by Curd, Megan
Owen’s weight was lifted off of me and I saw him crash into the front porch of the house, which collapsed the right side. The swing that was once bolted to the underside of the roof now swung viciously in a circle, hanging on by a thread. Owen was below it, and Ethan threw punches to any piece of Owen he could find. “You – don’t – mess – with – my – friends!” he grunted between slugs.
The scene seemed to be moving in slow motion – the Fallen were now hurling the cars across the lawn. My eyes connected with the biggest one as he watched the car flip past me. Crap. His teeth gleamed in excitement as he charged.
A flash of blinding white crashed into the Fallen. As the bodies collided together, it sounded as though a bomb went off. The screeches the Fallen made were about to burst my eardrums. I sprinted toward the mass to take it out, but another voice commanded it to leave. “Get out of here, you filthy creature!”
The earth shook and opened to swallow the Fallen whole. In the short moment’s reprieve, Reina turned toward me and smiled. “See, I’m not all that bad to have around, am I?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, you terrify me.”
Her blinding smile reached from ear to ear. It was infectious at the moment, considering she’d just saved my rear end. I looked to find the other Fallen, but heard Ethan’s moans from the porch. Without hesitation, I knew where I needed to be. “Reina, can you take care of the other Fallen?”
She grinned and flexed her muscles before running off in the other direction in mock fashion. “What do you think I do when you’re not around?” she called as I saw her swan dive into another demon’s side.
Fire trucks were pulling up to the house. Great. This was just getting better and better. More collateral damage if Reina didn’t get the Fallen out of here fast. I was to Ethan in a flash, assessing the damage.
It didn’t look good. His arm was a bloody mess and he was talking himself in circles. I slapped the side of his face to get him to focus on me. “Ethan, buddy, look at me dude. Look at me! Where’s Owen?”
Ethan’s eyes locked on me, panic filling his every word. “Owen isn’t a Guard! He’s not a Guard! We can’t – I don’t know how – he’s gonna get the girls!”
His sentences weren’t making sense. Owen had been a Guard since, hell, forever probably. I shook Ethan to get him to come to his senses. “Ethan, it’s okay. I’ll get Owen. Where is he?”
“Ah, good grief, guys. You didn’t tell me we had a Hunter on our hands,” Reina called as she ran up. She was beaten, but I’d hate to see the damage she’d done to the Fallen.
I stopped cold. “A Hunter? Where?”
“On the roof,” she pointed above us and looked up from where she was standing. “Oh, crap.”
Before she could say any more I dropped Ethan’s shoulders and ran out to her. She unfurled her perfectly white wings and bolted upward without another word. She didn’t need to say anything.
Up on the roof stood Owen. His skin had taken on a steely grey hue, and he glimmered as though his skin was armor. His eyes burned so red that I could see them from here. The fire I’d always seen smoldering in his eyes now made sense. His smile revealed sickeningly sharp teeth. How had he managed to hide this? I’d heard the Hunters were great at blending in, but I didn’t know they could look like Guards. Hannah was lying at his feet, not moving. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. She mouthed the words help me. I’d never felt so helpless in my life.
Owen and I locked eyes. As I stared him down, I tried to figure out how to save the girls. Reina was silently bearing down on him from behind, so I tried to keep him occupied. Arms open and in the position of surrender, I limped forward to buy Reina time. “Look man, let’s work this out.”
He said nothing. Instead, he simply smiled at me as he sunk his teeth into Angie’s neck.
Hannah screamed as we watched Owen let go of Angie. She fell limp like a rag doll and rolled off the side of the roof. There was no time to think. I sprinted toward where she would land and burst into the air at the last second. Angie landed in my arms not six inches from the ground. Blood was everywhere. This was beyond my ability to repair. God, so much blood!
Owen laughed and landed beside me after dropping from the roof. He traced his fingers delicately across Angie’s unconscious face before I could slap them away. He laughed once more and looked to Hannah, who had made her way to the edge of the roof. Her knuckles were white from where she gripped the gutter so tight. “See what you’ve done, Hannah? You should have just died. I tried to tell Levi that, remember? I was trying to do you a favor, but now it’s come to this,” he gestured to Angie and the carnage in the yard, “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me. We’ll become good friends, I suspect; that is, until you beg me to kill you.”
He slunk forward slowly, crouched low and rocking on the balls of his feet with each step. He looked like a hungry animal cornering his prey. Angie and me were the only thing between him and his quarry – Hannah. Frantically I tried to figure out how to stop him, but Angie was convulsing in my arms. His bite must have caused some reaction. I couldn’t just set her down in her current state. I crouched to meet his level. As he watched me, his eyes glowed an even brighter, hateful crimson. He sprang off the balls of his feet before I could lay Angie down.
Reina tackled him from the side before he could reach Hannah. Owen screamed in agony, Reina piercing his darkness by being so close. She tore at his steel grey wings and there was an audible crack. He cursed as he fell to the ground. His eyes remained downward, unable to look at Reina. “You can’t kill me. You know Hunters can’t be killed.”
“Oh, but I can hurt you,” Reina said coldly. She stepped on his hand with the heel of her shoe and grabbed his other wing and jerked hard. “Try to fly home with these.”
TWENTY-THREE
Ethan argued as I shoved him in Hannah’s walk-in closet with Reina and Angie before Hannah’s parents got home. “This is stupid. I am not a stuffed animal!”
Reina rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Ethan. Neither are we. We’ll leave for my place as soon as Levi can get away.”
“Just stay quiet, please?” I begged, trying to get back downstairs to Hannah before any other calamity could strike. I threw a sheet to Reina, who caught it one-handed and immediately started to try to stop Angie’s wound from bleeding. “Just work on figuring out what’s wrong with Angie.”
I raced downstairs to get Hannah off the roof. She was still clutching the edge, right where I’d left her when we all ran inside to take care of Angie. It looked like she was in shock. The front lawn was a warzone. The car was a twisted, melted pile of steel, and the lawn looked like bombs had gone off. The front porch swing still held on by one chain, but scraped audibly across the floor. How were we going to explain all of this?
I picked Hannah off the roof and we landed by the porch. Hannah stood there numbly, unseeing and apparently unable to speak. I put my hand on the small of her back and felt her jump. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”
She sighed and turned her sad eyes to mine. “Maybe Owen was right. Maybe I should just let him kill me. I can’t let him hurt my friends and family. Angie is a bloody mess, Ethan is all messed up, and you’ve had your share of crap since you saved me as well. Even Reina is in on it, now.” Her arms hung limply at her sides, as though even picking those up was too much to bear. “What are we going to tell my parents?”
Firemen were finishing up their duties of putting out the smoldering bits of what was left of the Chevy. I bit the inside of my mouth. It hurt. “We’ll tell them I tried to grill out in the garage. We got carried away with the kerosene. That’ll explain the fire.”
“And the blown up front yard? The reason the swing is dangling off its hinges?”
“Well, we can say the firemen drove into the yard. The swing – well, I was hoping you’d come up with something for the swing.”
Hannah just sighed. “Maybe the car will shock them enough.”
There wasn’t any time to wait; Hannah�
��s parents pulled up to the house and parked on the side of the road, since fire trucks were blocking their way in. Mrs. Gordon burst out the car, left the car door wide open and sprinted to Hannah. She gripped Hannah’s shoulders and shook her gently to make sure she was real. “Honey, what happened? Are you hurt?” She turned to me before even waiting on a response. “Are you okay? Were you here when it happened?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. “Actually, Mrs. Gordon, it’s my fault. I’m so sorry.” I hung my head in shame, hoping it looked convincing. Emotions and feelings were still a work in progress, but it seemed like she believed the act. Good. Her face fell.
“What the hell happened here?” Mr. Gordon had arrived, much less terrified of losing anyone than Mrs. Gordon was. “It looks like a bomb went off in our front yard.”
“Levi says it’s his fault,” Mrs. Gordon whispered.
“Really, now?” Mr. Gordon’s eyes locked on mine. If I weren’t already dead, there was a definite chance I would have feared for my life. Mr. Gordon was not a man to argue with. He squared his broad shoulders and stared me down.
I nodded glumly again. It was my fault in a sense. If I’d just left Hannah alone, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Of course, I wouldn’t have known how it felt to be alive again without her – no, I’d never regret getting involved. “I tried to grill out in the garage. Got a little carried away with the kerosene. I’m really sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. I’ll do anything to fix it.”
Mr. Gordon nodded curtly. “Well, at least you’re not hurt. Hannah, get inside. You have a cut on your head,” he nodded to the nick she’d gotten at some point in the brawl. If only he knew how much worse it could have been. “Mr. Walsh, I suggest you go home now.”
“But dad –” Hannah started.
“But nothing. It seems like you’ve had more than enough time with him today,” he nodded to me once more. “Goodbye, Mr. Walsh.”
After leaving and doubling back through the back yard, I went unnoticeable just in case Hannah’s parents were upstairs. I heard them arguing downstairs as I climbed through Hannah’s window. I opened Hannah’s closet door to find Ethan in fairly good shape, Reina completely fine, and Angie very, very sick.
“So nice of you to drop in,” Ethan drawled. “Angie hasn’t stopped upchucking. There’s no way this smell is coming out of the carpet. Merry Christmas, Hannah. Oh, and by the way, Pops downstairs isn’t too hot on you anymore. You got some colorful names. Might have to use ‘em on you sometime.”
“Shut up, Ethan,” I sighed. “Reina, what’s wrong with Angie?”
Reina looked at me with no feeling in her eyes. “There’s nothing we can do. She’s…she’s theirs now.”
“What do you mean, ‘she’s theirs’?” asked Ethan, obviously shocked. It didn’t seem like Reina had offered this information before I arrived.
“She was bitten by a Hunter. There’s no cure for that. It’s up to her. She’ll either pull out of it, or she’ll become a Hunter herself.”
This was not good news. I took two steps back and stumbled into Hannah. Her parents must have finished with her… for now. She grabbed my shoulders and gently pushed me out of the way to get to Angie.
Ethan jumped up, knocking hangers and clothes everywhere and got between them. “Hannah, look, you can’t be near Angie right now.”
“Why not? She’s my best friend!” Hannah said, already flustered from her conversation downstairs.
Ethan shook his head. “She used to be your best friend. Now it’s up in the air on whether she’ll be your dorkasaurus rex or a really nasty T-Rex – complete with wanting to rip out your throat.”
“What do you mean?”
I put my hand on her shoulder and eased her back toward me. “Hannah, look, Owen bit her. We didn’t know it, but he’s a Hunter. When a Hunter bites a human, the human will become a Hunter most of the time.”
“Most of the time? What happens otherwise?”
“Well, she could fight it out and be fine, but it’s not common. The other option is she’ll just die. I’m so sorry, Hannah. I didn’t mean for this to happen. We didn’t know that –”
She cut me off by trying to claw at Ethan. “YOU! This is YOUR fault! You’re supposed to protect her! Why weren’t you there? You’ve killed her! You’ve done this!”
Mrs. Gordon knocked on the door. “Hannah? What are you yelling about?”
I let her go and got in the closet myself. We were a motley crew; a Guard, Guardian, a Transitioner, and a potential Hunter all stuffed in a tiny closet. What could go wrong with that?
Hannah’s door opened and we all sucked in a collective breath. Mrs. Gordon’s words became louder, which only meant she was getting closer. “Hannah, honey, listen to me. Your father is upset about everything right now, but we really don’t dislike Levi. It’s just, well, he seems different. Are you sure you know enough about him to be dating him?”
Angie began to stir again at the sound of Hannah’s voice. “Yes, Mom, for the thousandth time. I know him. If you had him over for dinner or something sometime, you’d see he’s a good guy. We just got out of hand today. He didn’t mean for anything to happen. I’m really sorry.”
“Well, I just don’t understand why you thought grilling in the garage was a good idea to begin with!”
Reina pointed to Angie frantically as she began to move her head from side to side, shaking off the unconsciousness. Ethan looked between us, then looked over to me. “This is bad. This is really bad. There are two humans out there. If she’s becoming a Hunter –”
There wasn’t time to finish the sentence. Angie’s eyes flew open to reveal crimson irises. Reina pinned Angie down, but not before she let out an unearthly scream of outrage.
Both Hannah and Mrs. Gordon screamed. Ethan jumped on top of Reina as well and held down Angie’s arms. I blocked the door with my body, keeping it shut just in case Hannah or her mom had no sense and decided to investigate the noise.
“Get off of me!” Screamed Angie. “Ethan, you’ve never been there for me, so quit trying to stop me now! I sense them! I need them!”
Those weren’t words that would come out of a human’s mouth. Angie had turned. This was very, very bad.
There was a bunch of scuffling outside, but then the door slammed, so I assumed Hannah took her mom downstairs, either voluntarily or by force. Reina hadn’t moved, but then Ethan looked at me and gave the strangest look.
All of a sudden he heaved himself off of Angie, leaving Reina alone to keep her down. Angie bucked Reina off and sent her flying in a rack of clothes. Folded laundry on the shelves above rained down and littered the floor in hoodies. Ethan grabbed Angie’s shoulders and surprisingly enough, Angie stopped her attack on Reina. “Angie, listen to me,” Ethan said earnestly, “You’ve changed. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. For that I am so, so sorry,” the tone of his voice made me believe him. “Now listen. You can control this. You’ve changed, but you don’t have to be damned like me. Choose the light. Listen to Reina and Levi. Choose to be the kind soul that you really are. You can do this.”
Angie’s wild eyes ranged between all of us, frantically trying to figure out what had happened. She twitched, unable to stay completely still. She focused on Ethan once more. “I’m like you now?”
“Well, kind of. You’re different, but you’re not on the right side, I can tell you that,” he said. He quickly continued before she could get mad. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. You’re not destined for this. You’re good. You’re not like me.”
Angie gritted her teeth, the frustration sinking in. She grasped the sides of her head with her hands and let out a frustrated wail. “It hurts!”
“I know it does. It will for a while. But you have to be strong. You can do this!”
She closed her eyes and howled again. When she reopened them, they burned with fury. “You’re wrong. I’m a Hunter now. I’m Owen’s Hunter.”
Before Ethan could say anything, Angie slapped him across hi
s face and sent him flying into the pile of clothes by Reina. I stood at the door like a deer stuck in headlights. This would not end well for me.
Angie turned on me and grinned hatefully. “Do you really want to do that? Don’t you know your place?”
“I’m in it – keeping you away from Hannah.”
Her snarl faltered for a moment. “Hannah? Why would you keep me away from her?”
“Because you’ll kill her.”
She seemed genuinely startled by the news. “Why would I kill my best friend?”
“You’re Owen’s Hunter, right? What do you think he created you for? Your first job will be to kill Hannah. I’m not letting you do that.”
Angie screamed in frustration once more. Her feral ways were in overdrive right now. She lunged at me and I dodged her attack. The door buckled under the pressure and Angie went flying into the bedroom. I ran out and grabbed her foot before she could get to the door to go downstairs. “You want Hannah to live, right?”
She clawed the carpet frantically. Her head whipped around at the mention of Hannah, though. “Of course I do!”
“Then go away. Go away and never come back.”
She bore her teeth at me, but then stopped fighting. I let go of her and crouched, ready to attack once more if need be. She stood up; she seemed to be struggling to keep herself collected. After closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she looked at me once more. Her eyes weren’t quite as red, but they still smoldered with the anger and pain I’d felt for the past century. “I’ll be back,” she said, then pointed at Ethan. “If not to see Hannah, then to kill you, Ethan.”
“Looking forward to it,” Ethan said with a broken smile.
With that, Angie kicked me in the nose and dove out of the window, disappearing in the hazy smoke still billowing into the wind from the front yard.