Angel Fever a-3, page 19
part #3 of Angel Series
Seb’s hands felt hot on the rifle. All the times he’d thought about what he’d do to his father if he ever met the cabrón, and he’d just stood there? Told him his name?
“Seb!” Willow was pulling with both hands now. “Come on! Do you want to die?”
Still cursing himself, Seb turned, and he and Willow ran, faster than ever. Seconds later they skidded into the garage. No sign of Kara and the others; two of the biggest trucks were gone.
“You need to drive,” Seb said shortly. Meghan had given him a few driving lessons, but he didn’t trust himself right now. He punched the elevator button as Willow dived into one of the remaining trucks.
When they reached ground level, both door and gate stood gaping open. Outside, it was snowing. Willow hurtled them onto the dirt road. The snow fell in big flakes that whirled towards the windshield; twisting in his seat, Seb was relieved to see it covering their tracks. The truck’s clock read 9:22. The simulation had started at nine.
All those people – almost the entire team. Seb clenched his jaw, refusing to drown in what he was feeling. Then apprehension flickered; he could sense that the angels had finished searching the base.
“Hurry – we have to hide,” he said.
Willow’s cheeks were white. “I know – I feel it too.” She lurched them off-road and steered the truck behind a large boulder. Angling them quickly into the shadows at its base, she killed the engine. In seconds, snow coated the windshield with tiny kissing noises, hiding them.
With no warning, the low roar of an explosion came, rumbling through the ground and vibrating right up through them. The car keys jingled. Willow gave a small cry, pressing her hand against her mouth; Seb swore impotently in Spanish.
The gas storage tanks under the pumps. They’d torched them. In a psychic flash, he could actually see it: the head angel changing to his human form and smirking at the others.
Watch this – the perfect finishing touch. A lit match – a shift back to his angel self before the flame had even hit the fuel. Hemmed in by a hundred tons of stone, the explosion would have surged through the base like fiery lava, scorching everything in its path.
Dully, Seb realized that the angels had erupted up out of the ground and were soaring away through the sky now, heading east. Including his father. By the time Seb could no longer sense them, the truck’s interior had grown shadowy, its windshield covered with blue-white snow.
After a long pause, Willow cleared her throat. “Maybe…maybe we should try heading north,” she said in a tiny voice. “If we’re lucky, Kara managed to get into the office and grab the coordinates for the Idaho base.”
Seb nodded. He felt numb, frozen. “Yes. Good idea.”
As it turned out, the others weren’t far ahead – they’d seen the angels and also pulled off-road to hide. Willow caught up and sent her angel cruising over the lead truck to signal it was them.
There was a tense moment when Seb wondered whether Kara was going to gun the accelerator – what had just happened probably hadn’t lessened her dislike of half-angels much. Then she waved a slim brown arm out the window.
The three trucks convoyed north. He and Willow had lapsed back into silence, keeping their auras distinctly separate, their thoughts just as distant. Even so, Seb was aware that Willow had locked away her anguish for now and was thinking fretfully about Pawntucket, her hometown.
He almost asked about it, then bit back the words. Willow had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him, not even his friendship. There were times now when Seb felt the same about her – there was a limit to how much hurt he could take from one person. Even one he was in love with.
In the truck ahead, he could just make out a rich pile of auburn hair. Meghan. Seb’s fist tightened on his thigh. Oh god, what must she be feeling, having witnessed that slaughter? With an effort, he resisted sending his angel out to check on her – she wouldn’t thank him for it.
The snow dwindled until it was only a dusting on the desert floor. Sixty miles outside the Reno ruins, they reached Fallon – more of a ghost town now than a dark town. Willow followed the others to an abandoned shopping mall. The main entrance had been shattered; Kara drove her truck right inside, and they all parked in the food court.
“What happened?” demanded Kara as everyone got out. “Are you two the only…?”
“Yes,” said Seb; his voice came out harshly. He explained what had happened, aware that he’d purposefully spoken before Willow, to spare her the pain. He sensed the group’s mood dampening further, their auras becoming more shrunken. Meghan stood hugging herself, a rifle hanging over one shoulder.
When he finished, Kara had gone almost grey, though her expression hadn’t changed.
“Well, at least you and Willow made it,” she said finally – and to give her credit, she sounded as if she meant it.
She turned to the others. “Okay, we’ve been here before, and the place has been pretty picked over, but you can still find some things. Go in twos and threes, keep scanning, and take whatever you need. When it starts getting dark, come back to the trucks. We’ll spend the night here, then keep heading up to the Idaho base in the morning.”
Surreal was an English word Seb had learned only recently. The rest of that day fitted the description. While images of slaughter screamed through his head, he went from store to store, searching. Two girls from one of his classes went with him, sticking close, and he talked to them automatically, somehow managing to smile and be comforting. Yes, what a hero.
He found a sweater in his size. The only jacket to be had was of Italian leather, dyed forest green – so fine and thin it was nearly worthless, despite its price tag.
“You look like a model,” said one of the girls when he tried it on, her strained giggle striving for normalcy. Seb had never cared much about his looks; now he almost hated them.
As they started back towards the food court, he stopped short – Meghan was coming out of a nearby store with another girl. Their eyes met. Seb stood motionless.
“Seb?” said one of the girls he was with.
“Go back to the trucks – I’ll meet you there,” he said, not taking his gaze off Meghan.
She’d hesitated when she first saw him, then said something to the other girl and came over alone. She still wore the black T-shirt she’d had on for the simulation, now with an oversize sweater on top.
“Hi,” she said faintly when she reached him.
Seeing her bright, buoyant aura so cowed made Seb ache inside. “Are you all right?” he asked. He barely stopped himself from calling her chiquita.
Meghan crossed her arms tight and stared down at the shopping level below, where AKs stood talking in huddled groups. “I guess. As okay as any of us.” Her blue eyes were anxious as she looked back at him. “What about you, though? You were right there when Sam…when…” Her voice faltered.
Without thinking Seb moved closer, ready to take her in his arms. She stepped back, wiping her eyes. “No, don’t,” she ordered softly. “Nothing’s changed. It just makes it harder.”
“You’re right,” he said after an awkward pause. “I’m sorry. But, Meggie, I…” He trailed off. Everything had already been said a hundred times. Meghan knew how much he cared about her. It wasn’t enough.
From her expression, she knew that he had nothing new to say…and wasn’t surprised. “I’ll see you later, Seb,” she said quietly. She turned and walked away.
Seb stood looking after her as she started down the stilled escalators, graceful even in her too-large clothes. A memory came of Meghan lying on his bed, watching him dress. “What’s this from?” she’d asked, reaching out to touch the raised, twisting scar on his stomach.
“From when I was a pirate,” he’d said with a grin. “I was very bad; they had to punish me with the whip.”
“Ooh, a rebel pirate…sexy.” Her auburn hair had been half falling over her face, her generous mouth smiling. Her finger traced the scar, following its curves. “What’s it from really?”
When girls in the past had asked about his scars, he’d spun stories until they gave up. But as always with Meghan, Seb had found himself telling the truth: his mother’s boyfriend had beaten him with a belt when he was small; the buckle had ripped open his skin. Without stitches, the wound had healed badly.
Her face had become very still. When he finished, she said nothing – but leaned over and pressed gentle lips against the scar.
“Meggie, it’s all right,” he’d said, crouching down and touching her hair. “I haven’t thought about it for a long time.” It was true, yet the tenderness of her gesture had touched him deeply.
Still gazing after Meghan, Seb took in the stray auburn tendrils curling lightly against her neck – knew by heart the smell of her shampoo, the feel of her hair as he curled a fiery strand around a finger. Pain touched him, and he looked away. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with her? It should have been so easy. But, no, it was Willow, always Willow – no matter what the hell he did, like a sickness he could never get rid of.
He started back to the food court, fists buried in his jacket pockets. He’d been lonely most of his life; you’d think he’d have gotten used to it by now. But these last few months, he’d reached a whole new level. Meghan had taken the sunshine with her, leaving him more taunted than ever by what he couldn’t have.
It would have been better for her if she’d never met me, he told himself harshly. Meghan, of all people, deserved someone who was in love with her.
Yet it filled Seb with bitterness, somehow, to imagine anyone else having the right to hold her – to wake up next to her and see her smile.
When everyone had gathered back at the trucks, Kara passed out military-issue meals. Seb sat eating listlessly with some of his students. People ate without conversation, huddled into themselves.
Willow sat with Liz, and though he deliberately wasn’t looking, Seb was aware of her – knew she was still worried about whatever had been bothering her in the truck. Even now, he wanted to go to her, do whatever he could to help.
His capacity for idiocy was apparently limitless. He shoved his half-finished meal aside.
Kara had managed to grab the shortwave radio from the base. She tuned into the Voice of Freedom, and the low voice wrapped around them: “If soldiers come to your dark town, hide, run away, fight – do anything you can to avoid being taken to an Eden. The angels are deadly. Whatever you do, don’t trust them…”
As if they really needed to be told that, after today. Aware that people were finding comfort in the familiar voice, Seb kept his cynicism to himself. And as the broadcast continued, the thought came to him that at least one angel had shown he could be trusted.
Go – leave, Zaran had said. Why had the cabrón saved them?
Yet Seb knew exactly why; it was something he himself might have done. He’d never paid much attention to the rules, and it looked like his father didn’t either. The thought wasn’t pleasant. He didn’t want anything in common with the being who’d killed his mother – so many of his friends.
Then as his gaze fell on Meghan again, Seb realized the similarity went even deeper. I started to really care about her. I tried to leave her alone. His father, too, had caused pain to a woman he claimed to care about. Zaran had known that Seb’s mother was in love with him, known that every time they touched he was hurting her – yet still hadn’t kept away.
Was his son really so much better?
20
WHEN IT FINALLY GOT TOO dark to see, people had started curling up to sleep on the food court floor, using clothes as pillows. Now their slumbering shapes were dark huddles around me – no one had moved for hours. I lay gazing at the skylights in the mall’s high ceiling. I could see bright stars, wisps of cloud.
It all looked so pretty. It didn’t seem right.
Sam. The deaths of the others hurt too – but Sam. He’d been like a big brother to me. He’d been there when Alex died, held me as we cried together – forced me to see reason and keep on living.
I swallowed, remembering all our long conversations. The way he’d sometimes dropped a casual arm around my shoulders as we walked down the corridor. The keenness of his blue eyes as he’d studied me during lunch a few days ago. “You’re gettin’ too thin, angel chick. You gonna eat that stew, or what?” In his solid, blunt way, he’d shown me how much he cared a million different times this last year.
I’ll miss you, Sam, I thought bleakly.
Him, and all the others. An all-too-familiar sorrow knifed through me. Heather. Eric. The girls who gave me the picture of Alex. That picture was gone now, along with the poem Alex had given me and the photo of myself as a little girl. I felt a pang for them, but they were only things – nothing compared to the people who had died.
I hugged myself as I studied the stars. And now Pawntucket would soon be destroyed too.
My muscles tensed; I thought again of fighting the female angel in the corridor. As my wings had brushed against hers, a rush of images and knowledge had come – because when she’d seen who I was, thoughts she couldn’t control had popped into her mind.
The wide, quiet streets of my hometown. A sense of danger there for the angels – something they hadn’t expected. Raziel would be there on the tenth, in just two weeks, and he’d crush everyone in town.
As I lay on the cold mall floor, I pictured my father smirking as he strode through the streets of my childhood – pictured everyone I’d known there being killed. Nina, my best friend. All my old classmates.
Suddenly I couldn’t stand it; I had to get some fresh air. I quietly pulled on my shoes, then grabbed up the horrible pink parka I’d found, which I’d been using as a blanket. As silently as I could, I got up and slipped away from the food court and its sleeping forms.
When I reached the mall’s main entrance, I breathed deeply, feeling the cold night breeze brush my face. I pulled on the parka and leaned against the frame of a shattered window as I stared out at the parking lot.
And out of all the chaos and grief of the last twenty-four hours – no, the last year – only one thing was clear to me.
I was going to Pawntucket.
There were only twelve of us left. We had no base, no supplies. The teams we’d sent out had probably already been captured; it was how Raziel must have found us. Maybe the few of us left could keep on recruiting and even still train people somehow, but it wouldn’t make any difference.
It was over…and I saw now that it always had been, from the second that Raziel unlinked the angels. No wonder Alex had felt compelled to take an insane risk.
I let out a shuddering breath. Raziel had destroyed everything in the world that I cared about. Everything. Alex, blown to pieces. My mother, drifting for ever in her dreams. Sam and all my other friends. The hope I’d had, even if it had been pointless.
He wasn’t going to destroy my hometown too. I’d die first.
I stiffened as I heard someone behind me. I spun and winced, throwing up my arm as light blasted me full in the face. A shadowy figure lowered the flashlight, then switched it off.
“What are you doing out here?” Kara demanded.
My shoulders sagged. “You scared me.”
Kara shook her head crossly, her exotic features just visible in the moonlight. “Well, you scared me too – I woke up and heard footsteps in the mall and didn’t know whose they were.”
She propped herself against the window frame across from me, looking out at the parking lot. A large men’s shirt hung open over her tight T-shirt; she glanced down and fiddled with one of its sleeves. “So I guess you couldn’t sleep either, huh?” she said finally. “Took me for ever to drop off.”
I hadn’t expected sympathy. “I couldn’t drop off at all,” I admitted after a pause. “I just kept seeing…all of it.”
“At least you were there for it,” she said bitterly. “Running away wasn’t exactly my plan.”
“Sam was right, though,” I said, seeing again the moment when he fell. My throat closed, and I touched a shard of glass that hadn’t fallen from the windowpane. “Kara, listen – something’s happened.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked sharply at me. “Why do I have this really bad feeling that you mean besides angels attacking and the base getting blown up?”
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing that matters, probably,” I said. “Except to me.”
I told her what I’d seen. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. When I’d finished, she just stood there looking at me.
“Pawntucket,” she said finally. “As in, Pawntucket, New York. Pawntucket, almost three thousand miles away. That Pawntucket?”
“Yeah, that one,” I said. “I’m going there to stop Raziel.”
“Oh, great plan. Do you have any idea how much danger that puts the rest of us in? I’ve got ten other people to think of here, in case you haven’t noticed!”
“Sounds like you’re the new lead,” I said after a pause.
Kara’s face was set. “Yeah. I guess I am. And you know where we’re going. I can’t allow this, Willow. If anyone caught you—”
“I won’t let myself be captured,” I interrupted.
“Oh, right. And do you really think you’d hold up against torture if the angels got hold of you? Want to look at my hand again, and see some of the things they’re capable of? Some of the things dear old dad got off on?” Her voice shook a little.
A cloud drifted over the moon, chasing shadows over the parking lot. “Maybe I’d hold up against torture, and maybe I wouldn’t,” I said quietly. “That’s not what I meant, Kara. I’ll say it again: I will not let myself be captured.”
I saw realization flicker in her eyes. For a long moment we regarded each other – and then, her expression hard, she reached for her holster.
In the old AK house, Kara had locked us in the basement workout room to keep us away from the Council attack – had shoved us down the stairs and slammed the door shut without thinking twice.
My pulse skipped. I took a step backwards, ready to send my angel flying out at her. “Do not try and stop me, Kara. I mean it.”
