All We Know Is Falling: Fall With Me: Volume One (4 page)

“Well?” the leader, Kenna said.

“What?” I played dumb as a Hail Mary.

“Um, the freaking stuff on your back,” she said with that never fading level of disgust.

What she saw were twin ridges on my back. They were at my shoulder blades and only a few inches long. Near invisible unless you were really looking. They were where my wings were tucked in.

On a very rare occasion—so rare that no one I’d ever heard of could remember knowing of another antichrist with them—we got wings. Any child of a Fallen had the potential to get them. And my father was The Fallen. So I got bright blue wings. But they were easily hidden most of the time. The ridges could almost never be seen. But without a shirt…anyone looking could see.

“It’s none of your damn business,” I snapped.

“Oh, I think it’s everyone’s business, Freakshow.”

I stepped forward and got in her face. Her minions backed up but she didn’t. “Listen to me,” I said as menacingly as I can, trying to draw upon my father as much as I could. I shoved her against the wall and finally got some fear in her eyes. “I’ll give you a chance to let this go. Bring it up again, and you’ll regret it.”

She nodded with wide black eyes and shuffled off to the other side of the locker room. I wasn’t sure what I would actually do if she mentioned it again, but I couldn’t risk it. It was for her own good.

Humans that found out about us were killed by the council. If someone on the council was tipped off. Her odds are slim, but it was better in the long run for her. Really it was. Questions could make her a target. My father knows all.

Plus, it felt too damn good to get a rise out of her.

I got out of bed before Hadley could wake me. But even when I wandered out to get a new towel, there was no sign of her. Mom was in the kitchen making pancakes.

“Have you seen Hadley?” I asked her, towel still in hand.

“Nope,” she didn’t turn around. “She went out last night. Either she’s sleeping in, or she’s still out.”

Ah, nothing new. She was a night owl. And a partier. But she could hold her own, so we didn’t need to worry about her.

Our tabby, Brom Bones, was lying on the tile in the kitchen, as usual. His legs were flat out behind him and his head was on the ground. He was around six months old, but he was small for his age. The theory was that he would stay that size.

I knelt down to pet him and he bit me.

“Hey, you fuzzy bastard,” I yelled when I snatched my hand back from him. I glared at him and he ran away.

I went back to my room and started getting ready for school. I put my hair in a braid and picked out black pants and a red button up. I rolled the sleeves to my elbows and left it untucked.

Then I went to school.

I wandered into the building and went into my least favorite class.



History came up and I peeked into the classroom before I walked in. No sign of Hale, so I was safe. I went in and sat at my normal table. Everything was calm.

For three and a half minutes.

A notebook was slammed down in front of me and I was face to face with something I knew very well. A disturbingly detailed drawing I did of a dragon. It was even colored in. Green fire like I once saw that girl make. I thought it looked beautiful, so I drew a fire breathing dragon. That alone might not have made this situation mortifying. But the Powerpuff Girls that were fighting the dragon certainly cinched it.

“Sign this,” I heard in that damn English accent. I looked up to see Hale with a serious and somehow pleased look on his face.

How could I forget to look in the back of the notebook? I cleaned it out of all of the school work, but I totally spaced on the doodles in the back. I wanted to hide under the table…

“What?” I said, making sure I heard him right.

“Sign it,” he nodded with a crooked grin that nearly gave me shivers.

“Why do you want me to do that?”

His eyebrow went up and his grey eyes looked amused again. “Because this is pure magnificence and I’m keeping it for the rest of my days. The randomness of this brings me a strange joy and I think the artist should sign it.”

I swallowed. “You don’t think this is stupid?”

“No,” he sounded almost offended. Then he tapped the blank bottom of the page. “Sign it ‘Rory’.”

I felt my forehead crease. “Who’s Rory?”

His smile got bigger and I swear to God it lit up the room. “You are.” I didn’t even need to make a face before he was explaining his thinking. “Aurora, Rory…I think it works.”

“We’ve met twice and you’ve already renamed me. Something wrong with my name?”

He shook his head. “I just thought Rory rolls off the tongue smoother. Decided yesterday.”

Super. A nickname. This could only end poorly.

“I feel like we’re not at a point where it should be a concern how my name feels on your tongue,” I leaned back and crossed my arms.

He got a sly look on his face. “Agree to disagree.”

I heard a loud sigh from behind me. “Hale,” I heard Kenna’s voice. “Don’t bother with her. Not only does she not put out, but she’s a deformed freak show. The second you get her top off, you’ll see. I think you’d do much better with a girl like me. Or, anyone but her.”

I turned to see her sneering at me. But before I could destroy her, Hale stepped in.

“Incredibly rude, you are. Could you not see that we were talking? Or were you just never taught when to shut your mouth? And, by the way, I wouldn’t talk about imperfections one might have. Especially when in regards to someone as stunning as Aurora, and in comparison to you, Kenna,” he said her name like a mockery. He took a step until he was at his seat. He took it and turned to face Kenna. “Oh, and you might want to give Daddy a call.” He tapped his nose, “Maybe get that straightened out a bit. Ya know, before you go around pointing out others’ flaws.” He faced straight ahead and I stared at him with astonishment.

I picked up a pen and marked down Rory Flynn on the picture. Then I scooted it to him. He fucking earned it.

“Thank you,” he said as he tucked it away on the corner of his desk.

I felt like I needed to explain myself. I whispered, “What she was talking about…I, um. I—”

He held a hand up. “No need to explain. It’s something private and you don’t need to share with a stranger.”

He let me off the hook. And I didn’t know what to say other than, “Thank you.”

He nodded once and pulled the sleeve of his sweater down when his scar became visible. I thought for a second about how I’d never know how he got it. And I thought for a lot longer about why I cared.

Hale stayed quiet for the rest of the class. The teacher droned on about something I wasn’t paying attention to and all I could do was stare blankly ahead.

The bell rang and everyone was at the door. I had to stop off at my locker to grab some extra cash before I went to the lunch room. So by the time I got there, there was a bit of a line. But it only took five minutes to get all the way through. I bought an extra chocolate milk and pudding cup before I started walking to my usual seat.

My eyes were on the floor for most of the walk, but when I looked up I had to suppress a sigh.

“Really?” I said when I reached the table and found Hale. In my seat. Smiling at me.

He nodded. “Really.”

I shut my eyes. I know that God hates me, but this was just cruel. “I just don’t even know what to do at this point,” my arm waved in the air.

He put his foot on the chair next to him and pushed it out. “Sit with me.”

I put a hand on my hip. “Don’t you have a bunch of Ladies in Waiting somewhere panting for you?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “They can keep waiting.”

I was hungry and the clock was ticking. Plus, I knew there was a good chance that if I picked another table, he’d just follow me. So I sat down next to him.

I started eating and I felt his eyes on me. I couldn’t be mean to him. He was nice to me in History. So I should try and be as kind as I could while still making it clear that we weren’t going to be friends.

“So, Rory,” he started. “Why do you draw dragons and Powerpuff Girls?”

I peeled open my chocolate milk. “That’s a bit of a personal question, don’t you think?”

“Want another one?” he offered. “Why did you get two chocolate milks?”

This has got to be the strangest interrogation ever. “I like chocolate milk.” I finished the first one quickly and started on my second.

“I can see that. Back to the first question.”

The determined look in his eyes made it clear that he wouldn’t stop ‘til I told him. “It’s all I can draw. Just dragons and Powerpuff Girls. My dad got me books on how to draw when I was a kid. And it was all I could manage to learn.”

He offered a sad smile. “Sounds like a good dad.”

I dipped my head and chewed on the inside of my mouth. “He was. He was a very good dad.” And now he was in Heaven and I would never see him again. I was supposed to just try and figure out how to live with that pain. I hadn’t quite learned how yet.

“He died?” Hale asked in a quiet and sure voice.

“He did.” I looked back up at him and I could see the curiosity in his eyes. So I satisfied it for him. “He was old. He just slipped away. About a year ago.”

“I’m sorry, Rory. It’s a shame when a good man dies.”

It is.

I started eating my lunch and it was quiet again. I wondered if he was finally seeing that this was a pointless endeavor for him. I wasn’t in the position to have friends. I was cold and sad. And I didn’t need to drag anyone down with me.

“Shall I go next?” he asked and it made me look up at him. “If we’re sharing, you went, and now I should.”

“If you want to.”

“Ask a question. What would you like to know?”

I wanna know about your scars. “Where are you from?”

He looked at me like he was disappointed. “Really? That cannot be your question.”

I shrugged.

“Alright. I’m from New Orleans,” he said. That got an eyebrow rise from me. “I was born there. When I was a baby we moved to Bristol. My mother was born there and wanted to be back home. Then we moved back to New Orleans when I was eleven. Just after she…” His face said it for him.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he said numbly.

“No, it’s not. And I know that it’s not.” God, did I know.

He blinked. “You’re right. It’s not alright.”

I finished my second milk and put it on my tray. Hale placed his unopened one next to my hand. I looked at him and he gestured to it. “Have it.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to have it.”

I couldn’t help but smile at him. Though I tried to rein it in as much as I could.

“That’s one,” he said.

“One what?” I took the milk and opened it.

He stared at me in a way that made me want to look away. “That’s for me to know, Lamb. And maybe, one day, I’ll tell you.”



I got to art class and Hale was on my tail the whole time. I hadn’t been able to shake him at lunch. He went to his canvas and I went to mine. The paintings were all set up in the same placed that they were the day before. Mrs. Lore must have placed them again.

Hale walked around me and removed the blank canvas and switched it with his, so that he was working right next to me.

“Whatcha doin’?” I asked as non-crossly as I could.

“Moving places,” he said matter of factly.

“Why?”

He straightened out his canvas. “Because we’re friends now and I thought we should work together.”

We were SO not friends. Not even a little. “And when exactly did that happen?”

He looked up like he was thinking. “Honestly, I think it happened when you decided to push your textbook so that we could share it. That, or when you signed your picture for me. Doesn’t matter. We’re friends now. That’s the important thing.”

Damn it. I really didn’t want to be mean to him, but he needed to understand that this wasn’t going to happen.

“Look,” I turned to him. His face made me pause. He looked so sweet. And I was about to do something cruel. “I don’t have friends, and there’s a reason for that. I don’t do well with people and they don’t do well with me. So I think it would be better if we weren’t friends.”

“You don’t want to be friends with me?” he didn’t look upset. He didn’t look like he was feeling anything.

What could I do? Say it’s not you, it’s me? It was the truth but it was also a copout he wouldn’t buy. “I don’t want to be friends with anyone.”

I saw him roll his tongue around in his mouth while he thought. “Shame. I suppose we’re not friends then,” he turned to his canvas and a few minutes later, class started.

I worked on finishing up my painting of Hell. Some part of me wondered if my father would like it. I doubted that he would care enough to have an opinion on it. He’d maybe glance it up and down and just move on.

“I’ll figure it out, you know,” I heard from Hale out of nowhere.

I blinked and turned to him. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he said again, assuring me of something I didn’t understand. “Why you don’t want to have friends. I’ll figure it out.”

I laughed without humor. “You won’t. I promise you that.”

“I will,” he nodded once.

“Hale,” I said in a soft, warning tone, “That would require getting to know me, and you really don’t wanna know me.” What I was could scare absolutely anyone away. Not only the concept of finding out that The Devil was real, but me being half of him. If anyone got to know me that well…they wouldn’t stick around. Yet another pain to avoid.

“The opposite of that becomes truer and truer every moment I speak with you.”

I breathed out. “Let me rephrase that. You won’t get to know me.  Trust me when I say it’s for the best.”

“For who?”

His response was so quick that I was taken off guard for a few seconds. “What do you mean?”

He took a step closer to me. Then another. “I mean, who is it best for? You? Or me?”

“Does it matter?”

Another step. “It does. Because if it’s for you,” he pointed at me with his brush, “then there’s nothing I can do about that. But if it’s for me, then I think it’s fair to say that the decision of what’s best for me is not yours to make.”