by Wendy Knight
More hurried whispers, but Cole pulled his pillow over his head and tried not to hear them.
The rage that was threatening would give them all something real to fear. “Is it worth it? To be trapped in the darkness. To be hated and feared?” He wanted to throw them all to the aliens.
“I wish they would stop talking about her,” RayAnna whispered next to him, rolling over to curl around him. Her head felt good on his chest, safe. “She freaks me out. I can’t sleep when they keep putting her in my head.”
Cole froze. “Did you really just say that?” he asked harshly. The whispers around them died.
“What? She doesn’t scare you? Even a little?”
He sat up, shoving RayAnna off his chest. She knew how he felt about Phoenyx. He’d never offered any delusions that he wasn’t still in love with her, that he would always be in love with her. “No,” he said flatly. Rising to his feet, he stepped around the bodies all over the floor, most of whom were awake and listening to their fight. “No, she doesn’t scare me. She was my best friend,” he said loudly. “I’ve known her for three years.” I’ve been in love with her for three years. “She has wings now and some tattoos. It doesn’t change who she is. Phoenyx gave her life to save my sister’s. And that person? She hasn’t changed.” He nearly kicked the person closest to him, pretending to be asleep so they wouldn’t have to face the shame. “At least when she saved Enika, Enika had the decency to not hate her for it.”
“Where are you going?” RayAnna asked, completely un-fazed by his speech. He gritted his teeth, glaring into the darkness.
“I’m going to find Enika. She’s probably with Nyx, so you better stay here. We’d hate for her to get hungry and have to eat you for dinner.” Without a word, he turned and walked out, resisting the urge to punch anything near him.
“I thought I made it clear I don’t eat humans.” Nyx was leaning against the wall. He could see the shine of her wings and tattoos, even if he couldn’t see her. The lights around her were out, somehow. He couldn’t tell how angry she was, and he didn’t know her voice well enough anymore to be able to gather clues that way.
“Nyx, wait. That was—that was unfortunate timing. I was being all noble and stuff. I—that last line was sarcasm.” He honestly couldn’t see how things could get any worse.
And then Enika showed up. “I’m not staying here,” she snapped. “And neither of you can make me.”
Nyx heaved a long-suffering sigh and tapped the light next to her with her foot. It fizzled to life and left Cole blinking against the glare. “Where are you going to stay, if not with the humans?”
Cole could only stare at her. The ragged arm, the broken wing — everything seemed healed and she was so mind-numbingly gorgeous he couldn’t breathe. Everything in him wanted her. Wanted to touch her, to feel her skin and the silk of her hair. His hand, of its own will, reached out and tucked a wild curl behind her ear.
She sucked in a breath, her head whipping toward him. Enika froze mid-sentence, one eyebrow raised. “What are you doing?” Nyx whispered weakly.
Cole could only shake his head. He didn’t know what he was doing. All he knew was that he had missed her so badly, that his heart had been so broken, and now she was here and she hated him and somehow the adrenaline of it all had worn off and he was just waking up to the fact that Phoenyx, his Phoenyx, was alive. And by her jagged breaths and wide, dark blue eyes, Cole would guess she didn’t hate him quite as much as she pretended either. “I was being sarcastic. When I said you would eat her.” His voice cracked and pitched like he was in junior high again.
A slow smile creased her face, and it was devastatingly beautiful, not because she had an alien’s perfect DNA, but because he could see her in it. The real her. Phoenyx, not Nyx. “I know.”
“Nyx,” Keven yelled, coming down the tunnel. “You healed yet? We’ve got incoming.”
The people in the amphitheater screamed, clawing themselves closer together, away from the walls. Without a word, Nyx whirled and raced down the tunnel, passing Keven and disappearing into the darkness.
“You’ve got two hours, Nyx!” Keven hollered as he went after her. “Sunrise is in two hours!”
Cole didn’t hesitate. He took off after Keven. “Where are you going?” Enika screeched. She, of course, was right behind him.
“She’s not fighting those things alone,” Cole snarled. Keven veered sharply to the left, bursting into a basement of one of the abandoned shops on 25th street. Instead of frozen soup and packages of napkins and utensils though, it was full of guns.
Lots and lots of guns.
Keven threw one to Cole, and Enika, somehow, came up with her ax in her hand. Trust my sister to have a security ax instead of a security blanket, Cole mused crazily, checking to make sure the gun was loaded. His Glock was still in its holster at his hip, but his AR15 he’d left back in the amphitheater. He grabbed one of Keven’s for good measure.
“You know guns and axes don’t kill them, right?” Keven asked as he bounded up the stairs.
“They’ll sure slow them down though!” Enika yelped, tight at Cole’s side.
He realized, right then, that he was leaving RayAnna to go after Nyx. He was choosing Nyx’s safety over RayAnna’s. He knew exactly what that meant.
He just didn’t know what to do about it.
NYX HAD FACED GARCE aliens alone at least a thousand times. She’d fought them while Keven shot every weapon he had to slow them down, at least a thousand times. But this time, when she shot down out of the sky, throwing her blood at them, she had her own little army. That had not happened at least a thousand times.
The sight of the three of them nearly made Nyx fall out of the sky — Cole, Keven, and Enika, standing on 25th street like legendary gun slingers. There were even tumbleweeds blowing past, caught in the vines taking over the road. But instead of outlaws, they faced aliens that craved their flesh. Luckily, the horror of what could happen to her small army kept her wings strong and fast. Fast enough that she’d hit two of the three before the Garce even realized she was there.
The third one tried to run; one last, desperate attempt to get the meal standing in front of it. But Cole’s giant gun and Keven’s giant gun knocked it back again and again, although they were only making it angrier. And then, flashing through the night sky, end over end, was…
An ax?
The ax hit the Garce right between the red, glowing eyes. It howled and jerked back, shadowy claws batting at its face, but the ax didn’t move. While Nyx waited for the blood to come back through her veins, Keven and Cole kept it off, shooting round after round after round.
And then the fire was there, burning her from the inside, and she used all the energy she had left to pull it out and hit the ax-impaled Garce. It howled as it was hit, but the howl was promptly cut off as it exploded into shadow alien pieces.
Slowly, Nyx sank to the ground, landing in front of Cole. Enika stalked around her and jerked out the ax, dragging it across the grass to clean the black ichor from its blade. When she looked up to see Nyx staring stupidly, she grinned, wiggling the ax in front of her like it was a toy. “Surprise.”
“Thank you.” Nyx made sure to look at each of them, Keven, who was already bored and heading back to the building. Cole met her eyes and didn’t look away, and the fire inside her seemed to explode. Her human blood was positively boiling with electricity.
“Any time,” Enika dragged her ax behind her and followed Keven. “How did we miss those? We’ve been watching the whole city.”
“She… her ax… remember how she used to drag her blankie everywhere?” Nyx asked Cole.
He laughed, and Nyx grabbed the sound and tucked it away, letting it heal parts of her heart. “That is exactly what I keep telling her.”
“You,” Enika pointed a finger over her shoulder at Nyx, “Have no room to talk. You weren’t there when I dragged my blankie all over. You’ve only seen pictures.”
Nyx nodded solemnly, grinning at C
ole when Enika turned her back on them. It felt so good. So right to be laughing with him. To not hate him. Hating him felt wrong. Even though he had hurt her.
“I think they’re getting more desperate. They’ve killed everything off. No more food,” Keven said. “That was record killing time, by the way.” He stood by the doorway to the abandoned flower shop. It was convenient that there were tunnel entrances in nearly every shop, restaurant, and old hotel, so that they could get in and out quickly.
It had saved many lives when the Empyreans had attacked the first time. Before Nyx’s time.
“What happens when they can’t find anything to eat?” Enika asked.
Nyx froze, remembering something… something from captivity. Her voice was hollow, even to her own ears, when she spoke. “They leave. The Garce get called back by their masters and sent to a new planet. The Empyreans will follow because they crave eternal youth and only the blood of the Garce can give that to them.”
“Great,” Keven said sarcastically. “All we have to do is kill off humanity so they don’t have a food source, and we all live happily ever after.”
“No,” Nyx drew out the word, as she ducked through the doorway because her wings were huge. “All we have to do is survive until they are starving and leave. How long can that possibly take?”
“Yeah…” Cole tucked one of her wings through the door, his fingers sliding against the silk. “We’ve been out trying to survive them for a long time. There is still a lot of ‘food’ out there. They’re not starving.”
Keven heaved up the trap door in the back room, leading the way out of the darkness and into the dim light of the tunnels. “But if the other nine are killing them as fast as you are—”
“What other nine?” Enika, who had been silent for several minutes, burst into the conversation.
Cole, in front of Nyx, had stopped abruptly. “Other nine?”
“Ten of us escaped. I’m going to bed.” Before anyone could stop her, she darted around Cole, trying not to notice how just the brush of his hand against her arm sent shivers of warmth through her frozen soul, and shoved past Keven. She couldn’t relive that. Not with them. She’d told Keven the story when she showed up at his compound, broken and burning.
But she was already an emotional wreck thanks to the roller coaster that was Cole showing up. She couldn’t handle it now. She just couldn’t.
Instead, she crawled under the covers and curled into a ball, begging sleep to find her quickly and save her from her own company, at least for a while. And maybe, just maybe, she could dream of Cole, and when he’d been hers. Her fingers longed to touch his face, his lips. Brush back the brown hair from his forehead. He was taller than she was. He’d grown over this year apart. He’d been nearly six feet tall, and she’d been a measly 5’4”. But now, she was at least 5’10”, and he towered over her. His hair was longer than she remembered, and it was lighter, while his skin was darker — from hours in the sun trying to escape the aliens, no doubt.
Please. Please let him be there when I fall asleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“KEVEN, I HAVE AN AX. DO you really dare not tell me what the heck she’s talking about?” Enika growled furiously, but Keven looked less than impressed.
“I’ve known you since you were eight, Enika. You’re not going to attack an innocent person.”
“Right now, you’re not looking so innocent.”
Cole thought he should intervene, but he was as desperate as Enika to find out what happened. So he leaned against the tunnel wall, casually blocking Keven from making a quick exit.
“It’s her story. When she wants to tell you, she will.” He turned to go, but Enika’s hand shot out, grabbing his arm.
She turned on the big brown eyes, giving him her best puppy dog impression. “Keven, we can help her. She’s my best friend — more than that, she’s my soul sister—” Keven raised an eyebrow, but she ignored him and pressed on. “I know her. But I can’t help her if I don’t know what happened.”
Keven pried Enika’s death-like grip off his arm. “Sorry, Enika. She’s the only thing keeping us alive. I don’t want to piss her off.”
Put that way, Enika had no choice but to give up. Keven awkwardly patted her on the head. “If you know her so well, you’ll get it out of her. I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Yeah, I will!” Enika called after him, glaring fiercely, arms crossed stubbornly over her chest, ax leaning against her side. Cole’s tiny sister almost looked formidable. They watched Keven disappear around the corner before Cole said conversationally, “Do you have any idea how to find the amphitheater?”
Enika blinked owlishly at him. “No. Don’t you?”
“Not a clue.”
From down the tunnel, they heard Keven sigh. “Come on.”
“YOU LEFT ME.” RAYANNA’S lip quivered and big tears filled her hazel eyes. When he’d met her, she’d been huddled next to her father’s dead, mutilated body. She hadn’t spoken for three days, and she jumped at every sound. The only reason she did finally speak was to warn Cole — he was being stalked by a Garce. Enika chased the alien off with her ax, and RayAnna had punched him repeatedly in the chest, until she dissolved into sobs.
She didn’t stop crying for almost a month.
When she did, she told Cole she loved him. She told him she knew he could never love her, not when he was still in love with Phoenyx. She told him she was okay with that.
It had taken him four months to realize he was in love with her too. She was everything Phoenyx hadn’t been, so she wasn’t a constant reminder of the girl he’d lost. She dulled the ache. Taking care of her had given him something to obsess over, so he couldn’t obsess over Phoenyx.
He never told her, though, that she didn’t come close to Phoenyx. If love was a tangible thing, Phoenyx would be a glacier, and RayAnna, an ice cube. And that had been when he thought Phoenyx was dead.
Now that Phoenyx was alive, his heart was torn in very uneven pieces.
“I’m sorry, Ray. I was angry. I shouldn’t have left you.” He sank onto the sleeping bag next to her. The ground was cold and she was shivering — curled up on top of the blankets instead of underneath. He pulled her into his lap, lifted the blankets, and slid her underneath.
She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his skin. He could feel her shaking and his heart tore a little more. “Stay with me? Please?”
He looked up. Enika had disappeared, probably to try to con Keven into telling her where Nyx slept. She’d never been away from him — not for more than an hour — for over a year. He couldn’t relax, couldn’t even breathe properly with her gone, no matter how many times he told himself that Enika was one girl who could handle herself in a series of abandoned tunnels.
With her ax.
RayAnna started to cry again. She buried her head under the covers, trying to muffle the sobs, but it didn’t help. “Hey. Hey, of course I’ll stay. I’m right here. I’ve got you.” He shoved off his boots and lay down next to her, pulling her close, rubbing her back until the sobs stopped and she slipped into sleep.
And he hated himself for wishing he was with someone else while he held her.
HE DIDN’T SEE NYX for several days after that. Keven gave him jobs and told him to work. He was so exhausted, when he lay down at night to get RayAnna to sleep, he passed out before she did. And since Nyx only came out at night, they didn’t cross paths.
The fourth day, though, she came out early. The sun wasn’t yet down, so Cole was surprised to see her coming through the tunnel. He and RayAnna were building. RayAnna dug, and Cole cemented the bricks. Making more space, so they could handle more people. The underground system was almost to capacity, and Keven was positive more people were still out there, waiting to be found.
“Phoen—Nyx.” He nearly dropped the brick he was carrying. She took up the entire tunnel with those huge, graceful wings, and she looked like a fairy. Beautiful, delicate, sad.
“Hi.” She paused at the
mouth of the tunnel, as if debating whether she dared leave its safety for the larger room he and RayAnna were working on. There were two others with them, Kyle and Matt. For the first time since Cole had started helping them, they stopped talking, staring terrified at Nyx.
There was no escape. She was blocking the only exit.
“I—have you seen Enika?” She shifted from one foot to the other, twisting her hands, biting her lip. He’d known her long enough to recognize the signs.
She was nervous.
“No. I thought she was with you. I’ve only seen her for a few minutes here and there since we came to the compound.”
Since I last saw you. Yeah, I’m counting the minutes since we’ve been together. They all hurt.
Nyx took a hesitant step out of the tunnel. The solar lights hit her shimmering tattoos and threw rainbows all over the corridor. It was like looking straight into a diamond. She slid backward, her eyes widening. “Sorry.”
The terror in Kyle’s face was fading, and now he watched with more of a horrified fascination. RayAnna had started to cry, silent tears snaking down her cheeks while she dug, purposely keeping her back to Nyx.
“Umm. Yeah. She was with me. She—she sleeps. During the day, like I do. So I don’t have to be alone.” A slow, small smile lit Nyx’s face, and it was almost as stunning as the rainbows she’d just thrown around the room. “She thinks I’m afraid of the light.”
“Sounds like her.” Cole didn’t want to blink. Didn’t want to look away. Didn’t want to even breathe because he was so afraid that if he did, she would be gone from him again.
“I was just getting ready to go hunting, but she—she sort of panics if I leave without telling her. If you see her, could you tell her I’m alive and well?” Her metallic blue eyes sparkled, just a little.
“Enika worries. Always has—”
“—Always will. I know.” She nodded, backing up.