by Kaleb Nation
Callista sat with her back to us, knees pulled up to her chest with arms hugging them for warmth. She wore a simple gray shirt with the back torn in uneven slits. Her hair was a mess from the wind that whipped at it, as dark as I’d seen in the dreams.
“I could have blown the plane up sixty seconds earlier,” she said, with some measure of discontent, never looking up at us. “That extra minute of jet fuel would have tossed the tail a bit further out into the water.”
“I still think you made a fine explosion,” Thad replied, sitting down beside her.
I awkwardly sat on her other side, trying not to stare or blurting something out that I knew would sound stupid. But who could blame me? There was the girl who’d haunted me all week, talking about the mechanics of blowing up planes.
The fire trucks were having a hard time getting out to the beach thanks to the wet sand, and there was another loud pop that sent tiny bits of metal flying like bursting popcorn. The destruction looked pretty complete to me. I watched with alarmed attention as the fire licked through the air, feeding on fuel and whatever had been in the plane before it’d hit. Its middle was split, windows blown out and spewing more spoke.
Callista still didn’t look satisfied.
“I just wish they’d packed more bullets and guns on board,” she said dryly. “You know, all that stuff they were gonna use to kill us. I really wanted to see some fireworks, Thad.”
“I’ll make a note of that for next time you need to take down a plane,” he replied dutifully. Behind her back, he gave me a feigned look of terror, before hiding it when she turned to look at me.
It was the first time our eyes had met, in real life at least. They shouldn’t have surprised me, but they did—seeing them so close, so vibrant that I blinked, thoughts scattering like fish before a shark. Their blue didn’t even seem to fit in any normal spectrum.
I was never a person to be intimidated, so I kept her gaze strongly.
“Fine, I’m a pyromaniac,” she burst, opening her hands defensively. “What can I do?”
Still, she refused to break my gaze. I didn’t know what that meant.
“You could…not crash planes?” I suggested.
To my surprise, she didn’t frown, but instead exploded into a fit of laughter. She laughed so hard that she fell backwards, hair going around her head like a dark halo, face staring up at the sky that was now entirely clear of clouds and rain, sunshine lighting her face as the happy music fell from her mouth.
“Yeah, that’d be a good start,” she agreed, closing her eyes, leaving me even more confused than before. I looked up at Thad, now unblocked by Callista. He glanced from me to her, then back to me again, but refused to comment. Callista breathed deep of the air, unimpeded even by the burnt smell that drifted our way, and the sound was filled with a strange relief.
“Um…” I started. I cleared my throat. “Can I ask why there’s a plane crashed on the beach?” I said, trying to force as much command into my voice as I could, but failing.
“Because if it’d landed, the eleven men on board would have killed you,” Callista said, without even opening her eyes.
“And Thad, and me too,” she added. “They were armed like the military. Tell him our plan, Thad.”
She poked him with her knee and he straightened up to attention.
“Right, the plan,” he said to me. “You already know Callista and I were caught before they found you. When they got the lead that you were out here, they sent this guy named Mr. Sharpe. But he must not have killed you, because he never came back. And because she and I never died. See…” He opened his hands. “That’s what I heard from them. If you die, then for some reason Callista and I are supposed to die immediately as well.”
“Right on the spot,” Callista said, with some disdain. “Because you’re a Guardian, and we’re just Chosens—that’s what they called us. We’re connected to you. Whatever that means.”
“Yeah,” Thad said. “So when we didn’t die, and Mr. Sharpe didn’t come back…well, Callista and I knew you were fighting. So it was our turn to put in some effort.”
He nodded excitedly. “Since you’d gotten the first guy, his boss went out to do things right: Wyck is what they called him. But when he left, all that was guarding us was his team of cheap expendable gunmen.”
He waved at himself. “Easily outwitted by me. The plan was for me to escape, which I eventually did, to go save your sorry life. Callista would stay behind and keep the henchmen at bay.”
“Basically, throw things into chaos,” Callista broke in, still laying down, eyelids shut.
“Because with Thad out,” she continued, “it wasn’t going to be so easy to kill you. There was someone lurking around who could challenge Wyck. So he got scared and had his henchmen get on that jet to move me out here, where he could make certain I didn’t get away either. But it’s like one of those two-ended rabbit holes.”
She held one hand up. “On this end, you have Thad running to save you. And on this end,” she held her other hand up, far from the other, “you have little old me, suddenly breaking locks and blocking bullets and cutting my way through the walls of a plane and slicing its wing off midair.”
To accent her words, claws flew out from the hand she’d marked as herself. They slid forth like hidden blades, making me blink, which by the look in her face was exactly the reaction she’d wanted.
“The little fox just gets trapped running from one end to the other,” she said. “And down go the henchmen, away goes the Callista, and safe goes the Michael.”
She hit my arm with the back of her hand, claws gone. I didn’t know what to say in response to their plan. It was either the stupidest thing I’d ever heard, or the most brilliant.
“So now they’re really going to panic,” I said with a hint of dread.
Callista nodded. “Like a bunch of bees when you hit the nest,” she said. She turned to look at me.
“Please don’t say I shouldn’t have,” she warned. “I don’t want to think about what I just did for you. Even if it was eleven trained killers without a single moral fiber in their bodies.”
“I think that we can agree on the fact that they started it,” I said with a long release of nervous breath. It was worrisome though, how that statement seemed to be the extent of emotion she had after killing eleven people. I remembered the newspaper article about her family’s fiery death…maybe her emotional fuses had been burned out with them?
Callista leaned away from me to look at Thad.
“I remembered,” she told him, pulling something out of her short pocket and placing it in his hand. It was a flawless bronze pocket watch, the type that gentlemen might wear on chains in old England. Except this one was unusual in its design: formed with two disks that met as a lid, but the top bearing two small, metal skeleton hands that reached for the lock. Thad took it without smiling, though he looked relieved.
I didn’t understand what’d just happened. I also didn’t like the way that Callista was simply laying there, as if we weren’t in any danger at all.
“So what now?” I asked nervously, as the fire truck hoses burst with solution that crackled over the flames.
“The moment Wyck hears about this, he’ll be coming this way,” Callista said. “So we’ve got to be out of here by then.”
“But as soon as he finds out…” My voice fell to a whisper simply from the weakness that suddenly overtook me. All at once, I realized what this meant. Somewhere, perhaps lurking in the sky or just now arriving at the church to find that I wasn’t a prisoner there, was a person who hunted me. Someone even more terrifying than Mr. Sharpe had been.
All at once, I realized the first place he would think to look for me next. My house.
“I—I’ve got to go now,” I told the others, scrambling to my feet, slipping but catching my balance as I stood. The others looked up at me in surprise.
“What? Where?” Callista asked, bending her head up. “We’re gonna leave in two minutes.
”
“No, I’ve to go now,” I burst. “My mom and sister can’t stay in that house. He’ll come for them next!”
I spun around and tripped off the rock, not even pausing as I heard the others scratching up from the stone, making sounds in protest. I was already rising into the air. I didn’t care what they were going to do, all I could think about was my mom and Alli sitting in the house waiting to be attacked. Would the Guardians go so far as retaliation? I didn’t put it past them. I needed to get—
Hands grabbed me around my middle, tackling me midair and throwing me down onto the sand. I would have shouted if the hard beach hadn’t pushed the air out of me.
“What the hell are you thinking?!” Callista was on top of my back, holding me down with the help of Thad, her voice hissing into my ear.
“Stop fighting!” she told me.
Without command, my claws and scales appeared again. I swung my arms wildly, the back of my hand catching Callista and throwing her off me like springs tossing her onto the beach. I pushed up from the ground and reached for the air but her hand caught my foot, slamming me onto the ground again. I hit my back hard, and Callista and Thad were suddenly on top of me again.
“Put the claws away!” Callista commanded me, her face pressed close to mine, red with rage. Her claws were out too, burying into the sand like bars in front of my face. I swung again to be free of her, instinctively slashing to punch Thad, though again forgetting my claws. With lightning-fast motions, he caught the blades with the back of his hand, the scales clashing against them like metal on metal. The rattling force jolted me back to my senses.
So I obeyed, and my claws slid across the sand as they went back inside, leaving long marks. Callista and Thad lifted from me slightly, breathing heavy with exertion.
“The hell you’re going back home,” Callista said between breaths. “Do you have any idea how much we’ve both sacrificed for you to even think about going home?!”
Thad had already gotten off of me, but she remained pressed on my other side.
“My family’s still there!” I protested, wincing. She ground her teeth together.
“Well I’m sorry to hear that,” she hissed. “But for now, if you try to run off, I’m bringing you right back down again.”
She gave me a hard push when she got to her feet, rolling me over. I stood without hesitation, eye to eye with her.
“That’s my family!” I said. “I can’t just leave them there!”
“And if you go back, they’ll follow you there, kill them anyway, and us too,” she told me, but this time she didn’t yell. It was more of a fact that she was merely broadcasting, something that hung over all of us like a tent blocking the sunlight.
I let my breath out, looking from her to Thad for support. His eyes turned away from mine, and I knew that if I couldn’t get him on my side, then there was no use in fighting. Inside, I knew Callista was right. If I went back home, who knew what would follow me there.
I spun my back on them with discontent, walking away toward the beach. Neither of them chased me this time.
I didn’t speak to them, even when the beach became darker and the lights from the police cars and the receding fire become the only colors we could see nearby. I found a spot and sat there, staring at the water that came closer to my feet with every wave. My arms remained crossed, as if by keeping my hands out of view I wouldn’t think of the silver that hid beneath my skin. I couldn’t make the feeling of the ring disappear, though. It was impossible to escape the reminders of what I’d become.
When we heard a helicopter flying our way, Callista and Thad came to get me, and we flew into the sky without saying anything. This time, flying was no joy. Already it had devolved into a simple method of transportation, a way for us to leave the beach and head for the mountains, a way that drove me further from Arleta. They tried to hide it, but I could tell that Callista and Thad were taking turns flanking me to make sure I didn’t run off.
When we landed, we were back on the cliff where Thad had taken me. The first thing Thad did was break the watch off his wrist and fling it over the edge; it didn’t even make a sound as it fell.
“Don’t be down,” he told me, where Callista couldn’t hear. “Tomorrow is your birthday, and we’ll figure things out then. Nothing’s worse than being dead, and you’re not that, right?”
He’d meant it to console me but I was far past words. I walked away from him and stopped when I got to the end of the cliff. The sun cast a tall, inhuman shadow onto the rocks beside me, appearing almost as if a monster was creeping up behind me.
I looked out over the Valley. I could see far—maybe further if not for the sun reflecting on the fog. My mom was probably already out pestering the police to find me, and they were likely sighing and insisting to her that this was simply another one of my misadventures. Officers would take a report but toss it into a pile on someone’s desk. That’s the kid who drove his car over the cliff, they’d say to each other with knowing grins. My friends would think I’d just disappeared on a job. Nobody would even worry for days.
I heard Thad and Callista whispering to each other but I didn’t care enough to hear what they were saying. I sat with my feet hanging over the edge of the cliff and tried to find Arleta in the horizon. The ever-darkening clouds made that impossible.
* * *
Another dreamless night, another morning for me to awaken in a place that wasn’t home. This time it wasn’t nightmares that broke me from sleep, or that awful rain I could still taste in the back of my throat. The sun was up, warm rays gently rousing me, light spread over the precipice.
Drowsy and exhausted as I was, I could smell trees and rocks and damp ground, reminding me of the few times I’d gone camping with my family in parks near Arleta. I soaked in the silence, all the echoes of the cars and people hardly reaching this high. I didn’t want to get up. I felt sore, like the morning after a lot of swimming.
But at least I wasn’t running from assassins for five whole minutes.
When I tried to lift my arm, I realized that I was in a black sleeping bag, zipped up to my shoulders. I pulled at it and managed to get my arms free. I didn’t remember getting into a sleeping bag… maybe I’d been too tired to notice much after the sun had set. I rolled over.
There were two other new sleeping bags arranged on the flat rock, and plastic bags in the corner of our camp. Someone must have left and bought them after I’d fallen asleep. With what money, I wondered? Again, I couldn’t complain. I’d probably be in a lot more miserable position if I’d slept only on rocks all night.
One of the sleeping bags was empty but Callista was in the one closest to me. She was lying on her back, staring awake at the sky above us. It was hard to tell if she was ignoring me or if she hadn’t realized I was awake too. I followed her gaze up and saw that the rainclouds from the day before had now been replaced with puffy white shapes drifting across the blue.
“I’ve decided I don’t have to hate you,” she said without warning. I cleared my throat.
“Is that…an improvement?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said bluntly. “Until ten minutes ago, I hated you. Now I don’t.”
She sighed and rolled over onto her stomach, flinging her hair back behind her neck. I tried to keep from studying her, but every time I took my eyes away I only found them glancing back at her again.
“Did I do something ten minutes ago that changed things?” I pressed, hoping to keep this conversation going but also fearful that my insistence might convince her I was worthy of being hated again. She still didn’t meet my gaze.
“It’s more of what you didn’t do,” she replied. “You didn’t run off last night. I was certain you were going to disappear and run screaming to the police, and sit there waiting for a Guardian to show up to shoot you in the head.”
“You think I’m that stupid?” I was almost insulted. Few people had ever spoken to me that way.
She shrugged. “You haven’t done mu
ch to convince me otherwise.”
This was not going nicely at all. Had I lost all of my powers of persuasion that had helped me with my clients? Or maybe this girl was simply invincible to my attempts at lightening the air.
“I’ve stayed alive this long,” I tried.
“I know, it’s shocking,” she said. “You’re arrogant. Selfish. Overconfident. You have no respect for how much danger you put other people in. You think of yourself more than anyone.”
“Because I’m in shock,” I defended. “I’ve just had the most terrifying week of my life. I grew claws and…and a ring from nowhere. I think I’m allowed to worry about myself.”
“There you go again,” she countered without a second of hesitation. “You don’t think Thad and I haven’t been through the same thing? Rings, claws…all of it? But on top of that, we’ve been stuck in a cell. We’ve had needles shoved into our arms, we’ve been beaten and yelled at. We’ve been waiting to just turn into dust any second when you got yourself killed.”
Her voice had started to rise with anger, but she managed to force composure at the end. I was left in shambles again. Why was I letting this girl have the power to tear me to shreds?
“And this is you not hating me?” I said. “I’d be terrified to see you when you love someone.”
She rolled over on to her side, facing me but closing her eyes as if she was going back to sleep. Damn it, Michael. I needed to learn when to keep my mouth shut. But I wasn’t used to someone else being right.
Quiet fell again, leaving us to the sounds of birds and the wind in the untamed grass. Part of me wanted to just give up on Callista. I didn’t deserve this treatment from her—I’d just been nearly murdered twice in the past week. It wasn’t my fault that she’d become a part of it.
There you go again… again, her voice echoed in my head. My thoughts had immediately turned back to myself, and my problems, and how much my life had been in danger. I’d completely forgotten the very newspaper article that I’d first seen Callista in: the one about the deaths of her family.
