by Wendy Knight
Her whole body hurt. It hurt in a way that she knew the moon couldn’t heal. Like she’d died, and yet lived on. Even moving her eyelids seemed an impossible task, so she didn’t try.
That was how she came to realize that the awful, beautiful dream was not a dream at all. That, and every so often she heard the voices of The Nine, felt their pull and knew they were nearby. The Nine had come when she needed them. As they’d promised.
She knew they’d blown up the Pys ship. She knew the Garce had killed most of the Pys, The Nine had killed the rest, and she, well… she had killed Selenia. Part of her grieved.
And she didn’t know why.
She dozed off and on for who knew how long. Hours. Days. Months. She had no idea. It was an immeasurable amount of time when she was finally able to stay conscious long enough to follow any kind of a conversation. “The Garce are gone. The Nine have been patrolling, but haven’t seen any for days. They killed so many, the rest took off.” It was Keven speaking. She’d known he’d show up eventually.
“They’ll be back. Py blood is like a drug for them, and just as deadly. As long as Nyx is here, they’ll come back.” Cole, sounding exhausted and heart broken.
“And she’ll fight them off. Just like always. She’s going to heal. She’ll be fine.” Even Keven didn’t sound sure. Nyx wondered how bad she must have been for him to doubt her. She remembered the sun…
“Are The Nine leaving then?” Enika. Her voice was like a balm to Nyx’s wounded heart. She was okay. She was alive.
Nyx opened her eyes.
Enika sat within arm’s reach, if Nyx’s arms hadn’t hurt so much. Cole leaned his forehead against her bed and rarely moved.
“No. They’ll stay until they know she’s okay. They said that when she killed Selenia, she killed a part of herself. I don’t understand it. Some weird alien thing about how she was turned. But no one knows what she’ll be like when she wakes up.”
Enika nodded and turned back to brush the hair away from Nyx’s forehead. “Oh!” she squealed, jerking backward. “You’re awake! She’s awake!”
Cole sat up so quickly he nearly toppled off his chair. “Nyx!”
There was much chaos as Keven and Blair also rushed over, and everyone made exclamations she was too exhausted to try to differentiate. She got the gist though.
They were happy she was alive.
It took several days before she could speak. The Nine visited often. They tried blood transfusions, they tried medicines. They tried many things, but nothing helped, and she knew why. The part of her from Selenia had died, and the rest of her was trying to figure out how to move on. It was entirely mental, she assumed. But it was something she couldn’t force.
So she took baby steps. First, talking. Second, sitting and moving. When the pain was bearable, she got up. Tested her wings. It took weeks before she could fly again, and she’d begun to lose hope when her wings finally cooperated and lifted her into the air.
Where she belonged.
She wasn’t alien. She wasn’t human. She’d become what she’d always been meant to be. One day, she would tell Enika how angry she was. She would tell her how stupid that risky little move had been. She would ask what happened to RayAnna because she’d been gone when Nyx awoke, and hadn’t returned.
But today was not that day. Today, Nyx scooted closer to the rocky precipice, and then just a bit further, so she could curl her toes around the edge. The wind howled, jerking at her hair. She stared down, trying to estimate the drop. It was so far that she couldn’t see the bottom in the darkness, but then, the moon wasn’t giving her much light tonight. She spread her arms wide, embracing the emptiness, and tumbled forward.
She didn’t fall for long. Several dozen feet, and then she jerked her wings out, wincing at the pain that always seemed to be there, waiting. She caught the air current and soared through the moonlight, weaving up and around the mountaintops and through the waterfalls, dragged her fingers across the reservoir and brushed her toes against the grass before returning to the sky and the moon, to do it all again.
The Nine rose around her, and they flew silently together, sometimes brushing wings, sometimes sharing a smile. They felt her pain, and tried to lessen it. They mended the wounds of her heart with their silence.
As the sun rose, she flew back to the compound. There was a great garden on the rooftops of the old shops. People had moved from the tunnels into the buildings, and lived in the light of the sun now, with very little fear. How quickly they’d adapted to this new life.
Even as she flew, however, she could see the sentinels. Justin, tonight, and Trigger. Watching the ground for Garce. Watching the sky for Pys. She raised a hand and they both waved back, and then she turned from them and went to the top of the jail. Landing lightly on the roof, she settled next to Enika, who was sketching designs for her new super hero suit.
In the dark.
She’d taken a bit of the Py’s DNA. She hadn’t grown wings, but she could see in the dark and could hear a mouse squeak three miles away.
The fact that the mice were returning had been met with mixed feelings.
She was also very fast, and the sun, while it didn’t roast her alive, did burn her. She’d taken to living at night, like Nyx. Although she would have anyway.
“What do you think?” she asked, holding her notepad up for Nyx’s inspection.
“Beautiful. I like the colors.”
Enika nodded. “Me too.”
“Me too,” Cole said blandly from where he leaned back on his elbows against the roof. He grinned when Enika rolled her eyes. “How was the night?” he asked Nyx, as he asked her every twilight as the sun rose.
“It was… healing.” She nodded, twirling a blue streak of her long hair around her fingers. She leaned her head against his shoulder and finally, finally, felt her demons silence themselves as her soul mended with his.
COMING SOON: BEFORE THESE WINGS
Meet Phoenyx before she was Nyx, just a regular girl fighting to survive.
CHAPTER ONE
Phoenyx crouched low over their attempt at a garden, but since the A-bomb had gone off in space trying to kill the Garce, everything was dead. Food hardly grew.
What did grow, the Garce trampled when they rampaged through what was left of their city. How an alien made of shadows and darkness could mash things underfoot was something Phoenyx couldn’t wrap her mind around.
“Hurry. I don’t want the Garce to show up.” Her sister, Cherish, danced nervously from foot to foot, keeping watch and trying to see every way at once. “Have you noticed the sky lately? It’s sort of a weird purple.”
“I would hurry faster if I had help,” Phoenyx muttered but knew someone had to keep watch. It was too dangerous not to. “The purple sky is probably just a side effect of the failed attempt to blow the Garce out of the sky. I think…I think there are potatoes here!”
That would be a first. She hadn’t been able to grow anything in weeks. Excitedly, she dug through the dirt with her fingers because she didn’t trust the shovel to not mangle everything.
“Phoenyx…hurry,” Cherish said. There was real fear in her voice, and Phoenyx risked a glance up, into the shadows. She didn’t see them at first, and went back to digging, but some subliminal instinct made her look again.
Red, glowing eyes.
“Phoenyx, run!” It was Cole’s voice. Cherish had already taken off, abandoning her post and her little sister.
But the potatoes.
Frantically, Phoenyx dug faster, fingernails tearing and bleeding. She pulled one from the earth and started on the second, checking the Garce’s progress.
There were two now. Maybe more. Completely invisible in the darkness.
Shots fired, bullets penetrating the shadows, but the Garce just seemed to absorb them. They shrieked and yelped and turned angrily toward the source, but weren’t any worse for it.
Phoenyx pawed at the dirt, almost there, so close, so close. Her hunger made it impossibl
e to leave the potatoe behind, even with the threat of an unkillable alien so close.
The Garce attacked. Cole shot again and again, wasting precious ammo, and she was pretty sure she heard his best friend, Keven, yelling, too. She scrambled backward on hands and feet, crab walking like that could possibly save her, potatoes still clutched in her hand.
“Phoenyx, get up!” Enika bolted in through the little garden gate, jerked Phoenyx to her feet, and dragged her backward. Putting herself exactly in harms way. Because she was the best friend all other best friends attempted to be.
Phoenyx whirled and ran but she knew they couldn’t outrun the Garce. The things moved like lightning and jumped from shadow to shadow. She braced herself for their teeth in her back, claws knocking her down. She waited for the pain.
It didn’t come.
From above, bright, fiery, roiling balls of metallic blue shot past her head and embedded in the Garce behind her. The Garce already mid-leap. Phoenyx shoved Enika one way and dove the other as it crashed to the ground where they’d been and slid, devouring all the light and everything living in its’ path. Phoenyx scrambled to her feet and turned in a circle, looking for whatever weapon those balls had come from.
“Phoenyx!” Enika screamed.
Too slow, Phoenyx turned to see another Garce roaring toward her. She turned to run but knew she’d never make it, and again braced herself for pain. She knew what these things could do. She’d seen them at work before.
But again, the pain didn’t come and the metallic, roiling balls flew over her head, hitting the Garce and knocking it dead, burning it from the inside out as it screeched and writhed.
Enika grabbed her hand and tugged her away, racing for the safety of the roof. The Garce weren’t very good climbers. It had been the human race’s saving grace. Except for the fact that the trees were all dying and the buildings were crumbling.
They shoved their way through the door hanging on its hinges and pushed it shut behind them, tugging dilapidated furniture to block the way so the Garce couldn’t get in so easily. “Where did those weapons come from?” Phoenyx asked, breathing hard. “Did you see?”
Enika bounded up the stairs. “I saw the ball things. I didn’t stop to stare up at the sky like some other person that I could happily throttle right now. They almost got you!”
Phoenyx hung her head in shame. It was stupid. She shouldn’t be alive right now. If not for Enika…and for whoever threw the metallic balls, she wouldn’t be.
Cole met them half-way up the stairs. He grabbed Enika’s shoulders, looking for injuries as he shoved her dark curls away from her face. “Are you okay? You almost made me an only child, Enika!”
She nodded. “Just some cuts and bruises. Get off, I’m fine.”
She shoved past him, leaving Phoenyx in her wake. She met Cole’s eyes as heat burned over her, like his gaze sent fire through her soul. “Are you okay?” he asked softly. She nodded, still feeling the shame of her stupidity, and he crushed her to him in a hug, his hands smoothing her hair. “I almost lost you, Phoenyx. I kept shooting—“
“I know.” She hugged him back, her tremors subsiding under his embrace. “I know. I’m sorry. But, look what I got!” She pulled back to show him her hands, still holding tightly to the potatoes.
Keven, who leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, sighed. “Those were worth dying for?”
Phoenyx shook her head. “Those are worth living for. Anyone hungry?”
“We’re not going back out there to bake a potato, Phoenyx.” Enika crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. “We’re not going out there ever again.”
“I have to find my sister. What if the Garce—“
“Your sister took off and left you,” Keven pointed out. “Maybe she’s okay on her own.”
Phoenyx hid the hurt his words caused, telling herself she should be used to it by now. Cherish’s first priority was always Cherish. Even when Dad and Tresa had been killed, Cherish couldn’t even be bothered to help look for the bodies. Phoenyx had looked alone, and never found them. Just blood.
A lot of blood.
“I saw her make it into a house,” Cole said, eyes still searching Phoenyx’s face. He saw her pain, even way down deep where she tried to hide it. “She’s okay.”
“Great.” Phoenyx nodded, trying to hide her relief behind sarcasm. “So can we discuss where those weapons came from? And where we can get one? Because that’s the only thing I’ve ever seen kill a Garce.”
“I didn’t see it. I was watching the horror below,” Cole said drily.
They all looked to Keven, who shrugged. “I was still trying to kill things.”
Phoenyx backed toward their barricade. “We need to see what it was.”
“It’ll be long gone now, Phoenyx. And no, since you seem to have lost your mind, we do not go out after a Garce attack. There could be more.” Enika’s lips tightened.
“But that weapon is a game changer, Enika. We have to see what it was. It could—it could save us all!” By this time, Phoenyx was at the door, already shoving furniture out of the way. Cole watched silently and she could see the gears turning in his head, debating and analyzing. Probably weighing the need to argue with her against her stubbornness and the pointlessness of it all.
Enika didn’t debate. She heaved a long-suffering sigh and bounded back down the stairs. “She’s not going to change her mind.”
Phoenyx paused. “You can’t come.”
Enika gaped at her. “Don’t start with me, woman. I just saved your tail out there.”
“Yeah, but it’s not safe—“
“No kidding.” Enika cut her off. “Help me move this. You’re a strapping young girl.”
Phoenyx pushed obediently, wondering if they were right, wondering if she was about to get them all killed. But those weapons…
Cole gave up and came to help, too. Keven disappeared, and seconds later they could hear him clomping around on the roof. They swung the door open and went outside, Phoenyx still clutching the potatoes. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t been hungry. Two potatoes wouldn’t fill the four of them, but it would help.
Cole raised his gun. He was seventeen and before the invasion, he had only shot for fun in ranges and competition with his dad. Now his dad was dead and Cole pretty much considered the gun an extension of his own arm. He turned in a slow circle and as Phoenyx stepped off the porch, she could see Keven on the roof, but his gun wasn’t raised, for probably the first time ever.
No, he stared at something in the yard, mouth hanging open.
Phoenyx tucked her potatoes in her hoodie pocket, wondering absently why she hadn’t done that from the beginning, and reached for her gun. She had never seen a Garce body before. Never heard of one even being killed. She almost didn’t dare turn the corner to see what had Keven in shock.
Cole went first, Enika muttering about why she didn’t have a weapon. Phoenyx knew why—Enika had been trying to get to her before the Garce did. There hadn’t been time to grab weapons.
Cole stopped abruptly and Phoenyx ran into the back of him. He was solid muscle from months fighting to survive, but skinny. Too skinny.
Starvation would do that to a person.
She peeked around him, noticing first that the sky was a hazy purple unlike anything she’d ever seen. And then the green. So much green. The grass was bright, whereas before it had been straw-like and dead. Everything had been dead. Phoenyx’s garden that had been fighting to survive for months was full to bursting, food overflowing from plants that definitely hadn’t been there moments before when she’d nearly died for a potato. She nearly dove for the food, mouth already watering, but Cole held her back and she reluctantly tore her gaze from the bounty in front of her.
To the bodies of the Garce. Or what had been. They were nothing now—picked clean. As if in slow motion, she raised her eyes to the sky above them.
“Fairies?” Enika breathed.
They were smaller th
an Enika, the size of children. Sparkling metallic tattoos wound their way across every surface of exposed, pale blue skin and around their eyes. Long, blue hair shimmered in the darkness.
And wings.
Wings arching high above them—black and silky with the same metallic sparkles running through them— held the creatures in the air. They were easily the most beautiful thing Phoenyx had ever seen, even covered in black, inky Garce blood.
Tremors shook her whole body, and she wasn’t sure if it was delayed shock or absolute fear. She saw Cherish and her mother standing across the street, watching with mouths open and her trembling increased.
Fear, then.
“Don’t be afraid,” one of the creatures said, her voice musical and soothing like a lullaby. “We’re here to help. Look what we’ve given you.” She spread her hands wide, encompassing the lush yard and the garden. “We’re here to protect you from these monsters.”
Her hands were covered in blood.
Between one blink and another, the alien went from the sky above the Garce bodies to right in front of Phoenyx. “You’re such a pretty little thing,” she cooed, one long, blue fingernail tracing its’ way around Phoenyx’s eyes. Never mind the fact that Phoenyx stood at least a head taller than she did. “You’d be so pretty as one of us.”
Phoenyx jerked away, eyes widening in horror. “What?”
From above, she heard Keven cock the rifle.
“Aylin.” The other one spoke sharply, and the sound sent waves of fear down Phoenyx’s back. “Control yourself, please.”
Aylin flew backward, eyes wide and deep, metallic blue against her pale face.
“I’m sorry,” the other one flew closer as well, pushing Aylin behind her. “She’s not met many of you. This is our first territory.”
“Who are you?” Cole raised his gun. His hands didn’t shake, as Phoenyx’s did. Enika had a death grip on her arm, like she could hold Phoenyx away from them.
