Broken Wings (An Angel Eyes Novel)

by Dittemore, Shannon

“We’re old friends. Remember?”

  He turns on his heel and crosses the hall to Canaan’s room, abruptly ending the conversation.

  Jake drags his hands through his hair. “Do you think he’s going after Henry?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, I know he hates Henry, but Marco’s not a killer. Is he?”

  “We’re all capable of horrible things, Elle.”

  Talk about an awful thought. “Okay, what do you want to do?”

  Jake steps closer. “I think we should stop him. Make him stay. Get the PowerPoint out and explain angels and demons if we have to. Tell him what we know about Olivia. About Canaan and Helene. Tell him he doesn’t have to be afraid of the halo.”

  Pixie dust!

  “Jake, I left the halo on the kitchen counter. Maybe we should . . .”

  “No, it’s okay,” he says, a hand to my hip. “I put it in my bag.”

  Relief washes over me.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I won’t . . . won’t leave it lying around like that anymore.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” Jake says, squeezing my side. “So what do you think? We tell him?”

  His hands are on both of my hips now, and really, what I’m thinking about has nothing to do with Marco. But another glance in Jake’s eyes and I can tell he has no idea what his touch is doing to me. I force myself to focus.

  “If you’re okay with it,” I say, clearing my throat. “I’m all in.”

  “I don’t think we have much of a choice,” he says.

  He’s right. I know he is. Still, as Jake takes my hand and leads me down the hall, I pray that Marco will handle this information a tad better than he handled the sight of the morphing halo and tremendously better than he handled the vision of me dying in that fire.

  We stick our heads into Canaan’s room, but it’s empty.

  “His bag’s still here,” Jake says, nodding at the far wall. Marco’s backpack leans against the closet door.

  “Probably just getting his stuff together,” I say. “He had some books in the living room.”

  But when we reach the living room, Marco’s not there. Just Shane & Shane, singing, strumming, worshiping through the speakers. I release Jake’s hand and cross to the front door, opening it and stepping onto the porch. The night is cool and smells of wilting wildflowers. I inhale and lean out over the railing. I stretch past the post, looking up and down the highway.

  Deserted.

  Huh.

  “Olivia’s car’s gone,” I say over the blaring music, stepping back inside and closing the door behind me.

  “So is my bag,” Jake calls.

  He’s staring at the empty kitchen table, his face pale, his hands clenched in a chaos of sandy hair.

  “What?”

  Surely I heard him wrong.

  “My bag. It was on the table and now it’s . . .”

  Did he just say . . .

  I run over to the stereo and silence both of the Shanes with a slap of my palm.

  “Your bag is gone?”

  “Gone.”

  “And the halo?” I say, fear bouncing from lung to lung, shortening each breath.

  “Gone,” Jake says, letting his hands drop.

  The icy hammer of panic pounds at my stomach and it folds in on itself in response. But Jake starts to laugh. He leans forward, his hands on his knees, and cackles loud and childlike.

  He’s lost it.

  Completely and utterly.

  It was only a matter of time, right? I’m seeing rogue demons, Marco thinks I’m going to die in a fire that happened sixteen years ago, and Jake’s losing his mind.

  “Jaaaake,” I whine. “What are we going to do?”

  His voice slowly quiets, but not before releasing another high-pitched sigh.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask again.

  At last he turns his face to mine. His eyes are white again. Celestial white. My hands shake. The halo’s nowhere to be found, but Jake’s eyes shine back at me, promising to die in my place should occasion call for it. I rub my eyes, but when my hands fall away and I open them again, Jake’s white eyes remain. The same frightening, wonderful white that terrifies me every time I see it.

  I have to tell him.

  “Jake . . .”

  But his long legs bring him toward me until he’s so close I can smell the coffee on his breath, feel the fire radiating from his eyes. He grabs my hands and together we drop to our knees. Before I can say a thing, Jake answers my earlier question.

  “We pray.”

  27

  Brielle

  I think we should check the chest,” I say.

  Canaan called not long ago from the city. He’s been following the foundation’s money and keeping an eye on Henry. He promised to keep an eye out for Marco and Olivia, but the phone’s been silent for hours, and our prayers have dwindled to whispers. A quick glance at the clock tells me it’s nearly four in the morning.

  Jake jumps to his feet. “I’ll do it.”

  He jogs down the hall and I head to the kitchen, under-whelmed by the silence of the Father. I fill a glass with water and down it like a shot. Unanswered prayers are still hard for me to understand.

  From my perch at the kitchen counter, I see Jake emerge from Canaan’s room down the hall. He has something in his hand. Small, thin, rectangular. It looks like a picture.

  “What is it?” I ask, my pulse quickening at the thought of a way forward.

  “A tattoo,” Jake says, coming back down the hall. His steps are slow, measured. His face ashen. Jake shows me the picture. It’s one of those snapshots they hang in tattoo shops showing off their work. The top and bottom of the picture still has tape residue left on it. It’s brittle with age and faded, but the photo is of the back of a man’s neck.

  Scrolling artwork creates an oval of sorts, just below his hairline. It’s about three inches wide, all told. Within the oval, inked in heavy cursive, is the name Jessica Rose.

  It means nothing to me. I flip the picture over. “Evil Deeds Tattoo Parlor” is stamped on the back along with an address in northwest Portland.

  Men loved darkness instead of light, because their deeds were evil.

  I’ve just guzzled a glass of water, but my mouth goes dry, my tongue like sandpaper. I tell myself I’m okay. I’ve seen crazy stuff before. This isn’t anything to be shocked by. But I drain another glass of water, and another.

  “This was in the chest?”

  Jake nods, his hands in tight fists upon the counter.

  “You know this tattoo parlor? You recognize the name?”

  “No,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what?”

  But Jake says nothing. I lift his arm and step between him and the counter, forcing him to look at me. The celestial light that had shone there is gone, and it’s those green and brown eyes that stare back at me. Flesh. Not spirit.

  But they still give me butterflies.

  “Jessica Rose was my mother.”

  My stomach clenches. It’s like a miniature hunter just fired buckshot at the butterflies flitting about inside.

  “I thought you didn’t know your last name.”

  “I don’t. I mean, if Rose was her last name, she listed something else on my birth certificate. There’s no record of a Jessica Rose giving birth in Oregon the year I was born.”

  “Then how do you know she’s your mother?”

  “It’s one of the few things I remember. My dad slamming doors, screaming “Jessica Rose” whenever he was angry. Maybe it was her middle name or a nickname. I don’t know.”

  Of all the things the Throne Room could have sent, of all the ways He could have answered our prayers for Marco, this is what we’re given: a picture of a man’s neck with Jake’s mother’s name tattooed on it.

  I shake my head, trying to rid myself of the thought growing there. Of the certainty that this is our way forward. They’re ridiculous, the words I’m about to say—bec
ause I need him here. I’m on unsteady ground as it is. With my dad and these nightmares. With the halo gone and Marco gallivanting about with Olivia. With the Celestial sliding in and out of view.

  But I say them anyway.

  “You have to go.” I flip the photo again and read. “Evil Deeds Tattoo Parlor, NW 23rd. We prayed, and God gave us this.”

  “I don’t want to leave you here without Canaan or the halo. Not with the nightmares, Elle.”

  “I adore the halo and Canaan’s a rock star, but neither of them can stop the dreams. You need to go. And Helene’s here.”

  “Are you sure? You’ll be okay if I leave?”

  I want to tell him, “No, stupid. Of course I won’t be okay if you leave.” But I don’t. I remind him about the sketch in Ali’s journal and the scripture written on the page.

  “You have to go,” I say again.

  Jake leans in and presses his face to mine, the contours of our cheekbones curving perfectly together. “I’ll go because it’s the answer we’ve been praying for. But so you know, I’d rather stay.”

  I can’t go with him. We both know that. Not with my dad so unstable and the possibility that Marco could return.

  “I’d rather you stay too.”

  My heart bangs in my chest at his closeness, at the heat between us, at the promise of a future together. I think it’s trying to break through—my heart—trying to be closer to the man in front of me.

  I know just how it feels.

  Close just doesn’t seem close enough anymore.

  It’s another few minutes before he moves, but it’s still far too soon.

  He grazes my bottom lip with his thumb. “I’m going to go throw a few things in my bag.”

  “Marco’s bag, you mean?”

  “Yeah, Marco’s bag.”

  He kisses me lightly and leaves me leaning against the kitchen counter. I’m still standing there holding the photo when he crosses the hall with Marco’s bag and heads to his room.

  I follow him down the hall, wanting to savor the last few minutes before he leaves. I’d help him pack, but I can’t ever find a thing in his room. Still, I can sit in the mess and watch.

  I pass Canaan’s room, and that woodsy, outdoor smell tickles my nose. I stop and take two steps backward. It’s coming from the chest. Jake must’ve left the lid ajar. I step into the room and take the five and a half steps necessary to reach the end of the bed.

  I look down, but the chest’s not open.

  Huh.

  Still, the fragrance is stronger than ever before, and an overwhelming need to see inside the thing pulls me to my knees. My hands are slick with sweat, so I rub them on my shorts before I shove the lid to the ground.

  The first time I had the lead in a ballet was when I was eight years old. I was confident, bordering on cocky, really, and I had zero fear. But when that spotlight hit me and the world faded to black, when I could see nothing beyond that small circle, the terror crept in.

  Just as it’s doing now.

  There is nothing beyond this circle of fear. Nothing in the world but me and Damien’s dagger—Damien’s bloody dagger—and the unmistakable absence of a sterling silver jewelry box.

  A jewelry box with my initials on it.

  With my . . . my ring inside it.

  Tremors shake my body, but I reach inside the black chest. I wrap my hand around the dagger and lift it.

  And I see with celestial eyes. But just the fear. It curls down my arm in chilling lines of black dread.

  “I can explain,” Jake says.

  “Where’s the ring?” I ask, biting my lip to keep it from trembling.

  “Elle . . .”

  “Where’s the ring?”

  There’s so much fear in the room. It drips from Jake and crawls toward me, and I know the answer before he’s said it.

  “It’s gone.”

  I drop the dagger. It falls into the chest, but I don’t hear it hit the bottom. I hear nothing but the rushing of blood in my ears, the thundering of my own heart.

  It’s gone.

  Like the halo. Like Marco.

  Like Ali.

  Like my mom.

  Like her body.

  So this is what he’s been hiding. This is what has fear nesting in his heart.

  “When?” I ask.

  “December.”

  Just after the warehouse, then. I shove away from the chest and draw my knees up under my chin.

  “You’ve been lying to me for seven months?”

  “I haven’t lied . . .”

  “Don’t even . . . ,” I say, staring at him with every bit of vehemence I can muster.

  “Elle,” he says, bravely stepping toward me.

  “‘I haven’t lied,’” I mock, doing an awful impression of Jake. “And my dad didn’t actually say that my mother was in the casket he buried either. But I assumed. We’ve talked about it, Jake! About the ring. About . . . us. I believed you.”

  “I should have told you.”

  Understatement. Of. The. Year.

  “And the dagger?”

  “I noticed it the same day the ring disappeared.”

  I curl into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest. Before I can stop them, tears roll down my cheeks.

  “I didn’t know things could disappear from the chest.”

  Jake kneels in front of me and takes my face in his hands. “Neither did I. Neither did Canaan.”

  I let myself sob. I shouldn’t. I should be strong. But I’m so tired of being strong.

  “What does it mean?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, and I pinch my eyes shut, willing him to speak. These quiet, thoughtful moments of his drive me crazy sometimes. But when I open my eyes, I see the fear. With celestial eyes I see it. Crawling like a train of conjoined ants from my chin, up his arm, and across his chest.

  I’ve unleashed fear on him.

  And I hate myself for it. But he lied to me.

  Jake lied to me.

  “I don’t know,” Jake says. “I don’t know what it means. Nothing, I hope.”

  “It has to mean something,” I say.

  “I just hoped they’d put it back. The Thrones. That whatever we’d done or didn’t do would somehow get undone, and when I opened the chest one day the ring would be right there where it belongs.”

  “Is that possible?” I ask, my mind reeling at the thought. “Did we do something to . . . change the Throne Room’s mind?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, his voice raw. “And I hate not knowing.”

  I see the truth of it in his eyes. How much he hates that he can’t fix this.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry,” he says. “I didn’t want you to be afraid.”

  I take a breath. Deep and rattling.

  “But I am. I am afraid. Every day. And now I know you can lie to me. You. The one person I thought would never mess with my emotions.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “But you did. The truth is supposed to set you free, right? Isn’t that what you told me?”

  He’s crying now, his face red, his eyes pleading. But he’s broken me, and I don’t know how to undo that. How do I trust him when I know he can lie so easily? So expertly.

  I stand, needing to move, needing to shake the fear from my body.

  “All you had to do was tell the truth, Jake. That the Thrones made a mistake. That God changed His mind. That we don’t get a happily-ever-after.”

  “It may not mean that.”

  “I think it does. And so do you. Because if you didn’t, you would have told me.”

  I want him to have an answer. I need him to. But the only thing pouring from Jake is fear, and I have enough of my own to deal with.

  I leave him there on the floor and walk out the door with the tattered remains of my heart. I may never piece it all back together, but I don’t have to give it to a liar either.

  It’s mine. And I’ll take it with me.
/>
  28

  Brielle

  The remnants of a nightmare tumble around in my brain when I wake the next morning, but it’s not the girl I think of. Not Olivia. I think of Jake—of the fear spilling onto the floor and the tears falling from his eyes. I think of all the angry words I threw at him last night and crawl back under the covers.

  The ring is gone.

  And Damien’s dagger . . .

  Why would the Throne Room send that? Why?

  It’s a warning, it has to be. Like the halo flaming at Olivia’s touch, the dagger is a terrible warning. And Jake’s kept it from me for . . . well, for far too long.

  And now Damien’s here, in Stratus. I know he is. The strange flashes I’ve been getting of the Celestial, Damien behind me on Main, fingers dragging through my hair. How could he have gotten that close?

  I kick the covers off the bed and reach for my phone. Where is my phone? It’s not on my bedside table. Not on my windowsill. I drop to the floor and search under my bed, under the desk, in last night’s pants.

  I need to call Helene.

  “Elle!”

  Dad is yelling, pounding around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, banging down cups or bowls or . . . hammers on the counter.

  I’ll use his phone.

  “Elle, you up?”

  “Yeah, Dad. Be there in a sec!” I rummage through my drawers, coming up with a pair of black shorts and a slouchy tank I’d worn once for a photo shoot. It’s wrinkled from my poor treatment of it, but I feel more pulled together, more in control now that I’m out of my jammies and wearing something that was designed with such care.

  Like me.

  I run my hands over my stomach, willing it to unclench.

  I’m fine. I am. If Damien had wanted me he could have had me. I was there for the taking. I close my eyes and breathe. I think of Canaan and Helene. I think of the Sabres, whose presence I hear from time to time.

  There are more fighting for me than those fighting against.

  I think of Jake. How can I not? He’s the one who introduced me to this world, but thinking of him makes my hands shake, so I shove that thought aside and walk to the kitchen. I’m not going to panic. I’m not going to freak out my dad. I’m going to find a phone and call Helene.