“Luna and I rarely fought, but when we did, Luna was still always her timid and delicate self. I couldn’t fight with her long because I start to feel like a bully.” Logan shook her head again. “Not this time. Her expression was hard and almost emotionless. Something just feels…wrong about her. But I have no idea what it is or how I can make it better.”
Brielle shifted, ducking under their linked arms until she was pressed between the railing and Logan’s torso. Her hands moved forward, encircling her waist, pulling Logan against her. “You’re always trying to be the hero, Lo. Sometimes you have to let people save themselves.”
Logan spoke softly. “We’re Halos, Bri. We don’t have that luxury.”
“Luna is a Halo too. Maybe she’s just finally realizing her true strength. That’s a good thing, right?”
Eyes cutting downwards, Logan pursed her lips to the side. Strength was good, yes. But there was something notably dark about Luna’s behavior.
“Hey.” Brielle’s hands were on Logan’s cheek now. Brielle’s soft green eyes met Logan's own aquamarine—thanks to her tinted contacts. Logan felt a sparking warmth spread throughout her core. “I just want you to be okay.” Brielle’s voice came out in a whisper, and Logan felt the corners of her mouth lift in spite of herself.
Leaning down slightly—Brielle was nearly a head shorter than her—she pressed her lips against those of the girl who she could now call hers.
Logan hadn’t planned on falling for the straight girl. Though, clearly, she wasn’t 100% straight. All of her lesbian friends had mixed feelings about being with people who weren’t at least mostly gay. They felt it was dangerous, that it was just a game or an experiment to them. Logan had felt the same.
But the way Brielle’s lips caressed hers, the way her tongue searched for Logan’s, the way her heart beat like a hummingbird’s, didn’t feel like she was just experimenting or trying something new.
Sexual politics were far too dramatic for Logan’s taste.
The physical tension between the two girls slowly began to build with tingling skin and fluttering chests. Logan was just about to suggest they take things inside to show Brielle just what she’d been missing before with all those inexperienced boys.
Then her eyes landed on something that doused the flame of arousal like a bucket of cold water. Pulling away from Brielle, Logan straightened.
“What’s wrong?” Brielle asked breathlessly.
“We have company.”
Brielle turned, and Logan felt her tense as she took in the sight of the line of young Virtues, looking like formidable ghosts approaching their small ship.
GRAY
The appearance of the Virtues solidified the anxiety that had been slowly building in Gray’s core.
The longer Aurora had been gone, the more restless he’d become. Visions of her being taken by Horns—or attacked by beasts and demons—assaulted his imagination every few minutes as he paced the deck, watching the dock with eagle eyes for a glimpse of Aurora’s golden hair.
It was entirely possible she’d just wanted to give Gray and Luna space, or that she wanted to be truly alone for once. But why would she just go off to visit a teashop when, any minute now, they would be called to lock the city? They weren’t on vacation.
His frustration with her was more because of his own fears than anything, but he had already planned out a lengthy speech for when she returned, scolding her for leaving when the Halos needed her—he needed her—nearby.
When his eyes landed on the Virtues approaching Echo, the knot in his stomach tightened considerably.
“Okay, Aurora,” he muttered to himself. “Where the hell are you?”
“The creepy ass angel children are back!” Chord announced from somewhere in the depths of the boat.
The Halos moved to the side of the vessel that held the ramp leading down to the dock. The Virtues took it upon themselves to enter the Power Halos’ domain without asking their permission.
“Hello,” one of the young boys greeted simply. “It is nearly time to lock this city.”
“You don’t waste any time, huh?” Chord said.
“We don’t have time to waste,” the boy answered, causing Chord to look annoyed at being scolded by a child. “If you’ll come with us, we will take you to the Dominions.”
The panic in Gray’s chest finally let itself be known. “A member of our group isn’t back yet,” he protested.
The boy looked to the other Virtues, who shook their heads in unison. “We don’t have time to wait. The city must be locked.”
“She should have been back by now,” Chord said, looking only a fraction as anxious as Gray felt. “Are you sure you don’t remember where she said she was going, Luna?”
Luna’s face tightened. “I’m sure. She said she would be gone for a while.”
“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Gray challenged.
Luna’s eyes flashed to his. There was something different about them. “Why didn’t I say what?”
“That she said she would be gone for awhile.”
Luna’s shoulders pressed down and back, her face settling into a mask of indifference. “I told you. I didn’t think it would be this big of a deal. Clearly, I was wrong.”
She was trying to make him feel bad about being worried about his Stellar, about his friend. Frankly, he was sick of it. He had no tolerance for his supposed girlfriend at the moment and turned away from her in anger.
“I’m going to look for her.”
A tense tremor ran through the group.
Logan was the first to speak. “Gray, I’m sure she’s—”
“Aurora isn’t an idiot, Logan,” Gray snapped. “She wouldn’t just go off and visit a tea shop for hours when she knew the Virtues or Dominions would be coming any minute.”
Luna’s feathers were visibly ruffled. Her back curved as she stuck out her chest in defiance. “Are you saying I’m lying?”
Gray’s eyes flashed to the girl he’d once thought of as the kindest and most innocent of the bunch. Now, he saw her in a different, unflattering light.
Her jealousy towards Aurora had been building and bubbling under the surface ever since Gray had stupidly asked Luna to be his girlfriend. It was as if she thought she had some sort of claim to him and that no female was allowed to encroach upon her territory.
Before, on Etheria, Aurora had frustrated him. Her standoffishness and borderline cold demeanor made him feel like he was annoying her more than anything. It shook his confidence.
But, compared to this conniving teenage girl drama, Aurora looked like sunshine and daisies.
“I’m going to look for her,” Gray repeated.
Luna took a step sideways, so she was blocking him from the exit out of Echo. “No. You’re not.”
The eyes of the others, including the young Virtues, could be felt burning into them, going back and forth between the two. “Excuse me,” Gray said to Luna, indicating she needed to move.
Her jaw set and her eyes burned with fire and brimstone. Gray realized what was different about them. They reminded him of the expression Samuel used to wear. Samuel, the traitor angel on Etheria. It was an unapologetic look, whispering that he thought he was right. That they were the ones who were wrong.
Luna was fixing him with this same look right now.
Logan’s voice sounded from the left. “Let him go, Luna.”
Her words lay heavily over the group. The twins’ eyes connected, and Gray watched Luna struggle in her resolution to keep him from going after Aurora.
He thought he saw Luna’s bottom lip tremble, but it was strong when she turned from Logan to face him again. The muscles in her cheeks kept jumping as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.
“Go,” she ground out. “But, you’re not going to find her.”
It sounded like a taunt. A childish game of hide-and-seek.
Gray didn’t have time to analyze what she’d meant by this. He was already thundering past the group of
Virtues, towards the towering jungle of skyscraper trees.
Thirty-Five
AURORA
A long time ago, when she was just a little girl, Aurora had threatened to run away from home.
She’d told her mom she was going to go buy a bus ticket to Florida on one of those buses with the big running dog on the side.
Her mom had laughed and said she would take one step on that bus and turn right back around. Aurora hadn’t known what she was talking about because she’d been too busy storming off to her room.
But now…she thought she had a better idea of what her mother had meant.
The bus on which she now sat was stuffed full of people, many wearing masks to cover their faces. Aurora assumed this was to prevent themselves from catching the sleeping virus.
The late afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, making the passengers sweat in spite of the cold outside. Sweating is normal and natural, sure. But when a bus full of men and women without deodorant were sweating…it made Aurora want to gag. One of these passengers happened to be sitting to her right, sandwiching her between him and the window.
She pressed her forehead against the cool glass, hoping it would somehow calm her churning stomach, trying not to wonder how infrequently these windows had been cleaned.
The deodorant-less man sitting beside her had fallen asleep, his head lolling to the side, a thin stream of tobacco-specked drool dripping from his mouth onto his shirt.
The two women in the seats behind hers were playing a card game and talking in low voices. She’d seen them getting onto the bus. They looked like sisters with the same ticks, licking their lips every few seconds and scratching at their arms. Or possibly they were just on the same drugs.
The screech of a child in the back of the bus made its way to the front, and one of the other passengers sent the woman a curse to shut the kid up.
For the most brief of moments, Aurora wondered to herself why the angels were trying to save the world with all of its hate and hurting. She thought about the story of Noah and wondered why God had flooded the world back then, but wanted to save it now.
Was it really worth saving?
She peeked up and over the seat at the woman with the child in the back. The baby had a head full of black curls and wide eyes. He sucked on his thumb as his mother rocked him and stroked his cheek with her index finger. His big brown eyes fluttered closed as she continued to rock him.
Somewhere in the deepest regions of her chest, Aurora felt a painful tug.
Perhaps it was true that some people in the world would continue on with their evil lives after the Halos saved them. But there were also good people who would gratefully breathe another breath of air as they carried on, struggling and fighting to live their lives. People like her mom. Like the woman in the back of this bus.
Sighing, Aurora turned back to the window, wishing this damned bus would drive faster.
Then, in an instant, everything came apart, and Aurora was covered in shattered glass.
Thirty-Six
CHORD
Chord had come to the conclusion that Halos were more dramatic than your everyday human.
So freaking dramatic.
As their group—now only five of them—followed after the creepy angel children, he fell into step beside Sev and Luna. It was as if he sought out drama.
On one side of him was the man who had made him feel more things in the past few months than any of his ex-boyfriends combined, and on his other side was the girl who he had clearly underestimated.
His loyalty lay with Aurora, of course. She was like him—sarcastic and blunt and unforgiving. She understood him.
Luna, on the other hand, had always been a cute, little extra in the group who he’d honestly never given much thought to. She was just Logan’s less attractive, less ballsy twin sister. Now, it appeared, she was clearly the evil twin. And Chord felt like stirring the pot a little bit. Because he did shit like that.
“So…be honest, Luna,” he muttered only loud enough for her, and probably Sev, to hear. “Did you lie about Aurora going to that tea place?” Luna ignored him, which strengthened his belief that she had in fact lied. “I mean, if you’re gonna lie, you could’ve come up with a better one than that. We all know Aurora likes coffee way better than tea. She would never choose to go to a tea house over a coffee house. And if you wanted to make your lie even more believable, you would have made it a place that sells alcohol. No one would have questioned that. Oh, Aurora went to drink herself into a coma, we’d think, sounds like something Aurora would do.”
Luna snapped at him in a harsh whisper. “Shut up.”
“So, where is she really? Did you two get into a little fight over Grayson? Did you do the whole ‘he’s mine,’ ‘no, he’s mine’ bit? Stab her with your crux, did you? Are pieces of her body hidden beneath the dock by our boat? Oh. Let me guess, you—”
“SHUT UP!” Luna bellowed at him. The others turned to look in surprise at the two of them and her pale cheeks filled with color.
Surprisingly enough, Sev was the next to speak. “Clearly, Aurora isn’t dead because Gray is still alive.”
“You can shut up too,” Luna snapped heatedly.
Sev looked taken aback. “I wasn’t being facetious, Luna,” he continued in the same even tone. “They are Stellars. If one of them dies, they both do.”
Luna’s previously bright-red face had now drained of its color. “What?”
Sev sighed. “Am I the only one who reads? All of this information can be found in the book I loaned Gray. In fact, I think he still has it.”
“Gray knows about this?” Luna asked quickly.
Sev nodded. “Of course he does. He actually reads the books I recommend to him.”
Chord rolled his eyes. Luna seemed visibly shocked by this news. Apparently, she hadn’t known her lover’s soul was mortally tethered to the girl she hated more than anyone in the world.
Chord knew it was sort of evil of him, but he felt a small twinge of satisfaction at being present when Luna was delivered this unfortunate—for her—news.
The trees and greenery of Central Park loomed ahead of them, and Chord’s thoughts of the sad little love triangle vanished as he realized their group would be fighting more demons and beasts soon.
If only being a Halo meant chilling out on chaise lounges and eating sugarclouds rather than all of this battle stuff.
It was strange to leave the concrete, metal, and glass of the city and enter a land of foliage and beauty. Such an odd contrast. In this setting, it was hard to imagine that anything evil would soon sweep through New York.
They passed by a group of runners, huffing and puffing in a way that made Chord question why they would ever subject themselves to such torture in the first place.
Then Sev’s gaze turned upon him eliciting a very physical reaction in his body—in more places than one—and he thought maybe he shouldn’t judge people anymore. He was clearly the king of the masochists.
“Where are we going?” he called ahead to the creepy children.
One of the little Virtues spoke. “The Bethesda Fountain.”
“Brilliant,” Sev said enthusiastically, turning to Chord. “Did you know the Bethesda Fountain was erected to commemorate the Croton water system, which brought with it fresh water to the city in 1842 following an epidemic of cholera? The lily in the angel’s left hand symbolizes the water’s purity.”
Chord blinked several times. “Have you ever considered going on Jeopardy? You’d dominate.” Like I sometimes let you in the bedroom, he thought wickedly to himself.
Sev ignored his question as they traveled through a passage of gold and intricate designs. “This is the Bethesda Terrace,” he explained, though no one had asked. “It’s considered the heart of Central Park. The carvings represent the four seasons.”
"Or maybe you could just be a tour guide," Chord muttered.
They emerged from the terrace, approaching the grand Beth-whatever f
ountain. As far as fountains went, this one was massive, filled with murky brownish-green water. The statue of the angel Sev had described stood tall above the rest.
She looked far too peaceful to be an angel.
People swarmed the area, seemingly oblivious to the group of half-angels now in their presence. If there was anything about being a Halo that Chord regretted, it was the fact that they couldn’t let it be known to the regular people. They’d be like modern day superheroes.
Famous. Rich. Desired.
And maybe their faces would even be plastered on merchandise…like tubes of toothpaste and cereal boxes.
The Virtues walked in a line to the fountain and came to sit along the edge, truly looking like a group of obedient schoolchildren.
“Now what?” Logan asked, climbing onto the fountain and walking along the edge like a gymnast on a balance beam.
One of the Virtues turned sideways, so her legs were tucked beneath her. “Now we wait.”
“What are we waiting for?” Chord muttered. “For the Dominions? For the humans to zombie-walk back to their houses? For the sun to set?”
“Yes.”
The sky had already darkened considerably since they’d left Echo, but the illumination of twilight still let it be known that the city wasn’t quite ready for a demon takeover.
Not just yet.
Sighing deeply, Chord slid down onto the ground beside the fountain, leaning back against it. The others followed suit.
If any of the passersby thought it was strange that their group was all wearing matching red and black leather outfits, no one commented. Stranger things could be seen in the heart of New York, Chord supposed.
And stranger things were soon to come.
Thirty-Seven
AURORA
Echo (The Halo Series Book 2) Page 19
