by T Hearts
“I just know what it does.” He shook his head and sighed deeply as he rocked back onto the balls of his feet. The afterimages of his mind lingered upon Griffin along with the moment of fragility and evasiveness. What was he before? What had he seen?
Composing himself, he returned his skin to neutral and looked up at her.
“That concussion is pretty serious. You need a doctor. A proper doctor not a…well you know what I mean.”
‘A doctor?’
“I have friends all over.” He smiled and fished a phone out of his pocket. An old burner which through her haze she wondered how it had signal, then thought about what had happened to her phone. Was it still recording?
“I’ll call it in so that someone knows where you are and can help you and get you to a hospital.”
“A hospital?” She managed to croak in bewilderment. “Are you high?”
Xavier laughed, not attempting to hide the bemused honk this time. “You’re higher than I am right now. You’re on three patches of morphine and one of EPI+”
“Jackass.”
“Rude thing to say when I’m trying to help you.”
“Why?” She trembled as the feeling of a painful itch ran up and down her non-existent left wing. No amount of morphine was going to stop that pain.
Xavier glanced towards the smashed armband, a look that she followed. With it off, ARCDA should have been beginning to trace her, but since it was smashed, she had no idea if it was even possible or not for them to find her.
“You wanted to disappear. Now’s your chance.” He said, then with a little shrug. “Now’s my chance.”
It took a little moment to comprehend what he was getting at.
“Do you think this means that I owe you? You save me and that makes it right to let you go?”
“It might.” He shrugged again, a little more serious looking than before. “I know you don’t really want to go back to ARCDA. You’re afraid of what they might do to you.”
Had some of the tangle of thoughts she’d experienced been hers? She couldn’t say, but she silently and begrudgingly admitted that he was right. Even if she did go back, what if they transferred her to another project? What if they sent her out on another mission- a false one- and had her killed in action? She’d pissed off the major, now what were the consequences going to be?
Xavier scratched his head. He was still in her thoughts and echoing her apprehension back at her, though she was certain it was a mutual feeling.
“So don’t go back.” He said firmly. “Take the ride to the hospital. Make yourself a new identity and just do something else with your life.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. And I’m definitely not going make myself a bounty for someone else to collect.” With a shove, she pushed him away and rolled up onto the balls of her feet.
Xavier backed up; hands raised in a sign of peace.
“Okay. If you want to stay then that’s your choice, but I’m not fighting you.” His face turned serious, eyes narrowing and skin rippling with faint dark markings of displeasure. “And I’m definitely not going back to ARCDA.”
With a herculean effort, Griffin forced herself to her feet. Pain blazed across her chest, throughout all of the muscles and tissues around the gouge. It was hard to breathe through the pain but she scowled at him with determination.
“Yes you are.”
“Griffin. Please.” He spoke softly, a slight tremble in his voice, watching her struggle. “Sit down. I will walk away.”
“You walk away, and I lose all that I’ve worked for. I can’t let that happen. I have not worked my ass off for it all to be taken away by you.”
Staggering as though drunk, she tore off one of the morphine patches that were blocking out the pain. Xavier kept on backing away, still pleading with her, but the thundering of her blood in her ears drowned him out. The world was spinning again, slipping sideways and threatening to throw her to the ground once more.
‘I have to do this.’ she told herself, forcing her legs to move. ‘I have to go back. I have to take him back. Who will protect the girls otherwise?’
Black and pink dashed across her vision, a flurry of feathers. Another mass of colour, red and yellow this time, then another, blue and white. The colours were so fast it sent her reeling and all around them shadows fluttered and chased one another, blotting out the sun.
Xavier span round bewildered by both the kick to the head and the sudden crowd in the wide-open sky. Following his gaze up with a dizzy light-headedness, she stared at the chaos reigning above her.
The Quetzal was up in the air again, surrounded by what felt like a hundred other wings, but it was also coming down. Right on top of them.
Without even thinking of what she was going to do Griffin ran. Ran as fast as she could with her wings beating as fast as she could force them to, right to the edge of the plateau and threw herself out into the open air just before the gigantic critter could crush her into the dust. The agony of moving drown out all thoughts, all comprehension, all that was left was the need to fly away.
As soon as her feet left the ground, she felt nothing else but the wind around her. No pain. No fear and anger. Just the wind as it whistled past her ear tufts as she arced out over the edge of the plateau.
Her wings fluttered and vanished, but she didn’t fall. As her vision began to swirl and fade to black, huge wings drew themselves around her and for a brief moment, she was flying again.
Chapter 26
This was entirely not what Griffin had intended. Waking up, bandaged up and aching everywhere except her left pinkie finger. Maybe it was missing, she hadn’t opened her eyes to check yet. Her back, chest and shoulder throbbed worst of all, as whoever had laid her down had set her on her back rather than her side.
It was getting increasingly uncomfortable the longer she lay still. She had to roll on to her side, but it felt as though a weight were sat on her chest, stopping her from moving. It took a colossal effort to attempt raise her arm to her chest to see what it was that was holding her down.
Slowly blinking her eyes open, she squinted into bright sunlight then down at herself.
She was bandaged up, more so than what Xavier had done for her, and had multiple medical booster patches across her arms and an icepack upon her shoulder where she had been gored, as well as several layers of adhesive skins that had been lain over the smaller grazes and cuts, but there were no straps holding her down. She didn’t understand.
With a dizzy glance around the room, she spotted a tall man standing by the door. Fear paralysed her and she held her breath. He remained perfectly still, gaudily dressed in a familiar colourful print shirt beneath a black business blazer and wearing round darkly tinted sunglasses despite being inside.
Mr Ludlow?
Why was he here?
Panic crushed her aching chest and snapped her throat closed. Her mind began to race. If he was here, then there was no chance she would ever be an Elite of any kind ever again. Risio was going to take her back.
Tears filled her eyes, and when they spilled over, Mr Ludlow blurred and vanished from her peripheral vision.
A gasp of relief escaped her and the tension in her chest released. He wasn’t here. It was just her imagination.
Eyes shut tightly, she waited for the paralysis to end and hallucinations disperse. The side effects of using Nitro were going to be a plague on her mind for the next few weeks. At least this time around she knew what she was in for. She was only glad that she wasn’t a muser as the effects would have been far worse.
After what felt like hours of laying still, doing all she could to calm herself and force all of her nightmares back into their box, two people entered the room, speaking in hushed whispers but treading heavily on creaky floorboards.
She listened carefully but the morphine made it hard to focus. Everything in the distance seemed to float in and out of her consciousness like a strange dream. Hoping to herself that it wasn’t another
hallucination, cautiously, she opened one eye.
A wide man with a huge greyed beard stood nearby, his weathered face creased by age and concern.
“Turtle?” She whispered hoarsely. Her own voice took herself by surprise and she let out a short and bewildered laugh. The mixture of boosters, morphine, and what she deduced must have been a patch of Hax, made her feel drunk. Every feather itched like a rash the more alert she became and the complete exhaustion it brought with it gave her no chance to compose herself sensibly.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Griffin.” The old man chuckled, gently petting her head. Definitely real, and highly comforting. She wasn’t in Risio. She was still on the ranch. Tears of relief stung at her eyes before she could stop them, but she made no attempt to wipe them away.
Peyton was with him, looking hot and flustered but relieved to see her awake. With a little twitching bounce, Peyton threw her arms around Griffin. The hug was so unexpected that Griffin laughed, then immediately began to hiss and wince as the muscles across her chest ached and burned.
“We’ve been so worried! The girls brought you in and you were a mess, and there was blood everywhere and-” Peyton bubblingly rambled before she caught herself and took a deep breath. Steadying herself, she smiled. “We’re just glad that you’re alive.”
Feeling safe, Griffin pushed herself upright, hissing under her breath with pain and glanced a look around the room she had been put in. It must have been one of the buildings on the ranch, one of the bunkhouses possibly. A largeish room with several beds that looked as though they had been slept in, and they had given her the bed closest to the window. On her right lay only one other person in the room.
“What happened to him?”
“Asher?” Turtle rolled his eyes and sighed with disappointment at the unconscious ranger. “He saw your big snaky whatsit and fainted clean away. Then he saw some of your other critters again this morning and passed out again. The kid has no stamina.”
Griffin chuckled as Peyton nodded to verify that it was true.
With a shock of gut wrenching panic, she leapt out of bed, the blankets knotting around her knees and sending her crashing onto the floor.
“The Quetzal!” She yelled as Turtle and Peyton quickly dropped to her side to help her. “What happened with the Quetzal! How long have I been asleep? Where are the girls!”
“Stand down. Stand down. It’s all under control.” Turtle ordered, catching her shoulders and holding her still. “Take a second Miss Griffin. Breathe a little. You’ve been out of it for a day. You haven’t missed anything.”
Pain shot across her shoulder and chest, but she ignored it, twisting and struggling with the sheets to free herself, pulling off the patch of Hax in the process.
“Where is everyone? Where’s IO? And San? Did the Preter hurt them?”
“You’re as bad as San, you are.”
“Yes, completely, but are they hurt?”
He held her still and smiled calmly, waiting for her to focus, which was incredibly difficult through the medley of drugs. “Well,” he said with a patient and parental tone, “if your legs are working then we can go see.”
Nodding, and feeling somewhat foolish as she struggled to stand, she allowed Peyton and Turtle to help her up onto her feet. Her knees were wobbly beneath her and everything ached as she moved, however her chest hurt still hurt so much that even breathing was painful. Despite the stitches, the skins, and the boosters – which she hated and could already feel working and itching – she would be left with a huge scar across her chest.
Stepping out into the sunlight, she found the ranch busy with ARCDA workers. Quick shadows raced across the ground and with a little gasp Griffin looked to the sky.
Wings filled the air.
Not just IO and San’s. An entire flock of Avios. Griffin counted eleven with tears in her eyes. They were safe, her girls were safe.
Each pair had the same black base as IO, but each was marked by patterns and colours that were both like hers and yet unique to each other. Flame orange, stark white and cobalt, cherry pink with coral and blue, blazing gold. Each with a set of forked scissor-like tailfeathers that let them flip and twist in the air, avoiding collisions with the ground within millimetres, chasing one another.
Nico was among them. With his own forked tailfeathers and dark plumage he could have been a long-lost batch brother, only his wings were far more narrow than any of the Sirocco sisters’.
Seeing them all so happy and light, her heart ached more painfully than any of her injuries, and the boosters and Hax were not helping.
“Where…where did they all come from.” She asked Peyton in a daze. The ranger laughed awkwardly, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
“Well… you see. The moment San told them IO was in trouble they immediately flew here.”
“Don’t some of them live in other states?”
“Like that’d stop ‘em.”
One of the flock arced sharply out of the sky. Cherry pink and arctic blue, she knew which this sister was arrowing towards her.
“Griffin!” IO yelled. She swooped in, not even attempting to brake with her tailfeathers as she snatched Griffin off her feet into a hug. Griffin winced with pain but laughed all the same as she was span around in a flurry of feathers that curled around her into an embrace.
“I take it you rescued me?” She said, hurriedly patting IO on the back so that she would put her down.
IO beamed. “Of course! We all did- well, me and Satu were the ones who caught you.” Then more concerned, she checked Griffin over. “Are you okay? You looked awful, and there was blood everywhere.”
“Dizzy and sore, and maybe a little high, but hey, I did get punched by a Quetzal.”
“And then you threw yourself off a cliff.”
“That…sounds about right.”
There was a rushing of wings followed by a loud ‘oof’ of pain as San slammed Nico down into the dust with his wings flailing everywhere. Long talons on her toes were dug into his throat, a brutal alternative to the claws on her hands of which her left-arm was bound up tight against her chest in a sling. Even without the use of one arm, she was vicious.
“Use all of your wings, dumbass!” She yelled down at him as he groaned from the ground, giving him an angrily little kick in the gut.
Turtle roared with laughter and clapped the fiery girl. Griffin stared in shock at the old man, having expected him to reprimand her for her behaviour.
“She’s just hazing him.” Turtle chuckled, casting a mischievous wink to her. “I think they like him. Or at least the chance to bully him. Sundowner, off.”
“Your friend is a terrible flyer. Is this what they’re letting be Diamonds?” San scoffed, snapping her wings shut and letting her tailfeathers trail across Nico’s still crumpled form as she strode up to Griffin, giving her a worried look over at her injuries. Red eyes narrowing, her tailfeathers flared out dramatically as she put her hand on her hip. Beside Griffin, IO and Turtle tittered, knowing the look all too well.
“Griffin.” San said sternly with the voice of an elder sister than a violent feral. “I know you said that when you got angry you made stupid choices but…” she took a deep calm breath and then smiled. “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? WHAT KIND OF IDIOT JUMPS OFF A CLIFF? YOU COULD HAVE DIED!”
Griffin smiled, her short tailfeathers fanning and flicking in happiness. She had never felt more beloved.
“Oh San.” Griffin half laughed with a knot in her throat. “I thought you didn’t care.”
“Shut up!” She flicked her wings sharply and stepped up to Griffin to pull her into a one-armed hug. “You’re lucky you’re fragile at the moment or else I’d beat your ass into the dust like your friend.”
With a rattle of quills, Nico let out a heavy and pained whine as he struggled to bring his wings in enough to roll over.
“I thought you said they weren’t feral.” Nico groaned, rising awkwardly to his feet and limp out of the way a
s San hissed at him. As much as Griffin could tell that he wanted to check her over himself with his usual brand of pestering and nagging, he was very clearly nervous of San. Even the Rubies were keeping their distance as they worked.
“Well, I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting two of the ten.” She said with a painful shrug. IO clapped her hands excitedly and made a sound that Griffin could only describe as a purr.
“That’s right!” She beat her wings with an excited quickness that let her hover a few feet off the ground. “You haven’t met everyone yet!”
Before anyone could stop her, she whistled to the sky and flourished her wings out before her. The background noise of feathers against the wind grew louder, the patterns and beats changing. The other eight Sirocco sisters were descending and Griffin could only gape in a daze as she watched them. Eight other sisters, all red eyed, brown skinned and feathered, and all bustling to meet her.
IO bounced on the spot beside her as she began to introduce each of them to Griffin with the assistance of San scolding her to slow down.
Jui, strawberry coloured and sassy, talking loudly to Ashta, quick and lively, both so similarly coloured to IO they could have been triplets. Sept, bashfully stumbling over her words as she greeted Griffin, and the only sister whose wings were predominantly blue. Sez, the modest middle sister along with the sweet Cinco and her missing arm. Fyra with the largest wings of them all, out spanning Nico’s by at least a meter, having to shove everyone to one side to make room for herself. Zwei, snapping photographs as she gracefully arced low around them before sweeping in close and shooing the crowd of girls out the way for the last sister to arrive.
She guessed from the way they held themselves and made room for the last that this was the eldest sister.
“And finally! Satu.” IO said proudly, “Satu, this is Griffin!”