Flying, page 3
part #5 of Girl With Broken Wings Series
Four months since I last visited Danielle. Four months since her cruel, full-lipped smiles. These thoughts invade my quiet mental sanctuary, and so I acknowledge them, place them into a box, and press the lid down tight.
I almost make it to the Colorado border without thinking of Dr. Lee, but slowly over the hours, the reality starts breaking through. I started seeing the signs of illness last year, and I knew what was happening. And wasn’t he an old man even when I was a child? Didn’t he get more years than most? Still, the tang of loss remains.
Dr. Lee was the only steadfast shoal in our dangerous lives as we grew from children into adults. He oversaw our homeschool studies, answered my questions as best he could, and let me read through his shelf of books. I shake away these thoughts. Grief is distracting. Dangerous. So I imagine what my grief might look like, flooding like dye into my aura as Danielle explained it. Red. She said that all types of pain are red. I carefully carve the grief out of my aura, all that red settling into my palms. I pour it into a perfect metal box inside my mind and close the lid. Gone. Deep breath. The process is almost easy now.
I pass into Utah, and the burnt, dry landscape doesn’t change. Rolling hills loom in the distance, cold rock overlooking this nearly barren land. It would be lifeless except for the clusters of cacti holding vigil, waiting for the sparse water the sky rarely gives.
Danielle’s dark eyes flash in my mind, filled with lust and acid. I can almost feel myself drawing inextricably closer to her; can hear the contemptuous laugh that pries open even my strongest control. But I will resist. My mind is master.
The Danielle box is getting crowded, but I find room for these new thoughts. In the vacancy of my mental space, old worries crowd in. No matter how many times I carve the worry out, I always seem to leave a seed behind to grow and fester once again.
The angels will be discovered. Soon. Their numbers swell and so do their victims. More bodies every day. More witnesses spouting wild claims of energy sucking demons. More vigilantes are taking up arms. The Totem is trying to do a good thing, grooming those determined to fight into semi-trained squads, but every new person who knows the secret is another liability.
The squads have done better than I expected, but a few weekends of training won’t teach them to be invisible for a lifetime, to make the metal boxes and seal away the faces of the dead. It won’t teach them how to lose something irreplaceable and find a way to keep going.
But you haven’t learned that lesson either, I think.
They will need to learn to live with broken hearts, then. Perhaps the lesson was already learned last year in Tuscaloosa. Up in Champaign, Hawk is also a concern, but he hasn’t made a deal with the district attorney, so far.
Too many people in the field. Too many mistakes. So many ways for the secret of the angels to slip out. The internet is already bubbling with conspiracy theories and a few journalists are cracking through the myth of the Hercules epidemic. According to Gabe, Hercules is actually a real drug, but it usually just makes users giggle uncontrollably and sweat profusely. Some clever angel in a high up office linked the tiny drug trend to the growing police reports about super-strong, super-fast killers. Now the news has latched onto the growing epidemic of strung out criminals littering parks, beaches, and alleyways with bodies.
I know a speed change is coming up, and there it is. Down to 45 and then 35 as I hit a small, barely alive town straddling the highway. A silver BMW rushes past me, heedless of the speed. Flashing lights erupt behind me, followed by the loud wail of a siren. I pull in a slow breath. Steady, I think. The plates I have on won’t match the Jeep. That will be the officer’s first clue. Will he come over to check it out anyway, or will he call for backup?
I slow and begin to pull over. I know what to do. If the officer gets out of the car and approaches my window, I can shoot him with my tranquilizer gun, which I’ve already un-holstered and hold in my left hand just below the window. If my luck holds, no one will see, and I can drag him back behind his car and get enough of a lead before they call out a car to investigate.
If I am not lucky, he will stay with his car, waiting for backup. Then I will need to take off and try to open up a gap between us. It won’t be much. He’ll recover quickly, and there aren’t many options on this long stretch of highway. I might be able to bait him into swerving off the road if he hasn’t trained in high speed chases. But most likely, I’ll need to duck into the next town. I just need exactly two minutes and 26 seconds of uninterrupted cover to grab all the IDs and the weapons. I’ll have to leave most of the uniforms, the digging equipment, and the med-kit. Those would be tough losses, but we’ve had to abandon them before. The weapons and the IDs are the hardest and riskiest to replace. And once I am out of the car, I can stash the weapons and find somewhere to hide or blend. It will just be a waiting game after that. Taking my time, stealing a low-risk car, and continuing to Lo’s.
I pull onto the side of the road, but leave the engine running. My hand is steady on the tranq gun.
The police car whizzes past. I watch it pull behind the silver BMW a quarter mile ahead. I release another slow breath, willing my shoulders to untense. I slip the safety on the tranq gun and tuck it back into the holster under my arm. I carefully pull onto the road and hug the speed limit as I pass the officer and the BMW. A middle-aged woman sits rigid in the driver’s seat. Her eyes hide behind large sunglasses and her mouth is tight.
At least you don’t have to run for your life from a speeding ticket, I think.
***
On the long, flat roads of Utah, I fill two more boxes with thoughts of Dr. Lee, and one box with all the tempting things Danielle whispered in my ear before our last parting. As I get closer to Los Vegas, to Lo’s lab, my speculation shifts to the Cure. My mind brims with boxes, all packed with worries and frustrations surrounding the Cure…and a single small box, lid so tightly sealed, that contains such dangerous seedlings of hope.
Every test on the living subjects was successful -- the process entirely consistent regardless of size, age, race, and gender. A momentous milestone. All that suffering and fear jotted down in neat, analytical notes in our files. But the compound isn’t stable. It burns itself up so quickly, and it can’t move from one host to another. So many steps yet to take, so many frustrating failures still ahead of us. Science, I’ve learned, is failing until you’ve cornered the truth and it exhaustively raises its hands in surrender.
When the Cure is more stable, when we’ve found a reliable dispersal method, then I will tell Gabe and Maya. They will understand the necessity of it.
I cross over into Nevada, and I can almost hear Danielle’s dangerous laugh bubbling along the side of my neck. I try not to notice that her exit is approaching, but my body betrays me. How to build a box strong enough to contain all of Danielle?
Why does she make you so weak? I ask myself. Her exit is right in front of me. Another name crackles through my mind, a name that never truly leaves my thoughts. Tammy.
Danielle makes me weak, because together she and I protect Tammy.
My hands move on the wheel. I take the exit. Danielle will greet me with that dangerous, lazy smile. The one that always says, I knew you’d be back. My body fills with anticipation and heat.
Chapter 4 – Maya
I sit crossed-legged on my bed and stare out at the gloomy sky. Day three of no sunlight. I set up the Prism this morning, hopeful that the few rays breaking through the clouds would be enough to reflect through the system of small mirrors and channel a beam of energy-filled sunlight into my body.
Fail.
My hands tremble, and I feel the need coursing through my body as it used to in the old days before the Prism. Consider me one Hungry, Hungry Hippo.
I’ll need to hunt in the woods today, snatch a few unfortunate squirrels and drain them to fuel myself. Tarren mandated that I always keep a small colony of rats on hand for times like this, but the garish, plastic rat gulag Gabe bought me for my birthday almost three years ago sits empty in the basement. With all of our travel, I simply couldn’t keep it going. Francesca fed and watered them for a while, but I think it got a lot harder once Gabe dropped the truth bomb on her, and she learned that her furry, squeaky little friends were dinner, not pets.
I push the hunger deep, deep down. I’ve got other things to occupy my mind. Rain is coming, and the jittery excitement of his pending arrival is taking up nearly all the hard drive in my brain. I have my laptop open in front of me. Nominally, I’m teaching myself Spanish, since we’ve been doing more jobs in Florida and the South West, but the truth is my mind is wandering away like a toddler at an amusement park.
Spanish sentences bounce uselessly off my eyeballs. I glance around the room and realize how little I’ve changed it in the three years I’ve lived here. My clothes hang in the closet, and the small vanity in the corner now holds various tubes of mascara and pencils of eyeliner, but Diana has never left. Her tiny, delicate bottles of her perfume still take up most of the vanity, and the huge, oak bookshelf in the corner groans with the weight of her books. One entire row of the bookshelf is dedicated to Greek and Roman mythology, and my eyes find the slight gap that I know belongs to The Odyssey.
One shelf is filled with pictures instead of books, and I look away before my eyes get caught again, exploring every inch of Diana’s face trapped between the frames. It’s always the wedding photo I look at first, the one when she is youngest, most carefree.
I perk up, my ears catching the faint rumble of a truck in the distance. Rain! He’ll park it a half mile away in the woods, even though Tarren – a.k.a. professional parade rainer -- is not expected back for another day.
The waiting is interminable. Paciencia, I tell myself, but my heart beats a fast staccato as if that will hurry things along. I close my eyes and try to count his steps in my mind, imagining him walking through the trees, his left leg dipping with that ever-so-slight limp.
Three endless months and six days since I’ve seen his crooked smile and the little freckles on his neck, since I’ve gotten a kiss on my nose, because he’s utterly weird like that. I’ve got to be careful, though. It’s almost hard to tell the difference between my passion and my appetite. They both fill me, electrifying all of my senses.
And there! I feel his aura, a tiny charge of awareness entering at the edge of my mind. It grows stronger and stronger as he approaches. Then I pick up on the faint sound of his footsteps. Honestly, he could come in through the front door, but it’s better if we give Gabe plausible deniability just in case Tarren ever discovers our forbidden and torrid love affair.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” Rain says below my window, “let down your hair.” He keeps his voice low, but he knows I can hear him.
I throw open the window, grin down at him, and then drop the small rope. It goes taunt in my hands as he jumps up, planting his feet on the side of the house. As he walks up, I hold the rope steady in my hands, barely feeling the tug. As usual, Rain’s woodsy cologne precedes him into the room. I kind of like that I still make him nervous enough that he douses himself in the stuff and hopelessly over-gels his hair.
Rain, in all his spy-like glory, makes about as much noise as a stampede of elephants wearing tap shoes as he proceeds upwards. Someone in the celestial checkout line must have gotten an extra dose of grace, because Rain came into this world without a single drop of it. But I love him anyway, clouds of cologne and all, especially when one long arm and then another grasps the edge of my window, and he pulls his head up, cheeks slightly flushed with effort.
“Ahoy there, Buffy,” he says as one foot comes over the sill.
“Ahoy, Lancelot. Have you come to rescue me from my tower?”
“Oh yes. Watch how good I rescue you,” he says and promptly falls the rest of the way through the window, flopping on the ground like a dead fish.
“Wow, I think the dragon fled in fear of that gallant entrance,” I say as I quickly pull the rope up and wind it around my arm.
Rain pulls himself to his knees, mildly ruffled but unperturbed. “Yeah, he’d better run,” he says and flashes a smile that dazzles me. I’ve missed him so, so, so much; those sleepy brown eyes, the brown hair as untamed as ever, the long, lean limbs; and his aura, filled with tantalizing colors, now growing more heated as deep shades of purple bloom within it.
I want to be one of those girls who can throw herself passionately into his arms, open her lips, and worry about nothing but the rush of contact. I want so desperately to be human. But I’m not, so I place myself carefully into his arms and give him the briefest, chastest of kisses, feeling his aura wrap around me like a forbidden cloak. He kisses the tip of my nose to complete the ritual. The song of my hunger begins hitting strident keys in my brain. I pull away, creating the distance that makes my body ache for different reasons.
Rain allows me to retreat from his embrace. He is too understanding. Too kind. Sometimes I wish he’d fight to hold onto me, but those are stupid, dangerous thought. Space is exactly what I need. I sit on the bed, and he follows, sitting close enough that I could lay my hand atop his. His aura teases and taunts, but I keep my control in check.
“How are the recruits?” I ask.
“The Sharks are kicking some serious ass,” he tells me. “New York is crawling with wings, and they clip a few every week.”
“Impressive, considering they only hunt part-time,” I say.
“New York is all close quarters. Makes it easy to find ‘em,” Rain says with a shrug.
The Sharks are a lesbian couple out of the Bronx, Hammerhead and Dolphin. I remember Rain telling me that Hammerhead was a nightclub bouncer and Dolphin a tattoo artist who specializes in intricate flowers. I’ve pointed out to him on several occasions that a dolphin is most definitely not a type of shark, but he just shrugs. The Squad names still need some work.
“Any new teams in the pipeline?”
Rain nods. “Bear is training three new Watchers, and we have a new woman, Ladybug, setting up cameras in Ontario. Oh, and another Funder came through. He’s buying six pairs of shoes a month.”
“Nice,” I say, which doesn’t even begin to cover how damn impressive it all is. When Rain told me about his crazy plan to create a heavily guarded online forum to recruit more fighters for the cause, I wasn’t sure he could pull it off. But a year and a half later, he has three trained Squads in the field roving around appointed territories, as well as Jaguar, a lone Hunter in Juarez. Add to that a network of fourteen Watchers who volunteer varying amounts of time each day to study traffic on the small heat sensor cameras that have been secreted in hundreds of nooks and crannies across the country…and then there’s the shoe company.
Rain falls back on the bed, his eyes immediately getting lost in the drawing taped to the ceiling. It’s the only decoration in this entire room that is mine. Well, half mine. The other half belongs to a memory.
“I like it,” Rain says. “I don’t really know what it is, but I like it.”
I lay back on the bed with him. “It’s a dream,” I explain, looking again at the familiar streets of Avalon. Such a naive sanctuary. “A magical island where nothing bad can ever happen. See, there’s a park in the middle where anyone can just lay out with a book or take a nap in the sun.”
“Or check Facebook.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Yeah, I guess that too. But look, see how the streets are all interconnected and lead out in widening circles? And there are solar panels all around the edge of the island, and wind turbines creating electricity. It’s all self-sustaining.”
“Any angels on your island?”
“None. They’re not allowed. Everyone is checked before they can come over on the ferry.”
Rain folds his arms under his head. “Maybe I’ll retire there someday.”
The irony laced in his words stabs me in the belly. It makes me want to grip this moment and wrap it around both of us so that we can never leave.
“It’s a good drawing,” he says. “You do it?”
I turn on my side. I haven’t told him about Ryan, not because I think he’ll be jealous, but because…I don’t know why. I don’t want his pity or uncertainty. I don’t want Ryan to become a part of this new, weird, already complicated relationship.
“You selling a lot of shoes?” I ask.
Rain looks at me with a grin. “Yep. Four boots this month so far.”
It was Bumble Bee’s idea. I haven’t met the hard-charging business consultant yet, but Rain tells me that he is as acerbic as he is smart and dedicated to the cause. They couldn’t collect online donations from forum users without reporting the money, so Bumble Bee came up with the idea of creating an online business selling nonexistent shoes for $50, $100, and $500 a pop. Those who don’t want to put their neck on the line as a Totem Hunter and don’t have the time to watch video feeds as a Watcher can always be a Funder.
“Do you actually give them anything for buying the shoes?”
“Oh yeah,” Rain says, turning his face to me. “I draw a picture of sandals or heels or boots on a little card, whichever one they ordered and send it to them.”
I choke out a laugh. “You draw them a picture of shoes?”
“They love it,” Rain says. “They think it’s funny. Bumble Bee approves. Said it gives the transaction a personal touch or something. One of the Funders, she told me that she hangs the pictures on her bathroom mirror. It reminds her that she’s helping us fight. Helping us buy guns, gas, and plane tickets so we can train more Squads.”
I see the change in his aura immediately, the loveable, awkward Rain I knew shifting into business mode as mind returns to all the levers and pulleys that he, Bear, and Chain have to constantly manage. I realize how remarkable he is, how much he’s changed the fight. The fight has changed him too. I see new edges in his personality. Less smiles, and more sharp corners. And he looks tired, like he’s being dragged through life instead of keeping up with it. We both knew his plan would put Totem members in the ground. And it already has.
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