Time halted as the bus violently stopped in its tracks.
Half-eaten bags of chips and cups filled with soda flew forward with the momentum of the bus, splattering on the front windshield.
Aurora’s body slammed violently against the seat in front of her. The shock of the wreck forced her neck to snap forward and then back, sending a lightning bolt of pain down her spine, causing her to temporarily black out.
She wasn’t sure how long it was before she came to, but, eventually, she did. The lights in the bus flickered on and off as she struggled to a standing position, attempting to see what had happened.
Craning her sore neck to look out the window, her field of vision shortened, zeroing in on the interior of the bus. Aurora's breathing quickened as she scanned the seats. Each passenger was either slumped over, leaning against the window or the person next to them, or strung across the aisle.
No one stirred.
Heart in her throat, Aurora sidled past the man next to her, who now lay halfway across the aisle of the bus. She looked to the back of the vehicle; the mother and the curly-haired child she’d noticed earlier lay across the back seat. They looked peaceful enough to be sleeping.
Then a small light of dawning realization arose in her mind.
Maybe they were sleeping.
The crash was bad, but not bad enough to have killed everyone. That’s when she realized, as the bus had passed into the city limits of what she assumed was Chicago, it had been caught in the locking of this city.
See, she thought, this is why I didn’t take a damned plane.
Making her way to the front of the bus proved to be rather difficult as she tried to maneuver around the people in the aisle.
She sincerely hoped the Angel Halos would be visiting this bus to take care of the people. At least, she thought that was their job. As it was, this was not her job. She’d abandoned her job.
For the first time since she’d left, doubt crept into her mind. What if David planted that dream in my head? What if my mom and Danny are both perfectly safe? What if he just wanted to split her and Gray up?
She shook her head.
No.
She couldn’t let doubt keep her from saving her family. Not if they really were in trouble. At least, if they weren’t, she would get to see them one last time before their souls were locked and the world fell under the dark spell of Caducus.
With a surge of fortitude, Aurora climbed over the last sleeping passenger and moved to the front of the bus. The driver looked to be in the worst condition. He was slumped over the steering wheel, a large knot oozing blood down his unshaven face, coloring his blond beard a bright red.
Swallowing the wave of nausea threatening to slow her, Aurora turned to face the front. The large glass window was covered in decorations of white frosted cracks, shattered from the impact so she couldn’t see anything beyond.
The door was jammed, and it took several good shoulder slams for her to finally bust them open enough to slide out, dropping down onto the asphalt of the highway.
Aurora let out an audible gasp as she took in the scene before her. The long road that led to Chicago was lined with cars—the longest pileup in the history of pileups. Some were worse than others, little eco-cars squished between two trucks.
Pressing a shaking hand to her mouth, she remembered what Verity had said about some people not living through this.
“Their souls will be safe,” the angel had said. “That’s the important thing.”
Standing alone in an ocean of asphalt, splintered cars, and sleeping—or, let’s face it, dead—people, Aurora felt smaller and less in control than she ever had in her entire life.
But then David’s face flashed across her vision, and she realized that wasn’t exactly true. She’d made it through his abuse. She could make it through this.
Standing up a little straighter, she marched forward, knowing what she had to do.
Several cars along the road held passengers who had just happened to be holding the steering wheel in such a way that, when their souls were locked, they had veered off the road, rather than into another vehicle. These cars were, for the most part, unharmed. Some of them were even still running.
Aurora walked until she found what she’d been searching for: a sports car. She didn’t know much about cars. In fact, she knew very little. But she did know the little cars that looked like they’d been designed after jungle cats were some of the fastest—and loudest—on the road.
She approached the drivers’ side door of a sleek black one. She didn’t have the time to check the make or model, and, quite frankly, she didn’t really give a shit. It just needed to be fast.
Opening the door, she was surprised to find a young girl behind the wheel. Other than the fact that she was clearly unconscious, for the most part, she appeared to be unharmed.
Kneeling down, Aurora slid her arms behind the girl’s back and under her legs, pulling her from the vehicle. The girl was light enough for Aurora to carry to a nearby truck, driven by a young boy. Who the heck is buying these nice cars for their teenagers?
“Here,” she said gently to the unconscious girl who she laid carefully across the back seat. “Maybe when you wake up, you’ll fall in love with this guy…and you won’t be so mad about me stealing your car.”
With this, she shut the back door of the truck and ran over to the sports car, which was still humming with life.
Sidling into the front seat and adjusting the rearview mirror, she put the car in drive and pressed her foot to the floor.
GRAY
Gray never truly appreciated just how large New York City was until this moment.
After visiting every single “well-known” tea shop he could find, he officially concluded his decision to go looking for Aurora had been the correct one.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt Luna had been lying about what his Stellar had supposedly said. And he didn’t want to visit his feelings about that just yet either. Because either Luna had misheard Aurora, or she was deliberately keeping information about her from them.
When they’d first started “dating,” Luna's honesty had been refreshing to him. The fact that she was a self-proclaimed open book was what had drawn him to her in the first place. After having had his heart slashed up by Aurora and her talons of convoluted feelings for him, honesty seemed like a breath of fresh air.
Now he wasn’t so sure…
Punching a nearby wall and immediately regretting it, Gray decided it would likely be best for him to return to Echo to search Aurora’s room for some sort of clue as to where she may have gone. He didn’t want to entertain the idea of someone having taken her.
A flash of David’s face entered his mind, and he shook it away. Denial would have to do right now. The only thing keeping him from absolutely losing it was that he was still walking, still breathing…because that meant she was too.
It took him at least an hour and one very expensive cab ride to make it back to the Halo boat by nightfall.
The others were still gone, and, given all the New Yorkers still milling about, had clearly not completed their task of locking the city yet. Gray felt a twinge of guilt for not being there to help them, but, logically knew he would have been of little aid with his mind reeling as it was.
If Aurora ended up being completely fine, having just decided she needed some space from everyone, he would probably feel like a bit of an idiot.
But something within him felt that something wasn’t right with her.
He couldn’t explain it. It was like the uncomfortable feeling one usually gets when they’re nervous about something that hasn’t even happened yet. Anxiety without validity.
Dim lights illumined the ship, and Gray moved through the corridors to Aurora’s room with the grace of a rhinoceros, sliding open the door to her room. It was as she’d always left it in the mornings: bed unmade, her black and gray pajamas on the floor, cushions piled haphazardly on the porthole window seat.
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Both of the side tables were empty, paperless. He half-hoped to find some sort of note from her. But nothing was there to ease his anxiety. In fact, this only made it worse.
Knowing she kept her weapons propped up in her closet, he moved to slide open the full-length mirror to reveal her hanging clothes and red and white striped suitcase in the floor. Impractical shoes were stacked in front of the bag. There was a spot in the corner, though, where Gray knew she usually kept her extra weapons.
The spot was now vacant.
Would she really have taken her personal arsenal with her if she’d just been casually strolling around the streets of the city?
The knot of anxiety tightened now, and he left her room, not even bothering to close the door behind him.
Low lights were on in the kitchen, only illuminating the shining black counter-tops and silver appliances. Everything looked as it should.
The red coffee mug Aurora preferred still hung on the wall. If anything, this was suspicious in and of itself. If Aurora were put into an analogy, it would look something like this:
Coffee: Aurora
Gas: Car
She needed coffee to function. The fact that she hadn’t at least had a cup before leaving was unlikely. Unless she’d left in a hurry.
Why wouldn’t she even leave a damned note? Gray thought miserably. Didn’t she know he would be going insane with worry about what could have happened to her?
Another flash of anger rose up in his core like lava traveling up the shaft of a volcano. His foot kicked out, connecting with the silver trashcan next to the kitchen island.
The can crashed onto its side, spilling its contents all over the floor. Running his hands through his hair, Gray began to fear for his sanity.
If Aurora knew she had this sort of power over him, she’d likely laugh.
He let the wave of frustration settle before being the nice guy he hated he was and bent down to clean up the mess he’d made.
It was papers, mostly. Lots and lots of crumpled up papers. And an empty black notebook. Strange… Then, tilting his head, Gray thought he saw the drawing of a familiar face. His face.
Heart climbing into his throat, he scrambled to flick on the bright kitchen lights. There were drawings on all of these pages. Picking up the leather cover again, he realized this had been Aurora’s sketchbook.
One by one, he unfolded each of her demolished drawings. Landscapes mostly. But four of them were of him—his face. He laid these out on the counter, side by side. She’d been surprisingly accurate in her interpretations of him, right down to the scar in his top lip.
The last paper he picked up from the ground and slowly unfolded wasn’t a drawing at all.
It was a note in Aurora’s handwriting.
I’m okay.
I’m sorry.
Don’t come after me.
-Aurora
His heart clenched as his fist closed on the paper. A rush of realization hit him like a hurricane force wind. Aurora had left a note—a note she’d intended for them to read.
But they never found it.
They never found it because Luna found it first. And she’d crushed it, tossing it in the trashcan where they would’ve never been read. Which was why she’d seemed so chipper that morning. She knew what she’d done…but she didn’t care. If anything, she was proud.
She thought she’d gotten away with it.
Gray thought he knew now what the feeling of anxiety in his gut was. He imagined that, after having come into contact with his Stellar, his body now registered when she was no longer nearby.
Aurora wasn’t in the city anymore. And Gray had a feeling he knew exactly where she’d gone.
Stuffing the note in the pocket of his jacket, he moved to his room in a hurried daze. He would need three things before he left.
His ID.
Money.
And his crux.
Thirty-Eight
LOGAN
Logan always felt so badass and important when she was on Halo missions…until that mission consisted of sitting propped up against a fountain as the sky blackened to the point of would-be darkness if this weren’t the city that clearly never slept.
Light pollution kept the sunless sky from bathing everything in shadow.
Most of the tourists snapping pictures of the angel fountain—oblivious to the fact that a band of half-angels would star in some of these photos—had left to eat dinner or see other things.
Brielle leaned against Logan’s left side, dozing. The comforting weight of Brielle’s head on her shoulder made Logan want to keep her breathing slow and steady so she wouldn’t wake the sleeping beauty.
Not long ago, if someone had told her one of the seemingly “straightest” girls she’d ever met would start to fall for her, she’d have laughed hysterically.
Straight girls had their little experimental phases, usually in college, sometimes even during a mid-life crisis. Logan never had much interest in them. Despite what society would like to think, she wasn’t interested in straight girl hook-ups or one night stands.
Before Brielle, she’d only ever dated other lesbians. Even bisexuals made her a tad uneasy. The fact that they were also attracted to men made the likelihood of them cheating on her that much greater.
Logan knew she was a complete hypocrite in thinking this, but she was only going off of experience. From what she'd seen, when a bi girl was confronted with the public shaming that sometimes came with a lesbian relationship, the idea of being with a man seemed preferable. Logan knew she could never compete with a man in those cases.
After the excitement and newness of the relationship faded, the realization that another girl couldn’t physically provide a family or the picture-perfect American household would set in.
And they’d leave to find a man.
Maybe a man who would let them hook up with girls as long as they got to watch.
Logan hadn’t been lying when she told Brielle she didn’t like labels. She didn’t. And she didn’t like that insecurity lay like a blanket over her open mind.
But Brielle…she wasn’t bi.
She even admitted herself that Logan had been the only girl she’d ever been attracted to in that way. And that made Logan feel like some sort of magical goddess. Like she had the power to convert the straightest of straight girls. Because not only was Brielle straight, but she was religious.
Religion had a way of making even gay girls deny their feelings for the same sex.
Chord’s whining voice sliced through Logan’s negative thoughts then. “Okay, seriously, little Halos? Where are the Dominions? And why are there still people every—”
As if Chord’s doubt had enacted some sort of chain reaction, the few people milling around the fountain suddenly snapped to attention, moving like marionettes away and out of the park.
Logan’s head swiveled, jolting Brielle awake, as she watched every human being in her line of sight behave the same way. They were retreating back to their homes, to the safety of their beds, where they would stay until their souls were safe again.
Whenever that would be...
As this happened, the smallest of the half-angel children turned to Chord, and with a mischievous smile said, “Patience is a Virtue.”
The chuckles of the others were cut off by the unmistakable, heavy breathing and snarling of approaching demons…closing in on the fountain.
AURORA
Sports cars are fast.
Really really fast.
And it helped that all of the cops were either occupied by the chaos of the locked cities, or their souls were locked themselves.
Aurora discovered an unknown love of speeding down an empty highway, her foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor of the sports car. The speedometer went up to two-hundred…and the little blue line was sitting there for the majority of her trip.
She found it incredible how quickly one could travel from place to place at such a high speed. The only time Aurora needed to sto
p during the high-speed trip was for gas, which she acquired with the credit card from the rich girl’s purse.
The first convenience store at which she stopped was still open, but it was completely empty. No store clerk, no patrons, no anybody.
Her stomach rumbled from lack of sustenance, so she roamed through the aisles, collecting bags of chips and crackers, leaving a pile of money on the counter.
She rushed back to the little sports car, tossing the bags of food into the front seat before flooring the gas once again.
The radio played only static, but the young girl who owned the car had a Taylor Swift CD ready and waiting to be played. So, of course, Aurora jammed out to the country/pop artist for several hours.
What could she say, the songs had some catchy lyrics.
By the time Aurora crossed the state line into Washington, she had all the songs memorized. When she made it to the last hour of the trip where mountains, lakes, and greenery were all that was to be seen, she turned off the music.
Thanks to the speed of the stolen sports car—or maybe her super Halo powers—the trip that should have been about 30 hours, had taken less than a day.
It was late afternoon now, and the sun slid lower and lower in the sky. Like a spit wad making saliva snail trails down a classroom wall.
The closeness of her home made her anxious. Not only because she wasn’t sure whether her mom and brother were okay, but because it had been so long since she’d been there.
When she’d left however many months ago, she’d been an entirely different person. Bitter, angry with the world, cold. And she’d had zero interest in men because she had no tolerance for them.
Things were…different now. Granted, the only man she had any interest in was taken, but that wasn’t the point. Gray had shown her there truly were men out there who weren’t interested in control or power.
All thoughts of Gray or lingering lyrics of Taylor Swift songs fell from Aurora’s mind as she drove closer and closer to Seattle. The quiet and stillness she felt whispered that her city had already been locked.
Echo (The Halo Series Book 2) Page 20