The next ten seconds would send Jump’s mortal life on the trajectory that brought him to where he was now, reunited with his girls, Kelly and Amy—Salvation and Rain. Failure to bring ultimate success. Wife in Hell and my little angel in Heaven, though, when he thought about it that way, the wife part didn’t sound so great.
If Salvation had gone down in the dungeon—and there was no way she would let Rain go down there by herself again—then his wife was probably wondering if ruling in Hell with her husband was worth it. He’d deal with that when he got back. One ass-beating at a time, he thought.
Revenge—kill Frank King, the bastard that experimented on his daughter, rob Mercedes of her own revenge—or redemption—forgive and forget and let things stay the way they worked out in the first place.
He had gotten revenge on Frank eventually, and so had Mercedes at the Battle of the Books, so what was the point of doing it a different way … again?
But the toughest part about revenge, Jump had found out that other way, was that it was like pouring blood into a big dark cave full of vampires. No matter how many wastes of blood he threw into it, the hole would just never fill up.
Jump stared into Fury’s fall, at his own hand coming out of his pocket.
It was a failure the first time. A rarity in Agent Blake’s career. And he would have gladly taken the whipping for it if he was back at the Rook. But a whipping wasn’t what he would have gotten, so he had run, escaped, disappeared. And he never had any clue how Frank knew what he was going to do to him.
— CXII —
INSIDE THE INTERROGATION observation room, the PAIC continued his little pre-bribe negotiation speech and Frank King listened, as they both stared into the dark half of the cell. Little Mercedes’ body was still limp in the chair on the bright side of the cell. Once Frank was done negotiating credits with this agent, he would have an orderly go in and strap her face-down on the gurney—get her ready.
The observation room was tight—it would only fit a few—but it didn’t take much room to house an orderly, a doctor, and a flunky from research and development. In the past, they’d had a nurse from the Fifty present, just in case there was some nasty cleanup, but none of them could handle it once the interrogators showed up. Many of them just ended up running from the room crying, so Protection stopped requiring their presence during the interrogations. They could clean up when it was over.
The observation rooms did have some safeguards that made the tight space even more cramped than it should’ve been. A ballistic film on the one-way glass was a pretty standard precaution, but after a protectant smuggled a bomb into one of the interrogation rooms and blew out that glass, killing the observers behind it, the rooms were retrofitted with ballistic barriers. No one at Protection was taking chance on that mess again.
They stared into the dark half of the cell.
Frank leaned into the glass. “Who is that?” he said under his breath.
Had Jump been focused on anything but watching Fury’s fall and himself as a PAIC, pulling the syringe out of his pocket, his piercing angel-eyes might have noticed the other figure in the interrogation cell, bathed in darkness on the left … and covered in blood.
“Oh, son of a bitch,” he said when he saw her. “Little playin’-possum pain in my ass. Clever girl.”
“Had we known she was a twin,” the PAIC said to Frank, “it might’ve been easier to stop them from—”
“What twin?” asked Frank. “Stop who?”
“Her,” the agent said. Then he pointed into the darkness. “They martial-lawed her up pretty badly in the lobby.”
Frank strained his eyes, trying to see into the left side of the cell. The basement of the Fifty was no better equipped than its upper floors. Quaint old-world techno still permeated its walls like ancient arteries, barely bringing enough electro to run the dark dungeon. Frank reached for the switch to the spotlights over the left side of the cell.
“Don’t … do that,” the PAIC said. He moved his hand back into his pocket. “I’m keeping her in the dark until I get someone in there. The serum will have her sensitive to it. I don’t want her injuring herself before they can take her testament.”
“Whose testament?”
The PAIC turned toward him. “Her sister,” he said. “Wait, you’re saying she doesn’t have a twin?”
Frank chuckled. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Unless my wife was—” He thought about it for a minute. He had the wave of the birth. He’d watched it a few times in his office just to see Babs screaming again. He would know if there was another—Ridiculous, he thought. “No … no twin.” But he was curious now, and he reached for the light switch again.
— CXIII —
JUMP SAW FRANK reaching for the light switch. In his heightened perception of events and time, the bastard’s finger was moving ultra-slowly. But it didn’t have to move fast to get to the switch and flip it, and if he did… Jump could see that the whole thing was about to turn into a “feather-fuck,” his instructors back at the Rook used to call a screaming and screeching shitstorm of mayhem.
If Fury did it now, they might all get stuck back in life. Shit, Jump thought, I didn’t even have time to explain it to her. He’d been searching for Fury for hours, so he could tell her the way out of this, but there she was. Right in front of my face. Dammit!
He knew it was the best place to hide for an ambush, training or not. And just when he thought he had the whole thing under control.
“It’s just a training scenario,” Jump’s instructors at the Rook had drilled that into every rook, “no more real than a dream. If you think of every situation that way, you’ll survive. Freak out, fly or freeze, and we’ll be scraping your shield off the wall for breakfast.”
So Jump ran it in his head as fast as he could—Syringe in my pocket. Gotta stick it and miss, then run. Frank’s gotta live—cocksucker, anyway. Kill that fucker later. That’s Mercedes on the left—shit day for her. Stop Fury from—
And he saw Fury’s head lift up a little and then she opened her eyes and whispered something to Mercedes.
Shit, Jump thought. Because that’s where every plan went once the shooting started.
Then the lights came on.
— CXIV —
I THINK I blink—some light hits my eyes and I squint. And that sends a shard of pain right behind my eye like a migraine, or a bad hang-day with Brie and Tessa, and then I see like, blinding light and my head.
Head’s on fire, I think. The pain is—it’s killing me. Everything hurts.
Where am I? I try to move. Still strapped to this … chair? Not where I…? The gurney—I was on my stomach. I try not to think about it, but it’s in there, burned into my mind.
Then there’s like, a voice … in my head. “Don’t move,” it says. And I’m just about to talk, when—“Don’t talk either.”
And I can’t help it. “What?”
“Stop!” the voice shouts into my mind. “Just like, think what you wanna say, okay? But don’t say shit.”
“Who are—?”
“Shut … up!” the voice is so loud that I wince and the pain spikes into my face. Then the voice is quieter, but not much, “Jesus, you’re such a stupid… You need to start listening. Another one of you I gotta tow. Listen, I say shut up, then like, you … shut up! As in, don’t talk out loud. They’re gonna hear you. And if they think you’re awake… I know it doesn’t make sense, just do it. Think at me.”
Who are you? Right now, that’s the only thing I wanna know. I’ll get to this chick bitching on me in a second.
“You won’t believe me,” the voice says, “so I’m not even telling you. But you’re in deep shit. And I’m not—it’s not happening, so I need you to stay quiet while I figure this out.”
Where’s Brie and Tessa? I think, and then I try to adjust in my seat, but the pain hits me hard and I groan a little.
“I said don’t move,” the voice says. “Anyways, they’re… It doesn’t matter.”
It so matters! I think at her. Maybe I’m cracked, but the voice in my head is a she. And I know Brie and Tess are dead, but I ask anyways, Are they…?
And there’s a pause and I hope that maybe my inner cracked-voice has skipped out on me, because—“Yes,” she says.
I know… I think. And I pause, trying to remember which time that was. We were in Cancun—the Tuaca and the Mexican Protection cell … and they got—I got—
“We’re fixing that,” my little voice says, “right now.”
How? I ask. My brain’s obviously cracking wide open like an egg, and you are like, some stupid voice in my head. And I guess I just wanna know. So I ask myself, Why do I hurt so bad?
“You jacked the mike and stole those Betty boots with Brie and Tess,” my voice says. “You don’t remember that? … Those PAs martialed you so bad—messed you up. That sick fucker! How can he … after that?”
What? I ask. My conscience is speaking in riddles now—Tess does that same shit. Totally pisses me off. Anyways, that’s what this voice is. I didn’t even think I had a conscience. I’m high, I think.
“You’re not high, idiot,” my conscience says. “And I’m not your conscience.”
I finally wince through it and get one eye all the way open and the other one a little bit, and I can see in front of me—“Oh … my God?” I mutter it softly, and then I try not to talk again. That’s me! I am so cracked. They shot me up with J and I’m sitting across from myself, and—
“Don’t lose it!” her voice booms in my head, but her lips aren’t moving and like, her eyes aren’t even open.
And we’re in a cell and I can see she’s taped to a chair like I was, and her head is down.
“I can smell them over there watching us,” she says it in a tone that scares me. And I mean, she’s not moving her mouth! “Pervs,” she clucks—like, that sounded like a bird.
I know I’m cracked, I think. Voice in my head and I can see myself? I check to see if it’s a mirror—no mirror.
“You’re not cracked, idiot,” my voice says. “You’re… Don’t try to figure it out,” she says, “just listen. In a couple minutes, two guys are coming through that door, and if you don’t do exactly like I say, you’re gonna get … you’re gonna get fucked up again. But I’m not letting that happen, redemption or not. I decided that shit.”
Raped. I know that’s what she’s talking about. I already… And when I tense up, like, every bone in my body feels like it cuts into my skin. And I grunt and wince and try to stop the pain. But I don’t scream this time. Whatever this is—Tuaca Blonde Bimbos, hallucination, bad Judgment trip—I don’t know, but everything before this felt real. So I’m listening, but this is another bad one. Why can’t I have the smooth trips? I think to myself.
Her voice says, “You’re not getting ra—”
Spare me, I think at her. I been in this dream—I know.
“No,” my voice replies, “because like…” Then she pauses for too long, like when I’m trying to make up some bullshit story about where I was before my dad had to credit-spring me from minimum. “…because you’re OD’ing right now, that’s why. God… Oh, now dammit, look what you made me—listen, you aren’t gonna remember most of this, but I gotta make sure you remember something.”
Who are…? I think, because I don’t like taking orders from—I don’t care if it is me, that’s just not happening!
“You already know,” my voice says. “Now, I want you to remember this. No matter what happens from here, you are not cracked. Don’t let that psych doctor tell you that shit. He’s fucking his secretary, anyways. I saw her touch his—”
Eww, I think. I don’t wanna hear that stuff. What’s that got to do with…?
“Sorry,” my voice says. “Anyways, don’t listen to him. Now, this is important, so you have to remember it. You’re gonna meet this girl, and you’re like, protecting her for me, okay. No bullshit … you’re doing it. Say it.”
What?
“Bitch, you’re gonna do it!”
My voice is pissed off now, because that’s how I get—I hate repeating myself for dumbshits who don’t listen.
“Because once I kill him,” she says, “I can’t go back … but you can … and you will.”
She is—now my inner voice is talking cracked. Kill who? I ask. Wait, go back to where?
“Look, it’s not that bad,” she says. “The dude’s an asshole, but he’s cool when it counts—he’ll take care of you. He’s kinda like … Mr. Nick.”
Nicholas? I think. That poly-psych guy?
But she isn’t listening to me. “You’re gonna go there—the fall’s the worst part,” she says, “but I couldn’t let him off for that either. Anyways, like I said, it’s better than this.”
Where … am I going?
There’s another one of those pauses. “Heaven,” she says, but I know that’s bullshit—that’s my lying voice, “and when you get there—”
Stop lying, I think at her. You want me to take care of … who do you want me to watch—oh … my-God … I’m dying?
“You’re such a bitch,” my voice chuckles at me, “I’ll tell you one thing, don’t say ‘God’ … like, ever!”
Why not? I ask, but I don’t think it long. So I am dying? Oh, that sucks.
“No, not now—you die later. You just have to—”
Look, you suck at this guardian angel shit, ya know. Because that’s who this bitch is.
“I’m not—”
Don’t even, I think to my little inner-angel voice. If I took a double dose of Judgment, I’m like, already dead. And an angel? I’m dead. Don’t bullshit me. What’s happening to me … right now? And I know this is just a Judgment trip, but my mother dragged me there, so I got that church shit in my head. Seriously, we’re going to Heaven? Then I hear the door handle.
My little inner-angel opens up her eyes, rolls them up without raising her head, and she looks at me. Then she smiles a little, but I never smiled like that before, and she—my face looks freaky. Then the smile goes away and that look is worse. And then she says, “Time’s up.”
The light flickers and then the floods hit me in the face—blinds me and I squint at them and the pain slices into me and I yell, “Aaaah!”
And then two men burst through the door … and the alarms start clanging.
— CXV —
ARE YOU LITTLE hatchlings ready? Because this just went from a round-trip to Cancun to a one-way to Vegas. You little purgies are about to get your wings wet, and there’s no Salvation here to help you.
Quiet! Do exactly what I tell you, and every last one of you pissing little shits will get back to the lake. Jack around whining like you been doing… Like I said, there’s only one way back now, and we better hurry, because—shit, they’re coming in the door!
Get in the shadows, get in the—put your wings behind you—shields, now!
— CXVI —
JUMP HADN’T NOTICED them before, but when the lights came on, they were pretty hard to miss. Hell, everyone could see them.
And the two men stopped cold in their tracks. They were so confused by it that they forgot to fire their weapons. Jump knew Fury would not.
“Aaah!” he watched her yell and spring up and out of her chair, tearing through the tape like it was paper. Then her wings ripped out of the center of her back and she screamed again. They spread wide and shivered and shook, and blood and chunks of flesh fell to the floor, destined to mix with the stains of countless other guests’ blood as it all headed to the stainless steel drain.
Jump watched Fury shiver her wings again like a dog shakes off water, and the remaining blood sprayed like mist and floated to the ground. Then all of her armored feathers pushed out and she let out a loud caw above her head.
The men who came through the door were highly trained and deadly, but Jump could see they had focused their initial attention and then confusion on the six little purgatories hovering along the left wall.
The h
atchlings had probably been hidden since Fury resurrected—it wasn’t easy to hide hatchlings with no camouflage training—but with the rest of the spotlights in the room on, now they were too obvious not to stare at. How could someone ignore a bunch of black-feathered, soon to be archangels in the first place? Jump almost laughed. Right in front of my face, he thought.
The interrogators stopped and stared like they were seeing … well, like they were seeing angels for the first time. Jump imagined they might even be thinking about all the souls they had tortured, raped and murdered in this very cell. And if these little angels in front of them were real, then what else was? Though … probably not.
Jump’s perception of the entire event, probably Fury’s too, was that of watching a slow-motion playback. To the interrogators, about to become meat, not to mention himself—the PAIC and Frank, the entire event would take less than a couple of seconds. Seconds that would ripple into the future of all their eternities, like the altered trajectory of a bullet—who knew what it would rip into now.
So when Jump saw Fury fold her wings and then spin and release a hail of orange-streaking fire-feathers at them, he wasn’t as surprised as the interrogators were.
Relatively speaking, the whole thing was over in an instant, but to the interrogators, watching a fully-fledged and feathered, avenging archangel from Hell shove out her plumage—come out of her Man-monkey camouflage right in front of them—the last few seconds of their lives felt like an eternity.
For about one instant, they might have thought that they could shoot the fairytale creature, but once it spun and fired flight feathers from its wings at them, they would soon find out just how a soul got those wings.
Orange quills cut through their arms and legs, severing at least two limbs that Jump could see. Then he knew what Fury was doing. She was a mean bitch when she got mad. He watched her casually walk over to both of the writhing and screaming interrogators, now on the floor of the cell, bleeding and pumping out their raping blood onto the floor.
TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3) Page 47