“I’ve had a lot to think about.” The numbness now felt like ice. “I’m sure you can understand that.”
“I could see the transformation coming. I had to get you out of Appalachia. But if you went by river, the Outsiders waiting to help would have turned you over to the government. You would have been caught.”
He gestured at the abyss in front of them. “The only way out was this.”
“You could have brought me here. You could have explained what was happening to my body. You could have helped me fly over the fence without using me as a decoy.”
Caitlyn shuddered at an image of Mason Lee and the knife poised over her belly. It had been the evil as much as the threat that terrified her.
“Don’t you think I agonized over that? The risk to you against the certainty that the Clan would eventually be destroyed?”
“You hid all of that from me.” She’d wanted to voice this accusation since surviving the waterfall. It seemed to explode from her, as her wings had.
“The risks for you to reach Brij were meant to be minimized by my capture. I had the information for Mason on a vidpod in my pocket. He was supposed to take it to Bar Elohim so they could set up a trap for you in the valley. I was the one at greatest risk. Not you. I was prepared to die.”
“Even that was selfish. You could have told me.”
“And what would you have done with the knowledge?”
“You made me a decoy. You and Brij talked of freedom, but you didn’t give me a choice.”
He tried to touch her shoulder, but she stepped away. “You learned of it when you reached Brij. You didn’t go into the mines without knowing you were the decoy.”
“How could I refuse at that point?”
“Others would have.” He was shaking. It took her a moment to realize he was weeping noiselessly.
She wanted so badly to let go of her pain and anger and comfort him. But she couldn’t. The betrayal had been too great.
“Finally, tears for what you did to me?”
“Bar Elohim was going to destroy—”
“No! What you did to me.” Only a couple of feet separated them, but to Caitlyn, the abyss seemed infinite. “Do I need to show you my wings to remind you?”
Despite the dark, she could see him fight to get control of his emotions. “I’ve lived with it every moment since you were born. I knew watching you leave would be difficult, but my heart didn’t understand it until now.”
Caitlyn felt like her own face was as cold and rigid as the bare stone of the precipice. “I’m so angry. I wish I wasn’t, especially now. I want it like it was between us.”
“It can’t be the same. You have to go over the fence. You have no future in Appalachia.”
“I want it like it was before I knew that you were the one who did this to me.” She prayed he would deny it, but only the wind across the rock made any sound.
“I know what Mason wanted from me.” She’d had days to think about the letter. About the silver canister. She became almost savage. “My eggs. He wanted to cut me open and harvest my eggs like I was an animal. That’s what they wanted from me. The Outside. My eggs.”
“Enough.” His whisper was barely audible above the sweeping wind.
“Am I right?”
“The research used was destroyed. You are all that remains. Your genetic code would almost be enough to bring the project back to where it was. With eggs, all it would take is fertilization and surrogate mothers.”
“And more freaks would be born?”
“Caitlyn…we have all been designed to soar with angels. Our souls will someday leave the prisons of our bodies and return home. In one way or another, God allows us to fly.”
“Do you know how you sound?”
“I don’t know how I sound. But I feel like a broken man.”
“Would you prefer to be a broken angel? When I was born, you should have drowned me.”
“Caitlyn…”
She knew how badly she was hurting him. She couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to flail, to strike out. Anything to lance her own pain.
Jordan reached out for her again. She took another step away. “You couldn’t tell me who I’d become, because then I’d ask how you knew. Because you were the scientist who did this to me. Are you going to deny that?”
“You know what’s waiting for you on the other side and how to get there,” he said. He seemed calm again, the Papa of strength that she so desperately wanted to love without reservation. “Once you have the surgery, you won’t be—”
“Should I say it again? A freak.”
“You have no reason to forgive me. Just know this. I love you as big and forever as the sky. That will never change.”
Their childhood game.
This was the moment she could erase all the anger. Just one word would do it.
Papa.
Instead, in cold, blind anger, she leaped into the abyss, stretching out her arms and wings, letting the wind pull her away.
Her memories of flight in the waterfall cavern had seemed like a surreal dream, blurred by the terror inflicted on her by Mason Lee.
But here it was again. The instinctive adjustments of her wings, so like the hawks she had watched with such envy as a child. She too trusted in the same fabric of nothingness that let them soar.
She exulted in fierce joy, and in that moment, far above the ground, weightless, flying, she realized that this was her destiny. In the womb she’d been designed for this freedom.
That joy and that flash of realization shattered the numbness, tore away the anger, let the love warm her again.
“Papa,” she cried.
Then the backdraft rushed against her, carrying her away, and it was too late to turn back. Caitlyn was over the fence.
You are invited to the song that completes Caitlyn’s flight: www.brokenangelsong.com
To hear beautiful bird, visit:
www.brokenangelsong.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Shannon, thank you for the passion and keen insight and frank but enjoyable discussions that you brought to Broken Angel.
Other novels by Sigmund Brouwer
Fuse of Armageddon
The Last Sacrifice
The Last Disciple
The Weeping Chamber
Out of the Shadows
Crown of Thorns
The Lies of Saints
The Leper
Wings of Dawn
Blood Ties
Double Helix
Evening Star
Silver Moon
Sun Dance
Thunder Voice
Pony Express Christmas
SIGMUND BROUWER is the author of eighteen best-selling novels for children and adults. His novel The Last Disciple was featured in Time magazine and on ABC’s Good Morning America. His most recent novel is Fuse of Armageddon. A champion of literacy, he teaches writing workshops for students in schools from the Arctic Circle to inner city Los Angeles. Sigmund is married to Christian recording artist Cindy Morgan, and with their two daughters, they divide their time between homes in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada and Nashville, Tennessee. He can be found online at www.coolreading.com.
Praise for
Broken Angel
“The terrific pacing is surpassed only by the character development…”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Good books keep you turning pages. Great books make you care. Outstanding books make you think. Broken Angel does all three!”
—BILL MYERS, author of The Voice
“Sigmund Brouwer never stopped spinning my head with Broken Angel. Every time I thought I had the story figured out, he swept out the rug and changed the game. This is a brilliantly imaginative turn from a fantastic writer that’s endlessly emotional and affecting. Couldn’t put it down.”
—ROBIN PARRISH, author of Relentless, Fearless, and Merciless
“It’s been a long time since I finished a book and said, “Wow, what a ride.” Broken Angel lef
t me breathless.”
—ALTON GANSKY, author of Zero-G and Angel
“In a genre-bending tale, Sigmund Brouwer takes us from emotional depths to soaring heights. Broken Angel is full of memorable characters, challenging ideas, and fast-paced scenarios. This story works on a number of levels.”
—ERIC WILSON, author of A Shred of Truth and Field of Blood
“Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer is an impossible-to-put-down novel that explores what a world lacking accountability would be like, both for science and the Church. The result is a cautionary tale that is frightening in its plausibility. It’s a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read!”
—JEREMY ROBINSON, author of The Didymus Contingency and Antarktos Rising
BROKEN ANGEL
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
A division of Random House Inc.
Copyright © 2008 by Sigmund Brouwer
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
WATERBROOK and its deer design logo are registered trademarks of WaterBrook Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959–
Broken angel: a novel/Sigmund Brouwer.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.R6825B76 2008
813’.54—dc22
2008001406
www.waterbrookpress.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-44634-3
v3.0
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