Leaping (7 page)

“Stay safe,” we say at the exact same time.

***

As the sun lumbers up over the
horizon, the day starts to warm, but the wind still bites as it howls across
the side of my face and my arm from the open windows. I glance back again at
Rain and feel a thousand doubts clawing around in my stomach. What if he goes
into shock before we get him to Grand Junction? What if these long hours on the
road are making the break worse, or even irreparable? The car jostles him, but
what can I do about that? Tell Gabe to levitate the jeep?

“That was weird, right?” Gabe says,
snapping me to attention.

I realize that he’s been weirdly
silent for the last half hour, staring straight ahead, both hands
uncharacteristically on the wheel. Now that I’m actually looking at him, I see
his aura jumping with small, agitated spikes.

 “Which part?” I answer.

“Leaving Tarren like that. All
those bodies in a parking lot right outside a nursing home. Think of how
exposed we were.”” Gabe glances at me.

“It was the middle of the night,” I
offer.

“But those places have people on staff
24/7 to watch the geezers. Anyone could have just peeked through the blinds. What
if they called the cops? We left Tarren alone with a pile of bodies. With
fucking Tucker Cartwright, who’s all over the news.”

I sit back and gaze out at the nearly
empty highway in front of us. The rising sun paints the cloudless sky in startling
shades of salmon.
Damn.
Gabe is right. I’ve been so focused on Rain that
I didn’t notice how un-Tarren-like Tarren’s plan was.

“It was Tarren’s idea,” I say. “He
must have thought it was safe.”

“Exactly. That’s what’s so weird.”
Gabe frowns and runs a hand through his hair. My eyes can’t help but land on
the lock of white hair tucked within his shaggy brown mane. Apparently that’s
what happens when you crack your skull open.  “Why didn’t we scout out a burial
site and drop off all the bodies first, or take Rain in Chain’s truck so Tarren
could keep the jeep?” Gabe continues. “He’s going to have to steal a car and
load up all those bodies by himself.”

“There were some staff cars in the
parking lot. He probably took one of those,” I say. “Maybe he just wanted us to
get Rain to Dr. Lee as soon as possible and didn’t want to put the Totem at
risk.” Even as I’m saying the words, I can hear my own doubt. Tarren is such a
strategic thinker that he could make a chess champion wet his Dockers. He
doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t get sloppy.

Gabe blows out a frustrated breath.
“We’re running raw. We need a break.”

“Yeah.” I glance up at the rearview
mirror again, checking to make sure Rain’s condition hasn’t changed in the last
minute of our conversation.

 “He’s going to be fine, Maya,”
Gabe says.

How can he really know? Then again,
maybe he does. Gabe clawed his way back from the brink of death. It’s been
almost a year since that night in the warehouse with Grand, since I…I… The
memories threaten to rise up, Gabe’s screams, the betrayal etched in his face,
that sweet energy pouring into me…

I turn away and let the wind cut
across my face. Gabe has forgiven me, because he can apparently forgive
anything from the ones he loves, but I’ll never forgive myself for what I did.
Sometimes his screams echo again and again in my nightmares until I launch out
of bed convinced that I’ve killed him.

Just to reassure myself, I glance
at Gabe, at his vibrant aura.
Blue as blue, true as true.
He’s building
back his muscles, climbing trees again, and doing the little things that make
him Gabe. Things like singing passionately in the shower, talking to his pet
rabbit like it was a human, and watching every dumb SciFi show man has ever
created. I try not to notice how his aura isn’t quite as blue as it was before,
how he still isn’t as strong or fast or as carefree as he once was. We don’t
talk about the hideous, soul-zapping migraines that still assail him from time
to time. I took something from him that night, something that I don’t think
will ever fully come back.

“Okay, okay, how ‘bout this one,”
Gabe starts. “Leprechauns are extinct because leprechauns piss Chuck Norris
off.”

“Good one,” I lie and open the
dashboard to grab one of the Angel Hunting Soundtracks from Gabe’s extensive
and growing collection.

“Number six. That’s a good one,”
Gabe calls out with a smile.

***

Dr. Lee is already waiting for us
when we pull into the back lot of a strip mall in Grand Junction that hasn’t
opened yet for business. The stooped doctor dispenses with any pleasantries. His
eyes roam over Gabe and me, possibly assuring himself that all our limbs are
intact. He doesn’t mention the sweat-stained Batman costume or the holsters on
my hips. Gabe nods to the back seat of the jeep, and I pull open the door as
the doctor moves forward on slightly bobbing steps. He leans in and pulls aside
the fabric around Rain’s left leg.

The bruises are so dark down Rain’s
shin, they almost look black in the center, like rotten fruit. His leg is
puffy, at least twice its normal size. Dr. Lee’s weathered face is grim, but he
doesn’t display any of the fear or panic I feel creeping up my spine. He
probably saw breaks a thousand times worse than this when he was an ER doc. I
watch his smooth, mottled aura, amazed at how his calm goes all the way through
him, right down to his soul.

He grumbles as he shines a small
light on the injury and prods the flesh. Rain moans, and his whole body
shutters. I gave him a low dose of morphine two hours ago, but Dr. Lee’s touching
wakes deep waves of red throughout his aura. His eyes flutter open for a second
before shutting, and a new sheen of sweat makes his pale face shine in the
early sunlight.

“Concussion too, right?” Dr. Lee
gingerly steps into the jeep, hunching awkwardly over Rain as he pulls one of
Rain’s eyelids up, and shines his pen light. Now he turns Rain’s head, grunting
when he finds the swelling lump.

My heart starts wobbling in a way
it surely isn’t supposed to, and my mind rushes with doubts. What if Rain
somehow slips into a coma and dies? It would be just like Rain to die of a
broken leg. Hell, the guy goes into shock over peanuts and bee stings. I bet
Dr. Lee will have to amputate.

“The doctor will take good care of
him,” a soft, accented voice says next to me. That vote of confidence belongs
to Francesca, Dr. Lee’s housekeeper who has, as of recently, been serving as
his nursing assistant when we limp to him with our war wounds.

I’m not surprised that she is here
with him today, only that she decided to stay with him after she and the doctor
had to flee their cabin earlier this year. As a result of my capture, Tarren
instituted Styx protocol, which meant that all of our allies, numbering Dr.
Lee, Francesca, and Lo, had to pack up and haul ass to secure locations. The
precaution was heavy handed but well placed, considering that Gem took a long
stroll through my brain during my delightful kidnapping.

Francesca looks at me with big
brown eyes, and I know that I owe her for the lives of both of my brothers.
Last year she and Dr. Lee dragged Gabe from death’s welcome doormat, and she
nursed him gently back to the land of the living during those long coma days.
At the beginning of this year, when Tarren suffered a massive burn rescuing me,
Francesca’s clear, calm voice led me through the steps of his care. I remember
how I clung to that soft, confident voice when every single part of me wanted
to panic.

I look to her now and recognize
again how completely unfair we’ve been to her. Francesca was never meant to be
part of our emergency medical team. We’ve only hinted around the edges of what
we do. She knows it’s dangerous, that it’s illegal, and that we are all
allergic to hospitals even in the most dire of circumstances. After the whole
Styx situation, she also knows that she could be a target of our enemies.

It’s time to tell her, I decide. As
soon as we get Rain stabilized.

I give Francesca a weak smile.

And where is Gabe? I look around
and sigh.

Give my intrepid brother a gun and
an army of angels to take on, and he’ll be all over that. A pretty girl who saw
him naked out of necessity is a totally different matter. I see him slinking on
the other side of the jeep, about as far away from Francesca as possible
without leaving the local area code. Orange flames of embarrassment crackle in
his aura. I used to think Gabe was immune to embarrassment. He pees with the
bathroom door open, quashes his belly into a long crease and asks me what it
looks like, and makes loud animal noises at the gas station just to make the little
girl in the next car over giggle. But Francesca is his embarrassment
kryptonite. He still can’t…or won’t get over the fact that she nursed him.   

“Concussion looks mild,” Dr. Lee says,
scooting out of the jeep and straightening up. “But I need to x-ray the leg to
see what kind of break we’re dealing with.”

“No hospital,” Gabe says.

Dr. Lee scowls. I notice the
doctor’s short-clipped hair is now more salt than pepper. “I can’t patch him up
in a hotel room,” he says.

 “Break into an urgent care clinic,”
Gabe says. “They have x-ray machines there, medicine.”

“No, I don’t think that would
work,” Francesca pipes up. Even though she’s dealt with similar crazy
conversations in the past, I still expect judgment in her eyes. “I did a
rotation at an urgent care clinic for school. They don’t keep supplies to deal
with bad breaks. Also, all the medicine, even the syringes, were in a special
machine, like a vending machine. The nurses had to put in a code and the
patient’s chart number to get anything out. All the clinics have them.”

Gabe and I look at each other.

“I might be able to hack the
machine,” he says.

“Or I could break it,” I add,
choosing to leave off the last part of that thought…
with my super strength.

“A veterinary clinic would be a
better idea,” Francesca responds. She tucks a long strand of dark hair behind
her ear. “They have all the same medicines, more supplies, and less
regulation.”

We all turn and stare at her. She
looks down, butterfly lashes beating quickly against her reddening cheeks.

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Lee snorts.
“You want me to open him up with pet hair and fleas on the table?”

“We can clean everything off,” I
say lamely.

“Got one.” Gabe’s thumbs are
dancing on the screen of his phone. “Today’s Sunday, right?”

“Right,” I tell him.

“Closed all day. Twelve miles from
here.”

We all turn to Dr. Lee. His lined,
leathery face is dark with emotion, and I can see strands of red lighting up in
his aura. “This is ludicrous, even for you, Gabriel. Aside from sanitation
concerns, we don’t know what machinery and equipment they have, and even if the
equipment will fit a human body. I could leave him worse than he is now if the
bone screws aren’t big enough. Hell, I could kill him!”

“Let’s at least take a look,” I
jump in. “If you don’t feel good about it, we’ll consider taking him to the
hospital.”

Dr. Lee studies me. “You’re getting
better at lying.” I feel his disappointment like a punch I wasn’t expecting. “Let’s
go,” he snaps. “The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to get.”  

Gabe’s leg bounces up and down in
the passenger seat of the jeep. Even if I couldn’t see all the yellows jagging
through his aura, it’s obvious that he’s nervous. Not about the impending break-in
or the wounded passenger in our back seat. About Francesca.

“This’ll be a good one for you,” I
say to break up the tension. “Maybe they’ll have some decent locks on the door.
Something that will give you a challenge.” Not like I’m queen of calm. My mind
is filled with images of a thousand white shards of bone floating around in
Rain’s leg like sharp snowflakes. I asked him a million times not to hunt
angels. Maybe if I’d made it a million and one, he would have listened.

“Yeah, it’ll beat the costume shop,
that’s for fucking sure,” Gabe says under his breath as he fiddles with his
cape.

And we’ve got a cowboy somewhere in
Las Vegas burying five dead bodies.

Actually, he’s got to be done by
now and on his way over in whatever car or truck he decided to steal.

“Did you check in with Tarren?” I
ask Gabe.

“Nope, you?”

I sigh. “Sometimes I think we’re
the suckiest vigilantes in the world.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s the
suckiest vigilante in the world.” Gabe jacks a thumb to Rain as he digs into
his pocket for his phone. Anger flares in my chest, but there’s nowhere for it
to go. Gabe is right. Rain can slip on a dry sidewalk for no other reason than
that his legs have decided to play a joke on him.

“Take this right,” Gabe says as he
taps out a quick message to Tarren.

We pass a university. Proud brick
buildings stand behind trim green bushes, and cobbled walkways lead to dorms
and the student union building. A few young people meander around in fleece
hoodies and pajama pants. When I stop at a light, a man and a woman bound
across the street in tight running gear, their faces flushed with the cold.

The loss hits me, harder than I was
ready for. If Grand hadn’t snatched me up last year and plunged those two
syringes into my spine, I would have been on a campus just like this one. Would
I still be a literature major, or would Ryan have finally convinced me to
choose something practical? Would we still snuggle through the cold nights in our
tiny, wonderful apartment?

“Left up ahead and then another
mile,” Gabe says.

I put on my blinker and glance at
Rain in the rearview mirror. That was a different life. A wholly different
person. I couldn’t save Ryan. Avalon died with him on that last day of my
humanity. But Rain…I can save him. I will save him.

***

The vet clinic sits at the very end
of a short strip mall that includes a family sub shop and a scrapbooking store.
Apparently those still exist. Gabe decides to go in through a side window
rather than pick the lock in full view of the street and all the old ladies who
head to the scrapbooking store in their church clothes.

He instructs Francesca to park Dr.
Lee’s SUV on a nearby side street. We’ll keep the jeep parked in the back alley
in case we need to make a quick escape.

Dr. Lee stands next to me while we
watch Gabe slip in through the window. Actually, my eyes are on Dr. Lee’s aura
and the brown spots that drift within his energy stream. They’ve grown bigger
over the year that I’ve known him. His energy is pale, sluggish.

“Dr. Lee.” I hesitate. I still don’t
quite know how to approach him. Along with their mother, Diana, he practically
raised Tarren and Gabe. They treat him alternatively like a sage and a father,
but I wasn’t a part of that life. I know him only from our infrequent visits to
his cabin and by the stories Gabe tells.

“Spit it out,” he says. Gabe tells
me that Dr. Lee is spikey as a porcupine on the outside but soft as apple pie
on the inside. Gabe says really weird things a lot.

“Are you okay?” The question sounds
so lame when I say it out loud.

Dr. Lee frowns, and the lines
deepen in his face. “My back hurts, my joints are swollen, and I’m hungry. You
want to hear about my prostrate?”

I think of porcupines and apple pie
and smile. “Something’s wrong with you.” It’s not a question. “You don’t have
to tell me. It’s your business. But we’re here if you need us. You don’t have
to hide…”

The back door opens and Gabe gives
me a proud grin. “I am Batman!”

“Gotham is lucky to have you,” I
say.

“Took all of the security cameras
off line. We’ve got two dogs and a cat in a kennel in the back room. Steer
clear.”

“Got it,” I say. Animals can
somehow sense the predator inside of me, and as a result, they usually go bat
shit crazy if I get too near.

I open the back door of the jeep,
lean in, and unbuckle Rain from his seatbelts. This is the part I’ve been
dreading. It’s been over 24 hours since I’ve fed, and my body is begging for
energy. Rain’s aura moves in a jerky, swirly motion, peppered with red. His
lidded eyes twitch with dreams.

“Alright, everybody out of the
pool,” I say, because I can be super lame sometimes.

“Maya, I can…” Gabe starts.

“No, I’ve got him. You and Dr. Lee
get a room ready.”

I open the other door and gather
Rain into my arms. He’s all loose limbs, lolling head, and endless legs. And
energy. His aura brushes my skin, and it feels like electricity, prickling
every hair on my body, revving up the animal instinct inside of me. I feel the
seams along my palms split and unfurl. The feeding bulbs rise to the surface
and press against my leather gloves.

I focus on shifting Rain over my
shoulder so his arms drape down my back and his legs don’t drag. As I walk him
into the clinic, my sensitive nose catches a scent on him beyond the urine, the
dried sweat, the lingering fumes of his deodorant, and a woodsy smell that I
assume is from the offending tree. This other scent is flowers, smoke, and
cashmere mixed together.  Perfume. Expensive perfume.

“Don’t….don’t,” Rain murmurs, and I
feel his head lifting from my back.

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” I say, while I
try to breathe. We never said we were exclusive. In fact, I’ve made it a point
to never discuss or define what we are. And it’s not like I can give him the
physical side of the relationship anyway. Hell, just carrying him across the
hall with our clothes on is taxing my control to its limits. I’m a freak, and
no matter how many nights I imagine relaxing into his arms or pulling off his
jeans, or feeling his lips travel down my jaw, I’ll never be able to have that
or give it to him. Perhaps I should be glad that he found…

“In here,” Gabe says.

I don’t know what to expect at a
vet clinic. More dog hair, I guess. More odor. But this place is just adorable.
It’s already festooned in animal-themed Halloween decorations. A cartoon of a
pug wearing a witch’s hat hangs on the door of the operating room. The walls
are a cheery blue with a border of purple and pink paw prints.

Quotes hang around the room, and I
immediately love them:

“In ancient times cats were
worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.” Terry Pratchett.

“No one appreciates the very
special genius of your conversation as the dog does.” Christopher Morley.

“Cleaner than expected,” Dr. Lee
says as he gazes around the room. “Put him down here, gently,” he instructs, as
if I were just going to drop Rain in a heap on the floor. I carefully lay him
out on the table Dr. Lee has indicated and step back quickly. Pulling away from
Rain’s aura is painful, and my palms throb as I take each forceful step
backwards.

“Dammit, we can’t intubate with this.”
Dr. Lee digs through a drawer, pushing aside long, thin tubes incased in
plastic packaging.

Francesca comes in a minute later
carrying a swollen medical bag. Her aura moves quickly and is saturated with
pale stripes of yellows. She’s nervous but controlled. Focused.

 “Scrub up,” Dr. Lee says as soon
as he sees her. “Get your hair up too. Everyone else out.” He’s already moving
a machine toward Rain. Francesca opens the worn medicine bag and starts laying
things on a nearby table, a box of gloves, scrubs, caps.

 “Behind…behind,” Rain says on the
table. His aura jumps. “Tarren.”

“Prep the Propofol,” Dr. Lee says.
“I’ll check the head first, and then see what the fracture looks like. What the
hell are you still doing here?” He looks up at me.

“I…” My words falter. I’m suddenly
so afraid that this will be the last time I see Rain alive.

“He’s in good hands.” As always,
it’s Francesca who knows just the right words to sooth down my panic. She
reaches to touch my shoulder, but I move forward, out of her reach.

“Okay. Just….just take care of him,
doc.” My words are trembly, and I force my legs to move me out of the room. As
soon as the door closes, I press my back against the opposite wall and close my
eyes. I thought I was getting stronger. The terrified little literature major
who couldn’t pull the trigger has been packed away for almost a year. But now
this. One look at Rain laid out on that operating table, and I feel like a lost
little girl about to lose someone else she loves all over again. There are some
monsters that all the bullets in the world can’t even scratch.

After a few minutes of wobbling on
the edge of hyperventilation, I manage to calm myself. I walk cautiously to the
front of the clinic, and then back through the rooms following the pulse of
Gabe’s aura. I find my brother in a small closet in the hall. He works on a big
black safe within. He sits cross-legged in front of it, stethoscope plugged
into his ears, cape spreading on the floor behind him. A scruffy, chocolate
colored mutt by his side begins a long, low growl as soon as I approach. The
dog would be a lot scarier if his shaggy head wasn’t encased in a huge plastic
satellite dish.

“Come on, Richard, she’s good
company. Won’t eat you, I promise,” Gabe says as he plucks the stethoscope out
of his ears and scratches behind the dog’s ear.

“Richard?”

“Not my first choice either, but
it’s on his collar,” Gabe says. “No offense, Rich.”

Gabe turns back to the safe. I’m
pretty sure he’s using the vets’ own stethoscope to break into their safe. Richard
sits on his haunches staring at me with suspicious brown eyes. I notice his
shaved, salmon-colored belly.

“Can’t you just put him back in the
kennel?” I say.

Gabe turns back around and places
his hands over Richard’s floppy ears. “Look, Rich is going through a tough time
right now. The poor guy just got his balls chopped off. Can you imagine how he
feels?”

“I’ve never had balls, so no.”

“Exactly, so be sensitive, okay?”

I stare at Gabe.

“Okay?” he asks again. Richard’s
long, pink tongue lolls out of his mouth.

“Fine.”

Gabe grins and pats Rich on the
back before focusing on the safe once again. For six minutes, I try not to
think about what Dr. Lee is doing with his scalpel in the next room. Gabe holds
the bell of the stethoscope next to the dial and turns it in tiny, slow
increments. His aura spikes just before he whistles and pulls open the safe’s
door.

“Easy peasy. Right, my man?” He
scratches Rich behind the ear.

I crane my head to look at the
boxes lined up inside the safe.

“We got some Schedule Threes in here,” Gabe says with
appreciation.

Yep. I see labels for morphine,
hydro-morphine, Valium, and Buprenex. This is the good stuff, the stuff we
unfortunately need to keep in stock in our line of work. Gabe unzips the
backpack propped next to him and reaches into the safe.

“Wait,” I say. Something is
squirming in my stomach. “Let’s…not steal them, okay? We have enough meds in
our kit already, right?”

Gabe folds his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, our supplies are fine, but there’s a lot of money in here Maya. Money we
can use.”

Richard’s head swings back and
forth as he looks between us.

“We steal when we absolutely have
to, but that’s not who we are,” I tell him. This is the part of the vigilante
thing that I hate. Stealing people’s cars, breaking into costume shops. We’re
supposed to be saving people, not taking their shit.

“I don’t like it either,” Gabe
says, “but guns don’t grow on trees.”

Gabe prefers black and white. Good
guys. Bad guys. As long as we’re good guys, then doing a few bad things is
okay. But I know his weakness.

 “I want to show you something,” I
tell him.

He gives me a dubious look, like he
can sense the trap I’m baiting.

“Come on Batman, you’re not scared
are you?” I lead him back to the front of the clinic. Rich follows, keeping
close to Gabe’s side. That low growl starts whenever I get too close for his
taste.  

“Look,” I say, beckoning for Gabe
to take in the front office.

A huge bulletin board covers half
the wall behind the front desk. Big bubble letters in the center of the board
read: “Dr. Michael and Dr. Megan Zimmerman’s Extended Family.” Hundreds of
pictures fill the board. It quickly becomes obvious that the pretty woman with
springy brown hair and warm eyes behind her trendy glasses is Dr. Megan. Her
husband is a little sparse in the hair department, but his smile is wide and
toothy. In the pictures, they grin next to cats, dogs, rabbits, and guinea
pigs. Other pictures were obviously provided by their customers and show cats
sitting in window sills and dogs snoozing on the couch. One picture that I
particularly like focuses on the bushy tail of a dog drinking out of the
toilet. Even in these frozen pictures, you can tell that Dr. Megan and Dr. Michael
love their job. They look at their furry clients with care. I bet these doctors
are funny and cute. I can almost see them cracking jokes to each other all day
and giving their employees Friday afternoons off even though that means they’ll
have to stay longer cleaning up. I bet their own home is filled with former
strays that they couldn’t give up.