All We Know Is Falling: Fall With Me: Volume One (8 page)

I glared at her and fought the urge to hit her with a pillow. Now he’d never give up. Not with my mother on his side.

“Don’t you worry,” he told her. “I have no intentions of giving up on her. Not by a long shot.”

Hale walked into class looking…off. I’ll admit, I don’t know the boy well. But I could tell something was off. I knew if I flipped my powers on he’d be a mass of dark grey.

He was down next to me without a word and stared down at his textbook. Even when class started and we were told to do the study guide, he stayed quiet. I started working and waited to see if he’d come to life.

I flipped through my book and started writing down the too easy to find answers that I couldn’t care less about. Most of the stuff I just knew from memory. 

Damn it…

I shouldn’t care. I really shouldn’t. I kept asking him to stay out of my business and here I was, wondering his. If I asked, that would be crossing the line. So I wouldn’t.

Nope.

Not gonna do it.

“What’s wrong?” I said quickly and quietly.

He looked up at me and blinked like he was just now becoming aware that he was here. “What?”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Are you okay?”

His eyes narrowed in a non-aggressive way. “Why are you talking to me?”

I smiled. “I often find myself wondering the same thing about you. Doesn’t answer my question.”

“Sorry,” his tone dropped. “I just thought that…I thought you wouldn’t be talking to me. Now.”

I still wasn’t getting it. “Why’s that?”

“You really don’t know?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Jesus. If I did do you think I would be asking you? Answer the question. You spend a week bugging me then you shut down?”

He took a few breaths and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve done some things in my life, Rory, that I was hoping you wouldn’t find out about. At least not until you knew me a little better. Maybe not even then,” he said the last line to himself. “I’m quite the hypocrite,” he turned his head to me, “aren’t I?” He was smiling in a heartbreaking way.

I offered the option, “Then don’t be.”

He looked at me with knowledge that he had and I knew I never would, “I won’t be the one to tell you. You’ll find out,” his face was grim. “But I don’t think I can handle the look in your eyes when you find out.”

This boy…was more frustrating than I could have ever imagined. All I wanted to do since we met was get away from him. And all he’s done was try and know me. Now I was showing that some part of me cared and he was shutting me down.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I had so little experience with human interaction and I felt like I was an outsider. I was always just watching, never a part of it, and now I was. And I was lost.

So I said the only thing that came to mind. “I don’t care.” He looked at me with a tense expression, so I elaborated. “What you did. I don’t care. Because whatever it is, I don’t think it’ll scare me as much as my fucked up stuff would scare you.”

He smiled again, but it was clear what he was thinking. He didn’t believe me. But he didn’t know what I knew. He didn’t know what I was. What I was made from. I was a creature of evil. Nothing he did could compare to that.

“Lamb,” his hand reached out but he didn’t touch me. “I’ve spent so much of my life living in fear that I’m numb to it now.”

I shook my head. “If you knew me like you keep saying you want to, you’d know that a Lamb isn’t what I am.” I’m the wolf that kills it. Worse, I’m the snake. Like my father before me, I was a serpent. There was evil in me. There had to be. I lived in terror of the day it would show itself. And who I’d take down with me. 

Hale stopped talking to me and started in on his work. The conversation was over. Both of us sure that we were the right one.

I stared straight ahead as I tried calming myself down. I knew how this would go. Every time I let myself think of what I really was, anything past a teenage girl, it would hurt. I tried my best to ignore it. But how could I? It was in my DNA to be evil. I was even attracted to it. Any hope of forgetting what I was vanishes as soon as my real vision breaks through.

I looked at the boy next to me and something changed. Maybe it was the look on his face, or his posture. Something radiating innocence lost and misery. But I knew what I was doing was the right thing. Trying to keep him away. I’d just had the reason wrong before. I was doing it for me, to keep myself safe. But it was him I should have been worried about. I didn’t want my darkness mixing with his, making him something else.

He thought he was bad. I’d only make that worse.

The bell rang and Hale bolted before I even stood up. I slowly walked out, feeling an odd sense of abandonment.

I got in line and waited as it slowly passed. It was pizza day, so there was that… Surely that would erase the feeling of shame and worry I had swimming around in my head.

I got my tray and loaded on all the stuff I was paying for but still not sure I’d eat. I looked around and didn’t know why until the disappointment set in. Hale was nowhere to be seen. Whatever happened to him today, it made him want to hide.

So I guess I was back to eating alone. In theory, I should be happy. I got what I wanted. He didn’t want to talk to me anymore. So then why do I feel so awful about it? It felt more like a forfeit than a victory.

I made my way to the empty corner of the room so I could return to my life of solitude. It was better this way. Really it was. A friend was never in the cards for me.

When I got to my usual table, I finally looked up from the floor. I set my tray down next to the carton of chocolate milk. I picked it up and read what was scrawled on the side in marker. For my Lamb.

That was it. All it said. But it didn’t need to say more.

I looked around and still couldn’t spot Hale anywhere. But he’d been here. If only to leave the milk for me.

My stomach dropped.

I sat down and started eating, going for the carton Hale left me before I went to drink my own.

After lunch was over—for me, since I left early—I headed to art class. Hale was sitting at the table in the very back of the room and he was painting something. Our teacher wasn’t even in the room yet.

I watched him for a little longer than was normal. His eyes looked…content. Whatever he was painting seemed to be bringing him peace. And I was about to disturb it. Because I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I walked over to the table and sat down, setting my backpack on the floor. Hale didn’t acknowledge that I was next to him and I wasn’t sure if he knew I was there.

I tried, I really did, to not talk to him. To let him work out his issues on his own and leave him be. But he bought me milk and if that wasn’t a cry for help I wasn’t sure what was.

“Tell me,” was all I said. His eyes remained on his painting and I wasn’t sure he heard me.

“You managed to get through lunch without finding out?” he spoke with no emotion.

“No. I didn’t hear this mystery rumor,” I said sounding exasperated. “I want you to tell me. I don’t know how to communicate with you that nothing you’ve done that you think is bad, could possible have any affect on what I think of you.”

He looked up then. His eyes searched mine as he considered me. “I think you were right.”

The sentence caught me off guard. “About?”

He stared down at his paint covered hands. “We shouldn’t be friends. I’m going to leave you alone.”

Fuck. That was it. What made me figure out that I didn’t want that at all. That it was too late and I cared enough about him that whatever was bothering him was bothering me too. Simply because it was hurting him.

He was my friend. And I was screwed.

“After a week of stalking me, you’re just gonna decide—”

He didn’t let me finish. “Yes.”

He turned back to his painting. Then it was like I wasn’t in the room anymore.

I think I was in mild shock. Everything happened too fast for me to really understand what was happening. In such a short amount of time I’d had a guy chasing me just to stop and sprint in the other direction.

It wasn’t something I did. I think. He said that I should have heard something by now…and I was so confused…

My phone beeped in my pocket and it ripped me out of my train of thought. I took it from my pocket and glanced at the screen. I had a text from Walter.

Walter: Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I just went through a month or so of pure Hell. I’ll call soon.

I dialed his number, impatient for the call he promised to make. It went to voicemail. When it beeped I said, “Walter, you think you can just text me something like that and then just not call? I’m going to call again, and if you don’t answer, I’m going to fly you up to a tall building and drop you.” I hung up and dialed again.

I leaned in my chair and caught Hale staring at me. He looked intrigued but he didn’t say a word about it.

It rang and rang and kept going to voicemail. My anger was flaring and considered popping into his house and throttling him.

“Hello?” I heard a woman say on the phone.

“Um. Hi? Where’s Walter?”

“Oh, he took off. Moping somewhere. Or looking for the cat. He left his phone on the counter.”

“Super,” I said flatly. “Who are you?” She was American sounding and Walter lived smack in the middle of Wales.

“I’m Annie. Who are you?” She sounded sweet but I had no patience for this right now.

“Aurora. I’m his sister. Well, one…”

There was silence on the other end for a minute. “The name sounds familiar…I’m sure he’s mentioned you. But I don’t remember how you met.”

“In Kansas. We met when…” I wasn’t sure what she was, so I couldn’t divulge the secrets of the Hell breakout. If she was a human, things would get bad.

“Oh,” she said again. “When the underage antichrist had to get babysat? My husband and I are friends with the girls who watched you kids. Faith and Shiloh Bishop. Shiloh is married to another of your brothers. Her family took care of that bastard by the way. It got bad for a while.”

I was more than aware of the situation she was talking about. And I knew Shiloh’s husband was the one who was possessed by the escaped soul. She came by and told all of the underage antichrists to go into hiding when the dead man started kidnapping us. Walter was one of the victims. I had the pure torture of knowing he was being held hostage and not being able to do anything about it. Thankfully the Bishops fixed everything.

“I know. Walter filled me in when he got home. But, is Walter okay now?”

Another long pause. “He’s…better.”

“Better?” I sat up straight. “That insinuates that he was at some time, recently, not okay. What happened to him?”

“Um, it’s not my place to tell you. But I’ll have him call you soon. I promise.”

“Wait! Please, he’s my brother. If something happened I need to know.”

Annie sighed. “Sorry, I just can’t. But he’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up and I sighed in disbelief.

I stared down at my phone, not sure what to do next. “Dammit.” I dropped the phone on the table and put my hands on my face. Yet another problem I couldn’t fix or even know about until I was enlightened, because someone else was the decider.

I felt something gently nudge my shoulder. I turned my head to the left and rested my face in my hand with my arm propped up on the table. Hale’s eyebrows were up and reflecting worry.

“Are you alright?” he asked, clearly knowing the answer.

“Nope. Something’s wrong and here I sit, uninformed and useless,” I half-shrugged.

He looked down for a couple of seconds. His head stayed down but he looked up at me though his eyelashes. “I have no right asking, but what’s wrong?”

Do I tell him? The person who’s refusing my concern for him. But who was I kidding? Of course I would tell him.

“My little brother,” I said. “Something’s going on. He hasn’t called in I don’t even know how long. He finally texted me but it was cryptic. I called and someone I didn’t know answered and wouldn’t tell me what was going on.”

He nodded. “Ah, little brother problems. I know about that.”

“You have a brother?” I asked. Dumb question, since I heard a family member speaking on the phone before.

“Yes. Two. An older one and one that’s fifteen. He’s a freshman here. Likes getting into trouble,” his face dropped. “He learned from his big brother.”

I wondered if that had anything to do with his mood today. If I asked, he wouldn’t tell me.

“You’re a troublemaker?” I smiled.

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “I suppose that would be a name for it.”

“What did you do that would make you think you’re a troublemaker?” It was probably typical teenage shit. Humans fancied themselves either good or bad. They weren’t always good at realizing just how much grey there is. They don’t know what it truly means to be evil. Not most of them.

  He smirked. “God you really are adorable. But I’m still not telling you.” The look on his face darkened. “I’d like to have at least one more conversation with you before you decide I’m too frightening to be around. And if I told you, you’d run now, as opposed to later.”