“You’re awake!” she cried out, squeezing his neck too as he tried to get his bearings.
“Where are we?” he asked, though she realized it was only in her head. He was clearly having some trust issues after being picked up by a group of angels that looked like they were bringing the ‘end of days’.
“I don’t know,” she told him as the others looked at her strangely for speaking when she wasn't spoken to. “Umm, hello, telepath here,” she reminded them rolling her eyes and pointing to Tanner. Alex laughed, but Nick looked at them with a peculiarly odd look.
“So, you can talk with your mind, and I can move things with mine?” he asked with his eyebrow raised.
“I am guessing you are Nick,” Tanner said, sizing him up accordingly, and Carlie shot him a look.
“That’s me.”
“C’mon, come sit on the bed with us, and let’s figure this out,” Carlie offered, getting up and taking Tanner’s hand. She could feel his hesitancy and hoped that the psychic thing went both ways with him, that he was always listening in on her now. “I am fine. You don’t need to worry. And he is one of us now. Please.” She fixed him with her stare, and he became more pliable as they all gathered on that mattress, like a camp pow wow. Only, they were clearly not going to be having a lot of fun from what Carlie guessed.
They all stayed a little too silent until Carlie was forced to break it. “So, do you think we’re like dead or what?” she asked, bouncing her shoulders up and down as a collective groan came from the others.
“I still vote no, on that,” Alex piped up. “Not just because I feel too much to be dead but also because they could have just killed us right then and there, in Kingsbridge, if they wanted to. They must want or need us for something. That's what I felt. I think they might help us.”
Nick scoffed and shook his head, not at all to Carlie’s surprise. She got the feeling he was always the skeptic of any situation. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news guys, but the thing is even though it was kind of like a fun freaking ride to fly with the angels and all generally, a whole group of avenging angels doesn't come and pick you up to have you help them.”
The group of teens went suddenly quiet, considering what Nick had said. Carlie did not want to say it because she was always the light-hearted one with the optimistic view, but he was probably right. There may have been some kind of use for them, but she doubted that they had good intentions, especially from what she had heard in conversations about the Revenant from Amon and Oryx.
“So, what now?” Alex asked, keeping them on task as always. Carlie looked around the room again and noted the window. It didn't look like anything special, but maybe it was time to look outside and see where the heck they were. She got up and went over to it, starting to open it, pushing at it with the palms of her hands. Tanner came over to help her, lending his strength. The other two watched from the bed. Perhaps it was a lack of curiosity or just plain fear preventing them from getting closer, in case the angels or bats or whatever was waiting for them to come flying through it.
Once that window was open, and she surveyed the area outside, she stepped back with a shriek while Tanner stood there stunned. They found themselves staring out at what could only be described as something out of one of those Armageddon films.
“Holy shit! What happened here?” Carlie exclaimed as she dared to take a step back toward the window, trying to make sense of what was around them. She had no idea how in the world they were in a structure in the middle of that chaos still alive, without the building being on fire. Having seen for miles, everything was completely burnt down; a world destroyed. They were clearly not home anymore. Was there a different planet, a Universe on a completely different plane, like Hell or Heaven? There was no way to tell. But the place was dying. No, it was already dead, and the dead were fanning the flames that seemed to go on forever.
“This is not what you would expect to see when picked up by angels, that's for darn sure,” she said shaking her head. She was not happy with this. Then she looked at the front of the room where she spotted a door just barely noticeable. Its white color blended in with the rest of the room. Even the knob was white. Whether it was meant to trick them to keep them inside she wasn’t sure, but she had to try to get out of there. She had never felt such fear of claustrophobia in her life.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Tanner and Alex said in unison as she approached the door, yanking it open. She didn't have time to process or think about what was waiting for her on the other side. There was an angel, probably a guard of some sort, standing there in all his glory. He was shirtless, of course, with those tattoos on him and bright white wings to mark him as part of the Revenant.
The angel turned around and gave a smirk just as she walked out the door. There she was filled with a painful electrical current, something she had never felt. The pain was so extreme that she was unable to move, talk, or even scream. She fell to the ground seizing, as the angel began to laugh. “I don't know exactly what you expected to happen when you tried to leave a room you’re held as a prisoner in and an angel is standing guard out here. It’s mighty funny to watch you squirm.”
All of a sudden, Nick got up as if to launch at this angel. He was completely blinded by rage to see Carlie in the state she was in and the angel supposed to be some kind of saving grace standing over her with a sneer. Tanner now jumped up to pull him back, knowing exactly what would happen if he stepped over the threshold of that door. Tanner dragged Nick back to the back of the room as Alex stood over Carlie's body, hoping to help her stand.
“You can't just keep us here all our lives without telling us why we're here. How long we been here, and how long will we be here?” Alexandra demanded, taking charge as always. Carlie could hear everything that was going on, but she couldn't bring herself to move. She didn't know if it was because of injuries incurred, because of whatever power the guard used on her, or if it was fear. Was this what the fear of God felt like? If it was, she didn't like it one bit, and she wasn't sure why it was being used basically on children picked to try to save their world at that.
“I don't owe you any explanation. Our leader will talk to you when he's ready to talk to you, but he has more important matters to deal with, you know like, protecting the rest of the humans. You know, since you guys can't seem to take care of yourself. The famine, death, wars, evil people; the list never ends, does it?”
Carlie was shocked at his statement; wasn’t he supposed to be a light angel? Did they say things like that? Could they?
Perhaps her assessment of Amon was not the wrong one. Perhaps the dark angels, regardless of whatever it was they had been punished for, were the good guys. But she didn’t dare say that and run into anymore danger for them. She needed to meet the leader and access what was actually going on. She doubted it would give them any brownie points if they continued to argue with whoever this angel was.
She heard Alex slam the door shut in his face, motioning for the guys to get her into the bed. She waited anxiously as they took extra care placing her on the bed. Alex watched over her for the rest of the day, or night, if there was any kind of time there at all.
Chapter 3
I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, that things are never black and white, things are very much shades of grey. ~Brian Molko
CARLIE’S eyes fluttered open, but it was not easy to open them. In fact, it felt like they were glued shut. She didn't know how long it had been since she was zapped by that angel, but she found that Nick was by her side, watching over her. “Carlie?” Nick asked as she tried to sit up. She nodded because she couldn’t get her dry throat to work to answer right now. But as she took a deep breath, all the strange feelings she had in her body, all the pain, the stiffness, and the dryness went away. It was like magic.
“I'm here, I'm fine.” Carlie began to look around the room for Tanner because he was probably worried sick. “Does anyone know how long I've been out?�
� Carlie asked as she was getting her bearings.
“We started trying to count the days after you passed out,” Alex spoke up. “We have no way to write it down anywhere, so we are keeping track the best we can in our heads. It has been possibly three days.”
Carlie shook her head, unable to fathom what that meant. Three days plus however long they were out before, and they had had no food or water at all. Yeah, she thought, as her hand went instinctively over her stomach. She was sure by now it would begin to hurt or growl, but there was nothing. There was no thirst, no hunger, and now no pain. She looked to Alex who had been in pain the first day when they had awoken. “Alex, how do you feel? Still feel too human?”
Alex shook her head slowly. “If you mean to say do I still hurt, the answer is no. I do not.”
“What is it you're thinking?” Tanner asked, finally able to speak up.
"What he did to me, it hurt. It should still hurt. And have any of us eaten? Have we drank anything? We should be dead, guys, so friggin dead. Are we dead?" Carlie began to ask, getting up to pace back and forth; absolutely no long-term damage from what she could tell.
"No, we are not dead,” Tanner said at last. "Look, I have tried to read the minds of the angels, and I can't. I don't know if it's that they have a block, are different, if I don't have the practice, but I just know it. I know that we are not dead. We can't keep freaking ourselves out going back and forth on the matter. We need to stick together. Now, I say we think up something, a way to get any information at all out of that poor excuse for an angel standing guard out there. Even if he just tells us where we are, it would be more of an advantage than we have now."
Carlie allowed his arms to wrap around her in a hug, but she caught Nick's eyes on them, then he turned quickly away. She thought she saw a hint of something odd there, or maybe she was imagining it because how great would it be to connect to someone else like her? It was too good to be true, and her heart thumped in betrayal as she tried to turn away from him and forget.
"I have an idea, but no one is going to like it," Nick spoke up, and Carlie crossed her arms over her chest defensively as she sized him up alongside Tanner this time.
"And what is that?" Tanner asked in an accusatory tone. If Carlie didn't know any better, she would think they were locked in some kind of testosterone laden battle, but really, she knew Tanner was being protective of her. He must not have liked the vibe he got from Nick. Carlie had to admit that Nick was a bit of a wild card. Because he was like them, she wanted to just let go of that and trust him. It wasn't about the color of his skin or the fact that he was from the bad side of town. It was more about his attitude and the lack of instant camaraderie like they had with Alex. And he was always such a downer about everything. And there was the way he had just used his power out in the open without thinking first. She still didn't know what to make of that.
Nick instinctually bit his thumb, chewing on the nail, as the others looked at him, waiting on his answer. He knew he was the odd man out here, had known since he woke up and had this Tanner guy glaring at him like, ‘you done something wrong’. He was used to being that. Kingsbridge, that's how it was, too. He was always expected to be some criminal, and it turned out that everyone was right about that. He was desperate. He had to. When you call someone a name for so long, they are bound to turn out that way, whether or not they were that way to begin with. But it wasn't like anyone else was volunteering any answers.
“So, that guy has to watch us as long as we're here? We might as well make use of him. We may not be able to step beyond these four walls, but we could drive him crazy. He's going to have to talk to us because we're going to bombard him with our questions, so he won't have a choice. But we will never step out of the house so that he can't hurt us.”
Nick waited for a response and got mostly silence.
That was, until Tanner butt in yet again like he seemed to always do. Nick kept surveying the way that Tanner and Carlie were together and was confused by the relationship. They never kissed or did anything that was meant to be intimate, and yet they revolved around each other like satellites. The leaps Carlie made into Tanner's lap never turned into anything more. What was going on with these two? “So, you think that we can bet on the fact that the angel won't hurt us just because we don't step out of this room? I find it hard to believe that if we purposely annoy an angel, he won't smite us.”
Nick was about ready to speak up and find out what this guy's beef was. But then Carlie herself stepped up. “I think it may be the only way. We have to at least try.” Nick couldn't help but notice the way her hand landed on each of their chests as if she was certain if she didn't do that they would start using their fists instead of their brains to settle whatever score it is they had.
Tanner's lips went tight but said nothing else on the matter as he threw his hands in the air in defeat.
It was Nick himself who went up first, thinking that he had the best chance to annoy the ever-living crap out of this angel guard. He decided to tell him jokes, sins in his life, and anything else he could think of that would get a reaction. The others watched as he was certain that he would be able to complete this deed, but despite the fact that he was not killed or harmed in any way by the angel, he was also ignored.
Nick continued with the rest, to help count the days, so they wouldn't lose their minds entirely. It was some type of link to his home, if he even had a home. Could he even be calling this home? It felt like he didn't have that sense of home the same way the rest of them did. Yes, he missed his family dearly and worried about them every day, but for the most part Kingsbridge. the cesspool of the rock, they were spinning on, was not a place that had been good to him. So, he was just as lost as ever now, nothing new at all.
***
Carlie began to toss and turn in the bed that she shared with Alex. She was so tempted to switch with someone so that she didn't cause so much trouble to Alex. Maybe her and Tanner should sleep up there together, or she could go to sleep by herself, somewhere like on the chair or on the cot. This was a nightly occurrence. Well, she was not sure what was day and what was night. They had to set bedtimes for themselves because of this destroyed world. Suns and moons didn't come up or go down in any pattern at all.
Carlie hated her nightmares, but thank goodness they were not the kind that were going to come true. In fact, she felt a little off that she had not had any of her astral projections in a long time. It could have been, she supposed, the angels were blocking such powers while they were on the premises.
As she promptly worked herself into a sleep state of some kind, she was immediately startled back awake, sitting straight up on the bed. She was certain she had heard a knock at the door. The entire time they had been there, there had never been a knock on that door, not even from the annoying guard that had been there this whole time. Unsure whether or not she should answer it, she shoved Alex to wake her up.”Pssst, pssst,” she said. She was rocking Alex's body back and forth until finally Alex rolled off the bed and onto the floor.
Carlie peeked over the edge and smiled apologetically as she watched Alex stand up and rub her hip. “What the heck was that all about?” Alex asked. She would not have to wait for an answer. The knock came again. Both girls stared at the door as if they knew for certain that there was a giant monster on the other side of it. “What do you think it means?” Alex asked, as if Carlie would actually know the answer to that.
Carlie shrugged. “I haven't even used my power since we got here, whenever that was. I have absolutely no idea. I only know I did not want to answer the door by myself.” Carlie glared at both boys who were sleeping pretty soundly. Nick was snoring away in the position he was in, rather loudly. She made a note to herself to blame him later for her lack of sleep, even though she knew better.
The girls walked to the door together and slowly opened it ready for some kind of fight. On the other side, they found someone they had never seen before. It was a boy, or at least it appeared to be;
he didn't seem to have any wings to speak of. Not that anything was ever as it seemed anymore.
He was short and muscular with jet black hair and angled eyes. They were a deep brown with little flecks of hazel if you looked really closely. Overall, he was good-looking, but that didn't do anything to soothe Carlie's mind about what he might want. They had been left alone for so long now, why would someone else, all of a sudden, show up at the door?
“I am Gabe. the Revenant sent me here to try to help them, but I took the assignment completely voluntarily. They're not the monsters that you may think, and I have come here to make sure that you understand that. I've come here to help you understand a lot of things. I would like to come in and talk to all of you if I may.”
Carlie turned to Alex for her assessment, and she nodded slowly. So, Carlie opened the door the rest of the way and let Gabe in to come sit on the edge of the bed. The girls proceeded to wake up the guys. Carlie started kicking them in the shin and feet to get them to get out of bed and listen up.
They both eventually sat up with a start, and Gabe introduced himself once more. Carlie was intrigued to hear what he had to say, but she was even more intrigued by the way that Tanner seemed to have his eyes glued to this guy's body. Was Tanner experienced enough to have gaydar, or did he just find this guy irresistible no matter what. Carlie could honestly see both.
“So, who are you then exactly, Gabe?” Nick asked, speaking up like the rest of them were clearly afraid to. Carlie didn't want to say it out loud, but she appreciated it and the healthy skepticism. She couldn't help but think he was some kind of plant; some trick to get in their heads or something, even if he was human. But of course, Alex would surely pick up on it if he was, right?
Carlie didn't know why she seemed to be such a natural leader here, but she was. She had handled everything all alone before they found her. She had been the first to meet an angel. It was all about her.
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