Falling (Girl With Broken Wings Book 1)

by J Bennett

  Tarren draws back a little, and I can see his mind shifting quickly, recovering, re-evaluating, growing cautious. “A little. It was a long time ago.”

  “And the birthmark. That’s how Gabe found me. You remembered my birthmark.”

  Another pause as Tarren studies my expression. He turns off the engine. He waits.

  “When Grand took me, he, he,” I pull in a shaky breath, because here it comes — the imprisoned memories are un-gagged and released from their chains — “he knew about the birthmark. He wasn’t sure it was me until he saw it. How did he know about that Tarren?” My voice cracks, mind cracks, memories rampaging, crushing boxes. “How could he know?”

  Tarren’s eyes are as dark a blue as they ever get, and he’s clamping down on his energy as if this doesn’t tell me everything.

  “After Grand captured you, tortured you, why would he just let you go?”

  Tarren doesn’t say anything, so I answer my own question. “He wouldn’t. You made a deal for your freedom. You had something valuable to trade. Say something!”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  Tarren breaks our gaze. The granite crumbles from his face, leaving something more vulnerable that he hides by looking off into the half empty parking lot.

  “Yes, I told Grand about you. About the birthmark.”

  I wait for more, the spill of confession, the breakdown, the stubborn justifications. All I get is his face in profile, tiny flicks of energy escaping his grip.

  “Won’t you even make an excuse?” I whisper.

  “No.”

  “But he was torturing you. Cutting you up. Defend what you did!”

  “No Maya, I won’t. You should hate me.”

  I slump against the window, balling my hands into fists and tucking them between my legs. How can he keep doing this to me? I pull in a deep breath and then magically, wonderfully, finally, I know exactly what to say.

  “Sometimes I do, but I’m beginning to realize that I can never hate you more than you hate yourself.”

  Tarren nods, accepting the blow.

  “And Tammy?” I ask. “How could you bargain for your own life and not hers?”

  What to make of Tarren’s face, the way it looks right now, like he’s withstanding exquisite torture but inviting it too. How to describe what his repressed aura is doing — seething with orange flames, neon yellows and bloody reds — a thousand fine filaments glowing with his shame, his anger, with so many other emotions I cannot identify. Yet, he is still holding himself back; I am only seeing vapors of the full heartbreak inside of him.

  “I couldn’t save Tammy,” Tarren whispers.

  How to describe him at all when he hides every part of himself behind a thousand granite shields. I wonder if that shy little boy he once was is curled up in the center of the phalanx, or if his shields are protecting nothing at all.

  I’m not angry. Just tired. Wet and wrung. Still shivering. Hungry. We’ve been sitting here in silence too long.

  “Gabe doesn’t know, does he?”

  “No.” Tense. Tarren doesn’t realize that this isn’t the punishment.

  “You never told him how Grand found out about me.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe Gabe could have found me sooner, before Grand” — I almost say “tricked you,” but swallow those words and manage — “came after me. You could have warned me or hid me, or, I don’t know, something.”

  “It’s possible,” he says.

  “Then why Tarren?” Silence. “To salvage your pride?” I can’t understand the expression on his face. Can’t understand anything about him.

  “Aren’t you even sorry?” I cry.

  Tarren’s energy escapes his control and jumps up high between us — a conflagration of pained red and deepest ochre that blasts open my palms. He wrestles it down again.

  “Yes.” Quiet. Strained behind closed teeth. “Yes,” he says again, this one even softer. It would have been nearly inaudible to my old ears.

  I open the door of the SUV. Rain pecks at my leg and shoulder as I step out. Deep, moist breath. Puddles broken and clouded by my muddy feet.

  “I won’t tell Gabe.”

  We look at each other, defenses dented but holding.

  “Thank you,” he whispers.

  “I need to learn to fight.”

  “I’ll teach you.” He starts the engine.

  “Good.” I close the door, and Tarren drives away, leaving the ghost of Grand trailing chilled fingers down my back. Searching. Discovering what he knows is there. He baited my brothers with their own concern. Tricked and followed them to me. I knew they would find you. Faulty heroes, but I won’t tell them. There is pain enough already. Guilt enough. Burdens enough for us all.

  I tilt my head back and catch falling raindrops in my mouth. They taste like rust, but I feel a little more human for doing it.

  Chapter 45

  In the empty motel room I pull off my clothes slowly, though this will be painful no matter how I do it. Then it’s just me: freestyle blood art on my face, necklaced in bruises, puffy shoulder, purple-blue amoeba along my back where I hit the tree branch, red-rimmed eyes and mouth open, panting strangled notes of misery, because I don’t know how I can possibly handle this. Any of this.

  There’s been no sun today or the day before that. I clutch the sides of the sink, retching up the dust in my stomach. I’m thinking about Zac Effron grinning down on an empty bed, and the Jonas Brothers jamming with no one listening.

  The shower takes the blood off my skin, and I stay in longer just to see if it can get anything else out. Afterwards, I sit on the floor of the bathroom and tear my muddy clothes in half so I’ll never have to wear them again; decapitate that smiling teddy bear.

  The rabbit is smart enough to hide beneath Gabe’s bed. I lay on mine, keeping my fingers curled tight over the open slits in my hands while I wait for my brothers and try not to think about anything. I whisper Grand’s taunt over and over again, the syllables creased and worn with use.

  Everything you ever stood for will be forgotten. I will bury your body so deep in the ground that no one will ever dig you up. I’ll rid this world of every single one of your angels of death. I will soak your dreams in blood and burn them to ash. There won’t be a speck of you left, and the world will be a better place for it. Goodbye Father.

  Grand is still out there in the world. Waiting. Plotting. He followed the boys once, but he must have lost them after the fight. He hasn’t found us yet, but he’ll try again. Tarren will train me, and I’ll be ready. I will kill him. I must.

  My brothers return together three hours later. I listen to their car doors open and close. The faint whispers of energy I know so well. Slow circles for Gabe, twitching for Tarren.

  They stand in front of Tarren’s door, and I try to imagine what look they must be exchanging.

  “Get some rest,” Tarren says.

  “Yeah right,” Gabe mutters. Neither moves. “Do you think she’ll be alright?”

  Tarren thinks before answering. “She doesn’t have a choice.”

  “I guess.” Gabe walks to our door. He pauses, probably fishing for his key card.

  “She’s strong,” Tarren says. “I’m going to find a way to make it easier for her. For now…just keep being you.”

  “Alright,” Gabe says softly, surprised like me. “Goodnight.”

  “Get some rest,” Tarren says again. They open and close their doors together.

  I have taken this time to pull the covers up over my body, to tuck my hands beneath my pillow and close my eyes. I hitch my breath when Gabe pauses by my bed.

  He moves on, and I let my breath out slow. Gabe stays in the shower for a long time. I listen to the hiss of water, the sound of him scrubbing over and over. Lady McBeth sits on the sink and laughs.

  After the shower, Gabe keeps on his boxers and white undershirt and tosses the black clothing in the general proximity of his duffle bag. Sir Hopsalot cannot be induced
to emerge from his hideout despite promises of a bowl overflowing with salad mix. After a half hour online, Gabe shuts down his computer, runs a hand through his drying hair and turns off the lamp.

  We lay in our separate beds staring at different things. Gabe picks the ceiling, and I choose his energy, watching it tick in agitation just like Tarren’s. I try to stay as still as the twitching will allow. An hour goes by, and his energy is still sparking up and down, his heart thumping fast. I can still smell the bleach on the clothes he was wearing. Blood too. I’m twitching harder now. Hands sweating under the pillow. The bulbs are out, pulsing hot. Thoughts coming undone.

  “Why do you do it?” I ask.

  A sigh. “Do what?” Gabe turns his head in my direction.

  “It. This. Hunting angels. Let’s say you do win. Tarren creates a cure. Whatever. All the angels are back to normal. The world will still be a violent and ugly place. There will still be gangs and drugs and war. Bad things will always happen to good people, angels or not.”

  Gabe rolls onto his stomach, props himself up on his elbows so that he can turn toward me. “My father was a geneticist. He helped Dr. Cook with his research, helped him figure out how to do it. Make angels. He didn’t know, thought it was all theoretical, but he helped create them. It’s our fault they’re here, so we have to make it right again.”

  “What your father did is not your fault Gabe. You didn’t even know him.”

  “It’s our mission.”

  “It’s not your job to save the world. To give up your life for it. That’s not fair at all.”

  “If the angels win, it’s all over. They’ll breed humans for food or hunt us down like animals. I can’t let that happen. I won’t.” His voice is rising. “Maya, we save people. That’s worth everything, everything that we’ve suffered. It’s worth dying for. All that other stuff, gangs and war, well, I figure those are human problems and humans can solve them.”

  “Did Krugal talk?”

  In the long pause that follows, Gabe’s energy shivers with wan yellows. I can almost see the memories playing across his mind, pressing sharp nails against his psyche.

  “Yeah,” he says finally. “There are certain pressure points on the body. It didn’t take long.”

  “And then you killed him.”

  “It’s the job,” Gabe whispers, and I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince.

  We are silent a long while after this. Gabe shifts to his back, stares at the ceiling again. I curl my hands into fists, bite my lip, push my nails into the flesh of my palms. Anything to hook my attention away from the hunger and this growing panic that the night will never end. Rain patters against the windows. So much rain.

  Finally, in desperation, I ask, “do you really think we’ll win?”

  A long quiet. “I don’t know,” Gabe whispers.

  “Oh.”

  We wait the night out together, lost in our very different struggles.

  Eventually, the torment loosens its grip on Gabe’s mind. I watch his aura lose its peaks and eddies as he yields to exhaustion and drifts into a heavy sleep. Now his energy hums, smooth and quiet. No nightmares for him. Lucky brother.

  As soon as Gabe is asleep, I’m out of bed and across the room. Sitting at the desk. Tapping, tapping, tapping my fingers. Following Tarren’s energy, all jittery and exhausted, as he paces next door. Trying to keep a reign on myself. Thinking of what Amber said about being evil.

  But I can’t think, not really. It’s all faux thoughts, tangled ribbons each leading to the ugly hunger inside of me. The song. Audio hostem. How to describe the song. I pull my notebook, all soggy with apologies, out of my bag. Open to a clean page. Press my fingers hard against my temples and feel the heat from my hands on each side of my face. Glowing again. Knees jiggering. Tarren still pacing. Gabe breathing slow; stupid enough to fall asleep with a monster in the room.

  That thing is happening when I lose all my thoughts. Words slip away. Sentences crack under the weight. I’m forgetting my own name. This means I have to think of Ryan. Concentrate on him and his vanilla scents. And gurgely stomach. And maybe Avalon if I can get over these knives sticking in my heart.

  Ryan. Ryan. Ryan. Please. Oh, Ryan. Don’t let me kill my brother. At least not the one I like.

  I need to write something. About the hunger? About Ryan? I haven’t written anything since that night except for imaginary letters asking for a forgiveness I will never earn. I’ve been too afraid of the things that will come out of me if I let them. But tonight I need distraction. Even if it means giving voice to the monster. The pen is shaking on the paper, dropping loose letters up and down the lines. I’m not sure the words even make sense. I’m so close to breaking. I can feel it, and there’s nothing I can think to do except keep unwinding my soul on the page. Keep writing. Keep trying. Keep holding myself back. This feels useless.

  I’m not evil. Not yet. Not until Gabe shifts in his sleep, and his energy jumps. I’m not evil, even though I’m suddenly standing over his bed. This is all animal. All instinct. There is no Maya left to be evil. Just the monster dancing to the song.

  Gabe is on his side, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other curled in front of his face. That wavy hair is all over his pillow. He smells like soap and shampoo. His aura is so round and perfect. Blue as blue. True as true. He should have never trusted me. My gloves are gone.

  It will be quick; he won’t even wake up. Ever wake up again. A painless death for my sweet brother. Maybe even a sort of kindness. No more worries, no more fear, no more aching loneliness. I’m going to have to kill Tarren too. It would be too cruel to take away the only person he has left.

  Monster Maya. Pixie Girl. Fallen Angel. All swirled together into muddy brown. My hand reaches toward him, glowing bright.

  Gabe blocking Tarren’s gun with his own too-big heart.

  “Maya, take my hand.” “I’m trusting you with my life right now.”

  Putting on deodorant just for me.

  “You’re my sister, and I’m going to protect you. I won’t let you slip. I won’t let you fall.”

  The way he glances at me sometimes and streaks of loving purple spread through his aura.

  He never flinches when I touch him.

  This is how Gabe rescues me again, like he always does. I look down at my sleeping brother, and I need someone to believe in me. I need to know that someone thinks I’m strong enough to save myself, even if I don’t.

  Epilogue

  I’m on the roof of the motel, though I can’t remember leaving the room. The hunger is still tearing me to pieces, so that means I didn’t kill Gabe. Tears of relief drip down my face, or maybe it’s terror, or some strange, sad mixture.

  I’m laughing, but it’s all hiccups and retches. I have the notebook in my hands, and now I remember. There is one letter I haven’t written. One person’s forgiveness I have not yet begged. Because to ask forgiveness is to acknowledge that he is dead. It is to lay flowers upon his grave and wish him well in whatever comes after this, though I suspect there isn’t anything at all.

  I open the notebook and flip past the other pages. My hands are shivering and twitchy, but I feel more in control now that the worst has passed and I am alone on the roof. The words don’t come, but they will. I can wait.

  I take a deep breath, all wet and wonderful. Amber said I had an aura, small and ugly though it was, which means there is still a part of me that is human. I dig my nails into my palms as I finally digest her words and realize what they mean.

  “I am a hybrid,” I say the words out loud.

  This means there’s hope. Hope that I can control the hunger. Didn’t I just pass the most crucial test of all? Wasn’t the song drowning me and still I held my breath? The hiccups are dying down, but my heart takes over, kicking hard in my chest, testing the integrity of my ribs. Little snaps go off in my stomach, like butterflies exploding.

  “I’m in control,” I whisper, awed. And I believe it. I really do.

  I
look down at the crazy, terrible paragraphs scrawled on the pages of my notebook. I will start again. I will tell Ryan’s story, and Gabe’s story and Tarren’s story. And the story of a girl with broken wings.

  Something glitters on the horizon. The first lip of sun edges up from the darkness. The clouds hover close, ready to eclipse, but in this moment the sun is free of their reach.

  A girl with broken wings, done falling.

  I take up my pen and turn to the next empty page. It’s time to say goodbye to Ryan.

  And finally, the words come.

  ***

  Get The Follow-Up Novella To FALLING For FREE

  Maya’s adventures and tribulations are just beginning! Follow her, Gabe, and Tarren as they fight the good fight and make a grizzly discovery in COPING, a follow-up novella to FALLING. You can read this fast-paced, absorbing novella FOR FREE by joining my email list so that I can keep you in the loop when I release something new.

  CLICK HERE to sign up, and get COPING for free. (Get a short taste of COPING in the sample below.)

  A Short Note From J Bennett – It’s All About You

  I want to thank you so much for reading FALLING, and I hope you enjoyed the story. I don’t know you – you, the person reading these words right now – but I think about you a lot when I’m writing. I wonder if you’ll laugh at one of Gabe’s jokes, if you’ll see behind Tarren’s hard façade, if you’ll love these characters like I do.

  I give FALLING away for free, because I want to invite as many readers as possible into Maya’s world. I believe that if I can just put enough books in enough hands that the GIRL WITH BROKEN WINGS series will become a success, but I can’t do this alone.

  The hardest part about being an author isn’t actually writing the book. It’s cutting through the noise and reaching readers. We have some tools at our disposal, but the most powerful advertisement a book can receive is a personal recommendation.

  As an independent author, my reach is limited. I rely heavily on you, my readers, to help me reach others who will like this story. So I am asking for an ittby bitty favor. If you enjoyed FALLING and think other people will like it too, let them know about it. Write a short review on Amazon or Goodreads. Mention it on Facebook, Twitter, or your favorite social media platform.