Rising, page 2
part #3 of Girl With Broken Wings Series
Before I killed Grand.
“Fine,” I say and hold out my hand for the rifle case. Tarren glances at me, and his aura ticks – barest hint of amber.
Amber is Tarren’s guilt, and doesn’t that just open so many doors to our relationship. He hands over the case, and we both study the strip joint. The locale is not very sniper-friendly. Big weedy patches of grass flank the club on either side. No easy rooftops to set up shop. I can almost hear the hum of Tarren’s brain calculating.
“Fast food place,” he says to me and lays his rifle case back in the jeep.
“Seriously?” I gaze at the brightly lit, boxy building about 300 meters up the road.
“There’s a workable angle,” he says. “You can get a shot.”
“That’s a pretty sharp angle,” I tell him. I wrap my arms around my chest to ward off the encroaching cold. January in Detroit, a traveler’s paradise. “And what about you? There’s nothing in back.”
“I’ll make due,” Tarren says, screwing our last silencer onto his 10mm Glock. That means he’ll hunker down behind a truck or SUV in the small back lot and go in for the close kill, which is pretty risky on a number of levels. Who knows what special ability this set of wings possesses, or even if Billy Bob or Joe Bob will finish off their night of high class entertainment only to find a black-clad guy with a gun hunched in front of their grill? When it comes to angels, distance is our friend. Of course, Tarren’s in full steel mode and won’t hear any of my pansy arguments about basic safety.
“Bluetooth on,” he says.
We stand together a second longer. I feel like we should have developed some kind of ritual by now, a handshake, a brave nod, a shoulder clap. This is dangerous work after all.
“Okay,” I mumble, because, well, it’s just me, and cleverness is a sporadic visitor at best.
With that moment on lameness forever crystalized in our collective memories, we break away on our separate assignments. I wait until the street is dead before darting across and making my way to the burger joint with the creepy clown face on its sign. Despite the late hour, several grumbling, American-made trucks inch through the drive-thru. Many look like they’ve seen better days. So do the buildings. So do the people. Seems like nobody in Detroit has gotten a good break in the last decade.
Keeping to the darkness, I head behind the building. Odors of grilled meat and fried everything assault my nose. Hard to believe I used to stuff fries in my mouth with nearly orgasmic pleasure. Those were back in my normal human days when my stomach wasn’t a shrunken pit unable to digest anything. Now my meals consist of something entirely different.
The climb to the roof is no obstacle. My change didn’t come without some enviable perks. My body is acrobatic, strong, and quick-healing. I can climb most anything, leap from rooftops or trees with the ease of Spiderman, and match the stamina of a world-class marathoner. There are plenty of reasons why so many have clamored to be changed (“infected” is the word of choice my brothers use), but there’s that one monumentally inconvenient drawback – the hunger.
As I unzip and set up Gabe’s beloved Colt CRE-18 rifle, my whole situation slaps me in the face like a wet glove. Just six months ago this idyllic, rifle assembling scene would have looked like some sort of crazy nightmare life, and now…now it’s just life. Sometimes my past seems like a filmy dream; I can hardly believe that I actually went to college, had a boyfriend, watched cartoons in my PJs on the weekends, and ate solid food like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (copious amounts of jelly always oozing out the sides). I have to remind myself that it wasn’t so long ago when I couldn’t do 100 pull-ups in a row, or see bright auras cascading from every living thing, or endure the constant song of hunger ringing in my bones.
I shake the thoughts away. I still experience random whirlwinds of doubt, but these storms come on me less and less now, and they don’t flatten me like they used to. My old life is fading into fuzzy gray photographs up until the night an angel named Grand stole me away six months ago and made me…whatever this hybrid thing is that I am.
I leave the scope in the bag but attach the tripod to the rifle. Peering over the edge of the roof, I seek out the best angle that will put the strip club’s side door into my line of sight. I end up mashed into the corner of the roof, rifle angled downward just a hair. It would be a difficult shot as is, but then an icy wind starts gusting, bringing small snowflakes with it.
Joy o’ joys.
“In position,” I whisper through my Bluetooth.
“Check,” Tarren says on his end.
Then it’s all about waiting and trying not to freeze to death. Detroit in January is cold. Fucking cold. The wind has teeth that gnaw through my jacket with ferocity. The worst thing about waiting isn’t the cold, though. It’s the long, empty stretch of time and my brain trying to fill it with memories that I’d do anything to squelch or have surgically removed if possible.
And it comes; the one I can never keep chained to the dark. In my mind’s eye, I see Gabe on his hands and knees shivering with pain. Blood-tinged tears drip off his face. The saturated hues of pain and utter betrayal soak through his aura.
“I’m sorry for you too Maya,” my brother whispers just before I….
Stop. With effort, I push the memories away while my breath swirls white around me.
An hour ticks by. Then another. The cold eats into my joints. I keep flexing my fingers and toes, trying to ward off stiffness. I shift my position a little here, a little there to relieve knots of pressure. I have to pee big time. I try to ignore it, but my bladder feels like a balloon stretched to its max. I’ve heard you can actually get bladder infections by holding it too long. I wonder how terrible it would be if I quickly snuck into the burger place and relieved myself.
Tarren would consider this an unforgiveable breach of protocol. I guess I could pee on the roof, in one of the other corners. It’d take my eyes off the strip club alley, but if my bladder explodes, what use would I be? I’m just about desperate enough to do it, when the side door of the strip club swings open. My finger curls around the trigger as I intuitively move the barrel of the rifle.
Ambrosia clomps out wrapped in a long, ratty coat. She digs through a massive purse and eventually pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I’m mildly disappointed; both that it’s not our angel and that Ambrosia’s wasting her hard-earned money – some of it mine – on cancer sticks.
She turns her back to the door, hunching against the wind. I watch as she blows out a stream of smoke. The sallow colors of resignation in her aura lighten with relief as she inhales again. The side door eases open, and a second figure emerges. I expect it to be another stripper, out to keep Ambrosia company and gossip.
It’s the angel. He moves quietly, and Ambrosia doesn’t see him.
I can’t imagine that this guy would be stupid enough to go for her right here in this alley after he’d just been seen in the club. But his hands glow, and I recognize that glazed expression on his face all too well.
That’s the thing about the hunger – control is always an issue. An angel could have the best intentions in mind – like, say, following a stripper back to her home before draining her – but sometimes, a lot of times, the hunger just gets the best of you.
Adrenaline jacks through my body. I’m finally getting the kill. A wave of anger quickly follows this realization. That fucker is going after our stripper!
“Confirm, in the alley,” I whisper into my Bluetooth. “About to feed. I’m clipping his wings. One witness. Get ready.”
“On my way,” Tarren says.
At least he gives me this. No argument. No question. It’s a good thing too, because Ambrosia looks over and notices the man for the first time.
“I don’t do blow jobs or nothing else off the menu,” she says to him.
That a girl! I think as I position my shot.
The wind starts up again, and I have to readjust. My hands are so stiff, and they’re trembling just a little. I can still make it though. Have to.
Steady, steady, steady, ready, deady, I think to myself.
The angel takes purposeful steps toward Ambrosia. She must see the hunger, that murderous intent on his face, because dark, inky fear clouds out the cigarette’s relief in her aura. She lets out a robust holler and starts digging in her huge purse. The angel reaches out for her.
I pull the trigger.
The bullet cuts through the distance and punches into the angel’s head, a little lower than I intended but still a clean kill. He crumples at Ambrosia’s feet.
Ambrosia, still screaming, yanks something out of her purse. Mace. After fumbling with the nozzle, she sprays the unmoving heap of dead in front of her. She keeps on spraying, keeps on screaming until Tarren makes it to the alley, lines up his shot, and puts a tranq dart in her neck. Ambrosia, this amazing woman, doesn’t let go of that mace. She keeps spraying the dead angel even as her scream goes all warbly and her knees buckle. Tarren, always the hero, catches her and ducks a cloud of mace as she groggily swings the sputtering canister at him.
Chapter 3
Snow flurries accompany us out of Detroit. I glance at Tarren in the driver’s seat. His eyes are red and swollen from the mace. Even though he ducked Ambrosia’s main assault, the wind whipped it through the alley as we cleaned up. I can still feel the chemicals crawling on my skin and tickling the back of my throat like a colony of fire ants biting down.
We’ve been 30 hours without sleep, and Tarren’s control of his aura is loosening as exhaustion sets in. Pale pink hues drift over his shoulders. He’s sore from the hour and a half we spent opening up a decent sized grave in the frozen soil.
I turn my head, my eyes drifting to the gray, empty surroundings. The night pulls back the curtain on the first hints of a cloudy dawn. I mentally pull up the image of our dead angel from the driver’s license we found in his wallet. Jeff Sikes was not a handsome fellow. Thirty-two years old, 177 pounds, 5’11”, at least according to his license. I wait to feel something in response to the life I took. Guilt. Regret. I’ll even accept that weird kind of giddiness that sometimes washes over me when I can’t process real emotion. But nothing comes. It’s all hollow and echoey inside my chest; been like that ever since Gabe got hurt.
“Ambrosia will be okay,” I say to combat this repressive quiet. “It was a cold night, but she had that big coat on.” Even with the mace trashing my senses, I hadn’t had any difficultly sniffing out the black ’97 Camry radiating her perfume. While Tarren loaded the angel’s body into the jeep, I’d quickly picked the car’s lock and carefully laid Ambrosia out in the backseat.
“She had a backpack in her car and some University of Phoenix folders,” I announce.
Tarren glances at me, offering nothing to the conversation. Something about this is funny, how long my brother and I have spent sitting next to each other over the last months and yet how far apart we are.
“Clearly she’s trying to better her life,” I persist. “You know, overcome her trials and stuff.” I don’t mention the crumbled fast food containers that littered the floor of Ambrosia’s car, the piles of clothing, empty cans of Diet Coke, and plastic bags half-filled with Fruit-Loop knock-off cereal.
Tarren’s eyebrows arch just for a moment.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says in a neutral tone, which means he’s itching to rain all over my parade.
“Say it.”
“For-profit colleges typically yield very low graduation rates,” he informs me.
I turn and give him a stare that I hope rubs him raw as sandpaper. Typical. This is so typical of Tarren.
“It’s under 25 percent,” he adds.
“Well, MAYBE Ambrosia is different. Ever consider that?” My voice rises. I’m still waiting for him to compliment me on the amazing shot I made and how calmly and efficiently I handled the aftermath. This was only my second official kill, after all. “MAYBE she’s going to pull her life together, graduate, quit the strip club, and achieve her dream of becoming a…a….scuba diving instructor, and then she’ll write a book about her life and be on The View, and everyone will think she’s this amazing, inspirational person.”
I glare at Tarren, daring him to contradict me.
“She doesn’t need a college degree to be a scuba diving instructor,” he says finally.
I throw myself against the seat and cross my arms over my chest. Tarren and I had a moment, a real moment, where it seemed like we might just be able to build a rope bridge across the chasm that divided us. It was just after Gabe had woken. I’d gone to the house, and Tarren had been there, back from wherever he’d fled while his brother was in a coma for five days. He forgave me for what I did, and I’d hoped that this was a new beginning for us.
Dumb Pixie Girl.
While Tarren has decided to tolerate me, I’ve come to realize that his heart is too well guarded to ever let me in. He sees me – not incorrectly – as a threat, a bomb waiting to go off. That’s what I’ll always be in his eyes. It’s fine, though. I’m still going to save him.
***
A steady rain follows us out of Chicago. Tarren constantly adjusts the wipers to precisely meet the pace of the rain. I glance in the jeep’s backseat at the bag that contains the hard drives from Jeff Sike’s computers, along with his cell phone and tablet. It’d been easy enough to case the Chicago condo listed on our angel’s license, engage in a little breaking and entering fun, and then grab some electronic goodies for Gabe to tinker with later. Somewhere within all that data we may be able to find a trail to other angels. They usually associate in loose networks.
“You need to finish sewing in the picks,” Tarren says, drawing my attention back to the front.
“What?”
“Lock picks.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve got most of them done.”
“They all need to be done,” Tarren insists, and I don’t argue.
Tarren’s latest mandate is that we both must sew a basic double ball lock pick into the cuff of every long-sleeved shirt we own, and that I sew them into the front and back hem of all my short-sleeved shirts, even my tank tops.
Good thing lock picks are insanely cheap online. I’ve spent practically every minute of downtime on this trip with a sewing needle in hand or practicing releasing handcuffs from every conceivable position. Tarren’s been a tyrant about it, but I’m not about to make a peep of protest. It doesn’t matter that the chances of either of us ever getting handcuffed again is exactly nil. This isn’t about practicality. Though he won’t say it, I know Tarren thinks that if he could have gotten out of the cuffs faster in Grand’s warehouse, or if he’d had even a simple pick in hand from the beginning, he might have been able to stop me from…
“I hate when they do that.” I motion toward a billboard featuring a cartoon pig in oversized sunglasses and a paisley apron. A speech bubble by his snout proclaims, “Pig out at Ed’s Rib Shack! Next exit.”
Tarren glances at it.
“I mean, they sell ribs and their mascot is a pig?”
“It makes a certain sort of sense,” Tarren says and adjusts the wipers again.
“Yeah, a sadistic sort of sense.”
I wait for Tarren to jump back in, and I keep waiting. This is one of so many reasons why I miss Gabe. He and I could have easily turned that billboard into a half hour conversation that would get us laughing so hard his aura would turn a dazzling, emerald green all the way through.
The sky spreads out in front of us, white and filmy. Endless miles fall beneath our wheels. Endless silence. Uncomfortable thoughts begin to push their way to the surface. I’d never really considered anything beyond killing Grand. But here I am. Grand’s been dead almost three months, and what now? Only this, the mission.
Tarren adjusts the wipers. It’s too much.
“Why not keep them alive for questioning before you kill them?” I blurt out.
“Angels?” Tarren guesses correctly.
“Tranq them, tie them up, and make them tell you who created them, or if they know any other angels.”
“Our parents considered this option, but they decided that it was too dangerous.” Tarren looks over at me, measures my interest, and, after a pause for deliberation, continues. “Angels metabolize the tranquilizers at different rates based on their individual strength and the speed of their healing. It’s difficult to judge the correct amount to administer.”
This is always how Tarren talks, with the vocabulary and dynamism of a 40-year-old calculus teacher. The rain plinks all around us.
“Those issues can be handled, more or less, but…,” Tarren stares straight ahead, and I can tell he’s carefully parsing his next words.
“Are you waiting for a drum roll?” I prod him.
“The abilities.”
I turn away and stare out of my window. “Oh yeah.”
“They range,” Tarren continues. “Some angels can generate fire. Others have superior strength even above and beyond the general enhancements. Telekinesis is common.”
I can feel the weight of his eyes on me.
“I haven’t been able to do it again,” I whisper. “Not since that night. I’ve tried.” Tarren and I have never spoken about what happened in the warehouse, how I killed Grand.
“It’s impossible to control for the abilities,” Tarren continues softly. “There are still so many we haven’t yet been able to catalogue.”
Tarren is quiet, and his energy shivers with red hues. “We cannot ever hesitate,” he says, parroting the number one rule in the code Diana created to keep her children and herself safe on missions. I try not to roll my eyes. I get why the code is important, but I’m not exactly the reverent acolyte that Tarren is. Then again, I never knew my biological mother, so there’s that.
We lapse into a silence that feels sodden and unbreachable. I stare out the window, but all I can think about is the closeness of Tarren’s energy, all those little ticks and hiccups, that mind always running at such a furious, brutal pace.
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