I glance at Mom-waitress as she leans on Bytheway for support and she squeezes my hand. It feels like we’ve developed some kind of bond in these last few seconds; we’re in this together. The man with the knife sticking out of his chest is swaying every which way but down to the ground. How the hell is he still standing? Blood is bubbling around the sides of the big knife and his pristine shirt is quickly turning the red of life.
“Christ, just pass out already.” As if on cue the big man tries to say something but only a gurgling sound comes out, he falls to his knees then over on his side as if he knows falling forwards will push the blade further in. Although he can’t say anything, he’s clutching at the pumping wound and whimpering in the most manly way he can – which is basically lying there and twitching while occasionally moaning. Kick the bastard while he’s down. He tried to hurt you, he deserves it. Well, can’t argue with my own logic. Katie’s at my side just as I start to move.
“Don’t get within grabbing distance. He’s down but not out.”
I nod. Both men are looking at me with cold, calculating gazes. “Don’t move,” the not-stabbed one says. His gun is pointed at me. Moving really isn’t in my current plan.
“Hey,” Katie calls, drawing that terrifyingly black barrel to her. “Why not let all these people go.”
“Quiet. Or I’ll shoot you both.”
“With witnesses? Don’t think Mariah will be too happy about that.”
That touched a nerve. Man With Gun’s barely expressive face shuts down even further and he resumes his motionless but hyper-alert post by the door.
“Mariah?”
“The woman that was with them. The Keepers dropped a check on them when I arrived – nice of them to tell me before now – and heard somebody call her Mariah.”
“I think she’s in that red car.” I nod towards the town car parked by ours and Katie grins, fading out and reappearing on the other side of the cracked glass door. She bangs a fist on the door, and starts skipping – freaking skipping! – to the car and both me and the thug wrench the door open and follow her. I feel guilty about leaving my waitress behind but she’s in good hands. Already I trust Bytheway to care of me and those I care about… which is strange in itself ‘cos I never thought I’d ever actually care about somebody. But I care about him, and Katie and Jack; I care about my maybe-Mom. I DON’T care about either of the heavies or this Mariah woman. And that’s why I’m kinda relieved when I hear sirens in the distance the red car revs up and starts moving. It does a U turn and races away, kicking up a faceful of dust as it disappears. Until it passes between Katie and me, I’m pretty confident she won’t make it to the town car and vanish inside, but then I lose sight of her behind it and begin to panic that she’s going to use one of these freaky ass angel powers and take off after it. Like, literally take off. But she’s still there when the dusty lot clears and the tension leaves the air – until I remember there is still on of the big men lurking around here. He has made it over to the SUV and is fumbling his keys into the door lock. Once inside, the engine growls into full-throated life and tail lights blink on as he finds reverse gear. My brain still hasn’t caught up with reality or registered that the big black truck is coming straight for me: I’m standing there like a lemon when Katie yells incoherently at me from her spot. Somewhere in my deepest mind nook, I understand that nobody could possibly rescue me from that far away and I’m going to – “OW!”
Yeah, she did take off, but towards me and basically full body tackled me to the ground. Out of the way of the truck though. I let myself lie on the hard ground to get my breath back for a second, brush the dirt off my legs and arms and offer my hand out to Katie. “Are you okay? Did it hit you?”
“No, I didn’t get hit. I just… I haven’t got the strength to get back up.”
“O…kay. Do we need to do that energy transfer thing again?”
“It’s not really something I want to do in public.”
Behind us, a dozen faces are pressed up against the picture windows as I kneel beside a dead girl, talking like she’s as alive as you or me. Which she is, in the walking and talking sense anyway. “Needs must, Katie.”
“Sit me up. Let’s…. let’s just deal with this first.” Then I start paying attention to things outside the 200 square foot property. Sirens are still screaming towards us, getting louder every second, and it’s less than a minute before colors start strobing the air around the building as not one but two police cars brake on either side of me and Katie. They turn the sirens off but the blue and red lights are flashing as four officers jump out and cover us in a wide circle.
“What’s going on?”
“No clue. Four armed coppers with blues and twos seems a tad excessive. We only stole a couple of cars.”
“Stay where you are,” one of the officers bellows. “Show us you have no weapons. No, stay on the ground.”
I don’t know how they expect to do both but the few times I’ve seen the SCPD in action their procedures have never made much sense and the North Carolina force seems just as rational. “Why are you here? What’s going on?” But they won’t say a word to us until they’ve fastened both of us in flexi-cuffs and are hauling me to one car and Katie to the other. Chancing a look behind me, Katie is looking paler than usual, and even though she has a tan British skin is always kinda… pasty, and has barely enough energy to hold herself upright, let alone struggle like a wildcat.
The drive to the precinct in Valmont was blessedly short. Stuck in a ridiculously hot cop car with the silent twins was not my idea of a good time. Neither of them replied with more than a grunt when I asked to open a window or even turn the air conditioning up far enough that it actually reached the backseat. Both my officers, one male and one female but so cold and tough their gender makes absolutely no difference, keep glancing back at me the mirror with slitty eyes like I’m going to try something.
The station, when we get there, is a big building of glass and steel at the front and breeze blocks at the back. An open and transparent front to evoke feelings of trust and safety in the public, and a cold, concrete shell to hold prisoners out of sight. With one officer gripping each of my shoulders, I’m marched around to the bricked portion of the building and we just wait a few feet from the shade of the doorway until the other two policemen trudge Katie round, when the door in front of me buzzes and slides open. Yeah, this is most definitely a police station. The walls are painted demoralizing beiges and grays, with nothing on them – no pictures or posters, though there is a list of rules painted on one of them: no threatening behavior, surrender belts and shoelaces, that sort of thing. It’s as cold and unfriendly as it looks. Even with the door open the temperature’s like 40 degrees below what it is outside. The door slides shut with a clang behind the six of us making me jump and turn on instinct to see nobody standing near enough to have closed it. There’s a small black dome set in to the ceiling – hardly visible – whoever’s watching that camera must have closed it remotely. Not creepy at all.
“Sit down over there,” one of the officers barks at me but my legs have temporarily forgotten how to work. He prods me over and pushes me down onto the end of a long wooden bench and the female officer does the same to Katie. “We’ll sort you out soon.”
“Don’ rush,” I mutter just a bit louder than I meant to.
“What did you say, girly?”
“It’s just… well you fucking cuffed us. We’re on a road trip. We haven’t done anything. Why are we even here?”
“Either this is a really low crime city or this is a fake nick.”
“Nick. Who’s Nick?” the woman asks. “Were you traveling with somebody called Nick?”
Katie makes that funny frustrated noise in the back of her throat; the one that always sets me off in a coughing fit. “It’s English for… what do you Yanks call them? Whatever. Precinct.”
“Precinct is English for precin
ct.”
“We pretty much invented America. If we call this place a nick, it’s a nick. Which it isn’t so this conversation is redundant.” If Katie wants to get into an argument with the cops about language, I’m more than happy to let her get on with it. Only… only I can tell every word uttered is costing her a little bit more of the energy she has left. Too bad I can’t touch her hand and let her take a bit of mine.
On of the officers – I’ve kinda lost track of which one is which now – moves to the metal counter set into one of the walls and takes up a pen, flipping through papers and frowning slightly as he fills in random sections. “You know, when they said we’re looking for a couple teenage girls, I thought it’d be easy money.”
“And?” asks one of the others. “I didn’t see nothing worth gettin’ antsy about.”
“Yeah, you were watching her. She’s half asleep. But this one, this one was fightin’ all the way. Kid kicked me in the knee too.”
Katie chokes back a giggle but it still spills out as a snort.
“Oh, come back to life have we?”
Now it’s my turn to hold back a smirk. I’m not in the mood to laugh but if I don’t smile about something, I’ll scream. “What are we even here for?”
“Boosting cars, for starters.”
The officer who was booking us in walks back over with one finger pressing something into his ear and murmuring something. Obviously he’s got an earpiece in and somebody is giving him orders which he doesn’t look brilliantly happy about. That or the voices in his head have turned on him. Which is already a win in my book. “What’s going on here?” Just a wild guess but is he in charge?
“Just telling them what we pulled them in for.”
“Rule number one – do not engage in conversation. Not even goddamn eye contact!”
“Are we under arrest? No-one’s read us our rights yet if we are and I’ve seen cop shows; you have to.” Suddenly, I’m aware of how much I sound like a whining little kid. Then again… I’m sixteen years old, in a police lobby and, up until three days ago, my life was a normal as it could get for a teenage runaway. “Will I have a police record now?” For all I know I’ve already got one after my breakouts from social services.
“You might if we knew your names.”
No names? Cool. “I’m Genevieve and my friend over there is…”
“Pandora.”
“Fine. Genevieve - against the wall.” When I take more than half a second to respond, the female cop pulls me up and presses me into the wall. Katie follows and we manage to turn to face each other as we get patted down for weapons or contraband or something. Or maybe we’re just jailbait to this lot. “How you doin’?” I whisper.
Shut up. You’ll cause trouble.
I think that ship has sailed. I can’t believe this: I’m having a discussion with an angel using my brain. Katie starts struggling weakly against the officer. What are you doing? There’s no answer and I quickly realize why. As the woman tries harder and harder to hold her still, Katie’s efforts get a touch stronger. Color returns to her skin. With one massive jerk, she pulls one hand free of the plastic wire holding her wrists together and clamps down on the nearest bare flesh. It’s the neck fat of the short stocky man who rode in my car. He starts to pale and tremble while Katie seems to be stronger, more vital, with every passing moment. An energy transfer is going on here. Even more enforced than my introduction to the process and I wonder if Katie considers it the same way I do.
Rape.
The thought is pushed aside when, one by one, the other three police people try to pull Officer Neckfat and Katie apart, but her grip has gone to the point where a crowbar couldn’t prize them apart. Maybe I should do something productive with this relative freedom… something like see if I can bust that door open. Instead, I’m staring at Katie’s cuffless wrist, watching as the scratches and tears in her skin heal up with the energy flowing from the police to her. The faint whitish glow I recognize is beginning. It gets brighter quicker than I ever thought possible and the chain of four people she’s drawing from are all trying to pull away from a grip too strong to escape. Almost blinding now, emanating from chocolate brown eyes, too bright to look directly at. The fluorescent light tube overhead blows out in a shower of glass and sparks: the virtually windowless precinct lobby is plunged into darkness made deeper in contrast to the eerie silver-white and the chinks of bright south-east USA sun. Katie is breathing hard and reaches out for me with her other hand. The dangling flexi-cuffs simply fade through her wrist and whisper to the floor in a sound too loud for this silent chaos. For once in my life I have the sense to pull myself away as soon as her hand brushes my cheek. My brain may have deserted me for the time being but pure instinct tells me I may not walk away from this frenzy alive if I let her get too close. Her dazzling light starts wavering dramatically. All in one moment, the four police officers stagger away from Katie – two on their knees, one lying fetal by the wall and the other cowering in a corner with fear-bright eyes – and she runs for the door, reeling back to give it a useless kick but the door bursts out of the frame before contact is made. There is a sickening crunch of metal and solid part as I assume the door crashes through at least one of the police cars. Golden sunlight pours through the door… hole, and I blink against it for a minute. A burning hot hand grabs my arm, slides down to the strongest point of the cuffs and they just fall off me. Twisting until her fingers and laced firmly with mine, Katie pulls me towards the opening. But she’s heating my skin to an almost painful temperature and her energy overload, coupled with my human weakness proves to be our downfall. Her amazing light is still flickering. She lets go and I bolt for the door without thinking. Just outside, I realize Katie is no longer beside me. Looking back, she is propped against the wall and breathing hard, tiny sparks of silver escaping on every pant. The one remaining standing officer lunges forward and pulls her to the ground with him. On the tile floor, they lie shaking for a second. One half of my brain is scolding me for not racing over to help them right away, while the other half of me is screaming at me to JUST FUCKING RUN! And while these two are duking it out, I’m left standing outside and staring at the tiled floor, blankly trying to work out the pattern. Three plain white tiles to one pale blue one with a darker swirl on.
“GO!” Katie yells at me.
My feet click into action and I am stumbling towards her, thinking (insanely) that I can do something to help.
“What… what can I do?”
“Go! You’re the one they want. Go. Find Coffee Shop Guy and –“
On hearing that, both of the cops on their knees shuffle over and reach up, pawing at my worn smooth jeans trying to find something to grab onto. Thank God for being too lazy to refresh my closet staples.
“Don’t stop running.”
The room darkens. The thug who took off before the police arrived is standing in the wrecked doorway, blocking out most of the light.
“Gotcha.”
“Crap. You lot are in it together.”
He just grunts and stalks forward, his stature alone forcing Katie and me to our feet ad into a corner. I don’t know who reaches for the other first. “You’ve been more trouble than we thought,” he says to me. “You’ve downed five of our best. Including my partner.” It’s really not the time to point out that I wasn’t responsible for any of them.
“Can’t you just forget we were here?” I try to get a fix on his eyes, knowing that his gaze will be locked with mine until I let him go, but he seems wise to this trick and is staring firmly at a spot above my head. A pulsing white light comes out from beside me – no need to look anymore, it doesn’t even surprise me when it happens now – and connects with the man, bringing his face down to mine. He frowns as his movement is forced out of him, like nobody else can see the glow.
“Come on, you can just forget about us and everything’ll be so much easier.”
I’m pouring everything I’ve got into making him forget and I can kind of feel him resisting every effort. It’s exhausting and a tiny headache is beginning to form behind my eyes. Shake my head. Give up. “No more.”
He grins at me and puts a hand on my shoulder. I stare down. “Move it or lose it bub.” Still got the energy to give him some lip.
“You’re coming with me?”
I plant my feet firmly where I stand and bend my legs just enough to lower my centre of gravity and make me harder to move. He picks me up and throws me over his shoulder like nothing more than a pillow. WTF? That really didn’t go to plan…
“The boss’ll decide what to do with you when she gets down here.” I don’t he a any more of the conversation because this big bouncer type carts me down a white corridor and into some kind of cell, dumps me on a metal chair and leaves. Deadbolt slides across with a thunk and there’s a humming noise and a click. Another lock. Man, they’re really intent on keeping me locked up! They must think I pose some kind of threat. Lean back in my chair and close my eyes, trying not to think about how I’m trapped here. Yeah, that’ll work.
By the time the door re-opens, I’ve basically exhausted all possibilities to amuse myself in this little room. I think I had a fitful short nap as soon as I was left. If there were any dreams I don’t remember them but an artificial light had started to creep in when I opened my eyes; something hidden behind the frosted plastic ceiling. The room is rectangular, even though it looks square when you’re sitting in the middle of it. By taking larger than average stepped, I have worked out that the room is roughly 4 meters by 5 meters. I did spend a few minutes seeing how few giant steps I could take o cover the distance. Then I tried jumping, hopping, skipping, but I drew the line at hopscotching. The walls are the pale blue of some of the tiles outside and the floor is some kind of itchy carpet. So glad I put my sneakers on or my feet would be in tatters.
Apart from the chair I sat on at first and a square table in the corner there is nothing in the room. Considering it’s me, I expected some kind of surveillance equipment but there’s nothing – no eye in the sky, no wall replaced by a one way mirror.
Booooredddd…
Then they throw Katie through the door and lock us in together. I’d already tried banging on the door and shouting incoherent sounds followed by insults and curses but I didn’t even bother when the door opened. It didn’t get me anything other than a sore throat. “KA – Pandora!” For the first time in my life, I’ve properly missed another person. Not enough to rush over a give her a hug but… we’re friends. “I thought they might have thrown you out or something. I’m so glad you’re still here.”
“they’re not getting rid of me. Not if Jack might be here.”
“Don’t you know?”
“The connection… it’s gone.” There are tears in her dark eyes and she seems to be having trouble keeping them from falling.. I want to say it’s okay to cry but I’m still not convinced we’re not being spied on. ! felt it snap as we walked through the front door and now… God, now I don’t even know if he’s alive.”
“He’s alive.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m so sorry Ka- Pandora.” Must remember her fake name. “I wanted to tell you before but –“
“But what, Genevieve?”
Hoping to put the confession off for just a few seconds more, I go back to the table, brush imaginary dust off the surface, and make myself as comfortable as possible sitting cross legged on top of it. Katie just glares at me with her arms folded. I can practically feel the anger radiating off her. “When you got that call at the clinic and I took the phone off you? I was speaking to that Mariah woman, I think, but I heard Jack right at the end. He, he was crying.”
“And you didn’t mention it?! Just to put my mind at ease!”
“like you said, you’d know if something was seriously wrong. Are you mad at me?”
“Mad! Gen, I’m furious!”
“But why would they keep you here too if he wasn’t still around? I think he’s in this building and they’re trying to get us to do something to save him. Then they’ve got me ‘cos you’ll go off with him and be all happy and I’ve got no-one left. Again. Jus like I never have anybody left.”
“That’s not true. We came here to save you, to teach you how to run, and once we save Jack, that’s what we’ll do. We started off having to do this but now it’s personal and I want to finish this.”
“Because of Jack.”
“And you.”
I feel my eyebrows shoot up, surprised that some-one cares about me.
“What? What’d I say?”
“Abandoned by my parents; kicked from pillar to post in care; toxic friends who only wanted me for the good times; never really saw the point in friends after that. You start caring and then you get hurt. Or,” I think about all the people who’ve got hurt trying to protect me this week, “You hurt them.” Principal King, Mom-waitress, Matthew Bytheway, people who’ve unthinkingly sacrificed something for me – they’re the real angels, just as much as Katie.
“Gen, you haven’t hurt anybody. People put themselves on the line for you because they think you’re worth it. Whether you think so or not, people want to help you so much and, if they’re going to be in danger, it might as well be for a good reason. Just like Shimma did for me.”
There’s a story there. She’s not quite ready to tell it. I realize I’m too tired to press it but the sudden distance between me and where-ever her mind is is too much to bridge.
Bridge. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that.
Shudder. She is doing that talking in my head again. “Can you not?”
“not yawn? I can’t really control it.” At the same time she’s thinking, I’m not quite convinced they’re not spying on us somehow. Me neither. So we’ll keep up this show and they’ll think we’re sleeping while we work.
Work?
I feel compelled to do exactly what Katie does, even without her saying anything – silently or otherwise. I slide off the table holding her hand, crouch to the floor and snuggle up by one of the legs with her arm draped over my waist. “Night, Genevieve.”
“They know my-“
And suddenly my spirit is ripped out of my body and speeds through the ether. I am rising to the ceiling and looking down on us both. Katie tugs on my imaginary arm. Instead of going through the rest of the police station, everything goes black and silent and there’s nothing nothing nothing.
My return to reality is as abrupt as my exit from it. The empty blackness that surrounds me is doing a reverse fade into a cloudy white nothing. There’s no air around me but somehow I’m still breathing. Something appears under my feet and a faint tingle runs through my lower legs.
You’ll get used to it.
Katie is still holding my hand and it feels like the other night – like she’s touching my soul. It’s… weird. But I think I like it. It feels right.
Below us is the narrow silver bridge; wide enough to let us walk side by side – just. Below that is a million foot – okay, probably 20 – drop to a still river, looking cold even though a fire rages beneath the surface. With impossible grace, Katie kneels down and sits on the edge of the bridge, dangling her legs over the drop. Next to that, my drop into a kneel beside her looks awkward and clumsy. Who knew that sitting down was this nuanced? I stay well away from the edge though and wondering if Katie ever has the same irrational urge to jump from a great height.
No. now, I know I never put that thought into words. She offers me a sheepish smile. Actually, that’s a weird saying ‘cos do sheep even smile? We can’t use speech here so I never know when I should be listening to your thoughts.
Have you brought anybody here before?
The first time I came here I thought about jumping. Now, though… now, I know what’s down there. And I know it hates me. Evil. Pure evil. I used
o fight it every day and now, now we’re running away from it.
I take it you’ve never run before?
Rose, I was a professional runner. A real smile touches her lips. Once upon a time I tried to run away from everything wrong in my life.
And your problems just followed you. But you’re the one telling me to get away from Mariah and her goons.
No, not quite. But there was a whole lot of new ones waiting for me.
Like what?
Katie lifts her head, tilted to one side as if listening to something I can’t hear, then rises from her precarious seat. It’s not until then that I realize both of us are bare footed just like in my dream. How are-
Come on. They’re nearly ready for us.
I consider asking who but I have a pretty good idea and I don’t have the energy to waste trying to mentally broadcast the question. Psychic communication is more draining than it sounds.
Chapter eight
Angels of America: A Circle of the Fallen novella Page 7