Falling (14 page)

“We need to put you to sleep, to take some bone marrow
samples,” Tarren says.

“No.”

“Maya, this is important.”

Rainbow shimmers down the needle. Colors
puddle on the floor. Fire licking up the insides of my bones….

“If you drug me I might lose control. I need to be alert,” I
say this matter-of-factly, putting granite in my eyes just like Tarren does.
Our eyes clash, granite on granite, grating stone dust between us, until Tarren
puts the needle down.

I lay on my stomach, gripping the head of the table and
keeping my hands in plain sight. Lo rolls up my shirt, but he isn’t making any
jokes. His energy pulses fast as he leans over me. Tarren stands a couple feet
back holding the tranq gun at his side.

“I can control it,” I tell Lo.

“I’ve heard that before,” Lo says. The energy around him
jumps once, high off his body. This means something, but I am too busy trying
not to kill him to analyze it.

The needle goes in, hits bone. Lo pushes. His energy is so
near. The song howls, and the pain joins in, peeling back the layers of my
control. I grip the table edge tighter and tighter, press my forehead into the
polished surface.

“Hurry,” I hiss.

“I’m trying. Your bones are…stronger than normal,” Lo says.
“Done.”

He backs away quickly. I let go of the table, breathe out a
long, shuddering sob before slowly turning onto my back.

“You did fine,” Tarren says, but he still clutches the tranq
gun.

The menacing mechanical donut is last. I lay on my back as
the machine whirls and hums around me. I have Gabe’s iPod, and I try to listen
to his hard rock playlist, but I turn it off when I hear the murmur of voices
outside the machine. I strain to catch the words.

“Just keep your voice down,” Tarren whispers.

“Well, muscle composition is definitely enhanced. She’s
strong,” Lo says. “Organs realigned. Lungs and heart oversized. Stomach and
intestines shrunk. She probably can’t digest solids anymore.”

“Yeah,” Tarren affirms. “Bone structure matches the others
we’ve seen.”

“Tarren,” Lo whispers, “she’s got a fully constructed
feeding mechanism. It’s all here. Her numbers are lower, but she’s made up just
like one of them. You said she only got one shot? Has she shown any abilities?”

“No, just the general enhancements. We’ve been keeping her
intake as low as possible.”

“Well, allow me to repeat myself. You two are in deep shit
here.” Lo takes a long, hollow breath. “She’s no hybrid; she’s an angel.”

When Tarren answers Lo’s accusation, his words are measured.
“It’s not that simple,” he says. “Angels are human. They just exhibit severely
progressed expression of innate human potential.”

“Bullshit. If she eats from the energy buffet instead of
meat, potatoes and caviar like the rest of us that means she’s one of them.”

Tears gather in my eyes.

“Keep your voice down,” Tarren says. “All her physical
indicators are lower than the others we’ve tested. It’s possible that her
energy needs are equally stunted.” He pauses and doubt laces his voice. “If she
doesn’t require as much sustenance, perhaps her hunger is more controllable.”

“The fuck it is,” Lo retorts. “Since when have you started
believing in your brother’s little fairy tales? There’s no way to measure her
capacity for control, and we have absolutely no evidence that lower physical
symptoms correlates to lower appetite. Since all you bring me are dead bodies,
we can’t even do an anecdotal comparison.”

“She’s not honest with me anyway,” Tarren murmurs.

“Oh, the soul sucker lies? Big surprise.”

There’s another long pause.

“She’s shown some control so far,” Tarren responds. Finally.

“Look, she’s cute, I’ll give you that. I mean, great ass,
really,” Lo says, “but you’ve been keeping her in a controlled environment.
She’s going to break. You know she will. Something will set her off, and then
what happens? She goes psycho in a grocery store. She kills you in your sleep.
She drains that dumb brother of yours before you can…”

“Alright!” Tarren hisses. I feel his energy flare before he
corrals it down.

My oversized heart is pounding so hard that I wonder how it
doesn’t shake this donut to pieces.
Please, please, please
,
I beg Tarren silently.
Defend me.

“She could be the key,” is what Tarren says instead.

“Yeah, if she doesn’t kill all of us first. As the brainy
sidekick, I’m going to be the first to die. That’s how it always goes.”

“Bring her out,” Tarren snaps, which is to say, he doesn’t
deny anything that Lo just said. I hate him for this. Hate him, hate him, hate
him. Especially his stupid jacket.

The machine retracts.  I sit up, yawn and rub my eyes,
brushing the tears away.

“How’s it looking?” I ask casually as I pull out the iPod
ear buds.

“It’s helping,” Tarren says. His eyes meet mine then flick
away. “We’re getting a lot of important information.”

“Good.” I smile and stretch. The tears are still building up
behind my eyes. I force them back and look at Lo. “How did you get into the
sidekick business?” I ask him.

The boy’s energy spikes up again. He blinks. “My Popie, Leo
Hernandez, boxer and douchebag extraordinaire.”

Now I recognize the man in the painting. He was in the
papers about two years ago. Murdered. Some sort of gang thing.

“Popie wanted to be the best,” Lo continues in his too-deep
voice. “Gave it his all. Took all the right pills, stuck himself in the ass
with syringes every day. He would do anything to hit the other guy a little bit
harder. That was his whole philosophy in life. Respect goes to the last man
standing. I had a very pleasant childhood.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“No you’re not.” Lo looks at me. His eyes carry something
dark and powerful. “My father got himself infected, turned into an angel.
Anything to get ahead. I’m all for ruling the world, but I kind of prefer the
old fashion way of duping the uninformed electorate.”

Lo smiles, but it’s a mean expression. “Not my Popie. He
thought I was weak. Didn’t hold back his opinion on the matter. I graduated
high school at thirteen. College at fifteen. He didn’t show up for either
ceremony. I embarrassed him. ‘Eres una pinche debil marica!,’” Lo growls. The
energy churns swiftly around his body.

“Oh,” I say, and yes, the dark part of me enjoys the
spectacle of pain that Lo doesn’t realize he’s emitting through his aura.

“Popie decided the only way to fix the situation was to
infect me, hope I didn’t die. He thought it was worth the risk.” Lo’s voice
cracks. “Had the needle ready and everything before Tarren and Gabe crashed the
party. He deserved the bullets he got. Him and all the others.”

“My father is a bad man too,” I say quietly and am saved
from the dark flight of my thoughts by a knock on the door. Gabe’s muffled
voice calls on the other end. The energy ripples in excited hiccups around his
body as he steps into the room.

“I think we’ve got another angel.”

“Where?” Tarren’s voice is low.

“Redmond, Washington.”

“Keep working on this and email me the results,” Tarren
tells Lo. He looks at his brother, then at me. “Let’s go.”

The way he says it, I almost laugh but don’t. I’m in one of
those moods again. Lo blows me a kiss, and I am grateful to escape the guest
house — my own Château d’lf.

“Oh Troy, mi amor!” Gabe pitches his voice high and leans
across the seat, shouldering his brother. “Que caliente. Besame, besame!” He
puckers his lips, and Tarren shoves him hard back into his own seat.

“Stop it,” he growls and grips both hands on the wheel.
Despite the fact that I now consider Tarren my mortal enemy for life, I have to
admit he has a good growl. I’m convinced he must practice his growls and
grimaces and expressions of sheer focus in the mirror at night.

“Ay caramba!” Gabe tries to laugh it off, but he’s quiet for
a long while afterward.

* * *

Time moves, miles move, the sun dips in the sky. I’m in a
terrible mood, an angel mood. Again and again I replay the snide certainty in
Lo’s warnings and then construct outraged, brilliant, eloquent rebuttals that
Tarren should have offered in my defense.

When that just gets too damn pitiful, I decide to keep
picking at my scabs, the deepest, bloodiest ones. I pull out my journal and
write jostled apology letters to my parents. Henry first, because I don’t have
to get sentimental with him, except that I unexpectedly do. It’s not that I
ever thought he didn’t like me; it’s that he had work, and I looked nothing
like a desk or a computer monitor. But there are little things that I only
appreciate now that he’ll never know.

I apologize for leaving him alone with Karen and giving her
an entirely new cornucopia of emotional ailments to suffer from. I apologize
that I never sat down and watched the game with him, that I never asked about
how any of his business trips went or thanked him for supporting his family.
Each year we drifted farther and farther apart on our different tracks of life.
I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that I never — not once — tried to reach
over and pull us closer together.

And then it is over. Henry is boxed up and tucked away in
two pages. Tender, painful boxes, but at least I can pack them tight in the
back of my mind and keep the lights out.

Karen is harder, because there is a lot to apologize for and
a lot of resentment to try and hose off. My resentment is gooey and heavy and
black like tar. I hate hospitals because of her. I hate nurses and lollipops
and linoleum. I knew what “metastasized” meant when I was six. I knew about
polyps and Lyme disease and dementia and blood borne pathogens and how much rat
feces is legally allowed in the average candy bar.

But there was also the “Find Maya” t-shirt that she wasn’t
supposed to be wearing, the fervent hugs she would allow when I was upset and
those damn organic cookies she made when I got dumped by Miguel Foster in
middle school.

I spend four pages exhuming trespasses, and I’ve still got
many more to go. I’m beginning to realize that I might just have been a very
terrible daughter.

Gabe looks up from his laptop. “You tired? Wanna switch
soon?” he asks Tarren.

“Yeah, there’s an exit coming up,” Tarren says. “We can grab
some food.” He pauses and his energy flicks. “We should also put together a bag
for Maya.”

“She doesn’t need a bag,” Gabe responds.

“Sure I do,” I close my notebook a little too hard. “Bags
are the best.”

“Just in case,” Tarren says, ignoring me.

“There’s no ‘just in case,’” Gabe snaps back. His energy
spikes, and I sit up straight, edge my hands under my thighs.

“I’m not saying we give her a gun —” Tarren starts.

“No, she’s not getting a bag, a gun, anything. She stays out
of it Tarren.”

“Whoa, I’m right here,” I wave in the backseat. “Of course I
need a bag and a gun. There’s a sawed-off shotgun in the trunk right? I’ll take
that one.”

“This isn’t a joke!” Gabe takes off his seatbelt and twists
around to look at me.

“But you promised,” I say, and I’m trying to put all sorts
of authority in my eyes like Tarren does. Only, it’s so hard to keep my eyes on
Gabe’s face. His aura is growing bright, expanding within the tight confines of
the car.

“You’re the one who proposed that I help fight in the first
place,” I tell Gabe and then brilliantly parrot back his words from that night
none of us talks about. “Think about it.  She’ll get strong. She’ll get fast.
She can fight with us.” 

“I was trying to save you from getting your fucking head
blown off; I would’ve said anything!” Gabe’s voice is rising, and so is the
hunger, filling up the car with its melody and making my head champagne dizzy.

“Maya,” Tarren says, but I hate him, hate him, hate him, and
I couldn’t care less what his eyes are warning.

“And that was all well and good, but I want to fight,” I
insist.

“You don’t want this life.” Gabe clutches the headrest with
both hands.

“You can’t keep me stuffed in that house until Tarren
magically comes up with a cure. How exactly do you propose to reverse this
whole
situation anyway
?” I hold up my gloved hands,
and
fuck
, they’re glowing a little and Tarren sees
it and gets that stormy look on his face, which just goes terrifically with the
exasperated
I’ve got my shit together why don’t you
?
look that he was already wearing.

This is when I should stop, but I don’t.

“I’m a fucking freak,” I yell. “I’ll never be able to live a
normal life or ever be happy again. Might as well pass around the superhero
Kool-Aid.”

“Alright,” Tarren is trying to say, but if I didn’t have
enhanced senses I probably wouldn’t have heard him, because Gabe is hollering back,
“Don’t you fucking say that! Tarren’s going to find a —”

“And we’re all going to live happily ever after!” I shriek.

“Why not, huh?” Gabe’s voice is suddenly low, raspy. “Why
can’t we win?”

“You’re unbelievable!” I want to kill them both.

Oh no
. Gabe’s energy is glowing
bright, shredding the layers of my control.
No, no, no, no!

I realize too late that I haven’t been minding the monster.
I really do want to kill them, and I’m not sure I have enough strength to stop
myself.

My whole body shudders violently as I twist away from Gabe
and cross my arms over my chest so that I’m pinning them to the backseat.

“Maya? Something’s wrong.” Gabe’s voice shifts from anger to
concern. “Did she feed at all today?”

“Tarren’s got daggers in his eyes!” I yell out for no
reason.

Tarren whips across lanes and pulls onto the side of the
highway. He locks all the doors as I reach to stumble out.

“I need some air,” I moan.

“We can’t let her out of the car, not like this,” Tarren
says. “Gabe, get back.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I moan and press my head
against the seat as hard as I can. Even though my eyes are closed, I can still
see the glow of their energies pulsing beneath my lids. Maya and the monster
are grappling for control inside my head, but there is no monster. Lo said I’m
an angel, and Tarren parsed it to pieces, but didn’t deny the underlying truth.
It’s all just me in here fighting against my own instincts.

For the first time, I notice that the song is beautiful —
delicate and powerful at the same time. It sends sweet tendrils of flame
through the chemical corridors of my brain, seizing all the functions of my
body and honing them to this one single need. The song offers me the promise of
bliss.

“Maya, we’ll get you something to eat, put together a bag
for you, I swear, but you have to calm down,” Gabe says. “Calm like the forest.
Like the desert. Like the ocean.”

“None of those things are calm,” I moan.

“Control it,” Tarren orders.

“You don’t know,” I whisper. The last noise for a long time,
except for the song which pulls and pulls and the whoosh of cars passing by.
Cars filled with people who don’t have to wear gloves; who don’t wake up
terrified in the night convinced they will eventually kill someone no matter
how hard they repress the instinct. In this moment, I hate those people. All of
them. Everyone in the world who gets to not know about angels, who doesn’t have
to be one. And this brings me back.

I sigh, and Gabe sighs, and Tarren takes his hand off the
gun at his waist. This may or may not be the tranq gun.

* * *

Gabe brings me back a hutch of four rabbits, while I stay in
the car, hands balled into fists and tucked between my legs. Because I beg,
Tarren lets me crouch behind the SUV and drain the biggest rabbit in the
parking lot. I get my bliss, short and sharp as it is.

A car pulls up in the next spot over, and a little girl hops
out of the back seat. I see frizzy black hair, a green dress and pale
violet-blue energy that skips fast ellipticals around her frame. Tarren, who
stands guard next to me but pointedly looks over my head as I feed, tenses and
uncrosses his arms so that his hand is closer to the gun at his waist. I’m
pretty sure now that this is the tranq gun.

The little girl spots me hugging the dead rabbit, coming
down from the high of its energy. Needing more. I smile at the girl and pet the
dead creature in my arms.

“Just got him,” I say, and the little girl beams.

“I’m getting a guinea pig,” she says.

“I like those too,” I reply.

The girl prances over to her mother. When they enter the
store, I throw the rabbit down a sewer grate.

* * *

The Fox brothers do a quick Target run for me. I don’t even
ask if I can go in. I just lie on the back seat, close my eyes and don’t think
about the rabbits hanging out in the trunk, being alive and taunting me with
their whippet-quick hearts all thudding out of sync.

When they come back, Gabe puts my new bag in the trunk, and
I make like nothing possibly portending a fratricidal end to our little family
has recently occurred.

“Did you remember the underwear?”

Gabe’s laugh has only a touch of strain. “Yep, pretty pink
underwear with bows on the front.”

I can tell from Tarren’s face that I’ve lost all the dust
motes of his trust I’d painstakingly collected over the last weeks. Not that I
care.

Gabe takes the wheel and announces we are in for a treat.
The treat turns out to be disc one in a series of angel-hunting soundtracks
that Gabe has apparently compiled with some relish. This elicits a knowing
groan from Tarren.

“I think you’re giving your brother indigestion,” I tell
Gabe as he cranks up Eye of the Tiger.

“Nah, that’s actually what he looks like when he’s happy.
Hard to tell the difference, I know.”

We continue through the night. The darkness is a blanket
around us.  The music drums inside my head. Churning car. Tarren’s energy is
jumping, always jumping, and Gabe is humming along to the music, because he is
incapable of being quiet for one single second.

My hands are hot. I tuck them under my legs and don’t think
about the rabbits. I think about Ryan, but he has no eyes — just worms crawling
out of the empty sockets, so I don’t think of him. I think about Karen and
Henry, but Karen is wearing a “Find Maya” t-shirt, and Henry looks so tired. So
I think about Maya, but Maya is thinking about rabbits, bright little rabbits,
so I’m thinking about rabbits again.

The dim glow of the dashboard offers enough light for my
eyes. I finish Karen’s letter in six pages, skipping some of my more forgivable
blunders. I can’t apologize enough for leaving her alone; for being alive and
letting her suffer my death. The worst stain of all I save for last and scrawl
it hastily on the bottom line, crowding the letters to make it fit. I always
secretly resented Karen for not being my real mother.

Now I’ve just got one letter left. One more monumental
apology. Avalon destroyed forever, but I can’t even think about that right now.
I just can’t.

* * *

Sometime in the night we all switch seats. Now I’m in the
front, Tarren is at the wheel and Gabe lies down across the back seat, tucking
in his legs. “Seatbelts,” he tells us, clicking the middle strap around his
waist before promptly falling asleep.

Tarren glances at me when he thinks I’m not looking. I see a
grim determination on his face and imagine this is the same way he would size
up an enemy.  His energy flicks dangerously, the dark blues growing brighter at
the edges.

“Why don’t you tell people?” My voice comes out as a
too-loud chirp.

“Tell them about the angels?” Tarren guesses correctly.

“Okay, so the cops might laugh at first, but you could catch
the angels on tape. Hell, you have me now. I could show the world. As soon as
this hits the light, the FBI would be all over it. There’d be a task force, 60
Minutes exposé, they could — ”

“No,” Tarren’s voice is sharp. “People wouldn’t be able to
handle it.”

“Well, yeah, they might freak out at first, but once they
recognized the danger, they could mobilize — ”

“You don’t understand,” Tarren says, and, as always, his
face is a hostile landscape, cold and closed. “They wouldn’t be afraid. They
would want to become angels.”

“What?”

“Anyone who ever dreamed of being stronger, faster, smarter
would demand to be changed.  It wouldn’t take long for a team of
entrepreneurial scientists to crack the code and remake the original formula.
Anyone with enough money and the inclination to be part of a new master race
could buy their way in.”

Tarren’s voice takes on the tones of a doomsday prophet. 
“There would not be enough guns, enough bullets in the world to stop them if
the formula ever got out. The population would fragment into angels and food.”

“But…” I manage.

“So far the angels have kept themselves hidden. We’re not
sure why. Maybe they know they’re not strong enough to stand up to a united
military offense if the world ever figured out how dangerous they were.  Or
maybe it’s just greed — they don’t want to share what they have. Whatever the
reason, they’re not talking and we’re not talking. But if Grand ever does
rediscover the formula, he’ll be able to spread the disease faster than any
army could stop him.”

“Oh,” I say.

“The risk is too great,” Tarren insists, though I’m not
arguing anymore. “Our parents weighed all the options. The public can’t know,
for their own protection. It’s only us.”

I put the window all the way down. The cold fingers of the
wind feel good on my face. I stare out across the night, trying not to think
about how utterly hopeless and stupidly funny it seems that two grungy kids and
a tweaker angel girl are supposed to save the world.

We stop for gas. I open the glove compartment and hand
Tarren his cap, which he pulls low over his face before stepping out. My own
straw fashion gem is in the back seat, so I take Gabe’s lucky hat from the
pocket in the side door and put it on despite the smell. After Tarren’s got the
gas pumping, I lean out of the open window.

We still have a score to settle even if he doesn’t realize
it yet.

“Tarren?”

“Don’t turn your face to the cameras,” he says sharply.

I ignore him. “I need something inside.”

“What is it?”

“Never mind, I’ll get it.” I open the door, and Tarren
pushes it shut.

“But, I need ChapStick,” I whine.

“I think we have some in the car somewhere.”

“And tampons.”

“What?”

“I need tampons. I’m on my period. Right now. It just
started. If you could grab some Aspirin too, while you’re in there, I’m
cramping like crazy.”

Tarren searches my face for any hint of deception, but the
darkness is all stirred up inside of me, and I give him a perfect grimace of
discomfort. He launches his granite face/arctic eyes combo attack, but I do not
waver under the barrage.

“It’s up to you,” I shrug. “As long as you don’t mind blood
all over your car. And not just any blood…” I pause for dramatic effect and
lower my voice. “Menstrual blood.”

“Fine,” Tarren growls and turns on his heels.

“Supermax please,” I call out after him. “I’m pretty much
gushing.”

His hands clench into fists. I fall back against the seat
and smile.

“Pants on fire,” Gabe calls out. I catch his elf eyes open
and bright in the rearview mirror. “But that was pretty awesome.”

“You should really clean this thing once in a while,” I toss
the hat back at him.

“What, and wash all the luck out?” Gabe crosses his arms
over the hat and drifts back to sleep.

It’s just past one in the morning. A new day that feels no
different from the last.