Bladed Wings

by Davis, Jarod

  “To some extent,” he said. “Maybe.”

  “Anger is hard to carry around,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the feeling. It hurts even worse than knowing I can’t be close to my friends anymore.”

  Seth didn’t say anything. By that point, she thought he’d break away and go join his friends again. They were almost at the library, but she noticed they’d slowed down. She didn’t know who did that first.

  “There are still things I’d rather do. Or say.” He smirked again, “Don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Another joke, but he could’ve been right. Kayla still didn’t want to think about her friends or what they’d do. Those little sayings about friends forever were dumb, she knew that, but she always hoped they might be true. Somehow. “I wasn’t much help. Was I?”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  “But not much help.”

  “Not with this.”

  “We could hang out,” he said. Part of her wanted him to go with her. She could do it if she weren’t alone and surrounded by people who were mad at her. Or people who acted like they were mad at her because they didn’t want to go against Allie. “You and me. If you wanted.”

  “Are you free Saturday?”

  “I don’t know,” Kayla took that as boy speak for no.

  “Sure,” she said, “Some other time. Maybe next week.”

  “What about today?”

  “Today?” she didn’t mean for it to sound like a question as excitement fluttered back through her stomach. This wasn’t supposed to be her life, jumping from dark and sad to light and happy, but she liked the upswings anyway. When she glanced over at him, Kayla had to admit it. Despite everything else, Seth was somehow the most stable part of her life.

  “This evening. Six o’clock. I’ll get your mind off of mean people who do mean things.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “Meh. Maybe you’re a good influence on me.” He opened the door for her into the library, but he didn’t follow her inside.

  Through the rest of the day, Kayla tried not to think about Saturday or what she’d do. It felt stupid when she remembered how she could move something with a flick of her fingers, a little bit of effort crackled through her brain. It was easier to think of something else. Someone else. In the morning, Kayla didn’t to think about him. That afternoon, she let herself go into those little fantasies that made the hours disappear.

  It wasn’t long before the final bell chimed and she was out with the stampede of everyone else who wanted off campus. It was already cold, but she didn’t care. Nothing winter had was as chilling as those hardened glances she got from Allie and some of her friends. But once she was away from the school, she thought about school for a few minutes.

  Until she went back to Seth.

  At lunch, when she freaked out, he was there for her. He paid attention and went after her. If he hadn’t been there, she would’ve been alone through that. She would’ve sat down with that empty black hole inside of her. Maybe it was dumb that someone could make her feel better, but he did.

  And he did that a lot.

  Kayla liked him.

  There, she admitted it. She put those three words together, and she couldn’t take them back. She couldn’t act on them and she wouldn’t tell him, but she wouldn’t lie to herself anymore either. Stupid, she thought. She could admit it and think it to herself, but she wouldn’t do anything.

  Simple reason, Kayla reminded herself. Seth didn’t have those same feelings. If she told him, it would just be to try to make herself feel better. She’d do it because she wanted to hope that maybe she was wrong even when she knew she wasn’t.

  At home, Kayla pushed her way into the silence of the living room. Silence signaled her parents were gone. Even with a court date and their kids around, they kept fighting. Sometimes she wanted to shout at them to shut up. Sometimes she wished they’d grow up. Too much, she knew that wouldn’t do any good and it would just get her in trouble.

  Before lunch, Kayla’s night would’ve been studying and picking her way through the awkward silence of dinner her parents might’ve managed. Now she got home, said hi to Everett who just kind of nodded up from his game, and went back to her room.

  They weren’t together, and they weren’t going to be together, but she still wanted to look cute. Nothing wrong with that, she promised herself. She did that whenever she went out. She pulled out different jeans to skirts, to the one dress she owned, and started looking through the blouses. This was the first time she really did it, and she kept telling herself she wasn’t doing it for Seth. Definitely a lie, but she figured it was okay if she didn’t say it to anyone else.

  After about half an hour, Kayla wanted some advice so she called Erin. Her friend, super feminine and always eager to dress someone else, didn’t offer advice so much as promise to be at Kayla’s place in the next twenty minutes.

  “That’s really okay,” Kayla said. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Ah, no, I think I do. Especially after lunch.”

  “Right,” Kayla heard her voice go flat. “I didn’t think you’d notice that.”

  “I got a little distracted. Too distracted. So I owe it to you, so I’ll be there in,” it sounded like she was checking her watch or the clock on her cell, “Nineteen minutes.”

  A minute early, Erin showed up eighteen minutes later. Kayla let her in and they headed back to her room. Most of Kayla’s wardrobe was still in her closet and drawers. For some reason, Erin thought that was the wrong way to keep things organized so she pulled everything out and laid it along Kayla’s bed.

  “You have to see all of your materials at once.” Before that, Kayla knew Erin was interested in fashion, makeup, and generally making herself enticing and looking good. She didn’t know the extent to her friend’s expertise.

  “Materials?”

  “Okay, so you’re the good Christian girl who thinks it’s wrong to kiss a guy on the first date. I get that and I’m fine with that, but now we’re talking about blowing someone away in the first second they see you.”

  “That’s now what I want to do.”

  “Sure it is,” Erin promised. “You’re going out with a guy tonight, right?” Kayla didn’t mention her plans on the phone, “A guy who’s name I’m guessing probably rhymes with meth?”

  “You make him sound really dirty.”

  “And now you’re defending him.” Erin slid a sleeveless t-shirt onto the bed and clamped her hands on her hips. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Why don’t you want to admit it?”

  “There’s nothing to admit,” Kayla didn’t have some way to justify that lie.

  “Did he ask you out? Are you scared of jinxing it?” Erin asked with a snake’s grin.

  “No. He didn’t ask me out.” Kayla felt herself deflate. Behind her, Erin stopped moving like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say because she didn’t understand how she could be that wrong. “He saw that I was kind of sad today and said something about meeting up because he wanted to be nice.”

  “That’s a date.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “Are there two of you?”

  “Yeah. Obviously.”

  “And you’re female. We can guess he’s male. Yup. That’s a date.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Even if he doesn’t realize it, it’s still a date.”

  “How could it be a date if he didn’t know what was going on?”

  With her attention focused on the clothes spread out before her, Erin shook her head, “Boys can be pretty dumb sometimes. If he’s paying attention to you, then he likes you. Be happy, it means he’s probably more mature than a lot of guys in our class. A few of them still haven’t figured out that pulling a girl’s pigtails is a bad way to get her attention.”

  “Right,” Kayla said, mostly because she had no idea. After Dean, she didn’t h
ave much experience.

  “He’s a nice guy. Be pretty. Go out. Wow him with your awesomeness.”

  Kayla mumbled how it still wasn’t a date, but she let her friend start to coordinate the different possibilities. She went through colors, textures, and layers. When Kayla said that maybe it didn’t matter because guys didn’t know anything about any of this and wouldn’t care anyway, Erin smiled, “They might not know it, but they notice it subconsciously.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “They do,” she said. “Trust me. They’d never admit it even when they realize it, but the right color and the right cut can do a lot for how you’re seen.”

  Eventually, Erin made her choice and Kayla didn’t get a whole lot of say in the matter. Despite those whispered fears at the back of her mind, Erin didn’t go for anything too crazy or racy. Black jeans, a white shirt with a blue blouse over it, and her silver jacket went together. When Kayla looked at herself in the mirror, she felt different. More confident, maybe more attractive, somehow more special. It was weird that clothes could do that.

  Kayla decided not to call or wait for a call. She started in on her homework. That got boring really fast. Hopping the stairs two at a time, Kayla tried not to admit to herself that she was excited. She tried to think that a guy couldn’t make her feel like this.

  Everett was still at the TV, his controller in hand as his character ran across the screen. It didn’t look like anything more interesting than some guy in battle armor with a very big gun running down a road.

  “You see Skyler?”

  “She’s not in her room?” Kayla asked.

  “Don’t know. Didn’t see her.” Something sprung up from the side of the road. Gray with patched scales, it looked like a zombie snake. It bit down into his character. He butted it with the bottom of his rifle and hopped back.

  Kayla didn’t answer. She just went back upstairs and tapped her knuckles against Skyler’s bedroom door. “Skyler? You in there?”

  No answer. She tried again to the same result. When Kayla pushed her way in, she expected to see Skyler with her ear buds in, maybe texting a friend or playing some web game. But the room was empty. The bed wasn’t made, but her little sister never did that until right before she went back to sleep. The alarm clock on Skyler’s nightstand read five o’clock.

  Kayla went back downstairs and checked the message machine. The mechanical voice said there weren’t any unheard messages but helpfully offered to send her back to the main menu. Kayla tapped her finger and chewed on her lower lip, gone in thought as she tried to figure out what she was supposed to do. She picked up the cordless and searched through the memory.

  First she tried her dad’s office. A secretary told her that he was still in a meeting. That might’ve meant he was out with some clients getting drunk. It could have meant he didn’t want to deal with any personal issues. Kayla reminded the secretary that it was his daughter, but she sweetly repeated that he was indisposed.

  She clicked end and tried again, this time at her mom’s work. The ring tone buzzed for a few seconds before the voice mail picked up. Kayla listened through her mom’s prerecorded voice as she said that this call was important to her and she’d reply as soon as possible. If it was an emergency, there was another extension she was supposed to try to get through to the department chief.

  Kayla slammed the phone back into its cradle.

  “You’re sure she didn’t say anything about being late?”

  “Nope,” Everett said.

  With anyone else, Kayla wouldn’t have worried. Everett might’ve forgotten to check in, but Skyler wouldn’t. She would’ve left a note or a message on the home line. Hoping against hope that her little sister just jumped habit, Kayla checked her own phone. Nothing. She tried calling Skyler’s phone, but the tone from upstairs just started ringing.

  Kayla scurried upstairs and couldn’t tell if she wanted her sister to be fine so she could strangle her or in some trouble so panic would make sense. This kind of frustration only came from not knowing if she was supposed to do something.

  Growling, Kayla searched through Skyler’s phone and started calling through her friends’ numbers. One by one, Kayla got through the awkward conversation of asking each girl if she was with Skyler or knew where she was.

  Twenty minutes and Kayla didn’t have any answers or any more numbers.

  Smacking her foot against the carpeted floor, Kayla didn’t know what she should do. It wasn’t like she’d ever thought about what to do if a sibling went missing. Then again, she couldn’t even tell if Skyler was missing.

  Kayla went back to the front door, saw the keys to her parents’ spare car, and decided what she had to do. She grabbed them, headed out into the cold, didn’t have a coat, and didn’t care. She started driving.

  Kayla drove without any pattern. She started off with Skyler’s school, but the gates were locked. The fences even surrounded the faculty lot. A few minutes past five thirty, the school was obviously abandoned for the night. That cut out the feint hope that Skyler got stuck in the world’s longest detention or something.

  She cleared another block before her phone rang again. She saw Seth’s name on the display and she really wanted to just ignore him, but she couldn’t do that. That would be just slightly worse than telling him the truth, but he deserved it, so she hit talk. “Hey,” he said with a trace of cheerfulness which hit his voice every once in a while.

  “Look, I can’t get out tonight.”

  “Everything okay?”

  Kayla knew she was supposed to lie because this wasn’t his problem. She didn’t have the energy for it, “No. Not really.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just a family thing.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to get out?”

  Kayla couldn’t help but laugh at that one. “No, I can’t. I have to take care of something.”

  “I can help you.”

  “I don’t think so. My sister’s missing. It’s probably nothing,” she stopped at a light, “I hope it’s nothing.” Kayla stared at the red light. It looked like an angry eye that she really wanted to punch. Itching to move, she didn’t want this to be a moment she remembered for the rest of her life. She didn’t want this to be the day she lost her sister. Against all of the bad somethings which tumbled through her skull, Kayla said, “She’s probably just at a friend’s house or something.”

  “I can help.”

  “No, really. That’s okay. You don’t have to get dragged into this.” It was probably nothing, she kept telling herself, and letting him help meant he’d see that shredded part of her life. No, she wouldn’t let him.

  “Meet me at the school in ten minutes.”

  Before she could stumble out with another no, he hung up.

  Chapter 8: Lost Prayers

  Kayla didn’t have to pull a U and drive back to the school. She could’ve stuck to the roads she thought her sister might’ve used. But Kayla had to admit she didn’t have many more places to look. Unless Skyler’s friends had lied, then something happened. Kayla felt her eyes burn and blur with tears at the thought.

  A car could have hit her. The Alliance could have grabbed her. A thousand different disasters could have hurt her.

  When Kayla pulled up to the next light, Kayla whispered, “Please God. Please don’t let that have happened.” When the light switched to green, Kayla wiped her eyes and told herself to keep it together. She couldn’t break. With nothing better to do, she put her phone back to her ear and tried her parents again. Nothing again.

  Before the light changed, she had one of those darkened thoughts that stung. She didn’t know how to call any hospitals. 911 sounded obvious, but it was for emergencies. Skyler was only gone for a couple hours, and Kayla guessed she’d have to wait long enough. Too many other explanations would have made sense. Maybe she was with a friend. Maybe she lost track of time at the library. Maybe she fell asleep somewhere.

  When she pulled up to the school,
Kayla didn’t know where she was supposed to find Seth. If she didn’t see him right away, she’d get back to searching for her sister. It wasn’t like he could do a lot to help anyway. But he was there, under their school’s electronic sign. Kayla pulled over and Seth got in without saying anything.

  “Any ideas?” he asked.

  “I wanted to check the way she goes to school.”

  “Okay,” he said. “If we drive by anyone on the street, just slow down, okay?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Look inside their heads,” he said. “If they’ve seen her, I’ll see it.” Kayla nodded, her teeth locked together because he didn’t say something else. If anyone hurt her, Seth would know that too. “Just slow down and give me a chance to look.”

  They started driving again and she slowed down each time. They saw a jogger so she slowed down and matched the runner’s pace. Kayla couldn’t see Seth’s eyes but she guessed they sparked with that indigo. He shook his head, “He hasn’t seen her. Keep going.”

  They circled through the neighborhood twice. A couple other people walked or jogged the streets, but no one saw Skyler. Kayla wanted something better to do. Driving around felt like searching a bucket of water for a particular drop. She couldn’t see Skyler and she couldn’t know if there was something wrong. Someone could’ve been hurting her as they drove around.

  “We’ll find her,” Seth said.

  “You’re supposed to say that she’ll be okay.”

  “I can’t know that.”

  “You could lie,” Kayla said.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No.”

  “Then where do you go when you cut? You’d tell me if you were just some guy who drove off to play video games or hang out with this friends.”

  “But since I won’t lie, it must be something really important?” he asked. “You’re probably right. Is that something you really want to think about right now?”

  “Please, I need to think about something else.”

  “We’ll find her,” he said again. “And if something did happen to her, I promise I’ll gut whoever did it.”