A Slither of Hope

by Lisa M Basso

  The metal against my neck retreated and the robber’s arms folded around my midsection. “It’s okay. Don’t… don’t let yourself go back there again.” He dragged me to the bed and set me down, which only sparked more fear—fear I easily retreated into.

  By the time the bedside lamp clicked on, I’d huddled in a ball on the bed, biting my lip to keep from screaming.

  The other robber must have fled as Kade rushed to my side from the lamp, kneeling beside the bed. “Ray.” He ran his fingers through my hair. His voice was soft, but firm. “You’re in our apartment. It’s November. You’re safe. No one else is here. It’s just you and me.” His hand cupped my cheek. “Just you and me.”

  I let his words tow me back to reality, fought the snarls of fear and emotion tangled in the past, and reminded myself the threat was long gone.

  When I finally started to measure my breathing, blood still roaring in my ears, Kade tilted his forehead to mine. “I won’t force calm on you. It kills me, but you have to do this on your own.”

  Kade’s power, his influence, was different. He’d said it came from a darker place than the angels’.

  Or more specifically, Cam’s.

  Longing for the angel ripped through me.

  Kade drew back, his eyes centered on me. His other hand never stopped stroking my hair.

  I could have closed my eyes and pretended. Pretended that Cam was the one here, touching me, but I didn’t.

  Cam had to leave.

  Kade could have left, too, and rid himself of the sixteen-year-old human girl with odd wings and a history of mental illness, but he didn’t.

  Guilt ripped through me as if my chest was protected by paper instead of skin, muscle, and bone, and Kade was a skilled surgical knife.

  “You sure got a raw deal,” Kade said, brushing my hair away from my face. “All the drawbacks of wings with none of the perks. Not to mention your swan dive off the bridge gave you one hell of a case of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  I blinked away Cam and the guilt of it all, not to mention the last shadowed images of the night I almost died and forced myself to sit up. “I told you before, I don’t have PTSD.” I was crazy enough before Cam and Kade showed up, shattering everything I thought I knew about life. And love. No way would I allow myself to add another issue to my already lacking garden of existence.

  Kade pulled away and sat on the bed. “If you say so, Blondie.” He flipped a strand of the tangled wig lying above me on the bed.

  Great, now I’d have to leave extra time tomorrow before work to brush the tangles out.

  Remembering the traumatic incident that brought on my PTSD—no, panic attack—I jerked my head toward the door. “Where’d the robber go?” I almost expected to see a ransacked room and the robber’s soulless, crumpled body on the floor, thanks to Kade’s Fallen hunger. But everything looked in order, even the drawer I kept my half of the rent in was closed. The rent money Kade never touched.

  He smirked and twirled the end of a silver shoehorn around his finger. “You froze again.”

  “It was you?” Anger buzzed through my whole body.

  “One day soon you’ll be a hot commodity in the angel and Fallen world. You need to be able to defend yourself.”

  “So you held a shoehorn to my neck to prove what exactly?”

  “That you need more practice.” He tossed the shoehorn over his shoulder and pushed off the mattress.

  “You…you—” While his back was turned, I leapt off the bed and onto his back. Kade flared his wings. My grip slipped, knocking me to the ground.

  Over his shoulder he said, “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”

  Fire flamed in my face and burned up my throat. “You’re such a—”

  He ambled toward the bay window. When he slid it open, cold fall air pushed its way in, boring through my jacket to chill my skin. “Language, Ray. Geez. I had my reasons.” He tucked his wings back and ducked through the opening. The rickety metal fire escape clanged under his weight.

  Strangling the air in front of me, I imagined wrapping my hands around his neck. “One of these days, I’m going to murder you in your sleep!” I called out to him as he climbed the ladder.

  “Good. I’ll be on the roof, if you want to give it a try now.”

  I didn’t budge from my spot on the floor. No way I’d take orders from him. On the other hand, the prospect of that day being today was way too good to pass up.

  I slammed my fists into the cheap, scratchy carpet. Time to seek some revenge.

  Chapter Three

  Rayna

  Kade waited with his arms crossed while I pulled myself up over the roof’s overhang. “Okay, because I feel a tiny bit guilty, the first one’s on the house.” He uncrossed his arms and tapped an index finger to his jaw.

  The teeth of my jacket’s zipper protested when I tugged it up. Damn it was cold up here. “I don’t need your freebies. I can get there myself this time.” Though I’d never been able to land a blow anywhere near his face yet, we’d been practicing almost every night for weeks now.

  I widened my stance the way he taught me on day one of practice, but decided to forego the stretching and centering. I had enough anger in me to make it through his defenses.

  After a sharp breath, I charged at him. He whirled around, slapping me forward with his wings like some sort of twisted revolving door. I tumbled forward, barely missing the planter boxes Kade built for me weeks ago. “I can’t believe you,” I threw over my shoulder, trying my best not to scream.

  “I get it. I’m a jerk, scum, the lowest of the low.” He faced me, backing up several steps so he was once again centered on the roof. “But I did it for your own good.”

  “Say that again and I’ll…” I slid my feet underneath me and lunged, keeping low, aiming for a hit in the stomach. He jabbed an open palm into my shoulder and sidestepped me.

  I seethed and dove in again, miraculously dodging his fist block. I tried for several different hits, high and low. He blocked them all, half with his hands and forearms, and the others with his wings. Each of my failed attempts brought me closer into the fold. After five or six more moves, I was near enough to wager a power hit. I shifted my weight onto my back leg and let loose, aiming my fist toward his chin. It traveled all of half a foot before he swept my leg out from under me with his wing.

  The loose rocks on the roof cushioned my fall, but shifted when he lowered his forearm over my neck. He applied just enough pressure to keep me from wriggling out from under him.

  “Where’s your head tonight?”

  With both my hands, I struggled to push his one arm off. “If I wanted to talk, I wouldn’t be up here fighting with you.”

  “Bad night?” he asked, that irritating fake concern slinking thorough his usually sexy voice.

  “None. Of. Your. Business.” With each word I pushed harder, desperately needing to not be this close to anyone right now. Especially him.

  His arm didn’t budge when he exhaled. Damn those sighs of his. Each one had a different meaning. I was fairly certain that quiet exhale of breath combined with the contemplating way his eyebrows knitted together meant a change of attitude was coming.

  “All right. Let’s try something different.” He released me and offered his hand.

  I pursed my lips. The rocks were starting to dig into my back, but I didn’t move, never one to give in to the handsome soul-sucker if I could help it.

  He sighed again. His loud, you exhaust and frustrate me sigh. This one I heard ten times more often than all the others combined.

  I bit back a smile.

  “Let’s try this again.” He reached forward, grabbed my hand, and yanked me to my feet. “New rules. For every hit you land, even a minor one, I’ll answer one of your questions.”

  My glare could have cut into him as I snatched my hand away. “You’ve been dodging my questions for weeks. Why bring this up now?”

  “You haven’t heard the rest of the rules. For every hi
t I land, you have to answer one of my questions.”

  I narrowed my eyes. He didn’t think I could land a hit. The idea was too tempting to turn down, my fury too volcanic to quit now. I could learn anything, about the Fallen, about Kade’s life, about the angels—or one angel in particular. “Complete honesty?”

  “Nothing but.”

  “Fine. Deal.”

  I didn’t wait for him to ready, and instead I swung a right cross headed straight for his chin. He deflected the blow. With my left elbow, I went for a jab. He blocked me again and had enough time to poke the front of my shoulder with his index finger.

  With a self-satisfied grin on his face he said, “That’s one for me. What’s on your mind?”

  “Too vague,” I threw over my shoulder—more into my wing than at him—as I tried to pace my frustration away. I wasn’t about to get into everything crowding my thoughts. Not after just one poke. My cheeks flushed at the unintentional innuendo.

  “What happened with Lee?”

  Shit.

  “He showed. We had hot chocolate and watched the tree lighting.”

  “Too vague,” he fired back at me.

  “Okay,” I drew the word out, loath to tell him anything after the crap he pulled downstairs. “He showed, eventually.” I spun around so I wouldn’t have to look at him when I unloaded the rest. “He was almost half an hour late. It was cold. I was miserable. He didn’t look happy to see me. When he finally spoke to me he said my dad talked to him and his mom. So now they know I’m a mental case, which I never, never wanted him to know.” I drew in a breath and realized I was fisting my hands through my hair. I dropped them to my sides. “To add a cherry on top, he didn’t show up alone. He brought his girlfriend or something. She said more to me than he did and I barely know her.”

  “Ah, a girlfriend.”

  I whirled to face him. “What do you mean, ‘ah, a girlfriend’? Did you miss the part where my best friend said like twelve words to me and couldn’t even look at me?”

  Kade cleared his throat. He did this almost as much as he sighed. A throat clearing meant one of two things: either he was uncomfortable, or he wanted my attention. Since he already had my attention, my bet landed on the former. The fact that I’d made him uncomfortable warmed my stomach a little. It was annoying to be around someone so… unflinchingly confident all the time.

  “I get it,” was all he said before extending his wings. Their black feathers reached far beyond eight feet, and pricks of silver illuminated the rooftop and my surrounding secret garden. “Now don’t forget to account for the wings, too. They’ll be taking to the sky to gain advantage, twisting, darting, and diving.”

  “Then why haven’t you showed me that?” I ground out through gritted teeth.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re not ready for that yet.”

  I rolled my eyes and pushed my own shoulders back. It was the only way I knew to move my own awkward wings, which were so much smaller than Kade’s. Their size made them almost comical. Thankfully the only two that had seen them—other than me—had never mentioned how, even among freaks, I was king.

  “You started this sick game for a reason. What is it you really want to know?”

  “How you’re doing.” His voice was controlled flatness. Kade was a man drowning that didn’t even know he was in trouble.

  Because, boy, he’d just pushed the wrong button.

  I flung my arms up, just short of screaming, “What makes you think you have any idea what I’m going through? And why do you care anyway?”

  Kade’s fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned sheet-white. It could have been my imagination, but I swore the silver shimmers in his wings burned brighter. “Are you really going to make me say it? Even though you have feelings for someone else and can’t seem to let him go? Even though I chose to be here for you every single day?” His entire body shook with barely contained rage. “I was here, Ray. Me.” He slammed his chest with an open palm. “Where was he?” He dropped his hands and stowed his wings away. When he turned on his heel, his fingers pushed back in his hair. I could see more than hear his quick breaths, watching his shoulders rise and fall like an angry movie villain. By the time he glanced over his wing, he was calm. His voice was quiet, though he didn’t make an effort to look at me. “You want to punish me by making me say it aloud?”

  My stomach crumpled like a ball of paper filled with all the wrong answers. All this time we’d spent together I’d thought we were trying a friendship.

  “I meant, is it because I’m her daughter?” I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me that Kade Fell for my mother, or that I didn’t think about it every time we got close.

  “A month ago I would have said yes. And no. I knew who you were when I saw you that first night at the diner, and not just because you look like her. I’ve seen you before.”

  “When?” He could have been baiting me again—he liked to do that—but this time I didn’t care.

  “When you were a child, and again as a teenager being sent away to your first mental institution. And when you moved here. I watched your father instruct the movers exactly where to put your bed in your room, then that night, I watched you wait until he turned off the lights downstairs and push your bed to the opposite wall by yourself.”

  His words left me in a full-blown, mouth-wide-open, what-the-hell-was-he-talking-about stupor. My breath came unevenly and I drew my hand up to cover my mouth. I remembered doing exactly what he said my first night in San Francisco.

  All this time living with him, sharing one room for nearly a month, and he didn’t think to tell me he stalked me as a child?

  “I know what it’s like to watch everything, everyone around you change and grow. To watch the one person you thought you loved get married, have children, all while you’re stuck in the same strange time warp, unable to move forward.” He walked toward me, his soft footsteps barely disturbing the rocks beneath him.

  I took one step back, but one step was all I could muster.

  He slipped his fingers up the base of my neck and through my hair, to rest his forehead against mine. Chills tingled the top of my head. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t fight our closeness or the irregular pitter-patter of my heart. And I couldn’t fight the urge to lean into him. Even while part of me still wanted to see him bruised and bloody.

  His lips parted. He smelled of mint and soap. The stubble along the lower part of his jaw brushed my cheek. He was so close, his lips inches from mine.

  Unwelcome wanting snaked through me. I tilted my chin up, to prove his tactics wouldn’t scare me.

  He leaned closer. Our lips almost touched. His hold in my hair tensed. But he didn’t close the quarter-inch of distance.

  The longer we stood so maddeningly close, the duller my good sense became. Soon, I’d be waiting for Kade to kiss me. To feel the opposite of unwanted for once. To feel so close to someone again, even for only a minute. To let the world fall away and lose myself in this one moment.

  “This has to be your decision,” he said, voice soft and low. Sensual.

  And Oh God, I couldn’t help the shiver that crept up my spine.

  I opened my eyes. With his lips parted and waiting, there was something I had to know. “How does the whole, uh, soul sucking thing work?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “A lot like this, actually.”

  My heart, on the other hand, might have. “Oh.”

  “I’d be closer.” He rested his hand on the small of my back and pulled me against him, only our clothes separating our flesh.

  “Obviously.” My voice came out breathier than I intended.

  Warmth radiated from his body. I parted my lips and let my fingers twine in the side seam of his sweater, my hand somewhere near his hip. His right heel lifted and lowered, bouncing in an impatient gesture, but he didn’t close the distance between us. He was waiting for me to seal the deal.

  “We’d be…a little more lost in the moment. I’d make sure
you couldn’t run.” His fingers tightened in my hair.

  I swallowed, worry inching me out of his spell. “Why is that necessary? Does it hurt?”

  “That’s more for their benefit. Things can get hairy if they struggle.” My brows pulled together. “I’m a hunter, after all. If they were to fight, they could…get hurt.”

  Hurt, like killed?

  I pulled back an inch at the thought. That one, single inch was enough to alert Kade.

  His fingers relaxed and he untwined his hold on my hair. He straightened up and swallowed.

  I’d sobered enough to keep from making a mistake—this time. Falling into something with Kade, no matter how good—or bad—it sounded, wouldn’t be right. Especially with my feelings still wrapped up in Cam. I didn’t need any more complications.

  The stretching silence had us both looking everywhere but at each other. The tension tangled between us like so many complex knots, the ropes all taxed to their breaking point.

  “I thought you understood,” he said. “That you’d never have to worry about me hurting you, or feeding on you.” He backed up, his wings slowly unfurling, only noticeable at the tips. “But I guess I was wrong.” He stomped, not like a toddler having a fit, but more like a beast pillaging a village. He turned and stepped off the corner of the roof.

  I rushed to the edge, watched him glide across the night sky. Angels and the Fallen may not be able to fly often, but Kade once told me gliding was better anyway and didn’t come at the same cost. Whatever that might be. It wasn’t like he made a habit of telling me things.

  His silver-coated wings disappeared in the distance, leaving me to find a way to sort out my feelings. For Cam. For Kade. For Lee. And for the strange buzzing my wings had done back at the pier.