Falling (Girl With Broken Wings Book 1)

by J Bennett

  My first impression is that the house seems empty and plain. I assumed it would be messier, more boyish and rough-lived. The living room looks cared for just enough, though everything seems old and overused. There is a distinct lack of strong colors. Nothing hangs on the white walls, the wooden floors are wanting in wax, and the furniture is minimal—blue cloth couch, boxy television sitting on a chipped stand. There’s an Xbox and a precarious tower of DVDs next to the TV.

  “Oh,” I say softly.

  “We have an ad out on Craigslist for a stuffy British butler, but so far, no luck,” Gabe says. He is my rambling tour guide, and his energy ticks with nervousness. Tarren is edgy too, tracking us from room to room without a word. We move to the kitchen with its glass cabinets and long counters. The table is all scratched and nicked. Dishes are piled in the sink and reeking of dried spaghetti sauce and salad dressing. I notice a crack in the wall beside the back door.

  The dining room is next, which isn’t a dining room at all. This is Gabe’s office, and he’s set up three plasma computer monitors on his desk, bookended by Bose speakers. On the top shelf, above the monitors, a terrible battle wages between two opposing armies of action figures. The destruction is intricately choreographed. X-Men face off against GI Joes. Spiderman and Batman have teamed up against Conan and some round-eyed, large-breasted anime character. A Ninja Turtle stands proudly over the broken body of a Ken doll.

  “…you know, gotta’ have fun with your job,” Gabe is saying behind me. “See if you can find the Care Bear. Here’s a hint, it ain’t got a head anymore.” He pauses, and I think he’s actually waiting for a laugh.

  This is so awkward. I try, really try, not to compare this shabby little house with my love-filled apartment or with the immaculate, airy home I grew up in. I shouldn’t look at this as a prison or a punishment. I need to stay in the present, let each second crest and break over me without resistance.

  “What do you think, basement next?” Gabe looks to his brother.

  “She’ll see it soon enough,” Tarren says. “We’re all tired. Let’s just go upstairs.”

  * * *

  On the second floor of the house the boys pause in front of the first door, and we all wait for someone else to open it. I shift, but Gabe is already reaching forward.

  “And, your room, madam.” He twists the knob and opens the door into the master bedroom. “We weren’t exactly planning on having any…uh,” he stumbles for a word.

  “Coerced guests?” I raise an eyebrow.

  Gabe frowns at my joke, because, of course, it isn’t really a joke. “We weren’t planning on having anyone over,” he clarifies, “but it’s, I don’t know, pretty big. You’ve got your own bathroom. That’s important for girls, right?”

  I walk to the king bed and run my hand along the thick, white comforter. The bay window is painted black by the night sky. It hasn’t been opened in a long while. The air in the room is stale and heavy, tinted with old perfume and lazy dust particles. The dust. A fine layer lies across the floor, clings to the mirror of the vanity and gathers in the folds of the white curtains. I open my mouth to utter some sort of shaky compliment, but my attention is snatched away.

  Bookshelves. The boys are still standing in the doorway, but I have forgotten about them. I reach out and trace my fingers along the spines of the books, swallowing hot sparks each time I recognize a title from my own collection. I breathe in the musk of aging paper and ink, and the aroma is so much more powerful than I remember. For a moment I am back in my apartment. Chapped lips on my shoulders. Vanilla.

  Then I catch sight of something even more compelling. Little staggering steps take me to the second bookshelf. For a moment, I am distracted as energy flares around both boys. Then, I pick up the first silver-framed photograph and stare at the face of my mother.

  Diana is smiling softly and ducking her head to avoid the camera. I imagine the person on the other side of the lens is goading her to look up.

  My mother. I think she might be beautiful, but my mind is rushing in so many different directions I can hardly pull out any coherent thoughts. Slim, round shoulders. Wavy, caramel-colored hair. The nose I don’t like that looks better on her and best on Tarren. A finely-carved face, just like the little boy and girl standing next to her.

  The children are made up of skinny legs and knobby knees. They hold hands. For a strange, white-pulsing moment, I forget that Karen and Henry adopted me as an infant, and I wonder if the girl is me. But no, her brown hair is twisted into neat braids, and she has bright, golden eyes that are unafraid of the camera. The dark-haired boy is looking down at his sandals. A toddler with thick, sandy curls sits on his mother’s lap, reaching up for her shiny hoop earring.

  “I’m the cute one,” Gabe says awkwardly. Neither he nor Tarren have breached the threshold of the room. I ignore them and pick up a wedding photo. My mother’s hair is feathered and long. Her head is thrown back, and she is laughing as the groom hooks her in his arms. His brown elf eyes spark with pleasure, and his mischief mouth is cocked into a wide grin. Long, fluid limbs and dark hair combed back give him a hint of feral strength. Canton and Diana. In love. Very young. All the lines on their faces come from the smiles they wear.

  Tarren and Gabe each strongly favor one parent, and now I know why they don’t look much like each other.

  Baby pictures. I can tell them apart immediately. Tarren’s gray-blue eyes. Gabe’s honey curls. The mystery little girl who mixes both their features well. The little boy and girl on swings. The family at the beach. A picture of the girl standing on her father’s shoes, his hands enveloping hers. White fluffy dress, little black shoes and a crooked birthday hat on her head. Canton looks down at her with a warm smile. There are different lines on his face now. Deeper. Tired.

  There are no later pictures. The family seems to linger only in those early years.

  I hold out the beach photo to the boys. “You have another sister,” I say tapping the grinning little girl who wears a purple bathing suit with a bright pink flower on the front. Her ponytail is wet and crooked as if she has just come out from the waves.

  “Not anymore.” Scarlet webs through Tarren’s aura. He turns and walks away.

  Gabe’s smile falters. “She died,” he says softly. “Her name was Tammy.”

  “Oh.” Quantum queen of tact. I put the picture back on the shelf.

  “I’ll tell you about it later, but it’s been a long day,” Gabe says. “Me and Tarren are just down the hall. My room’s first on the left. Next is a bathroom and then a closet with towels and stuff. Tarren’s at the end. Always knock. It’s kind of a rule for any closed doors.”

  “Wait,” I call as he turns to leave. “This was Diana’s room?”

  “Yeah,” Gabe leans forward against the doorway. “We’ve always been meaning to clean it out, do something with it, but I guess we’ve got all the rooms we need already. No one goes in here now.”

  “That’s not true,” I say without thinking. My mind is far away, pinging off book titles, the growing hunger, my mother’s blue eyes. “Tarren doesn’t come in here, but you do. Your scent is there, on the edge of the bed. You must come in to look at the pictures. They’re the only things without dust on them.”

  I notice Gabe’s flushing cheeks and realize my mistake. Quantum queen of tact.

  “Oh, yeah, well,” he murmurs. “Sure, you have the enhanced senses.” He looks away, and I see his real face again. The gold-flecked eyes are shy and shamed. His smile is gone, replaced by a taunt mouth that puts too many creases into his skin. He looks so much like his father.

  “Gabe, I’m sorry,” I say.

  “No, it’s fine,” he lies. “It’s just that I don’t really remember when…when we were happy, so sometimes I like to come up here and…I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” I say brilliantly.

  “Yeah,” he steps back from the doorway and shoves his hands in his pockets. “If you need anything, just knock. Okay, well, goodnight
Maya.”

  “Goodnight,” I say. Gabe closes the door. I sit on the edge of the bed and listen to his steps retreat down the hall.

  Chapter 20

  I spend the first hour of the night committing the pictures to memory, tracing each face with my finger again and again, staring into the vacant eyes of my long lost family and imagining character traits. Canton would have Gabe’s laugh — a free, warm chuckle. He teases. Diana is more serious. She can turn her face into granite like Tarren. Her voice goes all soft and dangerous when she is angry. The little girl, Tammy, is boisterous and aggressive. Gabe is a gurgling infant, the happy kind that never cries. But what to make of Tarren? Every picture displays his down-turned head and little balled fists.

  The night feels too long, and I’m not tired. I take my time circling the room, running my eyes over every surface. I peek into the closet and find it empty. Nothing under the bed either. I re-read each title on the bookshelf and notice an empty wedge of space between The Illiad and The Aeneid.

  I sit on the bed and don’t think about Ryan, don’t replay his death over and over so many times that that it runs smooth as a DVD in my head, don’t craft and decorate exotic Grand-murdering fantasies and especially don’t linger on all the questions huddled together in my mind, heavy and unbearable. But I don’t cry. That part really is true.

  Instead, I calmly pick at my wrists, only it’s hardly any use at all. New skin has already knitted neatly over the gashes, and I’m sure this is another angel thing. Or whatever I am now. I slide my fingers through my short hair. The prickly ends remind me that this is real, but I don’t really need any more convincing. The song lingers inside me; that need for something that tugs and taunts all day long and roars like chalkboard scratches at night.

  And it’s still night, and I’m still not tired, and I can’t take this not thinking about stuff anymore. So I slip out the window, glad for the cold air. Pulling myself up and over onto the roof is surprisingly easy, though I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it before. I’m thinking it might be peaceful up here, but it isn’t. The property around the house devolves into thick woods. My attention is drawn by leaping sparks of energy all about me and the scents of so many new things. My body responds, hands growing hot and glowing. Yes, I hold them out in front of me and see that the tips of my fingers give off a pale hedge of light.

  It’s time to know what I can do. Carpe noctem.

  The trees hold out their limbs for me, and I leap, adjusting intuitively to land cat soft onto the nearest one. I pounce onto another branch then clutch one above and swing myself easily around and up onto my feet. I take a deep breath and exhale slow with reverence. This is an entirely new body, acrobatic and strong like an elite gymnast. Graceful. Intuitive. Swift. So many new adjectives that I can rightfully commandeer.

  Thrilling. Terrifying. Powerful. The cleave of monster and human.

  Something catches my attention. My body is moving, leaving my thoughts behind. The prey is a sharp bright point skittering across a branch next to me. I crouch. The energy roils inside of me. My heart beats loud thuds that join the high cricket strings. It fills my ears, sweet drum. Strong drum. Companion hunter.

  I leap, swinging, hands ripping on the harsh bark, but I couldn’t care. Just blood. So close. For a moment I am hurtling through the air. Wind kissing my face. Just the emptiness and that little dot of energy growing larger. The squirrel is frozen in fear, its heart throbbing mad, making me crazy. I snatch it right off the branch as I fall. It’s dead before I land.

  * * *

  I wake up on the roof and notice my gloves are gone. The sun is just coming up. Deep gouges score my palms and forearms. I remember and shiver. Monster Maya is Werewolf Maya. I think I was still in control, and it was only a squirrel after all, a perfectly acceptable snack. A noise. Doorknob turning.

  I jump, grab the edge of the roof with my left hand as I fall, swing through the bay window, let go and skid onto my bed, grabbing up the blanket as I roll.

  Tarren cracks open the door and beholds a Maya tortilla wrapped in blankets with eyes closed, face smooth and serene in slumber. He stands there for a while and then closes the door. I let out my breath in a big whoosh and untangle myself from the blankets.

  Even as I begin pulling long wooden splinters from my skin, I follow Tarren’s energy as he moves through the house. When he steps outside, I scramble back up onto the roof and stretch out onto my stomach.

  Tarren stands below me looking out along the empty gravel road. I can only see the back of his head, but I imagine his face is grim and determined. He takes off running, red pain springing up in his aura near his injured rib. His fluid gait reveals a natural athleticism.

  There are heavy things on his mind. Dark things. What happened to the shy boy in the photographs?

  * * *

  Gabe cradles a bowl of drowned cereal in his arm as he clicks through emails. All three computer monitors are alight. Bluegrass twangs from the speakers on his desk as he flips across tabs in his browsers, pulling up and quickly dismissing page after page.

  He flinches when he catches me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Jesus, put some bells on or something,” he says with a smile.

  “Morning,” I reply. “You’re wearing the same jeans from yesterday.”

  “Changed my shirt though. Even hit some deodorant now that we’ve got a girl in the house. You’re welcome.”

  He’s expecting a retort back, but my throat has gone tight. I’m ready to cry all over again, because I’m suddenly so grateful that he’s treating me like a normal person and so terrified because he’s also treating me like a sister.

  “I caught a squirrel,” I tell him.

  Gabe spins around in his chair and looks me over, noting my dirt-streaked elbows and pine needle hair accessories.

  “Did it have a crooked tail?” he asks.

  “The squirrel? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Good. I like that one. He’s like boss of the squirrels. It’s cool.” Gabe spins back around and leaves the spoon sticking out his mouth as he opens another email. “Oh, and you probably shouldn’t tell Tarren about the whole squirrel killing thing,” he mumbles. “He can be…well, sometimes it’s just better not to tell him things.”

  I study the warring action figures arranged on the shelf above Gabe’s computers. A Cylon from Battlestar Galactica is locked in deadly combat with a samurai sword-wielding Bratz doll. Disgraced green army men lay where they fell. I can’t imagine the fused feet were anything but a liability. Wolverine has his claws plunged through a Happy Meal Shrek figurine.

  Eyes stare out at me from the left computer screen, and I turn and take note of a young girl positioned and smiling in the fake way of a school picture. She looks a little like my freshmen roommate. Same upturned nose and long neck. Rachel must be in class right now. Listening. Studying. Not being a monster.

  The girl on the computer screen is not in class. Her picture on the screen accompanies her obituary.

  “Did you, uh,” I try to be cool about this. “Is this an angel you, uh…” They do kill people, I remind myself. Lots of people.

  “No, not us,” Gabe follows my gaze. “But someone did, or something. Obits are how we find them. Angels.” He nods to the computer screen. “Google alerts are the greatest thing ever except for Keira Knightley. Basically, I set specific search terms, and Google trolls through all the news and sends back anything that matches.”

  “And you look for dead people?”

  “Right-o.” Gabe spins his chair around, so that he faces me again. “Mostly heart attacks between the ages of 15 - 45 but also radiation poisoning and, of course, unexplained causes as the catch all for the rest.”

  “That’s a lot of obits…wait, radiation poisoning?”

  “Failed angles. Not everyone survives the infection process. It wreaks havoc on your body, screwing up your DNA, no offense. For some people, their bodies give out. Radiation is a strong component of the proces
s. Sometimes the coroner can’t figure out any other cause of death, so they say radiation poisoning. Wha-la, failed angel. And where there’s one dead angel…”

  Body on fire. Turning, twisting, contorting into something else entirely. Every cell exploding in my veins. Bones shattering like glass. The fear of not knowing what is happening or if it will ever stop.

  “Oh,” I say when Gabe raises his eyebrows. “Uh, where there’s one angel, there are bound to be others.”

  “Bingo, Yahtzee and Connect Four.”

  “And heart attacks?”

  “Iced. Angels kill by absorbing a victim’s energy. It’s what they feed off of. As the angel is sucking up the energy, the victim’s heart just gives out. It’s what actually kills the person. Heart attack.”

  But Ryan had such a strong heart. I would lay my head against his chest and…

  I swallow. “You said ‘iced’?”

  “Oh yeah, well angels suck away body heat with everything else. Victims are ice cold. That’s how I tell a regular heart attack from an angel. Autopsy will show a way low body temp at death.”

  Ryan cold and dead and alone. Frozen on the pavement while I fly away. Warm breath stolen. Hot lips chilled.

  Gabe continues, “If I find a heart attack where I shouldn’t, say a healthy 30-year-old athlete, I look for other unexplained or strange deaths in the area or a spate of missing persons. That’s how we find them.”

  He clicks a tab on the middle screen to reveal a map of the United States smattered with multi-colored pins.

  “Google maps are the shit. Google should just take over the world, seriously,” Gabe says. “This map is totally interactive. I load on all my suspicious obits — those are the red pins — and look for patterns.” His mouse grazes across the screen, and each pin lights up with notes. Names. Dates. Modes of death.

  “Most of the angels move around a lot,” Gabe continues. “It’s the only way not to get caught. By following a wake of bodies, we can put together a crude trail. If I confirm angel, the pins turn white, and we load up the car and go.”