Rising (27 page)

Time decides to kick itself up a couple
hundred notches, or maybe that’s just my heart.

“Maya,” Tarren whispers. I glance back
at him, at all that red pain covering him like a shroud of thorns and brambles.
He sees my stance, my gun.

“I need…W…weapon,” he manages through
gritted teeth. His hand is under the pillow searching for the gun that’s not
there.

The electric lock clicks, and by the
time I shift my gaze forward again, Gem stands in front of me in all his poorly
dressed glory.

Turtles. Fucking turtles on his brown
t-shirt. We’re possibly about to be demolished by someone who buys his clothes
at the San Diego Zoo gift shop.

A smile tugs his lips up, but then his
eyes swing from my gun to my dagger.

“Oh no, that’s not necessary,” he says
and moves to go around me. I mirror him, keeping the weapons between us.

“No!” I growl with as much menace as I
can muster. While the logical part of my brain knows that Gem could kill me
with a sneeze if he wanted to, the emotional part of my adrenaline-infused gray
matter doesn’t give a flying fuck about that. I’ll stop him, somehow, anyhow,
if he tries to hurt Tarren.

Gem gives me a befuddled expression,
like he can’t fathom why I’m pointing weapons at him, snarling like a pack
animal.

“Have I given you any reason to doubt my
intent?” he asks.

Okay, maybe not, but why is he here?
This whole thing, the saving me, the letting us go; it could have all be some
sort of sick joke. He looks so much like his father.

Gem’s blue eyes meet mine, and I feel
the touch of his mind, that channel between us growing strong once again. I
fight instinctively against his mental intrusion, but then he pulls me forward,
across the channel to his own thoughts. I feel his emotions with such clarity
that they seem my own.

I’ve come to help
,
he whispers in my mind. I can feel it, the ardent truth of
his words.
But…but…NO!
This has to be a trap. How could it be anything
else?

I pull away from all of his sticky guilt
and scuttle back into my own head.

Why?
I ask Gem.

Through our connection, I feel the pulse
of an old shame kept well fed over many years.
Because I helped damage him.

I stare at Gem, at those turtles on his
chest, as I lower my weapons. God help me, I believe him. My feet move, and I
allow Gem a path to Tarren, to all his scars displayed beneath the heavy sheen
of sweat that has arisen on his skin.

If you hurt him
,
I begin,
I
swear…

Noted.

Tarren has managed to rise to his
elbows, and he stares at Gem. His body is rigid, every muscle clenched and
trembling. His face is pale as a specter. Only his eyes shine with color, those
ice blue irises filled with recognition.

“We…h…had a…deal,” Tarren manages.

“And I’m not here to break it,” Gem
answers.

I expect Gem to do something dramatic
like start glowing or chanting strange words, but he just takes in a deep
breath, and then it starts. I feel the crackle of his power rev up. The static
electricity of it crawls over my skin, vibrating in my teeth.

The expression tightens on Gem’s face,
and his lips press together. My eyes rivet to Tarren. If I’m wrong about Gem,
then I’ve just given my wounded, utterly vulnerable brother to him. My hands
throb, and I realize that I’m gripping my weapons so hard that my tendons are
close to snapping like broken violin strings. What if Gem explodes Tarren’s
mind, or steals his memories, or turns him into some drooling vegetable?

Instead, something beautiful happens.
Tarren sinks back onto the mattress as his muscles relax. His fists unfurl, his
eyelids slowly creep downward, and the red grows fainter and fainter within his
aura. Finally, his brows drift up from their crouch.

A strange noise. I realize it’s me, as
the breath I’ve been holding rushes out of my lungs. I gasp in more air, dizzy and
relieved. Gem doesn’t move from his position next to the bed. He stares down at
Tarren, his eyes tracing the map of scars in my brother’s flesh.

“Don’t…don’t do that.” I holster my
weapons and step to the bed, intent on pulling the sheet over Tarren’s
shoulders. Gem raises a hand to stop me.

“There’s something else I can do,” he
says.

What? Another ability? A tiny flower of
hope opens vulnerable petals. Can he heal the scars?

“I can help him in here.” Gem touches
his temple. He looks at me, asking for permission. I don’t know what he’s going
to do, but we’ve gone this far.

“It will help him?” I ask in a small
voice.

“Yes, I think so,” Gem says.

Tarren would refuse. Adamantly. He’d
scoff at a hand offered if he were hanging from the edge of a cliff. To accept
assistance is to proclaim weakness.

That’s not it,
Gem whispers in my mind.
To ask for help is to believe
you are worthy of it
.

“Do it.” I tell Gem. “Help him.”

Gem closes his eyes and extends his hand
toward Tarren. I see those five fingers, that palm creased with an X moving
closer to my brother.

“No, don’t touch him,” I hiss.

Contact makes it easier
.
Gem opens his eyes, and
holy hell
, they’re glowing.
No pupils or those baby blue irises – just a sapphire light pulsing from his
orbs.

I bite my lip as Gem lays his hand
across Tarren’s forehead. My breath escapes in short pants. Gem extends his
other hand to me. I hesitate, caught in the vortex of his power, my fear, the
adrenaline snaking through my veins.
Anything,
I remind myself,
anything
to help Tarren.
I thrust out my hand. Our palms meet, and the static of Gem’s
power ripples through my skin like a thousand spiders crawling up my arm into
my shoulder socket. Our connected minds come closer together, that channel
between us reinforced with steel. Gem squeezes my hand.

My brain is a nettle of confusion as I
feel the echo of a new presence. Half-formed images and memories flicker in and
out of the darkness. An analytical thought pattern, weighing pros and cons,
always striving for the right answer. Fearful of being wrong, of making a
mistake. Lives on the line. Lives that are precious. Yearning. So much yearning
for something different.

Tarren, this is Tarren!

Give him something else to dream
about.
Gem’s voice is distant and weak.
Something good. Something
peaceful. Say it out loud
.
Gem’s hand trembles in
my grasp. I think I understand.

“Tarren,” I kneel next to my brother.
His eyes slide open and wander to my face.

I see my own blurry face echo through
the mental channel, followed by a wave of fierce protectiveness.

            Oh,
wow,
I think dumbly.

“Persephone,” Tarren whispers to me.
It’s the name he bestowed upon me when I was a baby just before Diana gave me
away to hide me from Grand. It was my first name, perhaps my truest one.

I struggle for an idea, for something
beautiful to give him. “You’re going on a picnic,” I blurt. As soon as the
words are out of my mouth, I know they are right.

“Picnic?”

“Yes, you’re going on a picnic with Gabe
and Tammy and your parents.”

Gem’s power hums inside my mind, and I
feel him amplifying the hasty images I paint and pulling them through our
mental connection to Tarren on the other end.

“D…dead,” Tarren says. Echoes of guilt
and sadness.

“This is a different place; a place
where everybody is alive,” I tell him. “You carry the picnic basket and Tammy
has the blanket. You feel it? The sun on your face.

Tarren’s eyes cloud with confusion.

“You walk up a hill together. Gabe is
healthy. Do you see him? He’s got his hat on backwards, and he teases Tammy.” I
picture Tammy Fox the way Gabe has described her in the past. She moves boldly
on long, lean legs, and the sun dapples black hair thrown into a carefully
careless ponytail. Her ruby lipstick sets off her intense brown eyes and pale
skin.

“She’ll hit him,” Tarren says.

“Yeah. She smacks him on the back of the
head, and they chase each other up the hill. You don’t have any scars. They’re
all gone.”

“Gone?” I feel yearning through the
connection, deep, endless yearning.

“Your mom calls after Gabe and Tammy,
but your dad laughs and takes her hand.” I concentrate on Canton and Diana Fox,
cutting them out from the wedding picture that sits on the bookshelf in my
bedroom. Diana has a perfect oval face with feathered blonde hair and the long
nose and blue eyes that Tarren and I both inherited. Short waves of caramel
hair surround Canton’s animated face, and Gabe’s trickster smile plays on his
lips.

“Can Danielle come?” Tarren asks
suddenly.

Gem’s grip tightens in mine.

“Yes, Danielle can come,” I say. “She’s
on the other side of you. When you look at her, she smiles.”

“And Tammy. Tammy can come,” Tarren
says. I feel the echo of fierce love from his mind, edged with fear. The
feeling is pure and dangerous, like a thorny rose opening its petals,
beckoning. His voice is slow, deep. “It’s going to be okay. Tammy…makes
everything okay.”

“She’s there,” I assure him. “You’re all
there together.”

Tarren’s eyes close, but he extends his
hand toward me. It’s not me he’s reaching for, just the phantom of his dead
sister that I’m planting in his dreams. I take his hand anyway, steeling myself
against the feel of his aura licking against my skin.

My voice is only a rattle, but I keep
going. “You make it to the top of the hill, and your mom spreads out the
blanket. Tammy sits down next to you and nudges you to cheer up. You’re trying
to be stern like you always are, but she knows you better than that. She knows
you’re enjoying yourself.”

A smile touches Tarren’s lips.

“It’s the most beautiful day, Tarren. A
cool wind pushes off the heat, and the shade protects you from the sun. Your
father has his arm around Gabe’s shoulders. They look so much alike. You’re all
happy. You’re all together.”

“You’re here,” Tarren whispers. His aura
shines with pure shades of cobalt. I’ve never seen it so blue, so empty of
browns.

“I am?”

Our fingers interlace. “Next to…Mom.”

I just about lose it right there. Our
hands meet palm to palm, with only the thin layer of my glove between us.

“This is a magical place,” I manage. The
room is spinning, but I can’t let go. “A protected place.”

Gem’s grip is loosening, and I feel his
body sway next to me. I squeeze his hand hard, not allowing him to fall.

“Whenever the nightmares come, this is
where you’ll go,” I wheeze out. “Up here, to the mountain. The nightmares, they
won’t be able to follow. Do you understand, Tarren? They can’t ever find you on
the mountain, because your family is here. And we’ll protect you, like you
protect us.”

“Okay, we have to stop now,” Gem says
and crumples to the ground.

***

“I’m fine,” Gem wheezes, head couched
firmly between his knees. He sits with his back against the wall next to the door,
and his body trembles. Leaning against the corner of the bed, I stare at the
messy whirls of his blond hair and wonder how such a powerful angel can be so
weak.

“You’re sick,” I tell him.

Gem laughs.

“Why is that funny?”

His eyes snap up to mine and then wander
away again. “No, not you, the TV.”

“It’s not on.”

“The one downstairs. Room 31A. Old
episode of South Park.”

I strain my ears but can’t hear it.

“How many bone marrow injections does it
take to make a complete angel?”

Gem’s question catches me off guard. How
did we leap from South Park to making angels? Memories bubble to the surface –
Grand
towering over me, a large syringe in his hand. Fire engulfing every cell in my
body as he released his bone marrow into my spine.

I blink away the memories, but a long
shudder runs through my body. Gem’s eyes are on me, large, sad, and knowing. I
feel the touch of his sympathy through our mental connection.

“Three,” I answer out loud. “Grand
wanted to give me three bone marrow injections.” He only managed two before my
brothers arrived, better late than never. Those two injections are what makes
me a hybrid instead of a full angel, what gives me the precious control over my
hunger that my brothers are convinced full angels can’t manage.

“Three,” Gem says and nods. “Did you
ever wonder how he came to that magic number?” The glow show is over with Gem’s
eyes, and his pupils and irises have returned. I study my brother’s face, his
short pale lashes, and weak chin. He looks so plain, so ordinary that I wonder
if automatic doors sometimes forget to open for him.