by E. R. Arroyo
Approximately one minute later the sunlight disappears and the birds are really active now. One bumps into the netting nearby and I take a deep breath. Then jump. Up and out, right into plain view.
The screeching and cawing combine with the scratching of talons, creating a hellacious sound. And the flightless creatures are all running toward me. When I swing back toward the building, I catch the ledge with my hands and push off again, using the support from the guys on the rooftop to keep me moving.
The fowl overtake one another before they even realize there’s a net—that or they don’t care—and they pile on top as they desperately try to get to me. I bounce into them this time, their claws digging through my clothes and drawing warm blood onto my skin. Scrambling for the wall, I try to get turned around, ignoring the pain.
Right when I grab hold of bricks, talons lay into my shoulder with the grip of a full grown man. With a scream I push off the wall again. This time the birds push each other against the net so hard they topple over the ledges and fall into our net. The top gives under the weight and Tyce releases a stretchy cord that squeezes the edges of the net into a bunch, now containing hundreds of flightless birds. But there are hundreds if not thousands more and I’m still dangling in front of them like a piece of bait.
Insane with hunger, they begin leaping from the ledge, reaching for me but plummeting to their deaths. As I swing back toward them again nearly a dozen of them spill onto me. The ones that don’t fall off immediately I bat at until they’re gone, but more replace them.
“Pull her up!” Tyce shouts, but it’s like a whisper compared to the birds’ raucous shrieking. The rope tugs but it’s taking too long. Just when I’m sure these things are going to eat me alive little peck by little peck, I hear the most spine-chilling scream I could ever fathom. And its owner is right inside the window I’m dangling in front of. The boys are hoisting me up but it’s not fast enough, and I don’t have enough rope to repel all the way to the ground.
“C’mon, c’mon. Get me out of here,” I mumble under my breath.
The giant bird stalks toward me, just enough of him gleaming in the dim light to terrify me. His feathers are gray with a black patch surrounding his right eye, which looks like a pearly black pool of evil. He’s easily ten times bigger than any other bird I’ve seen. This creature can kill me, I’m sure of it.
I’m drawn upward, but I look down keeping my eyes on this new predator completely ignoring the small pests still clinging to me.
Then the rope slips and I plummet down trying my hardest not to scream. When the rope runs out, my body bounces with the elastic built into its core. I come to my senses briefly enough to notice my soon-to-be killer in a nosedive aimed directly at me. It screams again. And so do I.
My body is jerked to the side just in time for it to miss and I want to wring all three of those guys’ necks for not getting me out of here fast like they promised.
The sound comes again, and I look just in time to see the death bird looping around and flying back toward me. Actually flying. It would be magnificent if I weren’t two seconds away from a certain and brutal death.
My fingers fumble over my knife trying to draw it out while the boys finally get their game together and pull me up more quickly. They tug me over to the side of the net, thankfully allowing me to focus on my sole would-be assassin. It comes at me with its claws first, laying into my forearm and causing me to lose my grip on my knife. I shriek as the blade falls away. I swat, bat, and punch at the beast but it’s relentless and won’t let go.
I try to slam it into the wall but I have nothing to push my weight against for leverage. Nothing is working and the bird is beginning to pull me away from the building.
I have no concept of where I am in relation to anything other than this bird.
“This way!” Eli’s voice calls, but I don’t know where he is. We left him on the ground but he sounds closer now.
Still dangling from the cord, I vaguely register being pulled sideways, tugging against the massive claws in my flesh. I’ve just fallen once more against the brick wall when a hand grabs my ankle, pulling at me in a tug of war with the flying bird that wants me for dinner.
Eli gets the better of the bird and drags me onto the fire escape. I didn’t even realize I’d rounded the corner to the side of the building. The bird doesn’t let go but it flaps its wings, screeching all the while. Then suddenly it utters a scream so nightmarish I actually cease fighting. I’m frozen still until I realize Eli has stabbed the fowl.
With talons still gripping my arm I thrash to get it off me, knocking Eli away. When I spot the knife sticking out of the bird’s back I yank it free. Struggling against the brute strength of the creature I take aim, finding its chest and driving the blade in and slicing upward.
The fowl releases me, its body suddenly limp and lifeless. It thuds against the fire escape as it falls away and then plunges toward the ground below us. I can’t see it in the darkness, but I hear the sick smack when it strikes the concrete below.
I stare into the abyss, barely breathing as half of me expects him to come soaring back up. But he stays down, wherever it is that he’s fallen. I back away from the rail. Panting, I reach for Eli, throwing my arms around him so hard he gasps in response.
Before I can even thank Eli for helping me, a short series of thuds strike against the boarded up window right beside us. The remaining birds inside know that we are out here.
“Go!” Eli shouts.
I tug my cord but I’m still attached. I pull on the place where it attaches to my harness and I can’t get it loose. If anything, I’m making the knots tighter. A handful of birds spill onto the platform above us and I scream in frustration.
Finally, my rope goes slack and we catch the length as it falls from the rooftop. I open my pack and tug my boots on while Eli loops the rope and attaches it to my bag the way it was before. The small cluster of birds begins to fumble down the metal stairs and onto our level. Smaller ones have begun shoving themselves between the cracks above us.
Kicking and batting the creatures away, we don’t waste another second. We descend as quickly as we’re able, hoping the guys up top go undiscovered until the night is done.
We make it to the ground but we are not unscathed and not nearly out of the woods yet. The birds—they’re everywhere, tons of them. I pull my backup knife from my boot and we run. As long as these can’t fly we can outrun them. So we keep running.
“How do we lose them?” I pant.
“Get closer … to the water.” Eli leads the way, ducking around debris and changing directions. We manage to put some good distance between us and the birds. He finally begins to slow and rounds a corner taking us into a narrow alley. For a moment I begin to silently rejoice that we’ve gotten away. And part of me wants to laugh, astonished that we actually pulled it off.
We both lean forward with our hands on our knees catching our breaths. But I hear more than two of us breathing and the tiny hairs all over my body stand on end. I go still, listening more intently. I ease myself around facing the dark alley, attempting to hear the sound again. Eli holds his breath, tipping me off that I wasn’t imagining that sound.
Hand on my blade, I inch forward with Eli at my side. There’s a dumpster ahead and my pulse comes fast and hard as I approach, the bird hunt all but forgotten now. When I’m within a few, feet a figure darts out from behind it and runs away from us. Not just any figure, but a human one.
I glance at Eli for a split second before we both take off after the stranger, pursuing him with all the energy we have remaining. We follow him left, right, all over. Thoughts race through my mind about who it could be and what he’s doing in The City. Whoever he is, he doesn’t seem to know where he’s going and I hope it’ll slow him down or he’ll turn down a dead end. But he’s fast. If I were in top shape, I might be able to catch him.
I attempt to push myself even harder. He’s losing us.
Just when we hit a straig
ht of way we begin to cross a small street. Then a body slams into me from the side and I instantly raise my knife but a hand wraps around my wrist to stop my blade. I recognize Tyce by the groan he lets out from our impact but I don’t have time to ask questions or even be mad that he slowed me down.
While we get our bearings in the crossroads, Eli manages to dart around us and trails the person.
“Someone’s here,” is all I manage to say to the others before I take off again, but they probably know that or they wouldn’t have come down from bird-hell until morning like we planned.
It takes us a few blocks to catch up, but Eli still leads the pack. If I hadn’t recently sustained a leg injury I might be on this guy’s heels but right now it feels like I have nothing left, and I’m about to give out any minute.
My heart sinks when I realize we’re headed for the yellow bridge Dylan and I barely survived just months ago. Does this guy know where he’s headed?
A whirring sound is my only warning before a knife flies by my head and lands in the stranger’s shoulder. He stops long enough for Eli to catch up to him and the two tumble to the ground a little ways onto the bridge. Suddenly the energy I needed is coursing through my veins and I reach Eli before anyone else does. The dark figure leaps toward me, knocking me on my back. A heavy fist slams into my ribs forcing me to curl up on my side as my body is racked with pain.
Eli cries out and I can’t figure out why because my eyes won’t focus. Gavin helps me up, and as my vision clears I realize Tyce and Flex have tackled the runner. Flooded with relief, I finally see Eli on his knees, but he’s hunched over. He moans, and it’s mixed with a sound of terror, almost a whimper.
Something’s wrong. As I stumble to my feet, Eli tugs a knife from his belly and it clinks against the ground when he drops it. My heart stops.
Feeling a scream begin to rise up from my belly, I reach out for Eli. He tries to get up but loses his balance. And he’s too close to the edge. I pull the loop of cord from my back and toss it at Gavin then I run and dive after Eli as he stumbles backward, right over the ledge of a gaping hole in the bridge.
Feeling nothing but air all around me, I reach for his straining body. I have no idea how much cord I have. If it’s too much, Eli and I are toast. Time slows enough that I even wonder and hope that Gavin finds something to anchor himself and the end of my rope against.
My arms finally reach Eli, and I squeeze him to me with all my might, waiting for us to bounce back up but we just plummet closer and closer to the shallow river.
Down and down we go.
Then finally … we bounce.
Thank you, I want to shout to Gavin.
“I’ve got you,” I manage, not able to see Eli’s face. Please, let him be alive. “Stay with me, Eli. Come on.”
“Hang on!” Tyce yells down at us.
When we stop bouncing, the guys tug us upward and it’s just not fast enough. I can’t feel Eli breathing. Panic surges through me. “Faster!” I scream, wrapping my legs around his, struggling to keep ahold of him. I have no idea what’s going on up there, but I don’t even care.
An eternity later, the boys finally pull us over the jagged edge of pavement. Eli’s body flops onto the ground and his eyes stay closed. Completely spent, I collapse nearby, staring at his body. “He’s not breathing” I cry. “He stopped breathing.”
Tyce hovers over me, placing his hands on me, but I shrug him off.
“No!”
Gavin and Flex lean over Eli and I’m sure they’re getting ready to tell me what I already know.
But for some reason, they don’t.
Instead Flex takes off his shirt and presses it into Eli’s stab wound. Gavin picks him up and carries him back into the Pitt.
And Flex kneels in front of me, hand on my shoulder. “He’s breathing, Cori. He’s cut bad but he’s alive.”
Air whooshes from my lungs. Sweet relief and lingering fear simultaneously envelop me. And so do Tyce’s arms as he pulls me up. My surroundings blur but somehow we end up at a building where the women stay. I hesitate at the entrance but Flex tugs me along with Tyce close behind me, supporting me with a hand on my lower back as if he fears I might fall. And I might.
Two or three flights of stairs and too many dark hallways to count lead us to a startled group of young women. Babies and small children are scattered among them. All the walls are padded with random scrap materials and fabrics, presumably to keep the noise in.
Young mothers cover their children’s eyes at the sight of Eli and the blood on his clothes and Gavin’s.
A shrill voice sounds from across the room. “Get her out of here! Are you crazy?” An enraged dark-skinned girl rushes toward me, Flex’s hands stopping her from whatever she intended to do.
“She saved Eli’s life,” Flex snarls at her.
She puffs up her chest, her thin lips in a straight line and I’m worried she’s going to attack me anyway. Not that I’m worried for me, she’s petite and hardly looks lethal, but I don’t want to cause a scene or have to defend myself.
“She can’t be here,” she finally collects herself enough to say. Her hand drifts to one of her tight curls and tugs on it nervously.
“Trina, Cori can be wherever I say. Anywhere we go, she can go. Got it?” Flex glances over his shoulder at me, giving me the subtlest nod that speaks so much. I’m in, he’s telling me. His acceptance would make me feel warm if it weren’t for Eli’s cold, dying body on the floor several feet away.
I wait for Trina to back down from our almost altercation before I catch up to Gavin and Eli, trying helplessly—hopelessly—to think of something I could actually do. “Can I help?”
“No,” the girl working on cleaning Eli up says.
Gavin touches my hand. An unthinkable gesture from such a huge guy who’s never shown even a hint of sensitivity before. “You’ve done enough, sister.”
I nod and take a step back, wavering as I go. Tyce catches me by my elbows. “Easy, doll,” he whispers.
Flex crouches close to Eli and his eyebrows draw in when he glances up at me. Then he turns to the ladies. “Somebody get her some water.”
“Let’s sit you down. You don’t look so good. You hurt?” Tyce brushes my sweaty hair off my face.
I shake my head just enough for him to see it then lean I into the wall. I try to catch my breath, to calm my heart, but each time I gaze over at Eli looking less and less alive another piece of my newly fragile heart breaks, withers, and falls away.
Seeing him so close to death’s door is unbearable, and it triggers a pang of guilt over the sick and wounded back in Mercy. I remind myself that Dylan is brilliant and he’ll find a way to help them. He has to.
“I’m so tired.” I hang my head.
“Here,” Tyce whispers, handing me a canteen.
I take a sip. I barely feel the wetness on my tongue but I swallow anyway. “I’m so tired of seeing people I love getting hurt and killed. I can’t stand it.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Tyce murmurs. “He’s alive because of you.”
“For how long? Another hour? Another day?” Tyce forces me to take another drink.
Dropping to his knees, Tyce envelops me in his arms. “How about you just rest right now, huh?” Funny how in a room full of people, most of whom I don’t even know, Tyce can make me feel like the only one here. I hesitate in his arms for a moment, unable to keep myself from comparing his embrace to Dylan’s.
With no strength left to fight with Tyce, or my own feelings for that matter, I lean into him, letting the heaviness take over. I try hard to empty my mind just enough to feel relief.
I’m still dazed and unsure if I’ve been asleep or not when cold fingers touch the skin on my leg exposed from my pants riding up. I look up and see Eli’s glazed-over eyes peering at me. They’re all looking at me as if I’ve missed an important part of some conversation.
“Brother, you should’ve seen her,” Flex tells Eli in the softest voice I’ve ever heard him
use. Everyone seems to treasure Eli as much as I do.
My senses finally come to me and I lurch forward. Both hands gently on Eli’s face, I kiss his forehead and exhale onto his skin before I pull away. “You scared me to death.”
“Hey, you never get that excited about kissing me,” Tyce complains, a half grin on his face.
“Maybe you’re not doin’ it right.” Flex slaps Tyce’s back with a chuckle.
Gavin pipes up, “Maybe you should almost die.”
The whole group is laughing now at Tyce’s expense, even some of the girls nearby.
“I did almost die!”
“Yeah, she was real torn up about it too.” Flex waggles his eyebrows, teasing me, and I punch his arm, blushing hard. He shrugs, as if he’s only stating the obvious.
“Guys, trust me, there’s no kissing going on—”
“All right,” Flex says, matter of fact. He shrugs, pats me on the arm, and he’s not teasing. He dropped it just like that. I realize how much I’m starting to like Flex, even though he’s hot one minute then cold the next. He’s genuine. Most of the people here are, actually. At least the ones I’ve been able to get to know.
With Eli’s hand in mine, I suddenly realize I like it here. This dirty bunch of boys who are passionate, deadly, and fiercely protective … they are like brothers to me.
Then it dawns on me… “What happened on the bridge? Did the guy get away?”
“He fell. We’re going to go check out the body today.” Flex stands up to stretch. He yawns and I notice his puffy eyes, rimmed with signs of sleep deprivation.
Tyce lowers his hand to pull me up and I groan as my sore and battered body protests. Before we go, I grip Eli’s hand. “You going to be okay?”
Eli smiles and gives a small nod. He’s still too pale, though his version of pale is still darker than most of the others.
