FREED (Angels and Gargoyles Book 2)

by Brenda L. Harper

  “How did the war start?” Dylan asked, remembering what Lily had told her, but curious if her words had been the truth or more lies.

  “Over something called oil,” Stiles said, unwittingly confirming Lily’s story. “But I think it went much deeper than that. I think humans had simply stopped caring about one another.”

  Stiles ran his fingers through his thick red hair, pressing the sweat on his forehead into it until it began to darken a little. Then he pressed his hand back against the tree, his eyes again studying Dylan’s face.

  “It is wrong to question the orders given by God. We must follow orders no matter what it means to our own safety. But I began to wonder why we were fighting for creatures that were perfectly happy killing their own. And when the angels came, when the fighting changed, when the humans came together to fight a common enemy, I wondered what would happen when the angels left. Would the humans continue to band together, or would they find another reason to destroy one another?

  “And then this new breed of human began to appear. It didn’t start in places like Genero. It began in places like this,” he said, moving a hand to indicate the grove of trees where they stood. “Angels seducing humans, whether for fun or love, I was never quite sure. But their children…there was hope in them.”

  “There are others?”

  Dylan tried to imagine what the child of a human and an angel would look like, what they would be like. But then she realized that this was exactly what she was. They would look like her, like Sam and Ellie, like Donna. There was no obvious difference between them and humans, or even angels and gargoyles in their human forms.

  So, how were they supposed to know which was which?

  “Many others,” Stiles said. “Quite a few among your resistance, more than you can imagine.”

  Dylan chewed her lip as everything he had said filtered through her mind. “But what does all this have to do with why you’ve been helping me?”

  “Because I am one of a few who believe that you and others like you should be the future. The human race is done, Dylan. They had their chance and they destroyed it. But you, and others like you, will give new hope to this world, to these people.”

  “You don’t think the humans should survive.”

  “I don’t think they should be the only ones to come out of this victorious,” he corrected.

  Dylan turned back toward the path she had followed to come here, moving far enough down it that she could see her friends sitting in the shade. It occurred to her that she didn’t even know what a human was anymore. She had thought she understood, thought that she and her sisters were all human. But now she knew better. They were hybrids. Ellie and Sam, both born in the same city as she, were probably hybrids, too, if not as completely melded as she was. But what about Bobby and Carver? Were they humans? Were their parents survivors of this war, or some sort of product of the war?

  “Why did the angels come here?” she asked without turning, trusting that Stiles had not abandoned her.

  “They saw an opportunity,” Stiles said, his voice just a breath from her ear. “They have always hated the humans. They saw the war as their chance to finally get what they wanted: God’s undivided attention.”

  “And Luc and Lily?”

  “They have always been here,” Stiles said.

  Dylan turned toward him. “What do you mean?”

  “Luc,” he said, “is an archangel called Lucifer. He was banished from Heaven for tempting the first man and woman to eat from the forbidden tree. For his crime, God forced him to remain on earth and be man’s protector. Lilith was the wife of the first man. She was banished when she refused to follow the rules of Eden.”

  “Eden?”

  “The garden where they lived.”

  Dylan shook her head, still confused. “If Lilith has always been here, why was she not affected by this disease that’s killing her before?”

  “A scientist, a human, got ahold of some angel DNA and created a virus that would hurt them, make them weak,” Stiles said, his voice quiet, patient. “It was the humans’ way of trying to end the war. He got the idea from something called bioterrorism.”

  “Where did he get angel…whatever?”

  “An angel sympathetic to his cause.”

  “Not all the angels turned on the humans?”

  “No, some chose to fight with them.”

  It was all so confusing to Dylan. Of all the things they taught at Genero, angels and gargoyles were not on the list. She turned back to look on her friends, to watch them move around the trees as though there hadn’t been a war, as though they hadn’t all just lost the home they had known all their lives, as though the people they had lived with for the past week, longer for some, had not just been butchered a few days ago.

  “Are you on Demetria’s side?” she asked, needing to hear him say it.

  “No,” he said, his voice just as quiet as before.

  “Are you going to kill me or my friends?”

  “No,” a little amusement entering his tone now.

  “Are you going to use me to defeat Luc and Lily?”

  “No.” Anger. She heard anger this time.

  But she had the answers she needed.

  Dylan turned back to him. “Sam and I are leaving. Wyatt’s going to take the others somewhere safe, somewhere where those coming after me won’t hurt them.”

  Stiles’ eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you really think Sam can keep you safe?”

  Dylan lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I think it’s important to keep the others safe.”

  “The only person who must be kept safe is you.”

  She shook her head. “That’s where you and I differ, Stiles,” she said quietly. “I don’t really care what happens to me. In fact, from everything I’ve learned recently, it seems like my death might be a blessing for the survivors of this fight no matter what side they are on.”

  “Dylan—”

  She pressed her finger to his lips, no longer in the mood to listen to any more arguments. “I want you to follow Wyatt. I want you to keep him safe until he comes back to me.”

  He began to object, but she pressed her finger tighter against his lips. “Please,” she said, a weariness coming into her voice. “I don’t want to be worried about him while I do what I need to do.”

  Stiles’ eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?” he asked as he lifted her finger from his mouth.

  “Just promise me you’ll keep Wyatt safe.”

  He hesitated, but, to his credit, he didn’t argue again. He simply nodded.

  Dylan didn’t give him a chance to recant or ask more questions. She walked away, going to find her new escort.

  Chapter 15

  Sam and Dylan walked south; at least, that was what Wyatt called it. Not for any particular reason, really. Just because it was away from where Wyatt and the others had gone.

  “Stay together,” Wyatt told them. He pointed to the asphalt road that ran along the back line of the trees that shaded their campsite. “Stay on this road and I will find you.”

  He gave a knife to Sam, his six shooter to Dylan. As he handed it to her, he pressed his hand hard against the back of hers. “Don’t get dead,” he whispered near her ear.

  Those words rang through her mind for hours as they walked.

  Sam didn’t talk much. His mind was busy with half a dozen different things all at once. Dylan could hear some of his thoughts even as she tried to keep her mental wall up. Sometimes when thoughts were strong, when they overpowered everything else in someone’s mind, she could hear them no matter how hard she tried not to. It was that way with Jimmy when he thought about Joanna. That way, too, with Ellie when she was frightened. Which was often.

  It was Ellie Sam was thinking about.

  He worried that Ellie wouldn’t be safe wherever Wyatt was taking her. He worried that she might need him and he wouldn’t be there to help her. Again there was that sense that he thought of her almost like a sister thinks of a
sister…though she was sure there was a different name for what a boy would be to a girl. He also thought about Wyatt holding her hand the night they all went to the stream.

  Dylan couldn’t tell how he felt about that. She focused on the road ahead of them instead.

  They walked most of the day, not stopping except for a few minutes of rest at midday. By the time darkness began to fall, they were both exhausted. Sam lit a fire and cooked a small bird he’d caught while they looked for a suitable place to camp. It was small, but the meat provided enough protein to allow them a restful sleep.

  For Dylan, at least.

  She woke in the night to find Sam tossing and turning. They had argued over the need for a guard, but Dylan had insisted it was stupid for both of them to get only half a night’s sleep, or one of them to stay up all night. The fire would scare off any animals, and the gargoyles and Redcoats would come whether they were awake or not, so why waste their sleep time?

  She just hoped she was correct in her theories.

  The idea of being unprotected clearly bothered Sam, though.

  She watched him for a minute in the dim light cast by the moon. It struck her how handsome he was. His jaw was rounded, not square like Wyatt’s, but still a strong jaw that hinted at intelligence. And there was something about the curve of his shoulders, about how wide they were and how they tapered into his arms, but not so narrowly that he seemed weak. She liked to watch him as they walked, liked to see the way the muscles worked in his back. It made her feel…warm.

  It was different from the way looking at Wyatt made her feel. But, in its own way, looking at Sam was just as exciting.

  He rolled again, shifting toward her. A nightmare, she thought. She reached over and pressed a hand to his head, imagining him sleeping peacefully. A moment later he settled down, his breathing regular as he stopped his movements.

  They woke with the sun the following morning. Sam wandered off for a while, coming back with the water bottles full and a handful of berries for their morning meal. They shared them as they walked, moving mostly in silence. The landscape changed again about midmorning. It wasn’t like stepping over a barrier between green grass and trees into cactus and dirt, but was more of a gradual change. The cactus began to appear even as the grass continued to dot the fields and ruins they came across.

  They stayed to the road, as they had promised Wyatt they would. It took them close to abandoned buildings that looked much like the ones they had seen many times before, buildings with broken glass and empty shelves. Some still had their windows intact, but not many. Others looked almost like they must have before the war, the way they often did in Dylan’s visions of the past. But most had grass and other plants growing in the middle of their floors, flowers blooming where they hadn’t before.

  Late in the afternoon they came to another ruin. It was not as big as the one Wyatt took Dylan to, but larger than the one where they stopped the night before.

  “I didn’t realize they came in so many different sizes,” Dylan said as she walked among the small buildings that marked the beginning of this ruin.

  Sam walked up to a different sort of road that ended at the beginning of one of the buildings. “What do you suppose this was for?”

  Dylan moved up behind him, studying the façade of the building. They had never seen one quite like this. It had smaller windows than most of the squat buildings they had seen, windows that were covered with clothing, like the windows in the apartment she and Wyatt were attacked by that gargoyle. It was painted bright colors and had grass all the way to the front, something they had never really seen before. It was pretty, the way it looked down on the road as though it were some kind of guardian.

  “People must have lived here,” she guessed.

  And then the vision came, as though it was waiting for her to make the connection.

  A family, a man in the strange clothing others she had seen often wore, a box with a handle in his hand, getting out of one of those strange vehicles, not unlike the ones they had hidden in when the Redcoats attacked. A woman, the mother Dylan guessed, rushing out of the building with her arms wide open, two children following close behind.

  “So happy you’re home,” the woman said. “I can’t believe they made you go on this trip.”

  “It came with a promotion,” the man said.

  The woman’s face brightened, if that was possible. She laughed. “That’s wonderful,” she said.

  He kissed the tip of her nose lightly. “That means we can finally take that vacation you’ve been wanting for so long.”

  “Dylan?”

  She stumbled back a few paces. “Sorry,” she mumbled as he grabbed her arms and steadied her.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded. “We should keep moving.”

  He seemed uncertain for a moment, but he followed her. The road took them deeper into the ruin, into a place where the buildings had crumpled and huge, empty holes pockmarked the road. They had to leave that road and follow another, making their way carefully through debris that was piled in their way and small mounds of dirt that seemed out of place and…sad, somehow.

  Once away from the ruin, they made their way back around to what they thought was the right road. But Dylan was not sure it was the right one.

  She ran her thumb over the stone a friend had once given her. For luck, the friend had said. It was one of only three things she had taken from Genero when her time to be tested came. There was a wrist bangle, too, and an artifact from one of these ruins, a thing Davida gave her called a compass. Davida said it had been given to her by another guardian, and given to that woman from someone before her. Dylan wondered now if that was really true.

  Where had Davida gotten such an artifact? Did people really leave the dome without the council being aware? Or was Davida part of the resistance even then? Had Jimmy given her the compass? If so, why had she given it to Dylan? What did it mean?

  There were so many questions that remained unanswered.

  Another ruin could be seen in the distance when the sun began to settle in the horizon. They decided to camp in a field covered in soft grass that had turned an almost pretty brown in the heat of the sun. Once again, Sam managed to kill a bird just before they stopped, so all they had to do was build a fire to enjoy their evening meal.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked.

  Dylan picked at the small amount of meat left on her half of the bird. “Away from the others.”

  “You don’t have a destination in mind?” Sam asked.

  “No,” she said as she licked the grease from her fingers and tossed the bones into the fire. “Just away.”

  “Then why south? Why not north?”

  Dylan smiled. “I don’t even know what that means,” she said. “They didn’t teach us directions in Genero.”

  Sam dipped his head a little so that the shadows covered his expression. He finished his part of the bird and tossed the bones in the fire, too. “Wyatt didn’t teach them to you?”

  Dylan shook her head. “He always just said, ‘Follow me.’”

  “Sounds like him,” Sam said with laughter in his tone.

  Silence fell between them for a few minutes. They both seemed preoccupied with the fire. Dylan saw Wyatt’s face in the flames, saw his rare smile, his dark blue eyes.

  “What was it like?” she asked as Wyatt’s image grew a little stronger, the doubt in his eyes an ever-present thing as he constantly questioned everything about the people around them.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “Living in Genero? Was it different for the boys?”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really know what it was like for the girls.”

  “I know you had dorms, like ours. Did you have guardians, too?”

  Sam picked up a stick and poked at the fire a little. “We did. One male adult to every three boys.”

  “And lessons?”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “In a big, round library where there were
enough computers for every boy in the dorm.”

  “And you learned about botany.”

  Sam looked up, confusion clouding his eyes for a minute. “Oh,” he finally said, “yeah. We had a choice of the sciences we could take. I chose to learn about plants.”

  “Lucky you did,” Dylan said. “It saved your life in the desert.”

  Sam didn’t say anything. Any other boy might have bragged about how he came across a dying girl and saved her life by showing her how to get water from cactus. Sam didn’t brag. In fact, he never seemed to want to talk about his time alone with Ellie. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it now, either. He stood up and stretched, moving his long, lithe limbs over his head until his spine curved into a perfect c.

  “We should go to bed,” he said.

  “Do you love her?” she asked without moving.

  “Who?” Sam turned from the pallet he had made for himself earlier.

  “Ellie.”

  He cocked his head slightly. “I feel responsible for her,” he said.

  Dylan climbed to her feet, also stretching a little. Sitting on the ground for so long had left her back a little sore. She touched her toes, then walked over to her own blanket and settled down without bothering to straighten it.

  “Do you think Wyatt loves her?” she asked.

  “I don’t think Wyatt knows her,” Sam immediately responded. “He sees her as a weak creature that needs his protection.”

  “You don’t see her that way?”

  Sam settled on the ground. “I see Ellie as a girl who was ripped from the only home she had ever known, from the only world she had known, and dumped into a foreign land where nothing is familiar and she is no longer the know-it-all who knows exactly where her life was headed. She’s confused and scared and—”

  “And just as angry as the rest of us.”

  “Yes,” Sam agreed.

  Dylan reached over and took his hand, interlocking her fingers with his. “A part of me wishes every night that when I wake in the morning, I will be back in my room in D dorm. That everything will be as familiar and orderly as it had always been before.”

  “Me, too,” Sam sighed. “I never imagined that taking the final test would lead to this.”