Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) (23 page)

“Hey, Ryan, would you turn it up a little?” she said in a low voice, knowing that he would hear.

Ryan smiled at her in the rearview mirror.

“Sure.”

As the music poured freely from the speakers, she felt her strained body relax. It had always been like a drug for her, she thought, and submerged into the familiar melody…

“It’s… creepy in here,” Dave’s uneven voice resounded off the barn walls. He stopped by the entrance, glancing around uneasily.

The place was big and dark, with only a few sun rays penetrating inside through the small windows high up in the walls. They weren’t in complete darkness, though. As soon as they closed the big doors, and their eyes adjusted, they saw that there was enough light to see the insides of the barn and not to stumble over anything. The room itself was empty at the moment, and only a dozen pillars filled the space. It was obviously not new, but well-maintained, and it had a high ceiling supported by long, sturdy rafters.

Pain cast about the barn skeptically. Well, at least it was a suitable place for training, she thought.

“Come on.” She started to walk further inside. “There’s got to be a lodge somewhere,” her voice sounded stiff and gloomy, and Jane glanced at her sister with troubled eyes before following her.

When they had reached the barn – a big steel construction in the middle of a field – Ryan called for her to come up. He handed her a pretty heavy backpack with a crooked smile.

“Take this so you won’t get bored if it takes longer than we think.”

She gave him a quizzical look, but as she touched the backpack, she knew what was inside.

“Books?” She smiled.

“Well, I was thinking about an X-Box, but I’m not sure you like it that much.” The corners of his lips quirked up again, and she laughed.

“Thanks! You saved us.”

She didn’t see the heavy look he gave her as she hurried outside.

When they had left the car, the others drove away, back to the highway not far from the place. She had felt like they were cast out by the whole world, left there like that.

A warm yellow light flickered to life in the far right corner, tearing her out of her reverie. Pain had found the lodge. All three of them hurried there, curious.

Through a low doorway, they could see a table lamp that cast a snug illumination on a small room that was partitioned off from the main space. There was a narrow door inside it – apparently, a bathroom. A long sofa was by the wall, the color of shabby dark-red, it used to have a flower-print some time ago. In front of the sofa was a low wooden table, and across from it – a cheap end table with an old TV on top. There were two armchairs on each side of the sofa, and a microwave stood on a wooden box in a corner. The rest of the space was occupied by a big silvery fridge. This high-tech shining giant stood out among all the old junk like a Ferrari among wooden carts.

“Cozy…” Dave noted with disappointment.

“Spare me your sarcasm, Curiosity,” Pain muttered in a dreary tone. “Don’t make me turn you into a living weathercock out there.”

She dropped her bag with a long sigh and stalked to the far wall, pulling off her hoodie. The others spilled inside, crowding in the small space between the table and the TV. There was a row of pegs on the wall, and Pain hung her sweatshirt on one of them. She headed for the other door, and Dave almost jumped aside, giving the katana in her hand a wary look. Chad chuckled before he could stop himself.

“What?” Dave snapped.

“Nothing.” Chad unzipped his bag with a shrug, holding back a smile.

While the others took their attempts at unpacking and placing their clothes on the pegs and rickety shelves, Pain examined the bathroom. Chad stole a glance inside from behind her back and clicked his tongue, making her flinch and turn to him, but he was already by the fridge. With a quick resentful glance in his direction, she closed the bathroom door and went back to the heap of bags.

“Anybody hungry?” Chad wondered out loud.

“Nope,” two voices, Jane’s and Dave’s, sounded in unison. Pain remained silent, and he took it as a no.

“Me neither,” he murmured and took out a frozen beer bottle.

As the others fussed around their bags, Chad walked out of the room and spotted a low dusty bench by the wall. He shook off the dust and sat down, stretching out his legs. It was weird to live in such a place, he thought as he looked around. Too much space made him uncomfortable. He wondered what was wrong with them people, preferring to crowd in a corner when they had all this space to themselves. Why couldn’t they feel comfortable in big places like this one? Was it some natural instinct that made them hide, told them that spacious meant dangerous?
Silly humans,
he thought with a weary irony and took a sip.

And then something caught his attention.

Not far from the lodge, a dark square stood out against the dusty floor, as if it had been mopped recently. Chad got up, leaving his bottle on the bench, and went there. When he got closer, he saw a metal loop that gleamed faintly in the semidarkness.
A hatch,
he thought, and bent down to grab it.

The weighty cover lifted without a sound, as if it was new or recently greased. He couldn’t see a ladder in the darkness, so he called for the others.

“Hey, come over here… and bring a flashlight!” he called out in the room’s direction.

Dave’s head showed up in the doorway, already chewing something. He came out with a curious look, a pack of Oreos in one hand.

In a few seconds they all gathered around the hatch, and Jane pointed her flashlight into the hole. There was a gleaming metal ladder, and Pain pushed them away, coming to stand on it. She ducked, peeking inside.

“I’m going down,” she said after a moment and disappeared below.

Chad didn’t hear a sound when she landed on the cellar floor. A switch clicked, and a blinding white light blazed up.

“You can come down here, it’s enough space for all of us,” Pain called out, her voice remote. Her attention was on the cellar walls when Chad climbed down the ladder and Jane jumped inside. Dave waved his hand at them and stayed up, finishing his cookies.

In a perfectly clean and roomy cellar with whitewashed walls were a dozen gleaming metal shelves filled with food boxes. On the farthest shelf there were plates, glasses, and plastic packages of water, soda, and juice. And in a corner was a big metal safe.

Pain approached it slowly and opened the door, which was ajar. Inside was a big first aid kit, a thick stack of cash, and a note with Peter’s handwriting: “Just in case.” Behind their backs, Dave’s head peeked into the cellar.

“What’s in the boooox?” he drawled in Brad Pitt’s voice, making Chad grimace.

“Note, first aid, and money,” he responded, stealing a glance over Pain’s shoulder.

“Wow, it’s almost like a quest!” Dave exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Chad grimaced; Jane raised her eyebrows; Pain shook her head with disdain.

She took out the first aid and the money and stuck them under her arm.

“If he brought it all here… He thinks we can stay here for a few
months
?” she said to her sister.

Jane shook her head in confusion.

“Maybe he wanted to be secure in case of an emergency… I don’t know.”

“What emergency?” Pain asked. “A nuclear war?” Still shocked, she strode to the ladder and jumped outside, taking her loot with her.

Jane followed her, grabbing a pack of candy, and Chad climbed the ladder because not everybody could perform jumps seven feet high.

They decided to bring all the things they didn’t need often to the cellar so they wouldn’t clutter up the small room. Out of the fridge stocks they made a tolerable supper, and besides, they found an electric tea kettle behind the microwave. After the supper the others were watching a ball game on the old TV while Pain went down to the cellar. And since Chad couldn’t focus on the game, he decided it was a good opportunity to catch her tête-à-tête and clear the situation.

He wandered out of the room idly, and nobody paid him any attention. The space outside had got chilly somehow – must have been the rain dampening the ground under it – and he shivered, heading right to the white rectangle of the hatch. Pain was nowhere near the ladder, so he got down quickly and spotted her by one of the shelves. Her face was frowned when she glanced at him, her black eyes wary.

“You need any help?” he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind and swore in his head, realizing how lame it sounded.

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. Chad sighed and shook the nonexistent dust off his T-shirt in a nervous gesture.

“Listen, I came to apologize. I really want to clear the situation,” he said and stepped closer to her. She didn’t look like she was listening at all. “Pain?”

“What situation?” she said in a tired voice, stuffing her things into the corners of the bag savagely.

“That conversation- ”

“That conversation is over.” She lifted the bag from the shelf and shook it.

And that was it, all of his patience evaporated.
Impressive,
he thought with a dark humor, closing the distance between them in three long strides. She startled a little at his sudden appearance by her side and froze with a bewildered expression as he snatched the bag out of her hands and tossed it onto the top shelf.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked hoarsely.

She followed her bag with a blank look and then turned to him, tipping her head back. He stood close and stared intently into her eyes, demanding an answer. For a long, tense moment she seemed to be warring with her thoughts, her expression conflicted.

“Why would I be mad at you?” she asked at last, crossing her arms.

“I don’t know,” he waved his hands. “But I see it!”

“What do you see?” she snapped.

“You don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, you act like I don’t exist, it’s pretty much obvious. I’m sorry I yelled at you, no matter how wild you got, I shouldn’t have- ”

“What??” she hissed. “Wild?? Are you freakin’ kidding me calling that an apology??” Her eyes blazed like a wildfire, and Chad instantly regretted every word that had escaped his mouth.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that- ”

“Then what did you mean? Coming after me just to get on my nerves once again!” her voice was a poisonous whisper, and he wondered remotely if this time she would hit him when he says one more stupid thing.

“I meant that I was an idiot, okay? I can’t go on like this! I want things to get back to normal,” he explained hastily.

“Oh, you can’t go on,” she mimicked his voice with such hostility that he took a small step back. “Let me offer you an option then. You can take your crappy apology and shove it right up your- ”

“Hey! Are you alright down there?” Jane’s voice sounded from the lodge. “Don’t ruin our last shelter!” she added, and they could hear Dave giggle in the background.

Pain fumed at him.

“Are you done? Because I’m thinking of a better way to spend my evening,” she grated.

“What, get under the ceiling and hang there alone in miserable silence like a bat?” the words slipped from his lips before he could even think. His voice was harsh with anger and sneer, and Pain gave a small gasp of shock.

She pushed him away and jumped, reaching into her bag in one fluid motion. When she landed on the floor, there was a book in her hand, and she stalked to the hatchway without a second glance at him. Some deep stubbornness made Chad follow, and he leaped on the ladder just as she landed on the surface outside. She must have felt him behind, because she whirled at him and said,

“If you like this cellar so much, then maybe you should stay here for a while?” She began to lower the cover with a feral sneer. Chad sucked in a breath, leaning forward so he would be face to face with her.

“Don’t you dare slam it in my face!” he hissed.

“Oops!” Pain whispered with an innocent expression and let go of the heavy cover.

It fell down with a loud crash, echoing off the walls like thunder; Chad ducked under it. He swore, deafened by the ringing of metal on metal. After a moment he decided he wasn’t going to grant her the pleasure of spending the rest of the day in the room without him around. Pushing the cover upward with an equal clatter, he jumped outside and stormed after her.

When he entered the room, followed by identically curious looks of Jane and his best friend, Pain was on the sofa reading. Or pretending to. There was a foot of free space beside her, and Chad came up to them and sat down, pressing Pain into her sister and throwing his arm on the back of the couch. He could almost feel the raging emotions inside her, all muscles tensed, her shoulder like stone against his side. But she didn’t show anything, so he reached out with the other hand and grabbed a handful of potato chips from Dave’s bowl. He began to crunch on them, and he thought he could hear a low growl. A minute passed in strained silence, and Pain got up, seemingly having trouble keeping back her fists and the mask of calm on her face. She walked over Dave’s legs and out of the room without a word.

Once outside, she put her book on the bench and started dragging it across the floor with an awful screeching noise. She stopped when she reached the doorway, where the light was. Everybody in the room had to cover their ears at the sound, but remained silent, not wanting to interfere in the fight. When she was done, she sat down with her back against the wall and continued reading. She hoped the book would distract her from the yearning to get back, drag Chad outside, bring him up on the roof, and leave him there for the night so he would learn his lesson not to argue with her. Some time ago she would absolutely do this without a second thought, but now she couldn’t explain to herself why deep inside she didn’t want it, didn’t want to humiliate him or show her superiority. And the realization of it wasn’t helping at all. In fact, it made things even worse, just like the book that was a gift from him.