by Ee, Susan
“And how would you know if she’s nearby?”
“I’ll hear her,” he says. “Assuming the rain doesn’t get too loud.”
“How good is your hearing?”
“What?”
“Ha ha,” I say dryly. “Knowing this stuff could make a big difference in my chances of rescuing my sister.”
“You don’t even know where she is, or if she’s alive.” He says this matter-of-factly, as if he’s talking about the weather.
“But I know where you are, and I know you’ll be headed back to the other angels, even if it’s only to get revenge.”
“Ah, is that how it is? Since you couldn’t get the information out of me when I was weak and helpless, your big plan now is to follow me back to the nest of vipers to rescue your sister? You know that’s about as well-thought out as your plan to scare off those men by pretending to be an angel.”
“A girl’s gotta improvise as the situation changes.”
“The situation has changed beyond your control. You’ll only get yourself killed if you follow this path, so take my advice and run the other way.”
“You don’t understand. This isn’t about making logical, optimal decisions. It’s not like I have a choice. Paige is just a helpless little girl. She’s my sister. The only thing up for discussion is how I’ll rescue her, not whether or not I’ll try.”
He leans back to give me an appraising look. “I wonder which will get you killed faster—your loyalty or your stubbornness?”
“Neither, if you’ll help me.”
“And why would I do that?”
“I saved your life. Twice. You owe me. In some cultures, you’d be my slave for life.”
It’s hard to see his expression in the dark, but his voice sounds both skeptical and wry. “Granted, you did drag me out of the street while I was injured. And normally, that may qualify as saving my life, but since your intent was to kidnap me for interrogation, I don’t think that qualifies. And if you’re referring to your botched ‘rescue’ attempt during my fight with those men, I’d have to remind you that if you hadn’t slammed my back into giant nails sticking out of the wall, then chained me to a cart, I’d never have been in that position in the first place.” He chuckles. “I can’t believe those idiots almost bought that you were an angel.”
“They didn’t.”
“Only because you screwed up. I almost burst out laughing when I saw you.”
“It would have been pretty funny if our lives hadn’t been at stake.”
His voice gets sober. “So you know you could have been killed?”
“So could you.”
The wind whispers outside, rustling the leaves. I open the door and retrieve the cup of noodles. I might as well believe that he’ll hear my mother if she comes around. It’s better if we don’t risk someone else seeing the food and coming into the cabin.
I pull out a sweatshirt from my pack and put it on over the one I’m wearing. The temperature is dropping fast. Then I finally ask the question to which I dread the answer. “What do they want with the kids?”
“There’s been more than one taken?”
“I’ve seen the street gangs take them. I figured they wouldn’t want Paige because of her legs. But now, I wonder if they’re selling them to the angels.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing with the kids. Your sister is the first one I’ve heard of.” His quiet voice chills me.
The rain pounds on the windows and the wind scrapes a branch on the glass.
“Why were the other angels attacking you?”
“It’s impolite to ask the victim of violence what they did to be attacked.”
“You know what I mean.”
He shrugs in the dim light. “Angels are violent creatures.”
“So I noticed. I used to think they were all sweet and kind.”
“Why would you think that? Even in your Bible, we’re harbingers of doom, willing and able to destroy entire cities. Just because we sometimes warned one or two of you beforehand doesn’t make us altruistic.”
I have more questions, but I need to settle one thing first. “You need me.”
He barks a laugh. “How so?”
“You need to get back to your buddies to see if you can get your wings sewn back on. I saw it in your face when I mentioned it back at the office. You think it might be possible. But to get there, you have to walk. You’ve never traveled on the ground before, have you? You need a guide; someone who can find food and water, safe shelter.”
“You call this food?” The moonlight shows him tossing the empty styrofoam cup into a trash can. It’s too dark to see it land in the can across the room, but by the sound of things, it’s a three-pointer.
“See? You would have passed that by. We have all kinds of stuff that you’d never guess was food. Besides, you need someone who’ll take the suspicion off you. No one would suspect you as an angel if you’re traveling with a human. Take me with you. I’ll help you get home if you’ll help me find my sister.”
“So you want me to lead a Trojan Horse to the aerie?”
“Hardly. I’m not out to save the world, just my sister. That’s more than enough responsibility for me. Besides, what are you worried about? Little ol’ me being a threat to angelkind?”
“What if she’s not there?”
I have to swallow the dry lump in my throat before I can answer. “Then I’ll no longer be your problem.”
The darker shadow of his form curls up on the couch. “Let’s get some sleep while it’s still dark out.”
“That’s not a no, right?”
“It’s not a yes, either. Now let me sleep.”
“And that’s another thing, it’s easier to keep a watch at night when there are two of us.”
“But it’s easier to sleep when there’s just one.” He grabs a sofa pillow and puts it over his ear. He shifts once more, then settles in, his breathing turning heavy and regular as though already asleep.
I sigh and walk back to the bedroom. The air gets colder as I near the room, and I have second thoughts about sleeping in there.
As soon as I open the door, I see why it’s so cold in the cottage. The window is broken and sheets of rain blow onto the bed. I’m so tired I could just sleep on the floor. I grab a folded blanket off the dresser. It’s cold but dry. I close the bedroom door to keep the wind out and pad back into the living room. I lie down on the sofa across from the angel, wrapping myself in the blanket.
He seems to be comfortably asleep. He’s still shirtless, as he has been since the first time I saw him. The bandages must provide a little warmth but not much. I wonder if he gets cold? It must be freezing when flying high up in the sky. Maybe angels are adapted to cold temperatures, just as they’re light for flight.
But this is all a guess, and probably just a justification to make me feel better about taking the only blanket in the cottage. The power is out tonight, which means the heat is out. It rarely freezes in the bay area, but it does get pretty cold at night sometimes. This seems to be one of those times.
I fall asleep listening to the rhythm of his steady breathing and the drumming of the rain on the windows.
~
I dream that I am swimming in the Antarctic, surrounded by broken icebergs. The glacial towers are majestic and deadly beautiful.
I hear Paige calling for me. She’s floundering in the water, coughing, barely keeping herself afloat. Having only her arms to paddle with, I know she can’t tread water for long. I swim toward her, desperate to reach her, but the gut-freezing cold slows my motions, and I waste almost all my energy shivering. Paige calls to me. She’s too far for me to see her face, but I can hear tears in her voice.
“I’m coming!” I try to call to her. “It’s okay, I’ll be there soon.” But my voice comes out in a hoarse whisper hardly reaching my own ears. Frustration cracks through my chest. I can’t even comfort her with reassurances.
Then I hear a motorboat. It cuts through the floating ice
chunks as it charges toward me. My mother is on the boat, driving it. With her free hand, she throws precious survival gear overboard, splashing it into the icy water. Cans of soup and beans, life vests and blankets, even shoes and blister packs go over the side of the boat, sinking among the bobbing ice.
“You really should eat your eggs, dear,” says my mother.
The boat heads straight for me and is not slowing down. If anything, it’s speeding up. If I don’t get out of the way, she’ll run me over.
Paige calls out for me in the distance.
“I’m coming.” I call out but only a croaked whisper comes out of my mouth. I try to swim toward her but my muscles are so cold that all I can do is flail. Flail and shiver in the path of my mother’s boat.
“Hush. Shhh.” A soothing voice whispers in my ear.
I feel the sofa cushions being pulled out from against my back. Then warmth envelopes me. Firm muscles embrace me from the space where the cushions used to be. I’m groggily aware of masculine arms wrapping themselves around me, their skin soft as a feather, their muscles steel velvet. Chasing away the ice in my veins and the nightmare.
“Shhh.” A husky whisper in my ear.
I relax into the cocoon of warmth and let the sound of the rain on the roof lull me back to sleep.
~
The warmth is gone, but I’m no longer shivering. I curl up on my own, trying to savor the heat left in the cushions by a body that is no longer there.
When I open my eyes, the morning light makes me wish I hadn’t. Raffe lies on his sofa, watching me with those dark blue eyes. I swallow, suddenly feeling awkward and unkempt. Great. The world has come to an end, my mother is out there with the street gangs, crazier than ever, my sister has been kidnapped by vengeful angels, and I'm concerned that my hair is greasy and my breath smells bad.
I get up abruptly, tossing aside my blanket with more force than is necessary. I grab my toiletries and head for one of the two bathrooms.
“Good morning to you too,” he says in a lazy drawl. I have my hand on the bathroom door when he says, “In case you’re wondering, the answer is yes.”
I pause, afraid to look back. “Yes?” Yes, it was him holding me through the night? Yes, he knows I liked it?
“Yes, you can come with me,” he says as though he already regrets it. “I’ll take you to the aerie.”
CHAPTER 11
The water is still running in the cottage but there is no hot water. I consider taking a shower anyway, not knowing how long it will be before I can take a proper one, but the thought of glacier temperature water hitting me full force makes me hesitate.
I decide to do a thorough sponge bath with a washcloth. At least that way, I can keep various parts of me from freezing all at once.
As predicted, the water is ice-cold, and it brings back pieces of my dream from last night, which inevitably brings back how I got warm enough to be cradled to sleep. It was probably just some kind of angel host behavior triggered by my shivering, the way penguins huddle together when it’s cold. What else could it be?
But I don't want to think about that—I don't know how to think about that—so I shove it down into that dark, overstuffed place in my mind that's threatening to burst any moment now.
When I come out of the bathroom, Raffe looks freshly showered and dressed in his black pants with boots. His bandages are gone. His wet hair swings in front of his eyes as he kneels on the hardwood floor in front of the open blanket. On it, his wings are laid out.
He combs through the feathers, fluffing out the ones that are crushed and plucking out the broken ones. In a way, I suppose he's preening. His touch is gentle and reverent, although his expression is hard and unreadable as stone. The jagged ends of the wing that I chopped look ugly and abused.
I have the absurd impulse to apologize. What, exactly, am I sorry for? That his people have attacked our world and destroyed it? That they are so brutal as to cut off the wings of one of their own and leave him to be torn apart by the native savages? If we are such savages, it is only because they have made us so. So I am not sorry, I remind myself. Crushing one of the enemy’s wings in a moth-eaten blanket is nothing to be sorry about.
But somehow, I still hang my head and walk softly as though I am sorry, even if I won't say it.
I walk around him so he won't see my apologetic stance, and his naked back comes into full view. It has stopped bleeding. The rest of him looks perfectly healthy now—no bruises, no swelling or cuts, except where his wings used to be.
The wounds are a couple of streaks of raw hamburger running down his back. They follow the ragged flesh where the knife sawed through the tendons and muscles. I don't like to think about it, but I suppose the other angel sawed through joints, severing bones away from the rest of him. I suppose I should have sewn the wounds shut, but I had assumed he'd die.
“Should I, like, try to sew your wounds shut?” I ask, hoping the answer will be no. I'm a pretty tough girl, but sewing chunks of flesh together pushes the limits of my comfort zone, to say the least.
“No,” he says without looking up from his work. “It'll eventually heal on its own.”
“Why hasn’t it healed already? I mean, the rest of you healed in no time.”
“Angel sword wounds take a long time to heal. If you’re ever going to kill an angel, slice him up with an angel sword.”
“You’re lying. Why would you tell me that?”
“Maybe I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“My sword would never hurt me. And my sword is the only one you can wield.” He gently plucks out another broken feather and lays it on the blanket.
“How’s that?”
“You need permission to use an angel sword. It’ll weigh a ton if you try to lift it without permission.”
“But you never gave me permission.”
“You don’t get permission from the angel. You get it from the sword. And some swords get grouchy just for asking.”
“Yeah, right.”
He runs his hand over the feathers, feeling for broken ones. Why doesn’t he look like he’s kidding?
“I never asked permission and I managed to lift the sword no problem.”
“That’s because you wanted to throw it to me so I could defend myself. Apparently, she took that as permission asked and given.”
“What, it read my mind?”
“Your intentions, at least. She does that sometimes.”
“O-kay. Right.” I let it go. I’ve heard plenty of wacky things in my time and you just have to learn to roll with them without directly challenging the person spewing the weirdness. Challenging weirdness is a pointless and sometimes dangerous exercise. At least, it is with my mom. I must say, though, that Raffe is even more inventive than my mother.
“So...you want me to bandage your back?”
“Why?”
“To try to keep infection out,” I say, rummaging through my pack for the first aid kit.
“Infection shouldn't be a problem.”
“You can't be infected?”
“I should be resistant to your germs.”
The words “should” and “your” catches my attention. We know next to nothing about the angels. Any information might give us an advantage. Once we organize again, that is.
It occurs to me that I might be in the unprecedented position of being able to glean some intelligence on them. Despite what the gang leaders would have the rest of us believe, angel parts are always taken from dead or dying angels, I’m sure of it. What I would do with angel intel, I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to gain a little knowledge.
Tell that to Adam and Eve.
I ignore the cautionary voice in my head. “So…are you immunized or something?” I try to make my voice casual as though the answer means nothing to me.
“It's probably a good idea to bandage me up anyway,” he says, sending me a clear signal that he knows that I'm fishing for information. “I can probab
ly pass for human so long as my wounds are covered.” He pulls out a broken feather, putting it reluctantly into a growing pile.
I use up the last of the first aid supplies to patch up his wounds. His skin is like silk-covered steel. I'm a little rougher than I need to be because it helps keep my hands steady.
“Try not to move around too much so you don't bleed again. The bandages aren't that thick and blood will soak through pretty quickly.”
“No problem,” he says. “Shouldn't be too hard not to move around as we run for our lives.”
“I’m serious. That's the last of our bandages. You'll have to make them last.”
“Any chance we can find more?”
“Maybe.” Our best chance is from first aid kits in houses, since the stores are either cleaned out or claimed by gangs.
We fill up my water bottle. I didn’t have much time to pack supplies from the office. The supplies I carried with me are a random assortment. I sigh, wishing I’d had time to pack more food. Other than the single dried noodle cup, we’re out except for the handful of fun-sized chocolates I’m saving for Paige. We share the noodles, which is about two bites per person. By the time we leave the cottage, it is mid-morning. The first place we hit is the main house.
I have high hopes of a stocked kitchen, but one glance at the gaping cupboards in the sea of granite and stainless steel tells me we'll have to scrounge for leftovers. Rich people may have lived here, but even the rich didn’t have enough currency to buy food once things got bad. Either they ate all the food they could before packing up and hitting the road, or they took it with them. Drawer after drawer, cupboard after cupboard, there is nothing but crumbs.
“Is this edible?” Raffe stands at the kitchen entrance, framed by the Mediterranean archway. He could easily be at home in a place like this. He stands with the fluid grace of an aristocrat who's used to rich surroundings. Although the quarter-bag of cat food he’s holding up does mess with the image a little.
I dip my hand into the bag and bring out a few pieces of red and yellow kibbles. I pop them in my mouth. Crunchy, with a vaguely fishy taste. I pretend they're crackers as I chew and swallow. “Not exactly gourmet, but it probably won't kill us.”