Character Interview with Angie Dennard (THE HIGH ROAD)
To celebrate the release of The High Road next week, here’s a character interview with its heroine. For its companion piece (also set around Chapter 4), see the Mark Petrie interview.
(Angie Dennard walks into the room and stops by the chair, but instead of sitting she leans against it and studies the author.)
Angie: What do you want to ask? How the gang came after my dad?
author: All of it. Including the flying belt.
Angie: So you know. (She shakes her head hard, tossing short red hair.) You know, and I never guessed!
author: Never?
Angie: Nothing like this! My family’s stories were about traveling, fighting, leading—they were brave people. But flying? And Dad never told me?
(Angie falls silent.)
author: Any guess why he didn’t?
Angie: I could try to, now. But he always fooled me. And yet Mark always thought he was hiding something, ever since we were kids together.
author: Kids? Let’s go back a bit. What can you tell me about yourself from before this started?
Angie: Not much to say, or I didn’t think so then. My mother left us; Dad was a police detective and then in security. I got out of school last year, and I’d just realized I really wanted to be a pilot when—(She stops, and smiles ruefully.) Yes, a pilot, and now we’ve got magic for flying. There must have been some hints about it in our history, and they stuck with me. And now the Blades are after us.
author: That’s it?
Angie: Pretty much. Nothing special, until now.
author: “Nothing special”? But all right, what about now? What will you do now that the Blades are after you?
Angie: Everything. Everything we can. We could use the belt against them, or just get out of town. We’re going to check with the police gang experts this afternoon. Someone has to have some answers.
author: You’re just… keeping your options open?
Angie: Of course. Right now we haven’t even talked to Dad about the belt. I know there’s no way to stand up to a whole street gang, but there’s always a way.
author: You just said there’s no way but there is a way.
Angie: I guess I did. I’m hoping there’s a change in some bit of it, so we have more to work with than some flying that Mark says he can barely control.
author: Mark says?
Angie: And it’s my family’s belt. But Mark was the one who stumbled into what it does. I haven’t even made it work—so far. (She smiles.)
author: And the Blades?
Angie: They’ve got a vendetta against Dad. He admitted it.
author: “Admitted”?
Angie: He shot up a summit between two gangs—he really did that, all because Mark and I almost walked into them. (She spins away and starts pacing around the room.) Was that thirty, forty dead bangers and cops and people just near them, and it’s partly my fault. But I tell myself he was the one who did it, and he hid it from me. After that I see why he didn’t tell me about the belt that let him get those shots. But what keeps eating me is, why are they after us now? That was years ago when we were kids. And it worked, nobody thought he did it because he was never close enough… except Mark was sure he would have if he had a way. But they left us in peace all that time—so how does it come out now?
author: If you had to guess…
Angie: I try not to. (She settles down in the chair.)
author: Oh?
Angie: Of course I’m made guesses. But I don’t know, and why think myself into a corner and miss what it really is? But… I can’t forget about the magic.
author: What about the magic?
Angie: It’s the biggest blank spot in all of this, isn’t it? Something about why my mother never told me, or her father being in the madhouse. There has to be more than that going on.
author: It sounds like you want there to be.
Angie: Alright, yes! I want there to be more than gangs and guns and my overprotective dad with a secret weapon so secret he won’t use it. But I’m hoping that’s all it is.
author: You want it to be bigger, but you hope it isn’t.
Angie: I have to. That’s one thing my mother did tell us last night: the last thing we want is attention. If the Blades knew about flying they’d hunt us forever, and so would everyone else who wanted a piece of it. What would we do then?
author: What would you do?
Angie: We don’t let it happen. We try not to use the belt until we know how it works. We don’t use it in daylight; we’ve been lucky there so far. We keep it under control, and I keep Dad and Mark safe.
author: So that’s what you want. To keep them safe.
Angie: Of course. The Blades almost killed Dad—and Mark and me too, when we got near it. Mark says Dad will keep putting himself in the line of fire every time I get near trouble, so I have to stay miles away from it. Or try to.
author: “Mark says”?
Angie: He puts it better than I do. We figured that out years ago: I always know what has to get done, and then he knows all the reasons why. And the times I’m wrong.
author: Wrong? Was this a time you were wrong?
Angie: I don’t know! He can give you all the reasons all we can do is not get killed. I keep thinking there has to be more to the magic—what else is out there? Why was it such a secret, even before Dad got it? It makes me take a whole other look at Mom leaving, and Dad working at the park her family had ties to. There’s so much we don’t know! We can’t be stupid, but there has to be more. Besides…
author: What?
Angie: Besides, they’re just punks. I’ve seen them try to catch us; they’ve got all the knives and guns, but they don’t think ahead. Or if something happens, you could count the heartbeats it takes most of them to move. We’ve dodged around them twice already.
author: You make it sound easy.
Angie: (laughs) I hear that from people sometimes. I think anything can sound easy. But there’s always a way.
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