FREED (Angels and Gargoyles Book 2)

by Brenda L. Harper

  He didn’t rise to the taunt. He just kept staring at her as though he could not understand what he was seeing. He finally stood up and began to pace, almost angrily. “You can’t,” he finally said.

  “I can’t what?”

  He just shook his head as he continued to pace, his movement kicking up dirt and debris and covering her with a fine dust. She stood, brushing at her clothing in irritation. “I just took a bath, you know,” she said.

  “How did you do that?” he asked.

  Dylan shrugged. “The same way I always do.”

  “No, Dylan, that was not the same.” He marched to her and grabbed her arms. “You don’t even know what you’ve just done.”

  Something about his expression made Dylan finally hear his words, hear the seriousness behind them.

  “What are you so excited about?” she asked.

  He touched her face lightly. “We are in so much trouble,” he muttered.

  “What do you mean? Is trouble coming?”

  That seemed to make something click in his head. “Damn,” he said under his breath. “We have to get you out of here. There’s a group of Redcoats not far from here.”

  “Redcoats? What are they doing this far from Viti?”

  “Lucifer,” he said. “He’s been scouring the countryside for you. He nearly got you at Joanna’s.”

  “How do you—”

  “We have to go, Dylan. All of us.”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer. He grabbed her hand and dragged her through the trees back to where the others were sitting down to their meal. “We have to go,” he said, snatching a couple of water bottles from where they were sitting on the ground.

  Wyatt dropped the piece of bone he had been holding in his hand and began kicking dirt over the fire. He didn’t stop to ask. They had been here often enough that, even though he still distrusted Stiles, he didn’t question his warnings. Maybe he trusted enough in the fact that Stiles wanted to protect Dylan. Or maybe it was something else. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure why she was following Stiles.

  The moment Wyatt made a move to follow Stiles, the others fell into line. Wyatt was their leader. They didn’t doubt his choices. Bags were stuffed full of clothing, books, and blankets that had been spread around the camp. Dylan missed her own bag, the one that got left behind when Ichabod stole her away without warning, without the opportunity to consider the things she left behind. Not that she had many things that really mattered to her. Just the few things in her pocket.

  The moment everyone was ready, Stiles led the way through the trees. They were in a densely wooded area, which seemed likely to prove lucky as the Redcoats gained on them. But Dylan wondered how they could keep from getting lost. The moment they stepped into the trees it felt like they had stepped into a maze that would go on forever.

  They wound their way through the woods for more than an hour before they came to a small hill that took them down a steep embankment. They came to a stuttering halt, the sound of their feet sliding on the ground reverberating through the trees as pebbles and sticks fell over the embankment.

  “What are even running from?” Ellie suddenly asked.

  It was the first word spoken since they left camp.

  “Keep your voice down,” Wyatt hissed at her.

  “Why?” Ellie demanded. “How do we even know anyone is following us?”

  The words hadn’t fallen completely from her lips when something slammed through the trees. Another followed quickly behind. Bobby had been standing behind Dylan, peeking over her shoulder at the embankment below. He seemed curious about what lay down there. Or maybe he had simply been trying to figure out how they could get down there without someone breaking an ankle. Not that it mattered.

  He fell to his knees as that something, something Dylan never saw, slammed into his back.

  Chapter 29

  Ellie screamed.

  Dylan turned, wanted to touch him, to help him, but Stiles grabbed her arm and pulled her down the embankment. One moment she was staring at Bobby as he knelt behind her, the next she was sliding on her bottom down the hill. She wanted to scream too, more from frustration than fear.

  She didn’t want anyone to die for her.

  Wyatt and Sam were running along behind her and Stiles, Ellie between them. At the bottom of the embankment, Stiles turned to the right, running so fast Dylan struggled to keep up with him. She had little choice. He still held her wrist with an iron grip. All she could concentrate on was the next breath, the pain in her calves, the heat filling her oxygen-starved muscles. She finally couldn’t do it anymore. She had to stop. She dug her heels into the ground.

  “Stiles,” she groaned.

  He let go of her wrist and she immediately stopped, bending over to catch her breath. She could hear someone come up behind her, but she didn’t turn to see who it was. After a few minutes, after her heart stopped pounding and her breathing slowed, she realized she had only heard one person join them.

  “Where’s Ellie?” she asked, straightening. “Sam?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “They couldn’t keep up.”

  Dylan glanced at Stiles just as he disappeared. Wyatt was struggling to catch his breath, too. He paced around a little, his hands on his hips. “What did he tell you?” he asked.

  “The Redcoats.”

  Wyatt looked back over his shoulder, as though he thought he would see Sam and Ellie coming up behind them. “Bobby will be okay,” he said, but Dylan could hear the doubt in his voice.

  “What was that?”

  He focused on her, but didn’t speak. She remembered the weapon Jimmy had taken out of the Redcoat’s pocket, the Redcoat that had been pinned to the ground outside their camp. And she remembered hearing the thoughts of the Redcoats, how they had been told to use that weapon on her before they even approached her.

  “It was for me,” she said.

  Wyatt remained quiet.

  She walked around a little, tried to keep her tired muscles from knotting up on her. But it wasn’t necessary. The soreness, the pain disappeared without her even having to think about it. She was healing herself without the conscious desire now. There was a tree stump a few feet away. She settled on it and closed her eyes, lowering her mental wall. She heard voices immediately. Not Wyatt, not anyone she knew. It was the Redcoats. They were so close. It was some sort of miracle that they hadn’t heard their heavy boots crashing through the undergrowth.

  “We have to go,” she said as she jumped to her feet and grabbed Wyatt’s hand.

  They didn’t run this time. Dylan knew they would never make it if they ran. She remembered what Joanna had told her, remembered her beautiful wings as they unfurled from her shoulder blades. Dylan shoved Wyatt in front of her and focused on her need to get them out of there. It was much easier than it had been to change into her ethereal form the first time. Everything was becoming so much easier.

  That fact frightened her.

  She wasn’t even sure it would work. But the moment her wings unfurled from her back, she was able to wrap her arms around Wyatt’s chest and lift them both off the ground. They soared like a bird, the same way she felt she often did when she visited Wyatt while they were apart. Gliding among the clouds as though that was where they belonged.

  They had been on a little hill, their camp near the top. As Dylan glided, she found a road that led out the woods and down into a huge ruin. She had never seen anything quite like it. It seemed to spread out for miles, buildings and weed-choked roads, rubble that seemed to be stacked in purposeful piles dotting one side of a large road. There were so many buildings, some clearly damaged, others still tall and majestic. And they were some of the tallest buildings she had ever seen. They reached into the sky for miles, it seemed. Again, something she had never seen before.

  Dylan floated over one of these tall buildings and gently set Wyatt down.

  “I’m going to go find the others,” she said.

  “No.” He grabbed her arm,
tried to hold her still. “You are the one they are after. Let Stiles protect the others.”

  “Stiles might need help. Besides, how will they know where we are if I don’t go?”

  Wyatt studied her face for a long minute, clearly conflicted. She moved close to him, her wings gone now. All she was was the same girl he had met weeks ago beside that lake. She touched him, caressed his cheek lightly.

  “You don’t have to protect me,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “You don’t have to protect me, either.”

  She smiled softly. “I know,” she agreed.

  She leaned forward and kissed him gently, letting her lips linger just long enough to feel him draw in a deep, if a little shaky, breath. It was so easy to slip into her ethereal form as she stood close to him, as she touched him and felt something inside of him reach out and touch her, touch her soul.

  And then she shot up into the sky like a shooting star.

  Chapter 30

  Dylan found Stiles, Sam, and Ellie more than a mile back from where she and Wyatt stopped. Redcoats were everywhere, searching methodically through the woods. They were beating the underbrush with sticks, kicking at bushes with their feet. It was if they thought Dylan was naïve enough to think they wouldn’t be able to find her if she hid under a pile of twigs.

  It almost offended her to be so underestimated.

  She couldn’t find Sam and Ellie at first. The Redcoats were so spread out she was afraid they had already found her friends. But then she spotted them huddled halfway down another embankment, this one steeper than the first. There was a tiny recess in the wall of this embankment, nothing more than a several foot wide fissure, but big enough for the two of them to disappear inside. Ellie was shivering, tears streaming down her cheeks. It crossed Dylan’s mind that she might give away their position if she began to sob, but she trusted that Stiles had things under control. He was perched a few feet above them on a little rock ledge. He would protect them if trouble came.

  She backtracked a little, flying low over the Redcoats simply because she couldn’t resist the temptation. Most of them didn’t even notice, but a few swatted at their heads as though at an annoying gnat. A few looked up, as though attempting to spot her. She moved higher into the air, deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk. She had no idea what these creatures were. She remembered the one Sam killed the day they were arrested. He had become animated again even though Sam cut his throat clean through.

  These weren’t human.

  There were no Redcoats at the top of the embankment where Bobby was injured. Dylan glided over the area, spotting him almost immediately. He was laying on his back now, his face pale. That smile that always seemed to be on his lips was no longer there. His face was stuck, as though frozen in place, a grimace of pain twisting his features. Carver sat beside him, holding his hand and whispering words of encouragement to him.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Carver whispered to Bobby. “Should have let them take her.”

  Bobby didn’t respond, didn’t appear capable of it. But Dylan could hear his thoughts. Even if she wished she couldn’t.

  Lily needs her whole.

  Carver nodded, as though Bobby had spoken aloud. “I know,” he said. “But this wasn’t part of the deal.”

  Dylan fell to the ground and slipped effortlessly into her human form as she walked up behind the two boys. “What is it?” she asked. “Some sort of drug?”

  Carver turned. “How did you get back here?”

  “Or is it some sort of angel thing?”

  Carver’s eyes narrowed a little. He stood and moved between Dylan and Bobby as though he believed she meant Bobby harm. And maybe he did.

  Maybe he was right.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “Why are you here with us?”

  “Wyatt said Davida wanted us to come along.”

  “Why?”

  Carver shrugged. “Davida must have had her reasons.”

  Dylan nodded slowly. Her eyes moved to Bobby. He was watching her, but he didn’t seem able to move his head, so he was watching from the corner of his eye. It was a little creepy the way his face was frozen in that grimace, but his eyes could move around. She tried to imagine what that would feel like and realized she had felt it once. The day she was driven out of Genero.

  But she had been able to break the effects.

  “Why didn’t the Redcoats take you away?” Dylan asked. “They were right behind us.”

  Carver shrugged. “They didn’t want us.”

  True. But wouldn’t they have wanted to take anyone who might be a bargaining chip with Dylan? How did they know that one of these boys wasn’t someone special to her, someone she wouldn’t want to turn herself in to save? They had taken Sam when they caught her outside of Viti. Would have taken Ellie, too, if she hadn’t gotten away. But not them.

  And they knew Lilith wanted her whole.

  “You work with them.”

  Carver visibly stiffened. The tension in his spine made him stand taller, made him look less like a child and more like the man he was becoming. He slid his hand around his waist, carefully keeping his hand steady so that she was less likely to notice. But she noticed.

  “And to think I liked you,” she muttered as she slipped into her ethereal form and disappeared.

  Chapter 31

  Dylan watched for a while as the Redcoats continued to scour the area. They seemed to be on their own. There was no indication that Luc was here, too. But they were pretty determined to find her. They searched long past sundown, thrashing so loud among the bushes and underbrush that they frightened most of the wildlife away from the area. It made it a little more difficult for Sam to find a bird when it was finally safe for him and Ellie to make their way out of their little fissure.

  She was afraid of frightening them. Dylan decided it was best not to reveal her abilities to Sam and Ellie. But she watched over them. And she was pretty sure Stiles had seen her. Not positive, since he never really looked right at her, but she saw his eyes widen once when she swooped down in front of him as the three of them made their way into the ruins.

  It was her turn to be the guide. She touched Stiles’ shoulder a few times, guiding him to the building where she had left Wyatt the same way he had guided her to the lake that saved her life. It gave her a little satisfaction to turn the tables. When they were safely on their way, she went back to Wyatt. He had made his way into the building and was repairing a broken door outside some small, square room where he had decided they would best make their camp for the night.

  The expression in his eyes was guarded when she appeared in front of him.

  “They’re on their way here,” she said.

  “You didn’t—”

  “No.” She smiled a little too brightly, an image of Ellie’s face if she had appeared in front of her in any of her angel forms flying through her mind. “I didn’t think it was a good idea to let them know about that.”

  Wyatt nodded, turning his attention back to the door. “Probably not,” he agreed.

  “If you can’t handle it,” Dylan said, moving deeper into the room and grabbing a bottle of water from where Wyatt had left it sticking out of the top of his bag, “then I doubt either of them would be okay with it.”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t handle it.”

  “But it freaked you out.”

  “Wouldn’t it you?”

  “It did, actually,” she said after taking a long drink of water. “It still does, a little.”

  “How long have you known you can do that?”

  Dylan thought about Joanna, about her touch on her head as the fire burned around her. “Not long,” she said.

  Wyatt was watching her, a look of concentration on his face. The color suddenly drained from his cheeks, his eyes widening. It was in that moment that Dylan realized her mistake. She took a step toward him, but he backed up, his hands stretched out in front of him.

  “What was that?” he asked.
<
br />   “Wyatt—”

  “What did I just see?”

  “I wanted to tell you,” she said, aware of how insincere her words sounded as she spoke them. “I’m sorry.”

  “Was that…” He stopped himself, as though afraid to give voice to what he had begun to say.

  Dylan went to him. He didn’t move, didn’t even seem to notice her. She touched his forehead lightly, stroked him there. And then she closed her eyes and concentrated on all her memories of that day, of her talk with Joanna. She wanted him to see it as it unfolded, wanted him to see the emotion that overwhelmed his mother several times as they talked about him. It never occurred to her what else she was offering him. She didn’t have enough experience with her own powers to understand that he was feeling everything she felt that day, that he was not only seeing his mother’s confession, but seeing Dylan’s response to it. That he was the novice angel now. He was seeing what she had to offer because he had the same gifts that she had.

  They were the same.

  The idea and the reality were so different than she had expected.

  When she dropped her hand, he closed his eyes and took several long, deep breaths. And then he walked away.

  Chapter 32

  They started walking the next morning. Sam and Ellie. Dylan and Stiles. And Wyatt.

  The old gang was all back together again.

  No one asked about Bobby and Carver. They all assumed they had been caught by the Redcoats. Dylan didn’t see the need to change that opinion.

  They walked west because it seemed to be their best shot of running into what was left of the resistance. Ellie continued to argue, insisting that they needed to continue east because that was what Davida had told them to do. But when Stiles suggested she could head east alone, she stopped arguing. In fact, she stopped talking altogether.

  Wyatt kept to himself. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, not just Dylan. He walked far ahead of them, as alone as he could get without losing them. And when they stopped at night he made sure his pallet was on the opposite side of the fire from everyone else’s.