Dakarai pushed a horrid, guttural sound through my brain, the sound of a vulture, Urrrr, deep and drawn out so long … while I balanced on the edge of madness.
“Shut up,” I whimpered to my mind, “leave me alone, please, just leave me alone.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Angie said. “I’m here.” She stopped us, stepped in front of me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “Do you wanna go back?”
All I could manage was a light no-shake of my head.
Angie glanced over my shoulder. “Let’s go into the restroom. I have something to tell you.” She guided me away before I could say anything.
As we stood on the tiled floor, the overwhelming scent of flowers from some kind of cleaning solution filled the white restroom. The lights in the ceiling were too bright and I could feel a headache coming on. Slow, deliberate breaths pulled into my lungs while Angie held me close and rubbed my wings.
She drew back, stood me up straight with her palms on my shoulders, looked into my stinging eyes and said, “Listen, I need to tell you something. I overheard Mom and Dad talking last night in the kitchen, they didn’t know I was listening. Dad was telling Mom that you’d change your mind and this was just a phase. Then, back in the skybox, Mom was trying to talk me into changing your mind. She was being sneaky about it. ”
“What?” I huffed out, widened my eyes. “What are you saying? Mom and Dad are playing with me, appeasing their little angel?” I could breathe again, the numbness replaced by sparks of fury.
When I attempted to rip away from her with plans to storm back and straighten them out, Angie stopped me with a squeeze to my shoulders and said, “Just calm down. Don’t tell them I told you. If you throw a tantrum, it’ll prove their point.” She paused. “So here’s what we do. Just go about it like nothing’s changed. Show them with actions, not words. Show them you’re serious.”
She had a point, I knew, so I gave her a light nod.
Because my breathing slowed, Angie let go of my shoulders and added, “Listen, I’ve been thinking something else ever since you brought this idea up at the pool. I’m gonna help. But I can’t tell anyone, especially not Mom.” She did a quick peek around the room. “So here’s what we should do”—Warmth of happiness settled my nerves. My sister was on my side, just like always. I had felt she’d left me alone when I’d announced my plans—“Let them teach you, and you can teach me, in private, just the two of us. I wanna help you find Dakarai. He almost took you away from me and that’s not right with me. I’m your big sister and I’ll always be with you, no matter what. But we can’t tell anyone, okay?”
Hugging my sister, I said over her shoulder, “Thank you. I love you so much, sis.”
The sound of a toilet flushing made us release the embrace. We stood and watched as a stall door opened. Out came a short female drekavac in tight black shorts and T-shirt, skin like pale gray smoke. She walked to the mirror, began teasing her spiked red wig hair. We viewed in stunned silence, gazing at her mirrored image. Her immature wings were only about two foot long, coarse dark feathers folded to her back. Burnt-yellow eyes pushed from her thin face, seeming too large for her head like some kind of otherworldly insect, it reminded me of a closeup picture I’d once seen of spider eyes; dull, unmoving.
She focused her reflected eyes on us and said, plain and simple, “So, you’re the one. You’re Elle.” A smirk. A swipe of lip-gloss. A pop of her lips. “Hmm, interesting.” Her eyes twitched as if she wanted to narrow them, but had no lids. “Very, interesting.” She padded bare feet to the door, opened it, stood for a second as she said over her shoulder, “Well, good luck. Elle.” Giggle. She stepped out. The door tapped shut behind her.
Angie and I turned to face each other.
“What the—?” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. She’s just a brainless little bitch just barely out of her shell.”
“But what if she tells—” Panic set in, lodging the words in my throat.
“Don’t let it get to you. We’ll get through this.”
After racing to the sink, I yanked the faucet handle up, splashed cold water on my face to keep from hyperventilating, to hold the fruit down in my stomach. Leaned over with my palms flat on the vanity countertop, I tried to slow my heart.
Angie placed a hand on my back, consoling rubs. “It’s okay, pull yourself together. Sweetie, you need to understand something. It’s gonna get worse. A lot worse.”
In the mirror, water blinked off my lashes, dripped off my chin. My hair hung over the sink. Gazing into my own eyes, I began to realize her point. This was nothing. I need to grow up, now. With a jaw clench, I spun around, steeled my shoulders. “You’re right, Ang. You’re absolutely right.”
We stepped out of the restroom. Across the way, there stood that little drek in the middle of a group of dreks, one large male in the bunch. All wore their typical form-fitting black shorts and T-shirts, stupid-looking wigs on all the females—red, black, blond.
Who made their clothes for them? Did they have a special drekavac shop or something?
The female was saying something while the rest hung on her words. A group of fans, angels, strolled along with their plates and cups of refreshment, chatting while they passed between the dreks and me. A din of fan chatter and laughter filled the corridor, voices overlapping into gibberish. The female drek looked over at us and pointed a long finger. All at once, the others looked over. A chill ran through my wings, but I pushed it down with a slit-eyed glower. My lungs seized when the small dreks appeared as angel teens, then flashed back, testing my sanity as I looked at dreks, angels, dreks, angels. I shook my head. It didn’t work.
“Let’s go, Elle,” Angie prodded.
My heart punching at my chest, I spun around and we marched off.
“Where ya goin, Princess?” a scratched voice behind us, a familiar tone, like Dakarai’s before he transformed into a—
“Just go away you filthy scavenger,” Angie growled back. I kept my eyes forward.
NO. I stopped sharply, wheeled around on my heels, and looked up at the drekavac. A hairless head. Pale gray skin wrapped over bone. Bulging black eyes. A ghoulish smirk. The group behind him stood in my peripheral, but I kept my stare on the male in front of me.
Even as indistinct crowd murmurs began to surround us, the drekavac spoke in a nasal tone, “So, you’re Elle?” Teeth tips showed with a sneer. “Dakarai will be so pleased when I tell him we ran into you.”
“Just go away an—” Angie started to say, I cut her off.
“Yes, I’m Elle.” Two fists clenched by my side. “You can tell Dakarai I said hi, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again. So why don’t you run off with your little chick-lets there and go tell daddy, I’m waiting.” A coil of fear tightened in my stomach. What did I do?
“Well, well,” drekavac crowed, “you are something special, aren’t you? I can see why Dakarai is so interested.” He sucked his teeth. “Yes, a tasty little appetizer you’d be, spicy. I’ll be sure to pick those sweet little bones clean for him. Or maybe we should go into the restroom so I can sample that curvy menu of yours. Just look at those long legs, and wings.” He made a sucking sound, flicked his pointed tongue over his teeth. “I can taste them already.”
“Don’t talk to my sister like that, you flappin pig!” Angie paused to breathe. “You’re not gonna get away with this, security’s on the way. You’re going to jail.”
The drek cackled a laugh. “Jail, huh? Well, we’d better hurry then. You must be Angelica, the sister. Why don’t you join us in the restroom, Princess, let’s make it a family affair. My friend over there likes that long brown hair of yours. She’s been looking for a new wig.”
A wig? Angel hair! Oh no, it can’t be.
The drek added, “I must say, Angelica. You look ripe. A little more curvy meat on you. Nice and ripe, indeed, ready for pick’n. Let’s go have some fun, whattaya say?”
A crowd of angels started to form around us, various comments chiming:
“Go away, drek.”
“Someone call security.”
“He’s an ugly one, isn’t he?”
“They should be banned from here.”
Thoughts formed words in my mind: Starwings, Star-wings, Vyn, Vyn, my jaw clenching to the cadence of the words.
The packed hall began to move toward the painted concrete walls, making room for something while they chattered … And the reason became clear:
Vyn and Jaydenn were rushing toward us, wings outstretched and pushing hard.
“So drek,” Angie said, “you’re about to meet my husband. Hope it was worth it.”
Vyn slid across the polished floor, spun to face the drek. With a knee down, head bowed, wings spread and one fist on the concrete, he huffed out a breath at the floor as if he was attempting to hold back a thousand horses. He finally looked up at the drek, and let out a feral snarl, “Leave. Now.” His face was trembling in some sort of controlled fury.
The other dreks had already backed off in silence, too young and dumb to get involved.
“Enough,” Jaydenn huffed out as he stood beside Angie. “I’m tired of the theatrics.” He stomped over to the drek and swiftly wrapped a hand around the drek’s throat, paused to give the stunned drek a jungle-cat smirk, then lifted him, carried him across the hall and slammed the drek to the wall surface with a thwap. Even as the drekavac strained for air, Jaydenn growled from deep in his throat, “You. Have had enough fun for one day.” He cocked his head, pushed the words out through vice-clamped teeth, “Don’t you think?”
The drekavac tried to nod, but Jaydenn tightened his grip. The drek’s black eyes began to bulge in his skull.
Angie walked to Jaydenn, placed a hand between his wings and said in a soothing tone, “Let him go, Jay. If you kill him, you’ll break the treaty. You know that.”
A long pause as we all looked on … Jaydenn finally released. The drek crumpled to the floor on hands and knees, gasping, coughing and choking. Jaydenn leered down on him and said, “You’re pathetic,” then kicked the drek like a garbage sack.
Jaydenn and Angie, giggling, joking with each other, made their way toward me.
The crowd began to disperse with more comments:
“See, that’s how you do it.”
“Daddy, is he a football player?”
“He’s a big one.”
“He must be a StarWing, look at his clothes.”
“Bet that drek won’t do that again.”
Even as the comments continued, I asked Angie and Jaydenn, “Why are you two laughing?”
Angie grinned. “Did you see the look on that drek’s face? It was funny. He looked all bug-eyed.” She pushed her eyes out to mime the drek, and returned to normal on a chuckle.
“Don’t worry,” Jaydenn said to me, “they can’t hurt you.” He angled a look back at the fallen drek and the other dreks that had gathered around him. Uniformed security guards were approaching them as Jaydenn added, “They just like to play with your mind, and that one there’s goin’ to jail. Don’t listen to a word they say, it’s all lies and deceit. They always try to push us to break the treaty. If they break it, they’re finished and the hunters’ll leave Boden. It’s a different story if we break it. If we kill just one drek, the hunters would be allowed to hunt everywhere, so we have to tiptoe around the garbage for a while.”
“Well, they’re pretty good at messing with my mind,” I said. Then something dawned on me. “But, Dakarai, he was gonna hurt me?”
“That was a rare circumstance,” Jaydenn said. “Wrong place, wrong time kinda thing.”
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I fell silent, considering. The guards led the drek away by the crook of the arm, the other dreks following along like baby chicks.
Jaydenn paced over to Vyn—Vyn still locked in battle position—and pulled him out of his trance to stand. Jaydenn said to Vyn, “We really need to work on that. You can’t be locking up like that all the time.”
Vyn’s blue-glow eyes finally came back from wherever he was. “I know. I can’t help it.” He dropped a frown of embarrassment at the floor. My poor Vyn.
“Well, sis, let’s go get cleaned up,” Angie said.
“What?” I said. “We need to tell Dad about— wait, why isn’t Dad here? I mean how did you guys know we needed you?”
“It’s funny story,” said Vyn. “Your dad brought out those chips. You should’ve seen it. A bunch of purple monsters. I couldn’t take it anymore and I started laughing out loud. Then they all looked at me like they were about to stuff me in a garbage can or something, so I got up and left. Some fan came up to me out in the hall and told me what was happening. I went back and got Jaydenn. We figured we could handle it. No reason to spoil their day and worry your mother, so we didn’t bother telling Phil. It’s a good thing we didn’t. He’d have killed that drek.”
Dad and his pranks, I see where Angie gets it from. After pushing the image of a bunch of purple angels out of my mind, I said, “But we still need to tell Dad.”
“We will,” Angie said. “That’s all we’ll tell him, right?”
Jaydenn gave Angie a curious look. “Whattaya mean, that’s all?”
Angie’s eyes remained on me as she said to Jaydenn, “Oh, nothing. It’s a sister thing.”
“Do you think it’s safe to go shower now, after that, I mean?” I asked Angie.
“Of course it is,” Angie said, and turned to Jaydenn. “You boys can wait outside the locker room for us, right?” A hair flip as she flittered her lashes. “Be our big male guards.”
Jaydenn looked as if he had painful gas or something.
I said, “I’d feel much better if you two did wait outside.
They gave us a couple of male eye rolls, puffed a pair of sighs.
While we strolled along, thoughts brewed about what Jaydenn had said, “Don’t worry, Elle, they can’t hurt you.” Yeah, well, I wasn’t convinced of that. Mental torture could be just as bad, worse even, and Dakarai was good at that game.
Walking alongside Vyn, I folded my arm around his waist, leaned into him and tilted my head to his shoulder.
CHAPTER 12
When I opened the refrigerator, there it was, shining like an oasis to quench my desert mouth—the glass pitcher of liquid heaven. Bathing in the refrigerated air, wearing short yellow shorts and a girl-cut T-shirt, I felt like pouring the entire pitcher down my throat.
As I filled my glass with ice and cucumber water, the remembrance of the locker room from earlier came to mind. Since the boys had decided to check out the field, they’d waited outside the field entrance door for us. We’d heard them voicing, “Hello ladies, hi, hello, hi,” over and over in a deeper-than-natural tone, while the cheerleaders filed into the locker room after halftime, giggling and joking as they strode their long legs into the room.
They’d been so nice to us. One blond cheerleader—almost too flawless, her name was Ginelle—had become my favorite, possibly even a friend. She’d even given me one of her uniforms, and delivered a kiss to my cheek while she did. Hopefully we could meet again sometime, maybe go shopping, or go to Luscious Berry Yogurt, or something. I don’t know.
Yeah, right. Leaning back against the kitchen counter, I took a sip. How could such a magnificent angel want to hang out with, me? But, she’d brought it up back in the locker room; “We should go have lunch sometime. That would be so much fun, don’t you think, Ellie?”
Uh, yeah! I had wanted to say, but her question had sent me to la-la land, so I’d just nodded. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should’ve set a date. Thank Source I’d had enough sense to get her phone number. I’d invite her over to meet Dad and the rest of the family, soon.
Now, as I padded bare feet to the breakfast nook table, forested dusk was setting outside the kitchen bay window. Natural light softened the space, day fading away. Angie was already at the table in her cotton sundress, her elbows on the wood surface, chin propped on fisted hands, eyelids flagging as she said, “Can you
pour me a glass too, please, sis?”
After returning with her full glass, I sat with her.
“What’d you think of the cheerleaders, Ang?”
“What? Oh, yeah. They were nice.” She sipped, set it down. “Maybe a little too happy.”
“I think it was the energy from halftime,” I defended.
“Yeah, maybe.” Under droopy eyes, she blew a breath. “I need to get some rest.”
With a nod of agreement, I turned to the bay window. The sunset infused thin clouds over the mountains into the most delicious palette of violet cream, pulling a long sigh from me.
“What’s up, Elle?” Vyn broke my serene vision as he strolled in, walked to the cupboards and pulled a crackling bag. “We need some chips out there.” He brought a large wooden bowl to the table, dumped some daisy chips.
Why do males always have to pull and tear everything? Why do they have to be so noisy? Angie rubbed her temples with a murderous look at Vyn as if she was about to rip his wings off.
“What’s Mom doing?” I asked Vyn.
“She’s out there reading a book.”
“Do you actually think she’s gonna let you crunch chips while she’s reading?” I pictured Mom on the white chaise lounge by the fireplace, while the boys sat across the room on the matching couch and loveseat, munching away.
Vyn brushed my comment off with a shoulder shrug and a crooked grin. “Are you coming out there, or what?”
“I’ll be out in a minute.” I took another sip, swiveled to the window again.
“Okay then.” He crunched a chip. “I’ll see ya out there.” Whistling as he walked, he left the room, the sound of his tune fading away.
A few minutes later I heard Mom raise her voice, “Can you boys just quiet down back there with that munching. It’s giving me a headache and I can’t concentrate.”
“They’re so dense sometimes,” Angie said.
“I warned him,” I said on a chuckle, pinched a grin out the window. On a long sigh, I pushed from my chair. “Okay, I guess I should go out there and save them.”
“Better you than me. I’m gonna go get changed and lie down.”
Wings of Boden Page 9