Freefly

by Michele Tallarita

I take a deep breath. “What is it?”

  “Code Black. 145 17th Street, Philadelphia.”

  “But that’s where Ronnie lives—

  “If you can’t handle it.” He doesn’t finish his sentence, because he doesn’t have to: he knows as well as I do that I have no other option but handling it.

  “You can count on me,” I murmur.

  “Great.” He smiles. “Give me the money from today.”

  I lean forward and pull the envelope out of my back pocket, then toss it on the coffee table. Lederman snatches it and whips out the cash, counting it bill by bill.

  “You may go,” he says. “The boss expects you back at the Tower by tomorrow at 4. Be on time.”

  I get into the elevator, my stomach sinking. When the doors open back into the lobby, Jiminy’s waiting for me.

  “What’s wrong?” he blurts.

  I blow by him and exit the Tower, glad to feel cool air against my face.

  Jiminy grabs my shoulder and spins me around. “Hey, don’t ignore me, kid. I’m on your side.”

  I take in his face, which is lined with concern. I sigh. “It’s a Code Black.”

  “Aww, kid.” He pats me on the back. “It’ll be alright. Come on, let me buy you a pizza.”

  “I think I just wanna take off.”

  “You sure?”

  I nod.

  “Alright, then. Hey, don’t you dare get yourself killed up there!”

  I’ve already leaped from the grassy hill and am shooting toward the sunset, my eyes set on the bright point of light that marks Venus.

  This could be the last sunset I’ll ever see.

  CHAPTER 2

  Damien

  I’ve just finished the last of my homework when the flying girl shoots through the window.

  “Hey, Sammie.”

  She lands on top of my desk, straddling my biology textbook and crinkling my papers with her dirty sneakers.

  “And by hey, I mean get the heck off my homework.”

  Giving me a mischievous smile, she leaps over my head and lands behind me with a thud. I twist in my chair. Sammie is easily the strangest person I have ever known. I estimate she is five-foot-two, with hair the color of cornsilk spilling roughly two inches past her shoulders. She tucks some of it behind her ear and drops her knapsack onto the floor.

  “Dude, I am starving.” She rips open the knapsack and pulls out a large bag of Fritos, a Coke, and a packet of Pop Tarts. She tears open the bag of Fritos and shoves a handful into her mouth before collapsing on my bed.

  I rise from my desk. “How was your day?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “You look upset. There’s blood on your neck!”

  I rush closer. Sure enough, a thin line of blood slits her throat. It’s crusted dry, but scary looking: there are dry globs where the blood dripped down.

  “It’s fine,” she says.

  “Did someone try to cut your throat?”

  “It’s fine.”

  I signal for her to follow me into the bathroom, where I make her sit on the counter while I get the rubbing alcohol out of the cabinet. This is not unusual. In all the time that I’ve known her, Sammie has more often shown up with some kind of injury than without. Bruises the shape of hands on her arms, cuts on her face, a broken finger—but never before a cut across her neck, as if someone tried to murder her. I take the damp cloth and dab it against the cut, smudging off the blood.

  “Ow!” she cries.

  “I’m sorry.” I pause to look into her eyes. With their bright blue color, her delicate features, and her blond hair, she could easily pass for an angel that has fallen to Earth. That is, until she opens her mouth.

  “What the heck are you staring at?”

  “Who tried to slit your throat?”

  “Damien.” Her eyes harden. “How many times am I going to have to tell you this? What I do during the day is none of your business.”

  Sighing, I take the cloth to the cut again. The blood is stubborn to come off. This wound must have happened hours ago. Sammie refuses to reveal how she sustains these injuries. I have no idea how she spends her days, though a certain hardness in her face when she speaks of her activities hints that they aren’t good. You might wonder why I continue to tolerate this secrecy—why I tend to these suspicious wounds without insisting on knowing their source—but you ignore the fact that I am head-over-heels in love with this girl.

  “What happened to you?” she says, touching the cut near my eye, running her fingertips down the bruise on my face. Her expression goes from hard to soft in an instant.

  “Baseball game.”

  “Again?”

  I nod, focusing my eyes on the wound at her neck.

  “Sheesh, Damien. I know how much the team needs you, but I think you need to consider quitting. You’re always bleeding.”

  “You’re criticizing me for always bleeding?”

  Her eyes go hard again, then soften. “Tell me about today. Did you win the game again?”

  She follows me back into my room, where she sits on the bed and immediately starts shoving Fritos into her mouth. I lean back against my desk, crossing my arms.

  “Well, my team was down seven to four, with two outs in the last inning. It was my turn to bat, so I stepped up to the plate, knowing the pitcher’s looking to strike me out and end the game.”

  Sammie watches me intently, her hands moving the food into her mouth automatically.

  I continue, “The pitcher glares at me. He spits in the dirt. The catcher signals something behind me, and the pitcher smiles. He thinks he’s got me in the bag. I’m clutching the bat so hard my fingers are going numb. Meanwhile, the three guys on the bases are looking at me like, ‘Come on, Damien. Hit one out of the park. Win the game.’”

  “Jeez, this is more intense than usual.”

  “Trust me, I know. The pitcher pulls back his arm, ready to whiz one over the plate, hoping my bat will be too slow to connect. He flings himself forward and the ball streaks toward me. I pull back my bat. I have to wait for just the right moment. Finally, I whip the bat over the plate. Ping! I know I’ve hit the sweet spot. I take off for first. The other guys are flying toward home. But where’s the ball? I’m too focused on throwing myself around the bases to see where I’ve hit it. As I’m rounding second, I catch sight of it heading toward the fence. It might be a grand slam!”

  “Nice!”

  “But the ball smacks the top of the fence and falls to the ground. It’s still in play. The left fielder snatches it up and whips it toward third. I strain as fast as I can to beat it there. I do! But I know I need to go home. The other three guys have made it there, which makes the score seven to seven. If I can just get home, we’ll win the game. I fly toward the plate just as the ball leaves the third baseman’s hand. I can see the ball in the corner of my eye. I am literally racing it home.”

  “Oh, oh!”

  “The catcher’s kneeling over the plate, his glove open, ready to catch the ball and tag me out. My heart’s pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. Even though I’m going as fast as I can, the ball blurs past me. I dive, sliding through the dirt on my stomach. My hand connects with the plate—I know I’ve gotten the run!—but my face collides with the sharp edge of the catcher’s knee pad.” I touch the wound near my eye. “Blood’s pouring all over the plate, but it doesn’t matter: my team is cheering. They’re picking me up off the ground. Boorsville wins!”

  Sammie shakes her head, tossing her empty Frito bag onto the floor. “Amazing. Just amazing. I wish I could have seen it.”

  My cheeks burn. I pick up the Frito bag and throw it in the garbage can. “Thanks.”

  “I guess I understand how the wound was necessary.”

  “Yeah, you know. The team was counting on me.”

  She cracks open the can of Coke and dumps some down her throat. Propped up on one arm, her legs dangling over the end of the bed, she’s rumpled my carefully made comforter. This is okay. She is the on
ly one who sleeps on the comforter. I’ve been sleeping on the floor, curled up on my Phillies blanket, for the past year—basically since I met her.

  I was on my way home from school, driving down MacRearigan Road, the road containing the shopping mall, the laser tag arena, and the Walmart. On the side of the road, there was a girl with blond hair. This was weird for two reasons: 1.) No one walks along the side of MacRearigan Road. It’s a highway. It’s dangerous. And 2.) The girl was limping, taking long steps with her right leg and skipping her left leg forward in little hops.

  I pulled over, stopping my car behind her. The girl whirled around, then started limping more quickly, like she thought I was a kidnapper or something.

  “Hey!” I called, slamming my car door shut. “Are you okay?”

  I jogged toward her. She looked back at me, eyes humongous. Then she planted her right foot, leaped into the air...and flew away.

  My mouth dropped open. My heart banged in my chest. What on earth?

  She became a small dot, until I could barely see her. Then I couldn’t see her at all. My body remained frozen in place. Had I just seen an angel? An alien? Was I hallucinating? Had I lost it?

  The sound of an oncoming car hummed in my ears, and something wet splattered against my chest. I looked down. White liquid dripped from my T-shirt. A car sped past me, the sound of laughter pouring out the windows. It was Joe Butt. He and his goons had thrown milk at me. I squeezed the moisture out of my shirt and walked back to my car. That was when I noticed the blood on the ground, trailing for as far I could see down side of MacRearigan Road, in little pools spaced as far apart as the hops of a limping left foot.

  When I reached my house, my hands were shaking. I couldn’t get the girl out of my head: the limping, the blood, the flying. The flying. I parked my car by the curb and stumbled onto the sidewalk.

  The girl dropped to the ground in front of me.

  “I followed your car,” she said. Her face was very pale. “I’ve decided to trust you.”

  She fell to the floor.

  I scrambled to pick her up, putting one hand under her knees and another beneath her shoulders and lifting her off the sidewalk. There was a sheen of sweat on her face, and her chest moved rapidly. Her eyes fluttered open.

  “I’m going to drive you to the hospital,” I said, lurching toward the car.

  “No!” She squirmed in my grip, ripping herself away from me and dropping to the ground again. She swayed. “You can’t take me to the hospital.”

  I looked up and down the street. Boys were playing handball against a garage door a few houses down. There was no one else around to help.

  “Come inside,” I said.

  I offered my arm to steady her, but she edged away from me, limping toward the house. The mention of hospitals seemed to have spooked her. She leaned against the house as I fiddled with my keys at the front door. Finally, I opened it, and she limped over the threshold. As I shut the door behind us, her eyes darted up and down the street, like she was scared someone might be following her.

  “Are your parents home?” she said, eyeing the hallway that led to the kitchen. If it was possible, she had gotten paler. Her skin was the color of the moon, her lips bloodless and dry.

  “No, they’re still at work.”

  “Good. You can’t tell them about this.”

  She lifted her left pant leg, revealing an arrow gauged deep in her calf, blood oozing down her ankle. The arrow was long and very thin. It seemed to be made out of metal, jutting from her leg for roughly ten inches. The end of it was made of red plastic, like a dart.

  “What...?” I said.

  “Arrow in leg. Feeling woozy.”

  “Right.”

  I headed toward the kitchen, indicating for her to follow me. I pulled out a chair at the table, and she slumped into it.

  “Water?” she said.

  I grabbed a glass, thrust it under the faucet, and filled it. When I brought it to her, she ripped it from my hands and gulped it all down in one breath.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “Dizzy. I think the arrow’s poisoned. You need to pull it out.”

  I gulped. She pulled up her pant leg again, revealing the metal arrow jutting from the pale muscle of her calf. The edges of my vision darkened for a moment, like I might pass out, but I willed myself back into focus. The girl breathed shallowly, her head tilted back against the chair.

  “I can do it,” I said.

  Her eyelids fell shut. “Great.”

  I dropped to my knees and reached for the arrow. Blood dripped down her leg, pooling on the floor. I didn’t like the way the flesh around the arrow looked, swollen and purple. Was this girl, this flying girl, going to die in my kitchen?

  “The suspense is killing me,” she said faintly.

  “Sorry.”

  I grasped the arrow, the metal cool in my hand. I would have to do this very quickly. Taking a deep breath, I tried to think of carrots in the garden, the way you clutched the green leaves and ripped them from the Earth, freeing their long, orange bodies. I held the arrow tighter and yanked as hard as I could.

  “Owwww!” shouted the girl, almost flinging herself from the chair.

  The arrow slid free. I held it between my thumb and forefinger. The end of it, the part that had been buried in this girl’s leg, was sharp like a pencil point. I brought the point close to my eyes. A tiny hole blackened the tip, indicating that the arrow was hollow—probably filled with something intended to seep into the girl’s bloodstream.

  Blood poured from the open wound. The girl clutched the bottom of the seat, breathing rapidly, her eyes shut.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I bolted up the stairs and swerved into the bathroom, flinging open the cabinet. A cardboard box of rubbing alcohol, a roll of white bandages, a dispenser of sticky tape—I grabbed the familiar items and darted back down the stairs.

  The girl’s grip on the bottom of the chair had slackened, and her head lolled to one side. I touched her shoulder and her whole body tensed, her eyes flying open.

  I snatched my hand away. “Sorry. I thought you passed out.”

  Her eyelids sank almost to closing. “I think I did.”

  I dropped to my knees again. The puddle of blood had become so large that I was kneeling in it, and the edges of my vision darkened again when I felt the knee of my jeans become warm and sticky. Biting my lip, I pulled one of the packets of rubbing alcohol from the box and tore it open, drawing out the white cloth. Without stopping to dwell on what I was about to do, I plunged the cloth into the wound.

  “Yowwwww!” bellowed the girl. This time she flew out of the chair—literally—and hovered about a foot above it. “What the heck?”

  “It’s disinfectant,” I muttered, rather preoccupied with the foot of space between her and the chair.

  “Not cool!”

  “I have to. Do you want to get an infection?”

  She blew out breath. Slowly, her body dropped back into the chair.

  I dabbed at the wound. She hissed but remained still. The bleeding was slowing, the blood beginning to thicken around the gaping hole in her leg. I unwound a strip of bandage and wrapped it around her calf.

  “Aaah,” said the girl. “That feels cool.”

  I ripped a piece of tape from the dispenser and pressed it to the bandage, ensuring that the wrappings were tight. Then I tugged at her shoelaces.

  “What are you doing?” The girl yanked both her legs onto the chair, hugging them to her chest. Her hand probed the bandage gingerly.

  “Your sock is soaked in blood.”

  Her eyes moved to her shoe, which was streaked red.

  She jumped to her feet. “I should go.” Even as she said it, she swayed, clutching the table to steady herself.

  “You look like you should lie down.”

  She backed away from me, knocking the chair away. “Stay away from me.”

  I took a step back, putting up my hands. “I’m
just pointing out that you look like you’re going to collapse.”

  She stopped moving, studying me. Her eyes were very blue, set against pale skin, and something about the delicate structure of her face made me think of fairies, nymphs, and angels. Basically, she looked like the sort of girl who wouldn’t give me the time of day.

  I looked at my feet.

  “Okay,” she said, and my head jolted upward. “I’ll stay. But please don’t turn evil on me.”

  “Deal.”

  I led her up the stairs to my room, glancing back at her every few seconds. She wore a plain white T-shirt and baggy jeans, and had decided not to climb the stairs, but simply to hover over them, her toes about an inch off the ground. Her eyes followed the framed photos on the wall, which were, unfortunately, a collection of my school portraits. As we passed the humongous portrait that marked the year of the mushroom cut, I cringed. But the girl’s face didn’t show anything but curiosity.

  I veered right, toward my room, and the girl followed me. As she floated through the door, her eyes took in my neatly made bed, the clear surface of my desk, the spotless carpet, and the bare walls.

  “I love it. It’s so normal,” she said.

  My face became hot, all of a sudden. “Thanks.”

  In perhaps the most awkward hand gesture of my life, I motioned that the bed would probably be a good place for lying down. Meanwhile, I pressed myself against the wall—as far away as possible—to indicate that I wasn’t some kind of creep. She laughed and floated onto the end of the bed. Reaching for her sneakers, she fell forward onto her knees.

  I rushed toward her, but stopped myself from helping her up—she didn’t seem to like being touched. “Are you okay?”

  She breathed heavily, head bent forward, palms flat on the floor. “Dizzy.”

  “You were right about the arrow. It had something in it.”

  “Definitely wasn’t vegetable juice.”

  I reached for her arm. “I’m going to help you up.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  I grasped her arm and, gently as possible, pulled her up off the floor. She put her arm around my neck for support, keeping her eyes down. Her body trembled. I wondered if it was from the injury, or if I was truly that terrifying.