A Slither of Hope Read online

  He stood in front of me, hunched forward, catching his breath. I saw my opportunity and took it. I kicked the front of his knee with all my strength. The crunch of bone on bone and the pitch of his scream told me I’d done exactly what I’d set out to. He crumpled to the floor at an awkward angle, his kneecap shattered. I crawled forward, reaching for him. The knife tacking me to the floor ripped into my wing with every movement. Pain burned the closer I inched. Stretching my fingers, I grabbed a handful of his jeans and dragged him toward me.

  I slammed the back of my calf down on his knee again and again until he passed out. It didn’t take much. Then I tugged Slim beside me. I wrapped my hands around his head. Just like I did with Shorty, I pulled his neck in one direction, the release needed for the next step to truly break the neck, and then snapped it back the opposite way. Incapacitated.

  Now to get unstuck. I wriggled right and left, tearing more of my wing until I could get a hold of the knife’s handle. Then, I yanked it out. Blood and relief rushed to my head. I used the cracked altar table to help me climb to my feet. Standing over Slim, I plunged his own knife into his chest, twice, for the fight he put up. Unlike with Sorath, I felt nothing for these two. We had no past, and now they’d never have a future.

  I limped behind the crumbling wall to where I left Shorty, and punctured a few more holes in his heart with Slim’s knife. There wasn’t enough time to search for my own knife, so I left it behind and headed out the side door toward the church basement.

  Being covered in blood and holding Slim’s big-ass knife wasn’t going to help me take Other Guy by surprise. There was nothing I could do about my clothes. Maybe I could use this to my advantage, too, since I barely had enough energy to stand let alone take on anyone head-to-head.

  Only one remained.

  I burst through the basement’s back door, running toward the main room. “We’re being attacked!” I yelled ahead of me.

  “Where? How many?” His voice carried through the hallway.

  “Not sure,” I rasped. When I breached the room, I pretended to trip and stumbled right in front of the untrusting Fallen.

  “Where?” He quickly moved to help me.

  A fatal mistake. I drove Slim’s knife through his heart. “Right here.” With a quarter twist, I removed the blade and wiped it on his shirt before he collapsed to the ground.

  I backed into the closest wall, trying to keep all the pain at bay long enough to mentally prepare myself for the long walk back to my car. I couldn’t stay here long, though it would be something to be caught by the cops for a triple murder. Until they discovered we all shared a single fingerprint—the only thing we still had in common with the angels. The one thing they didn’t take from us when we Fell.

  Pulling myself to my feet again, I checked Other Guy’s phone. A text from Lucien an hour and a half ago.

  “I almost had the girl. She’s on the move. Find her.”

  I couldn’t forget how frantic Ray looked when she turned that corner and found me with Sorath. No wonder. Lucien had found her. She’d probably run from him to me—and Sorath.

  On my way to the car, I called Ray’s cell. Voicemail. Further proof she was on her way out of town. Not good. That would only make her harder to find.

  Once I made it to the car, I drove to the nearest storage facility where I had an emergency bag. There, I changed and wrapped my wounds so I wouldn’t bleed all over these, too.

  Now, if I were Ray, where would I go?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rayna

  The bus ride took almost twenty-four hours with one transfer, a two-hour layover in L.A. Thankfully, I didn’t see a single set of wings. When I stepped off the last bus, Arizona was dark and cold—so cold I could see my breath and feel a layer of frost deep inside me. I zipped my jacket up as far as it would go and slept in the bus station until they kicked me out sometime around one. After finally getting almost warm, the night chilled everything more than before.

  I walked down the street to keep warm and found a motel a mile or two later. I managed to check in without a credit card or ID. All I had to do was put down a three-hundred-dollar cash deposit.

  The next morning, I took a much-needed shower and headed to the only address I found for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Hospital for the Mentally Ill. The crumbling building hid behind a chain-link fence. Faded graffiti in a rainbow of colors and ages mauled the outer plaster and most of the plywood nailed over the doors and windows had jagged, weather-beaten edges. I screamed and banged my palms into the fence. When the frustration finally drained out of me, I hung my head and focused on my breath. I’d never know what happened to Mom.

  Being back in town was strange. So many different emotions burrowed beneath my skin. Apprehension, longing, fear, regret. What I couldn’t get out of my head: I needed to be closer to her. The ache tore into me with renewed claws.

  On burning, throbbing feet, I found my way back home. The house I grew up in. I parked myself on the curb across the street and watched the family living there now. Mother, father, and young son. I watched them for hours; I felt every emotion, twice. When the sun started to dip behind the tree in the front yard, I knew it was time to move on. I hadn’t gotten any closer to Mom here than I had in San Francisco.

  I needed to see her.

  As the sun faded and the cold began to take hold again, I trekked several more miles to find my mother. The cemetery looked the same it had all those years ago. It took a lot of watering to keep grass green during an Arizona summer, so the cemetery was mostly dirt and rocks with the dry desert mountains in the backdrop. Eight rows back, thirty-seven headstones down. I remembered. But two rows back I caught sight of a man—with a set of wings.

  Of course. Of course one of them would be waiting here in case I came back.

  But I wouldn’t run. Whoever he was, he could fly. He’d catch me in no time. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He would either try to kill me or take me. And this time, I was prepared for a fight. This time I wouldn’t go willingly.

  The closer I got, the more familiar his stance became. When I made it to the eighth row and turned in, I knew it was Kade. What I didn’t know was whether I’d be fighting him or not. The bruising beneath his eyes reminded me of the hit I finally landed. My first. And it was a good one. I could do that again if I had to.

  When I reached Mom’s grave, I turned my back to him. No matter what was going to happen next, I needed this now. I set my hand on the top of the marble headstone. I remembered tears. So many tears. Dad pulling me and Laylah into a hug. Right in this very spot, after her funeral, but I didn’t want a hug. I wanted… I wanted my mom back. I wanted answers. I wanted life to make sense again.

  My fingers slipped off the cold headstone one at a time. “What are you doing here?” I finally asked Kade, without turning around.

  “When you left, I knew there were only a handful of places you could’ve gone.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “It wasn’t what you think with Sorath.”

  “You mean the Fallen angel I caught you with?”

  Kade exhaled. Not quite a sigh, not quite readable. “I was getting close to them. Trying to throw them off your trail. It sounds like somebody got close enough to find you, though.”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “Someone else.”

  Somehow…he knew. Surprise made the words tumble out. “I still don’t know if that was real or not. He looked like Cam. He felt like Cam. And then suddenly… he didn’t sound like Cam. Didn’t act like him. When he tried to grab me, I ran.” I looked at him, fresh tears rimming my vision. “How am I supposed to trust you now? Did you think you could just bat your pretty brown eyes, give me that awful crooked smile and we would just, what, go back to San Francisco, and pretend nothing ever happened? Pretend we didn’t…” I didn’t know how to finish, so I didn’t.

  How did everything get so messed up?

  Kade’s feet crunched beneath the sa
nd and small rocks. He’d taken a step closer. “You finally managed to land a hit on me.”

  “Yeah. I did. According to your rules, you owe me a truth.”

  An eternity of silence stretched out in front of us, much like the uncertainty of our futures.

  “You’re right. What do you want to know?”

  “My mom. Everything you know.”

  His sigh weighed heavy in the air, so much more defeated than I’d ever heard it before. “It was just over twenty years ago when we met. We were both in New York.” He placed his hands on the iron banister enclosing the cemetery behind him, as if bracing himself before this trip into the past. “I was looking for trouble. Kay was a full-time student in art college. We were on the street, going in different directions. She walked right into me. The poor thing had two bags hanging off her and her face glued to a map. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Long blond hair…” He studied me and gripped the banister tighter. “And your eyes.”

  He looked out over the hundreds of headstones. “I walked her to the subway, but couldn’t stand leaving her. I found myself… afraid of what might happen to her if she got lost again, in a worse neighborhood. She tripped over damn near everything and smiled at everyone. She didn’t belong in a place as tough as New York.

  “And she talked to me, not as a stranger, but as a friend. The woman didn’t know small talk. She dove straight in to the hard-hitting questions, wanted to know everything about my life.” He glanced over at me. “You have a little of that, too.”

  I’d been afraid to ask before, but that didn’t sound so bad. Maybe he’d given me the G-rated version.

  “But that’s not really what you wanted to know. You’re more interested in how I Fell.”

  My throat made an unintelligible sound as I swallowed.

  “Thought so. The Cliffs Notes? We became friends. Yeah, I was an angel, but as a Warrior, our M.O.s were different than everyone else’s. We stayed on Earth; we were never allowed back the way the others are. As long as there wasn’t a battle, I was basically free to do whatever I wanted. Everything except fall in love.” Indescribable pain ripped through his words.

  “One day Kay got a call that something went wrong back at home. Her dad was in the hospital. Heart attack I think. She had to leave, and flew back to Arizona. She didn’t leave a number for where she’d be. A week passed and I got bitter. The longer she was gone, the more I missed her, and the more I knew I wanted—needed—to see her.

  “One night I broke into her place, just to see it, to smell her. I’d crossed the line and knew something was wrong. I’d been around humans a long time, but she was different. Finally, I tested out those three words, saying them aloud to see if they were true.

  “I never saw what came and tore my wings out, replaced them with these.” He flapped his black wings. “I was already unconscious when they put the cursed heart in my chest. When I woke up I’d never been so hungry.”

  He had to have meant hungry for souls. “That’s awful.” I knew the scar he was talking about, had seen it many times.

  He ignored my comment. “She never came back to New York. Once I got a hold on the whole Fallen thing, I went to Arizona to see her. Found her taking care of her parents and dating her old high school sweetheart. Your father, from what I understand.”

  “Oh.”

  “You had it all built up in your mind that we had some wild love affair while she was married to your dad, didn’t you?”

  My cheeks flushed slightly, admitting it for me, but in the darkening light I didn’t think he noticed. I cleared my throat and dove into another line of questioning before he changed his mind. “So did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Love her?”

  The metal banister he was holding on to clanged as he let go. “Since then I’ve learned loving someone and being in love are two different things. I loved your mom. That was all.”

  “Oh.” Was he trying to say something to me in his strange, roundabout way, or I was looking too much into it?

  Kade sucked in a breath. “I…there’s only one person—”

  The sound of a slow clap came from the back end of the cemetery. That familiar buzzing started in my wings again.

  “Something’s wrong,” I whispered to Kade.

  Kade’s eyes bored into the man sauntering toward us. He didn’t have any wings, but the way Kade’s body tensed meant he had to be someone significant. “Not something. Everything,” he corrected. Kade hadn’t so much as blinked. Whoever the man approaching us was, he was bad news.

  “What do we do? Should we run?”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  Kade shook his head. “You run. I’ll hold him off.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the stranger said from across the distance. He was so far away he shouldn’t have heard us talking. But he did.

  My wings picked up their uncontrollable rhythm, tightening invisible screws in my spine. I dropped to one knee. Kade stepped in front of me, putting himself between the man and me.

  The stranger slithered between the headstones, walking on dozens of graves in the process. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name. There are so many of you now.”

  I couldn’t move my head, but I did angle my eyes up. His head was tilted as he spoke to Kade.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kade drew out slowly. “After this you’ll remember it.”

  The stranger leaned to the side, angling around Kade’s wings, bringing him into my view. “Oh, my darling girl. I’ve been after you for quite some time.” Pointed-toe cowboy boots peeked out from beneath his thick, black wool dress pants. The dusty silver tips of the elaborately patterned boots glinted, reflecting the stars from Kade’s wings. His gray dress shirt rippled when he walked, not quite fitted enough to his slim build, but perfectly tucked and buttoned up to the collar.

  My wings continued to beat against my back. The pain eased enough for a brief moment that I could make out his face. And holy crap. I’d seen him before. The man leaning against the doorway at Cam’s hotel. He was the one I thought was Cam, though now, even in the dusky light, I could tell he looked nothing like Cam. Definitely losing it. Again.

  “And you”—he turned his attention back to Kade—“that was a very touching speech, but I have a thing against liars.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t lie to her.”

  “But you did. You said you never saw who gave you your new wings and inserted your heart. But you do know who did it. Why did you leave that out?”

  Kade took a step toward him. “I know now it was you.”

  Him.

  There was no way this stranger could have had anything do with the Fallen without being one himself. “Who. Are. You?” I fought back a grunt from the struggle to talk through the awful vibration.

  The stranger stood maybe two inches taller than Kade, but so much slimmer. On stature alone, Kade could probably take the guy down in two moves. Too bad stature wasn’t the only factor.

  “Well, my dear, we’ve met before, but not officially.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “In fact, we’ve met more than once.”

  More than once. The words pinged around in my brain the way my wings still rattled against my spine. More than once? Damn it. I couldn’t think with these damn wings… It hit me then like lightning igniting a brush fire. My wings. The vibrating. This was all because of him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rayna

  The first time? When I met Lee at Pier 39. The second time? My chest tightened, making the memory harder to come by. When that guy tried to grab me in the alcove after my shopping trip with Gina. I’d sent out that shockwave thing. The wing vibration happened again at the hospital. That man whispering in Detective Rhodes’s ear, right before he chased me down and brought me to the police station. Then the boy whispering in Laylah’s ear, looking up at me. And finally, that night with Cam in his h
otel room.

  None of those five instances had anything in common. They were all at random places and times with all different people. The one constant was my wings. I had talked myself into believing my wings vibrated because they sensed trouble, but that couldn’t have been the case.

  They never buzzed when I was with Kade. Not when he was training me or pretending to be a thief robbing our place. Not even outside Roxy’s Diner two nights ago, when I couldn’t trust him as far as I could punch him. There were times with Kade that I felt truly scared, afraid for my life, but my wings had never reacted like this.

  “By my count…” I took several breaths before I could continue, grabbing fistfuls of sand and gravel to ground me to the world, to the moment, so I didn’t lose consciousness. “I’m guessing five.”

  The stranger smiled and turned on one foot, kicking his other leg out from his body as if he were a child trying to balance on an invisible tightrope. “Very good. You put it together, then.”

  Kade glanced at me, taking his eyes off the stranger for one instant before they shot to him again.

  The stranger bent at the waist so I could see the glint in his eyes. “Have you figured out how I did it?” The tether cinched around the curiosity in his voice, lowering his tone to just above a whisper.

  “Don’t talk to him,” Kade warned me, holding his ground.

  “Forgive my manners.” The almost-stranger straightened up, and the loathsome pinch between his brows vanished, eliminated so fast I might have imagined it. “My name is Lucien, dearest.” He thrust out his hand to me, as if I could move at all. His face fell when I didn’t make an effort to shake it. “That was a little rude,” he said under his breath, pulling a black handkerchief from his shirt pocket and wiping his hand with it. “But nevertheless, I come with many gifts. I can be anyone or anything I desire.” Glee lifted his voice at the last words.