BROKEN ANGELS (Angels and Demons Book 1) (14 page)

Dylan went north. She needed to be with her family.

Wyatt was pleased to see her, but Josephine was distracted by the toll this disease was having on her people. She wanted to be everywhere all at once. She hardly slept and never ate. And it was starting to show on her face.

“Let me help,” Dylan said, reaching for her daughter.

Josephine pulled away and, as she did, she began to cough.

“No, Jo!”

Wyatt went to her and lead her to a chair. He found a tissue and gave it to her, pressing it to her lips. Blood spotted it in tiny little flecks, taking away any doubt that she had the disease.

Wyatt looked up at Dylan, fear and accusation dancing in his eyes.

Dylan touched her daughter’s head, her healing power immediately seeking out a cause. Just like had happened when she touched Benji, her powers seemed confused by what it was feeling. There was nothing she could do.

“You’ve worn yourself out, Jo,” she said softly, stroking her hair. “Let us take you home and take care of you for a few days.”

There were tears in Jo’s eyes when she nodded. “That would be nice, Mom.”

Not now. I’m not ready.

But that didn’t seem to matter.

***

Dylan settled Josephine in her old bedroom, treating her fever with cold rags and her cough with tea and honey. It wasn’t helping. The cough came with such frequency that Jo could barely catch her breath before the next fit began. Wyatt refused to leave her side, sitting on the bed and patting her back whenever she coughed in hopes of helping work out the mucus and blood that came up with each expulsion. Each time he looked at Dylan, there was accusation in his eyes that seemed aimed at her. But she knew it wasn’t her that he was accusing. It was Stiles.

When Dylan wasn’t in the bedroom, fussing over Josephine’s cold rags or her bedding, she was in the living room pacing. She had never felt so helpless.

She was an angel. Her child was in pain. She should be able to make it better. But she couldn’t.

She almost went to the hospital a dozen times—almost went in search of Stiles’ scientist—to insist he speed up whatever it was he was doing. She was afraid there wasn’t enough time. What if he couldn’t find the cure before everyone she loved died?

What if Wyatt got this disease, too?

She couldn’t slow her thoughts or stop her fear. Each second that passed seemed like another nail in the coffin. If Josephine didn’t make it…she didn’t know what she would do.

They passed a restless night, and then another. Josephine’s symptoms seemed to worsen quicker than those Dylan had seen in the hospital, as though she had an especially virulent version of the disease. Or was that just Dylan’s fear warping her perception?

On the third morning, Dylan walked into Josephine’s room with a fresh bowl of cold water to find both Jo and Wyatt sound asleep. Jo was sitting up in the bed, braced against a stack of pillows that Wyatt had arranged for her. Wyatt was beside her, his head resting close to hers. He looked peaceful. It reminded her for a moment of the many times she’d watched him sleep when they were young and on the run from Lily’s redcoats.

What a life they’d shared together.

She went to him and brushed a curl off his forehead. He was warm and his skin was moist under her fingers. She let herself believe it was simply the heat of Josephine’s fever making him sweat in his sleep.

She had to believe that.

Stiles sat with his back against the wall, the cushion of his bedroll keeping his butt from aching after sitting too long on the cold, tile floor. He was holding a turkey sandwich, but he hadn’t taken a bite in fifteen minutes. His appetite was gone. Too much time had passed. Too many people were suffering and dying with each passing moment.

Nearly half the population of their city had died since this disease first attacked. Three-quarters would be gone if they didn’t find a cure soon.

He knew about Josephine; he could hear Dylan’s panicked thoughts. She wasn’t trying to hide them, or else she didn’t realize she wasn’t hiding them. They dropped like a rock in his mind and refused to budge. And now there was something about Wyatt.

“Have I asked lately how things are going?”

Matthew glanced over his shoulder. “About five minutes ago.”

“I don’t suppose anything has changed?”

Matthew didn’t answer.

Stiles stood up and tossed the sandwich into a trash can. “I think I’ll go stretch my legs.”

“Aw, you don’t want to do that. Then you’ll miss it.”

“Miss what?”

Matthew turned and held up a vial with a thin, red liquid inside. “The cure.”

Stiles stared at it. “It looks so innocent.”

Matthew laughed. “Can a cure really be innocent?”

Stiles shrugged. “It looks innocuous.”

“Better.” Matthew climbed off of his stool. “Who should our guinea pig be?”

The answer seemed obvious to Stiles. “Rachel.”

But Harry disagreed.

“We should try it on someone who isn’t standing on death’s door. Rachel had a bad night. Most of her organs have begun to fail. Even if your cure works, it might be too late to save her.”

“But Rachel has a purpose, and I think this is it.”

Harry looked at Stiles as if he were insane. “A purpose? She’s just another of several hundred patients who are dying of this crazy disease.”

“It needs to be her.”

“Stiles is right,” Matthew said. “Someone who is healthier might show improvement whether or not the cure works. But if Rachel begins to improve, we’ll know it was the cure and not just some valley in the progression of the disease.”

Harry picked up a couple of patient charts and handed them to Matthew. “Each of these patients is entering the end stages, but they aren’t as far along as Rachel. I think one of them would be a better choice.”

“What if we gave some to one of these, and some to Rachel?”

“It’s a waste of time. Rachel is beyond saving.”

“I don’t think that’s your place to decide,” Stiles said.

“I’m her doctor. I can tell you that she will be dead by this afternoon no matter what we do.”

“We’ll see.”

Matthew looked from father to son, and then walked away, vial and syringe in hand. Stiles followed and, after a brief hesitation, so did Harry. When they walked into Rachel’s room, Jimmy was crying at her side. He tried to hide it, wiping at his tears before he turned on them.

“What do you want? Can’t you see she’s resting?”

“We just want to give her a little medicine, Jimmy,” Harry said. “It’ll help ease her suffering.”

Jimmy’s face threatened to crumple, but he managed to keep it together. “Be easy with her,” he said. “She’s been through enough.”

“I’ll be very careful,” Matthew said as he drew the cure into the syringe. As soon as the red liquid was bubble free and ready to go, he lifted her painfully thin arm and injected it into what was left of the muscle in her upper arm. Rachel didn’t even blink.

“What now?” Harry asked.

“Now we wait.”

Stiles shook his head. “No. It’s already working. Do you see?”

Both Matthew and Harry looked at Rachel, confusion in their eyes. Even Jimmy glanced at Stiles like he was speaking a foreign language. But there was something different about her. He could see it in her aura, in the way she was breathing. Her breaths were less shallow than they had been. The color was beginning to return to her cheeks. She was improving right before their eyes and they couldn’t see it.

Stiles moved up beside her. Jimmy grabbed his wrist, intent on sending him away. But then he let him go.

Stiles leaned close to Rachel. “You’re going to be okay,” he whispered against her cheek. Then he touched her and he felt the change inside of her, as though the cure had reconnected whatever it was that had blocked his healing power before. He could feel the brokenness inside of her, but he could also feel the disease releasing its hold on her cells. He closed his eyes and pictured her organs healing. And he could feel that, too. He could feel her body knitting itself back together.

When he stepped back, she opened her eyes.

“Rachel?”

Jimmy stood and leaned over her, peppering her face with kisses.

“I don’t believe it.”

Stiles glanced at Harry. “You have to believe in miracles a little more, son.” And then he stumbled backward and collapsed.

Matthew arrived at the house late in the evening. He didn’t say anything, just held up two syringes with a pale red liquid inside. Dylan waved him in, not yet ready to embrace the relief that wanted to settle on her shoulders. She followed him to Josephine’s room—the same room he slept in his first night in their time—and watched as he carefully injected first Jo and then Wyatt. Neither woke from the slumber they’d seemed incapable of shaking these last few hours, but Dylan could see the changes in their color, in their auras, almost immediately.

That’s when she let the relief take the steel out of her knees.

Matthew caught her and carried her into the living room, depositing her on the couch.

“You and Stiles,” he said.

“Stiles?”

“The fool decided to heal your…what is Rachel? Your cousin?”

“Aunt-in-law.”

“Oh.” He kind of nodded. “That makes more sense.”

“Stiles healed Rachel?”

“He did. And it knocked him off his feet. I don’t think Harry has ever been more concerned about his father, if I’m reading their relationship right.”

“You probably are.”

Matthew smiled. “I’ve always been pretty good at gauging relationships.”

“The cure.” Dylan gestured at the empty syringes in his hand. “It works?”

“So far, so good. We’ve injected twelve patients and each one has already begun to show improvement.”

“Only twelve?”

“That’s all the doses the first patch made. But we’ve got several people working on making more, so we should be able to have all the sick injected by this time tomorrow.”

“Good.”

Dylan started to stand, but a wave of dizziness caused her to fall back down onto the couch.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

She shrugged. “It’s been a while.”

“You should get some sleep. I’ll stick around and watch over your family.”

“Don’t they need you at the hospital?”

“I’ve actually been told to go get some sleep myself, so they probably don’t want to see my ugly mug for a couple of hours.”

“Then go get some sleep. You can have my bed.”

Matthew began to argue, but then he stopped. “You aren’t one to let someone disobey your orders, are you?”

“Not really.” She touched his shoulder and just like that they were standing in the master bedroom. “No boots on the bed.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Matthew sat on the edge of the bed and tugged his shoes off before he lay back with a heavy sigh. “Nice,” he sighed.

“I like it.” Dylan pulled a blanket up over him. “Stiles is okay?”

Matthew nodded. “He collapsed, but he came to right away. Harry made him go home and told him to get some sleep.”

“A lot of that going around.”

“A lot of people burning the midnight oil the last few weeks.”

Dylan nodded. She touched Matthew’s forehead and he was asleep before she could say goodnight.

She went into Josephine’s bedroom to check on her family. They were asleep, peaceful now. Josephine’s breathing was smooth and even, less ragged than it was before. And Wyatt’s forehead was cool to the touch. She pressed her hand to the center of his chest and felt the disease releasing from his cells. She closed her eyes and drew it out, feeling his body heal as she did. She did the same with Josephine, ignoring the heavy ache that settled between her shoulders as she did.

Then she settled into a chair and closed her eyes, finally allowing herself a few moments of rest.

She wasn’t asleep long when she felt herself separate from her body like she used to do when she traveled in time. She didn’t want to travel and didn’t understand where she was going. Usually she had some sort of destination in mind before she departed her body, a feeling that drew her in one direction or another. Not this time.

When she arrived…wherever, she found herself in the middle of a crowded city. There were cars on the many streets, cars like her electric model, but different—bigger and faster. And there were people, everywhere. She thought for a moment that she had gone into the past; back to before the war began. But then she saw a sign, the name Dytonia written on it.

Dytonia. That was the name of the city where Rachel lived. It was a new city, one that hadn’t existed in the past.

This was the future.

Humanity was thriving. All these people were walking in the sunshine, talking to one another; children were laughing and playing in the many parks. It was a beautiful sight, exactly what they had all fought to protect.

This is you. This is your purpose.

That voice…the man from the garden.

She moved over the city, her aura glowing brightly in the warm sunlight. She watched people go about their daily lives: fathers going to work, mothers playing with their children, and sometimes the father staying with the child while the mother went to work. She saw happiness, joy, security, and trust. She saw kindness. She saw love.

And then she saw herself.

She was sitting in a small dwelling—an apartment, she thought Wyatt had once called these places—reading a book, curled up on the couch. A noise, or a sudden thought, caused her to look up. And then a bright smile slid across her lips as she watched a man come into the room with a small dog dancing on the end of a leash in front of him.

“We should really get a female dog next time,” he said. “This one decided to stop at every corner, sniffing every inch of the street looking for someone to pick a fight with.”

“Aw, Eddie wouldn’t do that, would you Eddie?”

She laughed as the dog jumped into her lap and licked her face.

The man came deeper into the room, moving out of the shadows. Red hair seemed to glow like a halo on the top of his head, his familiar grin like a small knife slicing at her heart.

He leaned down to kiss her, the “her” sitting on that couch. And she responded warmly, sliding her hand over the angle of his jaw with an intimacy that left no question as to their relationship.

“No,” Dylan whispered to herself.

That is your future,
the voice told her.
With that, comes this.

“No,” Dylan repeated.

But the thing was, she had always known. Somewhere, deep inside, she had always known.

But that didn’t mean she was ready to give up what she had just yet. And she had freewill. That didn’t necessarily have to be her future.