Fallen Angel

by Melody John

  I felt a pang of guilt at the sight of her closed face. During all the talk with Dmitri and David, I’d almost completely forgotten about her. Now I realised that we hadn’t discussed what to tell her. She had to know, but she hadn’t been there for all the important parts. She didn’t even know about me and my power. My heart quailed a little at the thought of having to explain all that all over again.

  The nurses left, pulling the curtains closed behind them so we were in our own little combined cubicle with the two beds together. Dmitri pulled his chair over so he was closer to Laura. He leaned forward, and lightly took her hand in his.

  ‘I might not be here when she wakes up,’ he said without looking back at either of us.

  ‘What are we going to tell her?’ David asked.

  ‘Everything, I suppose,’ I said. ‘We can’t lie to her. I’m not going to lie to her.’

  ‘She might not believe us,’ David said.

  ‘Lizzie has her power,’ Dmitri said. ‘I think that’ll be convincing enough on that front, and as for the rest… I suppose she’ll have to believe that. You’ve no reason to lie about something like that, and if Lizzie’s powers are so evidently true to her, she should believe it about me as well.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose.’ David rubbed the back of his neck. ‘This is going to be awful.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dmitri said.

  David raised his head and stared at him, as though in disbelief. ‘How can you be so calm about this?’

  Dmitri lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘I don’t have any choice.’

  ‘Yes you do! You can rebel, or explain, or…’

  ‘I don’t have any choice,’ Dmitri repeated. ‘This is the way of it. This has always been the way of it.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ David said, and I flinched. David never swore like that. ‘You’ve got to fight this. You’ve got to!’

  Dmitri shook his head. ‘It isn’t the way of it. We just—don’t. I suppose—I don’t know. This is the way it always has to go.’

  ‘Then change the way!’ David almost shouted. ‘For God’s sake, Dmitri! Haven’t you got any idea about this? You don’t have to just go along with things! I mean, goddammit, I shouldn’t have to even say this, I thought this would be evident!’

  Dmitri looked lost. ‘I just—I never thought—this isn’t the way—’

  ‘Then start thinking,’ David said brutally. ‘And if you say that this is the way of it one more time, then I shall punch you.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t,’ Dmitri said. ‘You can’t throw a punch to save your life.’

  ‘Maybe not to save my life but in this case I’ll make an exception.’

  ‘Can you hide?’ I suggested. ‘Go somewhere where they won’t find you, and you can hide out, and then maybe you can come back one day, or we can come to you or email you or… something.’

  ‘Sleep rough?’ Dmitri said.

  ‘Those are your choices right there,’ David snapped. ‘Sleep rough and free, or go back and take your punishment and never come back here ever again.’ He stopped, and bit his lip. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean—I’m not really angry, I—sorry.’

  ‘I know,’ Dmitri said.

  ‘Then what about that?’ I pushed. ‘If no one has run before now, if everyone just kind of accepts it, that this is the way of it thing, then they won’t expect you to run, and they won’t know how to track you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ David said, ‘that’s what you need to do. That’s what you must do. Dmitri?’

  Dmitri was quiet.

  ‘You can see, can’t you?’ David pressed. ‘This is better. A better way. You’ll be free, and you—we might be able to see you again.’

  ‘I know,’ Dmitri said quietly.

  ‘Then why don’t you—’

  I jerked my head at David. He stopped, and frowned. We both looked at Dmitri, who was sitting with his head bowed, staring down at his hands. He was frowning, and I could tell that he was chewing on the inside of his cheek. It was always difficult to tell what Dmitri was thinking, but I thought he looked scared.

  ‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Yes. Okay.’

  David exhaled. ‘Okay. Let’s go then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve got to go, man. You said they’d be here soon, and that was a while ago.’

  ‘Yes…’ Dmitri looked panicked.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ I said encouragingly.

  ‘Yes.’ He still looked rather green.

  I pushed back the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed. ‘We’ll need to get to the roof.’

  ‘Wait, you’re coming too?’

  ‘Well, duh,’ I said. I stood up, and then had to grab for the bed as the world dipped, and the floor seemed to wobble underfoot. ‘Whoa,’ I heard myself say from very far away.

  David grabbed my arm. ‘Wait, wait, you’re not going to faint again, are you?’

  ‘Will you stop saying faint,’ I mumbled.

  ‘You don’t need to come,’ Dmitri said.

  The world had steadied, and leaning on David’s arm, I felt a bit less giddy, but a headache had begun pounding away behind my eyes. ‘Of course I’m coming,’ I said loudly, over the pounding pressure. ‘Don’t be strange.’

  ‘Dude, you’re pasty white,’ David said.

  ‘If you ask me if I’m going to faint,’ I said, ‘I will slap you.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ Dmitri said.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Now come on!’

  ‘Okay.’ Dmitri stood up and pulled on his jacket. He went to Laura’s side, and lightly touched her face. ‘Bye Laura,’ he said softly. He paused there for so long that I thought we would have to nudge him to move. But then he took a deep breath and turned around, and nodded.

  I clung to David’s arm, and together we walked as innocently as we could past the nurses’ station to the door of the ward. The corridor outside was pretty much empty, apart from a guy in blue scrubs pushing a trolley full of stuff. He didn’t take any notice of us, though, and we made it to the end of the corridor and squinted up at the signs.

  ‘Why’s there no sign for the roof?’ I asked.

  ‘Turn left for your handy getaway route,’ David said.

  ‘They’re here,’ Dmitri said softly.

  We spun to look at him.

  ‘What?’ David demanded.

  ‘They’re here,’ he said. He was looking right, down the corridor to a reception desk. There were two people standing there, talking to the nurse on duty there. They looked like a normal couple, maybe there to visit a sick relative. But they both had wings, folded up on their backs. The man had pale blonde hair, and white wings that almost glowed under the hospital lighting. The woman was also blonde, but darker, and her wings were the colour of pale honey, flecked and streaked with tawny brown. They hadn’t seen us yet, but if they looked up, there was no way they wouldn’t see who we were.

  ‘This way, this way, this way.’ David grabbed my arm and hustled us left, where the way turned left, right, and upstairs. ‘Up, up, come on,’ and we darted up the stairs.

  I kept a close hold on the stair rail and used it to steady myself, but my headache grew, and the pain began to make me feel sick. My bare feet slapped on the floor, and I stubbed my toe on one of the steps, but I dared not stop or complain.

  The stairs came out on another floor, and I grabbed at the wall to catch my breath as David stared at the signs on the wall.

  ‘You look like puke,’ Dmitri said.

  ‘Well, gee,’ I said breathlessly. ‘I can’t think why that is.’

  He smiled, and lightly put his hand under my elbow. ‘I’m going to miss you.’

  I grinned back. ‘That’s good. I’d hate to think I was putting myself through all this trouble for someone who wouldn’t even send a postcard.’

  ‘This way,’ David said. He took hold of my arm again, and we rushed on. We arrived at the end of the corridor, and came to a halt. David stared left and right, and said, ‘Um—’

&nbs
p; ‘A lift,’ Dmitri said. ‘We’ve got to find a lift.’

  David looked at him blankly for a moment, then sheepishly said, ‘Oh yes, that would be a good idea.’

  There was a lift farther down on the left. We hurried towards it. As we did so, the doors opened. David suddenly flung out his arm, stopping us from passing him, then hastily shoved us into the first open door on the left. We just managed it; as we pressed ourselves against the wall of the room, the two sylphs came out of the lift and walked past the door.

  I held my breath, waiting for them to pass. But to my horror, they stopped and stared at the junction in the corridor that we’d just been standing at.

  ‘I don’t see where he could have gone to,’ the woman said. Her voice was husky, and sharp with an accent that I couldn’t quite place. Russian? Polish? ‘He must have known that we were coming.’

  ‘He might have stepped outside,’ the man said. ‘Maybe we should ask the nurses again.’

  ‘Maybe.’ There was a pause. The tension was making me feel sick. I didn’t realise that I’d been swaying back and forth until David quietly gripped my arm and pulled me back up again. ‘This is strange,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t understand why he’s not here.’

  ‘I think he has friends here,’ the man said. ‘In his reports he mentioned that he socialised. Maybe he wishes to bid them farewell.’

  ‘He should have already done so,’ the woman insisted. ‘This is very irregular.’

  ‘Never mind. We should go back downstairs and wait by the girl’s room. He’ll probably come back there and wait for us.’

  ‘Hm.’

  Another pause. Then, finally, they walked away. I heard their footsteps echoing on the shiny floors.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ Dmitri whispered.

  I almost collapsed with relief. Through the buzzing in my ears, I heard David say, ‘What did they mean about your reports?’

  ‘I have to send a report every week,’ Dmitri said. ‘It’s a rundown of what I’ve done and how things are going.’

  ‘Right,’ David said. ‘That’s not intrusive at all.’

  Dmitri shrugged. ‘That’s the price you pay.’

  ‘Well, not anymore.’ He squeezed my shoulder. ‘Lizzie? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I managed. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Come on. Let’s go.’

  David took my arm, and then Dmitri came and took my other arm. I squeezed his hand, and he smiled at me. ‘How far we’ve come,’ he said.

  ‘All right, Yoda,’ I said, and was pleased when he laughed quietly.

  We scurried down to the lift. There were a few terrifying minutes while we waited for the lift to arrive, and then, when the doors finally opened, we piled inside. David pressed the button to the top floor, and when the lift pinged and opened again, we were in a long, rather dark, corridor with bare walls. There was an open door at the far right end, which appeared to lead into an empty office with lots of filing cabinets.

  ‘This way,’ David said, and I saw that on the right was a fire exit door. We pushed it open, and found that it led to a flight of steps. These were even worse than the first lot. I kept on stubbing my toes, and my palms squeaked and burned on the handrail. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my own heart, and it took all of my concentration to just keep on putting one foot down in front of the other, and not just crumple up and faint dead away.

  But finally we reached the top of the stairs, and saw that there was another door. And beyond that was the roof. It was empty, the wind howling across, and as I clung dizzily to David’s arm I realised that I hadn’t even thought about what would happen if there had been people up here, smokers or slacking janitors or…

  ‘Whoa,’ David said. He hauled me up as I slumped. ‘Okay, come on Lizzie, we’re here now, don’t miss the ending.’

  Dmitri said, ‘I’ve got to go now, they’ll still be searching.’

  For a moment we all just stared at each other. I don’t think any of us really knew what to do next. How do you say goodbye in a situation like this?

  ‘Well,’ Dmitri said. ‘Goodbye then.’

  But it was so abrupt—even though I’d known it was going to happen, suddenly I felt as though I couldn’t handle it. I was about to say something, but then I saw David’s face. And I realised that no matter how difficult this was for me, it probably wasn’t even close to how David felt.

  So I sniffed and said, ‘Goodbye, Dmitri.’ I hugged him, and he hugged me back so tightly that I couldn’t breathe.

  Then he let me go. He smiled. ‘I hope you think the next season of Doctor Who is better than the last one.’

  Then he turned to David. For a second, Dmitri looked a little scared, wary, but David wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close. I looked away, because I didn’t want to see if either of them started crying.

  I heard David say in a muffled voice, ‘Well, go along then. Don’t hang around.’

  Dmitri took a couple of steps away from us. ‘I’ll send you a postcard,’ he said.

  ‘You’d better,’ I said.

  He smiled. There was that strange shimmer in the air, that pricking pressure, and I knew that he had dropped his glamour again. David made a choked noise in his throat, and I held onto his arm, as much to comfort him as to support myself.

  Dmitri spread his wings wide open. Out here in the proper sunlight, not dulled by the hospital, his wings were a glorious stretch of tawny feathers, glinting russet and copper under the sun. I saw how they matched his hair. I saw the darker, stronger, thicker primary feathers, which were flecked with darker brown, and the lighter downy feathers underneath and at the base of his shoulders, which were a creamy colour like milky coffee.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ David said.

  Dmitri looked startled, and then he smiled. ‘So are you.’

  He bent his knees slightly. And then he leapt into the air. The draft from his wings almost knocked me over, and David staggered back. Dmitri was high in the air, flapping steadily. He looked down at us, and I thought maybe he was going to say something more. But he merely waved, and then he swooped low over our heads, so low that the wind from his passing ruffled our hair and clothes, and flew up and away.

  ‘Wow,’ came Laura’s voice behind us.

  David whipped around. Laura was holding on to the door handle, her face paper white. She laughed unsteadily. ‘I’ve missed a lot, haven’t I?’

  David started towards her, but the sudden movement was too much. I felt the world begin to whirl and blend all around me. The sickness in my stomach rose up, and everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I was all right, of course. We all were. Laura and I had to stay in the hospital overnight, and afterwards were instructed to take it easy and eat lots of sugar. That was pretty easy, especially as we all managed to make it home in time for the holidays. David wasn’t even late for his train.

  Of course, none of us told anyone about what had happened. Laura made an official complaint against Jamie, but there wasn’t much more that any of us could do. But either that or guilt worked some kind of remorse in him, and Jamie didn’t come back to uni after the holidays were over.

  I spent a quiet Christmas at home with my parents. It was nice to be back home, and having someone else cook my meals and do my laundry, and I’d missed my parents. They were pleased to see me, and eager to hear all about what they called ‘Lizzie’s Adventures at University’.

  No, I told them, that’s not patronising at all.

  I spoke to Laura and David a bit on Facebook, but we were all kind of subdued with each other after what had happened, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward with David. It’s an odd situation, trying to comfort your broken-hearted friend whom you still have feelings for.

  But Christmas came, and Christmas passed, and soon it was time to pack my bags and go back to uni. Mum and Dad gave me a colander and a new pair of oven gloves to go back with me. The oven gloves had little yellow minions on from Despicable
Me, and I protested that they were too cute to use, but I knew Laura and David would like them.

  I arrived back at the halls in the afternoon.They were pretty busy, full of people rushing about and blocking up the corridors with suitcases and baggage. I squeezed along to my room and unlocked the door. I dumped my suitcase on the bed, and gazed around me. My Back to the Future poster and the print of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose that I’d bought from the gallery. The collection of Funko figures on the windowsill. Two chocolate wrappers left behind on the desk.