Let the Sky Fall (5 page)

She moans again and rolls to her side. I glance at my door, hoping my parents haven’t heard. But I don’t have time to worry about it because the next second she jumps to her feet.

She wobbles, taking deep breaths as she squints at her hands. I can’t tell if she knows I’m there.

I clear my throat.

She tenses, then turns toward me, her face a mixture of fear and pain and uncertainty.

“What did you do to me?” she whispers.

“Wait—what? I didn’t do anything.”

She moves forward, wincing with each step. I try to back out of the way, but she’s quick—way too fast for someone who was just unconscious. She corners me. “What. Did. You. Do. To. Me?”

“I swear, I didn’t do anything.”

She grabs my shoulders, insanely strong for a girl her size. “I can feel it, Vane. What did you give me?”

Her voice is louder now—loud enough that my parents might
be able to hear. But I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I’m almost ready to call for help. Her nails cut through my shirt, digging into my skin.

I grab her wrists and try to pull her hands away, but she fights me. “Relax, okay? I gave you some water—that’s it.”

“Water?” Her arms go limp.

“Yeah.” I point to the empty bottle near her feet. “Just water. Nothing else.”

“Water,” she repeats, sinking to the floor.

I glance at the door, wondering if I should take my chance and run, get as far away from whatever she is as I can. But I can’t leave. Not after ten years of wondering about her, dreaming about her.

She lowers her head, letting her hair fall across her face. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Uh, yeah—I helped you.”

“Helped me.” An oddly hysterical laugh slips out of her lips as she looks up, peering at me between the wild, wavy strands.

I stare into the same dark eyes I’ve seen every night. Every time I close my eyes. I always thought they were beautiful. Almost hypnotic. Powerful, even.

Now they look defeated.

As if confirming my thoughts, she curls her knees into her chest, hugging them with her arms and rocking back and forth.

“You didn’t help me,” she whispers. “You just killed everyone.”

CHAPTER 8

AUDRA

M
y eyes burn in a way I don’t understand. Then something wet streaks down my check.

A tear.

Everything inside me knots with a mix of fear and rage.

I shouldn’t be crying. Not because I have to be brave or strong or maintain any of the other aspects of my oath. I physically shouldn’t be able to shed tears.

The fact that I can means it really is too late. My body’s absorbed the water. I’ll be weakened for months.

Just like my father was the day he died.

My shoulders shake as a tremendous sob overcomes me. I want to tear at my skin, scratch deep and hard, like that could somehow scrape away the water inside me. But it doesn’t work that way. I’ve
suffered so much to avoid my father’s mistake, gone to such lengths not to tie myself to the earth. But I never planned for this. Never considered that joining the wind would make me faint, or that Vane would give me water to revive me.

Vane.

My head snaps up, and I smear the traitorous tears away with my hands. He’s balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to jump back.

I can’t blame him. My behavior is far from the composed, commanding presence I was trained to present when his mind finally had a breakthrough.

I have to get it together. This is another . . . complication. I’ll find the solution.

I clear my throat, brushing my hair out of my face as I rise. I wish I had time to rebraid it—and change back into my uniform—but I have to settle for tucking it behind my ears and smoothing the fabric of my dress.

“I’m sorry,” I say, proud that I sound strong and steady. “We need to talk.”

“You think?” His pitch is an octave higher than I’m used to. “Who are you—and what the hell do you mean,
I just killed everyone?”

“Keep your voice down.” I step toward him, but he jerks away.

“Don’t come any closer—and don’t tell me what to freaking do. You’re in my house.”

“I know. And if you don’t want your parents to find me, you need to be quiet.”

He glares at me, clearly not happy I’ve made a valid point. “Who are you?”

“My name is Audra. I have all the answers you’re looking for, Vane. But we need to have this conversation somewhere private. Will you come with me?”

Rebellion wars in his eyes. And after the way I acted, I can’t blame him. Which only makes it more frustrating.

My head throbs from the strain I put my body through. I rub my temples and take a deep, slow breath as I study the lines of his face—a face I know so well I can recall every detail from memory. Fear is etched in every feature, making him look older. Pained.

I’ve been ordered to make him trust me, but in that moment I’m surprised to realize I
want
him to trust me.

“Please, Vane. I need you to come with me.” My eyes hold his as I take a cautious step toward him. I reach out and let my fingers brush down his arm. He flinches but doesn’t pull away—even when I take his hand.

His skin feels smooth and warm, and my fingers tingle as they absorb his heat.

Strange
.

It’s been years since I’ve touched anyone. My body must not know how to respond.

Vane stares at our hands, the fear in his face fading into uncertainty. “Is it safe?”

“Completely.”

“Is it far away?”

“We can walk there.”

“And you promise you’ll explain everything?”

“Everything.”

His eyes challenge me. Dare me to break my promise. He doesn’t understand it’s part of my job to tell him everything. But he will soon enough.

I pull him toward the window.

“Wait—we’re going out that way?”

“I can’t exactly walk out the front door—especially in this.” I point to my tiny blue-black dress. It seemed revealing earlier, when I was alone. Now, in the light of his room, with his eyes trailing over me, I feel almost naked.

Especially when he grins and says, “Yeah, my mom definitely wouldn’t approve.”

I drop his hand and fold my arms across my chest. I’d almost forgotten how obnoxious he can be. “Let’s go.”

I leap through the window without looking back. It isn’t a far fall—the house only has one story—but there’s an unfamiliar ache in my joints when my feet hit the ground.

The water
.

I bite my lip, taking deep breaths to remain calm as Vane heaves himself out the window. He yelps as his arm catches the thorns of the pyracantha. I roll my eyes.

“My home is this way,” I say, dashing across the open lawn. It’s the only part of the yard where the moonlight’s bright enough for us to be seen, so we have to move quickly until we reach the towering date palms of the grove that borders the house on all sides.

A soft Southerly revives me as I run. Caressing my face. Drying the last of my tears. The wind can’t lighten the extra weight I carry from the water, but it eases my headache. Vane matches
my pace stride for stride. Whether that means he’s stronger than I thought or I’m weaker than I feared, I can’t tell.

Deeper and deeper we head into the trees. The air is sweet with the aroma of their sticky fruit, and I can feel fallen dates squishing between my bare toes. At least, I hope they’re dates. The night is anything but silent, and all manner of giant insects chirp and skitter around us. This place is infested—
not
the kind of location I would’ve chosen for a home. But my options were limited.

A few minutes more and the pale walls of my shelter come into view.

Vane snorts. “Unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You live there?” He points to the house ahead—or rather, what’s left of it.

A fire condemned it long before I stumbled across it. But the two and a half remaining walls—one of which still has a cracked glass window—along with the scorched support beams from the former roof give me enough space to hide. I draped fallen palm fronds across the beams to provide shade from the heat, and piled more on the ground to form a place to sleep. They aren’t nearly as soft as I’d like, but they’re good enough for nesting birds. I demand no better.

“Why? What’s wrong with that?” I ask, trying to understand his incredulous expression.

“I just should’ve guessed. I came here a couple times when I was a kid—but then I stopped because I was afraid it . . .”

He stops dead in his tracks.

I turn to face him, surprised at how pale he looks in the moonlight.

“I was afraid it’s haunted,” he says. “I heard whispers in the air, and sometimes the way the trees rustled, it seemed like there was a ghost.” He hesitates, like he’s trying to find the courage to ask his next question. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

I nod.

He backs away from me. “What are you?”

“I’m the same as you,” I say, treading lightly.

He laughs and the harsh sound slices the quiet night. “Please. I saw the way you floated in the air like that, and formed out of nothing and—”

“So you really did see me?” I ask, needing to hear him say it. I’ve waited so long for him to have the breakthrough, it’s still hard to believe it finally happened.

“Yeah. So don’t feed me that crap about you being human, because I know what I saw, and humans can’t do that.”

“Vane.” I wait for him to meet my eyes. “I never said anything about being human.”

He sucks in a breath. “So . . . you’re not human.”

“No.”

His face is a kaleidoscope of emotions. Relief. Doubt. Fear. Vindication.

I don’t say anything, waiting for him to make the last, most important connection.

I can almost hear the pieces click together in his brain.

His voice is barely audible when he finally speaks. “But you said you’re the same as me.”

I open my mouth to utter the words that will twist his world inside out and upside down, but my voice vanishes.

I’d give anything to forget who and what I am. To wake each morning not having to face what I must do. Or what I’ve done. Vane’s been living that kind of blissful ignorance for ten years. Oblivious to his responsibilities. Unaware of his role. Innocent to the overwhelming challenges he’ll face.

Now I’m about to strip that freedom away from him.

The guilt and regret nearly choke me.

But he needs to hear the truth. And I swore an oath that I’d tell him. So I square my shoulders and yank his universe out from under him.

“That’s right, Vane. I’m not human. And neither are you.”

CHAPTER 9

VANE

I
can’t stop laughing.

I laugh so hard I scare bats out of the trees. My sides ache and I have to gasp for air and tears stream from the corners of my eyes. But what else am I supposed to do?

This is officially entering new realms of crazy, and I refuse to be dragged there. I may not understand a few things about my life or my past, but I’m absolutely positive that I’m a
human being
. I mean, I look like everyone else. I feel like everyone else.

So does Audra.

Right—because she’s human too,
I tell myself.

Psycho. But human.

I must’ve dreamed what I saw in my room. I’ve had plenty of other crazy dreams about Audra—why not one more?

That’s a good enough explanation for me.

“I’m out of here,” I say as I head back toward my house. “Get off our property—and stay away from me, or I’ll smack you with a restraining order so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“I can’t do that, Vane.”

I ignore the chills I get when she says my name. “Yes, you can.”

She isn’t my dream girl. She’s a problem I’m getting rid of.

She doesn’t follow me. Instead, I hear her start whispering.

I don’t want to listen—fight to ignore her—but it feels like her voice bores into my skull. The sounds are mush, but after a second they sink in and become words.

“Come to me swiftly, carry no trace. Lift me softly, then flow and race.”

The words fill me with warmth and ache and I want to run to them and away from them at the same time. But I can’t move. I’m frozen—enchanted by the whispers swirling in my consciousness.

Enchanted.

“Are you putting a spell on me?” I yell, shaking my head, trying to break whatever voodoo she’s using.

She doesn’t answer.

Instead, a blast of wind tangles around me, and I learn what a fly feels as a spider binds it with a web. Among the chaos and torrential gusts I feel her arms wrap across my shoulders and an explosion of heat as her body presses against mine. Then we’re airborne.

I swear my stomach stays behind as we climb up and up and up. I have to keep popping my ears as we shift altitudes.

But I’m not afraid.

I know I should be. My life is literally hanging on a gust of wind that Audra’s somehow controlling—and she’s clearly some sort of witch or goddess or other impossible creature.

I don’t care.

It feels
right
up in the dark sky. Natural. Like scratching an itch I didn’t feel until the burning relief rushes through me. Up high, with the wind whipping around me and Audra’s warmth mingling with mine, everything else washes away.

I close my eyes and listen to the wind—and I don’t hear the thundering, whipping sound I expect. I hear the ancient language that belongs to the wind and the wind alone. It whispers of the places it’s been.

Of change.

Of power.

Of freedom.

I want to listen forever. And that’s when I know.

I’m
not
human.

I have no idea what I am, or what I’m supposed to do with that revelation. But it doesn’t stop it from being true.

A lurch in my stomach rips me back to reality and I open my eyes. We’re falling, fast and hard. I can’t be sure—but I have a feeling the girly scream comes from me.

“Hit the ground running,” Audra shouts in my ear as the dark earth races toward us.

Right. ’Cause moving my feet will stop me from turning into a Vane-splat.