A Slither of Hope

by Lisa M Basso

Rayna

  Mom had been admitted to a mental hospital. Her, not me. Well, me too. But her first. How did I not know our family had a history of mental illness? Dad must have had a thing for sending difficult women away when he couldn’t handle them any longer. Or Mom committed herself.

  The other pages must still be in the safe. Which meant I now needed to get into that safe twice as desperately.

  The lock to the front door snapped back. I folded the paper twice and stuffed it between the pages of my book, still in my jacket pocket. Footsteps clacked into the foyer. Someone was in the hall, coming toward Dad’s office.

  I slid across the floor and tucked myself into a corner.

  “Laylah? Are you home?”

  Instinct and memory had the voice ringing in my ear. “Mom?” It came out less than a whisper. It had been so many years since she was gone, but I’d know that voice anywhere.

  Laylah’s heavy steps thundered down the stairs. “Ray?”

  I stilled, heart hammering.

  “No, sweetie, it’s me. I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier. I couldn’t get a flight out so I had to drive up.”

  I inched out of my corner, crawling toward the doorway when it smacked me like a tangle of thorns. Mom was dead. She’d been insane for years then she died mysteriously, facedown in a puddle that shouldn’t have existed off the side of a highway during an Arizona summer.

  Aunt Nora. Geez. She sounded so much like Mom.

  I measured my disappointment and crawled the rest of the way to the open door. I hadn’t seen my aunt in almost half a year. A floorboard squeaked beneath my hand.

  “What was that?” Aunt Nora asked, her voice high.

  I held as still as I could with my legs shaking beneath me.

  “Probably nothing,” Laylah said, covering for me.

  “Are you sure, because it sounded like—”

  “The park across the street is under construction. There’s been nothing but noise for a week.” She sighed. “I’m so glad you came.”

  Angling my neck forward, I dared a peek around the door molding. Aunt Nora’s bright blond hair, styled stick-straight, hung over her shoulder as she leaned down to hug Laylah. Even in profile, she looked so much like Mom. Hazel eyes, a dainty nose, and soft cheekbones.

  She held Laylah at arm’s length then waved her toward the stairs. “We’ll get through this. Go get dressed then we’ll talk.” Aunt Nora, always thinking about clothes. I recognized her tawny overcoat with the flowered belt as one from her very successful fall line.

  “But,” Laylah started.

  “It’s okay. Go.” Aunt Nora waved her hands at my sister, who risked a glance at me before heading for the stairs. My aunt was the only woman I knew who could command a sinking ship to sea with little more than three words and a hand gesture.

  I stood up, using Laylah’s footsteps to cover the sound.

  Aunt Nora leaned against the dining room table, arms crossed and breathing uneven. Her skin took on an awful pallor. “Laylah?” she called out loud enough for my sister to hear upstairs. “Why did you think I was Ray? Have you heard from her?”

  My heart jumped into my throat, nearly chocking me.

  “What? No. Of course not!”

  I drew my thumb over the pages of the book in my jacket, stopping at Mom’s psychiatric admittance paperwork.

  So many lies.

  My phone rang, practically screeching from my back pocket. I jumped up.

  Aunt Nora turned. “Ray?”

  I bolted out of Dad’s office and to the back door, the air fluttering through my wings.

  “Ray, wait!” Aunt Nora called, following after me.

  I flung the back door open, jumping onto the second step and out into the yard. The first step bowed so much it could throw you off balance if you weren’t careful. Aunt Nora’s heel grated on the wood followed by a light thump—the stair doing its job. Thankfully she didn’t tumble down after me. It just slowed her down.

  Fresh, crisp air stung my cheeks in greeting as I hightailed it toward the lowest fence in the yard. Before I hopped the fence I dared one glance behind me. My former garden was as bare as everywhere else. Even the park across the street had been demolished. Every living thing was failing to survive. Not the botanicals, not me, not Laylah, or Dad. We were all on our way out, thanks to me.

  I climbed on a potted plant and pulled myself over the fence, and the next and the next until I found a gate to the main street behind mine.

  Glancing quickly at my phone, I saw a text message along with the missed call. The text was signed Lee.

  ***

  The few tears I’d cried on my way back to Kade’s had long since dried, but my skin pulled tight where the streaks had run. I was so tired by the time I climbed all four flights of stairs that I didn’t even look when I opened the door and sat down on the bed. The drapes were drawn and the room sat quiet and still. Silence. Exactly what I needed.

  I kicked off my sneakers, stripped off my jacket, scooted back against the headboard, and curled my knees to my chest.

  Relax, just relax. Nothing can get worse than what you went through yesterday.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The light on the other side of the bed clicked on and I jerked. Kade sat in the chair by the window.

  “What the hell are you doing sitting in the dark? Trying to stage another screwed up attack?” I accused.

  “I could ask you the same thing.” He paused for a beat, looking away from me. “Where were you, anyway?”

  “Where do you think I was, visiting Gum Drop Alley?” It fired out of my mouth before I could think twice about it.

  Now would have been a good time to tell him about my dad’s accident and Cam’s return. It was stuff he should probably know. But I had no room in my head to sort anything else out today. “I was out, okay? You do it all the time.”

  “I’m different. I’m not the one with gray wings that—”

  “Could we not right now? No wings. Not today.” I stared straight ahead, just above the black screen of the TV.

  “Everything okay?”

  Those words, they were unfair. Of course not. Nothing was okay. They even sounded ridiculous coming from him. “I—yeah—no. Whatever.” I swallowed against the new throb in my head. “But no. Not even close.”

  The chair springs groaned when he left his recliner and crossed the small room.

  “Don’t.” My voice stopped him on the other side of the bed. “Just don’t.”

  He stood over the bed for so long I began to hope I’d pissed him off enough to leave again. It would be better that way for both of us. Then he sat down on the corner of the bed. “What happened this time?” His soft sigh was new, different. Almost defeated.

  So much for coming home to some peace.

  Home. I fought the instinct to roll my eyes.

  “Did you know that my mom was in a mental institution?”

  The mom topic. Whenever I brought it up he either stiffened or his shoulders sank. I couldn’t tell which it incited this time.

  “Well, did you or didn’t you? I don’t need the damn silent treatment. Just tell me what you know.”

  “No.”

  I startled at his answer, soft and almost non-existent.

  “This was after Laylah and I were born. I thought you checked up on her.” That was what he’d told me a while back, when Az was wreaking havoc and taking lives at my high school. But truthfulness wasn’t a given with Kade.

  “I did look in on her, on all of you, but only the times I told you about.” He paused. I could almost hear the grinding of gears as the tiny, unused emotional part of his brain kicked on like an old furnace. “I didn’t know.”

  On this, I trusted him. If he had known, I’d like to think I’d be able to tell.

  “That still doesn’t explain where you were.” His voice, renewed with a rough tone, caught me off guard. The news about his precious Kay must have seriously put him on edge.

  “
I said I don’t want to talk about it. Period.” I couldn’t handle the sound of another rushing wave, the feeling of falling into the same watery death Mom had met her end in—sort of—or the green lights of Hell that haunted my dreams. And if I opened up to him, they would swallow me up.

  “I was worried about you. Don’t you understand that? You’re sixteen! You didn’t call, and…”

  His voice droned on in the background. I tucked my head into my knees and blocked out his words, hearing only the loud, angry tone of his voice.

  I tried to whisk myself away to a quieter place in my mind so I wasn’t reminded of where I used to be, where the yelling never stopped—a place similar, probably, to where Mom once was.

  Kade’s calloused fingers latched onto my arm, just below the sleeve of my t-shirt, jerking me back to reality. “Are you even listening to me, Ray?”

  “Worried?” The word he used earlier finally trickled into my brain. He cared enough to worry. Maybe enough to have meant what he’d said the other night.

  “My dad was in an accident. He’s in the hospital. In critical condition.” I let the words tumble from my mouth, desperate to send my thoughts in another direction.

  His hands fell from my skin. “What happened? You didn’t go there, did you?”

  “Of course I did.” He turned toward me, ire finding light in his deep brown eyes. “He’s my father. I had to.” Guessing what he was thinking, I added, “I didn’t get recognized and I was smart enough to pose as my sister’s friend.”

  “Your sister recognized you, though.”

  “She wouldn’t turn me in. I’m all she’s got right now.” Well, and Aunt Nora, but that wasn’t the point. Laylah wouldn’t send me away, not now.

  “But you could have been seen. Why do you always make things so difficult?” This new, overbearing attitude of his was off-putting, and not in his usual, I’m-charmingly-off-putting-just-to-boil-your-blood sort of way. This was something entirely different… It reminded me of the way he acted the night he touched me on the roof, the way he held me. Just the thought of it made my arms prickle with goose bumps.

  “I stuck it out for you.” He fired at me with both barrels: two dark, hauntingly brown eyes. “I made sure you were safe here, flipped my entire existence on its ear to—”

  When he turned to the side, a dark mark on his neck caught my eye. It was too red to be a fresh bruise, not the right shape for scratches, and I doubted Fallen Ones could get rashes. There was only one other option: a hickey. One he hadn’t had the night we’d been nose-to-nose on the roof. I would have noticed it then. A flush of anger heated the tips of my ears so fast they must have been glowing. He’d tried to twist my emotions by telling me that he cared, but sometime within the last two nights he’d found another girl.

  Switching himself off was just that easy for him. If he’d ever cared at all.

  My heart ground in my chest, physically affected by the sight of that hickey. I balled my hand into a fist at my side while I decided what to do with it.

  Dad and I used to play chess a lot. Me being stubborn, I refused to listen to his suggestions. That strategy resulted in me losing. A lot.

  If life was chess, Kade had made his move. Knight to F2. Check. Which meant it was time for me to make mine, and after losing to my dad so many times, I read a book on chess strategies. Then I read two. Kade had flown too close to the sun this time. I moved my queen in for the kill.

  “Cam’s back.”

  Checkmate.

  For the blink of an eye, the stars illuminating the room from his wings twinkled a little brighter.

  Strained moments passed. I wondered if I should have felt something—regret, guilt, something.

  “Good. Let him handle you from now on.” He stalked out the door, slamming it behind him.

  Numbness hummed through every cell in my body.

  Chapter Nine

  Kade

  Camael was back. Well, good for Ray. She’d been depressed when he left the first time. There were only so many outcomes this time. One: he’d leave again and I’d be left picking up the pieces. Two: he’d Fall for her which would either leave him stuck with us or her gone. Three: she was going to die this time.

  I wish I could say I didn’t care.

  Hate boiled my blood down deep into my bones. He was back for a reason, and I guess it was up to me to figure it out. That meant getting in contact with people I’d rather stay a continent away from.

  I was so epically screwed.

  Flipping out my cell phone, I thumbed through the contacts, stopping at the S’s. Without giving myself another second to puss out, I pressed the call button and waited.

  “What?” Sorath answered, his voice bringing back decades of forgotten memories.

  “Sorath.”

  “Kasade! You old soul-lecher. How’ve you been, brother?”

  “It’s good to hear your voice.”

  He barked out a steady stream of laughter. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Kasade. To what do I owe this magnanimous call?”

  “I need some info. Heard some tales of angels in the States. Was wondering what you and your trackers could tell me about that.”

  “Information comes at a price.”

  One I was well aware of.

  “I’m not offering up my life just yet, or my location, but anything you could tell me would be helpful.”

  “I know you’re in the States now. That’s more information than I had yesterday. Head to your nearest major city. Fallen have meetings all the time. Recruitment and intelligence-gathering. I can’t promise you confirmed information from a group I’m not a part of, but a meeting is a good place to start. Try church basements. Think AA for Fallen.”

  Staying away from those meetings had always been priority one on my agenda. Just because of Camael’s arrival I was supposed to give up my location, the one I’d been bouncing around to keep secret for more than fifteen years? Doubtful. If I could listen in on a meeting without actually being there, that would be something.

  “Thanks for the heads up, Sorath.”

  “We’re brothers, Kasade. My door is always open. And now that I have your number, I’ll be keeping in touch.”

  A number I’d be changing the first chance I got. Finding another burner cell with a New York area code wasn’t going to be easy from three thousand miles away, but it sure wasn’t impossible.

  I spent the rest of the night on foot, searching every church basement for a light on or a door open. Finally, halfway across town in a residential neighborhood buried deep in the Sunset District, I spotted a pair of black wings casting a shadow on to the sidewalk. With my back against the wall beside the window, I tried to listen in. Too bad the three guys inside weren’t anything like Sorath—unbelievably loud with a mouth that wouldn’t quit.

  There were other Fallen in San Francisco, and I’d found their meeting place. If they met every night then I was less than twenty-four hours from finding out all the goods a defector of Lucifer’s army shouldn’t know.

  “Let me guess.” A fellow Fallen One coasted down from the roof, landing in front of me. “You’re shy.”

  I pressed down on my heels to keep from lunging at him. There were three more inside. If I attacked this one I’d be dead before sunrise. “Cautious,” I corrected.

  “Understandable.” He took a step back. Breathing room. Smart boy. “Let me make a guesstimation. You have too much time on your hands. You’ve been topside for a long time, alone. And you miss the togetherness of being part of a brotherhood.”

  Brotherhood. What a joke.

  Even as I thought this, the core of me tugged a fishing wire around my cursed heart.

  That thread of power, inserted the night my heart was, was the real reason Fallen never lasted long on their own. We’re hardwired from the day we Fall to step in line. It’s been a near miracle that I’ve been able to fight it for so long.

  “Curious what they’re talking about?” The Fallen ambled closer, tilting his head t
oward the basement window and the group of Fallen Anonymous.

  “Maybe.”

  “The gist: a wingless Azriel—I’m sure you know of Azriel—has been spinning stories in the nine circles, about a girl with the ability to see our kind and the angels. Nuts, right?”

  Azriel. The last name I wanted to hear. If he was spilling that tale to anyone willing to listen, that was probably the reason they went after Ray’s father: to draw her out in the open.

  “Why tell me?”

  “Like it or not, you’re one of us. War is coming, and it seems this girl is at the epicenter.”

  War? Did he just say war?

  He looked me over. “That’s news to you. There’s more where that came from. Why not come inside?”

  His invitation strengthened the pull drawing me to him, and to the Fallen Anonymous meeting.

  “Your name, brother?”

  My pulse skipped like a human kid playing hopscotch. I avoided his eyes, though doing that brought my attention back to the meeting. I answered with a shake of my head.

  “There’s never been a better time to get in on the ground floor. You won’t be able to skirt sides for much longer. Join us. Lucifer’s gathering his troops. We need this girl. Once we have her, it’ll only be a matter of time before we exterminate the angels and rule the Earth once again.”

  Buckets of shit. What was I going to tell Ray?

  I pushed off the wall and started walking. As far away from there as I could get.

  He made no move to come after me. Probably because he knew the chaos he’d started within me. “Just know we’re here,” he called after me. “Every night!”

  The farther away I got, the tighter the knot in my chest pulled. Tighter, tighter, crushing the only organ my body needed to survive. It begged me to go back, to join my brothers, to end my painful isolation.

  The last time I was surrounded by Fallen hadn’t ended well for the nearby humans.

  Never. Stop. Fighting.

  Sorry, Ray. No way I was ever visiting another Fallen meeting. Not even if her life depended on it.

  Chapter Ten

  Rayna

  Another sleepless night. Too much swam around in my head. My phone rang. I checked the number. Barb, my boss at Smelly Brews. I buried my face in the pillow and let the call go to voicemail. She left a message.