Broken Wings (4 page)

The bell rang none too soon and Raea
hurried from class to meet her friends for lunch.

Questions during lunch tempted her to
run home to check on Elis in reassurance. No. She shouldn't.
Besides, Nare was there to keep an eye on him. Her emotions didn't
control her. Raea controlled them. And this issue was about
logic.

But the hole in her chest from missing
him ached as if to tear out her heart. She loved him. That should
be enough.

Stop it!
Raea slammed her fork on the table.

Next to her, Linds jumped and bland
peas popped from her tray. "What the hell was that
about?"

"Nothing." Raea didn't want to talk
about it.

"Is this about Elis? I heard you had a
fight or something." Linds rounded up the rolling peas and set them
in a different corner of her tray.

"No." Who—

Josh looked up. "Wha'?" he asked with
a mouthful of food. Disgusting. He choked down the food. "Not me. I
didn't say anything."

Right. He was the only one she'd told,
only because he'd asked first thing that morning when she showed up
at school without Elis at her side and cried on his shoulder. He
swore he wouldn't say anything about her temporary separation with
Elis.

Unless he was innocent and rumors
started because of Nare showing up at school. She should never have
said anything about Nare being related to Elis.

"So, like, what
is
going on? Is he
sick?"

That was one way of putting it. Heart
sick, maybe. Odd that Linds would even care. She was the one most
uncomfortable around Elis.

"No. I told him we needed more time
apart."

"Why?" Jess's eyes widened from Raea's
other side. "You're not breaking up already, are you?"

"No." Raea didn't want to think about
it, much less talk about it. Like talking about her mother, talking
about Elis brought back memories she didn't want to experience
again until she was ready. It hurt too much. She wasn't ready.
Honestly, her friends could be too nosy sometimes. "Can we talk
about something else?"

"Dark Angel?" Josh would say that. He
passed a hand over his hair to brush back the dark brown mess that
looked like he'd just jumped out of bed. Blue eyes sparkled with
excitement at the prospects of his favorite subject. He'd been way
too eager to share stories ever since the first angel sighting
almost two years ago, and the obsession had grown worse with each
report.

Linds groaned. "Not that
again."

"What?"

Dark Angel.
Elis…

Elis stood before her with
black wings.

Raea stared, hardly
believing what her eyes told her. "You are the 'angel' everyone's
talking about."

"Yes."

"You found the little girl
in the cornfield and pulled that woman from her burning home and
helped that kid who crashed his motorcycle on the gravel
road."

His smile in the moonlight
shone with amusement. "You sound surprised."

"I am. But after
yesterday, I kind of expected it. But to see you like this.
It's...What's the word..." The right word didn't exist, at least
not in her shock-fuzzed brain. "I'm just...That was
you."

"I was out flying at night
to avoid being seen clearly. I didn't plan to do anything." He
paused and his voice dropped. "There are certain responsibilities
Keepers bear. Our job is to help anyone in need."

Her first flight six weeks
ago.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop
it!
She didn't want to remember any of it,
but she never wanted to forget either.

"I guess that leaves you out." Josh
let out a heavy sigh and stirred the pile of macaroni and meat mush
called hotdish on his tray.

Raea blinked away the memories and
focused on him. "Out of what?"

"I was hoping we could all get
together Tuesday at my place to hang out…maybe sit outside and
watch for shooting stars."

"Shooting stars?" Linds snorted. "As
if! You just wanna watch for your precious angel."

"So what?" Josh shrugged. "Okay, so
forget the sky-watching. At least hang out and play games." His
eyes met Raea's with a pleading look.

She knew that look. He expected her to
agree.

Raea sighed away her objections. Oh,
what the hell. Sure, she could go. She probably wouldn't be
spending the evening with Elis, but if he was out flying, maybe
that would satisfy Josh.

How ironic. What would Josh do if he
knew the truth?

No. Nothing like waving a flag for the
Shirukan to find her again. If people knew, they'd tell others and
pretty soon her life would be a circus. Bad enough that reporter
four weeks ago who had almost revealed the truth.

Josh waited for an answer. Damn him!
He wouldn't leave her alone, and she didn't have any excuse with
Elis out of the picture.

"Fine."

"Jess?"

She nearly choked on a mouthful of
chocolate milk. "Sorry. Already have plans."

Sorry?
Right.
Plans?
Great. Now Raea was destined to be alone with Josh all night
watching the sky for Elis, although no one knew the Dark Angel was
him, besides her and Debbie and Evelyn. And Nare.

Yes. Nare. That might work. "Mind if I
ask Nare to come?"

His eyes widened, the smile on his
face mirroring them. Exactly what she hoped. "Elis's cousin? The
woman who came to see you? Of course! Yeah. That'd be cool. Is she
into angels?"

Raea wiped her face with the napkin to
hide the smirk. "It's a fair bet." Man, he'd go ballistic if he
knew the truth, but she wasn't ready to reveal that.

"Who's Nare?" Linds looked from Josh
to her.

"Elis's cousin showed up last night.
She brought a message to me this morning."

"Oh, man! Linds, you should see her.
She's got, like, this white-blue hair and she's hot."

"
Blue
hair? That's the chick everyone's
talking about. Must be from the city."

"Denver," Raea said. Elis had told her
about his cousin a few weeks ago, when he mentioned the twenty-one
other Keepers calling Earth home, or at least their temporary home,
until the free cities of Inar'Ahben defeated the Shirat Empire.
Although not believing in a God like her aunt, Raea prayed that the
day came soon for that to happen.

"Figures." Linds folded her arms and
sat back. "What's so great about her?"

"Didn't you hear me?"

"Um…not interested? Hello? Now, give
me a hot guy, and I might get excited."

Josh retreated to his tray. Poor guy.
Sometimes Linds could be a bit hard on him, not that Raea could
blame her. He got on her nerves sometimes too. "Anyway, Raea.
That'd be cool if you'd ask her."

"Sure."

The rest of the meal passed quickly,
though not quickly enough for Raea. Her friends took the hint and,
after just a couple questions to which she gave curt answers, they
quit asking about Elis. But that didn't stop them from asking about
Nare, especially Josh.

Raea didn't know anything, though,
except that Nare and Elis didn't really like each other. That much
she had seen for herself last night, but Nare wasn't exactly
complimentary of him. Raea felt sorry for Elis. What had he done to
Nare?

That was the question. Or did Nare
just have a chip on her shoulder about men in general? From the
attitude, Raea took that as the most likely issue.

When the final bell rang, she hurried
to leave the school. Josh followed her outside into a cooler than
normal late April day tempered by the clouds. Raea shivered and
pulled her dark blue jacket tight to keep out the wind. Winter
refused to give up without a fight, even after all the snow had
melted.

They passed the buses chugging fumes
in a line along the curb in front of the school and headed down the
quiet street. An occupied car across the street caught her eyes.
Two men sat in the front seat, one short and bald with a round
face, the other tall and lean with neatly combed black hair. The
lean man put his palm to the window, a black tattoo of a vaguely
familir symbol exposed.

The image blurred, the shouts and
laughter of her schoolmates vanishing…

Uniformed angels stood
before panels with patterns of lights—keypads of some kind—and
displays around the walls of the room, except for three sections
displaying only stars.

The view shifted and
focused on a man in dark blue with a crimson sash around his waist
standing at a display at the far end of the room. Next to him, a
woman with golden brown wings entered data on the lit keypad before
the display.

["General."] The voice
originated from a face above the scene. The white of her hair over
a gold-accented light pink body suit and leggings filled the
opposite side of the view, which wrapped around her.

The man turned and smiled.
No ordinary smile. His dark brown eyes betrayed a deeper emotion.
His brown wings lifted slightly. ["Keeper Salera. What brings you
to Command?"]

["I've never been off
world and wanted to see with my own eyes where I've brought us."]
She paused and the view shifted to some of the crew in the room.
The golden-winged woman at the panel nearby glanced up at her with
a curious look in her amber eyes. ["I hope I'm not
interfering."]

["No. Of course not. Your
navigation skills are perfect, Keeper Salera."]

Salera smiled, a faint
color rising to her cheeks. The other woman rolled her eyes and
moved off to another panel. ["I'd also like to discuss your purpose
on this world, General Jakoru."]

["Didn't I say you can
call me Vodin?"]

Salera dropped her eyes
for a second and looked up with a broader smile. ["Vodin. What have
you heard about Earth?"]

["Primitive.
Barbaric."]

["But the natives look
like us? That's why we came?"]

His face lit up with a
grin. ["Most of the crew on this ship are scientists.
They
are here to study the
humans."]

["And I'm the
navigator."]

["Unless you'd rather spend
a few turns of
Lis
in this ship going back."]

["No thanks."]

The general turned away
and spoke to someone who wasn't there, but an oblong metal piece
shone from his cheek, a tri-comm.

Salera gazed out the front
viewport, where the black of space gave way to the lighter hues of
sunlit atmosphere. At a small bump, she caught her balance on the
panel before her, her white wings open.

Somewhere out of sight,
Vodin spoke. ["Normal entry. Nothing to worry about."]

Salera straightened as he
pushed her wing to her back.

["It can be unnerving
leaving a machine to do what we do best, but you adapt."] His smile
radiated his amusement and something more.

["Easy for you to say.
I'll feel better when we're settled."]

He chuckled and turned to
the woman standing at the console nearby, the woman with the amber
eyes and dark expression. ["Commander. Hold at four
kilometers."]

["Yes, sir."]

A series of orders issued
from the woman to a few individuals in the command
center.

The scene outside the
nearest viewport lightened to blue hues over a world of green,
brown, blue, and white.

["What is all that
green?"]

["That green is a
by-product of the chemicals in plants here to create oxygen."] He
stood close to Salera, his eyes on the display where the commander
stood.

["It's
beautiful!"]

His smile broadened.
["Yes, it is, but according to our data, there are wonders even
more splendid."]

["I want to see
them."]

["In time."] He stepped
aside to the commander. ["What's the status of the human
civilization?"]

The woman stepped back to
join another at the controls around a central three-dimensional
projection of the planet. Red dots appeared in mostly coastal areas
and some inland.

["Telemetry's receiving
data from the probes."]

The image grew with
Salera's approach.

Light from the hologram
cast an eerie glow on the commander's sharp features. When she put
a hand up to point at their location, her palm revealed a white
patch, like a bandage. ["We're picking up no unnatural
transmissions of any frequency. Nothing in the skies but organics
and our probes. Looks like they haven't advanced much since we
started monitoring this world."] For a second, the commander's eyes
fixed on Salera—only a second—before the commander dropped them to
the controls at a level below her waist.

["We'll save the assessment
for another day, Talea. We don't go further until I
know
it's
safe."]