by Jaya Moon
I don’t know how I made it back to Tallow’s nest. One second I was walking away from Dore and Berron, my mind full of things I couldn’t understand or didn’t want to, and the next I stood at the foot of the bed where Tallow and Mox lay.
“Where you been?” Tallow asked, but there wasn’t any anxiety in his voice.
“Had a wash and a walk.” The words barely came out of my mouth. Every moment from this one would be a lie.
Mox stretched. “Coming back to bed?”
I swallowed hard as emotions I couldn’t risk letting myself feel tightened my throat.
“I’m hungry,” I lied.
“Is that so?” Mox replied and grinned.
“Not that kind of hungry.” I tried to sound amused by the sexual innuendo.
Tallow sat up and laughed. How often had I heard him laugh? Not enough. “Let’s find her some food, Mox.”
Mox hummed. “And afterwards dessert?”
“Maybe,” I replied without much conviction.
The day was clear and bright, but I may as well have been wading through a thick fog. In some of my darkest moments, I imagined myself in Lucien’s penthouse. He stood near an open window that I knew wouldn’t exist in his top-story suite. I stood beside him and we looked out over Cincinnati, then I pushed him out through the open window and said, “Fly, fucker,” as I watched him drop.
There were, however, times when I almost forgot what I’d decided to do. Like when Mox, Tallow, and I went down to a river and stripped to bathe. We splashed the cold water at each other, mucked around, and I shrieked and laughed. In those moments everything except there and then disappeared, but it was only a second or two before the truth crashed over me like a tidal wave.
I saw Dore once during the day, Berron twice, but only in passing, and I witnessed Tallow fall into a false sense of security. When he saw they weren’t hounding me, he became more at ease, probably thinking they’d given up on me. Guilt swelled inside me at my planned betrayal.
In the afternoon we went for a walk with Fe and Tareese. Fe, Mox, and Tallow were up ahead, Fe talking loud and fast, as Tareese kept pace beside me. I thanked her for how welcome she’d made me feel and for telling me everything she had about Tallow. I said I was happy—that we were happy. Maybe her motherly instinct that told her something wasn’t right.
“You’re troubled.”
“No, just tired.” I wished my lies were true. Maybe she was the the only one who could convince me not to put myself in danger by trying to save Savannah, but my mind was made up.
Not all the kin had left from the night before. Those who remained came to the lodge at sunset. Once again, the table was laden with food, which we helped ourselves to. I watched the kin interact and knew I would find wonder in it if my mind weren’t preoccupied. I might have even found some warmth in being part of this big family I now knew I belonged to if I wasn’t leaving so soon.
Early in the evening I excused myself, using the same excuse I’d given Tareese—I was tired. I told Mox and Tallow to stay. Although I wanted to be with them every moment I had left at the Eyrie, I also knew if we all went back together to Tallow’s nest together we’d probably end up like we’d been the night before, exploring each other’s bodies for hours. If we did, I wouldn’t be able to leave and wouldn’t want to.
“We’ll see you soon,” Tallow said.
“No rush. Enjoy yourself.”
“Only with you,” Mox joked.
I put one hand on Tallow’s shoulder, the other on Mox’s and swallowed the sadness which threatened to make my eyes well with tears. “Good night.”
Only after I walked through the lodge’s ornate doors and reached halfway to Tallow’s nest did I let down my guard. I blinked away the hot tears that ran down my face but refused to let my emotions overwhelm me. I’d made a decision. I’d chosen this path. Me. So I shouldn’t be crying about it.
As I reached the treehouse trunk, I saw Berron. He strolled toward me and I met him halfway.
I forced my lips into a closed smile at my kind-of stepfather, and he studied me with disdain.
“Later tonight. I don’t know when. Keep an eye out for me. You have a plan, right?” I asked.
“Correct.”
“Some time after Tallow and Mox have gone to sleep then.”
“Bring Mox’s car keys.”
Mox already had his backpack up in the nest, so that would be easy to do.
With the plan in place, I went back to the ladder dangling from the nest and climbed.
When Tallow and Mox returned, I pretended to be asleep. Tallow climbed into the bed on one side, Mox on the other. Both pressed their warm bodies against mine. I lay there, measuring my breaths so they were long and deep and wouldn’t give away I was awake.
I waited what felt like an hour, maybe two to make sure they were fast asleep and pushed aside my welling emotions—the ones that said I didn’t want to leave and urged me to curl into them, close my eyes, and go to sleep surrounded by their desire and safety. There was no going back and, hopefully, one day, Mox and Tallow would understand and forgive me.
When I slid from between them, they stirred but didn’t wake. I slipped on a pair of shorts, a cami, and a shirt and grabbed my backpack, which I’d already put the keys to Mox’s SUV in earlier.
I silently promised I would see them again and didn’t look at them for one last time as I stepped onto the ladder and started down.
17
My eyes were already adjusted to the darkness, so after I put on my socks and hiking boots, it didn’t take me long to locate Berron over near one side of the lodge holding a lantern filled with luminescent fungi.
“You have Mox’s keys?” he asked as I reached him.
I nodded, not wanting even to whisper, concerned my voice might somehow carry up to Tallow’s nest and that Mox and Tallow would be awake and find I wasn’t there. I needed time to slip away before they realized I’d gone. I couldn’t deal with an argument with Tallow. Or Mox.
Berron handed me the lantern and without another word, began to walk away from the lodge up toward the path Mox and I had taken less than forty-eight hours before.
We traveled silently through the forest. I welcomed it because I didn’t want to talk to Berron. He may have once had a connection with my father, but he’d made it clear he hadn’t respected the decisions my parents had made, and I didn’t think we were going to play happy family. I needed his help and wanted nothing more.
The faint illumination from the lantern did little to light our way. Berron often tripped, grumbling and grunting. Walking in human form obviously wasn’t his preferred method to navigate the forest. I chose to think he was being kind and sparing me having to confront him in bear form. He may not have killed my family, but my fear of bears wasn’t something that would evaporate anytime soon. In reality, he probably did it more for convenience, so he’d have something to wear.
Eventually we came across the trail Mox and I had taken, and after that we reached the off-road parking and SUV.
I took the keys from my pack and held them out to Berron.
He went toward the passenger side. “You think I’m going to drive?”
I unlocked the car with the remote and the lights blinked brightly in the dark. I put my pack in the back with the lantern. When I finished I climbed in the front seat.
“Did either of you have a cell?”
I pointed where I’d stashed my phone as instructed by Mox before we’d headed out on our trek to the Eyrie. “Under your seat.”
He pulled it out and turned it on. It still had battery.
I watched him type a short text message and send it.
“I’ve contacted Abriel. We’re going to a safe house. He’ll come get you there.”
It’s what I expected, that Abriel would be the one Berron and Dore chose to help me. He was the ally I needed.
“And then what?”
“He’ll explain the strategy to get into Heaven’s Gate, rescue S
avannah, and get out again.” Berron said it like I was stupid and should have known.
“You know what, now that I’ve agreed to help you, maybe you could stop treating me like I’m not worth your time.”
Berron didn’t look at me. “Drive.”
I wanted to ask him why he’d organized to meet us that day in the forest. If he felt bitterness toward my father—and it seemed he did—why the family reunion after all that time? But I guessed his answer. Short, sharp, and unenlightening, so I started the engine and reversed the car onto the road as Berron received a text and replied to it.
For an hour and a half I drove, directed by Berron, out of the forest and then along the freeway heading back toward Cincinnati before we started on some back roads leading into the middle of nowhere. There were mostly fields and pastures, although we passed farmhouses now and again.
It was becoming a struggle to stay awake when Berron said, “This driveway on the left.”
I turned off the road onto a potholed drive. About three hundred yards down it we reached a rundown house, the car headlights illuminating a wrap-around porch, paint peeling from the weatherboard, and the screen door half on its hinges. One of the windows had a broken pane.
I parked the car and got out, grabbing my backpack and the lantern, unable to let go of the last connection I had with the Eyrie, Mox, and Tallow.
Berron huffed as he led me up the stairs onto the porch and used a key he took from his pocket to let us in. He had my phone and turned on its flashlight to illuminate the room. We’d entered a lounge room with a sofa, some armchairs, and a coffee table covered in dust. A bookcase lined one wall with books that had seen better days, and at the back, a door led to a kitchen. Doors also opened to other rooms on the left and right.
He turned off the phone’s flashlight and everything went dark until my eyes adjusted to the lesser green illumination from the lantern.
“There’s no power connected. You should stay in the dark. Stay put until Abriel gets here.”
“You’re not waiting with me?” I didn’t want to be around him any longer than I needed to, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be left alone in the middle of nowhere. The “safe house” had begun not to sound so safe given he wanted me to, essentially, hide in the dark.
“I have things to do. Abriel will be here in an hour, two at the most. Now, I need the keys to the car.”
“What?” Firstly, I thought he couldn’t drive from his comment earlier. Secondly, he intended to leave me without the car?
“How do you think I’ll get back to the Eyrie? Fly?”
I threw the keys at him and he barely grabbed them in time. “Glad we’re now friends.” Fuck off, Berron.
He went to the front door.
“Can I have my phone back, please?”
“No, I need it. You’ll be fine. Wait for Abriel.” He closed the front door behind him as he left.
I let my pack drop to the floor. “It’s my phone,” I yelled and felt like a stupid child after I did. Probably what he expected from me.
Only after I heard him drive away did I realize Mox, too, would have hidden his phone in the car somewhere.
Swearing, I held up the lantern and investigated the house. Once I found the bathroom, I used it and returned to the front room. I’d try to sleep until Abriel arrived.
The sofa had a crocheted blanket over the back of it. I put the lantern on the floor next to the sofa, took the blanket and shook it before lying down and pulling it over me. The chill of the air made me think of the warmth of Tallow and Mox who I’d left behind.
At first, I thought dawn had begun to break. There was light beyond my eyelids. But the illumination was too bright for the morning sun.
I opened my eyes.
Headlight beams streamed through the front window for a few moments before they switched off.
Abriel.
I sat up, dragged my hands across my face and yawned. A quiet, peaceful moment, and then the weight of what I’d learned and why I now waited in a safe house without Tallow or Mox returned to me.
The fungi in the lantern had stopped glowing. The sun hadn’t come up, but the room had a pre-dawn light to it and I saw things in a color palette of grays and blacks. I got up, took a few steps toward the front door, then stopped and waited.
What plan would Abriel have for me to save Savannah? Would I—
The front door crashed open and a suited angel, dressed like a security guard from Heaven’s Gate, tripped into the room from his momentum of breaking the door down. Another—Ray, the angel who I’d pretended to like and then jilted as soon as he’d brought me to Lucien—stood behind him with a gun.
The gun was pointed at me.
“Get down!”
I froze as my brain tried to process what was happening. It was supposed to be Abriel. It wasn’t supposed to be—
“Get the fuck down!”
I fell to the floor, covering my head with my hands, shaking in fright and disbelief. How? How had they known where to find me?
Sobs of fear swelled in my chest and escaped from my mouth. I hadn’t thought… I’d never considered…
A set of footsteps pounded against the floorboards, moving fast through the room past me before going away.
“Clear!”
The footsteps came close before they moved around me and went in a different direction. With a bang, a door was kicked open.
“Clear!” More footsteps. “Clear!” And again. “Clear!”
Then silence—a moment that seemed to stretch into minutes.
After that the only sound I heard was a set of slow, heavy footsteps coming toward me, each step like the rhythmic thunk of a grandfather clock pendulum. They stopped at the side of my head.
I didn’t dare move to look at who I guessed was Ray, keeping my hands wrapped tightly over the top of my head as though they would protect me. Tears of fear burned my eyes before they slipped down my nose to pool around the tip of it, pressed hard against the floorboards. Deep down I’d known I was putting myself in danger the moment I decided to help Dore, but I’d assumed I’d be prepared by Abriel, like he’d prepared me at the waterfall and taught me how to enhance my ability to resist enrapturement.
Ray’s knees clicked as he squatted. “Get up.”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
When cold, hard metal pressed against the back of my skull, a strangled noise escaped from my mouth before words tumbled out. “Don’t shoot me. Don’t shoot.”
Ray laughed. “Oh, no-no-no.” He spoke in a soothing tone, but I could only think he said it in that way to get pleasure out of giving me false reassurances. “Now look at me.”
I didn’t want to.
“Look at me.”
He nudged the gun against the back of my skull. If I didn’t do what he said, would he shoot me? No. I had to believe I’d be more useful to them alive than dead. But he had a gun to my head! Do what he says! I turned my head slowly and met his gaze.
“Remember me? Think you fooled me with that little game you played the other night?”
I went to say, “No.” That would be the right answer to keep him calm. Like he was a cornered wild animal, I needed to demonstrate I posed no threat, even if in this case it was only his ego I had wounded. In that brief time we had spent together, he hadn’t come across as someone I had anything to fear from. Could I get out of this? Could I play him like I had the last time? Yes, he had a gun. But maybe—just maybe—there was a way to diffuse the situation.
He thrust the gun’s muzzle so hard into my skull it sent a quake of pain through my head, and then I heard a strange sound. All I could think of was those moments in the movies where there’s a closeup of a finger curled around a trigger, that finger pulling back slowly disengaging the safety. How many millimeters were there left between me being alive and, with another squeeze, my death?
“Get. The. Fuck. Up. Off. The. Floor.”
“We know what she is,” the other Fallen said. “Do the bitc
h. We can say she tried to run.”
“No! Don’t!” I didn’t recognize my own voice, the degree of fear in each word I shouted. “I’m getting up.” I struggled to my feet. My legs shook.
“Not as confident as the last time I saw you,” Ray crooned. “But don’t you worry your pretty little red head. We’re not here to kill you.”
The surge of relief from his words almost made me fall to my knees, only he snatched it from me as soon as it came. I should have known what would come next.
“You’re going to Heaven’s Gate.”
Heaven’s Gate. This time I was sure it wouldn’t be to Lucien’s penthouse. Would they instead take me to the floors where they interrogated shifters and shifter sympathizers? Places people like me went in and never came out of again. Would they try to enrapture me? Would I be able to resist like the last time? Was there someone more powerful than Lucien able to extract the secrets I kept about Tallow and the kin? About Mox and Abriel? About everything?
“Of course, we could find someone who may be able to enrapture you,” Ray said, as though he knew my thoughts. “But where would be the fun in that? Regardless of your talents, there are other ways to make people talk.”
Nausea grabbed and twisted my guts, made my chest tight. I searched the floorboards as though they would give me different answers to the unspoken question I had: what would they do to me? You know, Meghan. You know. They’re going to torture you.
I peered up.
Ray’s mouth tightened in a smirk of satisfaction.
The other Fallen stood beside him. His eyes burned with depravity. “You’re going to wish we’d put a bullet through your head.”
Movement from behind them caught my eye.
What…?
A figure stepped into the room, his face shrouded by a hood, but I didn’t need the features of his face to know who it was.
He glowed.
18
Abriel
Abriel moved fast and silently through the doorway. He raised the baseball bat, its form jet black against the grays of the room in the pre-dawn light. Several more strides brought him to the Fallen, their backs to him, too busy taunting Meghan to be aware of their impending fate.
