Leaping (16 page)

“They’re scattered, Maya,” Gabe says, gnawing on his second
pretzel. “I only had four trackers. One of the cars is still in the subdivision
– that was Teddy Morrison’s – and the other two are halfway across the country.

“I shot Morrison,” I say. “He went straight down. I think I
killed him.” I carefully lay against the seat thinking,
I lost War. I lost
War. I lost War…Again.

“We could break into the dealership, download their records.
Then as least we’d know what ride he picked up, assuming he kept it,” Gabe says
without any enthusiasm.

“We’ll alert the Totem and see if they can scramble teams to
follow the cars we can track,” Tarren says, and his voice holds just a hint of
gentleness as if this is some sort of compromise. His deft fingers break a
piece off the pretzel, and he chews thoroughly. “For now,” he says after he’s
swallowed, “we need to find an angel. Someone close. Our time window is closing.”

This is the first I’m hearing of a time window, and it spikes
my curiosity even farther.

“And you’re still not going to tell us what you need a
living angel for?” I demand. “Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”

My phone vibrates in my pocket. We all hear it.

“Please tell me you just sent me another stupid Chuck Norris
joke,” I murmur to Gabe as my stomach tightens with a weird queasiness.

Gabe’s mouth quirks up. He knows that only one other person
has my number. “Nope.”

I slide the phone out of my jeans with my left hand. Its
battery is almost dead too. I type in my password, and a text message pops up
from Rain.
Saw u chased by angels on news. Pls tell me ur ok!

“He saw the news,” I sigh.

“Alright, I’ve got something,” Gabe announces, eyes on his
phone. “It’s weak. Major weak, but it’s the only possibility nearby. Small farm
about two hours outside of Vegas.  Caught some chatter about this location from
some wings we took out last year. Never found any bodies or police reports in
the area, which is why it’s been…” Gabe stops to swallow and shoves the rest of
his pretzel into his mouth. He mumbles on as he chews. “…low on the priority
list. Could be abandoned. Could just be a way station. But it’s the only target
we can get to in six hours that’s on the way to Lo’s.” A heavy layer of sarcasm
enters his voice. “Does that fit into your window?”

In response, Tarren carefully packs his half-eaten pretzel
in napkins and places it into the cup holder. “Give me the address,” he says.

According to Gabe, the farm is located twenty miles outside
of Henderson, Nevada tucked far away from pretty much everything. We pass
through the huge city, and then the landscape grows empty and forbidding. Our
truck bumps over uneven roads, and I dip in and out of sleep, jerked awake
again and again by stabs of pain in my chest. I want a bed. I’d even take a bed
in a cheap motel with a dead roach floating in the toilet. I am not a sleep
ninja like Gabe

Four hours into our journey, I rub my eyes with the back of
my left hand and stare out at the landscape. On a dwindling little road, we
pass an odd assortment of dwellings every few miles. These include a small
cluster of gleaming trailers poking massive antennas at the sky, trim little
homes that look like they’ve been plucked from the Midwest and dropped here
unceremoniously by a tornado, and a gas station so antiquated that it looks
more like a movie prop than a real thing. Dusty abandoned buildings offer no
signs to indicate what they were. It’s all so…

“Empty,” Tarren says. The perfect summation of my own
thoughts.

Throughout the trip I’ve been trying not to feel the deep
relentless pain in my chest and shoulder, but when I push my thoughts in other
directions they streak straight to Rain, to that text message in my pocket
waiting for a reply.

I’d sent him a quick response to his first message, letting
him know that I was breathing and that Gabe was already relaying the situation
to Bear. Situation. That’s what I’d called our royal fuck-up, like we meant for
it to happen. It was all part of the brilliant plan.

He’d texted back immediately.
I want to see u.

This is the message I’ve left hanging. The words that hurt
as much as my chest. More, actually.

“We’re kicking up a lot of dust,” Gabe says. “She’ll see us
coming a mile away.”

Fiona. This is the name of the angel we will capture and
bring to Lo, assuming she is on this farm. Fiona. My mind is going weird again,
but I just can’t imagine someone named Fiona as a killer angel. The computation
doesn’t work. Fiona was the name of my aunt. She was ten years younger than my
adoptive mother, Karen, and a little odd. I remember watching her hop over the
country, living in and then discarding trendy little cities in Vermont, Ohio,
and Tennessee as she reinvented herself over and over again. I’d wondered,
What
is she running from?
 

“This is weird, don’t you think?” Gabe’s voice interrupts my
memories. I realize with a start that I was feeling sorry for Fiona the angel.

I look around at the flat planes surrounding our tiny
lifeline of cracked road. “What in particular?”

“No people,” Gabe says. “What kind of angel lives so far
away from people?”

Yes, that’s exactly it. I’ve been feeling weird about this
one ever since we left Henderson and hit the desert. No people. Even the
isolated angels we’ve hunted before have always been close to towns and cities,
living on the outskirts, feeding off the fringes.

A town comes up on our left, if you can call it that. Six
old buildings press against each other as if huddling for warmth. One looks
like it might have been a post office. The windows are boarded up on all of the
buildings. Alone. Abandoned. Empty.

Tarren pulls over into a smudge of shade. “Two miles out,”
he says.

“In a place this deserted they’ll see us coming if we get
any closer,” Gabe says.

Tarren looks straight ahead through the dusty windshield. I
bet every cell in his body aches to take a squeegee to the glass. “We can’t
hide or sneak up on them out here,” he says. “We need to go direct.”

“Mormons,” Gabe suggests, always one of his top disguise choices
when door knocking is required.

I push my scattered mind to work. “We were off-roading and
ran out of gas,” I say.

Tarren nods. “Makes more sense.”

I try to ignore the little coal of pride that jumps to life
inside me.

“But how are we going to carry an unconscious angel two
miles through the desert?” I ask.

“What if she’s obese? Maya’s got a bum shoulder. We gonna
roll her back?” Gabe adds as he opens his door, steps out, and stretches his
arms under the heavy sun.

“Once the angel is unconscious, we can drive the truck to
the farm,” Tarren says, not with any sort of tone, but our idiocy is implied.

Moment of pride extinguished.

“Oh. Yeah, that works,” I manage as I carefully step out of
the truck. For a moment my vision spins, and I put a hand on the truck to
steady myself. When the ground stops dancing, I take a long, slow breath and
try not to think about how much blood I left in the jeep or how much pumped out
of me while Tarren sewed me up.

“Pre-mission piss,” Gabe announces, his only warning before
he starts unzipping. This is his standard routine, and I’m already carefully making
my way to the other side of the truck. Tarren has the back door open, and I can
tell that he’s trying not to show how annoyed he is that our stuff isn’t
perfectly organized to his liking. He doesn’t like digging around for plastic
ties, tranq darts, holsters, and sunscreen.  

He clips a bundle of plastic ties into his belt, pauses, and
glances at me. His face is set. Tough news to deliver.

I realize exactly what he’s going to say.

“I’m coming,” I yelp.

“Someone needs to stay with the truck.” Tarren speaks calmly
as if he were facing down a pissed off baboon. “As soon as we capture our
target, we’ll need you to drive up so we can load. Otherwise we’ll lose
valuable time.”

“But…But…,” I stammer.

“You’re injured, Maya. You can’t shoot. The recoil could
reopen the wound, and it’d be painful.”

“I can handle pain,” I say, but Tarren talks over me like
he’s explaining to a five-year-old why she can’t have dessert before dinner.

“It’ll throw off your shot. You’ll be a liability.”

There’s that word. The same word he used to describe Rain. I
am a liability. A burden. Someone to be worried over, not someone to lift
worries. I stare at Tarren, my eyes stinging. Why does he have to be so damn
calm when he crushes my soul beneath the weight of his reason?

 “And the rabbit,” Tarren says. “Too hot out here to leave
the rabbit alone in the truck. You’ll need to keep the engine running. Air
conditioning on.”

Damn him. Damn the fact that I know he was weaving his
argument together on the drive over, including this last ace in the hole, so
he’d be ready.

“He’s right, Maya.” This is from Gabe, leaning against the
hood of the truck. “You can’t go in injured. We’d worry about you. It’d cloud
our judgment.”

“Alright, I get it!” I snap, and the pain in my chest ratchets
up. I take a deep breath which only causes more stinging pain. I need to be
calm about this. Poised. Like a true warrior. But I’m so damn pissed. They’re
ganging up on me, turning me into a victim. Shouldn’t I be the one to decide if
I can be a help or a burden on the mission?

Both sets of eyes stare at me. Chilly blue and sympathetic brown.

I jut my chin out. “I understand,” I manage in an even
voice.

In ten minutes, my brothers are ready. Gabe wears torn jeans
and a t-shirt from a concert I’m sure he never went to. Tarren has got to be
burning up in his long-sleeved, white Under Armour shirt and jeans. Even out
here, in the middle of the desert, with only me, Gabe, and one very unfortunate
angel named Fiona soon to be part of our group, Tarren still insists on long
sleeves and pants. He still thinks that covering up every inch of his skin will
somehow make the scars less real.

My brothers are fully weaponized and also carry a load of
plastic ties and water bottles at their hips.  The day isn’t blazing hot, but
it’s warm, and the sun is merciless overhead. The dry landscape seems to suck
water right out of the body, and I can imagine it wouldn’t take too long for this
desert to mummify its dead.

“Stay with the truck and keep it on,” Tarren tells me.
“Chariot is the word for pick up. Soon as you hear it, come straight to the
farmhouse for loading.”

I nod, not deigning to inform Tarren that
Hey Maya, drive
the truck over now,
is also a good code word for pick up.  

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how pissed are you?” Gabe asks. His
big honey-brown eyes study my face, but I keep my stern expression firmly in
place.

“Be careful,” I tell him.

“We will.” Gabe’s mouth turns down, but he doesn’t say
anything about my angry teen routine. The first thread of sweat trickles down
Tarren’s neck as he glances at his brother.

“Ready?”

“Yup,” Gabe answers, putting in his earpiece. For a moment,
their auras rise up, almost in sync, threaded with strands of pale violet.
Love. Family. Loyalty.

I glance away. It seems like an intrusion.

They start off, their footsteps creating small swirls of
dust. I hook in my earpiece and watch their figures shrink with the distance.

Inside the grumbling truck, the frigid air from the vents whispers
across my kneecaps. I feel the small vapors of energy emanating from Sir
Hopsalot in his travel case in the back seat. The case wiggles every once in a
while as he repositions himself. Tarren is right. Gabe really shouldn’t drag
the poor bunny with him. It was different when we were home more often, when we
spent more time in motel rooms planning stakeouts and putting together puzzle
pieces of evidence to find our angel. But now we’re almost constantly on the
road, catching cat naps while someone else drives and dropping into CrossFit
and MMA gyms across the country for quick workouts and training.

Sir Hopsalot is in his travel case more than he’s free.
That’s no life.

I sigh and dig around in the back with my left arm for the
heavy black backpack. It’ll be at least a half hour until my brothers even make
it to the front door of the farm. I’ve got time to kill, and I really, really,
really don’t want to think about all the things I said to Rain when we broke
up; how I’m starting to understand what it feels like to be judged unfit.

I stare at my phone. It sits in the cup holder, still
charging up.

I want to see you.

I want to see him too. I know how stupid, how absolutely teen
vampire romance this sounds, but my soul practically aches to see him. I just need
to make sure that he’s okay, check out whether he’s shaved or left his whiskers
bristly. I want to see that big-toothed smile aimed at me, that multi-colored
aura always filled with so many competing emotions. I want to laugh at his lame
jokes, watch his tapping fingers. I want to find myself in awe again that he
really does care about my life and my thoughts, about me.

I step out of the truck and walk into the blazing sunlight.
It pours across my skin, giving me a nice, energetic buzz. I think,
this
might be a good place for an angel after all.
Not enough to live off of,
but this amount of sun every day would definitely take the edge off. Help
control the cravings and that squirming monster we all carry inside of us.

That little doubt in the back of my mind tugs harder. Doubt
about an angel named Fiona. About Gabe’s comment, “No people.”

My right arm dangles limp as I slowly set up the Prism with
only my left hand. I tilt the mirrors, and they catch the heavy sun. A bright,
potent beam hits the dirt, and I lower myself in its path and let the concentrated
energy pump into me. I close my eyes and enjoy the beauty, the quiet, the feel
of the energy coursing through my body, filling up my hollow, hungry places.

My right shoulder tickles. The energy is revving up my
healing ability, knitting together the broken bone, repairing the damaged
muscle, connecting the torn vessels together. My mind soaks in the energy. I
feel my hazy thoughts sharpen and the pain from my injury back off. My doubt
about Fiona solidifies, tugging harder in my brain. Something about this
situation doesn’t add up.

“Dust devil.”

For a moment I don’t know where the voice is coming from,
but then I remember my ear piece. Gabe. My eyes snap open, and I see the dirt
swirling around me, puffing into the sky.
Shit
. I’m the dust devil. The
energy is triggering my ability. I concentrate, holding the energy in my body,
and the dust drifts off.

I reach out and tilt the closest mirror. The beam of
sunlight vanishes. I feel the loss like a punch, like stepping out of a hot
shower into a cold room. My mind churns.

I unmute my side of the comm link. “Gabe, you said this was
a long shot. This farmhouse. How did you get info that an angel lived here?”

“Remember that whole coma thing?”

He means it as a joke, but his words still slug me like a
steel fist. “Vaguely,” I murmur.

“Well, after I woke up, I wanted something to do. Angels to
track. Days to save. Beautiful, busty damsels to rescue. You know, the usual.
Tarren showed me some hard drives and cell phone files I apparently downloaded from
two angels from some kind of circus.”

My lip is suddenly between my teeth, and I press on the
sensitive flesh.
The Lamp of Destiny.
That was the name of the acrobatic
show where Jane and Kyle worked, using their amazing angel abilities to wow the
crowds.

Gabe’s memories of the days before he got injured are fractured.
He has bits and pieces, but he probably wouldn’t remember that I was sent in
undercover to learn about Jane and Kyle, to ferret out their angel connections
and ultimately betray them. I’d been ready to do anything back then to find
Grand, the angel who stole my humanity, but I hadn’t expected Kyle’s warm smile
and funny ears or Jane’s quiet protectiveness once I broke through her
skepticism.

“The wings, they emailed this Fiona chick a couple of times about
a girl named Laurel,” Gabe continues on, oblivious that “Laurel” was me. “They
wanted to take her out here for some reason. I just followed Fiona’s IP
address. She registered using this address.” Gabe makes a clucking sound, and I
can imagine him shaking his head. “Terrible criminals, some of these angels.
Like they’re not even trying.”