School of Broken Wings

by C. R. Jane

  I lift my chin and meet the eyes of the tall council member whose pitch black hair is swept off his face. He stands across the room perfectly groomed while his lackeys do the dirty work.

  His mouth twists into a grim smirk as our gazes meet.

  The snarls and thuds of battle around us scream vengeance and rage. I’d been so alone all my life, I just didn’t realize it. But now that I’ve found my men, I will fight for what’s mine.

  Anger fuels the power surging through me. I feel it dancing down my arms, bubbling inside me.

  Blood surrounds me, the air heavy with the stench of blood and hunger. But there’s something else as well...love for my men, who are risking their lives for me. That part I cling onto desperately.

  The council man whistles, and his mutts turn toward me.

  My power rises as I sink in the shadows of the encroaching vampires. I shake all over with the electricity lashing over my body. With a scream, it rushes out of me in a blinding fury.

  The air ripples as it shoots outward, throwing everyone off their feet. Flattening them to the ground. My wings press against my back to unleash. Except, I’m in control now.

  I savor the hunger for more power lapping at my insides. I absorb the way it makes my pulse race. I swallow hard as energy dances over my skin before spearing outward once more. It takes down the vampires coming against me. My men are smart and stay low.

  My fingers twitch, and I lick my dry lips.

  A sudden whack to the back of my head has me stumbling forward. The room spins, and a dull ache throbs through me.

  I cringe at the growing pain.

  Strong arms snap around my waist, and I’m wrenched off my feet.

  My vision dances with stars while the world tilts around me. I wince and writhe against my captive.

  Next thing, I’m thrown to the ground, and a boot is laid into my side.

  I scream, my ribs burning with excruciating agony. The wind howls around me, and the battle has now spilled outside.

  Scrambling backward, I try to clear my head. Memories hover at the edges of my mind about who I am…

  Fierce.

  Warrior.

  Angelic.

  I’m on my feet once again as a brute of a vampire comes at me. His hand lashes out, brandishing a blade. It bites into my arm, slicing me, drawing blood.

  His eyes widen as he sniffs the air. A quick swipe of the bloody blade over his tongue, and his whole body shudders with exhilaration. His eyes roll back for a split second before focusing on me. And now they’re black like the pits of hell. That taste wasn’t enough. It never will be for these monsters.

  I search deep inside me for my power, grasping onto it and preparing for the fight of my life.

  Around me, my men fight. Alexander is the closest, and I know he’s trying to reach me. He swings a fist to a vampire towering over him, the hit sending the giant backward.

  I want to cheer, except I have the man in a black suit and two of his guards lunging for me.

  I suck in a raspy breath and raise my arms, knowing running is no use. But flying… well… My wings snap out.

  They beat, and I’m flying clumsily and fast.

  Iron fingers snap around an ankle, hauling me back down.

  I thrust and kick, my wings beating ferociously. Another monster jumps up and snatches my other leg. They haul me back to the ground. Every move I make is to push them. I punch and buck against them. My wings beat into them.

  But another creature jumps on my back, driving me to my knees. My heart hits the back of my throat. He rips at my wings, tearing away the feathers, and it feels like someone tearing my hair out.

  I cry out with terror. The man in charge joins in on the torture, and I don’t know how many are on me now.

  Terror swallows me, and I draw on my power once again, wrenching it from the depths of my body. I shudder and feel it shooting out from my body in a powerful punch. The vampires are tossed off me, while my body aches.

  I push myself to my feet as the vampires climb to theirs. Where there were three before, now there are six, all of them sniffing the air.

  This isn’t how I want it all to end.

  Connor kicks a vampire in the gut before kneeing him in the face and driving a stake into his back. He moves as fluidly as the others. I square my shoulders, and I clench my jaw.

  I taste blood on my lip, and I fist my hands. I have no idea where so many vampires came from, but I won’t give up.

  Alexander catches my attention as he stumbles away from two vampires closing in on him. Blood runs down the side of his face, more from where his back has been sliced by a blade.

  Movement comes from my side…

  It's as if it happens in slow motion, I see the glint in the council member's eye as he darts toward Alexander and pulls out a long serrated knife from his belt. He looks right at Alexander and smirks as he lifts the knife.

  I open my mouth to scream for Alexander to watch out, but he's fending off the two other vampires, his back turned away from the knife-wielding council member.

  The knife starts to fly through the air and I don't think…I just move, propelling my body in between Alexander and the path of the knife.

  There's a sharp tear in my chest as the knife embeds itself in my chest instead of Alexander's. In that exact moment, the growing energy inside my body expels, exploding outward and pummeling every vampire off their feet. The power leaves my men untouched, as if it knows they aren’t the bad guys. I land on the ground, barely feeling the cold, hard ground. Barely able to make sense of what I just did.

  At first, all I feel is sweet relief. The knife was headed directly towards Alexander's heart. It would have impaled it for sure, the vampire who threw the knife had perfect aim. I saved my love.

  My adrenaline is higher than it’s ever been, so it takes a moment for the pain to hit. The spread of the wet blood seeping into my clothes is the first thing I feel. My hand automatically goes to my chest, and the fact that I have a long knife sticking out of my chest finally hits me. The blood is pouring out of it, and the cold I'm feeling isn't just outside where the blood is hitting my skin…it's also inside, slowly spreading from the wound site out to the rest of my body.

  I open my mouth to try and say something, but all that comes out is a pained gurgling sound.

  Alexander's at my side just then, apparently having disposed of the two vampires he was facing.

  "Adeline," he says in a panicked voice as he puts his hand on the knife, I assume to pull it out.

  "Don't touch it," says Braxton in a panic as he stops Alexander's hand. His voice comes out shaky…and wrong, and I want to reach out and comfort him. I just can't quite find the strength to lift my hand.

  Maybe in a moment I can…

  "It's probably in her heart, and you could make it worse by moving it," explains Braxton in that same strange voice. "We have to…fuck, where are we going to find a doctor?" Braxton's voice is filled with panic now.

  I can hear the sounds of the battle picking up once again, and I want to check on my other men, but again…I can't get my body to move.

  "Adeline, you're going to be okay," Alexander says in a hoarse voice as he grabs my hand. His face comes into my vision, and I can see streaks of tears falling down his face. Why is my love so sad?

  It feels like I'm in a dream. Everything I'm seeing has an almost ethereal quality about it. I try and speak again, and a gurgle is once again all that I can muster. I feel something wet and salty in my mouth…and then it’s dribbling down my chin.

  "Fuck, Braxton. Shouldn't she be healing? There's blood." Alexander is full out sobbing now. "Why isn't she healing?" he screams at Braxton.

  Connor's face appears in my vision. "No, no, no," he pants as he touches my face gently. His face is so full of anguish, I can almost taste it.

  Or maybe I'm just tasting the blood in my mouth. My brain has finally connected the warm, salty liquid flooding my mouth as blood.

  I think blood is bad i
f it's coming out of your mouth…isn't it?

  My brain can't think straight. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to clear my thoughts. The edges of my vision are shadowed. It feels like the world is shrinking right in front of me.

  "It hit her heart," Braxton announces in a dead voice, and I realize he's answering Alexander's question. Didn't Alexander ask that a while ago? Or is time moving strangely all of a sudden?

  "What do we do?" cries out Connor. "We need to give her blood. Bite her. Turn her into a vampire. Do something," he demands.

  "We can't," Braxton responds in a choked voice. "You can't change an angel into a vampire. It's against the laws of nature."

  "Fuck that," says Alexander.

  I feel a sharp pinch on my shoulder as he bites into my skin. Heat sears through the bite, and I know that he's released some kind of venom into my skin. Dante had once explained the process to me of how the transformation to vampire took place. He’s trying to turn me into a vampire. Dimly, I wonder if I actually want that.

  Alexander pulls back after a moment, and the heat quickly fades. I feel cold, so cold, like I've been transported to an Arctic tundra. My lip is quivering, and my body is growing numb all over. Before I couldn't move because I felt weak. Now I can't move because I can't even feel my limbs.

  "It's not working! Why isn't it working?" Alexander cries out. There's a loud scream somewhere in the distance, and I wonder who just got killed. All I can hope is that it wasn't one of the others.

  I'm dying. I realize that now. It's inevitable, like the sun setting every day in the west.

  What a strange way for everything to end.

  I wish I could see the rest of the guys. Just so I had peace of mind that they were alright. Who's going to take care of them all after I'm gone?

  I wish I could see my parents again, the ones that I know now. I wish my mom could hold me right now and tell me everything is going to be alright. I wish I could have this time with my father.

  I wish…

  I wonder if I will go to heaven.

  There's no one to tell you what death is going to feel like. I remember reading stories from people who claimed to have died. They wrote about seeing a family member or a light at the end of a long tunnel.

  But they didn't write about this.

  I'm still aware of the guys around me. Sometimes, one of them comes into my vision, and I can see their panicked faces. I even feel it when they pull out the knife. Evidently, they've become desperate. It's a muted pain though, and then it's gone. The bleeding is worse, and I can feel how soaked my shirt is. I would cry…

  And then the world is filled with colors. A kaleidoscope of them. So bright and intense that it distracts me from everything. There are colors visible that I don't have a name for. I only know that they are the most beautiful things that I've ever seen.

  I can hear voices. They're singing. A song I've never heard before.

  They're calling to me.

  But I don't want to go.

  Whatever waits for me can't measure up to what I'm leaving behind.

  Braxton, Alexander, Dante, Nyx, Finn, and Connor's faces fill my vision for one moment, blocking out the colors and the song.

  I love you.

  And then everything is black.

  Chapter 12

  Braxton

  "No," Alexander screams next to me as we watch as Adeline takes one last shuddering breath. I can feel when she's gone, because there's an absence, a void, a nothingness in the air. It surrounds me, suffocates me, drowns me. I didn't know that I could hurt like this. I didn't know that pain would exist like this.

  I'm faintly aware that Nyx and Dante are still fending off the last few council members. And I know that someone should help them. But I can't move from her side. I can't leave her. I don't know what will happen to me if I leave her side. I just know that I can't leave.

  Alexander is sobbing. I don't think I've ever seen him cry. I didn't know he was capable of it, I think randomly. He's huddled over her body, his hands clenching her shirt. "She's going to wake up, she's going to wake up," he keeps repeating.

  But we both know that she's not going to wake up, transformed into one of our kind. She's never going to wake up again.

  There's a loud yell, and I hear the snap of someone's neck. And then Nyx and Dante run up to us. We're all a mess, covered in blood—some ours, some the council members and their army.

  It takes a second for them to realize what we're gathered around. And then Dante's throwing off Alexander from Adi's body, and he's starting to give her CPR. "Adi, hang in there. Please."

  Nyx has his hands over his head. He's shaking his head back and forth, sorrow piercing his features. Finn is a few steps away, kneeling on the ground and rocking himself, soft sobs emanating from him.

  Connor is also a few steps away. He's frozen in place, just staring down at Adeline's body in shock.

  We're all destroyed. Scattered in bits and pieces. A segment of our soul was already fractured…and now…I'm not sure if any of us have a soul left.

  Alexander

  The moments tick by. And I pray. I can't remember ever doing it. I can't remember ever wanting something bad enough to pray to a God that forsook me long ago.

  But right now…right now, I'm praying with everything I have. There's still a chance that she could wake up. She'd be one of us and thus eternally damned. But that's better than dead. That's better than gone forever, leaving me in utter ruin. I try to think about what they'd made us read in our studies on vampire transformation. Sometimes, it took longer than others. I know I read that somewhere. Just because her body seemed to be repelling the venom as I tried to inject it, didn't mean that it didn't work.

  Please God let it work.

  I watch and wait as Dante continues CPR.

  You can't change angels.

  That sentence starts to run through my mind. Over and over again, pushing away all the hope I'm trying to hold on to. It hammers through my head until I'm on my knees, begging for God to take me too. I don't care if I go to hell. It won't seem any worse than where I'm at right now. Hell is the absence of her. You can't taste perfection and then live in any capacity without it.

  I am nothing without her.

  This is all my fault. The thought is swift and sharp. Adeline saved my life as her last act. Such a perfect creature gave up her life for someone like me.

  My hate for myself is so thick that I almost choke on it. Bile rises up, and I find myself vomiting, splashing the ground with my self-disgust.

  This is all my fault.

  Finn

  There are terrible thoughts running through my head right now. I want to burn the world to ashes. Rage and scream. Kill everyone around me. How did this happen? I was fighting, keeping her in my sights. She was safe, easily dispatching with the couple of vampires that came her way. I replay the moment she leapt in between the councilman's knife and Alexander over and over again in my mind.

  She should have let Alexander die.

  The thought is sickening, and I reject it as soon as it crosses my mind. I realize though how dead I am inside. Whatever vestiges of light I'd been trying to hold on to…whatever light she'd created in me, it's gone. Washed away forever.

  How can she have gone to a place where I can't follow her?

  Because that's what has happened. I'd kill myself right now if I knew she was waiting for me on the other side.

  But all that's waiting for me is fire and brimstone. They don't let creatures like me into heaven, and where else could someone like her have gone? Even if she hadn't been an angel, her soul was perfect.

  My soul, on the other hand, feels even uglier than before. She's taken anything good in me with her, and I try and take solace that at least a part of me has followed her to the beyond.

  I'm on the ground. And I can feel the cool earth seeping through my pants. I grab handfuls of the dirt, the hard ground tearing at my nails and making them bleed. I relish the pain.

  I woul
d have followed her anywhere. Why did she have to go somewhere that I couldn't follow her?

  Dante

  I just need to keep going. We'll get her to a doctor somehow. Or her angelic healing will kick in.

  I count in my head, trying to stay with the correct beat. Am I doing it right? Why weren't they doing it already?

  I just need to keep going.

  It's a steady mantra in my head. I repeat the movements over and over again.

  There's a hand on my arm, and I shake it off, refusing to look away from Adeline's perfect face as I keep pressing on her chest.

  She feels cold. We should get her a blanket. We probably don't have a blanket.

  These are inane thoughts. I know they are. But if I just keep concentrating on this beat, on keeping her warm, on keeping her heart going…

  I just need to keep going.

  "Dante," Braxton says. But I shake my head, refusing to listen to what I know he's trying to tell me.

  If I don't listen and I don't stop, then she can't die.

  Or at least, that's what my brain says.

  I'm nothing without this woman. I'm just an asshole who's been jealous of my stepbrother, who has a messed up relationship with his asshole of a dad, who lost the only person who ever cared about him and has acted out ever since.

  Adeline gave me purpose. She changed me. She made me into something that I didn't have to hate.

  "Dante, stop," Alexander says this time, and he wraps his arms around me. It's the first time my stepbrother and I have ever hugged. Hell, we've barely even touched. And his body is shaking.

  "She's gone," he sobs.

  And I finally stop.

  Nyx

  I'm shaking, watching the scene as it plays out in front of me. It's not real, I whisper to myself over and over again, convinced that if I keep saying it, it really won't be real.