Flying, p.1
Flying, page 1
part #5 of Girl With Broken Wings Series
Flying
Girl With Broken Wings, Book Five
By J Bennett
Copyright © 2016 by Endeavor Reads
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content
Chapter 1 – Maya
Red.
Rich shades of pained scarlet dance through the auras of the three people around me. My brothers grunt softly as their shovels cut into the soil. I offered to help dig the grave, but Gabe only shook his head. Dr. Lee practically raised my brothers with his dry wit and the blistering threat of his disappointment, and I think it’s important for them to do this last thing for him on their own.
I close my eyes to douse the red and turn my ears away from their efforts. Instead, I listen to the sigh of the wind as it shakes through the pine trees around us. If I concentrate, I can hear a single pine needle snapping away above my head and tumbling into the wind.
I listen. Anticipate. Hold out my hand. The pine needle curves gently into the palm of my glove. I open my eyes and look hard at the dry brown quill.
You’re dead now, I think to it. Just like that. A single gust of wind and it’s all over.
I turn my hand down and let the pine needle fall onto the carpet of forest at my feet. In the pit, Tarren and Gabe pause in their labor. They glance around, measuring the length and depth of the hole. Without words, they decide that the hole is wide enough. Deep enough. We’ve all gotten good at this silent knowing. Too good. They heft their shovels up and over the side of the pit.
How many graves have we opened and closed this year already? I do the calculation, dialing through the months. It’s June now, and we’ve buried 62 bodies since January, many in pairs or small groups, stacked on top of each other like a cord of wood. The angels like to run in packs these days. We’ve been having to dig deeper, wider holes to fit them all.
But this grave is different.
Francesca, standing off to the side with me, wraps her arms around her waist and tries to stifle a sob. A teardrop runs down the curve of her beautiful olive face. I look at the body lying on the ground near us wrapped in a pristine white sheet. Even if secrecy weren’t required, I think Dr. Lee would have preferred this simple forest burial to something with pomp and tradition. Here, at least, he is surrounded by his friends, both the living and the dead.
I glance around the grove my eyes landing briefly on the three separate piles of stones that already speak of my brothers’ loss.
I’ve seen so much death since I met my brothers three years ago; become a specialist at delivering it. I know how fast it can happen – a bullet cutting the thread of life as easily as the wind plucked that needle from the overhead pine tree. So why am I so shocked?
I knew Dr. Lee was sick long before my brothers, and I watched those murky brown speckles of heart disease in his aura expand into gruesome blotches that seemed to suck away the rest of his colors. His aura had been so frail when we were home two months ago, nothing more than an insipid brown veil clinging to his wasted frame. He’d been tied to an oxygen tank, his skin turned to thin parchment wrapped around his bones. Even Gabe couldn’t deny the truth of it, though he tried his damned hardest.
Gabe pulls himself out of the grave first. Dirt clings to his damp Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt. His lucky baseball cap tames his wavy caramel hair, always a few inches too long. The fabric of his t-shirt sticks to his chest, hinting at his lean, lethal frame. His big brown eyes, so often dancing with amusement, are dull with heartbreak. His aura oozes red, almost like his soul is bleeding.
Maybe it is.
Gabe is taking it the worst. He started drinking on the way back from Chattanooga, and he still isn’t entirely sober.
Tarren follows his brother out of the grave. His tight athletic shirt shows off his muscled arms and defined chest. Despite our recent nonstop schedule on the road, he somehow manages to keep his chocolate hair trimmed short and precise, and his jaw clean-shaven. His flushed face is streaked with mud. I know he’s not purposefully trying to look like a rugged action movie hero, but with his high cheekbones, pale blue eyes, and that long, shiny scar crawling along his jaw, it happens a lot anyway. He’s got to be burning up in his long-sleeved shirt and jeans, but it’s a price he gladly pays.
I imagine an army of tiny Tarrens inside of his chest right now building new walls and moats and a portcullis around his heart. When he got the call, a single wave of intense red spliced through his aura like a knife wound, and then it was gone. I remember him nodding, the phone at his ear, his face tight with control. Just that little, definitive nod while Francesca sobbed on the other end.
Tarren walks over to the small, white bundle that used to be Dr. Lee and pauses. The pale hues of pink in his aura dampen to crimson. Gabe told me that Tarren carried the body of our mother, Diana, all the way from our home to this grove after she died of cancer. Is he remembering that moment now? How light her wasted body felt in his arms?
He bends and picks up Dr. Lee easily, as if all that history and emotion weighed nothing. He is gentle, almost reverent with his burden as he steps back down into the grave. Even though Canton Fox’s gravestone is here in this grove, my brothers are burying their true father today.
Francesca claps a hand over her mouth as her shoulders shake with sobs. The tears rush down her cheeks now. I should be sad too, but I feel only the normal emptiness. Dr. Lee’s death just makes that hole bigger. The emptiness terrifies me. It seems like all I have inside of me is the emptiness and this fierce, terrible love for my brothers and for Rain. Nothing else can fit inside of me, except…
Francesca’s aura shimmers with her pain. Such deep, glowing reds. They pull at me.
The hunger.
I curl my hands into fists and look up at the sky, even though I know the clouds haven’t shifted. The sun barely trickles through, giving the entire sky a sad, gray countenance like it is setting a gloomy scene just for us. The air is humid and buggy. These damned clouds have been holding the sun hostage since we got back this morning. Already I feel the hunger beginning to gnaw at the back of my mind. The monster is waking from her deep slumber.
Gabe moves to Francesca and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, gathers her in his arms, smearing her black blouse with mud in the process. He’s been keeping his distance from her ever since that whole coma episode two and a half years ago, but his love is true as ever. Purple hues of passion bloom in his aura, mixing strangely with his grief. Gabe’s undying, unrequited love for Francesca is old news, but something has changed. As Francesca leans back, resting her head on Gabe’s shoulder, I see a jumble of colors flit through her aura, among them strands of deep purple. And then, before I can begin to analyze them, those bright, powerful colors are gone, washed away in painful reds.
Tarren pulls himself out of the grave, and from my vantage point I can just barely see the edge of the white sheet, pristine against the chunky dirt.
I’m glad I got a picture of Dr. Lee for the collage, I think. Gabe’s 26th birthday is a little over a month away, but I’ve been preparing his birthday gift all year, secretly taking pictures when I can. Tarren would never allow the collage I’m planning if I were dumb enough to tell him about it. “Blah, blah, blah, dangerous,” he’d say. “Blah, blah, blah, irresponsible. You’ll kill us all.”
And he’d scowl. Oh how he’d scowl at me. So mum’s the word. Actually, mum’s kind of my standard Tarren policy these days. On account of my forbidden and torrid love affair. Rain always rolls his eyes when I call it that. I feel a prickle of shame in my stomach for thinking of Rain, feeling my nethers heat up while we’re saying goodbye to someone I cared about.
I took my last picture of Dr. Lee before the oxygen tank, but he still looked frail; ill. That expression on his face of I’m-so-not-amused-with-your-dumb-assery was classic Dr. Lee, though. Gabe will appreciate it. He earned that expression more than any of us. Now that single picture is priceless.
Tarren stares down into the grave, at the bundle and seems uncharacteristically unsure of what to do. I think he’s going to say something, but then he looks to Gabe. “You’ll say it better than I can.”
Gabe nods. He doesn’t let go of Francesca. “Dr. Lee was a good man,” he starts. “A cranky man, but a good man.”
Francesca’s mouth twitches into a short smile.
“He was a part of this fight, though it wasn’t by his choosing,” my brother continues, the words coming naturally as they always do with him. “He had to give up everything when the angels found out about him. He had to run, and he ended up here.”
The emptiness throbs inside of me. I guess emptiness can throb. I know all about running. About losing everything. Even my humanity.
“To Dr. Lee, this little patch of nowhere was a prison sentence, but to us he was a godsend,” Gabe says. His face is becoming more animated, those blunt eyebrows lifting and humor sparking in his honey-colored eyes. “Okay, not always a godsend,” he says. “Tarren, remember that time Tammy dared me to climb on the roof and then I couldn’t get down? I was up there – what, four, five hours?”
“Two and a half,” Tarren says.
“God damn, the sunburn,” Gabe says with a whistle. “Mom was gone and Dr. Lee w alked over to check on us. So pissed, right Tarren?”
“Very unhappy with you,” Tarren confirms, and there’s just a trace of a smile on his lips.
“He pulled me in through the window of Mom’s bedroom, made me strip down to my tighty-whiteys, and practically dumped a bottle of aloe on my head. And then we each had to stand in the corner. The corner! How old-school is that? And you kept arguing about how you weren’t involved. God, I think you actually referenced Switzerland in that argument. A lot of good that did you.”
Tarren nods. “Dr. Lee said that we were family. That we rise and fall together.”
And here we are, a family reunited in this grove. Around us, three separate piles of stones mark the ones who have fallen. On the top of each pile is a stone with a name gouged into its surface. To my right is a stone emblazoned with the name of Canton Fox, the father who first took on the heavy mantle of the mission. Next to his empty grave is the marker for his wife, Diana Fox. Was she a caring and compassionate mother as Gabe insists, or a callous woman who turned her own children into soldiers? If she wouldn’t have given me up as an infant, perhaps I would know.
My eyes linger on the third pile of stones just behind Tarren and the name carved on the top stone. Tammy Fox. The mysterious sister. I assume she had a much bigger role in this story than Gabe is letting on, but he won’t mention her more than necessary. Even the sound of his twin’s name causes the reds to deepen in Tarren’s aura. I’ll ask Gabe about the full story later. He’ll tell me. The pain of remembering her never stops him from describing her stormy anger and her deep belly laughs. How she loved danger, but would also sing him lullabies when he was a little kid on those nights when Diana left them alone to hunt angels.
Where are you right now, mysterious Tammy? I think.
I could always ask Tarren, but I decided a year and a half ago to let him keep this whopper secret from me, from Gabe. He must have a reason for letting us believe that Tammy is dead, and the only thing I can think of is that it’s to protect Gabe somehow. For Gabe, I allow Tammy to be gone, to be eternally human, to be mourned.
“He was always there for us,” Gabe is saying when I tune back into his rambling eulogy. “Hell, he delivered Maya. He was the first person in the world you ever met.” Gabe’s brown eyes are on me, and I see a slight glint of humor even among his pain. Gabe has his own armor. “Probably gave you a nice smack on your ass.”
“Probably,” I say, wondering again what Dr. Lee thought when Diana packed her children into her car two weeks after I was born, drove off, and returned without me.
“He was always trying to get us to read boring classic books, telling us stories about grasshoppers and ants that had important morals at the end, and basically pointing out what dumb asses we were growing up. Well, mostly me. He actually liked Tarren.”
Gabe’s arms tightens around Francesca, and she puts her hands on top of his. “But he loved all of us. He took care of us when our mom was…busy. He read to us at night. He made dinner when Mom’s leftovers ran out. When we got older, he worried for us. Gave us a reason to come home. He saved my life, not just during comapoolza. He saved us by loving us. By always being a rock in this crazy, shit-filled life. Shit, sorry Francesca. He hated when I cussed.”
“It’s okay,” she says and doesn’t seem to notice the dirt smearing her palms from her contact with Gabe’s hands.
Gabe takes a big, steadying breath. “I can’t believe I’m never going to get another lecture from him. I just want to hear him to say, ‘Gabriel Fox, I’ve known you since you were a butt naked three-year-old running into walls with a pan on your head. And you haven’t gotten any smarter since!’”
Gabe does a great Dr. Lee impression, and we all giggle sadly. Apparently sad giggles are a thing. Maybe Gabe invented them.
“Damn, I’m going to miss him,” Gabe says. He looks over at me, his eyes soft. “Got anything you want to say, Maya?”
Words fill my mind, each embedded into a vivid image. I see Dr. Lee’s tanned face, his pepper and salt hair, and the intelligent, no-nonsense black eyes peering from behind his glasses. His whole aura seemed filled with a wry sense of futility. He once said, I pray every day that I die before them, meaning my brothers.
You got your wish, Dr. Lee, I think, though my greatest and growing fear is that he won’t have much of a lead on us.
“Maya?” Gabe asks.
The others are staring at me. “I’ll miss him, too,” I murmur and cringe. Hopefully Dr. Lee will forgive me for those puny, inadequate words. Not that I believe he’s anywhere except in the ground at our feet.
“Francesca?” Gabe looks to her.
“He was a good man,” she says, her voice catching, her words curling with her Italian accent. “A very good man. So stubborn though. But good. He loved you all so much. I saw it whenever you came over. He felt like your father. And he was so kind to me. Letting me live with him. I didn’t deserve it.”
She touches her nose with her tissue, and even now, with her eyes puffy as marshmallows and not a speck of makeup on her face, she is still a rocking ten. The wind ripples through her glossy black hair just to reiterate the point.
Gabe slips his arms from Francesca’s shoulders and grabs a handful of dirt. Tarren does the same. I move in close and clutch my handful of earth from the pile. Francesca comes up last, hiccupping with tears, and digs in for a small handful. Gabe’s and Francesca’s auras are large around me. Tarren’s energy is a controlled arc, almost motionless. I hold in the need, the whisper of the monster.
We each toss in our crumbs of earth. Gabe and Tarren pick up their shovels.
A deep shudder hits me. We feed death so often with our enemies, but his appetite is never satisfied. How much longer can we outrun, outmaneuver, and outwit him? How much longer until more grave markers rise up in this grove and only Francesca is left to shed tears for us?
What terrible, sour thoughts. I need to text Rain. I need to lay my head on his chest and just listen to his heart beat.
Chapter 2 – Gabe
I should be a lot sadder. Dr. Lee deserves that. But mostly, I’m pissed.
Heart failure. What a load of shit. The man had more heart than any of us. Didn’t he know that he was supposed to live forever in this cabin that smells just a little like old newspapers and authority? I didn’t give him permission to grow old overnight. God, the last time we saw him, he was like a skeleton with a pulse. It reminded me too damn much of my mom, how tiny she got. People aren’t supposed to shrink. Especially giants.
I sit in the corner of Dr. Lee’s bedroom and watch Francesca fold his shirts into a neat little pile. The bed is covered by the same plain gray comforter that he’s had ever since I was a kid. How the hell is that thing still in one piece? I remember throwing up on it more than once when I had the flu as a kid. How many times did we drag our scraped knees and muddy elbows onto that gray comforter so that Dr. Lee could patch us up?
My eyes start to burn again. Focus on Francesca.
Normally this is the least difficult thing in the world to do. I’d forget to breathe before I’d lose sight of her in a room. Today her blouse is a sheer number with a black tank top underneath. The light shines on her through the window, giving me tantalizing glimpses of her shoulders and arms through the blouse. If I caught a glimpse of a little side boob, I think I could die happy.
Bad, bad joke.
I watch her fingers work, those beautiful hands that can fix anything. Even me, apparently. God, that’s the second-to-last thing I want to think about. The coma episode was almost three years ago, but it won’t ever leave me alone. She shouldn’t have seen me like that; cared for me like I was some 90-year-old invalid.
Luckily, my awesome sidekick saves me from these soul-cringing memories. I look over and see Sir Hopsalot standing in the doorway, his gray nose wriggling up and down. He’s gotten a little chunky under Francesca’s watch, but I don’t blame the guy. If I could lounge around all day eating lettuce and hay, you’d better believe I’d be all over that. Except instead of lettuce, it’d be cheeseburgers and instead of hay it’d be more cheeseburgers with a flask of Jack Daniels on the side.
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