…and knock the second Beast off the roof, disappearing below the edge along with him.
She sucked in a hoarse breath, but there seemed to be not enough oxygen in the whole city to make her go on. The picture before her eyes got blurry as she blocked another blow with a grace like that of a robot, staring wide-eyed at the crowd in front of her, as if she saw them for the first time. On the other side of the roof, Jane finally shoved her swords into the Beast’s chest, taking advantage of his distraction. In a heartbeat she materialized beside Pain, kicking one of the Beasts in the head and out of the way, so that his neck would break, just like Pain had taught her. As he crashed down, she already grabbed Pain’s shoulder, shouting something in her ear. Pain couldn’t make out the words, lost deep in her dazed astonishment. But then someone’s blade reached her arm, sending a stab of searing pain that cleared her mind just enough to return her some of the focus.
“Go! Go after him, NOW!!” Jane yelled and pushed her out of the crowd, swinging both of her swords in a sophisticated manner that made the Beasts take a step back.
Pain snapped out of the battle, of that mechanical swinging of her sword, vaguely realizing that she was close to losing her focus and therefore to losing the battle in general. Somewhere in the back of her mind a bizarre thought flashed – was she no good, was it so obvious, that Jane had sent her away, choosing to stay with Dave?
Suddenly, time lost its liquid quality, though just a moment ago it seemed to be stretched out to the point of stillness. She knew that only a few seconds had passed after Chad had left the roof, and there was still a chance to catch up with him in the air. As the world around her became bright and sharp again, she prepared to jump. But when she shot her eyes upward, she saw that some of the Beasts were hovering in the air, lurking here and there, looking for a good spot to attack. It was too much risk, so she took off running instead, her katana already behind her back, her shield unfolding around as her feet carried her forward as if on their own. She didn’t need to focus for this – years of training paid off when her body remembered how to gain full speed without a single moment wasted. Nearly flat out, her movements merging together until they became a blur, she darted across the roof, followed by the Beasts’ incredulous gazes. Her feet barely touched the ground as step by step she approached the edge, where she would be able to fly freely. Though only a couple of seconds had passed, she had thought about a hundred of things already. She had tried to calculate at what height the Beast would orient and stop the fall; how quickly he would knock Chad out to bring him to Eugene or drop him off if he didn’t understand who he was. And what would she do if Chad already lay on the asphalt at the building’s foot.
The low wall was in a few feet now, and she tensed for a jump just when something flashed from below the edge and shot upward like a comet, radiating a silvery-white light, blinding and startling her. With a gasp, she fell on her side, slowing down her velocity before she slammed into the wall with her feet. The shining object hovered in the air over her now, and with an expression of utter shock and confusion she stared at it, eyes not blinking, her breath stuck in her throat. Its white rays faded as she watched, and still, she couldn’t see clearly through this light that seemed dazzling against the inky sky above. But she thought there was a human figure inside it, and it was still, as if caught by surprise, too. And the silhouette of its shoulders was slightly familiar, and a tousle of hair was blowing in the wind, long, curly, and pure silver now…
Chad’s hair.
No…
She scrambled back on the roof surface, as if he were attacking her, her head shaking in a vigorous denial of what she had just seen. He seemed to have come to life, too, because he dashed to her, diving down and scooping her off the ground. The heat of his arms was perceptible even through her gear, making her back warm and her head even dizzier.
She heard his voice – he was saying something over and over into her ear, but she could only stare at him with shock, not even trying to comprehend what were the words. The shining around him was almost gone, but she could still feel the warmth as he held her tightly in his arms. It clouded her, making her forget about all the wounds and bruises that she had got during the battle. Eventually, she came around, starting to hear what he was saying. She was surprised that she was speaking, too, repeating only four words again and again: “What have you done? What have you done??”
“What are you muttering?? Are you alright, Pain?” He shook her shoulders, bending his head down to look into her eyes. “Are you hurt??”
Her first impulse was to grab his collar and kiss him, so close he was to her, so alive, his breath hot on her face, the smell of his cologne – painfully familiar now – making her surprisingly calm and relieved. There was a stressful frown on his face as he stared down at her, his catlike eyes strained with frustration. And all she wanted was to stroke his face, calm him down, say that there was nothing to worry about now that he was alright. That there was nothing they weren’t able to survive, and he just had to stay with her, that’s all. But then she remembered about the bunch of Beasts still raging somewhere behind her and seeming to have miraculously forgotten about them for a minute, so she just opened her mouth and croaked:
“No, I’m alright.” She glanced over her shoulder anxiously. “Jane and Dave, we should go!” And she took his hand, springing high and making him shoot up together with her so they would reach her sister in one swift leap.
She landed between two Beasts – beheaded already – and Chad came to an uneven crouched halt behind her back. He had a sword in his hand, but there was no need for it because she instantly shoved him to the superstructure’s wall, backing off from the wild crowd in front of her. There were only a half-dozen left, and they attacked the sisters frantically, not sure of their success anymore. Pain knew perfectly what she was doing killing Chuck first in front of them all. He was their leader, determined to win, and he was able to command them wisely. But without him, they were just a bunch of cutthroats, not a team. And of course, once they saw what she had done to Chuck, they had forgotten their task and focused on killing her and Jane instead.
“Don’t miss any of them, not after what they’ve seen! You hear me??” Pain shouted to her sister, struggling with some bulky guy, who happened to get close enough to grasp her arm.
A blade swished from behind then and sank in his neck. Chad pulled the sword back, and Pain kicked the man out of her way before he would collapse on top of them both.
Jane was too busy with her two swords and two Beasts in front of her, but she had heard her sister’s words. Pain was right, there was a chance that Eugene didn’t know if Chad had been Initiated yet, and it better stayed a secret.
Finally, there was only one left. When the two Beasts before him fell dead, he shot them only one wild look before darting into the air in hope to escape. Pain put a hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“I’ll get ‘im.”
She took off swiftly, charging after him and then higher, merging with the black sky as she rose.
Chad stared after her sightlessly. Even if it was over, he didn’t feel like it. Jolts of energy were pulsing inside him, demanding him to move, to fight, to do something, just not to stand still. And at the same time, he felt almost paralyzed, strangely detached from everything and everyone around. It was weird, this feeling, so he just stood still, trying to untangle everything that was mixed in his head and heart. There was an unfamiliar singing in his veins, some new strength that seemed inexhaustible at the moment. Only he didn’t do anything, really, and the girls had been going for hours, fighting in full force and flying through the whole Long Island. With them tagging along. He couldn’t even imagine carrying someone at the moment.
Still, the feeling was strong and sparkling, leaving him a little lightheaded. He thought he could hear a buzzing sound in his head, steady and persistent, reminding him of the huge bumblebees from his father’s farm. He was hot, too, as if he had a fever, as if he were glowing from
the inside. He looked down, half-expecting to see the light again, to feel its seething, but there was nothing now. The skin of his forearm was dark with the summer tan and warm when he brought his other hand to touch it unsurely, as if he were touching some alien. It didn’t glow anymore, and he pulled his sleeve down somewhat disappointedly.
Then there was another feeling, dark and bitter and heavy, pulling him down and stifling his breathing, a tight knot of wrongness in his chest. What the hell happened? How was it possible? Why was he the last to know something so huge about his own self? Was his father lying to him all his life? Did he know about it at all? Why had he never felt this before? And why was it so damn hot?! It was night, for God’s sake!
He raised his hand, reaching for the back of his sweatshirt and taking it off angrily, since it was all shredded and dirty anyway. His sweater under it at least wasn’t all blotched with blood, though it did have a long slash from the top of his left shoulder to his chest. There was a shallow cut on the skin under it, too, but he didn’t even feel the pain. He tossed the sweatshirt to the ground, belatedly noticing that there was a body of some Beast, and it landed right on his wide-eyed face. Chad grimaced and averted his gaze, feeling the sickness inside him increase. It became overwhelming now, and he took a deep breath, fighting back the nausea. It wasn’t only the stress working on him, it was all of it: the bone-deep feeling of betrayal, the bodies around him, their faces distorted from pain that was long gone, but the expressions remained. It was the blood, covering half of the roof, gathered in pools here and there and looking like some eerie ink in the moonlight. And most of all, it was the dawning realization that he was now what, a part of this? No, it was just sick, it was wrong and twisted, and there was no way he would ever feel okay about this.
Just as he thought so, another body fell on the roof with a sickening thump, and not far from it fell its head, apparently. A slim silhouette landed in a crouch, balancing on the roof’s edge, and without his command, his muscles tensed again and his pulse quickened. What?? Now what’s that? Just something physical? It was Pain, for God’s sake. He would follow her wherever she chooses with his eyes closed, no, poked out.
Dave and Jane were arguing about something fervently behind his back – he didn’t want to listen. He couldn’t look at them, either, because he knew what he would see, and it all was too much at the moment. Their haunted faces and bloody clothes would just make it worse. So he gazed ahead, at Pain’s black figure, waiting for her to come back. He needed her so badly, he realized with a surprise. There was so much he wanted to ask, and yes, Jane would probably help him better, but somehow it wasn’t her he wanted to talk to. He had to talk to Pain, but she was just walking wearily across the roof, fishing for something in her pockets.
She finally found her flashlight and dug in for a dagger now. It was in a small sheath on her belt, slender and sharp as a needle, perfectly suitable for her intentions. Chad was standing a little away from Jane and Dave. Well, not quite standing, but he wasn’t moving, at least. She had expected him to freak out, actually. His sweatshirt was gone, but she could distinguish his beige sweater against the dark wall and headed for this pale spot.
Something was pulling her back, though, making her slow the pace, and it wasn’t the weariness, really. The moment he tumbled over the edge, everything seemed to turn upside down, and from that second an uneasy feeling of something changing wasn’t leaving her. She didn’t want to even think about it, the question that was swelling bigger and bigger in her head, so she just twiddled with the flashlight and the dagger pressed together in one of her hands.
Finally, she was in a couple of steps from him, and her sister and his friend fell silent behind his back, both looking at her with quizzical expressions. She gave them only one glance, reaching out to take Chad by the shoulder. It was cut, with blood rimming the edges of his sweater, and she paused with her hand outstretched. Her mind went blank as she ran her fingers along the slash absently, and Chad looked down at her, as if snapped out of a reverie. There was a long scratch under it, still oozing blood, and she grazed the smooth skin around it with her fingertips, her mind remote. A picture froze before her eyes – Chad jumping off the roof to save Jane, not knowing that he would be able to get back up, not thinking about it, not wasting the precious time on doubts or hesitations. She had told him she would kill him if anything happened to her sister, and in return, he had saved Jane’s life.
She swallowed down the bitter taste in her throat. He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know anything, she thought. He just didn’t know it as well.
She looked up at his face, feverish and pale at the same time, with a dark bruise on the corner of his eyebrow. Someone had punched him in the face. She frowned and looked at his hair, pasted to his forehead with sweat, feeling his intent gaze on her as she studied him. Maybe he didn’t freak out after the Initiation, but he didn’t look especially healthy, either. She could feel the shuddering movements of his chest under her hand as he breathed, could see everything that he felt behind those glistening eyes that stared at her in silent despair with the long eyebrows knitted together over them.
“Get down,” she said, her voice hoarse, and Chad frowned at her remote tone and at the words, too.
“What?” he asked, and his own voice came out a whisper. He was too distracted with the look on her face, or with the way she was looking at him now. Something had changed: there was no arrogance or disdain in her eyes anymore. She looked into his eyes steadily, as if seeing, really seeing him for the first time, as if they were… equal?
“You’re hovering,” she pointed out, her expression getting more relaxed and even a little amused. “It’s okay in the beginning,” she added and patted his shoulder as he looked down and saw that he really was hovering a few inches above the roof surface.
“Oh…” He made his feet touch the ground. “I think I just grasped the whole ghosts-nickname idea,” he muttered and saw her lips twitch in a weak smile.
She looked like she was too exhausted to even laugh, and it was strange considering that only five minutes ago she decapitated a six-foot-tall man right in the air. He wondered what she was thinking about, with all that sadness in her look.
“Turn around, will you?”
She raised her flashlight, pressing the button. There was something else in her hand, but he was already turning with his back to her, remembering to keep his feet on the ground.
“So, the hovering is okay, and what about that crazy light? Is that okay, too? Why did I never see you glow like that?” he asked, feeling her fingers on the back of his collar as they pulled it down, tickling his nape. He looked down, stretching his neck and providing her a better view of whatever she was looking for, and felt her hand brush aside his unruly hair.
“The glowing is okay, too. It’s because of the late Initiation, too much power. It’ll subside,” she murmured in a distracted voice, getting up on her toes and pointing the flashlight at his neck.
“What is it?” he heard Jane’s voice, but her sister was silent.
“Subside? So it hasn’t subsided yet, and every time I fly, I’ll look like a Christmas toy?”
“No, you won’t. Only the first time. But you still glow a little, you just can’t see it,” Pain answered, and he couldn’t help but look down at himself. There was no glowing at all, strange. “Don’t move!” she snapped right away, irritated, and he froze obediently. Oh, the clothes, he realized then. He could only see the covered parts of himself, and she could see his face, that was what she meant.
“Have you ever had body temperature problems? Like, too hot and then too cold; and also sleep disorder, anger flashes, trembling hands, repeating nightmares. Did you have any of these in the past ten years or so?”
Chad swallowed, remembering burning with heat on his bunk, unable to sleep or watch the movie with the others.
“Y-yes…?” he said unsurely.
“It’s because you weren’t Initiated at the right time. Soon
it’ll pass, and you’ll feel healthy and stable.”
There was a commotion behind his back, and then the hand on his neck returned along with the other one when Pain brought up the dagger, clenching the flashlight in her teeth.
“Hey! What are you doing?” he heard Dave’s worried voice while attempting on pulling up his sweater to peek at his stomach – could he see the glowing, too?
“Oh, shut up…” Pain muttered illegibly, and then there was a stinging feeling at his nape as she touched it with the dagger’s tip very carefully. “Hey, I said don’t move, what the heck are you doing there?” she enquired, struggling to form the words against the flashlight in her mouth, and he dropped the hem of his sweater.
“Nothing. Just checking on the glowing and stuff.” He knew he made her roll her eyes, and froze again, not wanting to distract her anymore.
Pain stretched the skin around the small cut, trying to get higher on her toes. A small bead of blood swelled on it, and she brushed it off with her finger, peering into his nape. There it was, a faint brown spot, a part of the Mark. Something covered it, like a tattoo, the color of it fitted almost perfectly to the tone of his skin.
“Bingo…” she muttered.
“Let me see.” Jane came up closer, stretching up and peering into his neck, too. “Wow… Now, this is something interesting…” She whistled.
Then there was Dave, leaning over Jane to take a look, and finally, Pain grunted and turned off the flashlight.
“Okay, okay, the show’s over,” she said, flicking her wrist at Dave dismissively. She gave her sister a grave look. “We should have known it…” She sighed, putting her dagger and the flashlight back into their pockets.
Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) Page 26
