Leaping (9 page)

I wonder if he thinks I’m going to
argue. Tarren might, but this has needed to happen for a long time. Ignorance
is bliss until it gets dangerous. I smile at Francesca to try and squelch the
clear nerves that light her aura in bright yellows.

I nod. “It’s time. She’ll be safer
if she knows.”

Gabe swallows and looks generally
miserable. I don’t blame him. He wants Francesca out of this world as much as I
want Rain to never so much as think of climbing a tree or holding a gun again.

“It will be hard to believe,” he
says to Francesca, “but I’ll tell you everything. All of it.” He holds out his
arm to her. Francesca pauses and looks to me. She has a right to be scared
about where he might lead her. After all, she’s only seen our injuries, our
weapons, the long stretches of absence. For all she knows, we’re crazy cult
members, hired assassins, or a secret Russian terrorist cell.

I give her a small nod. She tucks
her hair back behind her ear and slides her arm through Gabe’s. His aura pulses
at her touch, but he keeps his face smooth.

“Okay, so once upon a time there
was a scientist named Gary Cook who wanted to make the world a better place…”

His voice trails off as I step
inside our room to check on our patient.

***

I sit on the edge of the bed and
watch Rain’s eyelids twitch with dreams. I wonder if penguins are dancing through
his mind. That’s another quirk he told me about – he dreams of penguins.
Sometimes every night for a week or more.

 “Heart disease,” Dr. Lee says
behind me as he packs up his bag. “I’ve had it for years. Runs in the family.”

I glance at the doctor and watch
the brown splotches drift through his aura. “How bad is it?”

The look he gives me is answer
enough. The sheets pull on the bed, and I realize I’m clenching fistfuls of
fabric in each hand. “Are you going to die?”

“Everyone dies, Maya.” I expect bitterness,
not the touch of humor I hear in his voice. “I’ve lived a long life already,”
he adds.

Not long enough,
I think.
“Gabe and Tarren don’t know.” This isn’t a question. Gabe wouldn’t be able to
keep something like this from me, and Tarren would never have asked him to come
all the way out here for Rain.

“They have enough burdens.” Dr. Lee
picks up his big medical bag, and it must be my imagination, but his hand seems
thinner than it was this morning, almost skeletal. I want to snatch the bag out
of his grip and carry it for him. “I pray every day that I die before them.”

There’s the bitterness. I follow
his gaze to Rain, and I don’t need to interpret his aura to know his thoughts.
He thinks that the mission is a fool’s errand. If it were up to Dr. Lee, he
would have called in the National Guard the moment he learned about angels and
let the government deal with the threat. Canton and Diana Fox believed that the
angel network had already infiltrated the government. They didn’t trust anyone
except each other. Gabe has told me that Diana gave all of her children a
choice when it came to accepting the mission. Only Tarren declined, but Tammy’s
death changed things. Changed him.

“I won’t say anything,” I tell Dr.
Lee.

“I know. I wrote instructions for him.
I want to see him again in two weeks.” Dr. Lee nods over to Rain. “Will you
have any trouble getting medicine for him?”

I shake my head. Sir Hopsalot jumps
up from his lounging position in the corner and grabs a long piece of hay out
of the little tub that Gabe set up for his pet. The
crunch, crunch, crunch
of
his chewing plays a melody behind our conversation.

“Our kit is stocked. Gabe has a
special talent for picking up meds on the street,” I tell the doctor. Speaking
of my extroverted brother, my sixth sense picks up on his aura moving closer.

I open the door just as he holds
out the swipe card. Francesca stands behind him, her aura a cascade of jerking
colors. I take a step back and press my hands against each hip. Gabe’s expression
is hard in a way I definitely don’t like.

His eyes find mine, and the
intensity in them unnerves me. “Maya, show Francesca your hands.”

“What?” I ball my hands into fists
and pull them behind my back.

“Please,” Gabe says.

“It’s okay,” Francesca stammers, “I
believe, I really…”

I hold Gabe’s gaze. He knows
exactly what he’s asking of me, and he’s asking anyway. I turn to Francesca. “Come
here,” I tell her.

The chewing noises stop as the gray
bunny stares at me with his liquid black eyes. He makes a decision and hauls tail
under the bed. I look at Gabe again to make sure he’s ready. That he really
wants me to do this. Francesca takes small steps toward me, and I watch
buttercup yellows swirl in her aura. This is what her fear looks like. Her fear
of me. And she should be afraid. Gabe has told her that I feed off the energy
of living creatures. He probably made all sorts of excuses for me, told
Francesca how I was different – a hybrid angel – how I use Tarren’s prism of
mirrors to absorb energy from the sun and only occasionally snack on rats. But
that doesn’t change what I am.

A freak.

A monster.

A thing that lurks in the night.

“Stop there,” I say sharply when
she’s just out of arm’s reach.

Francesca stares at me with big,
dark eyes. It’s funny, the longer I know her, the more I forget how beautiful
she is until it springs on me, like right now when her glowing aura highlights
her high cheekbones, the long spill of her black hair around her shoulders, and
her curvy figure. Even amidst my anxiety, I wonder again what she’s doing
hidden away in Dr. Lee’s cabin in the middle of nowhere. She could have her
pick of men, probably even get her face on billboards if she wanted. But she
spends her days cleaning house for an aging doctor, sewing my family back
together, and taking nursing classes at the local college.

I shake my head to clear my
thoughts. The mysterious origins of Francesca will have to be solved another
day. I have far more important things to focus on, like not killing everyone in
this room.  Slowly, I tug the fingerless glove off my left hand. At first
glance, my hand looks completely normal. It’s only when I uncurl my fingers
that a keen observer would notice two thick lines Xing across my palm, deeper
and darker than the usual creases. I let out a short breath and allow my
natural instincts to take over. Heat builds in my palm, and a pale glow throbs
from beneath the surface of my skin. Francesca’s aura arcs higher, and my body
automatically responds, that animal part of me creeping closer to the surface.
The skin of my palms splits and pulls back like curling petals.

Francesca gasps, but she doesn’t
step back or turn away.

The glow is bright now, emanating
from the center of my palm.
And now, for my final trick…
A purplish,
vein-covered bulb lifts out from the glowing cavern in my palm. I feel the
second bulb in my right hand pushing against my glove.

“This is what attaches to the
aura,” I say. The sound of my words is far away as I focus on containing the
need. My hunger fills the room, fills my bones, fills every empty space inside
of me with a song only I can hear. “This is how I feed.”

Francesca’s aura jumps, and it
hurts like the lash of a whip. I hold myself still, gritting my teeth, forcing
my feet to stay planted. The monster part of me is close to the surface playing
with the levers of my brain, and it’s been too long since I’ve fed. I can’t
help the choked sob that bubbles up out of my throat as I turn toward the wall
and tuck my hand into my body. Their auras beat against my consciousness,
pulling the monster out. I’m too close to Rain, and he’s completely vulnerable.
In my mind’s eye, I can see myself leaping on top of him, my palm connecting to
his bright aura. Would Gabe shoot me? Could he do it?

“Maya,” Gabe says.

“Don’t,” I pant. “Just give me….” I
squeeze my eyes shut and take another step forward until I feel the wall brush
my shoulder.

“Francesca, come here. Get behind
me,” Gabe says. His voice is calm, but I feel the rising pulse of his aura.  “Dr.
Lee, you too.”

“It’s okay,” I manage. I force my
breath out in even whooshes as I push the monster and the music back.

“Maya.” The voice is soft. Sad. I
turn my head and force my eyes open. Rain sits up in the bed, and his hair is
ridiculous. Flattened on one side, wild and spiky on the other. I snort out a
laugh as my hands tremble. “You’re doing good. Get the control back.” He smiles
at me, and that isn’t helping my concentration at all.

I shut my eyes again and force the
bulbs to retreat into the pits of my palms. Finally, the skin unfurls back over
my palms, sealing along the X pattern.

Rain saw me,
I think.
He
saw my utter freakitude.
Rain has always known what I am, but this is the
first time he’s actually seen the whole angel show. What if it disgusted him?
Or scared the shit out of him?

I turn back around to find four
sets of eyes on me. Francesca stands against the wall next to the door behind
Gabe, and I notice that he’s pushed his coat back, giving him easy access to
his tranq gun. Rain is giving me one of those,
You okay?
Looks.

Tears glide down Francesca’s round
cheeks, and her aura snaps and flickers with ribbons of yellow. I’ve given her
a monster to fear in the darkest part of the night. Only Dr. Lee looks unfazed
from his corner of the room.

“I’m sorry,” I say roughly to
everyone. I give Gabe a nod, and he lets his coat drop back into place.

“Thank you,” he says, though he
doesn’t look thankful at all.

Francesca brings a shaking hand up
to her eyes to scrub her tears away. Gabe turns to her, and the flush of red in
his aura is all regret. “You were never supposed to get involved,” he says. “We
were going to stay away, keep you out of it, but then I got hurt and they
didn’t have a choice…” The red pierces deeper into his aura. His eyes are round
and ardent with emotion. “Francesca, you have to go. You can’t help us anymore.
You can’t stay with Dr. Lee. It’s too dangerous.”

“Hold on,” Dr. Lee says, but Gabe
cuts off his next words.

“Maya was taken earlier this year.
They interrogated her, and not in a nice way. That could happen again. Any one
of us might get captured. If they find out that you’ve helped it won’t matter
what you knew and didn’t know. They’ll come after you. They’ll kill you.”

Gabe reaches for Francesca but
stops. His hand hangs in the air, so close to hers, as if he suddenly realized
she would break with a touch. Or maybe I have it the wrong way around.

 “When you get back to the cabin, you
have to pack your things and leave. Get a new life. Forget that we ever
existed.” Gabe’s voice cracks, and I think his heart might be cracking too. All
I see in his aura is red. Pain, pain, pain. I press my shoulder hard into the
wall.

“Don’t come back,” Gabe says. “Don’t
contact…”

“No.” Francesca’s voice is so soft,
it’s almost a whisper, but it stops Gabe. Tears drip off her chin. “I won’t
leave. This is my home. You’re my friends.”

“You’re in danger!” Gabe’s voice is
desperate.

“It’s my choice.”

“Francesca…”

“You should have told me sooner!”

Whoa. Of all the responses I might
have predicted, this isn’t it. I wouldn’t have begrudged Francesca if she’d
fled the room screaming or grabbed her phone and called in the nearest S.W.A.T.
team. But she’s not terrified or disgusted. She’s angry. I didn’t think her
soft, gentle programming even included an anger mode.

“We were trying to protect you!”
Now Gabe is angry, and his cheeks flush red as his voice rises. “You can’t
stay. I won’t let you.”

For one teeny tiny second, I think
she might actually slap him. I wouldn’t blame her.

Francesca’s aura dances with red
flames. “No!” she shouts and walks out of the room, shoving the door closed
hard behind her.  

Maybe it’s the two days without
sleep, all the worry about Rain still sitting on my brain like layers of shale,
or just my own inherent craziness, but I can’t stifle the giggle.

Gabe whirls to me. “How is this
funny?”

“No…definitely….not at all,” I say,
but the snort betrays me. I try really, really hard not to remember Francesca’s
pissed expression. Dr. Lee looks at me, and his mouth quirks up. Dammit, that
pushes me even closer to the edge. I turn toward the wall and bite my lip.

“Talk to her,” Gabe demands of Dr.
Lee. “Make her see some goddamn sense!”

Now Dr. Lee sounds a little pissed.
“I spent fifteen years begging your mother to stay home, raise her children,
look after her health. I told you and Tarren and Tammy to build different
lives. To be a part of the world. I’ll tell Francesca the same thing, and I’ll
mean it, but she’ll make her own choice, just like your mother did and just
like you did, Gabriel Fox.”

Zinger. Dr. Lee is my new hero. I
take a shaky breath and turn back toward the room. Dr. Lee takes slow steps toward
the door. When he reaches it, he looks at me. “Two weeks.” He nods to Rain who
has wisely kept quiet through the proceedings.

“Just talk to her,” Gabe says
again. The anger is gone from his voice, replaced with exhaustion. He leans
against the wall as if his bones are too tired to hold him up. Dr. Lee closes
the door, and Gabe pulls a hand through his hair like he always does when he’s
stressed.

“I’m going out,” Gabe says. “Don’t
wait up.”

This announcement occurs exactly
sixty seconds after Francesca and Dr. Lee’s exit. I’m kneeling in front of our
coolers, reaching in for a water bottle.

“Hey man,” Gabe adds nodding toward
Rain.

“Hi Gabe,” Rain says back. He looks
at me, and his eyes are pinging me with about a million questions. I give him
an expression that I hope says,
Let Gabe get out of here first, and then
I’ll explain everything.

Gabe digs through his messy duffle
bag. When he finally discovers his deodorant in one of the side pouches, he loops
his arm under his shirt to apply a fresh coat. I try to hold in my grimace and remind
myself that Gabe deserves a release valve even if it means getting sloppy drunk
and making embarrassing passes at equally drunk women. Gabe doesn’t stew on
problems like I do. He doesn’t internalize them and keep adding new layers of
armor to keep everything inside like Tarren. Gabe’s chosen method of coping is
to blur away bad memories with alcohol and fast, shallow connections.  

“Be careful,” I tell him.

“I’ve got condoms,” he replies,
which really, really wasn’t what I meant. He finds his lucky hat on the corner
post of the bed where he left it and places it backwards on his head, taming
his wavy hair. I don’t have the heart to inform him that no one wears backwards
baseballs caps anymore. Not that he’d care either way. Gabe’s style – faded
t-shirt with the words “I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar” printed
across the front and jeans torn at both knees – is a thing that exists outside
of time, space, and logic.

“You going to be okay here?” he asks,
scooping up Sir Hopsalot and giving the bunny a few gentle strokes behind his
floppy ears.

“You talking to me or the rabbit?”

“I’m talking to the one with big
ears and a weird face…you.”

“Har. Har. Your ears are way bigger
than mine.”

Gabe grins at me, and I see that
trickster light coming back online in his eyes. I wonder what he’s doing with
all his thoughts of Francesca. A few minutes ago, his aura was doused in red heartbreak.
I could practically see shards of his soul floating around within that crimson.
But now he’s tucking it all away, flipping the lights out on those memories.

“Give a girl enough alcohol, and
big ears are sexy,” Gabe says. He lets Sir Hopsalot down. “Feed him?”

“Yep. “

I see those lines digging into the
sides of his mouth just for a moment before he turns toward the door. “Hey Bird
Brain, don’t fall out of any more trees while I’m gone,” he says pointing his
fingers like a gun in Rain’s direction.

“Don’t think I’ll be climbing trees
for a while,” Rain answers as he looks down at his left leg, encased in the
plaster paw print cast.

Gabe’s eyes shift to the black and
white photo of the woman in the long dress. “Can you believe all of those
buttons? That lady must have the patience of a saint.”

“I know, I was thinking the same
thing,” I say.   

He smiles, and I smile back as he
opens the door. My heart tugs at the sight of his thin silhouette in the
doorframe and the pain still lingering on the edges of his aura. I can throw
myself in front of bullets, knives, and super powered angels, but how to shield
him from the wounds of heartbreak? How to protect him from himself?

“Don’t catch anything
communicable,” I tell him.

“Condoms,” he calls after me with a
wave as the door shuts behind him.

I walk over to the bed and hold out
a bottle of water for Rain. He looks a little pale, and his eyes are glazed from
the heavy dose of painkillers Dr. Lee shot into him.

“I fell out of a tree?” he asks,
head slowly turning toward me. His voice is rough, like someone took his vocal
chords across a cheese grater for a couple strokes.

“You did indeed.” I shake the water
bottle to get his attention, and he finally sees it. “Thirsty?”

Rain reaches for the bottle, and
his long fingers carefully close around it, as if he might be seeing more than
one. I release it into his custody and take a small step back. His aura is
sluggish, but bright. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

He focuses on the water bottle, frowning
with concentration as he slowly twists off the cap. “And the leg?” he says when
the cap comes off.

“Which one?”

He gives me a look. “The broken
one.”

“What about it?”

“It’s broken?”

“Yep.”

“The other one?”

“Not broken.”

“Okay.” Rain takes a sip of the
water. He looks down at the cast, and his finger traces the adorable white paw
print design. Wavy oranges of confusion and anxiety percolate at the edges of
his aura.

“We couldn’t take you to a normal
hospital,” I add helpfully.

“Uh-huh.” Another small sip of
water. “This isn’t my underwear.”

“It’s clean. Well, Gabe says it was
clean.”

Rain puts the water bottle down on
the nightstand. It wobbles, and I’m there in one bound, catching it from
falling. When I look to Rain, he has the beginnings of a smile.

“Saving the day again, Buffy?”

Even the hint of a smile lights the
furnace in my abdomen. I ache to brush the sticky hair from his forehead.
Instead, I watch as his hand taps out a muffled tune on the comforter.

“What do you remember?” I ask him.

His brow furrows, and he chews on
his bottom lip as he thinks. “I was texting you.”

“After you fell?”

He shakes his head and winces. His
hand comes up to his head and dances away from the growing lump near his
temple. “I was wondering why it feels like an army marched on my skull,” he
mutters.

“Dr. Lee says it was a mild
concussion.”

“Wonder Woman.” That smile twitches
again on his lips, and I see strands of deep purple tease into his aura. That
furnace inside my stomach ratchets up.

“What?”

“You were breaking into a costume
shop or something, and I said that you should go as Wonder Woman. Did you?”

“Apocalyptic nurse,” I say. I want
to take a step closer to the bed, but a part of it is the hunger. It’s spiking
as I gaze at the bright aura slowly coursing around Rain filled with the bright
colors of his emotions.

“Wish I could have seen that. How
bad is my leg?”

“Still attached. Dr. Lee is hopeful
that you’ll make a full recovery. You need to stay off it though. Bear is going
to pick you up tomorrow to bring you somewhere more secure.”

Rain pats the bed next to him.
“What happened?”

Didn’t he just see my monster show
a few minutes ago? And he still wants to cuddle close. What the hell is wrong
with him? I hold my ground.

“Do you remember an angel? A
nursing home?”

Rain picks up the water and takes a
few more swigs. “Yes. Yes!” He sits up a little straighter. “She had…long black
hair. I was staking out the front. She came from the back, climbed up the side
of the building and went through a window on the second floor. I couldn’t get a
good shot, so I…I…” He looks at me, and his eyes widen. “That’s right, I went
around back and climbed up a tree. I thought I could tag her if she went out
the same way.”

His words dry up, and his brow
crinkles again. “Then I fell? And how are you here?”

“You texted me when you got hurt.”

“I did?” He gives me a look of
confusion, and I can’t help myself, I take a step closer. My leg is only an
inch from the bed.

“What happened to the angel?” he
finally asks.

“You killed her.” I wrap my arms
around my waist. The song of hunger is strumming through my head, getting
louder with each inch closer to Rain.

“Oh.” He doesn’t look happy or
satisfied with this news, just resigned.

I oh-so-carefully frame my next
question. “Tarren found you. Do you remember that?”

Rain stares at the water bottle in
his hand and then shakes his head. “It’s starting to hit me now. The leg. I’ve
never broken a bone before. It wasn’t, like sticking out of my skin or
anything, was it?”

“Tibia and fibula were broken just
under the knee. Dr. Lee put in six screws,” I answer quickly and then add, “Was
Tarren ever in trouble?”

“Tarren? He’s never in….” Rain’s
mouth hangs open on that last word, and his eyes go distant. Little bumps
ripple through his aura.

“What? You remember something?” I
have to resist the urge to clamp onto his shoulders and squeeze until the
information oozes out of him.

“No.” Rain frowns. “I had this
weird dream. He was in my dream.”

My heart pounds in my chest like
it’s trying out for the marching band. “Tell me.”

Rain’s voice is soft, uncertain. “A
window. I had to get out. I threw something… and the window broke. Then Tarren
was in a doorway surrounded by light, and the angel was behind him. I tried to
warn him. I said something. And carpet. I could feel it under my hands. I was
inside, in a room. Was it this room? Was I here?” He looks up at me. “And there
might have been penguins. They got loose.”

I sit on the edge of the bed, and
my thoughts are going crazy, all trying to talk over each other. It could have
been a dream, but what if it wasn’t? Tarren has kept secrets before. Big, big
secrets.

Secrets that would tear our family
apart.

But he wouldn’t lie without a
reason…he always does it to protect someone.

“How long until this heals,” Rain asks,
snapping me back to the present. I quickly stand up from the bed.

“Eight weeks.” I turn away from his
aura, but I can still feel the powerful pull. “Guns!” I yelp as the thought
hits me.

“Huh?” Rain says, but I’m already
sailing through the door outside into the corridor. Good, Gabe didn’t take the
jeep. It’s parked right out front where I left it. I throw open the back door
and find Rain’s coat and guns balled up in the corner. I wrap the guns in the
coat and bring everything inside.

Rain watches me in silence as I lay
the two guns on the table in the corner. I release the cartridge on the R15
Sub-Compact first. I made fun of this little pea shooter when Rain first showed
it to me, but he likes to keep something small and light tucked in a holster
under his arm as a backup. I count the bullets. All eight. Nothing missing.
That leaves the 1911 R1. I release the cartridge and find two bullets missing. 
As I reassemble the weapons, I chew on the inside of my cheek. Rain did shoot the
angel, just like Tarren said.

But Tarren would have thought of
this if he were covering something up. He wouldn’t have left any obvious,
sloppy errors behind…except Rain’s short circuited memory. I turn back to Rain.
His eyes are drooping with exhaustion.

“Tarren tranqed you,” I tell him.
“He said you were in a lot of pain.”

“Then tell him thank you for me,”
Rain says. “Nicest thing the guy has ever done for me.”

I walk back to the bed, and Rain
smiles at me. “Buffy, you look worried.”

“Only because you keep falling out
of trees,” I manage.

“Just the one…so far.” His hand
reaches out, and I watch his fingers stroke my arm. My skin breaks out in goosebumps
as I feel the electricity of his aura.

“Rain?” My voice is soft. I have
one final question that I have to ask, a question I don’t want to know the
answer too.

“Mmmm?”

“Are there…have there been other
girls…” I swallow, “for you. Recently, I mean?”

Rain’s fingers pause in their
gentle strokes, and his eyes find mine. I brace for hostility or resentment,
but Rain has almost no capacity for anger. He could barely even hit me when he
thought I murdered his sister in cold blood.

“Because I know we can’t
be…be…close, so it’s okay,” I stammer. “I won’t be mad. I just want to…” I step
back, breaking contact, and that makes things a little easier.

“I have a friend,” Rain says. “We
kind of…hook up every once a while. Been doing it for years. About six months
ago, actually, it was just a couple of weeks after Peoria before you and I
started really talking, she came over. And we…” he trails off. “But not since
then. And with her it’s not about….we’re not even really good friends.”

“It’s okay,” I say quickly as my
fingernails bite into the palms of my gloves. “I shouldn’t have asked.” But I
had to. The perfume on his shirt. My brain is churning again. It wasn’t a
girlfriend. I turn back to Rain. “If you wanted to see her again I don’t have
any right to ask you not to.”

That little smile is back. “Buffy
the martyr,” he says and then shakes his head. “After that last time with her,
I realized it could be dangerous. You know, if I make enemies, so I stopped
taking her calls.”

 I let out a breath I didn’t know I
was holding. My emotions are ragged from overuse, and I still have big,
dangerous questions floating in my brain. I turn toward the window and see that
the sun is already inching down toward the horizon. I don’t have much light
left, and this is the longest I’ve ever gone between feedings since Tarren gave
me the Prism.

“Rain, I need…need…the Prism,” I
say and take another step back away from him.

“Go,” he says. “I’ll be here when
you get back.”

***

I open the back door of the jeep
and sling the heavy black backpack over my shoulder. The wind picks up, pulling
the hair away from my neck and tugging at my t-shirt. As I make my way back to
the motel, I pass an older couple pulling suitcases behind them with matching
Hawaiian motifs. His suitcase is blue with a white flower print design on it,
and hers is pink and white. The woman smiles at me, and I try to not stare at
her aura, at all that energy exuding off her body. If I manage a smile back,
it’s short and curt.

If Tarren lied, it’s because he
was protecting someone.
This thought bounces around my brain like a
pinball, and for some reason I also keep picturing Rain doing a tongue tango
with the skinny blonde Miley Cyrus from Tucker Cartwright’s bloody Halloween
bash.