“What’s been up with you?” asked Bethany.
“Up with me? With me?” snapped Imorean.
“You’ve been acting weird since we broke up. Why?”
“Why do you think, Bethany?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think what we had going on was serious.”
“That makes one of us,” snorted Imorean, stopping and folding his arms.
Bethany rolled her eyes. “Sorry you got the wrong impression.”
“Bethany, you don’t date people without being semi-serious about them. That’s not how it works. Put a title on the relationship like we did and it becomes real. The reason I’m acting weird is because I’m hurt, Bethany. Hurt. I don’t want you around me. Seeing you with Ryan is painful enough.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? That’s it? Nice to see you’ve got some empathy.”
“Well, what do you want me to say?” sneered Bethany.
“Why Ryan? Why did you want to go out with him of all people? You know I never liked him.”
A smirk spread across Bethany’s face and Imorean’s heart hardened in preparation for her words. He looked up as Ryan approached, a suspicious glare clouding his face. Bethany pulled Ryan close as the redheaded teenager approached.
“He’s a serpent eagle.”
Imorean was thrown by her sentence. “What? Gyrfalcon, hawk, serpent eagle, seagull. What difference does it make?”
“Bigger wings, Imorean. Bigger wings.”
Ryan flared his mottled gray and white wings with a nasty smirk and Imorean folded his own white gyrfalcon wings more tightly behind his back. He turned away from Bethany, self-conscious and disgusted.
Chapter 14
Imorean stamped, trying to warm up. The mornings at Gracepointe had suddenly snapped cold. He pulled his wings tightly around his body. Gabriel was demonstrating some activity for him, but Imorean wasn’t paying any attention. A bitter wind was distracting him. All he wanted was go back to bed. He sighed hard and wondered if his bed was still warm.
“Did you notice what I did, Imorean?” asked Gabriel, his voice resonating loudly across the sports field.
Imorean looked up. Gabriel was standing on the other side of the track, wings open.
“Sure did!”
“Well, do it then. I want to see how you do.”
Imorean nearly bit his tongue. This was the first exercise of the morning and he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing.
Gabriel sighed heavily. “Follow the outside of the track and land here by me.”
“Got it,” replied Imorean sheepishly. He normally paid more attention than this in his flying lessons. It was too cold for him to want to focus properly.
With a grimace, Imorean opened his wings, and hopped up into the air, the cold immediately biting through his clothes. His takeoffs were still shaky and it took him a few wingbeats to reach a suitable height for flying. Ten feet off the ground should appease Gabriel for the first exercise of the morning, shouldn’t it? Imorean was moving into the horizontal position when Gabriel called out.
“Higher, Imorean. We’re trying to get you up to about fifteen feet this morning, remember?”
Imorean swallowed hard, but after a few uneven wingbeats, he had risen further. Was this fifteen feet? It felt so much higher. Fearful nausea was already churning in Imorean’s stomach. He took a deep breath and set off, flying above the surface of the track. The straight stretches were pretty easy. All he had to do was maintain his altitude.
“Very nice, Imorean! Keep your position. Relax your wings. They’re too rigid. They’ll navigate air currents on their own. You just focus on staying up.”
Imorean nearly scoffed. Relax his wings and fall fifteen feet? He would rather not.
“You’re approaching a bend. Tilt your wings! No, don’t bend them. Just tilt.”
A tremble made its way up Imorean’s spine as he lowered his left wing. The airflow was uneven. He was going to fall!
“Not that steep, Imorean!”
Imorean swore loudly as air movement over and under his wings grabbed control of the feathers, rolling him over once.
“Brakes?!” called Imorean. The air flow around his wings had stilled and he lost altitude, falling toward the ground.
“You are the brakes!”
There was a noise like a cannon blast, and Imorean found his eyes covered with a pale purple light. He blinked hard a few times and rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. He was lying flat on his back in the center of the track. Red, synthetic surface stretched out on either side of him. The pale dawn sky was above him. Gabriel’s shadow fell across him and Imorean looked up with a nervous smile.
Gabriel’s hazel eyes were concerned. “Are you hurt?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“Well then, looks like we’re going to have to work on turning, too,” said Gabriel with an amused smile.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The thundering of his heart was all Imorean could hear as his video chat account called in to his mother’s. It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening at Gracepointe, so it would be roughly midafternoon in North Carolina. This was the first call he had made to his mother since he had been changed. Imorean swallowed hard as his call connected. He hoped his plan would work. He adjusted his laptop on the desk, tilting it toward one of the corners of the room. The less his mother could see of the room, the better. All the lights in the dorm were off, with the exception of his desk lamp, and he had draped himself in his duvet, covering even his head. The only part of him that was visible was his face.
“Imorean! You’re alive!” cried Amelia, appearing on the screen. She was alone again. The twins must not be home yet.
He crooked a smile and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. “Hi, Mom.”
“Okay, okay. Two questions. One, how are you? I haven’t heard from you in weeks! Second, what’s with the blanket? Have you taken up hermitage?”
Imorean sniffed hard. “I’m doing pretty good, but I think I’m getting sick, which kinda explains the blanket.”
“Oh, no! A cold?”
“Yeah, probably something seasonal. It’s a lot colder here than it is at home,” shrugged Imorean. He stiffened as he felt his wings move under the blanket. He swallowed hard, the lie sticking in his throat.
“Oh, honey … Tea always helps. See what medicine they sell at your student store. If they don’t sell anything strong enough, I’ll send you some.”
“Thanks, Mom,” replied Imorean, clearing his throat.
“Other than being sick, how are you?”
“I’ve been better … me and Bethany broke up.”
“What? Why? What happened?”
“She just didn’t want to be with me anymore. She wanted someone with bigger wi – hands … bigger hands.”
“What a –”
“Mom!”
“You were thinking it too,” said Amelia, smiling sympathetically.
“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t going to say it. The worst part is she ended up dating Ryan.”
“Ryan?”
“This guy who’s hated me since we all got here.”
“Any idea why he doesn’t like you?”
Imorean thought back over their near confrontational first meeting, Ryan flipping him off a few days later, the takedown of the football club after he had caught Ryan cheating on a test, baiting Ryan about not qualifying for a football scholarship and finally Ryan ganging up on him a few days before the entire student body was changed.
“Not a clue.”
“Well, don’t let him and Bethany get to you. She’s only doing it for attention.”
“You sure?”
“I was a girl once too, Imorean, believe it or not.”
“Yeah, but you’re actually a nice person.”
Amelia laughed and Imorean smiled. It was wonderful to be able to talk to his mother. It was as though a wall had been breached.
“How’s Papa?” asked Imorean.
“He
recovered from the car accident fine … but Gramma and I are worried that he may be developing dementia.”
“What?” cried Imorean, the blanket nearly falling back off his head. He felt as though a shard of ice had embedded itself in his heart. His grandfather couldn’t be getting dementia. He just couldn’t.
“He’s been getting paranoid. He keeps thinking there’s someone watching us and he’s been muttering things.”
“Like what?”
“Gramma said one day she walked into the bedroom and he was looking out the window. He was saying, ‘It’s happening again. They’re gathering.’”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know,” sighed Amelia. “He’s been having nightmares as well.”
“Do you know what about?”
“Gramma said it was about a monster.”
Imorean swallowed hard and was about to answer when the room door flew open and Toddy launched inside, his gray wings wide open. Imorean cried out, the blanket falling down around his shoulders. He slammed the lid of his laptop shut, ending the call.
“Whoa! Imorean! Put a sock on the door next time!” shouted Toddy, covering his eyes.
Imorean threw his blanket onto his bed.
“I was talking with my mom, dude. You could learn to knock. The last thing I want is for her to find out about the wings over a video.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Imorean swept the world before him. It was bleak, made bleaker by a dense fog that cloaked everything. The grass below his feet was dead and the naked trees around him clawed the misty air with skeletal fingers. Imorean panted, the crushing sense of loneliness enough to fill him with terror.
“It’s okay,” he whispered to himself, hoping he would find comfort in his own voice. Instead, it simply made him feel smaller and more alone. It suddenly felt that a great weight was pressing down around him. He drew a short, shaky breath.
An eerie wind ghosted through the trees overhead, blowing the fog clear for a moment. Imorean looked up and spotted another figure.
“Uriel,” whispered a voice as the fog descended again. It was a voice that preceded doom. There was horrible humor in the voice, as though a game designed to play only in one member’s favor was finally up. Eagerness was in the air. Victory was close. Imorean had heard the voice before.
The teenager backed down and pressed against a tree, a true fear in his heart. Uriel was one of the Upper Archangels. One of Michael’s closest brothers. A second, new voice cried out, still searching. There was a frenzy in the second call. Someone was desperate.
“Uriel!”
Imorean turned again as the wind blew some more of the fog clear. The shrouded figure had come closer and Imorean gasped. The Archangel Uriel himself had stumbled out of the mist. Imorean looked at him in horror. Uriel should have been a handsome man. Dark brown-eyed, black-haired, with tan skin, but the Archangel was drenched in his own blood and his eyes were unfocused. One dark brown wing was dragging along the ground, the paler tips nearly obscured by blood and dirt. The dark brown combat shirt was torn and ragged, the trousers covered in damp patches of red. His sword was held limply at his side. His dark eyes seemed grayed over. Imorean wondered briefly if it was because of blood loss.
“Get Michael,” whispered Uriel, his dazed eyes landing on Imorean. “Need Michael. Michael.”
Imorean hesitated. Something here was terribly wrong.
The first of Uriel’s seekers called his name again. This time, there was a seductiveness in the word and Uriel’s eyes closed as he fell to the ground. Imorean moved to run to the fallen Archangel, but the fog turned black and blocked the space between them. A dark, triumphant laugh echoed from within the shaded fog and Imorean knew instinctively that something was wrong. Very wrong.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Imorean sat bolt upright in bed. Another nightmare. Something awful had happened, he just knew it, but what? He blinked, trying desperately to recall what occurred in his dream, but it was to no avail. The details were all slipping away, yet it seemed that something had happened to Uriel. What it was though, he had no idea. Why would he be dreaming about Uriel anyway? He had only met the Archangel once – in the hospital wing after all the students had been changed – and they had never been properly introduced. Imorean rubbed his temples. It made no sense. After all, he was just a student. He had nothing at all to do with the Archangels. Imorean rubbed his face in confusion and started to lie back down on his bed. He wanted to go back to sleep, but there was still a fearful energy in his chest, lingering on from his dream. His heart was racy and he was on edge. His blood was too hot. He picked up his watch from his nightstand and checked the time. Four-thirty in the morning. This was no time to be awake. Once he woke up properly for his and Gabriel’s flying lesson, he was sure he would feel more at ease.
A knock, urgent yet light, caused Imorean to start as someone rapped on his and Toddy’s dorm room door. Who on Earth wanted his and Toddy’s attention during the small hours of the morning? Imorean waited for a moment, wondering if he should get up or simply ignore the visitor. The knock came again, louder and more frantic this time. Imorean got up.
Light from the hallway entered the room and Imorean blinked hard, letting his eyes adjust.
The brown-eyed teenager inclined his head. “Colton? It’s nearly five in the morning. What are you doing here?”
Colton looked disheveled. His straw blond hair was sticking up at all angles, his blue eyes seemed more watery than usual, and his thick glasses were askew on his face. He was still in his pajamas.
“It’s Baxter.”
Imorean’s temper immediately flared. Had Baxter done something to Colton?
“What’s happened?”
Colton’s voice shook very slightly. “I don’t know really. Dustin and Ryan came to our door a few minutes ago. They both had book bags with them. Baxter was already awake. He was packing a bag too. I asked them what was going on, but Ryan told me to shut up and that it wasn’t any of my business. He said if I knew what was best for me then I’d deny ever seeing them. Imorean, I think they’re trying to leave.”
Imorean bit the inside of his cheek and looked down the brightly lit hallway. He didn’t like Ryan and he didn’t particularly like Baxter either, but Dustin was his friend. In good conscience, he couldn’t let him get in trouble. Trouble they would definitely get into if Michael found out about their plan to escape.
“Come into our room, Colton. I’ll see if I can catch them and talk them out of this.”
“Are you sure, Imorean?”
“Yeah. At the very least, I need to try and stop Dustin from doing anything stupid.”
Imorean looked down at his pajamas. They would never hold up against the cold of a Norwegian autumn night.
“Come on in. I’m going to get changed, then I’m going after them.”
“Do you know where they’re going?”
Imorean thought of the high, wrought iron gates that separated the main campus from the sports field. The very gates that had haunted him through his first few weeks at Gracepointe and the same gates that had been overridden from the inside to allow in a Hellhound.
“Yes, I think I know exactly where they are.”
Imorean shivered as he jogged through the darkness, keeping to shadows as much as he could. He didn’t mind if he was spotted by Baxter, Ryan or Dustin. He was more worried about being seen by Michael or Gabriel if they were nearby.
“How much longer?” asked a voice nearby. Imorean stopped. He couldn’t tell from this distance if it had been Ryan or Baxter speaking, but at least he knew they were close. Imorean clung to the shadows as he passed under a lamp and as he entered the cloak of darkness again, he spotted the three others clustered around the base of the gates.
“They should be opening up any second,” said Ryan, crouching down next to the wall. Dustin and Baxter shuffled impatiently next to him.
“I’m still not sure about this,” said Dustin, looking at the gates.
&n
bsp; “It’s the best chance we’ve got, Dustin,” replied Baxter. “But I know what you mean.”
“If Michael gets his hands on us…”
“Shut up, Dustin,” snapped Ryan. “Michael won’t get his hands on us. We’ll be long gone before morning.”
“I don’t like this, man,” said Baxter, looking through the gates at the dark world beyond. “There’s not a lot of light out there.”
Ryan snorted. “Quit being a baby. Darkness isn’t scary.”
Imorean walked forward toward them. If Dustin and Baxter were hesitant, maybe there would be some chance to talk them out of trying to leave and spare them from Michael’s wrath.
“You really shouldn’t.”
Ryan looked up in disgust.
“I told that little shrimp to keep his mouth shut. What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Baxter and Dustin stepped between them.
“We want to leave,” said Dustin. “We want to talk to the police.”
“Dustin’s right. If we do, we might be able to rescue everyone in this place,” said Baxter. There was an odd expression, something like relief, in his eyes.
Imorean put his hands in his pockets. “This is a dumb idea. If Michael catches you, he’ll go crazy. You should know that.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed maliciously.
“We don’t all have the same relationship with him that you do.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Michael hates me. He has since day one.”
Imorean could see Ryan’s teeth glint in the moonlight as he sneered.
“Really? So, Michael would take on a Hellhound one-on-one to save anyone in this place?”
“I’m a student here. Same as the three of you. I think Michael would do that for any of us.”
Ryan’s sneer deepened into a smirk. “Are you sure it’s not because you’ve spent a couple of sessions in ‘office hours’ with him?”
Imorean’s mouth dropped open in shock and disgust. He was lost for words. Was that really what Ryan and God knew how many other students, thought of him?
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