All this occurred within the first ten seconds as the aftershocks continued to rock the theater, and I fought against the flow of the crowd. I leapt over seats and dove in the gaps between fleeing couples, my eyes on Francesca, who stood transfixed and raised on a platform, her eyes wide, her mouth still open from her last note. The performers of fallen leaves had already departed, leaving her alone, surrounded by spotlights as the sea of people panicked in front of her, making her the perfect target for a passing Special, easily stolen before anyone would realize what had occurred. These were the same distraction tactics that had occurred at the pizza restaurant, which had worked perfectly on us previously.
But not this time.
“SC!” The shout came from my right, and I turned as I hurdled a seat to see Ennia with her arms outstretched, sitting on top of Lucio’s shoulders to rise above the crowd. Her eyes rolled backwards, her lips moving as she recited words under her breath, her fingers curling inwards. In front of me, the theater seats cracked at their hinges, turning bone white as they extended forwards, growing sinew and muscle to pull them upright. The first row angled upwards, then the next formed a supporting column as the third folded over it, creating a semi-living staircase that I rushed upward. Just in front of me, new seats snapped upwards as Ennia animated them, blending life into the metal and fabric, making a catwalk that constructed itself just faster than I could run.
On stage, the spotlight circle around Francesca wobbled, tracing a slow arc around her platform, and her eyes slowly turned upwards, blood draining from her face. High above, the metal scaffolding that held the lights in place shifted, nuts and bolts popping as another tremor racked the theater. From twenty feet away, I increased my speed, almost catching up to the edge of the living catwalk as the scaffolding creaked and collapsed, dropping the light array. I raced the falling metal, leaping as Ennia formed a ramp at the lip of the stage, rolling among the props as I raised my hands upwards, coming to a stop just before Francesca.
The force points I generated were so strong that the stage platforms clustered around us, sliding across the stage floor to crash in a splintering mess of plywood. They caught the falling lights with only ten feet to spare, not stopping them but redirecting them against the back wall. Sparks flew as the lamps slammed down, dragging live wires across the wood and gouging deep marks into the stage just feet from where we stood. The edge of the scaffolding clipped one of the platforms surrounding us, pulverizing it instantly, sending one of the legs flying into the crowd to impale itself deep into chair in an explosion of fluff.
Around us shadows danced—shadows that were equally likely to be attackers or illusions from the flickering lights and electrical arcs as I climbed to my feet, my senses on full alert. Ready to fight at the instant someone showed their face, my teeth bared, dark orbs prepared to spring to life in my hands. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I whipped around, prepared to strike but only seeing the wide eyes of Francesca, reflected fire dancing deep in her dark as night pupils, her head turned slightly to the side.
“You saved me,” she said, and her hand moved to the side my cheek, cupping my jawbone, her voice hoarse with shock. The hem of her dress was ripped, the bark littering the ground around her, and a single splinter of wood pierced through the back of her hair only centimeters away from the back of her skull. Her eyebrows arched with emotion as if she too were shocked by her words as I felt blood starting to trickle from the side of my temple, and blinked away the stone dust that had lodged itself in my hair.
“I—I thought you left, SC. I was afraid I would never see you again.”
Chapter 24
We were among the last to leave the theater as I used force points to blast away any obstacles in our path, shattering the piled stage props around us like an enormous hatching egg. By now the dust had started to settle—in the place of tremors, an eerie stillness now filled the hollow shell, the only sounds the muffled screams and sirens from outside. Francesca clutched my arm as we moved, my head on a constant swivel for new threats, for assassins that might leap out of the shadows or sections of roof that could come dislodged. As we stepped outside into the cool night air, using the hole drilled through the wall by a special only minutes before, an eruption of flashes instantly blinded me.
I raised my hands, simultaneously blocking the lights and preparing to attack when a second volley of flashes struck me, and Francesca took my hands by the wrists, pulling them down and wrapping me in a hug. At that, the flashes intensified, and through the stars in my vision, I saw they originated from a dozen cameras aimed directly at us. Francesca kissed me on the cheek, and I felt her pose, smiling at the chattering press.
Slowly, my eyes adjusted, revealing the news vans interspersed with medical teams caring for the wounded. In moments, four men in suits pressed through the press, followed by two medics, and I stepped in front of them to bar the path to Francesca. Each stood at least a foot taller than me, with muscles that bulged through their shirts, and they looked down on me as Francesca pushed me back.
“My love,” she cried, raising the back of her hand to her forehead as the cameras reacted to the shot. “He is injured, you must help him. I am fine, but he—he saved me by risking his own life.”
She pulled the medics forwards, indicating my bleeding temple as they sat me down, her holding my hand so tight, I could feel her rings digging into my skin as they started checking me over. The four suited men stood off to either side, motioning to someone else in the crowd, and forming a protective barrier between us and the press. Another set of medics arrived to examine Francesca, and I used the time to inspect the damage from the earthquake.
Fissures radiated away from the opera house, splitting off into the plaza like a spiderweb, running all the way to the base of the fountain, which now spewed water through broken pipes. The police were roping off the area with caution tape, while firefighters arrived on the scene to check for victims inside the structure. Cracked statues lay on the street from where they had toppled off the theater’s decorative exterior, and curious faces peered from the far side of the plaza, where the crowd in the adjacent restaurants had fled. But despite the damage to the opera house itself, the stone crisscrossed with hairline cracks but still standing, few of the surrounding buildings suffered any damage. Rather, the effect was centralized, not at all natural.
A coordinated attack, then, I thought, my suspicions confirmed and growing more paranoid. A failed one. At least so far.
In moments, another person arrived—a reed of a man, holding a handkerchief up to his nose, and a thin trail of blood escaping one ear. He spoke, the words coming out in Italian, and Francesca looked to him disdainfully.
“Father,” she said, crossing her arms. “You know that SC can’t speak Italian. Don’t be rude.”
He blinked, rubbing his thumb and index finger on his temple, his eyes slightly glazed over. When he spoke, it was almost slurred, as if he were on autopilot, and the medic that accompanied him kept a close watch as he wobbled, taking his elbow to steady him.
“I was saying, that was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. As a Quaker myself, I’d know—knocked me right unconscious for a moment there. And, yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “Yes, you, you are one of Francesca’s friends, then? Call me Dacil.”
“Ugh, you never pay any attention!” complained Francesca, but the words seemed to roll off him like water brushing off a boulder. “We’ve been dating all season, Father!”
From behind, I heard a sharp gasp from the paparazzi, and a fresh barrage of pictures started as Francesca’s arm curled around my back. She stuck out her lip in a pout, and I noticed that she seemed to angle it just right for the photographers, her hand applying pressure to turn me slightly towards the cameras. With her attention split between the paparazzi and her father, I hid my own surprise, shifting uncomfortably under her grip.
“Of course, of course,” Dacil answered, and I leaned in, inspecting him. He seemed nonplussed, scattered, the exa
ct opposite reaction I expected from someone whose daughter had nearly perished in an earthquake, and he shook his head as if to clear it. Had he been drugged? I wondered. If someone was planning to kidnap his daughter, it made sense that they would try to remove him from the picture first. Or maybe it was a head injury from the quake.
“Forgive me. I’m quite shaken. My thanks for escorting my daughter from the premises. And you know my daughter how?”
“We’re dating, Father!” Francesca practically shouted, exasperated. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“A theater assistant?” he asked, his confusion only deepening as he looked at my apron.
“Go on, SC, tell him how we met. It’s incredibly romantic,” she said, nudging me forwards, and my mind started to race. I looked upwards for inspiration, and a familiar face met mine in the crowd, a tuft of blonde hair among the darkness. And before he disappeared into the crowd, Lucio flashed me a mischievous smile, followed by a slow pointed wink and nod towards Francesca. Mentally, I cursed—he’d left me stranded without memories, giving them all to Francesca, and now I’d be expected to know them as well.
“But you have such a better way with words than I do,” I said, and draped my arm across her shoulders, looking towards the theater roof out the corner of my eyes. Was Arial watching? What would she think about this? “Besides, it’s not the past that matters; it’s only the now.”
“SC is a foreign exchange student who was supposed to fly back to America yesterday after his program. We met reciting poetry in the park. He came up with the lyrics to my last song! He’s so creative that I want him to write my entire next album.” She batted her eyebrows, and I made a note to punch Lucio later. “He was so struck by the thought of leaving, he threw away the ticket and rushed back to see me perform again. Then he saved me just now. He’s perfect for me, Father!”
“He’s a theater assistant,” Dacil sniffed as Francesca’s face turned red with rage and she looked to a woman dressed in a long flowing dress that approached her father, tottering forwards on high heels, one of the stilettos snapped off at the base.
“And you left Mom for her, a waitress!” Francesca snapped back, and turned on her heel. “We’re leaving. Come on, SC, I don’t need this.”
Before I could reply, she dragged me forwards, and a chauffeur soon appeared in her pink convertible. The roof down, she climbed into the back seat, pulling me after her. Then we started moving, heading towards the heart of the city, with me blind to both our future and our past.
Chapter 25
Arial
For Arial, flying had never lost its excitement—the feeling of wind rushing through her hair, the ground racing past as she dipped low in a dive, or weaving between buildings always left her heart pounding. But what was not exciting was how every plan of SC’s seemed to involve a stakeout. Stakeouts meant tall buildings. And tall buildings meant long waits as she peered down from above, trying to catch anything out of the ordinary in a sea of normalcy.
She’d already seen the hot pink sports car below, the chauffeur waiting behind the driver’s seat, likely having dropped off Francesca some time before. Now Francesca was likely finishing her makeup, warming up, or otherwise preparing for the upcoming performance. Arial noted the side entrance that she would have taken, the same Slugger had guessed, then turned her attention back to the rooftop, knowing that with Francesca and the audience inside, it would be an hour before anything interesting happened below.
There was a single entrance to the opera house from the roof—an elevated door near the center, chained shut and padlocked, the handle rusty. With SC, they would be able to break in—but on her own, the barrier was impenetrable. Around the edge of the roof, a waist-high ledge served to prevent falls, crumbling away in patches to reduce their efficacy. As a flier, she’d have been comfortable even if the edges were slicked—to her, a fall was nothing more than a quick flight. The pigeons hopping along the ridge seemed to agree with her sentiment, their wings fluttering, cooing as they returned to nests built from street rubbish.
There were other forms that accompanied her on the roof—dark silhouettes that had nearly frightened her from landing when she first arrived, watching them from a corner for five long minutes until none of them moved. As she moved closer, she saw they were statues—ones similar to those on the street, but in various forms of ill repair. Some missing noses that had long disintegrated away, or fingers snapped off at the joint, and their skin pockmarked as the stone weathered. She eyed the locked door as well as the ladder that rose up to the lip of the roof from the second story. Even if she were spotted up here, under the cover of night, she would blend in among them, their shapes camouflaging her from any seeking eyes.
Her feet splashed through murky puddles as she started to walk the opera house’s perimeter, her eyes on the plaza below. The statues, she assumed, were those that had been removed for damage or renovations, and from her height, she could see where they might have once stood. Next to the fountain, there was an empty spot for one, and at a street corner, a small marble platform awaited another. Now they were hidden, imperfections swept under a rug, waiting for the day of their restoration to come. Regardless, her objective was on the people below, not the inanimate, and she focused on the different groups in the plaza.
There were the tourists that wandered aimlessly, their eyes wearing attractions thin, searching for fresh details when every aspect had been documented by the millions before them. Cameras flashed as they took pictures and thieves watched from the shadows, eyeing the purses and wallets that were clutched with only half as much concern as necessary. A group of drunks occupied the outdoor patio of a restaurant near the far end, sipping on wine and cocktails, their server dashing between them and the kitchen to keep them satisfied. Their boisterous voices echoed up to Arial, but with the words in Italian, there was little she understood. A couple walked hand in hand on their third circuit around the plaza, their smiles visible even from the roof, their shoulders high from hope.
And there was the boy sitting on the edge of the fountain, his finger trailing in the water, who stole her attention. For as he reached up and adjusted his collar, she saw something underneath—there, reaching halfway up his neck, was a swirling mass of tattoos. For a flash, they were visible, then his collar returned, obscuring them, his dark pants and long shirt hiding any other marks. She frowned, unsure if it was the light, but on his wrist, she could see the tip of one just poking out to contrast his cuff.
She’d seen those tattoos before, and they’d embedded themselves into her mind, the design unforgettable. The same person that had saved SC in the Amazon from Lacit had worn them, appearing and disappearing so quick that she would not have believed it if Lucio had not caught the man on film. The person who had stopped Lacit from using his power, then disappeared without a trace.
Until now.
As she watched, the boy stood, making his way towards the opera house before turning down a side alley. He was not the same person she had seen on film—he was younger, that was certain, and his hair was a lighter shade. She still followed him along the rooftop, noting that he walked with purpose, his head turning left and right as if he too were searching for something. Then he reached the side door of the theater near where Francesca’s car waited, and sank into an alcove, holding something silver that reflected light from the streetlamps in his hand.
A knife, one as long as her forearm, that he’d held up his long sleeves.
As she watched, he waited, a sentry out in the streets, protecting the door that Francesca would exit, just as another of his kind had protected SC. Was he waiting for their enemy so that he could help fight them? Or perhaps he was a specialized bodyguard, one that Francesca’s father could afford to keep her safe. If Roland knew about the kidnappings, surely Dacil would know and want to protect his daughter from a similar fate.
Ensuring that no one was looking, Arial leapt off the back of the opera house roof, drifting down towards the ground, her feet al
ighting with a practiced softness that made them silent. She glided more than strode forwards, her weight reduced by half flying, allowing her to move quicker and quieter than should be possible. She turned left, darting down the street the boy was guarding, slowing her pace as she neared the alcove where he hid.
There, she could just see his shape waiting, mingling with the night. And as she opened her mouth to speak, the shape fluttered in the wind, flapping against the stonework. Revealing itself to be only an overcoat hanging from a peg on the wall, just as she felt something cold press up against her throat, the glint of silver flashing from below as she cried out.
“Wait!”
Chapter 26
Arial
“Why are you following me?” came the voice, a low whisper directly in Arial’s ear. She could feel one of his hands on her left shoulder, gripping to the bone, while the other clasped on the handle of the knife held to her throat. She shifted, thinking to launch herself into the air, but the pressure immediately increased, the metal digging into her skin.
“Let’s not try anything,” he said. “The problem with dead bodies is that you can’t get answers out of them. Neither of us want that, I would think. Now, why are you following me?”
“Why are you speaking English?” she asked, deciding that trying to flee would end with her blood on the streets, and fighting to still her rapidly beating heart.
“First, because I don’t speak Italian,” he answered, confirming her suspicions that he was as foreign as she was. “And second, because wait is no Italian word as far as I’m concerned. Now, to the original question.”
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