Coping (5 page)

I’ve never been in a fire before.
I’m worried about the flames, but as soon as I’m inside the house, I realize
that the true enemy is the smoke. It is black and acid, burning my eyes so bad
that I have to press them into slits.

I get down on my hands and knees
like Tarren told me, and this is a little better. My hands probe the floor in
front of me. Carpet fibers give way to a solid object. I feel fabric, buttons
and the give of flesh beneath. My hands go up further, playing along a ridge of
collar bones and then a chin and wet lips. I snatch my hand back and hold it
close to my face so I can watch a scarlet thread of blood slide down my palm.

One of the angels.

My vision goes all blurry, and I
fight not to let out the breath I’m holding. At this point, it comes to my
attention that I am way too cowardly to be even attempting something like this.

I want to cry.

I want to crawl backwards until I
find the doorframe. Tarren and Gabe won’t know that I chickened out. I’ll tell
them that the ceiling was coming down.

Except that I feel the dim flicker
of energy through the flames. The boy is just one room over, and he’s still
alive. What if it were Ryan? What if I actually could have saved him instead of
watching helplessly as Grand drained the life out of him?

I’m moving without being aware of
it. One arm at a time. Gritting my teeth every time I run into a stationary
piece of furniture. My lungs are starting to stitch with pain, but I push on.
The smoke is turning my eyes into gushers, so I squeeze them shut and push back
everything else—the sounds, the fears, my hollering lungs—until it’s just that
faint beacon of energy, drawing me closer and closer.

I turn a corner, and the feel of
the floor changes beneath my knees from wood to linoleum. His energy is close,
but I get tangled in chairs. The boy is under a table. I thrash, throwing the
chairs behind me. Brilliant as I am, one falls over on top of me, smacking me
in the back of the head.

I cry out, expelling the precious
air from my lungs. I try to gasp in new air, but I get acid smoke instead.
Every cough only pulls more hot poison into my lungs. Dizziness. I reach
forward and feel the soft contours of a body. I grasp a handful of fabric and
pull it toward me.

The strength of the boy’s aura is
dimming rapidly, and his body is limp against mine as I stand up on shaky feet.
I get him on my shoulder, take a staggering step back the way I came…and
immediately trip over a chair. We both go down hard, and I can feel my
consciousness beginning to drift away.

Smoke. Smoke. Smoke.

My lungs ache for air, and all I
can give them is soot. I scoop up the boy again, and I can’t even tell which
part of him I have—whether he’s right side up or not. One arm at a time, I drag
us back, toward the door. At least where I think the door was. My body has gone
all spasmy, and my brain is trying to turn off all the switches to my higher
reasoning.

I drag us forward, and it seems so
much farther than when I came in. This leads me to believe that I’ve gotten
turned around. I’m in the wrong room. I keep hitting things, maybe some of them
not real. The temperature is climbing, and when I crack my eyes open, I see the
flames now, dancing across what might be a plush couch.

I think I can see the door, though
my eyes are tearing so badly that everything is moving and dancing beneath the
sheen of water. I find my feet, gather the boy up and then make for the door in
a desperate rush.

It takes me three tries of bumping
up against the wall, until I tumble out into the sunlight. I lose the boy. I’m
trying to breathe, trying to get up, but the smoke is still everywhere. I can’t
get to the fresh air.

Hands grab me under my armpits and
drag me farther from the house. I hear a voice, loud and edged with fear, but
my hacking cough and the blood roaring through my ears drowns out the words. My
head feels heavy and swollen like an over-ripe watermelon has been screwed onto
my neck.

I flip over onto my stomach and
cough and cough and cough. Long strands of spittle dangle out of my mouth.  My
eyes feel like they’re being devoured by a colony of flesh-eating ants.

I look up and see Tarren, a few
feet away huddled over the sprawled body of the boy.

“Maya, talk to me.” Gabe is behind
me. His aura is bright with emotion. The monster inside me—the thing that would
latch on and drain Gabe without a second thought—takes advantage of my
scrambled mind. My body coils, ready to leap, palms tearing open, feeding bulbs
punching up to the surface.

But I reign myself in, biting down
hard on the inside of my cheek to distract myself with pain. I instinctively
tuck my hands into my body and scoot away from Gabe. Dumb brother, he doesn’t
realize what I’m trying to do and kneels down next to me.

“How do you feel?”

Like I
might just kill you right now
. The bulbs of both palms are pressing
against my gloves, trying to get out, needing to connect to his beautiful and
potent aura.

“Space,” I choke out. “I need
space.”

“Sure, sure.” Gabe backs up—not as
far as I’d wish—and looks over to his brother. “Tarren, come on, give it up. If
he ain’t breathing yet, he’s not gonna.”

I look up again. Tarren’s broad
shoulders are locked as he leans over the kid and pumps his chest. For the
first time, I can see the boy’s features in the afternoon sunlight. Beneath the
mask of ash, sweat and bruising, I realize with a shock that he’s Asian, like
Ryan.

“No,” I bark roughly. “He can’t
die. He can’t!” This beautiful and heartfelt speech is followed by a dainty
bout of coughing up whatever fried bits of my lungs still exist.

“It’s no good,” Gabe says softly.

I drag myself over to the boy.
“Don’t give up Tarren,” I wheeze.

Tarren ignores us both and
continues pumping, his face that granite mask that makes him look invincible,
like maybe he could just snatch a soul right out of purgatory.

He tips the boy’s face up, pinches
his nose and dips down. I watch the boy’s chest rise with Tarren’s breath. The
boy who looks like Ryan. The boy I saved.

He convulses.  Tarren’s head jerks
back. The boy is coughing, spasming.

“Well, fuck me,” Gabe says.

“Breathe,” Tarren says. “Try and
breathe.”

The boy gulps at the air, coughing
and sputtering. A bubbly moan comes out of his mouth, and Tarren turns him onto
his side with sure hands. “Open your mouth,” Tarren commands.

The boy does, and a stream of bile
spews from his lips. He looks no older than sixteen.

“Let it come out. Don’t fight.”
Tarren looks up at Gabe. “Bring the car up here. We’re going to need to call
this in, but I want to check the barn first.”

“Right-o” Gabe says. He jogs off.

“You okay?” Tarren looks at me.

I nod.

“Throw Hendricks into the house,”
Tarren motions toward the body with his head. “Far enough in that the flames
get him.”

Tarren could have ordered me to go
buy us some S’mores for the bonfire, and I probably would have done it, no
questions asked. I’m so scared and hollowed out, that I couldn’t think my way
out of a paper bag.

So it’s a damn good thing Tarren’s
brain is working at full capacity as usual. I pull myself up on shaky feet,
still coughing and wheezing and wiping away all the tears coming out of my
eyes.

I think that if I hadn’t been in
zombie mode, even the thought of touching another dead body would have made me
wet my pants with fear. Now though, I just step up to Hendricks, trundle my
arms beneath his slack weight and pull him up. Thank you enhanced strength.

Hendricks’s chest is sticky and
damp with blood from the gunshot wound and the deep ribbons Gabe cut into him.
The blood smears onto my soaked shirt.  I shudder in a way that I’ve never
shuddered before. It goes through me, hits my bones and echoes through them
like the vibrations of a tuning fork.

I get right up next to the house.
Flames are now dancing inside every room. I step up to the open doorway and
heave Hendricks inside as hard as I can. I hear his body crash into the
furniture and then hit the floor. I wonder if he landed next to or on top of
the body I felt earlier.

I know I’ll remember the sound of
that crash for the rest of my life. Along with the taste of smoke in my mouth,
the smell of burned flesh, the pointless clamor of my heart. My enhanced memory
won’t let any part of this day go. Not ever. Lucky me.

I turn back to Tarren and the Asian
boy. The kid seems to be done puking for the moment, and Tarren has him in a
seated position.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

The boy takes a while in answering.
“Milo.”

“Milo,” Tarren says. “Can you
follow my finger with your eyes?” He holds up his index finger and moves it
back and forth. “Don’t move you head. Just your eyes. Good.”

“They weren’t human,” Milo says.
“They fed on us.”

“You’ve been through a traumatic
event,” Tarren says. “You’re confused.”

“Something…something wrong with
their hands.”

“Can you tell me how many fingers
I’m holding up?”

“Rick,” Milo’s voice is ragged.
“Where’s Rick? Have you seen him?”

“Let’s concentrate on you first.”
Tarren’s voice is soft and calm. “Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding
up?”

“Four,” Milo says.

“Good.” Tarren brings his hand up
from Milo’s back and presses two fingers against his carotid artery. The kid
doesn’t even know what’s happening until it’s too late.

“Stop,” he murmurs weakly before he
loses consciousness. Tarren lowers him to the ground. He checks the boy’s pulse
and is evidently satisfied.

Gabe pulls the Murano up to the
house. Tarren walks over, and they discuss their next move. I huddle on the
grass, legs pulled to my chest. My wet clothes wrap tight around my skin.

I notice a flicker of energy, turn
and see that the other boy, the one who Tarren rescued, is coming around. He
groans and moves his head. His face is battered, and a fresh cut at his temple
dribbles blood all the way down to his jaw.

There’s something about those
features.  I frown and try to mentally wipe away all the swollen and discolored
contusions, the ash from the smoke and the scruff of a week’s worth of beard
growth.

His eyes open. Such soft, brown
pools.

Our eyes lock. It takes him a
while, but the veil of confusion lifts, and I see the light of recognition
kindle in his face.

“You,” he says.

“You,” I respond lamely, because my
mind is having troubling processing this new data. How the same boy I was
looking at on a computer screen three days ago could have suddenly dropped out
of the sky and landed in the grass in front of me.

“Rain,” I say. “Rain Bailey.”

Rain fights to stay conscious.

“I knew…you’d be…be here,” he
whispers, his words forming on the edge of each ragged breath he drags in.

I completely misinterpret his
meaning, imagining that he has, for some inexplicable reason, been pining for
me, hoping against hope that I would save him from his dread captivity.

The he finishes his sentence.

“…bitch.”

I look down at my blood-stained
t-shirt. “Oh no,” I say lamely.

“M…Milo.” His eyes have alighted on
the still form of his friend.

“Him? He’s fine. I kind of saved
him,” I blather. “I’m here to rescue you too. Well, actually, I don’t think we
can take you with us, but we’re going to call…”

Rain’s eyelids are sinking shut,
even as his mouth forms loose words. I think he says something about penguins,
but I’m not sure. His head falls back into the grass, and his aura flattens.

The sting of his words finally sets
in.
Bitch
. He thinks I’m a monster, and my
presence here just confirmed it. Speaking of presence…

I stare at Rain’s battered face.
“How did you get here?” I ask even though he’s unconscious. “Why?”

But I think I already know. All I
have to do is ask myself if I would go anywhere, do anything to kill Grand.

Yes
.

Rain must have been trying to find
me. He noticed the other disappearances around Redmond and somehow figured out
the connection with Krugal’s inner circle. He tracked down Hendricks, and
Hendricks added him to the collection in the barn.

I reach out hesitantly to Rain,
push through the pale and listless shell of his aura, and lay my hand on his
chest.

“I’m sorry,” I say, because he lost
someone just like I did. Because now he’s caught up in the same black succubus
of vengeance. Because I’ll never be able to tell him the truth that we’ve
already killed the one who took his sister from him.

“Jesus, don’t let Tarren see you
doing that shit,” Gabe hisses behind me. “What are you doing, by the way?”

“Checking his pulse. It’s steady.”
I pull my hand away.

“Good for him,” Gabe mutters. “We
need you by the car.”

When Gabe and I walk to the Murano,
Tarren hands me a red bandanna. We each tie one around our faces, hiding our
noses and mouths like modern day bandits. Gabe’s bandanna is blue. Tarren’s is
gray.

They both put on gloves, and I
switch mine out for a black leather pair that cover my fingertips.

We huddled around the SUV.

“We’ll put them both in the barn
with the others and call it in,” Tarren says. He looks at me. “How many are in
there?”

I don’t need to see his full face,
just those hooded eyes to know his question is more than practical. This is
another strategic test of the extent of my powers. Something he will scribble
down in his notebook and store away in his mind. Another reason to up his
caution around me when necessary.

“Seven, I think,” I say.

“Can you tell if they are
conscious?” His eyes are still drilling into me.

“No, not from outside the barn.
Only that all their energies are weak. Some more than others.”

“Plus these two out here, that
makes nine,” Tarren says to Gabe. “We need to call this in soon. Someone may
have seen the fire already.”

“This is a huge shit storm Tarren,”
Gabe says. “Not only did that Asian kid see your face, but what happens when
all those poor bastards in the barn tell the cops about people sucking out
their energy? If the law starts an investigation, or someone starts blogging or
Twittering this shit, the angels will be all over it. They’ll silence everyone
who opens their mouth.”

“I don’t like it either,” Tarren
says. “The fire may not fully break down the bodies in the house. An autopsy
could find physical anomalies, as well as evidence of gunshots. Did you pick up
your shell casings?”

“You kidding me? I went out after
Hendricks. Guy made a beeline for the cars.”

Even under his bandanna, I can tell
that Tarren is scowling. “You should have picked up your shell casings.”

“Oh, and you did? With the god damn
house on fire and dragging that kid out?” Gabe snaps back.

Tarren reaches into his pocket,
opens his palm and reveals four empty shell casings.

Gabe makes a disgusted sound in the
back of his throat. “Whatever Mr. Wonderboy. Those CSI fucks will dig the
bullets out of the bodies and walls, so we’ll need to ditch all the weapons
anyway. Damn waste.”

Tarren gives his brother a hard
stare. I’m not going anywhere near this squabble, but secretly a part of me is
relieved that I’m not the only who has to endure the oppressive weight of
Tarren’s constant disappointment.

Tarren lets the subject drop. “We
need a cover for the witnesses,” he says to Gabe. “I believe that’s your realm
of expertise.”

Gabe shrugs. “I’ll do my best, but
creativity does not flourish under pressure.”

Gabe dons his lucky hat, turning
the brim forward. Tarren pulls a black ball cap from the glove compartment and
puts it on. They seriously look like they’re one step away from robbing a
bank.  Tarren opens the back door and hands me the hideous straw sun hat that
he still makes me wear whenever I get out of the car or we drive through big
cities.

I eye the fashion atrocity. “Hell
no.”

“Just do it,” Tarren says.

“I’m pretty god damn sure that’s
not what Nike meant with that slogan,” I whine. This witty rejoinder is pretty
fucking impressive in my opinion, especially given the circumstances, but
Tarren either doesn’t notice or pretends not to.

“You want to be part of the
mission? You follow instructions.” Tarren’s eyes, the only visible part of his
face, are slate gray. His voice is out of patience. Oh wait, he never had any
to begin with.

“Fuck.” I snatch the hat from his
hand and put it on my head.

“Tuck your hair up,” Tarren says.

Gabe snickers, and I try to give
him an angry look, except that it only makes him giggle more.

We sober quickly as we turn back to
the task at hand. I pick up Rain and drape him carefully over my shoulder. His
skin feels like ice, and he smells like he hasn’t bathed in weeks. Gabe picks
up Milo.

“This isn’t going to be pretty,”
Gabe whispers to me as we make our way to the barn, but I already know that.
I’ve felt the logy energy within, smelled the odors of rot and human waste,
seen the crusted cuts and splotchy bruises all over Rain’s arms and face.

Tarren goes first, gun drawn and a
high-powered flashlight in his left hand, crossed over each other like the cops
do it.

“On three,” Tarren says softly.
“One…two….” Gabe throws open the barn door, and Tarren steps inside, sweeping
his flashlight from side to side.

After the last month with my
brothers, I’ve gotten pretty good at handling horrors. But not like this.

“Oh God, oh holy shit,” Gabe
whispers next to me.