FREED (Angels and Gargoyles Book 2)

by Brenda L. Harper

  “Her scientists think they have a way to use you to help her eradicate the illness here, on earth.”

  “How?”

  Joanna looked away, but familiar images of torture devices flew through Dylan’s mind. She remembered seeing the same things in the thoughts of some of the Redcoats who had attacked the resistance camp. She shuddered, the realization of what Lily really wanted rushing through her like water rushing over a waterfall.

  “I wouldn’t survive.”

  “No,” Joanna agreed.

  “But she called me her child. She said—”

  Dylan couldn’t even finish her thought. Fear had taken up residence in her belly, running along her nerves like Wyatt’s fingers had once done along her spine. She stood and began to pace, her thoughts once again unsteady and unreadable. She had assumed Lily’s plans for her were not good. But this still had the power to unnerve her.

  “What do I do now?” she wondered aloud.

  “You let us teach you so that you have the knowledge you need to make the right choices.”

  “Teach me what?”

  Joanna’s smile touched her eyes this time. It made them dance, reminding her a little of Wyatt in the few lighthearted moments they had shared. “To be an angel,” she said.

  Dylan shook her head. “I’m not an angel. I’m a freak of nature. An abomination.”

  “No.” Joanna came to her, cradled her face in her hands the way Davida often did when she knew Dylan was particularly upset. “You are a child of God.”

  “I was created in a lab.”

  “But you were created.” Joanna stroked her cheek lightly. “Only God has the power to create. And he does not make abominations.”

  Tears burned in the back of Dylan’s throat. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “All of this is too much. How could God have created me? Why? So that I could be caught in this tug of war?”

  “So that you could make the choice that will end this war.”

  “And if I make the wrong choice?”

  Joanna stroked Dylan’s cheek again, the amusement gone from her eyes. She looked like a guardian scolding an adolescent for forgetting her lessons or refusing to attend to her chores.

  “Make sure you don’t,” she said.

  It wasn’t what Dylan had wanted to hear.

  And then the building exploded into flames.

  Chapter 23

  Joanna grabbed Dylan’s hand and ran for the back of the house. Dylan nearly tripped trying to keep up with her. Joanna burst into a bedroom and dove for the bed. At first Dylan thought she might be trying to hide underneath, but realized that she was looking for something. A box, she discovered as Joanna backed up and jumped to her feet.

  “You have to transition into your ethereal form,” she said.

  Dylan just shook her head. She had no idea what Joanna was talking about.

  “Close your eyes,” Joanna said, moving her own hand over Dylan’s eyelids, encouraging them to lower. Images again exploded in her mind, images of colorful creatures moving freely through the air.

  “Concentrate,” Joanna whispered. “You are an angel. Imagine yourself floating free of your human form.”

  “I can’t,” Dylan said, pulling back.

  Joanna dropped the box before she grabbed Dylan’s head between both her hands and squeezed slightly. “Listen to me,” she hissed. “You have to do this. Lucifer is coming.”

  Dylan stared at Joanna. “How do you know?”

  “I know.” She surprised Dylan by kissing her forehead lightly. “Think of John—Wyatt. Think of the last time you were together. Think of happiness.”

  Dylan closed her eyes again. She could feel the pressure of Joanna’s hands on her head, but it was not an unpleasant pressure. Her thoughts were scattered. At first, all she could think about was the sound of flames cracking and popping in the next room, of the heat of it beginning to come toward her. Then she thought of Luc and Lily, of the things they had done and what they wanted to do. But as she stood there, as Joanna continued to hold her head between her hands, Dylan’s thoughts began to settle down.

  She thought of Sam. Thought of the night he kissed her. A different kind of heat moved through her body just at the memory. It made her ache in a weird sort of way. She wanted to hold onto the memory, wanted to hold onto Sam. But then the image of his battered face, the one Wyatt showed her, flashed through her mind, and all the calm that had descended on her disappeared.

  “Concentrate,” Joanna said again, her voice a little less calm than it had been before.

  Dylan squeezed her eyes, as though the act of doing that would cause the images in her mind to physically change. And, in a way, it did. She focused on Wyatt this time. Pictured his face as it had been during their conversation earlier. Pictured him dragging his fingers through his hair, pictured him shoving his hands into his jean pockets as though it would stop him from saying or doing something he didn’t want to do.

  She pictured the frown wrinkles on Wyatt’s forehead, pictured her own fingers gently wiping them away. And she imagined him smiling, imagined that dimple that sometimes appeared in his cheek in those rare moments of levity. It didn’t happen often, so she felt special when it appeared for her. She felt that way now, felt that tenderness that often made it hard to breathe whenever he looked at her.

  “That’s it,” Joanna whispered.

  Dylan’s thoughts moved again to the kisses she and Wyatt had shared behind that wall of boxes, to the feel of his urgency as he ran his hands under her shirt. She had never felt anything quite like that before. It confused her, her own body’s reaction to him. And his body…she had felt things she did not understand and still wasn’t sure she did, despite what she had seen in Joanna’s memories of her romance with Jimmy. It occurred to her that she never wondered why he had done that, never had the chance to ask him what it had meant.

  But the memory of it was just as exciting as the moment itself had been.

  As Dylan concentrated on Wyatt, on his touch, she felt her body begin to become light. Joanna whispered encouragement. There was a warmth that traveled between Joanna’s fingers and Dylan’s mind. It was as if Joanna was infusing Dylan with something…a sort of magic, perhaps.

  And then the earth was no longer under her feet, but a distant object floating far below her.

  “Follow me,” Joanna said.

  Dylan looked around herself and spotted Joanna’s pure blue color far ahead of her. She began to feel heavy again as she concentrated too hard on Joanna, on her need to reach her. But the moment she stopped trying, it was as if she just soared.

  It was an experience that Dylan could never begin to explain in words. There were no words.

  They moved quickly, the world below them a blur. Dylan wanted to slow down, to see all there was to see about the world below her. But Joanna had a destination in mind. In this form, it was easier for Dylan to read her thoughts. She wasn’t sure she liked the way they were going.

  At the same time, Dylan could hear the thoughts of people far below her. There were so many. It offered her hope that the human race was not as decimated as she had assumed it was. For weeks they had walked around the ruins and the fields and the lost world, never seeing anyone else. But now she knew they were definitely there still.

  Hurry, Joanna called to her.

  Dylan caught up to Joanna and touched what should have been her hand. When she did, something flashed through her, a truth she didn’t at first understand. A plan that had been hidden from the people who needed to know it the most. Dylan stared at her, unable to consolidate what she had seen with the woman she had just begun to know.

  What have you done?

  Pain flashed through Dylan as she began to fall from the sky.

  They were all going to die.

  Chapter 24

  She was unconscious. And the funny thing was, she knew she was unconscious. But, at the same time, she felt like she was wide awake and wandering around in the darkness.

>   And then it wasn’t dark anymore.

  A pool of light appeared in the center of a room that felt cavernous, though Dylan couldn’t see past the few feet outside that pool of light. She walked there slowly, aware that once she stepped into the light she would be exposed to whatever was here. She told herself it was just a dream, that nothing could hurt her inside her own mind. But she was no longer sure that was true.

  She hesitated just outside the light, her toes just barely touched by the brightness of it.

  “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

  “No one is safe,” Dylan said.

  “Please,” the voice said. “We have to talk.”

  Dylan groaned. “I’ve heard that a lot lately.”

  “From all the wrong people.”

  “How do I know that?” Dylan stepped into the light, momentarily forgetting her fear. “How do I know who I can trust?”

  Davida stepped into the light from the opposite side. “I have never done anything to hurt you.”

  “Neither has Stiles or Sam, but one of them has lied to me about who he is.”

  Davida held out her hand. “Please, Dylan,” she said. “I only want to protect you.”

  “Where are you?” she asked. “Why have you not met up with the others?”

  Davida frowned, dropping her hand to her side. “Things are complicated for the resistance right now. Jimmy was injured in the fight with the Redcoats.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough.” Davida stepped farther into the circle of light. “Humans do not heal like angels and gargoyles.”

  “Can’t you heal him?”

  Davida shook her head. “My abilities are limited to mental communication.”

  Dylan stepped closer, her eyes searching Davida’s face. Her beloved guardian. She had never given her a reason to doubt her. Yet, there was something not right about her. The tilt of her eyes. The soft curve to her chin. Something was wrong, something just felt wrong.

  “I saw Donna,” Dylan said.

  Davida cocked an eyebrow. “Did you?”

  “She asked about you. Said she missed hearing you sing to us at night.” Dylan hummed a few, short bars of an old nursery song. “Do you remember the words?”

  “Of course.” Davida stepped back slightly, rubbing the palms of her hands on the front of her shirt. “Wasn’t that the one about the cat?”

  Dylan closed her eyes and pictured Wyatt, pictured his face when he explained to her what music was. She took a deep, steadying breath and felt herself began to float.

  “What are you doing?” Davida demanded in a shrill tone. Dylan had never heard anything like that come from Davida’s voice. But she knew this was not Davida.

  She opened her eyes, and she could see Lily inside of the human that looked so much like Davida. So much, but not quite. Her eyes were the wrong color, a sort of muddy blue instead of Davida’s hazel. And her jaw wasn’t quite right. Too thin.

  “If you wanted to talk to me, Lily, you could have come as yourself.”

  “I didn’t realize how far you had come in such a short time.”

  Davida’s form melted away, and Lily, the young, beautiful Lily Dylan had met in an earlier dream, took her place. She touched her own face as though amazed by the smoothness of her skin, the painless movement of her hands.

  “You are quite a sight, Dylan,” she said.

  “Am I?”

  “Beautiful. You even have your own aura, separate from mine.”

  “Is that important?”

  Lily shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. Once I take what I want, your essence will disappear.”

  “You’re not going to touch me.”

  Lily stepped toward her, but Dylan backed up, floating high above her so that it would not be possible for their bodies to mingle. Dylan didn’t want to take the chance that just touching her ethereal form would allow Lily to see Dylan’s thoughts, to know what Dylan knew about the angels’ plans. It didn’t matter that she didn’t like what they were planning. She did not want Lily to have any advantage.

  Out of Lily’s reach, she settled back on the ground and slipped back into her human form.

  Lily looked annoyed. But a smile moved over her features after a second, as though she did not want Dylan to know what she was really thinking.

  “You just don’t know who to trust,” Lily said.

  “That about sums it up,” Dylan agreed.

  “You can trust me. I never lied to you.”

  “I don’t suppose you did.”

  “Not like that friend of yours. What does he call himself now? Wyatt?”

  “Wyatt didn’t lie,” Dylan said. “He just left the truth out.”

  Lily laughed. “That’s the kind of excuse I might have made once upon a time. You will fit so nicely into our world, Dylan.”

  Dylan shook her head. “It’s not your world,” she said.

  The laughter died. Lily straightened to her full height, anger in her eyes. “This was our world. Before the humans screwed up in the garden, it was our world.”

  “Isn’t that your husband’s fault?”

  The glare became even darker. “You don’t get it, do you? The angels came first. The humans were just an experiment—”

  “One that turned out far better than expected.”

  “One that ruined everything for the rest of us.”

  “Weren’t you married to a human once upon a time?”

  Lily stamped her foot and the floor under Dylan’s feet shifted. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but they’ve filled your head with lies and half-truths. You will never understand what all of this is about, why we’re here. You stupid humans—”

  “I’m not human, remember?”

  Lily just shook her head. “They just want to use you and kill you. You know that, right?”

  “I know.”

  “At least with me, a part of you will continue to live.”

  Dylan inclined her head slightly. “Yes, I understand that, too.”

  Lily studied her for a long second. “Time is running out,” she finally said. “You only have a few more days to decide which side you want to work with.” She stepped back, tucking her fingers into the back pockets of the low cut pants she was wearing. “Three sides. Two want to destroy you. One wants to help you live for eternity.” She gestured with one of her hands. “What a choice.”

  And then she disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

  Chapter 25

  Dylan woke alone, her head pounding as though she had been kicked by a huge animal. What did they call those things with hoofs? Horses. That’s what she felt like. Like she had been kicked by a horse.

  Joanna was nowhere to be found. Dylan walked in circles, ever expanding circles, trying to figure out where she was. She finally gave up on trying to recognize something. There was nothing to recognize but grass and trees. And all of those looked exactly the same.

  She finally crouched down and did that thing she had learned to do. She focused on Wyatt. He was like her northern star.

  Despite the pain in her head, it only took a moment to find him. It was getting easier each time she did it. She saw him in a grove of trees, sitting separate from the others with a book in his hand. Carver was there, and Bobby. She saw that Ellie was sitting under another tree not far from Wyatt, a book in her hand as well. She didn’t see Sam, but she felt him. She knew he was there somewhere.

  Where are you?

  Wyatt’s head came up immediately. Dylan? he responded.

  I need to find you.

  We’re outside a huge ruin in the east.

  That didn’t help Dylan. She didn’t know what she needed him to say, how she could find him. Directional words didn’t help. Everyone kept saying them, but she still wasn’t sure what any of them meant. Frustration made her chest feel as though it might explode. But then she remembered what Joanna had taught her. She had thought Joanna did something to help Dylan move into her ethereal form, but then realized she did it i
n her dream without Joanna’s help. If she could do that, if she focused on Wyatt…maybe.

  Hold on to me, she said to him. And then she imagined herself floating above him.

  She needed to be with her friends.

  It was as if the need just made it happen.

  She floated to the ground a few yards behind the camp Wyatt and the others had made. She always expected the first contact with the ground to be jarring. But it was more like a feather floating to the ground. She opened her eyes and the pain in her head sliced through her, so intense she felt her stomach turn inside out. She bent over and evacuated what little she had eaten in the past few days.

  “Dylan?”

  She couldn’t straighten, didn’t trust that her stomach had emptied itself enough. She held on to her thighs, trying hard not to soil her boots, but not having much luck.

  So much for being the salvation of an entire race.

  Hands touched her. First her shoulders, slipping slowly along the upper seam of her shirt. And then down her spine, jumping over the bumps that marked each bony protrusion there. The pleasure that washed through her at that touch was almost as overwhelming as the pain in her head. He seemed to know where to touch her, seemed to feel her need. His fingers moved into her hair, massaging ever so lightly over her sweat-dampened scalp until the pain began to break apart and flee.

  With the pain went the nausea. Dylan wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and straightened.

  “How did you find us so quickly?” Wyatt asked.

  Secrets. She couldn’t look at him because she had so many secrets she had to keep from him. She was afraid he would see that in her eyes, that he would wonder what it was she was hiding from him. How was she supposed to tell him that this mother was still alive? That she was part of a group who wanted to essentially rip apart everything his father had been fighting to do? That she wasn’t what he thought she was?

  How could she tell him that he was the same as Dylan? That he was a hybrid, too?

  “Dylan?”

  He touched her face, pulled her toward him with the power of just a single finger under her chin. She stepped toward him and pressed her head to his chest. He slid his arms around her, and for a moment she felt as though she had disappeared into a cocoon. Nothing could hurt her there; nothing could change the way that touching him felt.