Flying, page 25
part #5 of Girl With Broken Wings Series
“MOOOOOOOOOORE!”
Gabe repeats it like a mantra. “Don’t do this, don’t do this,” while I wail with frustration, banging my shoulders on the floor. Finally he turns and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.
I keep at it, long after my voice has gone hoarse and my wrists are bloody. Finally, with a shudder, the monster skitters back underground. I am left, the little girl who’s still here, sobbing mournfully. I don’t think I cry too long. Sleep comes and even my nightmares feel sorry for me. They let me be, and I drift in a soft, gray unknowing. I want to stay here forever.
Chapter 34 – Tarren
Far away, I feel something. A light pressure traveling down my back like a single raindrop. The touch is soft, playful. Slowly it pulls me up from deep layers of sleep. My thoughts are blurry, indistinct. All I know is that I like the touch. I let out a small sigh of pleasure.
Then I realize. Touch. Skin.
I jolt awake, twisting away from the touch. My hand reaches out and weakly grips a sheet bunched at my waist. I pull it up as I flip onto my back. The movement sets off a cascade of pain so widespread that I can’t pinpoint its origin. The pain echoes through me, wave after wave. It helps push away the thick clouds of drowsiness.
“Such a shame,” says a teasing voice.
I pull open my gummy eyelids. Danielle leans over me, her long curtain of black hair dangling between us. “That you hid all those beautiful scars from me. I always wondered why you never took your clothes off. Assumed it was a dominance thing your little ego needed.”
The pain is backing down, localizing into my torso. My head aches dully, and my right hand is numb, and I glance over at it, note the tight cinch of bandages. A slow look around tells me that the room is unfamiliar. Too timidly decorated to be anything other than a hotel room. A nice one by the feel of the silky sheets against my skin and the plump pillow under my head. Danielle doesn’t do things by halves.
With difficulty, I clench my abs and push myself into a sitting position. Dizziness hits me hard, and I close my eyes, struggling to regain my equilibrium. Stay calm. Assess the situation. My brain is working slowly, but I still know that I cannot show weakness, especially now. Pretending that the single sit-up didn’t require a monumental effort, I fix Danielle with a hard glare.
“Where are my clothes?”
Her mouth moves into a small pout. “I couldn’t wake you up at all yesterday, so you pissed yourself, and…” She holds up two fingers and wiggles them with a smile. “You definitely don’t want your pants back, and as for your shirt…” Her eyes drift to my chest. I resist the urge to pull the sheet higher. “I deserved some compensation for cleaning you up.”
I keep my expression steady, refuse to show the red hot humiliation that stirs even through the slow sludge of my thoughts. Find the exit, I think. Look for weapons.
“I’ll need new clothes,” I say to her simply.
“Oh, I’ll get you new clothes.” Her amused smile flickers back to life. “But first you need food.” She stands up from the bed and returns with a plastic grocery bag. From within she pulls out a bottle of water and a plastic wrapped protein bar.
“I wasn’t sure what flavor you preferred. You never did care to stick around for dinner.”
I am hungry. Ravenous. And thirsty too. My entire focus zeros in on the protein bar resting between her manicured fingers. It could be Styrofoam flavored, and I would still eat it, but I show only disinterest. My mind is slow, but it’s working. I’ve felt this consuming weakness before, this hollowness.
“You drained me,” I accuse, “again.”
Danielle sits back down on the bed, placing a palm on my thigh over the sheets. “Wasn’t me,” she says. “Not that I wouldn’t like to.” The hunger in her eyes has always carried that double meaning.
The sunlight paints streaks in her dark hair. She hands over the protein bar. I reach with my right hand, pause at the mangled mess of it, and then take the bar with my left. Can I still shoot? My aim is weaker with my left, but I’ve always practiced with both hands.
Danielle watches me closely as I work to tear the packaging. I am able to bend the thumb and forefinger on my right hand a little; the rest of the fingers on that hand don’t move at all. Stay calm. Use your left. I will need to assess the full extent of the damage later.
“A good thing you were out cold,” Danielle says. “I had to dig the bullet out of your arm with a pair of pliers. Quite a bit of blood. Ruined my favorite pair of Seven Jeans. God knows what the hotel is going to charge me for the sheets.”
She doesn’t offer to help open the packaging on the bar. I refuse to use my teeth. My body begs for the sustenance, and at last my clumsy fingers get it open. Carefully, I bring it to my mouth, take an average bite, and force myself to chew before swallowing.
The pain in my chest rises and falls with each breath. I look down and study the bruise splayed across my left pectoral, almost black in the center. Florid blues and greens ring its edges. Where…How? My mind struggles to remember.
“That was a mean little trick you tried to pull,” Danielle says. Her hand moves up and down my thigh. I have to make an effort to listen to her words. My body desperately needs these calories. I remember with a sense of appropriate irony the fact that Rain Bailey was in this exact position less than two months ago.
Danielle’s hand moves higher.
Well, not this exact position.
“You tried to reneg on our agreement.” She lays her head on my shoulder. “Probably thought you were being heroic letting her drain you. Sacrificing your life for hers, but you know what I think?” Danielle turns her face and kisses my shoulder. “I think that was a shit thing to do to your sister. And not very nice to me either. We had a deal.”
I curl my hand around the empty protein bar wrapper. I want another one. Need another one. But Danielle’s words are disconcerting. I look around the hotel room again. I’m missing something. Something big.
Maya. A flash of memory. Her hand on my chest. The tugging sensation. Gabe’s voice babbling. His face in mine, eyes wide with worry.
“What happened?” I turn toward Danielle. “Did he get her out? Is she alive?”
This hotel room suddenly seems ominous. I have a stark feeling of being completely unmoored in time. What day is it?
“He got her out, and I got you out,” Danielle says. Her mouth moves up to my neck and she takes skin between her teeth. I barely feel it.
“Where’s my phone? They’ll be looking for me.” My eyes search the floor, the chair, the desk for any sign of my clothes.
“Trust me, they won’t.” Danielle leans backs. “Water? More food? You probably need a lot, huh? All these bothersome human needs.” She twists the cap off the water bottle.
I realize that there’s only one question of importance. “Are they safe?”
Danielle looks down at the water bottle in her hand and then up at me. “It should have been enough, the energy you gave her. If they got her to another food source quickly, she should be fine. I mean, I’ve never seen anyone that starved before, but she just needed energy, and you gave her a lot.”
“And Gabe?”
She holds out the water bottle. “Drink.”
“Tell me.”
“He’s alive.”
I accept the bottle and take a long pull. Then I register her answer. The clip of her voice.
“What?” I make the word a growl.
“He just…you know, wasn’t very happy.”
“Wasn’t happy about what?”
Danielle takes her time, reaching over the side of the bed, then placing two more protein bars in my lap. She traces a long scar down my arm. “They’re beautiful, Tarren, they really are.”
I shudder at her words, at the shame her eyes make me feel as they dote on my bare skin.
“Why wasn’t Gabe happy?”
She touches a round burn mark on my bicep. “I found something in your pocket, after I got you out of the house.” Danielle’s words are low. “You know how I like to push your buttons, Tarren.”
I don’t understand. The memories of the battle are shaky and out of order. But then it comes, the memory of what Gabe offered me. The thing I didn’t want to take.
“You found the detonator,” I say.
“Isn’t it elegant, darling?” Danielle says. “You couldn’t have gotten out of the house on your own. They knew that. They won’t come looking for you.” The tip of her manicured finger follows a long white scar from my shoulder, down my chest to the tip of the sheet. “You got to die a hero and save your poor little sister. The perfect sacrifice.”
I consider this. It will be bad for Gabe, but maybe for Maya he’ll hold himself together. When she’s well she’ll take care of him. She will go on, and he will too, eventually. It’s what I’d told myself again and again when I made Danielle that promise, when I’d hoped to cheat her out of it by dying.
“You can’t go back.” Danielle’s voice is hard. “We had a deal.”
A wave of weariness crashes through me. My eyes dip closed, but I force them open. “I know,” I say simply. “I’ll keep my word.”
Now what? My life yawns open in front of me, empty of the only people who gave it meaning. I should begin planning, preparing. I’ll start with an assessment of my injuries. Then find new clothes. Next, a discussion with Danielle of what our deal specifically entails… My eyes are so heavy, and I feel the water bottle slipping from my grip.
“Here.” Danielle’s words are soft. I feel her lifting me, shifting me down onto the pillows. The pain in my chest is dull, receding. I recognize that this is embarrassing, that I can’t show her any weakness.
“Don’t,” I manage. I pull the sheet up and over my shoulders.
“Rest,” she says. I feel her lips touch my temple. “We’re going to be family.” The whispered words follow me down into the abyss of exhaustion.
Chapter 35 – Gabe
The bastards are everywhere, swarming toward me like roaches. My fingers flick across the controller raking them with a torrent of lasers, tearing them up. It’s that easy. Hit buttons. Rain down destruction. Don’t even have to get up off the couch. I spot an enemy coming on my 2:00.
“Close your eyes. Think of the happiest day of your life.” The memory floats out of the storm of my thought. Abby had been so scared as I’d stepped behind her and raised my Beretta. With every blink, I can see her red-rimmed eyes and running nostrils. I can feel the floor shaking with her power as she sobbed. “Our wedding day. Cake on his nose,” she’d stuttered. “Dancing in his arms.” That was her last memory.
I reach down and grab the bottle of Johnnie Walker from the floor.
Mostly empty. I make it emptier.
I look back at the television meaning to make some pretty holes in the motherfucker who’s almost on top of me, but my fingers slide across the wrong button and a grenade dribbles out of my hand. God dammit. I look down at the grenade. The Covenant fighter is up my ass at this point. The grenade goes off, blowing us both to hell.
“I’ll be back soon.” Next up to bat in the shitty memory vault are the last words I ever said to Tarren. His eyes had been so heavy and glazed. All the blood running down his arm. He obviously didn’t believe me. Otherwise, why would he have…
I’m back on the field. I’ve lost my damn sniper rifle. My fingers move automatically, mowing down grunts. For being a super soldier, my character is a mite clumsy. Keeps running into walls, falling off of cliffs. Makes me wonder if the guy’s wasted right in the middle of a battle for earth.
Johnson and Arbiter, my posse, are squawking in my ear, running forward as they fire. They’re just C.I. When I’d set up the gaming console two days ago, I’d fallen in with a couple of real guys over the net. Too bad they kept running into my bullets and then throwing hissy fits in my headset.
Good riddance.
Chuck Norris can stare down an eclipse…and win.
More squawking. Seems Johnson and Arbiter are pissed about something. Oh yep, I’m standing out in the open, letting the Covenant bad guys turn me into Swiss cheese. No worries though. In a second, I’m alive again at the start of the level.
Convenient, that.
“Where’s Tarren?”
I twist around on the couch, kicking over the bottle between my feet. “Dammit.” I swoop down to catch Johnny, except my best friend’s already bleeding out onto the hardwood floor.
“There goes the deposit,” I say, and it’s kind of funny, so I laugh. Then I look back at Maya. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, just a few dozen feet from the couch. She’s wearing clothes, so that’s a good start. One of my t-shirts and a pair of my boxers. Did I bring her bag in from the car? I try to think but can’t remember.
“Did I let you out?” I ask.
Her hair is wet, hanging limp down the sides of her thin face. “You left the door unlocked the last time you fed me.”
How long ago was that? I squint at the runny numbers on my watch. Almost three hours ago. Hmmmm, now that she mentions it, I do vaguely remember hearing the water running through the pipes.
“I found a knife in your room. It took me a while to saw through all the plastic ties,” Maya continues.
I look back to the game where poor Master Chief is getting annihilated again. The guy should really be more careful. I hit the pause button and then turn back to Maya. I wait to see if she will kill me.
We stare at each other. I reach for the bottle, remember that it’s empty.
“I found the rest of the mice,” she says finally. Her voice is soft. She looks like she was built out of toothpicks.
“Tarren’s gone,” I blurt out, because I can’t use the real word. The final one.
Maya digests this info. Her eyes flick to the table, where I’ve been lining up my conquered bottles. Least I can kill something.
“What happened?” Her voice is so small, so sad.
“You know, I never liked watching you with the mice,” I tell her. “Creepy. Your face gets so zoned out. And you squeeze ‘em like you could choke the energy right out of ‘em. Always felt bad for the little guys. I wanted to set up the Prism for you. I tried, actually, but I couldn’t get the little mirrors to all work together. Weird, right? Seems like something I should have gotten around to learning.”
“Gabe,” her voice cracks. “What happened? Where’s Tarren? Where are we?”
“Finally had a chance to check my email. You know, haven’t had much down time recently. Dr. Lee’s estate got through probate. He left us a little bit of money, and Francesca too. You like it?” I wave my hand around our rustic home, particularly the huge flat screen in front of me. “Found it on Airbnb. Fancy, right? I’ve always wanted to spend more time in New Hampshire. Not sure why, but it always seemed nice. Clean. Like, bad shit never happens in New Hampshire. You never hear about New Hampshire serial killers or New Hampshire sex perverts or Housewives of New Hampshire.”
Maya looks at me for a long, long time. Or maybe it just feels long.
“You seem a little better,” I say, and it’s true. She doesn’t look quite so almost dead. Just mostly dead. My shirt hangs on her. No suggestion of boobs. Her legs are spindles. In a flash, I see her in that tiny attic room, clutching onto Tarren, her eyes glazed and empty as she squeezed him like all those mice.
I look away, un-pause my game, start shooting anything that moves. I forget again that the whiskey is spilled and reach down for a drink. Fuck a gibbon. When I haul myself up to grab another bottle, Maya is gone.
Chapter 36 – Maya
I feel as though I have walked through a mirror and ended up on an alien shore. A place where Gabe cannot smile. Where the beauty of the large house we live in is ugly and cold. A place of no mission. No purpose. Only terrible memories.
They hit me at odd times throughout the day. Suddenly, I’m back in the little attic room. The chains squeeze my ankles, and the single wedge of sunlight hovers over the white line where I cannot follow. In these waking nightmares, the ceiling cranks downward, pushing me to my knees, then to all fours, and finally face down on the floor. A puddle of crimson blood, Gem’s blood, wells up from the floorboards, and I can taste it in my mouth as the ceiling crushes me. My body breaks, my skin and muscles and bones oozing into the floor, becoming a permanent part of the house.
“You are cleansed,” Heather’s voice says, awed with delight.
Then I blink, and I am back in this rustic home with vases full of fake flowers on every table, crocheted pillows on the couches, and sunlight sluicing through the big picture windows. Always, my throat is tight, my knees are liquid, and my eyes burn with tears. I have to touch things, the big knots embedded in the wooden shelves, the sharp corner of the cabinets in the kitchen, to pull myself back to this limbo.
I don’t know what to do with myself, so I try to take care of Gabe. I wait for him. To do what? I’m not sure. Tell me what happened to Tarren. Decide to focus on the mission again. Something. He brought me here. He holds the narrative that I’m missing. He will tell me when we can leave.
I find car keys splayed on the kitchen counter next to the careful line of empty alcohol bottles I’ve been collecting to keep track. Gabe isn’t bothering with beer. Only the hard stuff. A lot of whiskey. Some rum. Vodka. One bottle of cheap tequila to mix things up.
The keys lead me to a lemon-colored Mustang in the driveway, the last kind of car Tarren would ever approve. I wonder if the rental plates are a new subterfuge, until I check the paperwork in the glove box. Gabe is going legit, and this is only one more troubling clue that something fundamental has changed. I drive around what turns out to be a very charming town. The sun is bright in the morning sky, already kindling a thick blanket of heat, and the sidewalks are filled with people walking their dogs. The utter normalness of it all seems very, very far away.
At the grocery store, I use the wad of twenties I found in the cup-holder of the car to buy things Gabe likes. Hot dogs, chips, peanut butter and jelly, Lucky Charms, and raw cookie dough trundle down the belt of the checkout station followed by the things that he needs, like apples, bananas, milk, carrot sticks, and orange juice. The young clerk keeps a smile plastered on her lips, but her aura sags in listless boredom. I wear two layers of long-sleeve shirts and two pairs of pants to help fill out my figure enough so that no one stares.
_preview.jpg)
