Rising, page 22
part #3 of Girl With Broken Wings Series
And here he is, Rain Bailey, shivering, gloveless, looking up at our chosen elm tree with unconcealed worry.
“Come on,” I say and swing onto the first branch. In twenty seconds, I’m nestled into a sturdy fork near the top. I realize that Rain hasn’t followed me up the tree. I look down and see his pale face staring up at me from the ground.
“What are you waiting for?” I hiss down at him.
“Huh?”
“Get up here,” I say louder.
“I, uh…how did you do that?”
“You can’t climb this tree? The tree I specifically picked because it was the easiest fucking tree to climb?”
His brow crinkles in a frown. “I’m not a spider monkey.”
I lean the sniper rifle against the branch and make my way down to the first branch. “Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t your chosen line of work?” I ask as I hold out my hand.
“All the time.” He looks at my hand. Awkwardness ensues where it becomes apparent that he’s reluctant to take it.
“I’m wearing gloves,” I tell him.
“It doesn’t have to be skin on skin contact,” he replies. He would know after Poughkeepsie where that sadistic group of angels fed on him, Milo, and a group of others like snacks. The angels kept their victims alive for weeks as they drained them little by little.
“My hand has to be bare. The, uh, the feeding mechanism has to connect directly with the aura.”
“Aura?”
“The grid of energy around you. Now come on.”
Rain looks up at me again, his aura streaming a shimmering blend of reds and oranges – the shades of conflict and fear. Then he reaches up, wrapping long fingers around my arm. I haul him up onto the branch. He slips on the icy bark, and I pull him into my body to steady him. For a moment we’re pressed into each other, and all I feel is his strong, vibrant aura stroking against me. Waves of blue and red, now tinged with the deep violets of….
I lean back. “You…you got it?” I hear a waver hit my voice. Beneath my gloves, the skin of my palms splits along the seams and scrolls back.
“Yep, thanks.” He looks down and swallows.
I force the skin back down across my palms, but I can’t control the heat churning from my hands. Calm, calm, calm. Don’t drain your new, incompetent mission buddy, I think to myself as I make my way back up to my fork.
The motion of assembling the rifle – that short melody of clicks and ticks – usually helps focus my mind. Not today. Today, I listen to Rain bumble up the tree like a cow. Five minutes later, he finally makes it to me and settles on a branch to my left.
“Wow,” he says, his breath clouding around his patchy pink cheeks, “I didn’t think I could actually get up here, but I did. I can’t even feel my hands.”
“Quiet,” I tell him. “This is a mission.”
“Yep.” He rustles loudly in his backpack and pulls out binoculars. “Binoculars,” he points out.
I ignore him and settle across the branch on my belly and stabilize the rifle on the front tripod as best I can. I shift the barrel by degrees until I’ve got a direct line of sight on the back of the mansion. My breath is slow, calm as I exert absolute focus on the task at…at…
“Can you…,” I turn toward Rain.
“What?” A note of annoyance creeps into his voice.
It’s his aura; his strong, healthy, tempting aura. Not only would an angel be able to feel it a mile away, it’s unplugging all the wires in my brain. Those heavy purple shades when we touched.
“Your energy…it’s loud.”
“My energy is loud?” He raises his eyebrows. “How exactly am I supposed to quiet it down?”
“You, I don’t know.” I try to think about how Tarren has explained it in the past. He and Gabe trained themselves using meditation techniques. They’ve been doing this their whole lives, I remind myself.
“You need to calm down.”
“I am calm.” His aura jumps with his words.
“No, deeper than that. Center yourself, feel your energy like a physical force around you. Pull it into yourself.”
“Okay.” He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “How’s that – nope, just thought about peanuts. Hold on.” He frowns and inhales. After a minute he says, “How about now? Am I centering?”
“No, it’s the same.”
He opens one eye. “Really? I could have sworn I was relaxing. Like, I felt it happening.”
“Well, it wasn’t.” This is the point where I give up entirely on the mission. Raven and all the other angels are long gone, so what’s the point of continuing with this masquerade?
“Guess I’m not good at that either,” Rain says with that same good-natured resignation that is beginning to drive me crazy. Is this what Tarren felt like on my first mission?
It’s not like I expected Rain to be some valorous knight or ass kicking kung fu master, but I’d kind of hoped he could match a fourth grader for climbing skills and not be one Snicker’s bar away from complete incapacitation.
Rain is not an ally. He’s a liability.
Rain has pulled his hands into the sleeves of his hoodie and now struggles to steady the binoculars. The sun has disappeared below the horizon, so I can’t even imagine what he’s looking at. As if reading my mind, he lowers the binoculars.
“It’s kind of dark,” he admits.
Even Tarren, uber-hunter, fell off a roof once, I remind myself, and took out a whole cadre of reindeer in the process.
Rain looks at me, and I realize that I’ve been staring, caught up between annoyance, sympathy, and something else that really, really shouldn’t be causing my heart to pound harder. Shit, I’m still staring.
“So what are you good at?” I ask him abruptly, maybe a little desperately.
“Me? Oh, nothing,” he answers immediately.
“Come on, everyone’s good at something.”
Rain thinks. And shivers. And keeps thinking.
“Oh, I know.” His face lights up, and his aura glows brighter. “Mary Ann said I was the best bagger she’s ever seen, and she’s been a manager at Safeway for six years.”
“Bagger?”
“Groceries. I can bag anything, put it in all neat, keep the bread from getting squashed. There’s an art to it.” He says this with pride. Real. Actual. Pride.
I can’t help it. I laugh. And laugh. And laugh. I have to wrap an arm around my branch to keep myself from falling off.
“Is that…like the good kind of laughing?” Rain asks uncertainly.
“No,” I huff, “it’s really not.”
“Okay,” Rain says, and then he starts laughing too. His laugh is deep and warm, and it puts beautiful blues into his aura.
He can’t climb trees, he can’t shoot, he can’t even remember to bring fucking gloves when it’s below zero, but he’s still out here. He’s still trying.
Rain Bailey is actually brave in his own very stupid way.
I was so much like him in the beginning. Confused. Scared. Driven by vengeance. Reckless. But I had my brothers to keep me safe and a body fine-tuned with strength, agility, and healing to help soften my fuckups. All Rain has is his conviction, which will prove a paper shield against the bullets, knives, and whatever superpowers the angels will throw at us.
“What’s going on? Your face just got all serious,” Rain says.
I look at him, at that red cap on his head and those sleepy, chocolate eyes. I want to ask him about what happened after that night he saw me standing over the preacher’s body in Marymoor Park, how he found those angels all the way in Poughkeepsie, New York and ended up in that hellish barn, how he and Milo connected with The Totem, and who came up with those stupid masks.
Instead, different words come out of my mouth. “Hey, what were you saying in that alley after you shot me? It sounded like you were…”
“Oh, yeah.” He casts his eyes down. “Sorry about that. About Garret. How he hurt you. I …I’ve never hit anyone. I mean, really hit anyone. Not even when I was a kid and especially not a girl. A woman.”
I decide not to inform him that his punch had all the wallop of a soggy newspaper. “It’s okay,” I say instead. “You thought I was the enemy.”
“It’s so weird,” he blurts out. “This. You. Us here working together. Every time I look at you it still feels like I swallowed a handful of tacks. I have to remind myself…you really didn’t kill Sunshine?” His aura is shifting again into heavy oranges and pale reds.
“No,” I say.
“But you did almost kill me today.”
“You were kissing me while I was unconscious.”
“That was CPR,” he says defensively. We look at each other and then away. “I’m certified,” he mumbles. I glance back, just in time to see rich purples fuse his aura again. I know that color; it’s the same for everyone. Pale, lilac shades speak of trust, care, and platonic love, like the way I feel about my brothers. But dark, wine-colored purples are something entirely different. Lust, I think, a little stunned.
“I uh…well.” His voice is strangely deep. “I thought about you a lot. I mean, I kind of became obsessed.”
My heart is suddenly hammering loud in my chest.
“I dreamed about finding you.” He swallows again. “As you can see, I kind of bumble everything, so I thought I should memorize something. You know, to say if I ever killed you.”
It takes me a moment to realize that he’s picking back up on my earlier question. Of course he is. He didn’t dream about me. He dreamed of killing me.
“Well, let’s hear it,” I say.
“Nah.” He pulls his bundled hands closer into his body.
“Come on.”
He swallows. I don’t think he’s going to do it, but then he starts in a soft, sad voice. “My sister's name was Sunshine Bailey. You took her life on August 1st of last year, and now I'm going to take yours. This is for Sunshine. This is for all the other countless victims you've murdered. This is for the families who loved them.”
The night is quiet and solemn around us; even the wind has backed off. The moon is out, a pale sliver with pointed edges that casts only the faintest glow above.
“Wow, you were going to say all that to me?”
“I tried, but you kind of passed out by the end of it.” He gives me a sheepish smile. I like watching the different colors play in his aura. It’s such a complex tapestry.
“I did the same thing,” I finally admit. “There was someone I wanted to kill once. I practiced what I would say to him, repeated it every single night. It was like…like an anchor, keeping me focused.”
“And what happened?” Rain’s voice is hushed like we’re sharing secrets. I guess we are.
“I killed him, but there were other things going on so I never got to say the words.”
“Do you regret that you didn’t?”
I think about it. “No, there are so many other things I regret about that night, but not that.”
Rain seems unsure how to respond. I pray he doesn’t ask me for details, who I killed, why I had to do it, whom I sacrificed for my vengeance.
Instead, he says, “Could I…” He stops, uncertain. “I have so many questions. I’ve been writing….I’ve started this… hold on, let me get the list.”
In the distance, I hear the soft slurp of a leg pulling up from snow. Raven?
I turn toward the sound just in time to see two shadows dash behind separate trees a hundred yards away.
No auras near me except for Rain, which means....angels. Two of them. It can’t be Raven, then. For a moment my mind is at a standstill, trying and failing to understand what’s happening.
A conclusion finally trickles through. They must be some of the angels who escaped from the mansion this morning.
They would never ever be stupid enough to come back here, I think, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. Then it dawns on my idiot brain. They guessed that we’d patrol.
They didn’t come back for the house
They came back for us.
Chapter 29
Time slows, each moment long and sharp. The night is a cascade of sounds, the quickening gait of my heart, the brush of Rain’s jacket against the branch, a zipper unclenching its teeth as he opens his backpack, the soft slurp of another foot pulling up from the snow behind us. I use the faint glow of the moon overhead to search.
There!
To my right a shadow flits from behind one tree to the next.
Three. That makes at least three of them closing on us like a tightening noose.
“Okay, this first one here, this is just an opener.” Rain’s voice is as loud as a cannon. He holds a wrinkled sheet of notebook paper in his hands. “How old are you?”
That bright aural glow around his body is our doom. We can’t hide. We can’t run. That just leaves fighting. Me against three angels. Holy shit storm, Batman.
“Twenty,” I respond, slowly unwrapping my fingers from the sniper rifle.
“Really?” Rain’s eyebrows jump. “You’re so…so young.”
I hear quick footsteps behind us as the second angel darts closer. They’re less than 50 yards now, keeping covered.
What if they’re armed? What if one of them has some sort of crazy death vision power or spits acid? Please, please not acid.
“Are you human?”
“What?” I look down at Rain again. Stupid red hat.
“That’s the second question on my list,” he clarifies. “We were wondering if you were human, or like, an um…” He lowers his voice, “…an extraterrestrial.”
I pull in a long, steadying breath. My body hums with adrenaline. I can feel the cold of the branch seeping through my clothing, the frozen wetness under my nostrils, the sharp cut of the air in my lungs.
“No, it’s my turn. You ask a question, I ask a question.” I try to mimic a casual voice. The angels can hear every word, and I must sound convincingly unaware of their presence. There are a million and a half questions I actually want to ask Rain, but those are for another time, assuming we get another time.
Instead, I spit out something dumb, unimportant. “So, what’s with the penguin mask? Penguins don’t exactly instill terror in the hearts of your enemies.”
Rain chuckles. His aura is broad and bright. “Gabe already gave me shit about that.”
The shadow to my right makes another dash through the trees, 40 yards. My heart is a jackhammer in my chest. I try to slow it so the angels won’t hear.
“Why then?” My voice sounds strained to me, but Rain doesn’t seem to notice.
“Cause, well. It’s kind of a long story.”
Another flicker of movement, 30 yards. Tightening noose.
Let them come as close as possible, I think. They’ll be easier to shoot that way.
“I have time. Spill,” I say as I ease my hand to the Glock strapped to my thigh.
“It’s actually really stupid.” His aura pulses, momentarily stealing my attention. A soft, sad smile lifts his lips. It complements the brooding oranges in his aura.
I have to protect him
“I was eight. I remember, cause it was my birthday the week before, and I had my party at the zoo. Everyone else wanted to see the lions and giraffes and polar bears, but I kept going back to watch the penguins…”
More movement from behind. Twenty yards away now. Soon, soon, soon. I slide the Glock out of the holster, wishing I’d brought a second instead of the tranq gun, and chamber the first round.
“… Our teacher, Mrs. Synder, she was beautiful. Every boy in the class had a crush on her. She told us that we had to do a one page report on an animal…”
I push up from my position and bring my legs solidly beneath me. My muscles twitch, the icy fear now clashing with the buildup of red hot adrenaline.
“…I was so excited. So stupidly excited about the report. Mrs. Synder, she had this old plastic bucket that animal crackers came in, and we each had to pick a slip of paper with an animal on it. I remember reaching in that bucket, pulling out that slip of paper, and—”
A shadow rushes for our tree. Two glowing spots of green emanate from her eyes. She’s powering up for something, and I’m really sure I don’t want to find out what it is. I whip my gun past Rain. His words falter. My shot cracks through the night. The shadow crumples backward, those throbbing green eyes dimming and then dark.
“I thought you were going to shoot me,” Rain says, white clouds puncturing his panting breaths.
I swing my gun around and throw wild shots between the points where I last saw the other two shadows.
Rain clumsily pulls a gun from a holster under his jacket, and his head whips around uncertainly. His eyes are too weak to penetrate the darkness.
“Get down!” I shout, and he flattens himself against the tree branch.
A figure to the left makes a dash, snow plowing around his boots. I fire on him, booming thunder, and he tumbles into the snow shrieking.
I leap out of the tree, landing on all fours up to my wrists and ankles in crusted snow. I dive behind a tree just in case the third angel has a gun or shoots laser beams out of her hair follicles or whatever. The heat of adrenaline has melted away my fear. I crouch behind my protection, suck in quick breaths, and try to think.
Not happening with the angel I shot still screaming ten yards off. His raw cry is brutal on my eardrums and concentration.
Which leaves just one.
I turn and peer from behind the tree. The only movement is Rain, who slowly, carefully scrambles down from the tree making almost as much noise as the dying angel. And that aura of his, it blazes with a heavy palette of fearful reds and anxious oranges.
No, No, No, No! He’s the easiest target in the entire fucking universe, which means I need to…
I spin away from my cover and run toward the tree where I think the last angel is hiding. I shoot as I go, pinning him or her down. The Glock clicks impotently. Shit! I pull the tranq gun from its holster. Better than nothing.
Then my feet stop. Just stop, like they suddenly grew roots. My momentum carries me forward, but my planted feet save me from the fall. I rock forward and then back, arms swinging for balance. A figure emerges from the trees. The weak moonlight reveals a stocky, teenage girl with thin lips and a boy’s haircut. Her wide-set eyes are pools of blackness in the night.
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