All We Know Is Falling: Fall With Me: Volume One (36 page)

“I remember the first time you told me you wanted me to love you,” I smiled despite the cold feeling I had in my gut. “I didn’t know why. And I was so sure that I wouldn’t love you.”

“Rory,” he said, making my name sound like a plea.

“But things aren’t like they were then. I figured out that I was wrong about a lot of things.”

“Please don’t…”

I kept going. “What happens if I told you that you got what you wanted? Does it change anything?”

He looked at me like I broke his heart. “I can’t let it change anything. If you were to say it. I’m not going to destroy everything you are so that I can be happy.”

“Even if you’re taking my happiness away too?”

He pressed his forehead to my chest. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’m sorry it’s hurting you but I’m not going to bring you down with what I am.”

I remember when I was afraid of doing the same thing to him. That fear wasn’t gone, but I knew now that it wasn’t my choice to make for him. Like this wasn’t his choice to make for me.

I wanted to lighten the mood. “So…you’re not coming over after school?”

He tried not to grin but he failed. “I can. But not for what you’re trying to get out of me.”

“You make me sound like a deviant.”

His eyes went to my legs and his hand drifted up my thigh. Once his fingers disappeared under my shorts, he started tickling my leg. “We both know who the deviant here is. Clearly I’m rubbing off on you.”

He could be. He’s made me a different person since meeting him. I was braver. Stronger. Happier. He did the opposite of what he thought he would do to me. “I think you are.”



“I just think it’s ridiculous. I watched that damn show for more than half my life and it just ended like it didn’t matter. That whore shouldn’t have gotten the blue French horn back.”

Hale shut his truck off when we got to my house. “I wish I understood what you were saying. The best I can do is just nod my head and agree with you.”

I opened my door. “Good. That’s all I need from you. Nothing can undo the damage CBS did to me.”

He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked up to my door.

“And those kids were waaaay too cool with it,” I added. “They just heard about their dad screwing every woman in New York and they were just like ‘yeah why don’t you go give it to the woman you refer to as our aunt’. How fucked up is that?”

“Very fucked up,” he nodded.

“Thank—” I stopped when I noticed the door was open. Wide open. I saw Hadley running around the living room as we walked inside.

“What the Hell is going on?” I asked, making her pause.

Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks tearstained. “He’s gone,” she sobbed. “I looked everywhere.”

“Who?” Hale looked around the living room.

“Brom Cat. I came h-home,” she hiccupped, “and there was blood and f-fur on the tile. The door was open and, and I looked everywhere. I called his name and shook h-his food bag but he’s gone.”

I ran up to her and held her as tightly as I could. “We’ll find him. I promise. He’ll be okay.” She sobbed as I spoke.

“What I-if he’s dead!?”

“He’s not dead,” I told her. “Where’s the blood?”

She broke away from me and led me to the kitchen. On the tile by the counter there was a little spot of blood, maybe the size of a baseball. It was smeared across the floor like Brom Bones’ fur was dragged through it. A huge clump of fur was stuck to it.

Hadley broke down again and Hale caught her before she could fall. He tried soothing her as best he could but the girl was inconsolable.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked, finally noticing she wasn’t here.

“She-she’s at the store. I called but she didn’t answer,” my sister told me. “I don’t know when she left or when, when she’s getting home. I need her,” she covered her mouth for another sob.

Hale patted her back. “Rory and I will go and look for Brom. You should stay here and wait for your mother to get home. Brom might come home too.”

She cried and spoke incoherently as she hugged him. I think she was saying thank you.

Hale sat her on the couch and then we walked out the door.

He looked at me while we walked down the driveway. “Do you think he’s alright?”

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

“Try me.”

I stopped walking and then he did. We faced each other on the pavement. “The door was open. There was blood. Hale, I think it’s who ever is after me.”

“Rory, why would they take your cat?”

“Why would they drug you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t. It could have been any one of the students who hate me for what they read in that file. You think that someone there wouldn’t try and fuck with me like that?”

“I think it would be very coincidental if just when this was going down some kid decided to shoot you up with something.”   

“Just because it’s a coincidence doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

“But it’s unlikely.”

“Not impossible.”

I rolled my eyes at his denial and started walking again. I heard him behind me but I didn’t talk more.

He didn’t understand what was happening. Not that I understood much more, but I had a better grasp on the evil and hate in the world. He should, considering his past. Even with that, he still didn’t spend most of his life seeing everyone’s evil in his head. He didn’t know just how bad it could get. 

We wandered up and down the street a dozen or so times calling out the cat’s name. There was no sign of him.

The cat wouldn’t have just walked out the door on his own. He had to have been taken. Hadley’s opened the door with him near it and he runs for cover. The outdoors scares him.

My first thought was that whoever took him—if he was still alive—had him somewhere. If my theory on who did it was right, then they took him to upset me. I was afraid that they’d return him to me in pieces.

Hadley would never recover.

The sun had long since set and we were still in search of Brom Bones. I was quickly losing hope of ever finding him. But I couldn’t go home empty handed. It would kill Hadley.

“BROM BONES!” I shouted. I made cat sound to lure him out. Normally it can get him to bolt from the other side of the house over to who was calling him.

Hale and I wandered so far past my house that it took me a second to realize where we were. We’d managed to get all the way over to the water tower about a mile or so from my house. The street lights were dim, if working at all. Being where we were left me feeling uncomfortable.

“When do we call it a night?” Hale stopped moving and looked around the area.

I waved my hands in exhaustion. “I have no clue. But I don’t know how to tell Hadley we didn’t find him. She loves that cat more than she loves even me.”

He put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground. “Maybe he’s closer to home. We should double back.”

“Not yet. We should keep going. Just for a little while,” I decided. “We can—” I stopped talking when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my shorts pocket and looked at the caller ID. “Hadley,” I told Hale.

I answered it cautiously. Hadley was screaming when I hit the answer button. “HE’S BACK!” she shouted. “HE JUST SHOWED UP!”

I breathed a sigh of pure relief. “How?”

“I heard him meowing at the door. He was covered in blood. But he’s not hurt. You can come home now. Thanks for helping.”

“No problem. See you soon,” I hung up and slipped the phone in my pocket.

Hale was waiting expectantly for an explanation. “Well?”

“He came home. So we can leave n—”

A loud boom sound cut through the air and the both of us looked around franticly to find the source. It didn’t sound far but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe within fifty feet.

“That was a gunshot,” Hale said with confidence that worried me. I didn’t even want to know why he was so sure of himself.

I focused my hearing to try and find where the sound came from but all I heard was wind and crickets. I couldn’t even tell where the bullet might have landed. Both of us were clear. I just wish that was enough to calm me down.

My heart started pounding as my head turned with the possibilities of why someone would be shooting a gun around here. This wasn’t a hunting area. We were only a few hundred feet from the residential district.

“Hale,” I said, looking around. “We need to get out of—”

I heard the clicking of a hammer being pulled back. I almost didn’t have time to react when I heard the next shot ring out. The bullet shot out of the chamber and I did the only thing I could do.

My wings ripped through my shirt and bra as they unfurled from their hiding spot so I could wrap them around Hale. My arms went around his neck as I wrapped my wings around him too.  I held my wings tightly around him as every instinct in my body told me to protect him.

The same instincts that brought us down to Hell and away from the danger.

I only had a few seconds before the agony would set inside of his head. I gathered myself as quickly as I could so I could get us topside again. But it wasn’t quick enough for him to not get a peek of the place through my sky blue feathers.

I used everything in me to bring us to my bedroom.

We stood there, both catching our breath. I looked up at his face and moved my wings back so I could see him better. I let my arms drop from his neck.

I took a step back when I saw the look on his face. His mouth was dropped open and his eyes were wide as they tried to convince his brain that this was real.

My bedroom door opened and I heard Hadley. “Hey, Aurora you home—”

I turned to look at her and she was just as shocked as Hale was. She took in the scene and started slowly closing the door. All she could say was, “Fuuuuuuuck,” as it shut.

I looked back to Hale and it was like he didn’t even see her. He was still staring at me. He was in shock but I was coming back to normal. I looked down at myself and realized that I was topless. But at least Hale didn’t seem to notice.

Or at least I didn’t think he did. Then he pulled off his sweater and handed it to me, still looking like he wasn’t fully aware of what was happening.

With shaky hands I took it from him. I folded my wings back in and concealed them with the tiny bit of Fallen magic I have. I pulled the sweater on while I stared at Hale.

Through his heavy breathing and shock he said my name. I almost didn’t hear it. “Rory.”

The name I loved hearing from him. Born out of a strange affection he had for me for the silliest of reasons. It was my favorite word. But the way he said it…

Only once. One word. But it said so much. It said everything.

Rory, what just happened?

Rory, how are we here?

Rory, how did you do that?

Rory, why did you lie to me?

Rory, are you real.

Rory…what are you?

Who are you?

I saw all of those questions in his eyes and on his lips just waiting for him to say them. And I waited for his face to catch up to his mind. I waited for him to look terrified of me. For him to be disgusted with me. For him to leave me.

But I didn’t give him the chance.

The last thing I heard before I vanished into thin air in front of him, was my name being whispered one last time.

What I was sure would be the very last time I heard my name on his lips.

Chapter Twenty-Four: But Tomorrow There’ll Be Hell To Pay

I didn’t go home again for hours. I ignored twenty-seven calls from Hale, eight from Mom and four from Hadley. Eventually they got the hint.

The truth was that I was scared to talk to any of them. I didn’t want to hear my mom say I was irresponsible and I didn’t want Hadley to say it was all going to be alright. Most of all I didn’t want to hear Hale. I didn’t want to hear anything he might have to say. I don’t want to see his face when he calls me a monster.

I hid in the Hungry Bear restaurant at Disneyland. It was well after closing so I had to throw my invisibility shield up so the cast members wouldn’t see me.

When Hadley and I were little, before Dad got too sick to leave the house, we used to take a trip to Disneyland about every six weeks. I didn’t like Splash Mountain when I was a kid. So when Mom would take Hadley, Dad would sit and wait with me in the restaurant. We’d look out at the ducks in the river and watch the Mark Twain boat go by.