None of them speak. I see bruises and lacerations on almost every face.

  I make it to the last stall, though my legs are barely holding me up. My brain is actively trying to eject the visions of what I’m seeing. The stench is so thick and cloying that I think I can taste it even through the filter of the bandanna.

  There are two bodies already in the stall. One is dead. A cloud of gnats fills the cavities of his eyes and crawls around his nostrils. I start gagging, even as I lower Rain onto the stained straw.

  “I tried to close his eyes, but I can’t reach him,” a paper dry voice whispers.

  This comes from the other occupant of the stall. I know that she is a young girl—teens by the cut of her hardly-there black clothes—but she looks old. Incredibly old. Her skin is pale, hanging off her face and frame like her body deflated. There are still smudges of eyeliner on her cheeks, and her Kool-Aid red hair is matted around her head. She looks part Holocaust survivor, part alien.

  Her luminous green eyes latch to my face, and I am surprised to see no fear in them…until I realize her features are bereft of any emotion; lost in a mind-numbing shock that I remember well.

  “You’re not the other ones,” she whispers.

  I nod, unsure of what to say.

  “And you’ve brought Bailey back. Is he alive?”

  I nod again and reach for the cuff. The girl watches my hand.

  “You’re wearing a funny hat,” the girl says, “and you’re all wet, which means this is just a dream.”

  I roll up Rain’s pant legs and see that both ankles are deeply gouged from the cuff. He’s waking up again, moaning and shivering. He must have some awareness of where he is, because he starts muttering, “no, no, no”.

  I push his pant legs back down and cuff him on his left leg over the fabric. I keep the cinch loose, but it must still hurt, because he flinches, and his eyes open.

  “Bailey,” the girl whispers to him. “You’re with me and Rick again.”

  Rain’s eyes drift to her and then to me, then to this cuffed ankle.

  “No, it’s not like that,” I start, but then he loses consciousness again.

  “We’re the good guys,” I whisper.

  ***

  “Alright, listen up.” Gabe’s voice is a little strained, but loud enough to echo through the barn. “My name is Agent Adama with the X-Files division. You’ve all been kidnapped and held prisoner by a deranged and violent cult. They’ve been pumping you full of drugs to keep you passive. Drugs that cause really bad trips and major hallucinations. Whatever crazy shit you think you might have seen or experienced over the last couple of days was just a result of the drugs. My partners and I took this cult down. Killed every single one of those bastards. But there are more hidden cells all over the country. They are very secretive and deadly and will come after anyone who gets in their way. The police and medical assistance are coming to free you. I strongly advise you not to talk about what has happened here, or the cult may come after you again. Oh, and don’t mention us either. We’re so hardcore and badass that the government disavows all knowledge of our existence.”

  Gabe stops, looks around, and his aura flickers again, all angry spikes of red. “I uh…” his voice is suddenly thick with gravel. “We’re very sorry for all the terrible things that have happened to you, but you’re safe now. Try to…I know this sounds like bullshit, but try and move on. My partners and I will keep fighting this cult. We’ll waste every single one of those sick fucks.”

  It’s time to go, but I haven’t moved. I’m still in the last stall on the right, listening to Rain whimper, watching the gnats feed on the eyes of the dead boy who I think must have been really handsome before he came here. I randomly notice that Rain is the only one not wearing clubbing clothes.

  I feel Tarren coming up behind me, and I know I should stand up. Face him. Walk out. But I just keep kneeling, keep letting my senses reel and overwhelm me.

  “Come on,” Tarren says. His voice is soft, not angry like I’d expect.

  “Nothing will be the same,” the girl whispers. “Ever again.” I recognize that traumatized expression.

  “No it won’t,” Tarren and I say at the same time. We look at each other. More accurately, my eyes latch onto the rock steady flow of his aura. My body naturally attunes to his energy output, and that muddy blue—hard as the granite in his face—pulls me back from the edge of panic.

  I stand up and back out of the stall. Before we go, Tarren leans over the dead boy. With the cuff of his sleeve, he wipes away the gnats from the boy’s eyes and closes his lids.

  This is how Tarren amazes me sometimes, with his strength, with these tiny glimpses of his heart just when I’d given up on him having one.

  “Thank you,” the girl says. “Now he won’t stare at me.”

  “Come on,” Tarren says to me again, but this time his words are a growl. At last I see his energy slipping away from his iron grip. All bloody reds of fury. I wonder what his aura would look like if he ever truly let it go, who he really is beneath all those layers of ice.

  Gabe is waiting for us at the entrance. “It will be over soon,” he calls out to the prisoners. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now but…” His voice cracks. “Shit. Things will get better. I swear it.”

  He pulls open the door for us, unleashing bright sunlight into this dank hell hole. Tarren leaves first. I’m about to follow him, but instead I stop and look back. These stables will haunt me, the lingering wisps of broken auras calling to that secret sense of mine. That skeletal girl with the Kool-Aid red hair and green eyes. The boy Rain, trapped here, probably because of me.

  A hand takes my arm. I look at Gabe, ashamed at the tears free falling down my cheeks.

  “I know,” he says softly and leads me out of the barn.

  Chapter 11

  Gabe takes the wheel of the Murano. I slide into the back. We pull off the bandannas and hats.

  As soon as we start moving, I say, “Call them an ambulance, Tarren.”

  “Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “When we get back to Poughkeepsie. We can’t have the fire engines and police cars see us coming from the house.”

  “People are dying back there,” I cry, surprised—though I guess I shouldn’t be—at how unhinged my voice sounds.

  “I’ll drive fast,” Gabe says, and he does. We crank over that dirt road. I’m balling my hands into tight fists while thoughts, feelings, and emotions slosh around in my brain making me sick.

  We hit a paved road. “Now. Do it now Tarren,” I say.

  He takes a heavy breath, but pulls an extra phone from the dashboard. “This clean?” he asks his brother.

  “Yeah.”

  Tarren dials 911, identifies himself as “Troy” and calmly explains that a deranged cult has set itself on fire, leaving behind a barn filled with captured innocents. Tarren describes in detail that the victims are starved and severely dehydrated, that they will need immediate calories, liquids and heat to restore their core temperature. His voice is so steady, so monotone that it’s almost unreal. He finishes the call by noting that the captives have been drugged and are hallucinating heavily.

  The voice on the other end of the phone squawks questions. Tarren cuts off the call, removes the SIM card and tosses the small green chip out the window. Then he peels off his gloves and tucks them into his pants pocket.

  We’re all quiet after this. Gabe’s energy is still crackling around him, bright and flagrant. I lie down across the backseat and tuck my feet into my chest. The silence doesn’t last. Not with Gabe in the car.

  “That’s the biggest one we’ve ever seen,” he says.

  “They’re getting bolder,” Tarren confirms.

  “And sloppy. That was an easy trail to follow.”

  “Some of those kids will talk.”

  “Yeah, but they’re so disoriented, the cops will put it down to hallucinations.”

  “It’s going to break eventually,” Tarren looks at his brother.

  Gabe shrugs. “We’ll deal when we get there. Crossing bridges and shit.” He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Maya, you saved that kid’s life. You dragged him right out of the fire.”

  “Tarren saved him,” I mumble.

  “But Tarren would have never gotten to practice his French kissing skills if it weren’t for you. You and he can go halfsies on the save.”

  “Milo,” I say, remembering the boy’s name, the ash caking his face and his weak aura. I wonder if he’ll even survive.

  “Your sense for energy is very sharp,” Tarren says, and his voice is low and careful. Is this a compliment, or merely a further acknowledgement of the danger I present? I can’t ever fucking tell what’s on his mind.

  Gabe pulls over as a squad of fire trucks speed past. Two ambulances follow.

  “Fuckers,” Gabe sighs. “You told them there were nine victims.”

  “Small town,” Tarren shrugs.

  “God dammit!” Gabe’s voice is high, flushed with all the anger swirling around him. “We put our lives on the line, and they only muster two ambulances. Some of those kids are gonna-”

  “Gabe, stop. We did what we could.” Tarren’s voice is quiet, and his eyes are pinned to the rearview mirror, to me, because the muscles are tensing in my body, and the song is calling, calling, calling on the waves of Gabe’s glowing aura.

  “Tarren, that barn…” Gabe’s voice cracks.

  “For her,” Tarren says quietly, “stay calm for her.”

  “Oh,” Gabe glances at me in the backseat. “Oh shit. Sorry.”

  “I’m…fine,” I manage through my fused jaw.

  “I didn’t, I mean…god.” Gabe throws his head forward and sighs. His aura is soothing out, pulling in close to his body. He gets back on the road, and we’re quiet again.

  As my mind shudders back to life, a new stray thought slips through my weakened barriers. Not a thought really, a sort of spark of conviction, which I study carefully. But it’s still too new, too unsettling.

  “Maya, you okay? Can a Chuck Norris joke possibly assist in any way?” Gabe is looking back at me, and he’s got his elf eyes and mischief mouth all arranged into its usual cocksure expression. “Chuck Norris can hot wire any vehicle simply by putting his hands on the steering wheel and telling the car to go.”

  I sit up, wipe off my tears. “I’m okay,” I tell him and try to mean it.

  “We should do something to celebrate your save,” Gabe continues. “Just you and me. After we get back and cleaned off, let’s break into a pound the next town over. Find you some mean, grizzled big dog that no one would ever adopt.” Gabe’s aura jumps in short little spikes. He’s lying, and I wonder what he’s really up to. “That okay with you?” He looks at Tarren.

  Usually Tarren doesn’t like to deviate from a plan or take any additional risk, no matter how small. Now, though, he just seems tired. “Don’t get caught,” is all he says.

  Back at the motel, Gabe takes the shower first. He usually sings, but today he is quiet. I remember how he slit the throat of the angel Hendricks, how those bloody bubbles slipped out of the angel’s lips just before he died. I wonder where Gabe puts these memories, how he shuts them out so effectively.

  While Gabe is preoccupied, I walk over to Tarren’s room next to ours. His shower is going too, so I wait at the door.

  I carefully unwrap that spark of conviction in my mind, feed it a few thoughts and watch it flicker into a small flame. This night has forced me to confront the uncomfortable reality that me and my problems might not be the center of the universe; that Ryan was not the only angel victim, that mine was not the only life forever torqued and spun off the blissful path of ignorance and happiness.

  There might just be other reasons to fight besides getting revenge on Grand.

  Images of the barn, those filthy, fly-infested stables filled with dead and dying teenagers, are crystal clear in my mind, every single detail preserved within my enhanced memory. This is where things are heading if the angels win.

  Tarren is quick and efficient as always, in and out of the water in less than five minutes. I feel his energy roiling hot and angry.

  This always happens when he sees his scars in the mirror. Sometimes he will stop and study them. I know, because I can feel his tortured energy pulsing through the entire house, and I caught him doing it once—something we never talk about.

  I knock softly on his door. “It’s me,” I call.

  “A minute,” he says, gruff and distracted. His energy flattens down, and I marvel at how well he controls it now. He’s a master of his moods, able to pack up his emotions and hold them tight all day. The door opens. Tarren’s wearing jeans and a gray long-sleeved shirt. His hair is wet and spikey like he just quickly rubbed a towel over it.

  “What is it?” he says. There’s a new shadow of concern on his face, and for once I think I know exactly what’s on his mind. He’s remembering how well I could feel those auras in the barn even 300 meters out. He wonders if I can feel his; if I felt his pain just now.

  I keep my face blank, trying for that same impenetrable mask that Tarren uses so successfully on me when he doesn’t want me anywhere near his thoughts and emotions.

  “I thought you and Gabe were going to break into the pound,” he says.

  “I want to fight,” I tell him.

  “I know that.”

  “No. Not just for me anymore. Not just for Ryan. I want to fight for those people in the barn. For Milo. For Sunshine and Rain.”

  “Who?”

  “I want to stop as many angels as we can, save as many people as possible.” I remember how I froze up when I had a chance to shoot Hendricks. Gabe took him down, but what if things had turned out differently? What if Hendricks had hurt Gabe, even killed him while I was a useless bystander, paralyzed with fear?

  “Okay.” Tarren backs away from the door, and I follow him into the room. Tarren turns toward the window. I think he just wants something to look at that isn’t me. “Maya, this thing we’re doing…this way we’re fighting…”

  “I’m not stupid,” I cut him off. “We don’t know how many angels are out there. We don’t know where they are. They multiply faster than you and Gabe can kill them, and I think this “cure” you’re working on is a load of bullshit.”

  I stop, expecting Tarren to contradict me. He doesn’t. What he does do is look at me, appraising me with those sharp eyes of his.

  “We’re fighting a losing war aren’t we?” I ask.

  Tarren and I stare at each other. Sometimes I want to be hard like him, cold. I feel like I’m filled with fire and it will eventually gutter me out to nothing but ash.

  “Yes,” Tarren says, “I think we are.”

  I sit on the bed. I hadn’t actually expected him to lay the truth on me. “Then why do you keep fighting?” I ask, which I know is a dumb question. Tarren’s only going to give me some recycled BS about fighting the good fight, doing the right thing, all valiant martyr.

  He surprises me again. “I’ve been wrong before,” he says.

  Now it’s my turn to appraise him. Perhaps it’s time I stop trying to read Tarren’s thoughts and just listen to the words he says.

  “Maybe you’re wrong about me too.” I look down at my gloved hands. “Maybe I’m different from the other angels.”

  “I hope so,” Tarren says. It isn’t much, but for Tarren this is progress. It’s going to be a long haul with him, and I wonder if I have the stamina for it; if Tarren’s even worth the trouble. I think about the shy smiles he very occasionally cracks, how his face can soften at odd moments when he thinks no one’s looking, how he closed the eyes of that dead boy in the barn.

  “I want to start fighting,” I tell him as forcefully as I can. “Really fighting.” I know I’m going to run out of steam in another minute, turn back into my normal puddle of terrified, but for now I go with the momentum.

  “You will, Maya, if that’s what you really want.”

  “It is.”

  Tarren nods. We have an understanding. I turn to go back to my room.

  “Maya,” Tarren calls after me. I look back at him. Sometimes I forget how handsome he is and it hits me all at once. “You did good tonight,” Tarren says.

  “Thanks,” I huff, trying to pretend like I don’t really care.

  Maybe. Maybe he’s worth the effort.

  Chapter 12

  I make the shower quick, though I would prefer to stand under the water for a couple of decades. The cloying, putrid smell of the barn won’t go away, and I know it’s mostly in my mind. Those listless eyes peering out from the darkness in the cells. The gnats converging on the dead. Rain’s battered face and the deep, crusted gouges around each ankle.

  I turn the water to scalding, but I’m still shivering and feeling angry, helpless, and completely overwhelmed.

  I finish up and dress quickly. I find Gabe in Tarren’s room. I can tell that they’ve just wrapped up one of their regular squabbles. Gabe’s aura is streaked with petulant orange, and Tarren’s face is set in granite. I assume the topic of their argument was the usual—me.

  Tarren doesn’t like it when I’m alone with Gabe. He knows that Gabe is soft on me, not cautious enough, not ready to pull the trigger and blow my brains out if I present a threat. Gabe, for his part, hates it when Tarren reminds him that I am anything other than their sister. Tarren is right to be nervous. Gabe is woefully naïve and trusting when it comes to me, but I’m not about to point out this glitch in his system.

  Gabe makes life bearable, and his ignorance of my true nature is the only way it could work, which is why I will never tell him about that night in Redmond. The night Amber died, when I came so close to…

  “Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” Gabe says gruffly. He strides out of the room. Tarren pins me with a hard stare.

  “I’ll be good,” I tell him, but I know he will worry like hell until we get back.

 

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