Landing (8 page)

Gabe considers this. “Tarren didn’t
remember anything. There was some blood in the alley and shell casings. I think
he managed to get some shots off and injure the fucker, or maybe it heard me
coming and fled.”

“But you said Tarren wasn’t
checking in for an hour before that.”

“I don’t know Maya. I thought about
it some, and I can’t figure it out. Maybe it was a miracle.”

I almost laugh, but I can tell
Gabe’s being serious. I’ve got a barbed reply ready on my tongue — something
about how gracious God’s been to this family so far — but I hold it back.

“Maybe,” I tell my brother.

“The murders stopped for a while,
but two months later we were back in Vegas, and that’s when we capped Lo’s
father. Strange though,” Gabe says. “Tarren thinks it was the same guy both
times, but I don’t know. Kill pattern was different. Real different.”

“Strange,” I murmur.

“And that’s why we don’t split up
anymore,” Gabe says with finality.

I think about the story for a while
but can’t parse any more logic from it than Gabe. I wonder if there is any
possible way to speak to Tarren about this without earning a dark scowl and
smothering silence.

It takes Gabe a while after that to
fall asleep, but eventually his mind lets go of those haunted memories, and his
aura lapses into smooth, drifting tides. Gabe always sleeps well. Not like me,
and not like Tarren, who often falls in and out of sleep roughly and sometimes
doesn’t bother at all.

Tonight I close my eyes and follow
the rhythms of Tarren’s energy through the thin wall that separates our rooms.
His aura putters fretfully for the next hour until it spikes high and pained. I
can actually hear him start awake and fall back with a miserable sigh.

The nightmares. They always get
worse when we’re on the road.

And Tarren doesn’t know it — would
probably scowl something awful if he did — but I sit up in my bed, pull my legs
to my chest, and I stay up with him, breathing slow, trying to calm him down
with my thoughts. I wait to see if he’ll try to go back to sleep.

He doesn’t. So neither do I,
though, to be fair, I require far less sleep then my brothers.

There is only one logical thing
Tarren can think to do to ride out the night. He punishes himself. I can’t tell
for sure, but I think he starts with pushups then moves to crunches and then
lunges, until he’s huffing and his aura grows smooth.

Finally, Tarren slumps against the
wall. I slip out of my bed and join him, so that we’re sitting back to back
with only the wall between us. He sighs and lays his head back, so I do too,
and I try to figure if this helps him at all. If his penance will ever be paid
in full.

It must do some good, because
Tarren crawls back into bed and finds an accommodating tide of sleep that pulls
him through the final hour of the night.

Chapter 11

We are back at the sports arena by
6:00 a.m., and Gabe huddles miserably in his new trench coat as Tarren
dispenses our assignments. The breath coils from our nostrils, and the sun is
only just beginning to yawn on the horizon. It speckles over cacti and palm
trees and reveals high-peaked mountains in the distance.

I climb up the back of the sports
arena and pull myself up onto the roof, startling a flock of fat pigeons. They
launch clumsily into the sky, beating the air hard with their wings before
gaining altitude. Their energies pulse an odd greenish-gold, and they line up
like pins on a nearby telephone wire to watch me.

The arena is deserted. Leave it to robo-Tarren
to drag us out here before the workers even show up. I stretch out on my
stomach, rest my chin on my palms, and try really hard not to think or to let
the bad things in my brain loose.

I am extremely successful at
this…for a good three minutes.

Then Ryan’s ghost kneels just
behind me so I don’t know if the soft flow of air on the back of my neck is his
breath or just the breeze. He kisses my shoulders. I kind of thought visiting
his grave would somehow make things better, but it didn’t. Not really.

I know that Ryan will disappear if
I turn my head to look at him, so I close my eyes and try to keep his face
locked in my mind. That half smile he would give me if I was especially clever
or sad or being over-dramatic again. I can’t remember the shirt he was wearing
when he died, and this bothers me. Really bothers me.

“You’ve been dead for almost three
months,” I inform him, “and I still miss you, and it’s still my fault that you
died, and I still think about going home every single day.”

I turn to grab onto him, but I am
alone on the rooftop.

The sun comes up and finds deep
umbers and reds in the looming rock faces. I roll up my sleeves and pants to
feed off the rays. The song softens.

The setup crew arrives at 9:00 a.m.
I focus on the mission, determined to turn in a flawless performance this time.
No more frozen Maya. No more putting my brothers in danger.

All through the morning I lay flat
on the roof and watch the small group of men back battered trucks to the
unloading dock. Each worker is swathed in a healthy, colorful glow of energy.
They shout at each other in Spanish, and someone sets up a radio where Spanish
callers wail about unfaithful lovers, and the host interrupts them to play
loud, colorful Spanish pop songs.

Every hour I text the boys with my
lack of findings. Time trickles by. My utter commitment to excellence begins to
wan. I’m still paying attention, mostly, but now my elbows start to complain,
and I can’t help but glance at the pigeons each time one of them flutters off
the telephone wire. I’ve found that almost all of our missions are
uncomfortable and tedious like this — long drags of time punctuated by a sudden
burst of violence and adrenaline.

My brain keeps churning, and now
thoughts of Rain Bailey move to the forefront. I can’t understand why the boy
with the sleepy eyes has become so entrenched in my mind. Why I keep wondering
where he is and what he’s doing right now at this exact moment. Mostly, I
wonder if he’s trying to find me, trying to avenge his sister’s death. I build
up all these fantasies of Rain tromping through jungles, climbing mountains, or
beating up informants in a seedy pub trying to pick up the breadcrumbs of my
trail. His face is a handsome mask of determination. He won’t rest, won’t stop
until he has his vengeance.

The word vengeance sticks in my
head, and now I’m thinking of Grand. Mostly how I’m going to kill him. It’s an
easy way to pass the time.

It has to be slow, and Grand has to
know it’s me who’s snuffing out his life. There needs to be adequate time for
me to recite my memorized taunt as he gurgles his last blood-soaked breath.
Additional time for gloating and relishing his pain would also be appreciated.

I have no idea how I’m actually
going to accomplish this feat. My brothers never tire of lecturing me that
Grand is the most fearsome and powerful angel, that he is practically
invulnerable. Another slight hurdle is figuring out where the hell he even is.
But here, on this quiet rooftop, I can let my imagination frolic. My mental
frolics include pumping Grand full of bullets, twisting one of those cool,
curvy daggers into his chest, defeating him in bloody hand-to-hand combat, and
strapping him down onto a table and jolting him with high-powered Tasers. Stuff
like that.

By mid-afternoon the performers
begin to arrive in a variety of growling trucks that are anywhere from
unnecessarily huge to eats-Geo-Metros-for-breakfast-ginormous. There are
entrances on both sides of the arena, and the performers use both. I spend the
next two hours bounding across the roof, trying to catch sight of the men and
women. These people are not the beefcakes and busty Victoria Secrets models
you’d see on TV. Some of them are flabby and old. Others are skinny with
paunchy bellies. The women all seem to have thunder thighs. Very rinky dink
indeed.

Is there an angel hiding amidst
these ugly ducklings? 

My adrenaline spikes each time a
car door opens, but every passenger and driver is swathed in a bright, aural
glow. No angel.

The sun is halfway down the other
side of the sky, and there are no more trucks coming when Tarren calls us back
to regroup. I meet him at the SUV a quarter mile outside of the arena. He
throws me two warm bottles of water from the trunk, and I eagerly twist off the
caps and drink.

“Not a whiff of radiation at their
hotel,” he says.

“Everyone on the outside was clean.
The workers, the wrestlers, all human.” I toss the first empty bottle back into
the trunk. Should’ve snacked on a pigeon while I was up on the roof all day.
The generous sunlight took the edge off my hunger, but not by much.

“Could you have missed anyone?” Tarren
keeps his expression neutral, but I know behind those pale eyes, doubts flit
through his mind.

“No, I checked everyone,” I insist.

His face doesn’t change, and he
looks over my shoulder. His energy flickers. “Where’s Gabe?”

“He’s right around the…”

“Hola,” Gabe jogs up next to me.

“You’re late. Was there a problem?”
Tarren demands.

“Yeah, someone spilled soda in one
of the men’s bathrooms. Total safety hazard. I had to get it cleaned up or
Janet would’ve killed me.”

I turn around and note that Gabe is
wearing a janitor’s uniform. Tarren and I are both silent as Gabe opens the
passenger door, rummages through the glove compartment, and pulls out a
chocolate and peanut butter Cliff’s Bar.

“No radiation inside the building,”
he says through a mouthful of food. “You?”

“No, and Maya says everyone’s
clean.”

“Everyone is clean,” I insist.

“Well then it’s probably a bust,”
Gabe shrugs.

“I never thought of you as a
Benito,” I tell him.

Gabe glances at his nametag and
grins. “Benny allowed me to explore the depths of the janitorial life in
exchange for a little cash. Thinks I’m trying out for a janitor role in
Hollywood next month.” His face takes on an intense expression. “You see Maya,
to play a janitor, I must become a janitor. I must reach into the very essence
of the profession, embrace the pain of vomit and spilled popcorn. I am one with
the mop.” Gabe adds a dramatic flourish with his hands.

“Your artistic integrity is
stunning.” I roll my eyes at him.

Green streaks dance within Gabe’s
aura. “Janet was pretty skeptical at first, but we’re cool now. She showed me
pics of her grandkids. Sixteen of ‘em. She even remembers all their names.”

“We should stick around just in
case,” Tarren says, which means he thinks I missed someone.

“Benny told me that all the workers
are local,” Gabe says. “If there is an angel, it’s got to be one of the
wrestlers or someone else who works directly for the organization.”

“Could be a tailgater,” I offer.

“Not likely for an organization
this small,” Tarren says, immediately dismissing my completely legitimate
suggestion.

Gabe shrugs. “Might as well go to
the show since we’re here. Maya can confirm again…”

“No, Maya stays in the car,” Tarren
says. “We’ll check hands with the binoculars.”

I absolutely love how he doesn’t
even look at me when he says this. And here it comes again, the flush of anger
in my chest that Tarren can conjure up so easily from the wreckage of my
self-esteem.

“I can handle it,” I insist in a
high voice that is not at all peevish.

“She says she’s fine,” Gabe replies
to his brother. “It’d be easier. She could just look around and spot the angel
right away.”

“No,” Tarren says.

“I’m right here!”

Tarren turns to me, and those hard blue
eyes rove over my face. I am sometimes convinced that his gaze is capable of
searing right into my brain where he can see all of my doubts and my lies and
the cravings that I try so hard to hide.

“It would be an unnecessary strain
on you,” he finally says.

Gabe shoves his hands into his
pockets. I give him a couple of more seconds to come to my rescue, and when
it’s clear that he won’t, I shrug like it’s no big deal at all.

“Have fun then,” I say. The
temperature is dropping rapidly around us, and it must be because the sun has
sunk below the horizon.

“I’ll get you a poster signed by
Crusher Ramerez,” Gabe promises me.

As soon as my brothers weaponize
themselves and turn to walk back to the arena, I give them both my patented
Squint O’ Death. Then I lie across the backseat of the Murano and admirably
hold back my tears.

***

I finish my Kindle book on the
principles of energy. I now know about joules, watts, and calories. I know that
energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just changed and dispersed in an
endless cycle. Most importantly, I’ve learned that we all steal energy in one
way or another to survive.

An hour rolls by. I amuse myself by
thinking of Diana. My biological mother is a mystery, not because I don’t know
her, but because I feel like I almost do. I think she was more than a little
unhinged, extremely brave, and a bad mother to her children. I also think she
loved them more than anything in the world.

It would be unfair to assume she
loved me too; my seed was sown in a violent, brutal act against her by the
person she abhorred most in the world. Still, she carried me to term though she
had other options. She hid me away, and she never once tried to find me. I
think Diana did what she thought was best. I think that’s all she ever did.

Another hour rolls by. Barbed
tumbleweeds. I think about sneaking out, trying to help, but I already learned
that lesson once in Redmond. The Lone Ranger Maya act was pretty much a
disaster; one that involved almost getting choked to death by a fourteen-year-old
angel and an embarrassing yet necessary rescue from Tarren.

Thankfully, before my brain gets
too caught up in replaying every detail of that horrible night, I feel the
energies of my brothers approaching. I get out of the car in case I need to
help load a body, but by the time they approach, I’ve already assessed their
auras and am leaning casually against the passenger door. No angel.

“Bust,” Gabe tells me.

Tarren’s jaw is set with
frustration. I can’t tell if he thinks we missed something or is pissed that he
doesn’t get to shoot anything.

On the way back to our crappy
motel, I clench and unclench my fists, dreaming of rats, or, truthfully, trying
to dream of rats. My hands are glowing, so I shove them between my legs. The
song. It plays. Loud. Thundering. Throbbing. Needing relief.

Thankfully, it’s not a long ride.
We go to our rooms and pack our bags quickly. It’s seventeen hours to Dallas,
Texas, where the acrobatic show is playing for the rest of the week. I drain a
rat while Gabe is in the bathroom, and then I stand outside while he wipes down
the room.

The light above the overhang
flickers. Porn is playing again in the room on the second story. Groans turn
into animalistic trills. Someone has smashed a cockroach on the pavement right
in front of the door to our room. A toilet flushes two rooms down. The damn
vending machine outside the office is still whining and whirling. Behind all
this, I hear the facet in our bathroom
drip, drip, drip
.

Now Tarren adds his jumping,
nervous energy to the symphony as he joins me outside. His face is tight and
tired, but we’ll drive through the night, and I doubt he’ll sleep a wink. This
is Diana’s legacy to her family — this flickering light, drippy faucet, and
cockroach-decorated pavement; these long days stitched together without sleep.
The endless search.

“Alright, I checked us out. Let’s
go,” Gabe closes the door behind him. We don’t even look at each other as we
turn and tromp to the parking lot. The night is at its apex, where the darkness
is deep and thick as molasses. I don’t look up, but I assume the moon is there
and the stars are still watching over us.

Gabe gets behind the wheel of the
Murano, and I take shotgun. Tarren stretches his long legs across the backseat
and leans against the window.

“Seatbelts,” Gabe says, and our
restless little ship sets sail into the night.