milestone as if he were an infant. Ronan’s own associates—hardened gangsters and ruthless corporate raiders—cast their eyes to the floor whenever the boss brought his son into the office, terrified of acknowledging the boy’s missing limbs. And Ronan himself, consumed by his own monstrous guilt, had built a prison of soft cushions and hovering arms around his only child.
Not one person had simply listened to the boy.
Not one person had looked past the carbon fiber and seen the seven-year-old soul screaming for the dignity of his own two feet.
Except this strange little girl in a torn sweater, holding a jacket down in the mud.
Eli blinked. The hostility in his hazel eyes shattered, replaced by a sudden, dazzling spark of wonder. A slow, radiant flush bloomed across his cheeks.
He didn't hesitate any longer.
Eli squared his small shoulders, took a deep breath, and planted his right prosthetic foot directly onto the center of the denim jacket.
The rough, textured weave of the denim gripped the rubber sole with perfect friction. The foot held. There was no slide. There was no sickening skate of decomposing leaves. The jacket absorbed the slickness beneath it, creating an unshakeable platform of solid ground.
Eli brought his left foot forward, planting it firmly beside the sunflower patch on the collar. He felt the stability vibrating up through the titanium pylons, through the silicone liners, into the muscle and bone of his knees.
He took another stride. He stepped off the far edge of the jacket and landed squarely onto the dry, clean pavement on the other side of the puddle.
He had crossed the canyon.
Eli spun around on his heels, his navy vest puffing out, his face practically glowing with an ecstatic, triumphant pride that illuminated the entire grey morning.
"I did it!" Eli shouted, pumping his small fists into the air, laughing with a joy so pure it echoed off the water of the South Pond. "Dad! Look! I did it!"
The young girl let go of the sleeves, sat back on her heels in the damp grass, and offered a wide, effortless grin.
"Told you," she said softly.
May you like
Ronan stood motionless, his hands slowly sinking into the deep pockets of his black cashmere overcoat. The cold, terrifying mask of the Chicago underworld titan had vanished completely. His dark eyes were soft, luminous with an emotion so deep, so overwhelming, that for a moment, he forgot the skyline, he forgot the guards, he forgot the empire of blood and steel he commanded.
All that existed was the sound of his son’s laughter ringing over dry pavement.
