A Touch Menacing

by Leah Clifford

  “Did he come after you?” Gabe asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m sure he thought I was dead. I’m not sure what he thought when he came back and my body was missing. I don’t even know if he came back. I have no idea why he was so adamant that I end up with Az.”

  “I’ve got an inkling,” Gabe said.

  Erin was staring at her, her lips parting just enough to speak. “The others?”

  Annalise spun back to her. “Vaughn was Donavan’s friend. They grew up together,” she said quietly. “It was a game once I figured out how to do it. We brought our friends in. Vaughn was supposed to be the last. We didn’t know he started to sell Touch almost immediately. He didn’t realize he was inadvertently making Siders. At first, I even thought it was the same angel doing to others what he’d done to me. By the time anyone figured it out it was Vaughn, things had already spiraled so far out of control.”

  A ringtone startled them all. Gabriel dug Madeline’s phone out of his pocket. The number wasn’t one she’d saved. “Hello?” he said as he answered.

  Heavy breathing. Running and then a gasped “Gabe!”

  Gabriel shot to his feet. “Jarrod?”

  The response was breathless. “They took them. All four of them. I didn’t—”

  “Took who?”

  “Az is gonna lose it. You’ve gotta get here, Gabe, like, now. The Bound took Eden. Sullivan.” He panted into the speaker. “Jackson. They got them all.”

  “Where are you?” Gabriel demanded.

  “Your place,” Jarrod said. “When you were Fallen. Two blocks from there. Running.” He heard Jarrod begging Az to slow down. “We found out how to make the Siders mortal,” Jarrod said a second later.

  Gabriel motioned to Erin to get up. “Don’t leave, do you hear me?” he said into the phone. “You keep Az with you and don’t leave.”

  “They. Have. Eden. He’s wigging the fuck out. Black eyes, whole bit.”

  “Damn it,” Gabriel spat. “Do what you can. I’ll be there in a second.”

  He hung up the phone and slid it back into his pocket. “Gabe?” Erin said.

  “I have to go,” he replied.

  “I started the Siders. I know you have to tell the Bound.” Annalise stood, fear bleaching her face. “What’s going to happen to me?” Donavan gripped her hand.

  “Nothing if I can help it,” Gabe said. He caught her in a hug. “Thank you for what you’ve told me.” Her mortal life had been snatched away through no fault of her own. She’d suffered, not knowing why. He patted her back before he pulled away and turned to Donavan. “Stay here. If anyone comes besides me, run. Do not be a hero. If I’m not back by nightfall, disappear. Go away and you do not come back, understood?”

  He left them without waiting for an answer. Halfway down the front stairs, he pictured the apartment complex, the shaded nook of the laundry room near the front door. Go, he thought.

  CHAPTER 26

  I made the Siders? Gabe thought. That was impossible. There was no way he could have caused something so catastrophic, so horrifying, without knowing it. “You’re lying,” Gabe said. He tried again to read Annalise’s thoughts. Again, she blocked him effortlessly. “Who are you?”

  Her eyes bored into his. “You’re not going to jump, are you?” she said. Gabe shook his head, not understanding. “That’s what you said to me. ‘You’re not going to jump, are you?’ Do you remember me now? I’d gone to the park, overlooking the river, and—”

  “The concrete pilings,” Gabriel whispered. He pushed his fists down into the couch cushions. Suddenly, he remembered. How long ago was it? Five years? Six? It had been sunset, the sky oscillating with oranges and reds, and from the west a storm was rolling in. He’d been restless, and wanted to go to the park, just to get outside. Az hadn’t, but Gabe had convinced him. Thunder was rumbling in the distance when they got there, but he hadn’t wanted to give Az the satisfaction of leaving so soon. Finally, Gabe had gotten tired of his friend’s sulking and told him to go home.

  He’d gone on alone. The gravel path had split, one branch straight, the other curving around to the waterfront. He’d been about to go the shorter way when he’d seen her red tank top bobbing ten feet higher than a person could walk. She was up on the concrete pilings there to keep bikers from taking the curve too sharp and plunging over the cliff. She’d been balanced, the wind in her hair, staring out at the water.

  “I used to go there all the time to watch the storms roll in. I could see everything. The water, the bridges, the city.” She fell silent.

  “You made me nervous so close to the edge,” Gabe said.

  “It wasn’t supposed to rain, but clouds and the sunset and it was so perfect. I couldn’t remember a better day. And I turned around and you were behind me.”

  Gabe’d caught her thoughts, seen the excited shine coating them. He remembered the moment her happiness had hit him, so overwhelming he’d felt drunk off it. Her mind, singing and blissful. When she’d faced the water again, he’d made his way back to the main path. He searched his memory for more, but there was nothing.

  “How did that make you a Sider?” Erin asked.

  Annalise’s eyes were wet. “I heard someone else coming. I turned, but I caught my lace and tripped.” She leaned forward and put her head in her hands. “I hit my head when I landed and must have blacked out for a second. When I came to, a boy had his arm around me, starting to lift me up.”

  “Az?” Gabe guessed, but Annalise didn’t acknowledge him.

  “For a minute, I was worried about how hard I’d hit my head, because he looked so much like you,” she said, looking at Donavan. “You were supposed to meet me that day. Those pilings were our spot.”

  Donavan shook his head. “But when I met you, you were already a Sider,” he said. “We met at that same park. Walking on the path.” Gabe watched as Donavan pieced it all together. When he spoke again, his voice was measured. “You came up to me the day we met. You knew me? So I . . . forgot you when you went Sider?”

  Annalise took his hand. “You never could remember why you loved that park so much,” she said.

  “Jesus Christ, Annie,” he said, ripping away from her. Her hand hung in the empty air. “If I knew you when we were mortal, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Because Az wasn’t the last one to show up! And I never wanted him”—she spat the word—“to know you existed. And I never wanted to have to talk about what happened next.”

  So focused on Donavan, Annalise let a few snapshots of memory slip through to Gabe. Az helping her to her feet. His back as he rounded the corner. Another angel approaching once he’d gone. And Gabriel saw that angel’s face.

  “No,” Gabriel whispered, and Annalise’s attention snapped to him, her thoughts garbling once more, but it was too late. “What did he do to you?”

  She shuddered. To his surprise, at seeing her upset Donavan seemed to forget his own anger and sat back down, putting his arm around her shoulder. “He thought I was with Az,” she said. “He told me he needed to check my pupils, since I’d hit my head. I assumed he was a doctor, but when I looked into his eyes . . . Well.”

  Gabe made himself sit still and wait for her to continue despite the sudden rage flooding through him.

  “When I woke up, we weren’t in the park anymore and he was babbling. Things I didn’t understand about paths and love and how I didn’t have to be afraid. That Az and I could be together forever.” Her voice dropped. “I kept trying to tell him I didn’t know who he was talking about, but he’d seen us together right after I fell. And he had my memories of Donavan. He thought I was confused from hitting my head, or that Az lied to me about his name, or . . . something.”

  Annalise picked at a thread on her pants. Then she opened her mind to Gabe.

  A barrage of fragmented memories slammed into him. Kept me in a room—locked—promised not to tell anyone what he’d done—“keep Az from Falling”—and then we could all have what we wanted— “He tol
d me that he would fix me,” she said aloud. “I felt like I was going out of my skin. Every day it got worse, this feeling building inside me, and then one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. And I took a sheet from the bed and—”

  “Stop,” Gabe said, his head hanging low. “That’s enough.”

  Donavan rubbed his hand up and down Annalise’s arm, his thoughts stricken.

  “I woke up on the floor,” she said, finally. “I thought I’d failed.” She stared ahead, focused somewhere far beyond the room they sat in now. “The door was open and so I ran. I ran home.”

  She didn’t say any more. They all knew what happened, how without a path, any life the Siders had led as mortals was as if it had never existed. They were forgotten.

  Donavan brought his hand up to her head, stroking her hair. “And me?”

  Annalise sniffed. “I thought it would be okay if we just started over. I wasn’t sure what I was, only that I was different. I thought maybe you could still love me. Every time we touched—I’m sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing to you,” she got out before she burst into tears.

  Donavan pulled her against him. “Is that enough?” he asked Gabe, an edge to his voice.

  “Why me?” Erin asked as Annalise lifted her head from Donavan’s shoulder. “I met Madeline shopping. Did you send her after me? Did I know you?”

  “No,” Annalise said, a bitter twinge to her words. “You were friends with Madeline when she was mortal. You forgot her when I turned her, just like she forgot me. After Donavan, Madeline was the first of my friends I recruited. She mentioned how much she missed you, and so you were my gift to her.”

  Erin blanched. “Kristen?” she whispered.

  For a long time, Annalise said nothing. “A girl Donavan and I had gone to school with,” she said. “She’d always seemed kind of out there and fascinating. We started passing her Touch. Then we realized in the time since we’d been mortal, she’d started to fall apart at the seams. We knew something wasn’t right, so we stopped. Too late. We didn’t know she’d gone Sider until she reintroduced herself to Madeline later.” She wouldn’t look at Erin, her chin quivering as she met Gabriel’s gaze with feverish intensity. “For two years, that poor girl suffered for what we did to her. But you saved her, Gabriel. You’d been watching Madeline and Erin. I was terrified you’d seen Donavan and me. That if you knew where to find us, eventually, he would come. So we split into territories, and I went into hiding here.”

  “Did he come after you?” Gabe asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m sure he thought I was dead. I’m not sure what he thought when he came back and my body was missing. I don’t even know if he came back. I have no idea why he was so adamant that I end up with Az.”

  “I’ve got an inkling,” Gabe said.

  Erin was staring at her, her lips parting just enough to speak. “The others?”

  Annalise spun back to her. “Vaughn was Donavan’s friend. They grew up together,” she said quietly. “It was a game once I figured out how to do it. We brought our friends in. Vaughn was supposed to be the last. We didn’t know he started to sell Touch almost immediately. He didn’t realize he was inadvertently making Siders. At first, I even thought it was the same angel doing to others what he’d done to me. By the time anyone figured it out it was Vaughn, things had already spiraled so far out of control.”

  A ringtone startled them all. Gabriel dug Madeline’s phone out of his pocket. The number wasn’t one she’d saved. “Hello?” he said as he answered.

  Heavy breathing. Running and then a gasped “Gabe!”

  Gabriel shot to his feet. “Jarrod?”

  The response was breathless. “They took them. All four of them. I didn’t—”

  “Took who?”

  “Az is gonna lose it. You’ve gotta get here, Gabe, like, now. The Bound took Eden. Sullivan.” He panted into the speaker. “Jackson. They got them all.”

  “Where are you?” Gabriel demanded.

  “Your place,” Jarrod said. “When you were Fallen. Two blocks from there. Running.” He heard Jarrod begging Az to slow down. “We found out how to make the Siders mortal,” Jarrod said a second later.

  Gabriel motioned to Erin to get up. “Don’t leave, do you hear me?” he said into the phone. “You keep Az with you and don’t leave.”

  “They. Have. Eden. He’s wigging the fuck out. Black eyes, whole bit.”

  “Damn it,” Gabriel spat. “Do what you can. I’ll be there in a second.”

  He hung up the phone and slid it back into his pocket. “Gabe?” Erin said.

  “I have to go,” he replied.

  “I started the Siders. I know you have to tell the Bound.” Annalise stood, fear bleaching her face. “What’s going to happen to me?” Donavan gripped her hand.

  “Nothing if I can help it,” Gabe said. He caught her in a hug. “Thank you for what you’ve told me.” Her mortal life had been snatched away through no fault of her own. She’d suffered, not knowing why. He patted her back before he pulled away and turned to Donavan. “Stay here. If anyone comes besides me, run. Do not be a hero. If I’m not back by nightfall, disappear. Go away and you do not come back, understood?”

  He left them without waiting for an answer. Halfway down the front stairs, he pictured the apartment complex, the shaded nook of the laundry room near the front door. Go, he thought.

  CHAPTER 27

  Eden had memorized what she could of the building the Bound dragged her into two hours ago. She’d counted eight flights of stairs before they’d marched her out of the stairwell. The center of the building was open, the empty space surrounded on each floor on four sides by a balcony that led off to rooms. Eden and the other Siders’ dragged footsteps sent chunks of debris tumbling beyond the railing, falling to the floor so far below. Above, an impressive atrium of glass and metal let in the late-afternoon light. Bound angels had lined floors and floors of railings like sentinels. You hurt us and I’ll rip your throats out. Two of them flinched at the viciousness of her thought, and she was surprised to find pity in the eyes that dared meet hers.

  Then they’d dumped Eden and the others down here in this pit.

  The floorboards underneath her were wet and warped. The door and windows had been covered over with thick crisscrossing layers of barbed wire, cemented to the walls to hold them in place. Eden’s fingers bled where she’d tried to rip it loose. The ceiling was partially collapsed, making it the only opening in the room. The Bound had taken their phones, their jackets, and their gloves.

  Jackson hadn’t made a sound in almost an hour. Sullivan cried quietly. Only Rachel seemed alert, staring at Eden as if expecting her to have some sort of escape plan. Yeah, right, Eden thought.

  Just out of sight, one of the Bound paced in the room above. She heard him, making his rounds every few minutes. Eden had tucked everyone into the alcove underneath what remained of the ceiling. She lay still, a hand between the floor and her cheek. I’ve got to do something.

  “Get up, guys,” she said through chattering teeth. “We need to walk.”

  No one moved. She forced herself to stand. “Sullivan, now.”

  The sobs slowed to hiccups as Sullivan got to her feet. Eden limped to Jackson. He didn’t acknowledge her, just stared out from his spot against the wall. Dried blood ran a broken trail down his face. She gently flaked off what she could. The wound itself had healed quickly with all the Touch he carried, but he seemed disoriented. “Just a little longer. Az will come for us,” she said. “Jarrod, too.”

  He hadn’t responded to any previous attempt to draw him out, but this time he focused. “Maddy won’t.”

  Eden wrapped her arms around him, and was surprised when he hugged her back.

  “You really think we’re going to get out of here?” he asked. His expression was bleak.

  “Az will come for us,” she repeated. No matter how bad things got, she knew Az and Jarrod wouldn’t rest. She squeezed Jackson tighter. I will not die here, she promised
herself.

  When Eden stepped back and started pacing, Jackson followed a few steps behind. Rachel stayed at his side, helping him along. The room wasn’t large, but doing something—even walking in circles—would keep them from feeling so utterly hopeless.

  “Stay around the edges,” Eden said as she fell in beside Sullivan. Sullivan nodded, and Eden lowered her voice. “The Bound are keeping us alive for a reason. If they wanted us dead, they would have done it already.”

  A sudden chuckle echoed through the room. In the threshold above, an angel glared down at them. “Such a foolish deduction,” he said.

  Eden recognized him as the one who had tormented Az at Rockefeller Center. It seemed like months ago they’d run into him at near the tree, but it hadn’t even been two weeks. Michael. He blinked out above and reappeared in the room with them. Sullivan pressed against Eden, and they backed away slowly.

  “You.” Eden’s voice wavered. Michael jutted his head out, crooked it to the side. The movement was reptilian, horrible. “Gabe’s our friend. He’ll be upset if you hurt us.”

  His lips peeled back in a grimace. “Do not call him unproper. Gab-ri-el. Once your kind is exterminated, he will be whole again. And when you fall to ash, he will be mine.”

  Eden held an arm over the others, keeping them behind her. “He’s no one’s but his own. And he’d never be with anyone who would hurt his friends.”

  Michael’s agitation only worsened. “Silence. You speak aloud of things you know not.”

  “We didn’t do anything to you!” Jackson broke in. He pushed in front of Eden as Michael twisted around. “Why are you doing this? You’re supposed to be the good guys!”

  Michael sidled closer. “Your kind is born of corrosion and putrescence. Souls perish at your touch and you celebrate with pageantry and fine dresses?” He sneered, incredulous. “You dare beg mercy?”