Coping

  Girl With Broken Wings

  A Novella By J Bennett

  Copyright © 2012 by J Bennett, All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-0-9840048-2-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  A Note To Readers

  COPING is a short novella that takes place between FALLING (Book One) and LANDING (Book Two) in the GIRL WITH BROKEN WINGS series. I originally wrote this fun and gruesome little number (odd combo, I know) to keep readers hooked as I finished LANDING. New readers can jump right into Maya’s world with this novella, but I suggest starting at the beginning with FALLING. Either way, please enjoy!

  Chapter 1

  “Step one…” Gabe leans the shovel against his body, spits into his hands and rubs them together vigorously. “Less friction. Come on, try it.”

  “Ew, no,” I say.

  Gabe frowns. “And I suppose you’ve done this before. You know everything about it.”

  “I’m wearing gloves, I don’t need to spit.” I hold up my hands to show off the black fingerless gloves that are a necessary fashion accessory.

  “Oh yeah.” Gabe grins at me, and despite the circumstances, I see playful hues of green edging the glow around his body.

  “Get going,” Tarren calls behind us. His long body is stretched out on the roof of his silver Murano SUV. He’s propped up on his elbows, peering back toward the road through a pair of binoculars and listening to the police scanner next to him.

  “No one’s going to see us,” Gabe responds to Tarren. “We’re in Fucksville, Michigan, population no one. They’ve got more out-of-business mattress stores than people.”

  “And one less angel,” I murmur. I try not to be nervous about this; try not to think about the shovels and the thing the shovels are meant to do. But a small, desperate voice in my head keeps whispering, this is not my life, this is not my life.

  It is now, I think back…at myself…because I’m not crazy or anything.

  “Right,” Gabe grins like I just said something funny. A heavy wind kicks up. There’s nothing in this endless stretch of flat land to stop it, and it hits us hard, tossing around my short hair and rippling Gabe’s blood-stained t-shirt.

  I smell the blood, the sweat trickling down Gabe’s face, the car exhaust from the distant road, the rich scent of earth kicking up in the wind…so many smells.

  “So, we’re going for a six by four rectangle,” Gabe continues. “The key is to start on the outside, get in deep with the shovel and try to take off the top layer in as few pieces as we can. We want to keep the grass as intact as possible so when we’re done it doesn’t look like much of a disturbance.”

  Gabe plunges his shovel into the dirt. It goes three quarters in. My brother’s face turns sour. Actually, half-brother if we’re being technical.

  “Thick as clay. This is going to suck royally,” he says. “Texas is my favorite. Lots of empty space and loose dirt, but not too sandy. Best burying ground for my money.”

  He steps on the crest of the metal, pressing his thin body onto the shovel to force it deeper into the ground. I follow his lead. My first strike with the shovel is a timid one. It only nudges halfway into the ground. When I step on my shovel, it doesn’t sink at all. I bend my knees and hop a little, and the shovel pushes about an inch deeper into the stubborn clay.

  Gabe laughs. “This does not bode well for your grave digging future.” His aura pulses deep sapphire blues and those amused strands of emerald.

  “Shut up.” I pull the shovel out, tighten my grip and plunge it all the way into the ground in a single stroke. I pull up a thick wad of soil with slender roots hanging out over the sides.

  “Well, yeah, I guess the super strength will pretty much compensate for poor fundamentals,” Gabe shrugs.

  “I don’t have super strength,” I mutter. “I can’t like, lift a car or anything.”

  “Really?” Gabe dumps a shovelful of soil next to mine. “Have you tried to?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe you can.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but the truth is, I honestly don’t know if I can lift a car. In those first weeks after the change, Tarren tried to test the limits of my new abilities. I always held back. Part of it was fear of what my new body could do. A bigger part was about hiding my secret. It takes three injections of an angel’s bone marrow to turn a human completely into an angel. Tarren and Gabe think I only got one injection. I need them to keep on believing that. If Tarren discovered that I’d had two injections and was even more of a genetically-enhanced superhuman—of an angel—than he already thought, he’d put a bullet through my brain and consider it due caution.

  I shiver, even though I’m not cold. I can feel Tarren behind me, the flat, slow churn of his aura. He always keeps a tight grip on his emotions in my presence. He doesn’t know how well I can read auras, but he suspects enough to be careful.

  While Tarren keeps watch from the roof of the Murano, Gabe and I dig a grave for Madelyn Mendoza. Even with the protection of my faux-leather gloves, the handle of the shovel rubs painfully against my palms, and my back begins to stitch with cramps. Super strength or not, this isn’t exactly easy. Also, Gabe’s aura is flaring with his efforts. This is a problem.

  The thing is, I don’t just see auras. I feed on them. The equivalent of sucking a person’s energy right out of their body. I’ve been getting by on animals—drained a couple of rats while Gabe and Tarren were on the hunt this afternoon—but just barely. They keep me alive, but they hardly slake my hunger.

  My hunger, it is a fearsome thing. More addiction than normal physical function. It plays a dangerous melody in my brain, confusing my thoughts and sawing through my self-control. As Gabe’s energy flickers higher, the colors brightening around his frame, I bite down on the inside of my cheek and focus on the pain. This is a new trick I’ve learned. It helps a little.

  Twice during the grave digging, Tarren calls us to halt. Gabe and I pull up our shovels and duck in front of the Murano. Tarren slides off the roof, opens the driver’s side door and turns off the headlights that illuminate our efforts.

  The road is a mile out, but the land is so flat and barren that if a driver turned his head and squinted, he might see the dark outline of our SUV and wonder what an abandoned car was doing out in a vast stretch of nothingness.

  “Our cover story is that we’re geo-cashing,” Gabe whispers the first time we have to hide.

  “And that explains the blood how?” I whisper back at him.

  “Ketchup. I’m a really messy eater.”

  “Quiet,” Tarren commands. He’s like that sometimes…all the time.

  In both instances we wait and watch the long glare of headlights from the oncoming cars. Tarren is tense, expecting trouble, but in each case, the car goes on its merry little way without a pause.

  It takes less than 30 minutes, even in this stubborn Michigan soil, to open up a shallow pit that meets with Gabe’s approval. When Gabe gives our efforts the thumbs up, Tarren opens up the hatch of the SUV and slings a bundle over his shoulder that use to be Madelyn Mendoza. The shape of her body is softened by its swaddling of blue plastic tarp, which I had carefully laid out in the trunk while Gabe and Tarren were tracking her.

  I’m still more “accomplice” than “partner”, but at least I finally convinced my brothers to buy me proper black attire—a snug outfit of polyester long-sleeved shirt and nylon pants that would help me blend into the night…if my brothers ever actually let me out on a hunt with them.

  Then again, a small part of me—okay, a more than small part of me—is glad for just tarp and grave digging duty. That little voice inside my head that keeps saying, This isn’t my life, this isn’t my life, is right. One month ago, I was a mediocre college student with purple bangs, a few stupid dreams and a boyfriend who didn’t think they were stupid at all.

  I turn away as Tarren carries his cargo to the pit and drops it in. I jump a little at the heavy smack of impact. My mind is starting to whirl with fear and anxiety again. I’m still getting periodic mini-breakdowns where my brain suddenly revolts from this fucking crazy new reality I’ve stumbled into.

  I keep calm on the outside and try to think of other things. Happy, pleasant things not related to the fact that I lost everything in my life, and the only thing I got in return was two vigilante half-brothers, a few physical upgrades, and one overriding mission for vengeance.

  The happy, calming thought I come up with is donuts. The round, powdered-sugared kind with raspberry jam inside. Then I remember that I can’t eat donuts anymore; can’t eat any human food.

  Stupid, fucking donuts.

  I turn around toward the grave. Both Tarren and Gabe are staring at me. Standing side by side, they look absolutely nothing alike, even though they’re full brothers. Tarren is tall and muscled with chocolate brown hair that he keeps trimmed close to his head. Gabe is average height and has a wiry build. He lets his hair grow out in golden brown waves that he tames with his lucky baseball cap, an object worn so continuously that the white has turned a turgid gray.

  “Why don’t you go rest in the car,” Gabe says. “This part is easy. Tarren can do it.”

  Tarren picks up the second shovel.

  “No,” I say, because I can’t be weak in front of them anymore. Not if I want my brothers to trust me, to help me find Grand, to let me kill him. “I’m good. Hunky-dory.” Yes, I actually say this.

  “You sure?” Tarren says. It sounds more like a challenge than a question. He doesn’t let go of the shovel.

  “Yeah, someone needs to keep watch,” I say. Actually, no one really needs to keep watch. On this silent, desolate night, I could hear a car coming from a mile away, but I know Tarren is completely paranoid and thinks we should keep watches at all times. Mostly, he thinks we should keep a watch over me.

  Even though we’ve come to an understanding and Tarren’s been keeping up his side of the bargain, our truce is uneasy. He remains wary of me. I remain convinced that he’s just a big dumb oaf with no sense of humor and no compassion. He’s been through hell, but so have I, and that’s no excuse for being a dick all the time.

  I hold my hand out for the shovel. Tarren releases his grip, allowing the shovel to fall into my palm. He doesn’t like to get close to my hands even though I always wear my gloves.

  Gabe and I pitch dirt on the bundle. As I was relegated to the car, I didn’t actually see the kill go down, but I remember what Madelyn looked like from the research Gabe pulled on her. She was VP of finance in Harold Krugal’s seed investment company. She had a long, stern face. I wonder if any of it is left beneath that tarp.

  After news of Krugal’s disappearance, most of the angels in his circle fled. With good reason. We’d tracked Krugal down through the bread crumb trail of dead bodies left by his granddaughter, Amber. Turns out, his whole organization was filled with angels. He gave them up with some persuasion from Gabe. My happy, sarcastic brother still won’t talk about what specifics that persuasion entailed. This is probably for the best.

  The blue tarp disappears beneath a hail of heavy, chunky dirt as Gabe and I erase Madelyn. Krugal was similarly erased, and so was young Amber. I think of the red-headed teenager, her tear-filled eyes and the wet Strawberry Shortcake pajama shirt she wore the night we fought and Tarren killed her. I know that Amber was an angel. I know that she fed on innocent people. I know that we saved lives by taking hers.

  The hole is filled. Gabe and I turn over the top layer of soil, packing the grass back on top. It doesn’t look very convincing to me, but Gabe seems satisfied.

  Just like that, Madelyn Mendoza is gone. We’d been chasing her for over a week, following the trail of bodies she left as she fled to this barren place. In fact, Madelyn had just killed a young couple this morning. The two were engaged.

  Madelyn deserved to be erased, just like Amber. That doesn’t make it easier, at least not for me. I still feel like I’ve tripped and fallen into a living nightmare.

  Chapter 2

  “Let’s do termite inspectors,” Gabe says and stuffs the last bite of roast beef sandwich into his mouth.

  Tarren shakes his head. “We had to throw away your uniform. Too much blood.”

  “Oh yeah.” Gabe leans back in the passenger seat and takes a big swig from his can of Monster Energy.

  I watch rain streak down the side window. We’re back in Redmond, Washington, straight from Michigan. The next name on our angel kill list is Graham Hendricks. He was the late Harold Krugal’s lawyer. From what Gabe has been able to dig up on him, it seems he’s fled like the others. Smart guy.

  Short guy. The profile pics that Gabe has shown us feature a squat man with incredibly hairy forearms. His eyes are dark and beady. Maybe it’s because I know what he is now—and, of course, being a lawyer in the first place wasn’t a great start—but I’m convinced that there’s an ugly shadow in his eyes.

  Now, we’re sitting in an Arby’s parking lot two miles down the road from his luxury townhouse, while my brothers discuss infiltration techniques. Since I have nothing to add to the conversation, I watch the rain and try to ignore the pungent odor of Gabe’s meal.

  “Oh, I got it. Mormons,” Gabe says.

  Tarren raises an eyebrow.

  “No, let me go with this one. We walk up to the porch, all happy and filled with Jesus and stuff. You knock, I’ll pick the lock, and we go in. If anyone sees us, it’ll look completely normal.”

  “Except for the fact that they’ll think someone actually let you inside,” I chime in from the backseat.

  Tarren thinks this through carefully. His eyes go far away, and I imagine his brain mapping every possible scenario, churning out reports filled with ones and zeros. “There could be trouble if the neighbors know that Hendricks isn’t around.”

  Gabe takes another chug from his can of Monster, and I can actually see the effect of the caffeine on his aura. The flow of his energy increases, the colors brightening and pushing farther out from his body.

  “Life lesson Maya,” he turns around in his seat.

  “Oh goodie,” I say.

  “No, this one is for real. The majority of people are lazy fucks. They don’t want to stretch their necks out or get involved in other people’s shit. Especially their neighbors, because no one cares about their neighbors anymore.”

  “Fair enough,” I shrug.

  “Now, if someone sees a suspicious ruffian, such as Tarren, kick down their neighbor’s door, they’d know a crime was going on and feel obligated to call in the cops, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But if two clean cut Mormons show up at their neighbor’s door and go in, you think anybody is going to call the cops? Nah. Even if something doesn’t seem right—like maybe they know the neighbor’s not supposed to be home or they didn’t see anyone answer the door—there’s just enough believability that they can assume everything is on the up and up. The last thing they want to do is make an effort for somebody else, so we just have to give them a reason not to.”

  “How very profound,” I say.

  Gabe smiles. “As long as something looks minimally plausible, the majority of people will just let it happen.”

  “Mormons aren’t supposed to drink caffeine,” I inform Gabe, as he motions to take another swig of his energy drink.

  “You’re kidding me. How do those poor saps survive?”

  “Good question…Faith?”

  “Alright,” Tarren brings us back to the present. “We’ll go with Mormons. We get in the house and search for anything that tells us where Hendricks might have gone.”

  “What about me?” I ask. “Can I come?”

  “Nope, there aren’t any female Mormons,” Gabe says.

  “Of course there are female Mormons you ignoramus. They just…don’t do the door to door selling God thing.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “There’s a park on the corner of the street. You can keep watch from there. Tell us if anyone’s coming,” Tarren says. His energy, that muddy blue, is a solid, steady shield to his inner thoughts.

  Honestly, it isn’t much, but at least I’ve graduated from waiting in the car, so I take it.

  ***

  The rain is light but steady. I’m wrapped in one of Gabe’s coats. It’s long on me and smells like him. There’s a shaky phone number written in blue pen on the left cuff, which likely leads to some pretty girl in a random corner of the country who has a particular fondness for lots of alcohol and witty strangers.

  Despite the fact that my brothers keep an armory in their trunk as well as a suitcase filled with various uniforms, badges, IDs and other costumes, there was not a single umbrella to be found. I huddle on a park bench and feel little spits of rain slide down the back of my neck.

  I have a phone up to my ear. There’s no one on the other line, but I engage in a lengthy conversation nonetheless as I glance down the street and watch my two very incongruent Mormons make their way toward Graham Hendricks’s house.

  The guy I’m having a fake conversation with is Bill. I decide that I’m a high-and-mighty business woman, and Bill is a terrified underling.

  “Where are we on the Stiegal project?” I demand.

  Gabe and Tarren are both wearing long-sleeved, white collared shirts, ties and black dress pants. Tarren wears polished black shoes, but for some reason, Gabe’s were missing. He’s still in his beat up sneakers, which he shrugged about good naturedly. Tarren, of course, was none too happy. Then again, Tarren is not happy about anything.

 

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