Spirit (37 page)

Feeling eyes on
the back of my neck, I turned on the spot, my stomach knotting up with every
inch until I was face to face with Nick. His face was still battered, bloodied,
and swollen from the beating Ian had given him that day in the parking lot, and
his arm was still in a sling from the broken collarbone I’d given him. He
looked older, sadder than I remembered, but the ugliness of his true self was
still there. I found it easier to glare back at him than it had been with Ian.
He glanced down at his lame arm and then back at my face. With a sniff, I
lifted my chin, refusing to drop my eyes at the sight of the injury I’d given
him – the injury that had cost him his spot on the Varsity football team and
the guaranteed college scholarship that would have led to who knows where. None
of which he deserved.

Nick shook his
head and turned away from me, fading into the fog as he went. I watched him go,
not trusting him enough even in the afterlife to turn my back on him.

An ear splitting
scream ripped through the air and nearly had me on the ground. I turned just in
time to see the bloody ruin of the Sylph streaking right for me. She was bound
in spiked iron chains, her face a ruin of ribbons, and her once beautiful
white-blond hair was matted with blood and darker things. Her fingers were tipped
in claws as she came for me, just as Ian had. Just like before, I dropped right
before she reached me, covering my head and face with my arms. I felt the wind
of her passing, it pulled at my hair and clothes, but when I opened my eyes
again, she was gone. But whenever I blinked, I saw her writhing in agony on the
floor, surrounded by her kind, bleeding but never dying. The nightmares of that
night had haunted me until the day I died, just as I knew they always would.

Before I could
get to my feet, a black clawed hand reached from below and wrapped around my
ankle. The claws pierced my calf muscle, cutting into the half-moon scars
hidden by my pant leg. I was ready to scream, but the pain never came, my leg
never bled. Inch by inch, Noufaro’s head appeared as she used my leg to climb
out of the darkness. Her chest had a black, sucking wound where her heart
should have been, but now only white, glistening bone stood out against the maw
of her chest.

She hovered over
me, her black eyes bearing into mine. I could hear her lethal tail swishing
back and forth as she lifted one hand, drawing it back before she took a swipe
at my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, unable to watch the
strike coming for me, but it never landed. Prying one eye open, I saw her
dissolve into the grey fog. I blew out the breath I had been holding and pushed
away from the ground to sit up only to hear the shattering of a thousand pieces
of glass.

I knew without
looking what I would see, but I knew I would be forced to look. With my stomach
in knots, I twisted around to look over my shoulder. On the ground, covered in
millions of shards of glass, was the gun man who would have shot Deb had I not
unleashed an earthquake in my panic. When he sat up to look at me, his face was
a bloody mass of shredded flesh. He held out his hands, as if asking for my
help, but all I could do was stare at the glass imbedded in his palms,
glittering among the torn and bloodied flesh. I felt the color drain from my
face.

So much blood, so
many bodies left in my wake.

“All right,” I
whispered, swallowing against the lump forming in my throat. The gun man faded
into the fog, taking the shattered glass with him. “I get it, okay?” My voice
echoed back to me again without answer. I climbed to my feet, wishing I had
something to hold on to in order to steady myself, but I was still alone in
this void.

“Fine, I’m not
an angel,” I called out, turning to watch in all directions. “I’ve hurt people,
killed even, fine! You can have the damn wings! Keep them!” I screamed at the
end, feeling the words tearing at my throat, but my words were drowned out by
the sound of wrenching, tearing metal and more breaking glass.

Spinning on the
spot, I tried to look for the source of the noise. Horns blared from every
direction, echoing back to me in a confused cacophony. Then a stumbling form
came out of the fog, falling at my feet, screaming as he landed on his broken
arm. His face was covered in an angry red burn, the kind you get when an airbag
deploys in your face. When he rolled over, I saw who the boy was. It was the
guy who had abandoned Steven across the border in Mexico after slipping him a
pill at a concert. He’d stolen Steven’s car and just left him there. I had
tracked him down and called the police when I finally spotted Steven’s car, but
instead of surrendering, the idiot had led the cops on a high-speed chase. I
had no idea it had ended like this.

“No,” I said,
standing back up, shaking my head. “This one wasn’t my fault.” I looked down at
my hands. They were covered in his blood. I glanced at the body at my feet,
watching as his eyes rolled back when he passed out from the pain. I couldn’t
stop shaking my head, backing away from the pool of blood he’d left behind.

That wasn’t fair.
He’d stolen Steven’s car, drugged him, and left him for dead. His parents
almost couldn’t get him back across the damn border. How could his accident be
on my hands?

I nearly fell
over when the backs of my legs struck something. I whipped around and saw a
little boy about the age of six. His little bow mouth was pursed in an angry
sneer as he glared up at me. There was a small cut on his bottom lip, making it
swell, and his left eyebrow was split and bleeding. His face was vaguely
familiar, but I couldn’t quite remember him. I squinted as I looked down at him
in his dirty overalls with grass stains on his legs. Then I saw the strands of
auburn hair clutched in his tiny fist. My hair.

“You,” I
breathed, feeling my brow pinch as I glared down at the boy that tormented Jodi
in first grade until she cried. He was the little boy who caught Jodi and me
talking to faeries at school and started all of those horrible rumors about us
that followed us all the way through elementary school and into junior high.
The taunts and name-calling hadn’t stopped until we finally made it to high
school where all of the kids scattered to the various schools in the district.

The black and
blue bruise blossomed over his left eye as I watched. A blood vessel burst at
the corner of his eye, turning the white into a bright red. A moment later, a
trickle of blood leaked out of his nose as it flattened. I remembered finally
getting the upper hand in the fight and sitting on his chest, pounding at his
face until a teacher came running over to pull me off of him. I had kicked and
screamed, spitting in my anger as the little boy cried on the playground. No
one cared that he had fought back, managing to rip out a lock of my hair in his
fury. No one cared about that because in the end, I was on top and winning.

“He deserved it
though,” I whispered, unable to take my eyes off of his face, watching it
change slowly as the swelling grew and the bruises blossomed. “He hurt Jodi,
and he hit me back!” I felt six years old all over again, angry and irrational.
With a smirk, he began to rise in the air. It was the same smirk he’d given me
when the principal made me apologize to him in front of the whole class before
I was suspended for three days. He was the first person I’d ever used my powers
to hurt.

I remembered
sitting on top of him, my knees pressed into his armpits and my toes braced
against the ground, feeling the power of the Earth racing up into me, fueling
my punches. When the teacher hauled me into the air, I saw the indentation in
the ground where we had begun to sink into it, but no one else paid it any
attention.

I took a step
back and then another, turning away from the battered little boy that hovered
at eye level with me now. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him rush
forward to follow me, so I ran, desperate to get away. Through the roiling fog
and mists, I saw the faces of those I had harmed over the years, those I had
killed. Their faces loomed out at me through the darkness, baring their teeth,
demanding that I look upon the blood and bruises I had doled out. There were
faces without wounds I didn’t recognize, but their eyes were red and swollen
with tears, and I knew they were people affected by those I had hurt or killed.

I closed my eyes
and ran blindly, screaming at them to go away, that it wasn’t my fault, I was
only ever trying to help. I lost my footing and fell. Curling into myself, I
kept my eyes closed against the angry faces that pressed down on me. A voice
whispered in my ear that sounded very much like my own.

“An angel washed
in blood,” it whispered. “How did you ever expect to keep your wings?” The
taunting voice echoed inside my mind so that I couldn’t shut it out.

“I didn’t ask
for this,” I whimpered, half-remembering saying something very similar as I
watched another creature laying in a pool of its own blood.

“But you wanted
it, didn’t you?”

“No!” I cried
out, sobs wracking me.

“You did,” the
voice hissed. “Look at all the blood you’ve spilt. Look at all the pain and
suffering you’ve caused. You don’t deserve your wings.”

“I was only
trying to help people,” I whispered, my own voice losing strength as the one in
my head grew stronger.

“Helping!” the
voice hissed. “Is that how you slept at night? By telling yourself that you
were
helping
people?”

“Yes,” I
whispered back. I had helped people, hadn’t I? Sure, some people got hurt along
the way, but other people had caused those hurts or they had done it to
themselves. I had begged so many of them to stop, to give up, but they always
refused. Even as I held their lives in my hands, they had always refused.

“So you helped a
few people, but at what cost?” the voice taunted me. I shrank from it, but in
the dark corners of my mind, I saw the smiling faces of those parents I had
returned their children to. So many mothers, all with eyes full of relieved
tears, smiling at me, thanking me silently.

“Whatever it
took,” I said, my voice wavering only slightly now. I lowered my hands,
uncovering my head and opening my eyes, blinking back the tears. “I helped
innocent people, no matter the cost.” My voice grew stronger with every word as
I lifted my head. The skin of my back itched and burned as I stood up. The dark
fog was lifting, shifting back to white streaked with grey.

“Nothing to say
to me now?” I demanded, standing my ground, waiting for an answer. When one
didn’t come, I lifted my chin and said, “I don’t know what your rules are, and
frankly, I don’t give a damn. I have helped plenty of people even though I made
some mistakes. I’m proud of the time I spent on Earth. You are not going to
punish me now by taking me away from the people I love. They will die without
me, and I will not let that happen. I will spend the rest of eternity running
from you just to stay with them and do what I think is right.”

Lightning burst
overhead, blinding me with a brilliant flash of white. I cried out in surprise,
closing my eyes too late. Bright spots appeared in the dark behind my eyelids.
Then the crack of thunder boomed all around me, the sound waves buffeting me
from every direction, making me stumble over my own feet until I suddenly fell.
I braced for the impact, but the ground beneath my feet just wasn’t there anymore,
and I was like Alice down the rabbit hole all over again.

Rushing wind
tore at me, pulling my hair out of the loose, haphazard braid to tangle my
locks as they whipped at my face. When I opened my eyes, I still couldn’t see
past the spots of white and my ears rang. Pain lanced through my back, making
my body bow as I flew through the air. I might’ve cried out, but by then I was
so confused, I couldn’t be sure what happened next. I felt something pulling at
my back as something warm seeped down my body. Somehow I caught a current of
air and was pulled backward, moving sideways as I drifted down, the momentum of
my fall gently slowing.

I shook my head
to clear my vision, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to blot out the white
lights. When I opened my eyes and craned my head back, I saw my black wings
spread out behind me, slicing through the air. A surprised sob burst from me,
followed by a cry of agony when I tried to flap them.

The pain lanced
through me, contorting my body and locking my limbs, holding me in an unending
moment of pain. It felt as though my back was actually broken between my wings.
In my mind, I saw the beams of the collapsing ceiling above me from the night I
had died. I didn’t remember what had actually killed me, but in that moment, as
my back contorted in blinding pain, I realized I must have been crushed under
the weight of those beams.

There was a
pounding in my head, and for a second, I thought my ears were bleeding. I tried
to scream to relieve some of the tension in my body, but my voice caught in my
throat and all I could manage was a whimper. The bones and muscles of my back
were still molding, still reshaping to fit my newly reformed wings and knit
themselves back together after being crushed. I hadn’t had my wings in so long my
body forgot how to compensate for them. I could actually feel the bits of bone
and torn muscle fibers moving under my bruised skin, making my stomach roil in
protest.

The wind pulled
one of my feathers out, sending a new, sharp spasm through my shoulder blade. I
gasped in pain, desperate for my body to relax, but my vision was staring to
fade. I knew my mind was shutting down, unable to deal with the pain any
longer. The fog finally cleared, and I could see streaks of bright points of
light rushing past me, stars in the night sky. I thought I saw the ground
hurtling toward me just before my eyes rolled back into my head and I passed
out.