Landing (16 page)

Chapter 22

I skitter backwards, until I
remember what’s coming up behind me. Then I just sit back on my butt and let
out a pathetic little sob.

I hear Jane’s steps pause a few
feet behind me, and I wince in expectation of pain.

“I heard a rumor that you might
have found something I was looking for,” Grand says in that soft, dangerous
voice of his. “And here you’ve practically giftwrapped her. How considerate.”

“I told Danielle not to tell
anyone,” Jane says. “That traitorous bitch.”

“She did her duty.”

I don’t dare move, don’t dare
speak. My muscles are all still twitchy and mostly useless.

“She’s mine,” Jane states
matter-of-fact.

Grand’s voice is calm. “Leave.
Now.”

“She killed someone,” Jane says,
“someone I loved.”

“It seems you’ve given her cause to
regret that decision. I won’t ask a second time.”

Jane looks down at me, and I read
the desperation, the utter abandonment of reason on her face. Electrical
currents dance from finger to finger. Her hand quivers—just the barest hint of
motion. Grand doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, but suddenly Jane’s body is
ripped from the ground, blown far into the woods. I hear the fading arc of her
scream cut short by the brutal crack of her body against a tree.

We are alone, Grand and I.

His gaze settles on me like heavy
shackles. We have the same round forehead. I hope my eyes don’t look as vacant
as his.

“Stand up,” he says.

After all those hours I spent
crafting lurid, lushly-detailed scenes of his death by my hand; sketching out
the heroic look on my face, the beautiful strokes of my dagger through his
arteries, the steady lilt of my voice as I accompanied his dying breath with
powerful condemnations; after all of that, I rise up on wobbly knees and
tremble as I stand before my father.

“You stink of those boys.” Grand’s
voice is slow and crisp.

I sway.

A faint line creases between
Grand’s eyes. His gaze moves past me for a fraction of a second then resettles
on my face.

“They have told you that I am a
monster,” Grand says.

My brain finally unlocks, allowing
a slow trickle of thoughts. “That…that you want to take over the world.”

“This world isn’t worth taking
over. Look at me.”

I do.

Grand radiates power. It’s hard to
describe, except that I can feel it coming off him, from him. He seems as
implacable as a mountain; as volatile as a supernova. Both at the same time if
that’s possible. No wonder those blue eyes seem so arrogant, so cruel and calm.

I know this is the end for me, but
my adrenaline is starting to kick in, dulling the pain of my injuries and
harnessing my fear for some desperate—most likely stupid—last stand.

“The humans have ruined their
playground,” Grand says. “I don’t want this sullied mess. I want to raze it to
the ground. I want to rebuild something better. Stronger.”

I need to at least try to hurt him.
Go down fighting in a sappy, futile blaze of glory or something like that.

Even though his face remains as
empty as a porcelain mask, I can tell Grand is disappointed by my silence.

“You cannot go back to what you
once were.” Grand pauses, allowing his words to sink in their claws.
“
Only
move forward or stand still.”

I shift my weight, just a little,
to my back foot.

In that soft voice that somehow
still manages to sound imposing and voluminous, Grand asks, “Do you want to
starve the rest of your life?”

He waits.

“No,” I say and pull my arms in
closer to my body.

“Do you want to play in a dirty,
broken sandbox?”

“No.”

“Then do not shun the gift I have
given you. Allow me to complete your Ascension.”

“What if I say yes?” I curl my
fingers into loose fists at my sides.

“Then I ask only a small favor. To
prove your loyalty. Your worthiness.”

“What favor?”

Grand’s eyebrows lift just a
little. I don’t understand until the hunger tugs at my brain. A human aura is
moving cautiously toward us. This is what Grand noticed minutes ago, what he’s
been setting up all along.

Tarren is wary as he moves through
the woods. His energy is muted, his steps quiet; just not nearly enough. Of
course he would have thought to look for me here. Couldn’t have missed the
tendrils of smoke issuing from the burnt tree either.

“Don’t kill him,” Grand instructs
me. “That one owes me blood.” His lips turn down, which is just about as
expressive as I’ve ever seen him. He lifts his left arm so that the sleeve of
his navy blazer falls back, revealing a cleanly-healed stump.

Tarren stops. He’s found the
demolished tree and the lines of burned grass. He leashes his energy even
tighter. But it’s too late. Grand has set the trap, and Tarren will walk right
into it.

My mind wracks painfully,
scrambling to figure some way out of this. I need to try and hurt Grand. Now. I
have no weapons on me—hell, I’m not even wearing shoes—so I’ll just throw
myself at him, go for his crotch, or maybe his windpipe.

It’s weird how calm I am, even
though I’m absolutely sure I’m going to die

Tarren begins to move again, his
steps cautious and light. He must be following the wake of trampled grass that
I left. I shift my feet oh-so-slightly. All I have to do is distract Grand long
enough for Tarren to get off a shot.  

The air abruptly changes around us.
I look down and notice every hair on my arms lifting up. I don’t understand.
Tarren breaks into the clearing just as a flash of light spears out of the sky
toward me.

WhiteWhiteWhite.

A concussive explosion seems to
kick straight into my skull.

Ozone assaulting my nostrils.

Something burning.

Tears streaming out of my blinded
eyes.

I’m on the ground, though I don’t
know how I got here. My body shudders and bucks involuntarily, but not from the
lightening. From the energy cloaking my skin.

Aura. Song. Hunger. Too much.
Caught off guard. Can’t…can’t…

My hands tear open, desperate to
feed. I feel a breath cut past my ear, and then a heavy weight rolls off of me,
taking the energy with it. Energy I recognize.

“Get up.” Tarren’s voice. His hands
on my shoulders, yanking me up so hard that I trip and fall into him.

Energy. Energy. Energy.

My palms are throbbing with need,
but the gloves block contact with his aura. Patches of vision are starting to
separate from the wild quilt of colors dancing in front of my eyes. I look
dumbly over Tarren’s shoulder at the scorched ground where Grand and I had been
standing.

Movement.

“Run,” Tarren hisses in my ear. His
grip is a crushing manacle on my wrist. My head is heavy, and tears spill out
of my eyes without prompting. He yanks, and I stumble after him, but I’m still
looking back.

Jane limps out of the trees.
Lightening sizzles across her body, standing her black hair straight up from
her head. She sees me and extends her arms.

We’re done. Fried.

Jane crumples to the ground with a
cry of pain.

“That was a mistake,” Grand says. I
don’t know where he is, but his voice is coming from above. Whatever he’s doing
to Jane, it’s bad. Her face twists in agony, and she convulses on the ground.

I snap my head back around, and my
legs start pumping. Tarren lets go of my wrist, and we run. Jane lets out a
long, animal howl of pain. It’s a noise so primal, so hopeless that it just
about incapacitates me with dread. Only the glow of Tarren’s energy ahead of
me, like a beacon to safety, keeps me up and moving.

A sharp crack cuts off Jane’s
tortured scream. Then, silence.

Chapter 23

Tarren and I fly through those
woods, the two of us, pumping our arms like mad, sucking in great lungfuls of
air. My legs are still twitchy, and branches slap at my face and arms, but
that’s not about to slow me down. The only thing slowing me down is Tarren. I
pass him, and now check myself to keep his pace out of habit.

We break through the woods into the
empty park, and I catch the glow of the circus tent up ahead. It’s loud and
alive, and I realize that the evening acrobatic show has started.

Tarren pulls to a stop and hauls in
a huge breath that he unleashes in plumes of white from his mouth. Thunder
rolls across the sky, a menacing growl, and I’m suddenly aware of the growing
darkness and the rain pattering all around us.

“We need to keep going,” I clamor
at him.

He shakes his head, and his eyes
are gray as steel. The thick muscles of his shoulders clench and relax.
Something weird is going on in his aura, a pulse of calm blue in the vortex of
reds and orange.

“We can’t outrun him,” he says.

“But…”

“Listen to me.” Tarren’s voice is
low and commanding. That blue pearl at the center of his aura grows, eclipsing
the other colors. “We need to scatter in opposite directions. He can only go
after one of us at a time. I’ll head for the tent, lose myself in the crowd.
You go for the parking lot, hotwire a car.”

A figure emerges from the woods a
hundred feet behind us. It’s Grand. A single button is missing from his jacket,
and the knees of his expensive slacks are stained with mud. Otherwise he looks
as calm and clean as a business magnate on his way to a charity auction. He’s
not wet. The rain slides around him, like he’s encased in an invisible bubble.
This somehow doesn’t surprise me —that even the rain is afraid of him.

Tarren doesn’t take his eyes off
Grand. “Get to the motel. Make sure you aren’t followed. SUV is still there.
Pick up Gabe. Tell him ‘Styx’. He’ll understand what that means.”

It’s hard to describe exactly what
I see in Tarren’s face at this moment, but it looks like he’s let the world
roll right off his shoulders, like he can stand up straight for the first time.
And this is a very bad thing. The only time Tarren ever calms down like this is
when he’s going to shoot something.

“Maya,” Grand calls to me, “is this
your choice, then?”

“Don’t look back,” Tarren whispers
to me, “don’t stop.”

There isn’t time for words, though
I’m not sure what I would even say. I can’t forgive Tarren. Not even now when I
think I already know what he’s going to do.

“GO!” Tarren barks. I break away
for the parking lot, releasing the full speed of my legs. Tarren doesn’t move.
I check my steps.

“DON’T STOP!” he cries. He’s
empties his whole clip at Grand; thirteen loud thunderclaps that abuse my
eardrums.

I press forward, and I don’t look
back anymore.

…Not when Tarren’s gun goes silent.

I reach the parking lot.

…Not when I hear Grand chuckle.

I start down the first row of cars,
pulling desperately on door handles. I know exactly which year and models don’t
have car alarms pre-installed.

…Not when I hear their bodies
collide and hit the wet ground.

An old, red Ford Focus opens.

…Not when I hear a sharp grunt of
pain from Tarren, or the quiet nothing after that.

I slam the door closed and wildly
bat at the visor, hoping to dislodge some keys. A mournful plastic Jesus hangs
from the review mirror.

No keys.

I pull up the memory of Gabe’s
hotwiring lessons and let his voice guide me as I rip out the panel below the
steering column with a concentrated tug and find my red wires. I strip them
with a feral combination of nails and teeth and twist them together. I strip
the brown ignition wire, tap it against the twisted red wires, and the engine
issues a timid cough. I tap the wires together again, and this time the engine
revs to life. I jam the stick into reverse, punch the pedal and the car bucks
backward.

Only when I wrestle the gear into
drive and peel out of the parking lot do I glance in the rearview mirror.
Grand, in his wet, disheveled blazer stands in the field looking down. There’s
something lying at his feet, obscured by the long grasses. It doesn’t move. Grand
lifts his head, watches my car leave, and frowns.

I grip the wheel with both hands
and let out a wild scream that doesn’t stop until I run out of breath.

PART THREE

Chapter 24

I do exactly as I have been
trained, following the escape route my brothers developed the first night we
got here. Jesus twirls from the rearview mirror, and I hear Tarren’s steady
voice in my mind as he preaches Diana’s rules:

     -  Drive the speed limit no
matter the situation

     -  Make sure you aren’t being
followed

     -  Ditch a stolen car in a
crowded parking lot

     -  Wipe everything down; leave
no trace of yourself

I whisper along with him, word for
word, and this actually helps, because it keeps me from thinking of the only
thing I really care about. Tarren is maybe dead, but more likely in Grand’s
clutches. He sacrificed himself for me, and now Grand’s got him to play with
again.

To cut.

I abandon the car and its sad
plastic Jesus at a nearby grocery store, giving it a wipe down so quick and
sloppy that Tarren would need one of his biggest, deepest scowls to show his
censure if he’d seen it. I take a circuitous route to the motel on foot. The
rain grows heavier, and Grand is everywhere, in each echo, in every new scent
the gusting wind brings to me. He gazes at me from every shadow and smiles at
my piss poor attempts to shake him.

I pass the bench where the two
little boys wrestled. Up on the roof, I see Tarren and myself sitting together
on the ledge; Tarren telling me his childhood story despite the pain it brings
him.

I walk down the rows of doors. My
nerve endings grow spikes and use them. There’s this growing dread in my
stomach that I’ll open Gabe’s door and find his broken corpse lying in a puddle
of blood. I look behind me one more time and then up to study the vast expanse
of charcoal sky where Grand could also be hiding. Nothing. I touch the door to
Gabe’s room and project my senses.

Within, I feel his energy pulsing
in strong, steady waves of slumber. I lean against the door, close my eyes, and
listen to the currents of his aura. I wish I could cast a spell that would let
Gabe sleep forever. Anything but have to tell him that he’s lost his last true
family member.

Eventually, I raise my hand to
knock. I try to be brave about this because of what Tarren did, but it’s
pointless. I’m already crying as I pound the door with a weak fist.

I hear Gabe start awake, curse at
the time, and then make his way to the door. I hold onto the wall to keep
myself up. Each second drips, drips, like blood, Tarren’s blood, welling from
the open cuts all over his body. I never make sense when I’m upset.

“Why in the hell didn’t you…oh
shit.” Gabe’s expression of mild annoyance drops off his face as he opens the
door and takes in my mud-splattered, dripping, teary-eyed appearance. “Maya,
god, what happened?”

Gabe looks so skinny in his boxers
and undershirt and mismatched socks. So young.

“Maya, where’s Tarren?”

I shake my head.

“What does that mean? Maya, what
does that mean?” Gabe’s voice rises and so does his aura.

“Grand found us,” I whisper.
“Tarren stayed behind. Styx. He said Styx.”

I brace myself for Gabe’s reaction,
and it’s a good thing I do. Gabe screams, “WHERE? WHERE?” He tries to bolt
outside, but I plant myself in the doorway blocking his path. Gabe whirls under
my arms. I snatch his ankle, pull him down, and put my hand on his back,
pressing him into the concrete.

“You’re in your goddamn boxers,” I
hiss in his ear.

“Get off me. Get off me. GET OFF!” Gabe’s
energy ratchets up all around me. White, like diamonds flashing in the sun. The
song swells until my bones vibrate. My palms tear open, and I scurry away from
him and tuck my hands into my body. A door opens behind us, and a shirtless man
who’s obviously eaten a couple thousand donuts too many in his lifetime peers
out.

“You’re making a scene,” I manage
in a husky voice.

“I need a gun.” Gabe scrambles up
and stalks into his room. I go in behind him, close the door, and stand in
front of it. I feel Sir Hopsalot’s energy, spikey with fear, under Gabe’s bed.

“We’ll go back...” Gabe pulls his
Beretta semi-automatic from under his pillow. “We’ll…we’ll find him…”

“Gabe.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “We’ll go
back. We’ll find him...”

“Gabe.”

“Oh fuck,” Gabe moans. White-tipped
energy rolls off him in waves. I press my glowing palms against the wall behind
me and lean against them.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
Gabe drops the gun and sinks to his knees. He tucks his head into his chest and
clutches handfuls of his hair. “I KNEW HE’D PULL SOMETHING LIKE THIS!”

Gabe’s aura explodes around his
body, filling up the contours of the room. I lean harder against my hands,
locking out my legs. The bulbs resist, and the physical pain of pressing them
into the wall with all my strength helps blunt the melody of the song. My teeth
grind against each other. My quads twitch with effort. I hold against the dark
need.

Gabe stands up, staggers, and
clutches the table. “Okay,” he whispers to himself, “okay, okay, okay, okay.”
He looks up at me with wild eyes. “What about you? Are you hurt?”

I shake my head. “What does Styx
mean?”

“It means Tarren’s a fucking moron.
Did Grand try to chase you? Did he follow you here?”

“No. Tarren…” I swallow and try to
remember how words go together. “Tarren distracted him, so I could escape.”

“Was Tarren…” Gabe’s voice warbles.
He takes a short breath and tries again. “Was Tarren alive the last time you
saw him?”

I think back to that wedge of
reflection in the rearview mirror; Grand looming over an unmoving shape in the
long grass. His words echo in my memory.

That one owes me blood.

“Grand wanted him alive.”

Gabe rakes his hands through his
hair again. He drops into the chair at the desk and flips open his laptop.
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. Pack your bag as fast as you can.
Don’t leave anything, but don’t bother wiping down the room…”

His fingers skitter across the
keyboard. He digs around in his files, opening up a Word doc named
Mordor
.

“Where are we going?”

“To pull off a spectacular rescue,
of course.”

“Gabe…”

“Wichita Falls. That’s the closest
facility Grand owns.” Gabe snatches a pen and tries to write the address on his
palm.

“What?”

The cheap hotel pen isn’t writing
well on his sweaty skin, so Gabe scribbles sloppy letters and numbers on a
complimentary notepad.

“Remember I told you we found one
of Grand’s labs once?”

“Uh-huh.”

Gabe pulls off the top note sheet,
sees the deep indent of his pen strokes on the sheet below, and throws the full
pad in the direction of his duffle.

“I worked backwards, identified the
different shell companies used to buy it, and then looked into all the other
properties in their portfolio.”

This is when it finally hits me.
What he’s saying. What it means.

“You knew where Grand was.” My
voice is flat. “The whole time.”

“I knew what properties he owned.”

“How long?”

Gabe drops the pen on the floor,
slams his laptop shut, and turns to face me. His energy is still jagged and
wild with bright colors. “A while.”

I’m out of anger. Out of energy. My
response to Gabe’s bombshell is to slide down the wall and tuck my knees into
my chest.

“We have to go Maya,” Gabe says.

“You knew where he was,” I whisper.

Gabe rummages on the floor and
pulls on a t-shirt he wore two days ago. The phrase
So Say We All
runs
across his chest in faded letters.

“You and Tarren would’ve gone
straight after him,” he says. “Of course I’d have argued like hell against it,
but it wouldn’t have made one iota of difference. You would have gone, which
means I’d go too. We’d fight; be all heroic and shit, and die bloody.”

Gabe shakes his head. “I was never
going to tell you or Tarren.” He fishes out the legs of his jeans and then
pulls them on. “Not fucking ever.”

“What does Styx mean?” I ask again.

Gabe kneels down and begins
throwing his scattered possessions into his duffle bag. He doesn’t even look
up. “Get your stuff. Now.”

So I do.

The motel keycard is still in my
pocket somehow, so I don’t even have to pick the lock. Both Tarren and I keep
almost everything in our bags, so there’s little to pack up except my Kindle on
the nightstand between the two beds.

The Kindle Tarren gave me for my
birthday.

I put it away, and stare at
Tarren’s duffle bag. Black, utilitarian; the bag is worn from years of use but
not stained or frayed or scrawled with bored doodles like Gabe’s bag. I unzip
it for no good reason. Tarren’s clothes are folded in perfect squares, and I
lean down and breathe in the mixed scents of his deodorant, shampoo, sweat, and
Dial soap.

Are you in pain?
I think.
Are
you trying to be stoic? Has Grand opened up the other side of your face?

I unzip the bag’s side compartment
and find the much worn and dog-eared copy of
The Odyssey
that Tarren
keeps on the nightstand in his bedroom. This is Diana’s book, the story she
read to her children every night before they went to bed.

I take the book in my hands, flip
through the pages, and imagine Tarren finding some kind of solace from the
story of a burdened warrior who lost so much but eventually found his way back
home. Gabe is waiting outside my door, his energy jumping in spastic hiccups. I
replace the book in Tarren’s bag, zip everything up, and we haul ass out of
that motel.

***

We drive through the night
,
and
I can’t think at all. Gabe’s energy is crackling bright, wild-colored like his
own private fireworks show. I sit on my hands, close my eyes, and try to get
away from him and his thundering heart.

“Calm down,” I tell him.

“I am calm. Perfectly calm. Like a
leaf on the wind.”

“No you’re not. Gabe, come on, deep
breath.”

“I’m fine,” he snaps, and because
Gabe never snaps at me, I shut my mouth and turn as far away from him as I can
in this crowded space. We’re barreling down the highway, and I know Gabe’s over
the speed limit, but this feels like forever, like we’ll never get to where
we’re going.

I see a high leap in Gabe’s aura
moments before he jerks the wheel and sends us veering onto the side of the
highway. He slams the breaks, and the seatbelt goes ridged against my sternum
as I lurch forward. I hear our bags banging in the trunk as I slam back against
the seat. The SUV rocks once, and then everything is still.

“What the hell?” I cry when I get
my breath back.

Gabe stares out the windshield.
“You can’t go,” he says.

“I’m going.”

“You need to get out now, take all
the money, the credit cards. Forget about us Maya. Find a way to live your own
life. You’re strong enough now. You can—”

“Gabe!”

“No, listen, you can do it,” Gabe
insists fervently. “Remember what we taught you. How to hide. How to get by.
Start over. Find something that makes you happy; something that works.” The
words are tumbling out of his mouth without commas or periods or any pauses for
breath. “Take Sir Hopsalot with you. Raise him as your own. Don’t kill him
though, you promised.”

“We’re rescuing Tarren together,” I
insist.

Gabe finally turns to look at me,
and there are tears in his honey-colored eyes. His voice is harsh. “I can’t
lose Tarren; I just can’t. So I have to go do this. I have to try, but we both
know how it’s going to end. I’m not afraid Maya, I swear it. At least not for
myself, but if Grand gets a hold of you, he’ll turn you all the way. You’ll
become a killer, an angel. Don’t go with me. Call it a last favor.”

Gabe’s aura is so beautiful, as
blue as I’ve ever seen it, like a glimmering sapphire. I wonder if he would
care for me—love me—so much if he knew about the two injections; that I was so
much closer to being a full angel than he thought. I push these thoughts away.

“What does Styx mean?”

“Maya, please,” Gabe whispers.

“What does it mean?”

Gabe lays his forehead against the
wheel. “It’s a code word Mom made up. It means that you’ve been compromised,
that the others have to leave you behind.”

“It means Tarren didn’t want you to
come for him.”

Gabe closes his eyes. “After Tarren
got away from Grand the first time, when he was cut to hell, he called me just
like I told you, but he didn’t tell me where he was.” Gabe’s voice cracks. “He
just said one word—Styx—and hung up. He’d used a pay phone. I tracked it back
and spent all day wandering in bigger and bigger circles around that phone. It’s
a miracle that I found him at all. If it had been an hour later he would have
bled to death.”

Gabe sits back against his seat,
and he’s got a red imprint of the wheel in his forehead. “Afterwards, I made
him promise never to use that word again, not to teach it to you, but…” Gabe
wipes the tears out of his eyes. “Tarren was always looking for a way to die.”

We stare at each other.

“Are you getting out?” Gabe finally
asks.

“No. Come on, we’re losing time.”

I expect Gabe to fight, to demand,
to throw a tantrum, but he doesn’t. He straightens up, takes a deep, shaky
breath, then pulls back onto the highway.