Fallen Angel

by Melody John

  ‘Okay,’ Dmitri said uncertainly. The apprehensive look on his face made my heart quiver inside me.

  I managed to lift the bricks again, and placed them to one side without any mishap. This time I lifted the rubble more slowly, trying to use my power to get a feel for the surrounding debris as well. I found that I somehow got an idea of the rest of the tensions and build-up in the dirt and rubbish, and could make a fairly good guess at which bits would fall down next.

  But it was hard work, and I quickly became tired. I was lifting another clump of bricks, still cemented together, but a tiny whimper from inside the rubble cave made me lose my concentration. The bricks slipped from my grasp, and I only just caught them before them hit the sheet of metal roofing.

  ‘Careful,’ Dmitri said.

  ‘I’m trying,’ I snapped, not meaning to be angry but too tired and wound up to really care.

  ‘I know, sorry, but—’

  ‘Guys, are you here? What happened, did you find her?’ David pushed his way through the bushes, stumbling over a branch. ‘What are you—’ He stopped. He saw the hut, saw the rubble, and focused with irrevocable clarity on the chunk of brickwork that was hovering in the air.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  David stared at the levitating chunk of bricks, at the pieces and stones and rubbish that I had already moved, and which lay in an incriminating heap on the muddy grass. ‘What…’ He blinked.

  I looked desperately at Dmitri. ‘Are you—can you—’

  ‘No!’ Dmitri exclaimed, looking shocked.

  ‘But he’s—’

  ‘I can’t believe you’d ask that! Especially after how you’ve been—’

  ‘But he’s seen—’

  ‘Dmitri?’ David asked uncertainly. ‘Lizzie. You’re—you’re, um—’ He swallowed. ‘Okay, wow, that’s really good. How are you doing that?’ He didn’t sound as though he believed what he was saying.

  ‘Okay.’ Dmitri ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. He stepped to David’s side and took his hand. ‘Okay, babe, this is going to be a bit difficult to take in, so just…’

  ‘Go with it,’ I said. The strain of holding the brickwork in the air was beginning to make sweat spring out on my forehead, so I moved it to the side and released it onto the ground with a sigh of relief. I felt a bit dizzy, and my eyes blurred for a second.

  ‘You’re…’ David began again, staring.

  ‘Yes,’ Dmitri said soothingly. ‘Lizzie can—well, she can move things with her mind, okay? She’s kind of—kind of a bit like a psychic, because she can see things that other people can’t—’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Only a very few things so far.’

  ‘—and she can levitate things. Like, um, Joan Grey, right?’

  ‘Jean Grey,’ David and I said at the same time automatically.

  David blinked. ‘Jean Grey,’ he repeated.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said encouragingly.

  David stared at the bricks for a very long minute. I knew he needed some time to come to terms with all this, but we didn’t have time. I said as gently as I could, ‘David? I know this is all an awful lot of stuff to take in and all… but we found Laura.’

  David’s head snapped up. ‘What? Where?’ I gestured to the pile of brickwork, and he raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’

  ‘So yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Right.’ He stared at the pile of rubble for a moment longer, then seemed to shake himself. ‘Okay. Yeah. You, um—do your thing.’

  I smiled at him, trying to make it look encouraging. Then I stepped up again to the rubble, and concentrated. I lifted several more bricks from the top of the pile.

  David made a tiny choked noise. I looked at him quickly in alarm, but although his face was pale, he gave me a strangled-looking smile. ‘You’re full on Phoenix-ing it,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, smiling, and then had to turn back to concentrate on the rest of the pile. Dmitri resumed directing, and after a little while, David began to chip in as well, offering advice. Soon the gap between the rubble and the wall was big enough to see Laura’s huddled shape, and almost big enough for someone to crawl through and get her out. But the pile of rubble was beginning to sway, and as I took another brick from the pile, several stones and broken bits of tiles rolled down and started a tiny avalanche.

  ‘Lizzie—’ Dmitri said.

  I managed to catch the avalanche before it escalated, but my grip on the brick slipped, and I almost dropped it. It was too much to hold all at once, so I flung the brick away blindly; it narrowly missed Dmitri’s head, and landed with a thud in the undergrowth.

  ‘Sorry!’ I gasped. I managed to juggle the rest of the rubble down onto the grass, and then bent over with my hands on my knees, breathing deeply.

  ‘Are you all right?’ David asked. His voice seemed to come from a long way away, as though he were speaking through a baby monitor with the volume turned down.

  ‘Yeah,’ I gasped. ‘Just—’ I forced myself to stand upright again. ‘Okay.’

  ‘We shouldn’t lift any more of it,’ Dmitri said. ‘It’s going to fall down if you touch it anymore.’

  ‘Can you—’ I breathed in deeply. ‘If I hold it up, can one of you crawl in and pull her out? Dmitri, you’re shorter. Can you get in there?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ David said. ‘If you force yourself in—’

  ‘That’s what she said.’ Dmitri grinned.

  I gasped out a laugh. It was rather unlike Dmitri to make jokes like that, and coming as it did in this situation made it seem even more ridiculous.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked me.

  I nodded, and gathered my concentration. The effort made my lungs ache. There was already a weakness beginning in my wrists and knees. I bit down on my lip in an attempt to concentrate properly. ‘Okay. Ready.’

  Dmitri bent down and carefully crawled into the gap between the wall and the rubble. I felt the bricks shake, felt Dmitri’s elbow scrape against a loose tile. I gritted my teeth and held them upright. ‘Have you got her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he called back. ‘She’s unconscious. And she’s very cold.’

  A brick fell lose and rattled down the pile.

  I clenched both fists out in front of me, trying to use them as a visual focus. My vision swam.

  ‘Get her out,’ David called. Another brick fell, bringing a small flood of pebbles. ‘Get her out now!’

  I knew I was swaying on my feet, but I clenched my jaw and desperately tried to hold the structure upright. I could feel it, could feel all the pieces of rubbish and brick and tile shifting and slipping. I couldn’t hold it. I couldn’t hold it.

  ‘David,’ I heard myself say, and my voice sounded thin and weak.

  ‘Get her out!’ David yelled.

  There was a rattling of stones. I felt something give deep inside the structure, and I clutched desperately after it, but I wasn’t strong enough. My eyes were watering. It was all coming down, all of it!

  ‘David!’ My voice wobbled up high in panic.

  David dived forward as the whole pile began to shake, and just as he did, Dmitri’s shoulders appeared. David grabbed Dmitri’s collar and hauled him backwards. Dmitri fell out of the pile, his arms around Laura’s shoulders, and the three of them collapsed backwards onto the grass. David was up again in a second, hauling Dmitri and Laura away.

  The whole pile of rubbish shivered, and slipped entirely out of my grasp. It collapsed with a deafening crash. White and grey dust billowed outwards in a choking cloud, bricks and stones and bits of rubbish rolled away onto the grass, and the shed wall that had been still standing groaned and collapsed as well. Bricks bounced and crashed off the sheet of metal roofing, and there was a tinkling smash of bottles being broken and cans being smashed by the weight of the falling bricks and debris.

  The noise seemed to hit me like a blow, and I staggered away; the dust rolled up and all around me, and I began to cough. Blac
k spots flashed in front of my eyes, and my lungs burned. I thought I heard someone shouting, but it was happening very far away, and even the sound of the shed collapsing seemed to be fading away, growing strange and blurry like white noise on a radio. And then the whole world blurred at the edges, and turned off.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Something was tickling my nose. I didn’t want to open my eyes. Every muscle in my body ached, and my throat hurt, and my arms and legs felt heavy and sluggish. I wanted to go back to sleep.

  ‘Lizzie. Lizzie!’

  It took me a moment to work out whose voice it was. Then everything started trickling back. The park. Dmitri. David. David had seen me levitate. He knew what I was.

  ‘Lizzie!’

  Laura. It was Laura’s voice.

  I opened my eyes.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Laura croaked. Her face loomed above me, blurring and dimming for a second before focusing properly. She looked a right mess; her hair was all over the place, and full of dust, and her face was dirty and there was a long red scrape across one cheek. But I was so happy to see her, for a moment I could barely speak.

  ‘You all right?’ I finally managed to mumble out.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said, ‘oh, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re totally not,’ David said. His face appeared behind her. ‘You’ve got a concussion.’

  ‘Pff,’ Laura said weakly. ‘Concussions are for wimps.’

  I tried to sit up, but the world spun and whirled around me. I felt very, very sick, and collapsed back onto the ground again. I groaned and shut my eyes. ‘Oh god. I feel like I’ve been sat on by an elephant.’

  ‘Should we call an ambulance?’ I heard Dmitri ask.

  ‘Oh god no,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea,’ David said. ‘Here, I’ll do it.’

  I forced my eyes open. Laura’s face was dead white under all the dirt, and although she was sitting down on the ground next to me, she was swaying back and forwards like an unsteady string puppet.

  ‘You look like a train wreck,’ I told her.

  ‘Oh gee,’ she said, ‘that’s real sweet of you, Lizzie. You look like the universe pooped you out of its butthole.’

  I giggled, and then started coughing, and that made my head whirl again so I had to lie quietly. ‘Don’t,’ I mumbled. ‘Oh god, I’m going to throw up.’

  ‘Copycat,’ Laura said.

  ‘Ew, really?’

  ‘That’s what happens when you get knocked on the head,’ Dmitri said. ‘I’m sure I did explain this when we watched that Indiana Jones film. You can’t just get knocked unconscious and then start running around and fighting bad guys like nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Indiana Jones can,’ Laura said. Her head drooped down, and her hands blindly patted the ground around her. ‘Indiana Jones…’ Her voice trailed away, and Dmitri caught her just in time as she crumpled up like a slinky. He laid her down carefully on the ground. She was still mumbling, ‘Indiana Jones has a magical skull. Crystal skull. Magic. Adamantium. Vibranium. Indiana Jones…’

  ‘Hush,’ Dmitri said to her.

  ‘The ambulance is on its way,’ David said.

  I tried to sit up again. The world spun for a moment, then wobbled to a standstill, but I still felt very sick.

  ‘Maybe you should lie down again,’ Dmitri said.

  ‘No, I’m…’ I wiped at my sweaty forehead and tried to breathe normally. My heart was hammering in my ears, and my hands were shaking. ‘I’m okay, I just…’ The world began to spin again. ‘Wow,’ I heard my voice say in a dreamy kind of way. ‘It’s just like in a fish tank.’ I didn’t know what I was talking about, and then David was there, pushing me back down again, and so I lay down on the damp grass.

  David’s face was close to mine. Too close, I thought blearily. No, just right. No, too close. No. ‘Stop moving,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ I could see Dmitri behind David. He was staring at the sky, his fists clenched at his sides. There was an expression on his face that I didn’t understand. ‘Dmitri,’ I tried to say, but my voice slurred and slipped away from me.

  ‘Seriously,’ David said, ‘just lie still already.’

  ‘Dmitri,’ I tried to say again, but my voice wouldn’t work, and the effort of trying to speak made my head spin. The sky was growing dark, and there was a ringing noise in my ears, and my stomach lurched. I closed my eyes against my rising nausea, and then everything went dark again.

  *

  Things gradually faded back into existence, like a reverse watercolour painting. I had a vague and rather confused dream where I was lying on a bed, and someone was holding my wrist and saying, ‘Pulse is good, yeah…’

  I felt as though I were rocking from side to side, and felt as though I were going to fall off whatever it was that I was lying on. There was noise all around me, and after a few moments of fading in and out of awareness, I realised that I was in a car. No, not a car, it was too big and... An ambulance? I forced my eyes to open properly, and saw a man in a green and yellow jacket sitting next to me. A paramedic, my brain realised, but I didn’t properly understand what that meant. Then I realised, oh wait, an actual paramedic, and I tried to sit up.

  ‘No, love, you just lie quiet now,’ the paramedic said.

  The ambulance jolted, and the bells rang back in my ears. I felt the paramedic’s hands catching me, and then laying me back down on the bunk. I needed to ask something, needed to find something out, but I couldn’t remember what, and everything was fuzzy. The ambulance rocked again, and that brought the darkness rushing back.

  *

  When I next woke up, the rocking had stopped. All around me was quiet, apart from a faint murmur of voices far away. I was warm, and actually quite comfy. I opened my eyes. Everything blurred for a second, and then solidified into a white ceiling far above me. I blinked. My mouth felt dry.

  I was lying in a bed. There were red patterned curtains drawn closed all around me, and I was covered with a similarly red patterned sheet that felt oddly rubbery under my hands. There was a cabinet next to the bed, and a chair; on the chair were my shoes and my coat and bag. I hadn’t been in a hospital since I was five and had broken my wrist, but I assumed that that was where I was now. Where were the others?

  There was a plaster on the back of my hand, and my joints felt a bit sore when I moved my fingers. At least there wasn’t a needle or one of those IV drips. People in films always pulled them out really carelessly, but that would freak me out beyond belief. I don’t like needles. I lay still for a while, listening to the sounds going on outside my tiny cubicle. I seemed to be on a ward; I could hear other people talking quietly through the curtains around me.

  If this were a film, this would be when a nurse would come to check on me and helpfully explain what was happening. But no one came, and I didn’t really feel like getting up. I didn’t feel so sick anymore, but there was a bit of a headache thumping away behind my eyes, and I felt like it would get worse if I tried to get up. I was very thirsty, and a bit breathless.

  In House there was usually a cord or a button or something for a patient to fiddle with if they needed a nurse, so I fished around the sides of the bed, and eventually found a thing that looked a bit like a remote control. There were some buttons that I assumed controlled the bed, going by the diagrams, and there was a button down the bottom with a label that said CALL NURSE.

  I eyed it cautiously. Maybe you were only supposed to use that in emergencies, flat lines and all those other kind of things that always happened on House and ER. Maybe if I pushed it, someone would rush in with a crash cart and then be annoyed when I turned out to be just thirsty and not dying. It might be like one of those communication cords that you used to have on trains, and you’d get fined a hundred pounds for using it incorrectly.

  No, that was stupid. Wasn’t it? I didn’t know, but I was really thirsty, and my headache was growing, and I needed to find out where the oth
ers were and if Laura was okay. I gingerly pushed the button, and waited, my heart beating far too dramatically than the situation really called for.

  After a few seconds, the curtains were pulled aside, and a nurse in a blue and white uniform came into the cubicle. ‘Hello,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How are we feeling?’

  ‘Good, thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You sure?’

  She smiled, and seemed rather more sympathetic than I’d expected, so I smiled back and said, ‘Well, my head hurts. And my hand. And I’m kinda very thirsty. And do you know where my friends are?’