The Phoenix Creation, page 16
Alya nodded and maybe Zeph noticed her gulp. He was very close and she had to crook her neck awkwardly to look up at him, but she was determined to meet his gaze. She looked into his blue eyes and they seemed to pierce right through hers as if he could see into her thoughts, as though he knew what she was thinking.
‘I understand, Zeph,’ she said at last.
‘Good.’ He broke their gaze first, and Alya suddenly felt a wave of sadness breaking on the periphery, of the chaos clouding her mind. She wanted to process it more thoroughly but there wasn’t time. She understood that Zeph was saying goodbye and quickly at that, and she needed to ensure help was coming for Hanuel.
She twisted the dials and a few moments later she heard a firm, reassuring voice.
‘C1 Ocean Rescue. Is that, Alya Clarendon?’
‘Y—yes sir, it is,’ said Alya chokingly, the tears sprang to her eyes with relief, but that was as far as they were allowed to go.
‘Are there two of you?’ demanded the voice over the airwaves.
‘There is sir, but my friend is badly hurt. We need help immediately.’
There was a rustling sound and murmuring as someone took over from the original responder and then a calm, level voice spoke.
‘Alya, this is, Chief Lavra, of C1 Ocean Rescue, it’s good to hear your voice young lady. We will be with you as soon as possible, we’re estimating an hour, do you think you can hold on till then?’
Alya didn’t know what it was but something in the chief’s voice instantly soothed her, and her shoulders drooped as she realised, she’d been carrying all her worry for Hanuel up high, almost matching his shallow struggling breaths.
‘Yes sir,’ she said quietly. She looked up at Zeph and he put one hand on her back and patted her reassuringly. He seemed awkward as he did so, and Alya felt like he was stepping out of his comfort zone for her sake. It was only a moment and then he motioned for her to click the radio off so they could speak privately.
‘I have to go, Alya,’ said Zeph.
Alya nodded and followed him outside onto the landing platform where the sun beat down upon them, as if it had been there all along. Alya could just about make out the tail end of the smog-like storm as it continued east, lightning flashing from its bowels as it rampaged its angry way, circumnavigating the world.
‘Zeph, wait,’ hurried Alya. ‘Thank you, Zeph. We wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you.’
Zeph smiled and nodded then turned to launch.
‘Wait!’ she cried. She hadn’t finished what she’d actually wanted to say. ‘Tell Leo I miss him, and, and tell him to come home, we’ll work it out.’
‘I will,’ said Zeph, and he smiled and turned again.
‘Wait!’ This time Zeph turned his full attention to her.
‘Alya?’ he said softly, waiting for her response.
Alya felt ridiculous but she had to say it; ‘Zeph, will I ever see you again?’
Zeph pursed his lips together his eyes were light and danced in the sun and he frowned briefly then smiled and said slowly. ‘You know, I have this feeling that we will definitely meet again,’ he turned and politely waited until Alya had given him space, then launched like a rocket, vertically, from the platform.
Alya gasped partly as the gust of wind he’d created consumed her momentarily and partly because of the speed at which he launched. She watched as Zeph’s blonde wings, matching his hair, absorbed the golden sun above, making for a surreal effect as if he had flown down from heaven above. He didn’t look back as he set a southerly trajectory and flew quickly away.
Alya watched until he was out of sight and then rushed back to Hanuel, telling him calmly that help was on its way.
They waited only twenty minutes until the rescue team arrived. Eight burly men and a petite female doctor launched into action prepping the patients for retrieval. Alya insisted she didn’t need the stretcher they’d provided for the journey home and the doctor reluctantly agreed to let her fly. Hanuel was jabbed with a needle and administered oxygen from a tank secured to the foot of the stretcher he’d been strapped to.
The rescue team set off at a cracking pace and Alya was almost sorry she’d declined the stretcher home, but then she got her second wind and by the time land came into view she was leading the field, all the way to South-East Hospital where both her and Hanuel’s concerned parents waited next to the ER entrance.
Hanuel had roused at the sound of his mother’s voice in his ear, and he looked up groggily searching for Alya first, and groaning her name.
‘I’m here, Han,’ said Alya, clasping his hand as the rescue team allowed them a moment’s respite. ‘You’re safe, you’re at the hospital.’ Suddenly Alya felt a tear trickle down her cheek and then another and then she loosened Hanuel’s hand from hers and the rescue team shuttled him through the main doors and out of sight. Alya watched him go then turned to the familiar presence next to her as her head found her mother’s shoulder, where she buried her face and sobbed.
11
Progress
‘How is she today?’
‘Vesta, you know Alya, almost as well as I. How do you think she is? Without her best friend to play with?’
Alya heard Vesta laugh.
‘Utterly bored then,’ she said.
Alya smiled at the nail-on-the-head response from Hanuel’s mother. She padded quietly along the tiled hallway from her bedroom to the lounge.
It was day three of her and Hanuel’s recovery after their ordeal. Alya had reluctantly stayed in hospital overnight where they had monitored her condition. Amongst great protest, she had even returned to the dreaded scanner that she’d spent so much time in as a little girl, and allowed them to scan her lungs, at the doctor’s insistence. They were concerned that the storm may have been highly toxic but Alya had insisted that it wasn’t. When asked how she knew she went quiet remembering that she couldn’t quote Zeph, for her safety and his, and her cousin’s too.
Alya was disappointed that Doctor Jama wasn’t able to tend her but the nurse had explained that he was no longer at the hospital and had taken early retirement. Alya couldn’t help but assess the nurse’s expression as she explained about Doctor Jama, and Alya knew she was hiding something and wondered if her favourite physician had done something wrong?
‘Diana,’ said Vesta, lowering her voice and changing her tone enough to make Alya pay acute attention. She stopped advancing down the hall and remained just out of sight as the two women conferred with each other while seated at the dining table.
‘You were right to be concerned,’ said Vesta. ‘Those two doctors that came here are not registered anywhere on C1. I double-checked the database and I had Artemis ask around too, just in case I’d overlooked something. I mean, they could still be doctors, but in the private sector, so we looked there too. They would still need to be registered to practice.’
‘Oh, my Gods,’ said Diana, leaning back from the table as she processed the information. ‘I knew there was something not right about them, but they knew Doctor Jama.’
‘Never mind that,’ said Vesta. ‘Whoever they are, what is their interest in our Alya? Why her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Diana.
Alya could hear the worry in her mother’s voice and she knew she had to intervene before this, whatever this was, spiralled out of control. She walked casually towards them and Vesta and Diana’s heads snapped up as she approached. The two women looked slightly guilty and her mother pushed a chair out to make room for her, as a diversion tactic.
‘I heard you,’ said Alya bluntly, dismissing the proffered chair. ‘It’s probably not anything to do with me,’ she continued. ‘It could be something or somebody related to Uncle Bruce. Did you think of that?’
Diana nodded to appease her daughter. ‘Possibly, Alya, we’re going to have to report it to Patrol and go from there I think.’
‘What? No! Don’t do that, I’m already on their radar, Mom. Just tell Uncle Bruce and he can deal with it.’
Alya’s mother appeared to suck lemon as she weighed up her daughter’s suggestion against her own.
Alya tipped her head to the side, awaiting a response. The truth was, she had bigger things to worry about, and she’d temporarily forgotten about the two bogus doctors’ existence until just now. She was a little bit concerned, but it felt like Vesta and her mother were going off track. It was probably an insurance scam, or even brazen burglars casing the joint before coming back another day. It could be something altogether different, but the main thing on her mind right now was, Zeph.
It had been three days since she and Hanuel had returned home and Alya had spent every waking moment thinking about Zeph, and The Island, also her cousin Leo and whomever it was that he was trying to protect. She was exhausted, but by her own thoughts, and not the forty-eight-hours of hell endured on the pod, that her family assumed was the root of her sleepiness.
She needed answers and she needed to share her thoughts with someone. Hanuel was out of the picture at the moment and although he was now conscious after an operation to fix his ribs, he was still very groggy, and until yesterday afternoon, a bit delirious; shouting and screaming, and lashing out at the nurses. It had been a distressing sight watching him grab for a nurse’s throat and threatening to kill him. There was no strength behind his assault and the nurse was quickly able to subdue him, but then he’d turned to Alya and asked whom it could be that he wanted to kill, and Alya without hesitation had answered; ‘Raiden.’
Alya had already given her full statement to the rescue chief who was a lovely, calm man, she had discovered, and exactly the personality she had needed to help her in the fractious hours after they’d arrived home.
At the hospital, her mother and Vesta had been extremely vocal and very angry when they’d found out what Raiden had done to Hanuel. There was pandemonium as Tal was shot down by Sol for even attempting to defend his cadet peer. When it became clear that Hanuel was going to be ok, Sol and Artemis had set off to Patrol headquarters to deal with the sensitive matter of bringing charges against an eighteen-year-old cadet who also happened to be the Patrol commander’s son.
The two men had returned to the hospital with assurances to the two mothers that Raiden would pay for his crimes, and there was talk of permanent suspension, and a short blast at the juvenile Pen. Alya still harboured thoughts of treating Raiden to a taste of his own medicine, although she kept those well and truly to herself. At one point, Tal must have read her mind as he sulked opposite her in the hospital waiting room.
‘Don’t go getting any ideas Alya, he’s being dealt with, it’s not your place.’
Alya wanted to scream at him for being so yellow-bellied. It was exactly her place! Raiden had almost killed Hanuel, and her. He’d basically left them for dead, why couldn’t Tal see it as it was?
‘Ok, Alya,’ said Diana, after she’d finished sucking lemon. ‘I’ll speak to Uncle Bruce. Maybe you’re right.’
Alya looked at her mother in surprise. Why the change of tune? She was going to accept it though, and while the going was good, she’d make a request.
‘Mom, can I go to Poppy’s today?’
‘Er, yes,’ said Diana confused. ‘Don’t you want to see Hanuel?’
Alya looked at Vesta and Vesta nodded her approval; Hanuel was still kind of out of it anyway, and she knew what a strain it was on Alya being back in a hospital environment.
‘You go, Alya,’ she said. ‘Take as long as you need, I doubt Hanuel has any concept of time at the moment, and you need a break. I’ll tell him you’re thinking of him.’
‘I’ll be back tomorrow, tell him,’ said Alya.
‘Er, er, maybe you need to take a few days honey,’ said Diana quickly. Alya couldn’t help but notice the subtle exchange between her mother and Vesta and suspected that they were still concerned about the bogus doctors, and imagining that she was safer out in the country. She decided not to argue and turned to go and pack her bag with minimal items as she intended to fly all the way. It was time she built up her fitness levels, and if Zeph could fly two-thousand-miles, then one day soon, so could she.
Alya stood on the balcony ready to launch after saying goodbye to Vesta. She hesitated, wondering if she was selfishly abandoning Hanuel, but then she had pressing questions and the only person that could answer those was Poppy. She had to go.
‘What are you doing?’ snapped Tal, approaching quietly behind her.
Damn that boy. ‘I’m flying, stupid.’ Alya wasn’t in the mood and she snapped back at her brother.
‘Mom says I’m to go with you,’ said Tal bluntly. He observed her attire; faded jeans shorts, tan suede vest, blue bandana, and Hampton beach shoes.
‘What?’ said Alya, defensively, reading her brother’s expression.
‘You look like a Boater,’ he said disdainfully.
‘As opposed to a Paris-er,’ she said ruefully, knowing that her remark would cut into her, romantically shy, brother’s ego.
Instead, he looked back at her as if her remark had flowed smoothly past without a ripple and Alya could see that the Paris effect had entranced her brother too. Gods damn that blonde-haired flirt, thought Alya, although she couldn’t bring herself to maintain a negative thought about Paris for long; maybe she’d caught the Paris effect too?
‘I guess we’re flying then?’ said Tal, removing his gilet and dropping it on the balcony sofa.
Alya noticed that he had new clothes; a smart, polo-shirt and trousers and his severe crew cut had grown back a little, adding to his newly defined casual look. Alya mused to herself that the Paris effect had really taken hold of Tal, but declined to comment further. For some reason she was secretly glad he was going to accompany her to Poppy’s. She wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined but she felt like she was on high alert since the storm, which could be due to lack of sleep or because her mind was whirring with questions and thoughts of what had happened out there, in the ocean, with Zeph.
‘We sure are,’ said Alya, as if it were no big deal.
‘Are you ok to fly, Alya?’ said Tal, his tone softened somewhat and Alya looked at him in surprise. It was the first time he’d exhibited anything close to concern since her and Hanuel’s emergency arrival at hospital, where Tal had waited quietly in the background with Poppy, watching and waiting for the chaos to settle down.
‘I’m fine,’ said Alya dismissively, and she opened the solid glass gate that allowed them to drop from the balcony into flight.
If Alya had been slightly glad that Tal was accompanying her at first, it quickly wore off, and by the time they arrived at Poppy’s she was sorry he’d come. He’d managed to stay in her slipstream the entire way even though she’d repeatedly asked him to fly buddy. He’d ignored her without a word and stayed like a predator behind her until she’d lost patience and tried to outrun him, just for fun of course, but Tal hadn’t seen it like that. Especially when they were flying over the mountains, which was usually safe on a pleasant sunny day like today, but not when you were Alya and you insisted on flying only two-hundred-feet above them, ‘not safe at all!’ Tal had screamed at her.
Alya reined it in and flew sedately the rest of the way. She couldn’t be bothered to argue with him and wondered if her energy stores were still compromised from her and Hanuel’s ordeal.
‘Poppy!’ called Alya, spying her grandpa leaving one of his many barns dotted around the farm. He was carrying a water bucket and rope and set them down carefully while waiting for his grandchildren to alight so he could hug them.
‘You’re looking smart Tal,’ said Seb, holding his grandson’s shoulders at arm’s length and scrutinising Tal’s outfit.
He kissed Alya on the cheek and his nose crinkled at the bandana and suede vest. ‘All the rage I suppose?’ he said, by way of acknowledging her outfit and Alya snuffed playfully at her grandpa’s lack of fashion knowledge as she looked down to remind herself of what she was wearing.
‘Where’s Grandma?’ said Alya, setting off to the house ahead of the others. She ran into the house and there in the kitchen cooking up a storm was her grandma and her aunt Nami.
‘Aunt Nami,’ cried Alya, running and hugging her aunt who giggled in her ear delighted to see her.
‘Alya, baby,’ rushed Nami. ‘Let me look at you.’ Her aunt held her back and examined her niece as if checking to see there were no parts of her missing. ‘Are you ok darling? You’ve had a terrible time. Did you fly here? Your mother let you fly? How’s Hanuel? Is he going to be ok? Come here,’ her aunt hugged her again and Alya knew that her aunt would be finding it a struggle to hold back the tears. The whole family were careful not to mention anything too strenuous for her fragile mind. Before Leo went missing no problem, but since, it was a different story. Her aunt was a different person and it was hard to know what approach to take, her mood could be constant, or it could change like the wind with certain triggers. Today seemed to be a good day and Alya could see when she pulled away that her aunt’s eyes glistened, but she was holding it together, and she looked happy rather than frantically worried about her niece’s safety.
‘I knew you’d be alright,’ said Nami, ‘I told Grandma and Poppy not to worry about you because you are the strongest girl I know.’ Nami tapped her head and spoke conspiratorially as if they had a secret. ‘Fly high, Aly baby. Stay in the clouds and be free. Just head out there and go where the wind blows Aly. You’ll never be happy until you’re free to fly as you please. Just cross the ocean and be free, but take a boat with you.’
Alya smiled and nodded blithely at her aunt’s slightly mystifying musings. She was pleased with the praise however, and it was the first time anyone, apart from the awed rescue chief, had said anything along those lines—that it was her strength and presence of mind that had got her and Hanuel through. It was Zeph’s too, Alya thought secretly, but she wasn’t going to tell any of them that, even though the chief had queried at least twice how she’d managed to break the door to the pod on her own. Alya had shown him her knuckles which she’d actually scraped in preparation for such questions and it seemed that that was explanation enough. Maybe the glass was terribly weathered for this little girl to have broken it so easily?
