I sit in my nest under my comfortable trees, eyes closed, face turned upwards, letting the sky’s tears mingle with my own. Until the sound changes, and the dripping stops. Well, it stops dripping on me, not everything else. Because I can still hear the rain in the trees around me.
“If you keep sitting in the rain like that, you’re going to get sick.”
I open my eyes. Instead of wet branches, I see Axel’s broad open wings, shielding me from the falling wet. I don’t answer.
He sighs. “Look, Kendry, I’m sorry. I’m not used to telling—”
“Save it, Axel.” I’m tired and I’m cranky and now I’m wet. Never mind that it’s my own fault, and that I wanted it. Plus, staring at him is giving me a crick in my neck. I stand up and turn, so I’m closer to him, and only looking up a little. “You’re the only friend I’ve got, you know. You’re it. There’s you, and there’s Mom. I have no idea where she is, I’ve been captured and left and nearly blown up, and all you do is keep secrets from me. God, Axel! All I wanted was to make sure you weren’t hurt!” The tears are back again, and I can’t stop them.
“We change at night.”
“What?” His response is so non-sequitur that I can only stare at him, trying to shift gears.
“Gargoyles. Me. Living stone during the day, flesh at night. My wings even change.”
I keep staring at him, lost. I’m still too angry, and what he’s saying isn’t making sense. I think he sees that, understands my confusion, because next thing I know, he’s standing right up next to me, wings still covering above us. He takes my hand and lifts it up slow, touching my fingers to his strange, so human face. The skin is a little rough, like he almost needs a shave, but not quite. He lets my fingers drift down, grazing his lips. They’re soft, and a little moist, like he’s just licked them.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move, except to bite my own lip in response. My eyes flick back and forth between the lips my fingers have just touched, and the black eyes that never leave mine.
“Oh, there you two are.”
He drops my fingers like they’ve burned him.
Damn you, Illyana.
Her ghostlight breaks the spell that had settled between us. Part of me is grateful, because I’m not sure I’m ready to go there.
Most of me hates her guts for the interruption.
And Axel’s all business again, like nothing happened. Well, nothing did happen, but something was about to, I’m sure of it. And I can’t switch off like that, but I guess I’m not a gargoyle.
“What did you find?”
Illyana shakes her head, and she looks sort of…sad. I’ve never seen her look anything but pleased with herself.
“No sign of them. The soldiers must have taken them along when they left.”
And there’s the shut-off switch I was looking for. “Why would they do that? Why take my mom?”
Axel shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“Well…can we track them?”
His black eyes are hard again. Like he disapproves.
“She’s my mom, Axel! I can’t do nothing!”
“We can find them.” Illyana’s eyes might be white-toned and half see-through, but I swear there’s something in them. Understanding, maybe.
“And what are you planning on doing if Illyana and her ghosts find her? Your last rescue didn’t go so well.”
He’s right, damn him. “I don’t know, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”
He stares at me, while the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench. Skin is still so strange on him. Strange and beautiful and kind of wrong, but not really.
“I want you to let me help you.”
Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. I think my face shows it, too, but Illyana’s tinkling laugh makes me shake it off. “I’m…okay, fine. I’m good with that.”
“I’ll see what we can find then.” Her voice lingers longer than she does, but both are gone in moments, and it’s dark again.
I shiver.
Not really surprising, since I’m wet, and still only wearing my running clothes.
“I think the rain has stopped.”
I turn and look at him, but he’s staring upwards at the trees and the dark sky. His wings settle back behind him. I still want to touch them, but the moment is gone. When his eyes swing back to me, they’re the same shut off pools of black I’d been used to before today. The kind that keep secrets.
“The others have a fire, if you’re cold.”
I shrug, and walk past him, careful not to touch anything. Not to touch him. Because gargoyle or no, he’s a guy, and he’s confusing the hell out of me.
*
Axel was right, the others do have a fire. Several, actually. I don’t feel at all bad about curling up near one and sleeping. Nobody seems to mind, since there are others doing the exact same thing. I’m just glad they’ve all stopped shouting.
When I wake up, it’s to the sun filtering through the tree trunks. Which means it’s still early, since it’s only at eye level. The fire’s burned down, and I’m dry, but I would absolutely kill for a shower. And a chiropractor. God, I miss chiropractors. Sleeping on the ground works when you’re exhausted, but I’m so stiff it’s unreal. At least when I was on camping or hunting trips with Dad, I had a camping mattress. Grass sucks as a bed. A really hot shower would even be enough. Gross does not even begin to describe how nasty I feel.
“Morning, Kendry.”
Axel’s gravelly voice is quiet, so without looking around, I take a guess that most everyone is still asleep. I’m not ready to look around. My body may think it’s awake, but it’s delusional. Still, I attempt an answer, but it comes out as a grunt.
So attractive.
I manage to crack an eye in time to see him smile. He looks normal again, stone and all. His skin is grayish and textured like it should be. Too bad I can’t keep my still-asleep brain from remembering the feel of human skin and soft lips under my fingers. I can’t even keep it from remembering the feel of my body wrapped around his stone body, and the rough feel of his rocky torso.
Shut it, Kendry. Some part of me wakes up enough to beat the memories into submission.
“You okay?”
I take a deep breath. “Yeah. Not a morning person.” I think that might even have been coherent. Maybe.
Mostly I hope he doesn’t bring up last night, because I don’t want to talk about it.
“So, last night…”
Oh, hell.
I can’t keep my head from sinking into my hands.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I nod. He mutters something I don’t hear. “Anyway, last night most of the others decided they would head back to Greenbriar today.”
My head comes up.
That wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Really?”
“There you are.” He smiles. “Yes, really. No reason not to, from what we can see. The troops are gone, and from the looks of it, not coming back, so…” He trails off with a shrug.
“Wait, you said most of them. What about the others?”
“They’ve decided to come with us, to look for your mom and the other humans.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. I think I’d had it in the back of my mind that it would only be us searching for Mom. Not sure if I’m disappointed, or relieved.
“Kendry?”
Come on, brain dead. Snap out of it.
“Sorry, I really don’t think well when I first wake up. That’s great, that they’re coming. Um. Who?”
He rattles off a few names, and I smile when he includes Brigid. Having a God on our side can’t hurt. Thom too. Apparently they took his best friend Caleb, another werewolf. I remember they were always inseparable in high school. And Shelly Cochran. Can’t say I’m really surprised by Shelly. She wandered into Greenbriar a year after the Uprising, having walked all the way from Arlington, navigating with nothing but a compass. I asked her how she did it,
once. She said she’d been a Girl Scout.
Funny thing is, she was serious. So yeah, her volunteering didn’t surprise me.
“You know, we should go back to Greenbriar before we head out. Grab some supplies.” And shower. I’m getting a shower.
Axel cocks his head. “Sure, that makes sense. We should go soon, though.”
I’m already up. “Any word from Illyana?”
He shakes his head. “No, but we should be ready to go when she comes back.”
I smile, not even caring for a moment how truly awful I must look. I want to ask him how he knows Ilyana, or why the other paras all seem to know him. But I don’t. I smile instead, not even caring for a moment how truly awful I must look. Focus on the now, and the fact that there’s a shower in my future. “Well let’s get going then. There’s a shower at home with my name on it.”
*
It’s an amazing thing what judicious amounts of hot water can do. It’s the little, everyday magic that makes life worth it. We’d been lucky in Greenbriar. There were a surprising number of elementals that had been around. They fixed the power plant and the wells for us early on, before most of the world lost theirs. I have never been as thankful to them as I am right now, standing here clean and happy.
I took my time in the shower, but I’m hurrying now. I can hear Axel downstairs, his heavy steps strange in my house. I know I can’t take a lot with me, but I shove extra clothes in my pack, the one I used to use for trail running and day hikes up on the Appalachian Trail. I’d thought about my internal frame backpack, the one that holds enough for a week or more, but I want to travel light and be able to run if I need to.
I rummage through the camping gear in my closet. Most of it I’m not worried about needing, but at the very back I find what I’m looking for. I haven’t used it in a few years, but I can still smell the oil on it from the last time I cleaned it. Dad’s hunting knife. Pulling it out of the leather sheath, I check it over for rust or nicks. I know there won’t be any, but it’s something he always taught me to do. It’s clean and sharp, exactly like I expect, so I re-sheath it and toss it into my pack.
I take one more look around my room, trying to decide if there’s anything else I should bring, but all I end up grabbing is one more pair of clean socks. You can’t ever have too many clean socks. But since there’s nothing else I can think of, I grab my pack and leave. Lingering will only make me worry.
Axel’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I think he feels uncomfortable indoors. I wasn’t even expecting him to come in, but he did, folding his enormous wings tight against his back to get through the door. He’s leaning against the front door as I come down, wings still tucked, arms crossed, and one foot up on the door behind him. It feels like he’s watching every move I make, but his face is as unreadable as ever.
Whatever it was that didn’t—or did—happen last night, I’m not so comfortable around him anymore. I hesitate at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’t move, and neither do I.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Kendry?”
My brain skips harder than my stomach before I realize what it is he’s talking about. Because of course, he’s talking about going after Mom, and not other things. Where did that idea even come from, anyway? Oh right. It came from the way he’s looking at me and the fact that I haven’t had sex in waaaay too long. Get a grip, girl. I bite my tongue on the smart-ass reply that naturally rises in my defense. I know he’s trying to look out for me, and I’m only being oversensitive because my brain keeps going in directions it shouldn’t. “She’s my mom.” In other words, I can’t let them take her. She’s all I have. But he knows all that, so I don’t say it.
He nods, finally moving to open the door, and we go. I take a long look at the only place I’ve ever called home. The paint on the house is peeling badly. The porch Dad renovated when I was ten looks as old as the rest of the place now. My eyes pan over the whole neighborhood, mostly farmhouses that were old long before the Uprising, and now look even older. But I know every single human and para that lived in them. The ones that left after, and the ones that came for refuge.
The wind blows through the trees, sending the leaves chattering. I can’t help the sudden fear that I won’t see this place again. And if I don’t, I want to remember it like this. Still fighting. Still standing, even after Cigar-face’s invasion. Broken windows, crumbling brick, rusted cars, and all.
One last look, and we’re gone. The rest of our little group is waiting.
*
“They’re headed south-east, crossing into Virginia with the river. Probably towards Blacksburg.”
“Blacksburg? Why would soldiers be headed for Tech?”
Illyana shrugs. “I haven’t got the faintest. I don’t know that they’re actually heading to Blacksburg. That’s just the direction.”
“There isn’t really anything else that way, unless they plan on going for the coast. Radford, maybe, but I can’t see anything at all useful about that.” Thom’s studying an old map like he’s done this a thousand times before. “Do we know if any of the para armies are near?”
“Not that any of my girls could see.”
Something’s bothering me though, something I think I should remember. I worry my bottom lip with y teeth as I try to figure it out.
“There’re a couple of old airports, that way, could they be heading to one of them?” Brigid seems to think there’s more to it than that too.
“Could be,” Thom says slowly, tapping his finger on his jaw. “But they’re little municipal things. I doubt there’s anything still air-worthy there.”
Something about New River, and Radford. Something along New River. They keep talking around me, but I shut them out, trying to find the memory I’m looking for. I open my eyes again and grab my pack, conscious of Axel’s eyes following me. He knows, somehow. Knows I’ve found something.
I don’t know why I’d thrown in my Appalachian Trail map, but I’m glad I did. Because it’s right there, on the old, creased, and faded Google map I’d folded up with it last time I hiked. Too bad there’s no internet for me to print a more current one.
Axel’s gaze is waiting for mine when I look up.
“What is it, Kendry?” He says it loud enough for the others to hear.
“The munitions plant.” My words are faint, but certain.
Thom stares at me. “What did you say?”
“Radford Army Ammunition Plant. Look, it’s right here, right on the river.” I show him the map.
“Well, hell. Hasn’t somebody blown that thing up by now?”
“I doubt many people know about it, really. I only remember because Dad mentioned it once. Besides,” I shrug. “It’s not that far away. I think we’d have heard it going up.”
“Good point. Well, I guess we get to do it then.” Thom winks at me, and I find myself smiling. I like his thinking.
Only thing is, I’m really worried, too. Because I still don’t know why a militia would drag along most of the humans and a group of paras from nowhere Greenbriar, and I don’t like what their destination implies. At all.
I think the thing that really threw everyone about the Uprising wasn’t so much the fact of all these mythological creatures being real. Not really.
Oh sure, there was the fear factor. The incomprehensible law of human existence that says we fear what we don’t know. We fear things and people that are different, that look different, things we can’t explain. Fear is a powerful motivator.
But I think what really did it, what really threw us over the edge, was the magic.
Shapeshifters and elementals and gods, they all meant that magic was real, that science couldn’t—and didn’t—explain everything. Science certainly couldn’t explain the Glamour, the magic every para had used for centuries to hide alongside us all. Fear and misunderstanding did the rest, breeding the kind of intolerance that caused humans to attack paras who had only the day before been working next them.
Fear may have t
oppled the world’s governments, and started a war, but magic… Magic was the catalyst.
And for some of us, the hope.
*
We make good time, our little crew.
Thom runs ahead, playing through the trees and back, acting like the college boy he was, or might be still, if the world hadn’t changed. But he’s a good scout, for all the fun he seems to be having. Axel stays away, keeping to the skies, or chatting with Brigid. They’ve sort of become our default leaders, the two of them, taking responsibility for our rescue mission.
I’m still not sure how this went from my rescue mission to our rescue mission, but whatever. I mean, I get Thom going after his best friend. But I don’t understand why the others are helping. Especially Axel, insisting on coming like he did. I guess I’m grateful for the help, even if Axel is ignoring me. Maybe especially because he’s ignoring me.
A sudden footfall next to mine makes me turn. Shelly has been quiet the entire time, and she’s not saying anything now, but I’m a little surprised to see her matching strides with me. She gives me a shy smile, hiding behind her glasses. I smile in return, and we walk along in silence.
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
Her quiet voice startles me.
“Mine died a few years back, you know, before. She’d have thought this whole thing was hilarious.”
It takes me a minute to get over the fact that perpetually quiet Shelly is talking to me about herself. I don’t think she’s told anybody about herself, except about her walk from Arlington. “So…was it just the two of you?”
She smiles a little. “And my older brother. He was a Marine, like dad. Dad died in Desert Storm. Ian died in Libya, about six months before the Uprising.”
I don’t know what to say, so I keep walking. One foot in front of the other.
ParaWars Uprising Page 3
