Falling (Girl With Broken Wings Book 1)

by J Bennett

  I lay on my stomach, gripping the head of the table and keeping my hands in plain sight. Lo rolls up my shirt, but he isn’t making any jokes. His energy pulses fast as he leans over me. Tarren stands a couple feet back holding the tranq gun at his side.

  “I can control it,” I tell Lo.

  “I’ve heard that before,” Lo says. The energy around him jumps once, high off his body. This means something, but I am too busy trying not to kill him to analyze it.

  The needle goes in, hits bone. Lo pushes. His energy is so near. The song howls, and the pain joins in, peeling back the layers of my control. I grip the table edge tighter and tighter, press my forehead into the polished surface.

  “Hurry,” I hiss.

  “I’m trying. Your bones are…stronger than normal,” Lo says. “Done.”

  He backs away quickly. I let go of the table, breathe out a long, shuddering sob before slowly turning onto my back.

  “You did fine,” Tarren says, but he still clutches the tranq gun.

  The menacing mechanical donut is last. I lay on my back as the machine whirls and hums around me. I have Gabe’s iPod, and I try to listen to his hard rock playlist, but I turn it off when I hear the murmur of voices outside the machine. I strain to catch the words.

  “Just keep your voice down,” Tarren whispers.

  “Well, muscle composition is definitely enhanced. She’s strong,” Lo says. “Organs realigned. Lungs and heart oversized. Stomach and intestines shrunk. She probably can’t digest solids anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Tarren affirms. “Bone structure matches the others we’ve seen.”

  “Tarren,” Lo whispers, “she’s got a fully constructed feeding mechanism. It’s all here. Her numbers are lower, but she’s made up just like one of them. You said she only got one shot? Has she shown any abilities?”

  “No, just the general enhancements. We’ve been keeping her intake as low as possible.”

  “Well, allow me to repeat myself. You two are in deep crapola here.” Lo takes a long, hollow breath. “She’s no hybrid; she’s an angel.”

  Chapter 30

  When Tarren answers Lo’s accusation, his words are measured. “It’s not that simple,” he says. “Angels are human. They just exhibit severely progressed expression of innate human potential.”

  “Bullshit. If she eats from the energy buffet instead of meat, potatoes and caviar like the rest of us that means she’s one of them.”

  Tears gather in my eyes.

  “Keep your voice down,” Tarren says. “All her physical indicators are lower than the others we’ve tested. It’s possible that her energy needs are equally stunted.” He pauses and doubt laces his voice. “If she doesn’t require as much sustenance, perhaps her hunger is more controllable.”

  “The hell it is,” Lo retorts. “Since when have you started believing in your brother’s little fairy tales? There’s no way to measure her capacity for control, and we have absolutely no evidence that lower physical symptoms correlates to lower appetite. Since all you bring me are dead bodies, we can’t even do an anecdotal comparison.”

  “She’s not honest with me anyway,” Tarren murmurs.

  “Oh, the soul sucker lies? Big surprise.”

  There’s another long pause.

  “She’s shown some control so far,” Tarren responds. Finally.

  “Look, she’s cute, I’ll give you that. I mean, great ass, really,” Lo says, “but you’ve been keeping her in a controlled environment. She’s going to break. You know she will. Something will set her off, and then what happens? She goes psycho in a grocery store. She kills you in your sleep. She drains that dumb brother of yours before you can…”

  “Alright!” Tarren hisses. I feel his energy flare before he corrals it down.

  My oversized heart is pounding so hard that I wonder how it doesn’t shake this donut to pieces. Please, please, please, I beg Tarren silently. Defend me.

  “She could be the key,” is what Tarren says instead.

  “Yeah, if she doesn’t kill all of us first. As the brainy sidekick, I’m going to be the first to die. That’s how it always goes.”

  “Bring her out,” Tarren snaps, which is to say, he doesn’t deny anything that Lo just said. I hate him for this. Hate him, hate him, hate him. Especially his stupid jacket.

  The machine retracts. I sit up, yawn and rub my eyes, brushing the tears away.

  “How’s it looking?” I ask casually as I pull out the iPod ear buds.

  “It’s helping,” Tarren says. His eyes meet mine then flick away. “We’re getting a lot of important information.”

  “Good.” I smile and stretch. The tears are still building up behind my eyes. I force them back and look at Lo. “How did you get into the sidekick business?” I ask him.

  The boy’s energy spikes up again. He blinks. “My Popie, Leo Hernandez, boxer and douchebag extraordinaire.”

  Now I recognize the man in the painting. He was in the papers about two years ago. Murdered. Some sort of gang thing.

  “Popie wanted to be the best,” Lo continues in his too-deep voice. “Gave it his all. Took all the right pills, stuck himself in the ass with syringes every day. He would do anything to hit the other guy a little bit harder. That was his whole philosophy in life. Respect goes to the last man standing. I had a very pleasant childhood.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “No you’re not.” Lo looks at me. His eyes carry something dark and powerful. “My father got himself infected, turned into an angel. Anything to get ahead. I’m all for ruling the world, but I kind of prefer the old fashion way of duping the uninformed electorate.”

  Lo smiles, but it’s a mean expression. “Not my Popie. He thought I was weak. Didn’t hold back his opinion on the matter. I graduated high school at thirteen. College at fifteen. He didn’t show up for either ceremony. I embarrassed him. ‘Eres una pinche debil marica!,’” Lo growls. The energy churns swiftly around his body.

  “Oh,” I say, and yes, the dark part of me enjoys the spectacle of pain that Lo doesn’t realize he’s emitting through his aura.

  “Popie decided the only way to fix the situation was to infect me, hope I didn’t die. He thought it was worth the risk.” Lo’s voice cracks. “Had the needle ready and everything before Tarren and Gabe crashed the party. He deserved the bullets he got. Him and all the others.”

  “My father is a bad man too,” I say quietly and am saved from the dark flight of my thoughts by a knock on the door. Gabe’s muffled voice calls on the other end. The energy ripples in excited hiccups around his body as he steps into the room.

  “I think we’ve got another angel.”

  “Where?” Tarren’s voice is low.

  “Redmond, Washington.”

  “Keep working on this and email me the results,” Tarren tells Lo. He looks at his brother, then at me. “Let’s go.”

  The way he says it, I almost laugh but don’t. I’m in one of those moods again. Lo blows me a kiss, and I am grateful to escape the guest house — my own Château d’lf.

  Part 3

  Chapter 31

  “Oh Troy, mi amor!” Gabe pitches his voice high and leans across the seat, shouldering his brother. “Que caliente. Besame, besame!” He puckers his lips, and Tarren shoves him hard back into his own seat.

  “Stop it,” he growls and grips both hands on the wheel. Despite the fact that I now consider Tarren my mortal enemy for life, I have to admit he has a good growl. I’m convinced he must practice his growls and grimaces and expressions of sheer focus in the mirror at night.

  “Ay caramba!” Gabe tries to laugh it off, but he’s quiet for a long while afterward.

  * * *

  Time moves, miles move, the sun dips in the sky. I’m in a terrible mood, an angel mood. Again and again I replay the snide certainty in Lo’s warnings and then construct outraged, brilliant, eloquent rebuttals that Tarren should have offered in my defense.

  When that just gets too damn pitifu
l, I decide to keep picking at my scabs, the deepest, bloodiest ones. I pull out my journal and write jostled apology letters to my parents. Henry first, because I don’t have to get sentimental with him, except that I unexpectedly do. It’s not that I ever thought he didn’t like me; it’s that he had work, and I looked nothing like a desk or a computer monitor. But there are little things that I only appreciate now that he’ll never know.

  I apologize for leaving him alone with Karen and giving her an entirely new cornucopia of emotional ailments to suffer from. I apologize that I never sat down and watched the game with him, that I never asked about how any of his business trips went or thanked him for supporting his family. Each year we drifted farther and farther apart on our different tracks of life. I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that I never — not once — tried to reach over and pull us closer together.

  And then it is over. Henry is boxed up and tucked away in two pages. Tender, painful boxes, but at least I can pack them tight in the back of my mind and keep the lights out.

  Karen is harder, because there is a lot to apologize for and a lot of resentment to try and hose off. My resentment is gooey and heavy and black like tar. I hate hospitals because of her. I hate nurses and lollipops and linoleum. I knew what “metastasized” meant when I was six. I knew about polyps and Lyme disease and dementia and blood borne pathogens and how much rat feces is legally allowed in the average candy bar.

  But there was also the “Find Maya” t-shirt that she wasn’t supposed to be wearing, the fervent hugs she would allow when I was upset and those damn organic cookies she made when I got dumped by Miguel Foster in middle school.

  I spend four pages exhuming trespasses, and I’ve still got many more to go. I’m beginning to realize that I might just have been a very terrible daughter.

  Gabe looks up from his laptop. “You tired? Wanna switch soon?” he asks Tarren.

  “Yeah, there’s an exit coming up,” Tarren says. “We can grab some food.” He pauses and his energy flicks. “We should also put together a bag for Maya.”

  “She doesn’t need a bag,” Gabe responds.

  “Sure I do,” I close my notebook a little too hard. “Bags are the best.”

  “Just in case,” Tarren says, ignoring me.

  “There’s no ‘just in case,’” Gabe snaps back. His energy spikes, and I sit up straight, edge my hands under my thighs.

  “I’m not saying we give her a gun —” Tarren starts.

  “No, she’s not getting a bag, a gun, anything. She stays out of it Tarren.”

  “Whoa, I’m right here,” I wave in the backseat. “Of course I need a bag and a gun. There’s a sawed-off shotgun in the trunk right? I’ll take that one.”

  “This isn’t a joke!” Gabe takes off his seatbelt and twists around to look at me.

  “But you promised,” I say, and I’m trying to put all sorts of authority in my eyes like Tarren does. Only, it’s so hard to keep my eyes on Gabe’s face. His aura is growing bright, expanding within the tight confines of the car.

  “You’re the one who proposed that I help fight in the first place,” I tell Gabe and then brilliantly parrot back his words from that night none of us talks about. “Think about it. She’ll get strong. She’ll get fast. She can fight with us.”

  “I was trying to save you from getting your fucking head blown off; I would’ve said anything!” Gabe’s voice is rising, and so is the hunger, filling up the car with its melody and making my head champagne dizzy.

  “Maya,” Tarren says, but I hate him, hate him, hate him, and I couldn’t care less what his eyes are warning.

  “And that was all well and good, but I want to fight,” I insist.

  “You don’t want this life.” Gabe clutches the headrest with both hands.

  “You can’t keep me stuffed in that house until Tarren magically comes up with a cure. How exactly do you propose to reverse this whole situation anyway?” I hold up my gloved hands, and damn, they’re glowing a little and Tarren sees it and gets that stormy look on his face, which just goes terrifically with the exasperated I’ve got my shit together why don’t you? look that he was already wearing.

  This is when I should stop, but I don’t.

  “I’m a freak,” I yell. “I’ll never be able to live a normal life or ever be happy again. Might as well pass around the superhero Kool-Aid.”

  “Alright,” Tarren is trying to say, but if I didn’t have enhanced senses I probably wouldn’t have heard him, because Gabe is hollering back, “Don’t you say that! Tarren’s going to find a —”

  “And we’re all going to live happily ever after!” I shriek.

  “Why not, huh?” Gabe’s voice is suddenly low, raspy. “Why can’t we win?”

  “You’re unbelievable!” I want to kill them both.

  Oh no. Gabe’s energy is glowing bright, shredding the layers of my control. No, no, no, no!

  I realize too late that I haven’t been minding the monster. I really do want to kill them, and I’m not sure I have enough strength to stop myself.

  Chapter 32

  My whole body shudders violently as I twist away from Gabe and cross my arms over my chest so that I’m pinning them to the backseat.

  “Maya? Something’s wrong.” Gabe’s voice shifts from anger to concern. “Did she feed at all today?”

  “Tarren’s got daggers in his eyes!” I yell out for no reason.

  Tarren whips across lanes and pulls onto the side of the highway. He locks all the doors as I reach to stumble out.

  “I need some air,” I moan.

  “We can’t let her out of the car, not like this,” Tarren says. “Gabe, get back.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I moan and press my head against the seat as hard as I can. Even though my eyes are closed, I can still see the glow of their energies pulsing beneath my lids. Maya and the monster are grappling for control inside my head, but there is no monster. Lo said I’m an angel, and Tarren parsed it to pieces, but didn’t deny the underlying truth. It’s all just me in here fighting against my own instincts.

  For the first time, I notice that the song is beautiful — delicate and powerful at the same time. It sends sweet tendrils of flame through the chemical corridors of my brain, seizing all the functions of my body and honing them to this one single need. The song offers me the promise of bliss.

  “Maya, we’ll get you something to eat, put together a bag for you, I swear, but you have to calm down,” Gabe says. “Calm like the forest. Like the desert. Like the ocean.”

  “None of those things are calm,” I moan.

  “Control it,” Tarren orders.

  “You don’t know,” I whisper. The last noise for a long time, except for the song which pulls and pulls and the whoosh of cars passing by. Cars filled with people who don’t have to wear gloves; who don’t wake up terrified in the night convinced they will eventually kill someone no matter how hard they repress the instinct. In this moment, I hate those people. All of them. Everyone in the world who gets to not know about angels, who doesn’t have to be one. And this brings me back.

  I sigh, and Gabe sighs, and Tarren takes his hand off the gun at his waist. This may or may not be the tranq gun.

  * * *

  Gabe brings me back a hutch of four rabbits, while I stay in the car, hands balled into fists and tucked between my legs. Because I beg, Tarren lets me crouch behind the SUV and drain the biggest rabbit in the parking lot. I get my bliss, short and sharp as it is.

  A car pulls up in the next spot over, and a little girl hops out of the back seat. I see frizzy black hair, a green dress and pale violet-blue energy that skips fast ellipticals around her frame. Tarren, who stands guard next to me but pointedly looks over my head as I feed, tenses and uncrosses his arms so that his hand is closer to the gun at his waist. I’m pretty sure now that this is the tranq gun.

  The little girl spots me hugging the dead rabbit, coming down from the high of its energy. Needing more. I smile
at the girl and pet the dead creature in my arms.

  “Just got him,” I say, and the little girl beams.

  “I’m getting a guinea pig,” she says.

  “I like those too,” I reply.

  The girl prances over to her mother. When they enter the store, I throw the rabbit down a sewer grate.

  * * *

  The Fox brothers do a quick Target run for me. I don’t even ask if I can go in. I just lie on the back seat, close my eyes and don’t think about the rabbits hanging out in the trunk, being alive and taunting me with their whippet-quick hearts all thudding out of sync.

  When they come back, Gabe puts my new bag in the trunk, and I make like nothing possibly portending a fratricidal end to our little family has recently occurred.

  “Did you remember the underwear?”

  Gabe’s laugh has only a touch of strain. “Yep, pretty pink underwear with bows on the front.”

  I can tell from Tarren’s face that I’ve lost all the dust motes of his trust I’d painstakingly collected over the last weeks. Not that I care.

  Gabe takes the wheel and announces we are in for a treat. The treat turns out to be disc one in a series of angel-hunting soundtracks that Gabe has apparently compiled with some relish. This elicits a knowing groan from Tarren.

  “I think you’re giving your brother indigestion,” I tell Gabe as he cranks up Eye of the Tiger.

  “Nah, that’s actually what he looks like when he’s happy. Hard to tell the difference, I know.”

  We continue through the night. The darkness is a blanket around us. The music drums inside my head. Churning car. Tarren’s energy is jumping, always jumping, and Gabe is humming along to the music, because he is incapable of being quiet for one single second.

  My hands are hot. I tuck them under my legs and don’t think about the rabbits. I think about Ryan, but he has no eyes — just worms crawling out of the empty sockets, so I don’t think of him. I think about Karen and Henry, but Karen is wearing a “Find Maya” t-shirt, and Henry looks so tired. So I think about Maya, but Maya is thinking about rabbits, bright little rabbits, so I’m thinking about rabbits again.