FOUND (Angels and Gargoyles Book 1) (12 page)

“Tell me,” he whispered close to her ear. “It could be vitally important.”

She studied his face, but there was nothing sinister there, nothing that warned her against telling him. She realized in that moment that she had come to trust him despite the warnings of her breezy friend. Wyatt put his life in danger for her, not once, but twice. Wyatt had fed her and kept her from dying of dehydration for the past five days. He was her friend.

But could she trust him with a secret Davida had warned her not to tell anyone?

“She said that some babies…before her time, some were born with deformities, like skulls that did not take the shape they should have, arms that were too short. A few had growths in their backs—“

“Like wings?”

Dylan bit her lip, trying to recall what Davida had said. “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

Wyatt’s hand trembled slightly where it was still pressed to her shoulder. “What else?”

“Some of the older girls could do things. One girl had incredible strength. She pushed through an entire wall while playing hide and seek with some others. Another could predict what would happen in the future. Others thought they could see what had happened in the past.”

Wyatt studied her face. “And healing?” he asked quietly.

Dylan bit her lip again. Wyatt rolled away from her and stared up into the sky for a long second before he sat up. “We have to go.”

“Wyatt—”

“We have to get you to my father.”

Wyatt climbed to his feet, walking the few feet to his bag before he snatched it up and dug out a water bottle that he tossed in Stiles’ direction. “Wake up, ghost man,” he said. “Time to move.”

Dylan sat up as Stiles let out a loud groan from the other side of the fire. She was packing her bag, rearranging her own water bottles, when voices suddenly popped into her head.

“Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no…”
a female voice said over and over again.

“Run!”
A male voice joined it a second later.

Somewhere out in the slow approaching dawn they could hear the cry of an animal, a large, angry cry.

“Someone’s in trouble!”

Wyatt glanced at Dylan. “It’s just a hungry javelina,” he said.

“No,” she said, jumping to her feet and snatching up his samurai sword from where it lay beside his bag. “Someone’s in trouble. You have to help them.”

He snatched the sword from her and threw the strap over one shoulder, shaking his head as he began to buckle the heavy clasp in the center of his chest.

“There’s no one else out here, Dylan,” he said.

And then a human scream rushed through the air toward them.

Chapter 21

This is crazy
, Dylan thought as she, Wyatt, and Stiles ran in the direction of the scream.

She held her knife tight in her fist, hoping that she would not trip and end up shoving the business end of the knife into her own flesh. She had no idea what a javelina was. But she suspected it was not going to be something she would feel comfortable confronting on her own. She had never been more grateful for Wyatt and his odd weapons as she was now.

Wyatt spotted them first, pointing his sword to the west as Dylan and Stiles caught up to him. Stiles crouched beside him. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

Wyatt looked at Dylan as she joined them, panting quietly from the exertion of running. “Stay here,” he said to her.

“Wyatt—”

“You only have that little knife,” he said, gesturing to it. “It won’t do you any good with this thing.”

“What about you?”

He cocked his head slightly, tapping the sword lightly against his side. Then he dismissed her, turning to Stiles. “You run that way,” he said, gesturing to his left. “Flush it out toward me.”

Stiles nodded and immediately rushed out into the field, his movements muted by the tall grass.

“Wyatt.” Dylan grabbed his arm before he could move away.

He glanced back at her, his irritation rolling off of him in waves. “Don’t argue with me. Not now.”

“No,” she said. She reached up and kissed his cheek lightly, again that rush of pleasure moving through them both. “Be careful.”

He stroked her cheek lightly, hesitation in the touch before he turned and began running across the field in the opposite direction as Stiles had gone. Dylan watched him go, her heart pounding as he grew more and more distant from her. A part of her wanted to rush after him. But she knew he was right: she could not defend herself against the animal.

She crouched down and closed her eyes, using her old trick to listen as closely as she could. She was immediately overwhelmed with a sudden rush of pain. Someone was injured. She opened her eyes, her thoughts jumping to Wyatt. But she knew it couldn’t be him, it was too quick. She closed her eyes again, tried to force herself to concentrate.

A girl’s voice, something familiar about it, filled her mind.
High ground.
That was her single thought. As Dylan listened in, an image began to seep into her mind, gray and fuzzy at first, but then sharper, until it was as though she was watching it through her own eyes. Dark pants. Heavy boots. Thick grass. There was another pair of legs, one leg dragging behind the other. It was the man who was injured. Blood dripped from his leg.

As the image sharpened, it moved to reveal more of their surroundings. Dylan could hear a large animal crashing through the grass behind them. There was a flash of light in front of them, the early morning light glinting off of Wyatt’s sword. They were caught between Wyatt and the animal.

Get down!

Dylan pushed the thought toward the girl without thinking about it. She could hear the confusion in the girl’s thoughts as she glanced around. But she spotted Wyatt coming toward her in the high grass, signaling for her to move. She immediately dropped into a crouch as Wyatt whistled loud and low, drawing the attention of the animal toward him. Dylan watched through the stranger’s eyes as a low, heavy animal rushed toward where Wyatt stood several yards away. It was angry, making low, squeaking noises that Dylan had never heard before, a sound that sent waves of fear through the strange girl and her companion.

Fear rushed through Dylan, as well, as she watched the animal charge Wyatt, and he did nothing to protect himself. She could see bony protrusions on the animal’s head, long, thin, sharp protrusions that likely could slice through his flesh without so much as an ounce of effort. An image of him lying on the ground, bleeding, the life slipping from his eyes burst through her mind. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood as she watched him, watched him just stand there with his sword raised above his head. His hair moved slightly from an unseen breeze seconds before he brought down his sword, and blood gushed into the air, the strange animal suddenly silent.

Dylan opened her eyes, breaking the connection with the girl as she jumped to her feet and rushed toward the place where Wyatt stood with his kill.

He was laughing.

“What we have here, boys and girls,” he called across the empty field, “is a feast!”

Dylan rushed toward him, thinking only of the danger he had narrowly escaped. He was still laughing as she launched herself into his arms.

“You idiot!” she cried. “That thing could have killed you.”

“But it didn’t,” he said, sliding his arms slowly around her body. “It didn’t,” he whispered as he lowered his face and pressed his lips gently to hers.

The intensity of pleasure that burst through Dylan in that moment was like the first taste of chocolate, the first touch of silk. She closed her eyes and gasped, her lips opening to him more out of a necessity for air than for the desire to taste him. But taste him she did and it only intensified that heart-shattering pleasure.

“Dylan?” a female voice asked behind them.

She so wanted to ignore it, so wanted to stay in Wyatt’s arms, wanted to keep her lips against his. But he pulled back just as the voice called out again.

“It’s me,” Dylan said quietly as she turned and faced the unlucky couple behind her. “Hello, Ellie.”

Chapter 22

“You know her?”

Dylan nodded as she untangled herself from Wyatt and turned to face Ellie. She was still kneeling on the ground, her arm still wrapped around her companion. Dylan went to her, touching her shoulders as she quickly scanned her face.

“Are you hurt?”

Ellie shook her head. “That animal came out of nowhere while we were sleeping. It attacked Sam…it was awful, the way he screamed…”

Dylan touched her forehead lightly, whispering a few soothing words in her ear. Ellie settled down, her breathing slowing as she did.

When Ellie was calm, Dylan turned to Sam. She smiled, touching his hand lightly. “I’m Dylan.”

He looked up at her, his face pale and covered in moisture. He didn’t focus on her, but on Wyatt where he had come to stand behind her, his sword still clutched in his hand. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Wyatt inclined his head just slightly, tension in every inch of his body as he watched over Dylan.

“Lay him down,” Dylan said to Ellie as she moved at an angle to Sam’s leg. His pants were torn at the ankle, his foot twisted at an odd slant in his boot. When she touched the boot, Sam grunted. She glanced back at Wyatt. “We need some water.”

He shook his head. “We shouldn’t waste it,” he said in a quiet hiss.

“Please,” she said.

Wyatt looked over the field, his eyes scanning the horizon. “Where’s Stiles?” he asked.

Dylan’s eyes followed his, searching the area where she had seen Stiles disappear during all the excitement. The sun was full in the sky now. There were no shadows for someone, or something, to hide in. Stiles should have been close, should have found them already. A tiny drip of fear slipped through her chest. “Do you think he was hurt?”

Wyatt didn’t respond, but continued to study the area around them.

Dylan refocused on Sam. “I need to take off your boot,” she said.

He gave a single nod of his head, but what little color had been left in his face disappeared.

Dylan began to unlace the boot, noticing for the first time that it was very similar to the boots she was wearing, to the boots given to the children of Genero. She glanced at Ellie, but the poor girl was so shell-shocked that she could barely move, let alone offer any assistance for her friend. Her eyes were glued to the decapitated javelina still lying in the grass a few feet from them.

Sam screamed as Dylan eased the boot off his foot as gently as she could. She apologized over and over, but did not slow in her movements. With the boot off, she had to peel away his sock and pick the remnants of his pants leg out of the wound. It was bad. She had never seen such a wound before, but even she knew it was bad. Blood gushed from a cut along his lower calf while two more wounds on the front of his leg had bone fragments stuck in them.

Dylan glanced at Wyatt again. She needed him to move, to stop staring down at Sam. His eyes were wide as he studied the wound. He met Dylan’s eye and shook his head just slightly.

“Hey!”

They turned as one, she and Wyatt. Stiles was walking toward them from their back side, both Dylan and Wyatt’s bags in his hands. “Thought I would get our stuff.”

“Where were you?” Wyatt demanded.

“I chased the javelina this way and then went back to camp.” Stiles studied Wyatt’s angry face for a long minute. “Should I have done something else?”

“You should have been here to help,” Wyatt said. “You don’t abandon your companions in a moment of danger.”

“I didn’t. I saw you kill the pig. I thought the danger had passed.”

“You don’t—”

“Stop.” Dylan moved up behind Wyatt, laying a calming hand on his arm. “We can’t start fighting now.”

Wyatt looked at Dylan for a long second, the anger bubbling just beneath the surface. But then he pulled away, grabbing his bag from Stiles’ hand before marching over to the javelina. As she watched, he knelt beside the animal and began the process of butchering it.

Stiles came up alongside Dylan. His eyes dropped to Sam, who had fallen unconscious in the grass. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need water,” she said, holding out her hand for her own bag. “And her…you need to get her away from here for a few minutes.”

Stiles nodded. He handed her the bag and moved to Ellie, whispering quietly in her ear as he gently pulled her to her feet and drew her away from both Sam and Wyatt.

Dylan pulled a water bottle from her bag and crouched back down in front of Sam. She poured some water over the wound, but more blood bubbled up, taking the place of what little she had been able to wash away. She hesitated, glancing over at Wyatt. He was concentrating on the javelina. She needed to do something or Sam would die. But if she healed him and Wyatt saw…she didn’t want to do anything that would make Wyatt distrust her.

She didn’t know what to do.

Sam started to moan. She touched his ankle, more out of instinct that anything else. Almost immediately the bone began to shift away from the flesh of his wound and knit itself back together. She watched the bleeding slow and the edges of the wound come together. She pulled away before the invisible needles began to do their work, leaving the wound still seeping, but repaired to a degree that would keep Sam from dying.

“How bad is it?”

A shadow came over Dylan and Sam. She glanced behind her as Wyatt knelt at her side.

“Bad. But I think he’ll live.”

Wyatt slipped the water bottle out of her hand and poured a little over the wounds. Blood washed away, but very little took its place. He studied it for a long minute. “I could probably sew it up if we can find something to use as thread.”

“Have you done it before?”

He nodded. “Too many times. It’s one of the first things we learn in my city.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Wyatt glanced at her, a softness coming into his eyes as he studied her face. “We’re alive and we have our health,” he said in a tone that suggested it was something he had said, or heard, many times before. “All the rest is extra.”