Rising (30 page)

“I could hurt you…if we got close,” I say.

“You must get lonely,” he says. His
words sting. They sound so pitying.

“Yeah, well…”
Brilliant conversation,
I think to myself
. My MENSA invitation must have gotten lost in the
mail.

“Look Buffy, there’s pain in every
relationship, one way or the other.” Rain licks his lips, and his aura spikes
with nervous yellows. “I feel something between you and me. So, you have my
number. Throw it away if you want. Laugh at me, whatever. But if you feel something
too, then, just….just call.” He looks at me, and his eyes are a deep whirl of
brown. “Or text.”

“Did you call me Buffy?”

“I know I didn’t believe you, but then Gabe
said…”

I think back to all of our encounters,
the stakeout, the grave digging. Did he never once use my name?

“It’s Maya,” I tell him.

“But Gabe…”

“Can be a total asshole in case you
haven’t noticed.” I tuck Rain’s number in my coat pocket, though I’ve already
memorized the digits.

“Maya,” Rain says, trying out the word.
The sound of my name on his lips sends a tingle down my spine.
No tingling!
I
demand.
You’re not going to call him. Not ever. For his own good.

“Come on,” I say roughly and turn toward
the group. Rain follows me. I avoid the puddles in the parking lot. He walks
right through them. When we make it to Doug’s truck, Rain rummages in the back
and returns my chipped cell phone, guns, dagger, jacket, and the purple scarf
with the gray snowflakes on it.

I mumble a thank you and wonder if I’ll
ever be able to wear that scarf again without thinking of him or my crazy, death-defying
adventure in Peoria.

Gabe and Doug could probably talk shop
all day, but I want to get us home. I collect Tarren, who’s made it all the way
to the campus library, get him packed into the back of the jeep, and then Gabe
and I say our farewells to The Totem.

I give Rain one more glance before sliding
behind the wheel of the jeep. Then I wave, that same little stupid half wave, and
I don’t know why. I won’t ever call him. I can’t. It’s for his own good, and,
god help me, for mine as well.

***

The road out of Illinois is wide, flat,
and un-crowded. A cloudless blue sky hangs above us, and the sun pours its
affection down. I let out a long breath I didn’t know I was holding and wonder
why I feel so good in spite of…well, pretty much everything that’s happened
over the last week.

“You got the soundtracks in here?” Gabe
leans over in the passenger seat and flips open the glove compartment.

“Wow, everything’s all clean.” He
rummages around, no doubt destroying Tarren’s orderly piles. “Let’s just start
at number one.”

He holds the first CD in his 10-part
angel hunting soundtrack series.

“You okay with some music Tarren?” Gabe
asks while pushing the CD into the player.

“Huh?” Tarren looks up as the first
song,
Highway to Hell,
floods through the car.

“Yep, this is good,” Gabe says satisfied,
cranking the music up. He launches into the lyrics, and I can’t help but smile.
This is good. So very good.

Gabe heartily sings the first two songs.
Mumbles through the third, and is slumped against the window, passed out by
Boulevard
of Broken Dreams
by Green Day. His fever broke two days ago, but he’s still
been wearing himself out taking care of Tarren.

I turn down the volume but let the CD
play out. Every once in a while, I glance back at Tarren. The morphine has dulled
the torrents of scarlet in his aura to a reddish haze. He stares out the
window, scratching at his arm every now and then. I wonder what he’s looking
at, where his thoughts are taking him.

When we stop for gas, I ask Tarren if he
wants to come up front. He surprises me by saying yes.

Gabe is a zombie, leaning against me, as
I coax him out of the passenger seat and lay him across the backseat. He immediately
curls up on his side. I pull his lucky hat off and stuff it in the backseat
pocket.

“How did you get your hat down from that
tree?” I ask. I’ve been badgering him about this incessantly over the last
days, and he’s been outdoing himself, sculpting lies into stunning temples of
utter bullshit. But I’ve got him now. He can hardly hold his eyes open.

“Chainsaw,” he murmurs.

“You weren’t supposed to cheat.”

His eyes close. “Not cheating. Did it
myself. Don’t tell Tarren ‘bout the porch…I’ll fix it.”

I pull the seatbelt across him.

“Seatbelts,” he mutters, and then he’s
out again.

We cross into the flat, snow-covered
plains of Nebraska. I keep glancing at Tarren, trying not to be obvious about
it. I
haven’t figured out
how to act towards him yet. Our co-aloofness won’t work for me anymore, not
after he went into that burning building for me and certainly not after what
Gem revealed.

“How are you feeling?” I glance over to him.

His face looks so different when he’s
not trying to hide his emotions.

“Everything is soggy,” he says, “in my
head.”

“Dr. Lee would kill us if he knew we
were moving you this early.”

Tarren looks at me, and I can tell it’s
a struggle for him to follow my conversation.

“We need to go to Lo’s house,” he says.

“Not yet. We’re going home first.”

“I’m working on something.”

“It can wait.”

“For you.”

I swallow. “You don’t need to lie. You
already told me.”

He frowns. “What did I tell you?”

The intense expression on his face makes
me nervous. “You said that there’s no cure, but I knew that already. It’s okay
Tarren. I won’t slit my wrists in the bathtub.”

“Oh.” He’s quiet.

I catch movement in the rearview mirror.
A yellow Hyundai with a purr that indicates a whole lot of under-the-hood
advancement is weaving between cars like it’s trying out as an extra for the
next
Fast and Furious
movie. I keep my eye on it. We can’t afford any
accidents on the road, nothing that will allow the police to search our car and
find our arsenal.

“What else did I say?” Tarren asks.

I slide us into the right lane behind a semi
and watch as the yellow death machine speeds by, cutting off a car in the next
lane over as he passes on the right. When the road clears up again, I pull out
from the semi and get the speed up to five over the limit.

“Gabe found out about what happened that
night. How he got hurt.”

“Because of me?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Tarren thinks on this. “Is he mad?”

“No, actually, he got over it pretty
quickly.” I glance in the rearview mirror, and it’s a little eerie to see Gabe
lying across the backseat, wrapped in his duster coat. The night he almost died
we were in this same configuration – Gabe laid out in back, Tarren in shotgun,
and me behind the wheel. But on this day the sun shines golden light on us, and
Gabe’s heart is a steady drum.

“I’m sorry,” Tarren says. “That was for
you to tell him.”

“Stop scratching,” I tell him.

Tarren drops his hand and looks out the
window. “Was there someone in the room?”

I hope that Tarren is too medicated to
notice my fingers tightening on the wheel. “What room? Who?”

“There was someone in the room.”
Tarren’s voice is soft. His brow furrows. “Someone I knew.”

When Tarren and I had our little moment
of peace and rainbows the day that Gabe woke up from his coma, I made a promise
that I would never lie to Tarren, not ever again. But that was before I
realized that some lies are worthy lies.

“No,” I say, “there was never anyone
else in the room. Just Gabe and me…and I guess Sir Hopsalot. Must’a been a
dream.”

Tarren looks at me. His eyes, usually
sharp enough to cut my lies to ribbons, are blunted by the drugs and pain.
Before his mental wheels start turning too fast, I decide it’s time for a
subject change. I mean to broach a safe and placid subject, like
Hey,
beautiful weather we’re having,
or
There’s this video of an obese cat
falling into a swimming pool that’s number one on Reddit. What is this silly
world coming to? Har, har, har.

Instead, my subconscious makes a prison
break, and what comes out of my mouth is anything but safe and placid.

“Why didn’t you leave, Tarren? I said
Styx. You were supposed to leave.”

If Tarren weren’t completely hopped up
on meds, he would have spent his considerable brain power studying this
question, developing a slew of answers, testing each one for maximum vagueness,
and then produced a pristinely non-committal winner. But he is hopped to shit
on meds, and so he says without a single pause, “You’re my sister. We’re
family.”

“Oh.”

He lays his head against the headrest
and turns his face into the sun. His expression is so soft and wistful that I wonder
where he keeps all of this when he’s his normal self. And then he smiles, just
a little, and I don’t think he’s even aware of it. That smile changes his whole
face, makes him someone I want to know so much better.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask
softly, afraid to break this weird, mystical spell he’s under.

“Tammy.”

I bite my lip. These last couple of days
have only brought more questions, more doubts.
What happened to Tammy? Who
is Danielle?

Tarren gazes out the window. “I think about
her so much.” He may have forgotten that I’m in the car. Hell, he may not even
realize that he’s speaking out loud. He turns to me, and his eyes are a clear
sky blue. “I understand now,” he says with complete conviction, “why Mom gave
you up. I understand.”

 “Tarren,” I ask softly. I glance in the
back to make sure Gabe is still asleep. “Is Tammy...” I swallow. “Is Tammy
still…”

“Your eyes change color,” Tarren says
abruptly. “They’re blue now, but sometimes they turn gray.”

“I know. Your eyes do the same thing.”

“Mom’s too.” Tarren is quiet for a
moment. “Do we have oranges? Or orange juice?”

“No, but we can get some. You want me to
get some?”

Tarren thinks about this. “No,” he
decides, “it’s okay.”

I swerve a little to avoid a pothole,
and Tarren hisses through his teeth. My hands are shaking, and I flex them to
relieve the pressure from the wheel.

“This isn’t fair,” I say out loud. “I
can’t do this to you, not while you’re…”

“What?” Tarren’s teeth are set together.
His face is pale and taut with pain.

“Nothing,” I sigh. “I’m going to pull
over at the next exit and get you some orange juice. I want you to take more
medicine for the pain.”

Tarren thinks this over, or tries to
think it over. “Okay,” he says at last.

When Tarren suggests the picnic, I don’t
know what to think except that he’s either acquired a severe head injury or
that “picnic” is a code word for some sort of training exercise. Gabe, currently
in the midst of getting drunk with Lo’s stepmom on $200 bottles of wine,
explodes with laughter at Tarren’s request.

I’m not laughing. I can see in Tarren’s
aura that he’s serious. Beyond the red hedge of pain, I notice strands of deep
blue that make me uneasy.

Technically, Tarren still has two more
weeks of bed rest. He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a picnic basket. But
it’s Tarren, which means rules of reasonable self care apply to everyone else.

After a month of recovery in Farewell, we’ve
been here in Las Vegas at Lo’s ridiculously large mansion for the last two
weeks. Tarren and the potty-mouthed Boy Wonder have spent the majority of it
locked in Lo’s state-of-the-art lab doing god knows what, while Carmen, Lo’s
colorful and curvy stepmom, has made it her personal mission in life to fatten
Gabe up. He is all too happy to accommodate her, slurping up the pounds of
Chinese food she orders in for him. I’ve spent most of my time lounging by the
pool, absorbing the strong rays of the desert sun, and trying not to think
about Gem’s warning.

Carmen is delighted by the idea of the
picnic, and the dozen golden hoops on her arms jangle and wink as she throws
way too much food into an oversized cooler and pulls an expensive comforter off
one of the guest beds to use as a blanket.

In ten minutes, we, Lo included, are
packed together in the jeep with Tarren at the wheel. From the door of the
mansion, Carmen throws out her arm, blowing an exaggerated kiss that I suspect
is aimed squarely at Tarren.

Gabe and Lo share the backseat, and this
is never a good thing.

“Sup Skeletor,” Lo says. His black eyes
are filled with the unrelenting intensity I see reflected in the fast rush of
his aura.

“Your mom seems to like what she sees,”
Gabe shoots back. “Better watch your tone with me. I could be your stepdad one
day.”

This starts a scuffle that Tarren breaks
up with a barked order. We pull away from Lo’s mansion. Tarren sits ramrod
straight in his seat, and the sun pours over him, highlighting the chocolate
hues in his dark hair. He hasn’t taken any pain meds for the last month, and
that hard mask is back in place, hiding away all the soft smiles and wistful
gazes I know linger beneath the surface.

“What’s going on?” I ask him.

“You’ll see,” Tarren says, effusive as
usual.

It’s not the cure,
I remind myself.
Tarren said there
was no cure.

I turn around in my seat. “Lo, what’s
going on?”

Lo is definitely at the genius level
when it comes to brain power. When it comes to fashion sense, not so much, unless
intelligence equates to facial piercings, black t-shirts of bands I’ve never
heard of, and ripped jeans that show his knobby knees. He’s been on Team Fox ever
since my brothers rescued him from his own father, an angel who was keen to
drag his errant son into the angel club.

“Hey sweet thang.” Lo purses his lips
and kisses the air.

“I don’t date sixteen-year-olds,” I
remind him for the thousandth time.

“Let me cop a feel, and I’ll spill any
secret you want to know,” he says.

Gabe sighs. “Gotta whup your ass now for
talking to my sister like that.”

“Go on and try.” Lo raises his thick
eyebrows.

“Enough,” Tarren’s voice is low and full
of sharp edges. Both boys settle down, though Gabe doesn’t bother hiding the
sour look on his face. I watch through the window as the stately mansions and
manicured desert lawns falls away. The wan skyline of Las Vegas recedes behind
us.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, indicating
a new text. I casually glace at Tarren to see if he heard, but his eyes are
distant. My fingers itch to dig my phone out of my pocket.

I was good to my word. I didn’t call Rain,
not for the first week anyway. Gabe and I were too busy removing the massive fallen
maple tree from the porch and then replacing the floorboards, bannisters, and
pegs. Thank god for YouTube and reruns of
This Old House
.

But then my brothers had a big blowup
when Tarren snuck off to go running and came staggering back in so much pain
that he ended up vomiting quite impressively on the newly sanded front porch.
Not exactly the staining I’d had in mind. While their voices and auras rocked
the house, I retreated to the roof and dropped Rain a text. Just one little
innocent text to make sure he was still alive and hadn’t run afoul of any
nefarious peanuts.

Somewhere along the way the phone calls
started, and we found we could talk to each other for hours and not even
notice. Rain wants to come visit. This, I most definitely will not allow. We’re
not dating. We both agree adamantly on this point. It would be foolish and
stupid. I mean, he happens to be funny and sincere and so self-depreciating
that my heart practically rebounds in my ribcage when my phone rings. But it’s
all hopeless, and we both know this. I’m…well, not exactly the cuddly type
anymore, and Rain…

He can’t hunt,
I remind myself.
The angels are going
to find him and drain him, and your phone will never ring again.
No matter
how painful this thought, I have to keep it front and center so that I’m ready
when it happens, so I don’t allow myself to get close.

“Where the hell are we?” Gabe asks,
leaning forward between our elbows. I casually shift my position to put
distance between myself and his aura. We’re miles outside the burbs of Las
Vegas. The ground is full of sage brush and little else, and the mountains loom
around us.

Tarren pulls off the dusty one-lane
road. A round, rocky hill huddles in the shadow of the mountains in front of us.
No sign post, but I notice a faint trail leading through the brush.

This is some sort of training exercise.
Maybe Tarren has developed a picnic related sting scenario.

We disembark into a heavy blanket of
sunshine. I feel it tingle across my skin as I absorb its energy. Gabe is given
our cooler, and Tarren points me to a black backpack in the back. I pick it up,
surprised at the weight, as I sling it across my shoulders. It’s got to be at
least sixty pounds.

Overhead, a hawk soars, its wings open
to the generous thermals. Our eyes meet, predator to predator.

“Stay here,” Tarren says to Lo, handing
him the keys.

“Total bullshit.” Lo’s voice is sour. “I
reconfigured that fucking thing.” But that’s all he says. They must have worked
out this arrangement beforehand. “Have loads of super-duper family fun,” Lo
calls after us as we get ready to depart.

“Well, looks like it just got a whole
lot funner,” Gabe says giving Lo a little wave. “Make sure you keep the windows
cracked so you don’t overheat.”

“Funner isn’t even a word you Neanderthal,”
Lo spits back.

“Come on,” Tarren says. He tucks the
folded blanket under his arm. I look at Lo and remember how he came to Farewell
after Gabe was injured and gave me cash to pay for Gabe’s care even though the
two of them have never gotten along. Lo’s spastic, lust-infused aura is always
difficult to read, but I believe the traces of yellow I see so often might be
loneliness.  

“Go on,” Lo blinks rapidly and shoos me
with his ring-covered fingers. “You got destiny waiting for you on that hill,
but just remember I’m the one who bought all the parts and reconfigured it.” He
doesn’t hold back on the lecherous eyebrow wag. “You know, if you’re looking
for someone to thank properly.”

It’s not a cure. It can’t be.

I turn, and spot Tarren already making
his way toward the faint trail. Gabe bounds after on slightly unsteady steps.

***

Tarren leads the way up the trail,
though his pace is slow and careful. His left arm hangs limp at his side, but
he holds his shoulders straight, his head high. If I couldn’t see all the red
dripping down his aura, I wouldn’t even know he was injured.

He should take some painkillers,
I think uselessly.

Gabe walks beside me chattering away
about ice skating, of all things. I have no idea when he’s managed to go ice
skating, but I don’t ask. Maybe it’s some kind of weird
World of Warcraft
thing.
Despite Lo’s criticism, Gabe is starting to put on real weight now. His hair is
growing back into the messy waves that he prefers. His aura is coming back too.
Deep wells of greens announce his joviality.

My phone buzzes with another incoming
message, and without thinking I reach for it before stopping myself as my
fingers brush my pocket. I glance at Gabe, and his face breaks into a loose
grin. I should have never told him about Rain.

“Maya and Rain sitting in a tree,” he
whispers, “K-I-S-S-I-.”

“Shhh!” I nudge him and tip my head
toward Tarren ahead of us. Gabe’s eyes are warm caramel, filled with mischief and
too much alcohol.
He’s coming back,
I think. His words are quickly
punctuated by pants, but a month ago we would have had to carry him up this
hill.

Halfway up the long, ponderous climb,
Gabe is out of words and huffing heavily. I motion for the cooler, and because
he’s still mostly drunk, he hands it over without perceiving an insult. The sun
blazes around us, its energy pouring into my skin, refreshing me. It is nothing
like a full meal, but it helps take the edge off my hunger and allows me to
enjoy the breeze when it comes to play.

When I reach the top of the hill, I
release the backpack gently and stare ahead at the impressive view. Tarren
indicates a large rock that overlooks the cliff’s edge and instructs me to sit
here, staring forward.

“Why?” I ask him, this mysterious
brother of mine with his poker face and controlled aura. What are those hints
of bronze that he’s trying to hide? Nervousness? Is Tarren even capable of feeling
unsure?

“It’s a surprise,” he says.

“Okay.”
Not a cure. Don’t even think
it.

Gabe staggers up to the top and sprawls
out in the dirt, panting and cursing Tarren in colorful ways.

“Look straight ahead,” Tarren tells me.
His eyes are sharp and serious. I oblige without argument, turning on my rock
and peering at the sweeping view of the mountains around us. Shades of brown,
copper, and bronze paint the landscape along with startling streaks of dark
red. I look down the vast crevasse just beyond my rock. That fall would kill
anyone, but it’d be swift at least. Easy.

It’s not that I’m thinking about a swan
dive or anything; it’s just that I see the road ahead for us, and maybe I envy
a quick death just a little. My conversation with Gem has found a prominent
place in my mind, seeping into my dreams, catching me off guard when I’m trying
to relax.

I hear the echo of my own voice –
You’re
saying that war is inevitable. That the world will find out about angels, and
that humanity might be lost.

Then there was his other warning, the
one about staying away from his
Angels of Mercy
or risking his wrath.
Even if I could distinguish his people from all the rest of the angels, how in
the hell am I supposed to stop my brothers from pulling the trigger once
they’ve got an angel in their sights?

Behind me, I hear little scrapes and
clinking noises. It’s everything that I can do not to turn around and look.

“What the hell is that?” Gabe asks,
still sounding breathless.

“Set up the food,” Tarren says.

More clinking. I keep my gaze forward,
taking in the wide expanse of cloudless sky.
I should tell Tarren and Gabe
about Gem and what he said,
I think as I’ve thought a thousand million
times before. But I won’t. Tarren and Gabe wouldn’t understand; they’d see Gem
as an enemy, deserving of a bullet through the head just like any other set of
wings.

Gem is my brother too
. Maybe keeping quiet about him is a
betrayal of my other brothers. Maybe it’s the stupidest thing I’ll ever do,
which is impressive considering the list of stupid things I’ve already accomplished.
But it feels right. If Gem wanted to harm us, he had a thousand opportunities
already. Instead, he helped Tarren; he helped our family. I owe him at least a
measure of trust.

I listen to the crunch of Tarren’s boots
as he comes up behind me. His shadow falls across me, and still I don’t turn.

“Alright,” he says softly. I turn to
look at him, but his face tells me nothing, so I glance over his shoulder at a
strange, glinting configuration set up on the ground. The sun plays off the
reflective surfaces, creating dazzling shards of light.

Mirrors. He’s set up three long, large
mirrors in a semi-circle.

My heart drops in my chest.

“Another experiment,” I say and try not
to sound dour. It wouldn’t be the first. He and Lo have already tried putting
me in Carmen’s tanning bed as well as generating a reverse current from a car
battery to see if I could absorb the power for sustenance.