All We Know Is Falling: Fall With Me: Volume One

by Nicole Thorn

  I pulled my hands away from his.

  I knew what was coming. The fear was already happening in real time. Next was the disgust and the hate for what I was. Once the shock wore off.

  “Maddy, Walter, Hadley, Luc,” he said. “They’re all children of The Devil?”

  “I told you I had a lot of siblings,” I tried to laugh but it sounded more like a cry.

  “How many?” his face never gained emotion.

  “A hundred. Give or take.”

  He nodded and repeated the number to himself. He stood up and started pacing the room. He finally stopped to ask another question. “Do you all have wings?”

  “I’m the only one.”

  “You fly?”

  “I can. Not so much anymore. Though I hear when I was a baby I was a real nuisance.” When I tried to joke with him he smiled briefly.

  He walked back to me. “Can I, can I see them again?”

  I looked up at him with surprise. “You want to see my wings?”

  He nodded.

  “O-okay. But I have to,” I pointed at my shirt. “They tear through my clothes.”

  “I remember.”

  I tried not to blush. Then I turned around. I pulled my shirt over my head and unhooked my bra. I held the shirt over my chest and let my wings come out.

  I heard a quiet gasp from Hale. I didn’t want to turn and see the look on his face.

  A few seconds later he swept my hair over my shoulder. His hands slowly traveled down each of my wings. I felt him bury his fingers in the feathers and I ignored the little twinge of something warm that blossomed in my stomach. “This is why you have those ridges on your back?”

  “Yeah, it’s where I hide them.”

  “You…are not human,” he said it like it was finally sinking in. I might only have a few more seconds before he bolted. “You are…amazing.”

  That caused me to turn around and look at him. I held my shirt closer to my chest when his eyes dropped. “Are you crazy? I tell you I’m an antichrist and you say I’m amazing? You should be running. Trying to get yourself far away from—”

  His mouth came down on mine and without hesitation he moved his lips against mine like nothing changed. But everything changed. He knew now. And this couldn’t last.

  I tucked my wings behind me when he pushed me down to the bed and started moving me back. When I was flat on my back, my arms went around his neck.

  “Wait,” I made him stop. “This isn’t the right reaction. You’re in shock and once you come down you’ll want to go.”

  “No I won’t.”

  “But I haven’t told you everything.”

  He pressed his forehead to mine before he let me sit up. I put my wings away and my shirt back on. “What else do you want to know?”

  “Well,” he scratched his head. “I suppose you can tell me how we got from the water tower to here. And where we went in between.”

  “Antichrist’s can teleport.”

  His face changed. “I’m a moron…that was why you were so adamant about walking home. Because you didn’t walk.”

  “No. I just hid in the woods so no one could see me.”

  “Sure,” he sighed. “That other place we went…over the weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about how familiar it looked. Then I placed it. It looked like your painting. The gates. The desert. You said it was Hell.”

  Timidly, I said. “Yes. We use Hell as a weigh station. Then we can go anywhere we want.”

  He looked a little sick. “You brought me to Hell?”

  “I had to. I needed to get us out of there. So I covered you with my wings and got you to safety. I made it quick so your head wouldn’t burn. Living humans can’t be in Hell for long.”

  “Of course,” he rested his head in his hand. “What else can you do?”

  “One other thing I can do I’ve used with you. When you were drugged. A power we all have is to make ourselves go unseen. It was how I got you out of the school without getting caught.”

  “Is that all?”

  I shook my head. “I have something extra. Other than the wings. I can read people’s auras and I can track the corruption in people and places. It was how I found Ethan. I tracked the house.”

  His mouth dropped open. “Was that why you started bleeding through your nose? Did you hurt yourself to find him?”

  I tried to downplay it so he wouldn’t be upset. “I didn’t learn to control it until I was a little older. Sometimes when I turn it on, it can be overwhelming. I try not to turn it on. But I needed to find him for you.”

  He looked like he wanted to touch me, but he didn’t. “You did that for him, knowing it would hurt you?”

  “I did what I had to do.”

  He was quiet for a few minutes as he let everything soak into his brain. He seemed to be dealing with it better than I thought he might. No screaming or name-calling.

  Then he stood from the bed and started pacing again.

  I found the will to offer what I had to, simply because if he wanted an out, he deserved one. “You don’t have to stay here. You can go if you want to.”

  He stopped to look at me. Then he shook his head. “Always thinking I’m going to run. You have so little faith in me.”

  “If that were true I wouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

  He came back to the bed. I wasn’t done telling him about me. There was one thing left. The worst part of all of the things I’ve told him about.

  “There’s one more thing, Hale.”

  “What?”

  I took a deep breath and said, “I’m immortal.”

  His face remained the same but his eyes shifted to something dark and sad. “Immortal,” he said as he went over everything I’d every told him about me. Putting things together and finally understanding. “You can’t die?”

  “I can. But something has to kill me. Something big. Otherwise, when I hit my early twenties I freeze. I’ll be the same forever. Then once I die I’ll live in Hell with the rest of my dead siblings and my father.”

  His eyes went to the ceiling. “You…said something like that before. You certainly aren’t very careful about what you say in front of people, are you?”

  I laughed through my nose. “Guess not.”

  The quiet started killing me, so I said, “Please tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

  He smiled. “You’re still so worried. I think if you were a human you’d be grey right now.”

  My nose scrunched up on my face. “Not an answer.”

  “Alright then. I was just thinking about all of the things about you that suddenly make sense. The reason that you didn’t want to be with me. But I’ll tell you right now that if I knew then, I wouldn’t have let that stop me.”

  My voice dropped. “But it would stop you now?”

  He looked annoyed. “You know what’s stopping me now.”

  I shrugged. “My excuse was better than yours.” I cracked a smile and he let himself do the same.

  “Almost.” He sighed, “I can’t believe my best friend is the daughter of The Devil.”

  “And I can’t believe that my best friend is crazy enough to think that it’s possible for him to corrupt an antichrist. Almost cocky of him really.”

  A blondish brownish eyebrow went up. “Cocky am I?”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Realistic. Even being made from original evil, it doesn’t make you evil. You haven’t done what I’ve done.”

  “Saved a life? You’re right. I’ve never done that.”

  “I killed someone.”

  “To save someone else!”

  “That’s not the point.”

  I stood up. “It’s exactly the point. You’re torturing yourself over something very brave that you did. If you didn’t kill him, do you think you’d be alive right now? He took it to the point of near death when you were a kid. God only knows what kind of shit he’d be doing right now. And you know that he wasn’t afraid to go for your broth
er.”

  “There was another way. If I was really brave I would have spoke up when I had the chance.”

  “You did the only thing you could think of to save Ethan. You took the life of a bad man so that two good boys could go on to become good men.”

  “I wish I saw things the way you did.”

  I sat down in front of him. “Me too.”

  He laid down and rested his head on my lap. He looked so lost and helpless. This thing he did, he let it destroy him. He continues to let it hurt him. A demon in its own right.

  “Are you keeping my feather?” I asked as I ran my fingers through his hair. I was hoping it would comfort him. Make him feel safe.

  With his eyes closed he said, “Of course I am. It’s going to go with your picture and your boots that I stole.”

  I flicked his shoulder. “I still want those back.”

  “Come and get them,” he challenged.

  “I shouldn’t have to. You should be the gentleman you keep claiming to be and give me my clothes back.”

  “Never. I like having pieces of you around me. It makes me feel better.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Or, you can just have me. How about that?”

  He opened his eyes to glare at me. “Why do you have to be so keen on being with me now? It’s almost cruel.”

  “Oh, I’m sooo sorry I didn’t just fall in love with you the second we met. I guess it shouldn’t take time or effort.”

  He grabbed my arm and held it to his chest. “It doesn’t take effort, Lamb.”

  He didn’t have to tell me that. “You know what I mean. Sometimes you don’t fall in love with someone until it’s too late. Then you’re stuck knowing for the rest of your life that you made a mistake.”

  “And sometimes you do it immediately because you know more than anything that you found the right person. But that doesn’t erase what that other person might be.”

  I sighed. “Are we seriously going to pretend we’re not taking about us? That we’re both fully aware that we’re in lo—”

  “Stop,” he interrupted me. “Yes, we’re going to pretend. Because I think it might be the only way I’m going to stay strong enough to do the right thing. If I stay ignorant of how you might feel, then I have a fighting chance.”

  The next thing I did was proof that I was evil. Something selfish and cruel. But I didn’t want to stop fighting. “I love you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five: I’m Waking Up

  Hale sat up and all I could see was anger in his face. It was all directed at me. Not that I didn’t deserve it.

  “I just thought you needed to know,” I said in a small voice. “You got what you wanted. You’ve had it for a while.”

  “Rory,” he nearly growled my name. “I asked you not to—”

  “I know. But I did it anyway. I won’t take it back and I won’t apologize. I said it because I needed to tell you. I thought that maybe if you knew then you’d understand that any influence you think you might have on me isn’t in your control. I don’t believe that you’re a bad person but I know you do. The point being that the way I feel about you isn’t going to change. Being just my friend was never going to keep me safe from what you think you might do to me.”

  His anger dimmed when his eyes dropped to my necklace. He touched it for a few seconds before he stood from my bed. He walked to the door and turned the knob. He looked back and said, “I need to go. But I’ll see you later.”

  “Please don’t go. We need to talk about this. You can’t just keep ignoring everything that’s happened.”

  “I’m not. I just need to not be here tonight.” He’d been spending the night more and more. He’d just left a change of clothes and his pajama pants. But I had a feeling that we might not be having our sleepovers much anymore.

  “But I don’t want you to go,” my voice was desperate and pleading. I wasn’t used to being at the mercy of a human. I liked to think that I couldn’t be hurt by one. I was safe and stronger than them. But Hale could do more damage to me than any amount of physical arm.

  “I’m going to come back. Just not tonight.”

  “Will you?”

  “I promise,” he said on his way out the door.

  

  I stayed up for most of the night, unable to sleep. My mind was a bad place. All I could think about was what I did as the guilt from it tried to consume me.

  I ended up showering and getting ready for school about two hours earlier than I needed to. I sat on my bed, totally ready for school and the sun was barely out.

  Mom was in the kitchen cooking. I could smell the bacon and eggs and I could hear Brom Bones meowing desperately at her. I wandered out and sat at the table.

  She turned around when she heard the chair moving. “Hello, love. You’re up early.”

  “I didn’t really sleep. It was a long night.”

  She made up a plate for me and set it on the table. “I can tell. Wanna talk about it?”

  I started scooping the eggs onto a piece of toast to make a sandwich. “I did something kind of awful to Hale.”

  Hadley wandered downstairs in her jammies and sat down without a word. She stole my bacon and mom replaced it. “What might that be?” she said as she dumped the bacon onto my plate.

  “After I told him what I was, what we all were, we started talking about us. More about how he can’t be with me. And we kept dancing around the word love. He told me not to say I loved him because he thought that it would make him break down and decide to be with me. But that was what I wanted, so I said I loved him.”

  Hadley leaned a little closer as she grabbed my glass of juice. “What happened after that? Did he say it back?”

  “He left.”

  Her back hit the back of the chair. “I’m sorry. That sucks.” She wasn’t one to offer many words of advice, but I could always count on her for sympathy.

  “Tell me about it. I might have just ruined everything.”

  She snorted, “Yeah right. The kid gave you his mom’s necklace. Might as well have been a wedding ring. He was claiming you in the sweetest way a person can. Dress it up all you want, but that was what he was doing.”

  I looped my finger around the chain and popped open the locket, looking down at the words meant for me. The words that said I was his home.

  The doorbell rang and my mother smiled. “She’s right. That boy is yours just as much as you’re his.”

  Hadley hopped up to get the door while I kept eating my sandwich and what remained of my bacon. Hale walked into the room with my sister and he was holding my boots.

  I tried to keep the devastation off of my face as I went through what it meant that he had them. He’d kept them because he liked having a reminder of me around. Now he was giving them back. I could only assume that he was done with wanting the reminder.

  He set them on the floor next to me. “You’re up early.”

  “I know. You’re here early.”

  “No he’s not,” Hadley stole yet another piece of bacon. “He gets here around now every day. When he’s not already here,” she mumbled under her breath.

  I turned my gaze to Hale. “You do? Why do you let me sleep for an hour?”

  “I don’t mind waiting.”

  I didn’t have much to say to that. I picked up my sandwich and the boots before heading to my room. Hale followed behind me.

  I set the boots down in my closet. “Are we going to talk about it?”

  “No,” he decided, knowing what I was getting at.

  I turned around, “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” his voice was on edge.

  “I refuse to accept that.”

  “Too bad.”

  It was amazing how much I hated him and loved him at the same time. There was a civil war in my head. One side telling me to hit him and the other that wanted to jump him.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I told him.

  “And you’re being foolish. I’m trying to keep you safe and you’re not paying att
ention to a word I say.”

  “I told you that my father is The Devil. My soul is dammed to Hell for eternity and you think that dating me is what’s going to ruin me. News flash, I’m already ruined. Nothing can fix me or make me a normal human being. Being with you won’t destroy me. But it can make me forget that I’m already destroyed.”

  He shook his head and stared at his shoes. “You’re wrong. There’s a lot of you left to destroy. I won’t be the one to do that.”

  The violent side of my brain was winning and I had to beat it back down. “You win. We won’t talk about it anymore.” I picked up my backpack and we went to school.

  The first three of my classes I spent fuming. I thought I might set something on fire with all of the white-hot fury in my head. But the items in the school managed to escape my wrath. Hale might not be so lucky.

  Since the end of the semester was approaching fast all of our classes were just a lot of recaps of stuff I already knew. It was a few too many packets and study guides. If Hale tries to copy my answers again I’m going to ban him from my bedroom.

  Hale got to History before I did and I decided to give him the cold shoulder. If he didn’t want to talk, then I wouldn’t talk.

  I wasn’t surprised when we were told to work on our study packets in class. The upside was that we were allowed to listen to music. I put both headphones in and turned the volume up so loud it almost hurt me. It took a grand total of ten minutes for Hale to yank out one of the earbuds.

  He leaned into my ear and said, “Please don’t be mad at me.”

  “I won’t if you’d just stop being stupid.”

  “I’m trying to be a good man. You’re the one who made me want to be better.”

  I pulled my other earbud out and set it on the table. Normally I wouldn’t want to have this discussion here but there was a loud chattering from everyone in the room as they worked on their study guides together.

  “You’re already good. And if you were smart, you could be good and get laid. But whatever I guess,” my eyes went back to my paper.

  He grumbled. “Why do you have to torture me? I’m trying to make this easy on the both of us.”