Matters of Circumstance (19 page)

This reference to her status as only child, cheesy as it was, usually never failed to get her smiling, but this time it just didn’t reach her. “I’m still a person. I have thoughts and feelings, and that’s not going to change.”

“Of course it won’t,” he said, and she heard him shifting to face her. “So, what’s going on now?”

Farrah, who had only been looking at her wringing hands, squeezed her eyes shut. “I love you, Dad. Please, please don’t hate me for this.”

“Hate you for
what?”

She scrunched her eyes tighter, clenching her fingers together until her knuckles popped. “I have wings,” she said in a tiny, tiny voice.

“…Come again?” He hadn’t heard her.

Shit, she had to say it twice? Farrah took a huge breath and said quietly, “I-I have… I have wings, Dad.”

Silence. After a while she chanced opening her eyes and stealing a look at her father.

He was still staring at her, except he was now completely unimpressed. “You have got to be kidding me.” And with the way he said it, it really wasn’t a question.

That hurt, but Farrah persisted anyway. “I… I’m not.”

“Then what is this talk of wings supposed to be, if not a practical joke? You honestly can’t expect me to believe that you can’t see a doctor for a checkup because you have
wings.”
Then he gave her one of those Do You Think I’m Stupid? sort of looks.

If made her feel like crap because it really did sound untrue, when you put it like that.

Farrah looked around to see if anybody was in their part of the parking lot. When she saw no one she gulped and took a shaky breath. “Please don’t hate me,” she said one last time before she shuffled around and lifted up the back of both her hoodie and t-shirt. The tips of her wings brushed together as they adjusted to the lack of smothering, and she felt her flesh raise in nerves and cold.

Then there was nothing. She didn’t hear any intake of breath, didn’t feel any touch on her wings, just… nothing.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Um, Dad?”

“What the hell happened to you?” he breathed, horrified.

“I-I told you,” she said. “I have…” Instead of saying the word again she merely shifted her wings a little.

To say she had adrenaline in her system would be a severe understatement. She practically
was
adrenaline, if that made any sense.

“You misunderstood me,” said her father, grabbing her clothes and gently pulling them down until she looked normal again. “When I said what, I was really asking
why
you have w—these things. Do you know at all?”

He was taking this news extraordinarily well, in Farrah’s opinion. So he couldn’t say wings—at least he wasn’t telling her that he never wanted to see her again.

Of course, he was liable to do that at any given moment, but she was trying really hard not to think about that.

“That’s the thing,” she said softly. “We don’t know.”

“Wait—we? Who is we?”

So she told him the whole story. All of the things that she had wanted to tell him and her mother and never did, even some of the things he was probably better off not knowing. Midway through Farrah was certain that she had lost the power of cogent speech, but he never made her stop to clarify. Actually, the only thing her father did was crack a window and turn on the air conditioner, but even then he didn’t interrupt her.

And when she was done, well, she figured she was probably screwed. She had been looking at her father throughout the explanation, but now she lowered her eyes to her jean-clad knees. “I’m a freak, I know,” she mumbled sadly.

He didn’t respond immediately, but then he said, “Well, you certainly aren’t normal anymore.” Then his voice went from joking to empathetic. “I’m sorry for being so hard on you about this whole doctor thing. I knew you weren’t telling me the real reason, but I never thought this would be it.”

“It’s okay. It’s my fault that I never said anything to begin with.”

“Did you really think I would hate you for this?” he asked.

She had no words to describe her feelings about that, so she merely nodded.

He let out a breath. “Oh, Farrah, you should know that I would never hate you, no matter what happens.”

“Yeah, but this goes beyond the usual happenings.”

Her father let out a small laugh and leaned across the center console to give her an awkward sort of hug. It was still a hug, though, and it meant more to Farrah than she would ever say. Her hands came up to rest on his forearm in reciprocation and a part of her was at once shamed and horrified to feel tears pricking her eyes.

“It’s okay, Fare,” he said, warm and reassuring and very fatherly. “I don’t think you’re a freak, okay? No matter what happens—even beyond the usual happenings—you’re always going to be my baby girl.”

Tears stinging like brands in her eyes, Farrah nodded again and said in a choked voice, “Okay.”

“Aw, don’t do that,” he said in a suddenly normal voice, pulling away. “You’re going to snot all over my car.”

She laughed weakly and went into the glove box for one of the napkins he always kept in there.

Her father opened his door and began to get out. “Okay, you stay here and I’ll go up and officially cancel the appointment. We already missed it, anyway.”

“Sure thing,” she said in a clearer voice. Looking at the digital clock on the dashboard, she realized that they were late by nearly half an hour. It shocked her that it had been that long already.

Her father shut his door and went over to the parking lot elevator, which would take him up to her pediatrician’s floor (which was shared with an adult doctor, incidentally). When the elevator’s doors shut she considered herself officially alone and sat back in her seat. Farrah snuffed and crushed her napkin in her fist, not quiet believing that all she’d had to deal with was a little leeriness. That would probably get better with time.

She hoped.

Then she heard a crash of sorts and looked out the windshield in the direction the sound had come from. What she saw made her jaw drop and adrenaline sear its way back into her veins like flaming gasoline.

That suspicious couple. And her doctor. Together.

At first Farrah didn’t know what to think when she saw her doctor fraternizing with that couple. They knew each other? Really? She could hardly wrap her mind around it, it was so shocking to her. Her blatant gawking was subsequent.

She couldn’t hear them, but the way they were standing and gesturing at each other was indicative of an argument. Why did this have to happen in the parking lot, of all places? Did one or all parties have something to hide? The couple had never seemed to hide anything (from Farrah, at any rate), and her pediatrician…

He was a pediatrician, for god’s sake. How bad could he be? Maybe that crazy couple wanted to look at her medical records or something.

It looked like they were fighting hard, too. Someone was the bad guy in this situation, but the problem was that Farrah didn’t know who that was. She wished her father would come back to the car already. How long did it take to pay cancellation fees, anyway? Farrah would have been there and gone already, if she were doing it. Had he got caught up in chit-chatting again? He was prone to doing that.

Nervous sweat pricking on her forehead and along the side of her face, Farrah lowered her eyes to the dashboard and slouched in her seat, hoping that neither party would notice her. She almost felt like a spy in one of those movies, hiding in plain sight and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Except she wasn’t as confident or capable as those spies, and she wouldn’t be striking. She would be, for lack of a better description, running away with her tail tucked firmly between her legs.

‘Come on, Dad, where are you…’

Oh god, if they spotted her she would piss herself, no doubt about it. Her heart lurched into her throat, beating, beating. She wasn’t even near them and she was terrified.

Farrah wiped the sweat from her face with the soft cuff of her hoodie. Then the hairs on her arms rose uncomfortably, and her gaze snapped up to see none other than her doctor and that couple looking at her. Not just in her general direction, mind, right
at her
.

When she noticed this only two words came to mind: oh shit. Oh
shit
!.

She nearly had a heart attack when they starting walking towards her. What should she do? Should she lock the car and stay huddled inside, waiting for her father to come by and shoo them away—no, she couldn’t do that. What if one or all of them tried to break in?

Fight or flight.

The moment that thought hit her mind started functioning at one-hundred miles an hour. Farrah didn’t know self-defense of any sort. Not really. But she couldn’t just sit there and let them corner her, either. It wasn’t a choice, it was instinct.

Fight or flight.

She had to run.

Her fingers were numb and tremulous as they fumbled with the switch-lock on the passenger door. Haste made her try twice before it clicked off, and then she only managed to get a good grip on the door handle the third try. She was lucky that she had unbuckled when they parked, or she would have probably clothes-lined herself as she half-leapt, half-fell out of the vehicle. Already she could hear the calls echoing throughout the parking lot and ricocheting harshly inside her skull.

“Farrah! Farrah O’Brien! Wait!”

“Stop! Don’t run!”

“We just need to talk to you!”

It took her a few stumbling starts, one of which she nearly fell down, but then she developed a rhythm. Farrah didn’t sprint very often—hardly ever—but right now she felt like she could be on the track team. Adrenaline was like ice in her body, and if she was panting or tiring out then she couldn’t feel it. All she could think, could know, could be was
escape.
Darting to the side of one car and through two others, puddles exploding beneath her sneakers, the only notion in her entire being was that she had to get to a place where there were enough people that they wouldn’t do anything.

But to do that—to really get enough protection—she needed to reach the elevator and travel to the second floor of the building. And there was only one elevator in this building, on the side where her opponents were coming from. If she could lead them far enough away, she might be able to cut quick across the lot and shut the doors before they could reach it.

In the back of her mind she knew that she was being exceedingly immature and making a scene when she really didn’t have to, but she never stopped running.

Farrah was nearly run over by an SUV that was backing out of its stall. She hardly noticed as the brake lights flashed and the vehicle rocked. Its horn was torturously shrill in her ears as she sprinted on, making a hard left around a convertible and hearing one of her pursuers stumble. Good. She needed to slow them down.

“Jesus Christ—” she heard one of the men pant (though in her current frame of mind she couldn’t tell who it was) “—Will you stop this?”

Sweat was openly pouring down her face and neck at this point, and she could feel it stinging her eyes when she blinked. Despite this, however, Farrah forced herself to speed up. Just a little more weaving and they would be far enough behind her that she could reach the elevator.

She knew she hadn’t been running that long, but now she could feel the vicious stitch in her side. The muscles in her legs were on fire. She was overheating in her sweater, which felt less like a comfort and more like a soft, sweltering prison. Farrah knew she wouldn’t be able to keep this up much longer.

Just a little bit farther. That was it.

A Chevrolet was cruising down one of the lanes, searching for an open stall, but she hardly saw it as she dashed in front of it. The horn beeped and she heard a female voice cursing her, yet it stopped her pursuers just long enough that Farrah could swing back around and make a beeline for the elevator.

Holy crap, was that her father?

“Stop running, we’re not going to hurt you!”

“I just—” panting “—Want to see what the injection did to you!”

Out of shape as she was, Farrah could already feel herself reaching her limit. Safety was only a few more yards away, though, and that gave her the push she needed. She crashed into her father, squeezing her eyes shut so hard that she saw lights and clinging to him as if for dear life. Over and over again she babbled, “Don’t let them get to me. Don’t let them get to me, Dad. Oh god, don’t let them take me away…”

It might have only been her exhausted delirium, but she could have sworn that as soon as those words left her mouth there was an outburst of motion. All of a sudden she was surrounded by mechanical clicks and unearthly shouts.

“Stop. I said
stop.”

“We have a verbal confirmation on the hormone injection. Did not say codeword, but a verbal confirmation on the injection. Over.”

“Target is showing signs of Class B Hyperventilation. Over.”

“We are from the CIA, and we have received intelligence that you are conducting illegal experiments. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you.”