by Lisa M Basso
His gaze drew up to meet mine. “He’s having issues … with his hunger. He tried to feed on me.”
“What?” My world pitched sideways. I stumbled into the door, clicking it closed.
Cam angled his face into my line of sight. “It was only once. He took nothing. It was a long journey and he was—” Cam shook his head. “No one saw. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but I wanted you to know before … ”
Before I let him into my house with my family.
My fingers brushed over my lips. I blinked once, then nodded to him. “Go sit, have some dinner. I’ll be in in a minute.”
I waited for him to turn and head down the hallway before I walked out into the tropical heat.
Kade leaned against the front porch’s railing dressed in the same pants he wore in San Francisco and a t-shirt.
“Hey,” I said, leaning against the side of the house across from him.
“Hey,” he said back, barely looking up from the blue painted floors of the wraparound porch.
Twelve slats of wood separated us. That and the fact that he almost sucked part of our newly human friend’s soul.
Six months was a long time. People have changed drastically in less than that. Had he?
“It’s good to see you.”
That got his attention. He brought the full force of those brown eyes up to me.
“We did it. The Fallen are all dead.”
“Good. That’s good.” I nodded to the floor, not able to hold his gaze. “Were you the one that … ?”
“No. God, Ray, no.” The surprise and hurt in his tone caught me off guard. “I messed up. I’m assuming Cam told you.”
I nodded, drawing my gaze up, needing to look into his eyes for this, to know if I could believe him. If I could trust him. The thought pressed tiny needles into my heart.
“I had a weak moment. Several weak moments. But I pulled it together and stopped myself. It doesn’t excuse what I did, and I don’t expect you to—”
“Kade, I know what you are. And I know who you are. You’re going to have to feed every once in a while. Just … not on our friends.”
“No, I don’t. I had a lot of time to think the last few months. I’ve done the math. If I conserve my energy, live within my means, I can survive maybe twenty years without feeding.”
A rock sank in my chest. “And what happens after twenty years?”
“That’s it.” He gauged my reaction. “Don’t do that. Twenty years is a long time. Longer than we ever thought we’d get together.”
“I don’t want to be a widow at thirty-eight. Or ever.”
His eyebrow perked up. “A widow? Aren’t we jumping a few hurdles here?”
My cheeks heated. “Whatever. We have all the time in the world.”
“If twenty years is all the time in the world.”
Stubborn ass. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” There. It was settled. Sort of. I’d have to make him feed which was going to be so weird, but after everything we’d been through, one mistake would never be the end of us.
So why wasn’t I jumping into his arms and kissing him senseless?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, hurt lacing his words.
“Tell you what?” A mangled paperback copy of my favorite book rested in his hands, the one I used to carry around with me everywhere when we lived together on Earth in his tiny apartment, back when we could barely stand each other.
“That the guy gets hit by a car and killed at the end on his way to see his girlfriend? And how the girl has to pull herself back together, remembering him for the rest of her life, returning to the same beach where they first met every summer until the day she died?”
I swallowed. “I only read that ending once, and I didn’t like it, so I always stopped reading just before that. When they make up.”
“You can’t always pick and choose what you want!” His fingers dug into the cover of the book, bending the pages back.
A lump the size of the island we currently resided on formed in my throat. It hit me then, what was really wrong. He was worried I had changed, too. Six months was a long time. “I know that, I do. Back then, before Hell but after the SS Crazy, I needed something safe, something secure to rely on when I couldn’t rely on myself. That’s not who I am anymore. I know myself.” I let the strength of my breath flit between us. “I figure there’s a time to take risks with your heart, and you can play it safe all you want, until the right ending comes along. Or the right person.” I finally found the courage to leave my side of the porch. “Falling in love with a wingless Fallen angel doesn’t happen every day.” I stood in front of him and touched his hand, still firmly gripping the book. “Once you’ve known that … all-encompassing love, there’s no way to know how everything will end up. You just have to hope they feel the same way about you.”
I lifted both my hands to his chest, demanding to feel the beat of the heart inserted by Lucien so many years before. As far as I was concerned his creation of Fallen Kade was Lucien’s only redeemable act.
Kade stood still, a rock in a storm. He hadn’t pushed me away, but he also hadn’t moved an inch since I crossed the porch.
We were so close, yet still so far apart. I dropped my forehead onto his shoulder, fighting back tears. His heart thudded louder. “I’m still here,” I whispered, maybe too quietly for him to hear. “If you’ll let me be.”
He finally lifted his arms, whether it was to hug me or push me away I’d never know, because the front door opened. I jumped back a good two feet. My dad leaned out the doorway. “Dinner’s getting cold. Why don’t you two come in?”
Kade avoided my eyes. He walked toward my dad, abandoning the paperback on the porch’s railing.
“Kade, I assume?” Dad said with his hand extended out.
This had to be weird for Kade. To him, my dad had once been was the man that took my mother away, the trigger than had led Kade to Falling. He had even implied he would hurt Dad not long after our first meeting.
“Yes sir, Mr. Evans, uh … sir.” Kade stuttered as he shook Dad’s hand. But People change.
Dad clapped Kade on the back as he led him inside. “Call me Tom.”
“Okay, Tom.”
I followed them in, closing the door behind me.
Dinner was strange, ripe with long silences and awkward questions for the boys. After Cam had shoveled away his fifth piece of lasagna, I started to collect the dishes.
“Why don’t you let me get the dishes tonight?” Dad said. “You four go out for a walk or something, show the boys our corner of the island.”
“Dad, I—”
“Ray, I can handle the dishes for one night. Go.”
Laylah, Cam, Kade, and I headed down the stairs, out the gated entryway, across the road, and to the beach.
Laylah and Cam walked much faster than Kade and I, probably desperate to shield themselves from the tension that hovered around us even now.
“I—I don’t understand what I did wrong,” I spat out without thinking. “I waited for you for months. You’ll barely look at me, you won’t even touch me—”
“Ray, are you kidding me? With you in that outfit … I can’t think straight.”
I glanced down at my raggedy cut-off jean shorts, the top button opened because it had popped off in the wash last week. The unbuttoned shorts revealed my bikini bottoms. A sheer white cover-up lay over my neon green bikini top. “You’re joking, right? This is what I practically live in here.”
He turned to me, eyes dark, but not black. “You’re killing me, Ray. Absolutely killing me.” His thumb traced the side of my hand, a feather light touch that turned my knees to Jell-O. “If I had laid even one finger on you back there, we would have been caught doing a whole hell of a lot more when your dad opened that door.”
I was almost afraid to ask in case it broke the spell. “And now?”
“Now, if your sister wasn’t fifty yards up the beach and your dad wasn’t two hundred yards back,
probably watching us from the house, I would have you in the water with your legs wrapped around me so tight my eyes would burst.”
My heart fluttered to life, starting a chain reaction with my stomach.
“And you’d better rethink your entire wardrobe. Otherwise I won’t be able to stand the torture.” He lifted my hand to his chest, setting my fingers over his heart. Again I felt how strongly it beat.
I smiled up at him and teased, “You’re all talk.”
Before I could take another breath, his hand gripped the back of my neck and his lips met mine. The fire that ignited inside me was so I hot I swore it would burn right through the both of us and start a supernova.
Water splashed at us from the shoreline. Cam and Laylah. Kade and I broke apart, smiled at each other, and trudged in after them. We ran and played like kids until the sun dipped into the horizon.
Kade and I waded back to the sand while Cam and Laylah continued to laugh and splash. I slipped my cover-up over my head to wring it out before I realized what I’d done. I angled my back away from Kade, but it was too late. He’d seen it. The outline of wings burned into my back.
“Are those from—?”
I nodded, attempting to slide my cover-up back on. Kade stopped me, holding my fingers closed over the fabric.
Studying the sand, I said, “I was wrong before when I thought Lucien had only one more pain to inflict after his death. This was his last punishment.”
Kade’s fingers gently traced my puckered skin. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I have scars, too.” He turned and pulled up shirt. Two long lines puckered along his back, raised like bad scars. Each was less than a foot long, but with the fierceness of the pink skin, they almost looked worse than mine. Almost.
His could have been from anything, but there was no mistaking my burns. I was now branded as the girl with wings, the girl responsible for an entire war. For the rest of my life, whoever saw them would know exactly who I was, who I had once been. People would put me in danger, and I would put them in a difficult position.
Kade ran his fingers over the finer lines, the places above my shoulder blades where the ridges of individual feathers were burnt into my skin. “I think they’re beautiful.”
“Then you’re blind.”
“Not true. I see you for exactly who you are.” He drew his arm around in front me, pulling my back to his chest. With a soft sigh, he rested his cheek against the side of my head. “You should be proud of what you did. Anyone who doesn’t get that doesn’t know the whole story.” His fingers ghosted up and down my sides just above the waistline of my shorts.
“Oh.” I laughed. “So you mean pretty much every human on the planet?”
“Yeah, well, you know how I feel about humans.”
Cam stepped into our view of the sunset, his shadow creating a wingless silhouette.
“Especially that one.”
I couldn’t help the small smile that snuck up on my lips. “But I’m human.”
“Correction; most humans.”
“Good to see you two made up,” Cam said from up the beach.
“Yeah, goody,” Laylah deadpanned before turning and heading further down the beach.
So much for her being grown up.
Cam jogged after her. When he caught up, he slung his arm around her shoulders. She beamed up at him with a smile so bright it rivaled the sun.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?” Kade breathed into my ear, sending a new round of shivers down my arms.
“Cam had better be careful. When my little sister gets that look in her eyes, there’s no stopping her. And she’s always gotten exactly what she wanted.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
I turned in his arms and met his gaze head on. “Not even a little.” The glare from the sun bounced off the ocean water dampening his hair, making it look almost black. I tucked back one of the waves that kicked out from behind his ears.
“Speaking of Cam, he and I rented a little place down the beach.”
“So I’m stuck with you guys?”
“You’re really only stuck with me.” The warm surf washed up over our toes. “I know it’s been a long time … and if you don’t want me to stay, I can think of a thousand other places to go.”
I grabbed his chin, pulling it so he had to look down at me. “There’s no place else I’d rather you be.” I kissed him. “Except maybe my bedroom tonight.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he whispered and kissed me again.
We broke only to watch the sun dip lower into the water.
A dull pain welled in my stomach, working its way up to my chest. Not this again. Not now. I turned my head away from Kade and coughed. And coughed. And coughed. Until my throat burned. When I could breathe again, I looked down to find my palm bright red with fresh blood.
Another of Lucien’s gifts. A way for him to laugh at me from beyond the grave. The power he gave came with drawbacks. At first the aftermath of using the blast of light had knocked me out, then it had advanced, when I fought for consciousness. That was when the coughing fits started, followed by the blood. I had hoped all that would end when my wings burned off, but I was sadly mistaken. The coughing had only been getting worse.
“You okay?” Kade asked, concern wiping the serenity from his face.
Panicked, I used my cover-up to wipe my palm clean, then I balled the fabric in my hand. “Yeah, fine. Just allergies. They’ve been really bad since I got here.”
I didn’t meet his gaze. Instead I hid the cover-up behind me and watched the sunset by his side. I hated lying to him, but if he knew I was deteriorating from the inside out, that I was … most likely dying, it would destroy him.
We’d been through so much. We deserved to be happy. Even if only for a little while. In the back of my mind, I knew it was only a matter of time before this, too, caught up to me.
Epilogue
Laylah
Cam and I settled into a warm pillow of sand to dry off before the sun said its final sayonara to the day.
It was tragic, but I couldn’t stop staring at the boy.
It had been close to a year ago the last time I saw him. And he hadn’t been himself then. Dad (recently released from the hospital), Aunt Nora, and I were having dinner at Aunt Nora’s house in L.A. when a bunch of men kicked in the door. Before Aunt Nora could reach the phone to call the police, the men parted to let Cam by. Cam, who watched out for me more than my own sister did. Cam, who sat with us at the hospital when Dad got hurt at work. Cam, who never treated me like the bratty little sister. He took one hard look at us and said, “You aren’t safe here. You have twenty minutes. Pack only what you need.” He was cold and distant, and when I was done packing he was gone, only the others remained.
Ray had let it slip once when she returned that the men she was with—and the men that kept moving us—were angels.
Angels. Sure.
Although, as I let my head loll to the side, to drink in more of Cam, I could maybe see it. He looked different though. His hair flopped off his forehead, shaggier than I’d ever seen it before. Small dots of blond hair shadowed his jaw line. His nose and cheeks were pinked by the maybe half hour of late afternoon sun we’d played in.
“After that night … I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” My voice dipped like a girl inexperienced in talking to boys—which I so wasn’t.
He opened his eyes to the sky then turned them on me. “I’m sorry for that, Laylah. I wanted to be there for your relocation. There were … management issues that had to be handled.”
If that wasn’t a lie, then I’d volunteer for year-round school in the fall. “You don’t have to spin a story for me too. It’s whatever. Just glad you’re back.” To smooth over my Rayna-robotic tone, I added smoothly, “How long are you planning on staying this time?”
The ease returned to Cam’s lips. He slid his hands behind his head and stretched out his long legs. “Hopefully a good long while.”
&n
bsp; Hopefully. That meant he wasn’t certain. We’d see about that.
“Any long-term plans then?” I cringed internally. Sounding like your dad, totally hot.
“From what I’ve seen of the island, poverty is rampant here. I want to help in any way I can.”
His heart of gold made me feel guilty for all we still had. So maybe my ice heart melted a little. “I’d actually like to help with that. School doesn’t start for another few weeks, and I’m sure I can find time on weekends once it does.”
Gray eyes of awesomeness—that’s what I’d always called them—settled on me. “That would be … incredible.”
The tide lapped at our toes, the sun was almost gone, and the winds of absolute paradise were blowing, yet nothing could steal me away from my current view.
“I was also thinking about enrolling at your school,” Cam said.
“Oh yeah?” A knowing smile crept up my lips.
“To learn and finish school—not just to keep an eye on you or anything like that.”
“Sure,” I drew out while laughing at his fumble, my stomach wobbling, all soft and goopy.
That was my in.
If life had taught me anything in the last few years, it was one: where Ray, Cam, and Kade were concerned, nothing was certain, and two: life was frail. I lived in the moment. There was no telling how long I actually had to make move before Cam vanished again.
I slid my hand toward him, the sand grating against my palm, my pinkie millimeters from his. One touch to change the way he saw me, to transition from being Ray’s little sister to a woman of my own.
Ray turned her head and coughed that disgusting rattling cough I’d been hearing through the walls almost every night.
Sexy, sis. Real sexy.
Her boyfriend didn’t seem too put out by it though.
Weirdo.
When she pulled her hand away, it was covered in red. She wiped it on the shirt in her other hand and played it off to Kade.
I sat up, abandoning my move on Cam, and watched them, my heart racing.
What the butt was she hiding now?