FOUND (Angels and Gargoyles Book 1)

by Brenda L. Harper

  “What was the name of the city where you lived?”

  “Collins,” he said.

  “Where was it?”

  He pointed to his left. “West of here.”

  Dylan took another, slow sip of her water. “Didn’t you say east before?”

  Stiles stopped moving, holding his hand just over the lazily smoking wood. “Did I?” he asked before he bent to blow on the sparks beginning to glow there.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  The fire burst into life. Stiles stood and walked over to Dylan, settling on the ground beside her. “I guess you caught me,” he said.

  “At what?”

  He looked down at his hands, running them slowly over the rough fabric of his pants. “I’m not really from a city.”

  “Then where did you come from?”

  He glanced at her. “My people never settled in one community or another. We always just wandered the lands, living off of what was left of the land and what we could find in the ruins.”

  “Where are your people now?”

  “Mostly dead,” he said as he again ran his hands over his pants. “It is a hard life, living out here without the safety of a community to guard us.”

  Dylan took one last swallow from the water bottle before handing it to Stiles. “Why did you lie?”

  He took a long drink before he answered. “Because your friend, Wyatt, doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would be too kind to a wanderer.”

  Dylan thought of Wyatt’s resistance when she suggested Stiles travel with them. “If he knew you can defend yourself, he might have been a little more open to the idea.”

  “I doubt it,” he said. He glanced at Dylan. “Men like Wyatt do not like the idea of competition in their immediate circle. They like to be the dominant one.”

  She shook her head. “Not Wyatt. He just wants to survive.”

  “He wants you,” Stiles said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  He glanced at her, his gray eyes softening as he studied her face. “You’ll figure it out, soon,” he said, touching her hand lightly. “But you should know he is not the only man out there. He’s not the only one who could make you happy.”

  Dylan frowned, confused by the intensity of Stiles’ words. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, but Stiles had pulled away from her and busied himself piling the dry wood beside the fire as Wyatt came into view a few dozen yards away.

  Dylan climbed to her feet and walked out to meet Wyatt. She slipped one of the rabbits from his hand. “I don’t know how you find them so quickly,” she said.

  “Disappointed I’ve come back too soon?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. “Why would I be?”

  His gaze moved to Stiles, but he didn’t say anything.

  “He’s not as useless as you think,” Dylan told him. “He built that fire in less time than it would have taken me.”

  “Have you noticed how pale he is?”

  Dylan shrugged. “So?”

  “So, he hasn’t spent a lot of time in the sunlight. If he had, his skin would be darker.”

  She looked from Stiles to Wyatt, remembered the paleness of Wyatt’s legs when he climbed out of the lake. “Maybe he found shelter in one of the ruins.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “Maybe.”

  They joined Stiles beside the fire, and the three of them worked together to prepare the rabbits for the fire. Stiles knew what to do, and he did it quickly, proficiently. Even Wyatt was impressed, Dylan could see it in the grudging way he handed Stiles the fourth rabbit, as though it was the prize for the quickest. Wyatt then moved away from the fire, settling beside his bag a yard from the two of them. It was his habit, Dylan knew, to sit alone for a while after a long day of walking.

  Dylan and Stiles were silent as they watched over the cooking rabbits. The smell of the roasting meat drew the attention of animals in the area. They could hear the call of an animal Wyatt had called a coyote. Dylan had never seen one, but she had nightmares of a small, long-legged animal that made that same noise. A shiver ran down her spine as she listened.

  “Don’t worry,” Stiles said as he leaned over to check one of the rabbits. “They won’t come near the fire.”

  She nodded gratefully.

  They ate their meal, the same meal they’d had over and over the last few days. Dylan no longer tasted it. It was just nourishment, and it was better than the dryness of her carb crackers. Afterward, they each silently picked a place to sleep and settled into the tall, sweet-smelling grass. Sleep overcame Dylan almost immediately, an exhaustion she was slowly coming to recognize as the new normal settling over every bone and muscle in her body. Her last thought was of Wyatt, of the soft snores coming from his direction that were comforting in a way she could never begin to explain.

  She dreamed of Davida.

  They were lying together in the softness of Dylan’s dorm room bed, whispering in the darkness so that they would not be found out by one of the other guardians. Davida was not supposed to sit with her charges as she did. When a toddler or a child had a nightmare, the guardian was supposed to offer reassurances and then encourage the child to go back to sleep. Davida had never done that. She crawled into the bed with Dylan and whispered stories to her, sometimes until the sun began to peek through the thin glass of the dome.

  She was whispering to her now. But the story was different.

  “You aren’t the only one taken outside the dome the day of the testing,” Davida whispered in her ear. “There are others, others who have information you need. You must find them.”

  “But what if I can’t?”

  “It’s important, Dylan,” Davida said, brushing a hand over her cheek as she had often liked to do. “Find them, Dylan. Find them quickly.”

  Dylan jerked to wakefulness, sitting up quickly in the fading darkness of dawn. She was overwhelmed with a sudden sense of loss as she reached for Davida and realized she was not really there. Tears stung her eyes as she slowly lay back down and wrapped her arms around her own body.

  “You okay?”

  Dylan rubbed the back of her hand over her cheek before she rolled over and looked up into Wyatt’s familiar face. “A dream,” she whispered.

  He touched the curve of her jaw with the back of two fingers, so much like the way Davida once touched her that it made her chest ache. More tears began to roll down her cheek as she rolled back onto her side. She felt Wyatt shift, expected him to move back to his own chosen sleeping spot, but instead she felt the heat of his body as he settled down beside her. After a moment, she pressed her body back into his side, drawing a limited amount of comfort from the touch of his body against hers.

  “We should be there in a couple more days,” he said in a rough whisper.

  “And then what?”

  An image burst through her mind. A man, tall and much too thin, his face covered in some kind of dark dust, rushing toward Wyatt. Relief on the man’s face, relief and an overwhelming amount of love.

  It made Dylan miss Davida that much more.

  “What’s he called?”

  “Who?” Wyatt asked.

  “The man who is your family.”

  Wyatt rolled toward her, laying his hand on her arm to pull her toward him so that he could see her face. “What do you know about my family?” he asked, more curious than anything else.

  She studied his face for a moment. “I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Wyatt cocked an eyebrow, clearly not buying what she was saying. He bit his lip, a cloud moving slowly over his face as he thought again of the man. Images of him, some clearly from years ago because the man was younger, healthier. And images of more recent times, of a man struggling against some unnamed force.

  “Father,” Wyatt said quietly.

  “Father.” Dylan tried it out in her own mouth, forming the word slowly. “Is he like a mother?”

  “Yes.” Wyatt ran his hand slowly over the length of her arm. “Mother and father are par
tners. They make children together and raise them.”

  “Raise them?”

  “Care for them. Make sure they are safe from danger and that they have the things they need to stay healthy.”

  Dylan closed her eyes, again pictured Davida as she had been in her dream. “Then you have two guardians.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  The movement of his hand on her arm stopped for a second. And then it began again, slower, his fingers playing over the tender skin inside the curve of her elbow. “I suppose so,” he said.

  “They took mine away,” Dylan whispered.

  “Why?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Still lying partially on her side, she leaned back into him, enjoying the security that washed over her at his nearness. “Maybe because of the stories she used to tell us.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “Stories about the founding sisters, about children who vanished because of the things they could do or the deformities that marked their bodies.”

  Wyatt stiffened. “What kind of things?” he asked quietly.

  Dylan rolled onto her back so that she was staring up into his face. His eyes were dark as he studied her intently. “It’s not important—” she began to say, struggling to sit up. But Wyatt pressed his hand to her shoulder and refused to allow her to move.

  “Tell me,” he whispered close to her ear. “It could be vitally important.”

  She studied his face, but there was nothing sinister there, nothing that warned her against telling him. She realized in that moment that she had come to trust him despite the warnings of her breezy friend. Wyatt put his life in danger for her, not once, but twice. Wyatt had fed her and kept her from dying of dehydration for the past five days. He was her friend.

  But could she trust him with a secret Davida had warned her not to tell anyone?

  “She said that some babies…before her time, some were born with deformities, like skulls that did not take the shape they should have, arms that were too short. A few had growths in their backs—“

  “Like wings?”

  Dylan bit her lip, trying to recall what Davida had said. “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

  Wyatt’s hand trembled slightly where it was still pressed to her shoulder. “What else?”

  “Some of the older girls could do things. One girl had incredible strength. She pushed through an entire wall while playing hide and seek with some others. Another could predict what would happen in the future. Others thought they could see what had happened in the past.”

  Wyatt studied her face. “And healing?” he asked quietly.

  Dylan bit her lip again. Wyatt rolled away from her and stared up into the sky for a long second before he sat up. “We have to go.”

  “Wyatt—”

  “We have to get you to my father.”

  Wyatt climbed to his feet, walking the few feet to his bag before he snatched it up and dug out a water bottle that he tossed in Stiles’ direction. “Wake up, ghost man,” he said. “Time to move.”

  Dylan sat up as Stiles let out a loud groan from the other side of the fire. She was packing her bag, rearranging her own water bottles, when voices suddenly popped into her head.

  “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no…” a female voice said over and over again.

  “Run!” A male voice joined it a second later.

  Somewhere out in the slow approaching dawn they could hear the cry of an animal, a large, angry cry.

  “Someone’s in trouble!”

  Wyatt glanced at Dylan. “It’s just a hungry javelina,” he said.

  “No,” she said, jumping to her feet and snatching up his samurai sword from where it lay beside his bag. “Someone’s in trouble. You have to help them.”

  He snatched the sword from her and threw the strap over one shoulder, shaking his head as he began to buckle the heavy clasp in the center of his chest.

  “There’s no one else out here, Dylan,” he said.

  And then a human scream rushed through the air toward them.

  Chapter 21

  This is crazy, Dylan thought as she, Wyatt, and Stiles ran in the direction of the scream.

  She held her knife tight in her fist, hoping that she would not trip and end up shoving the business end of the knife into her own flesh. She had no idea what a javelina was. But she suspected it was not going to be something she would feel comfortable confronting on her own. She had never been more grateful for Wyatt and his odd weapons as she was now.

  Wyatt spotted them first, pointing his sword to the west as Dylan and Stiles caught up to him. Stiles crouched beside him. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

  Wyatt looked at Dylan as she joined them, panting quietly from the exertion of running. “Stay here,” he said to her.

  “Wyatt—”

  “You only have that little knife,” he said, gesturing to it. “It won’t do you any good with this thing.”

  “What about you?”

  He cocked his head slightly, tapping the sword lightly against his side. Then he dismissed her, turning to Stiles. “You run that way,” he said, gesturing to his left. “Flush it out toward me.”

  Stiles nodded and immediately rushed out into the field, his movements muted by the tall grass.

  “Wyatt.” Dylan grabbed his arm before he could move away.

  He glanced back at her, his irritation rolling off of him in waves. “Don’t argue with me. Not now.”

  “No,” she said. She reached up and kissed his cheek lightly, again that rush of pleasure moving through them both. “Be careful.”

  He stroked her cheek lightly, hesitation in the touch before he turned and began running across the field in the opposite direction as Stiles had gone. Dylan watched him go, her heart pounding as he grew more and more distant from her. A part of her wanted to rush after him. But she knew he was right: she could not defend herself against the animal.

  She crouched down and closed her eyes, using her old trick to listen as closely as she could. She was immediately overwhelmed with a sudden rush of pain. Someone was injured. She opened her eyes, her thoughts jumping to Wyatt. But she knew it couldn’t be him, it was too quick. She closed her eyes again, tried to force herself to concentrate.

  A girl’s voice, something familiar about it, filled her mind. High ground. That was her single thought. As Dylan listened in, an image began to seep into her mind, gray and fuzzy at first, but then sharper, until it was as though she was watching it through her own eyes. Dark pants. Heavy boots. Thick grass. There was another pair of legs, one leg dragging behind the other. It was the man who was injured. Blood dripped from his leg.

  As the image sharpened, it moved to reveal more of their surroundings. Dylan could hear a large animal crashing through the grass behind them. There was a flash of light in front of them, the early morning light glinting off of Wyatt’s sword. They were caught between Wyatt and the animal.

  Get down!

  Dylan pushed the thought toward the girl without thinking about it. She could hear the confusion in the girl’s thoughts as she glanced around. But she spotted Wyatt coming toward her in the high grass, signaling for her to move. She immediately dropped into a crouch as Wyatt whistled loud and low, drawing the attention of the animal toward him. Dylan watched through the stranger’s eyes as a low, heavy animal rushed toward where Wyatt stood several yards away. It was angry, making low, squeaking noises that Dylan had never heard before, a sound that sent waves of fear through the strange girl and her companion.

  Fear rushed through Dylan, as well, as she watched the animal charge Wyatt, and he did nothing to protect himself. She could see bony protrusions on the animal’s head, long, thin, sharp protrusions that likely could slice through his flesh without so much as an ounce of effort. An image of him lying on the ground, bleeding, the life slipping from his eyes burst through her mind. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood as she watched him, watched him just stand there wit
h his sword raised above his head. His hair moved slightly from an unseen breeze seconds before he brought down his sword, and blood gushed into the air, the strange animal suddenly silent.

  Dylan opened her eyes, breaking the connection with the girl as she jumped to her feet and rushed toward the place where Wyatt stood with his kill.

  He was laughing.

  “What we have here, boys and girls,” he called across the empty field, “is a feast!”

  Dylan rushed toward him, thinking only of the danger he had narrowly escaped. He was still laughing as she launched herself into his arms.

  “You idiot!” she cried. “That thing could have killed you.”

  “But it didn’t,” he said, sliding his arms slowly around her body. “It didn’t,” he whispered as he lowered his face and pressed his lips gently to hers.

  The intensity of pleasure that burst through Dylan in that moment was like the first taste of chocolate, the first touch of silk. She closed her eyes and gasped, her lips opening to him more out of a necessity for air than for the desire to taste him. But taste him she did and it only intensified that heart-shattering pleasure.

  “Dylan?” a female voice asked behind them.

  She so wanted to ignore it, so wanted to stay in Wyatt’s arms, wanted to keep her lips against his. But he pulled back just as the voice called out again.

  “It’s me,” Dylan said quietly as she turned and faced the unlucky couple behind her. “Hello, Ellie.”

  Chapter 22

  “You know her?”

  Dylan nodded as she untangled herself from Wyatt and turned to face Ellie. She was still kneeling on the ground, her arm still wrapped around her companion. Dylan went to her, touching her shoulders as she quickly scanned her face.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Ellie shook her head. “That animal came out of nowhere while we were sleeping. It attacked Sam…it was awful, the way he screamed…”

  Dylan touched her forehead lightly, whispering a few soothing words in her ear. Ellie settled down, her breathing slowing as she did.

  When Ellie was calm, Dylan turned to Sam. She smiled, touching his hand lightly. “I’m Dylan.”