“Had wha—” But before I could finish my question, a tumble of glossy silver feathers spilled from her back.
“Your wings,” she said triumphantly, as hers rose above her, massive, bright against the gathering storm clouds. “We can fly there.”
The wings were a part of my body that had been added on, foreign and strange, and using them still took some getting used to. I guess that’s what Raven was trying to do—help me.
“I can trust you, Raven,” I said. “Right?”
“You don’t have to question my loyalty,” she said, her smile small and slightly shy. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. We belong together, Skye. For better or for worse.”
That would have to count as reassuring.
I closed my eyes.
You can do this. You were born to.
When I opened them, I could feel my pupils burning brightly silver. I let my powers sweep across the sky, changing the colors underneath the darkening clouds from a light pink and gold to dusty mauve, burnt orange. The feathery silver liquid took hold of me, hot, then cold, fire and ice. I grimaced and clenched my fists. It wasn’t as painful as it had been at first, but I felt the sharp feathers of my wings slice through my back nonetheless. The massive vibrations echoed in the hollows of my bones.
And as the colors in the sky shifted and sharpened, I could see the shadow of my wings on the concrete before me.
Here we go, I thought.
Raven smiled—a genuine, impressed smile.
“Ready?” she said, her hands resting on her hipbones.
Let’s do this.
I nodded.
I aligned my toes with the roof’s ledge. I bounced once, twice, on the balls of my feet. And then, I took a leap.
At first I fell, plummeting through the air like a skydiver before pulling the string on the parachute. The wind roared around me, and for a split second I waited for Asher’s arms to wrap around me, for his wings to catch the wind and glide us toward the sky. But I remembered just in time. He wasn’t here, he wasn’t coming for me. I was going to do this on my own.
I spread the massive wingspan wide behind me, catching the wind in my silver feathers, feeling the drag and then the pull. And then, as if caught by the strongest and most delicate of threads, I halted in midair. I began to soar upward.
One morning, months ago, in the darkest dead of winter, I woke up floating. And now I knew why. My body had been preparing itself for this.
Raven flew up alongside me.
“They’re beautiful,” she whispered, yet somehow I could hear her perfectly above the rushing clouds. “I hate to admit it, but they are.”
I nodded. “I could never have imagined what it would feel like to have wings.”
“Sometimes I imagine what it’s like to not.” She looked serious. “I envy the way you grew up. Your friends. People, really. They don’t have to live by the rules I was bound to. They’re free.”
“You were a Guardian,” I said. “The Order has always controlled our fate. So are my friends really as free as they think?”
She seemed to contemplate this, as thunder rumbled around us. “I guess not. But they’re freer than I was.”
“Well, you don’t have to follow commands anymore,” I said. “You’re free now.” We dipped together, then rose again, as the sky churned angrily around us.
It struck me how strongly our lives were tied to each other. We’d been through a trauma together, we shared a strange, unspoken bond. She’d saved my life. I’d saved hers.
“Look out!” she called as lightning forked across the sky. “Can’t you control that?”
The Rebellion doesn’t want to see us make it to Rocky Pines.
“You’re going to do something about this storm, right?” Raven called, panic rising in her voice. Her silver wings shone like lightning against the churning sky, as the real thing flashed behind us.
I spread my arms wide and let energy burst through my fingertips. The sky seemed to grow brighter, but not because the clouds were thinning. All of the electricity in the sky was gathering, hurtling toward me.
“Skye, look out!”
But I didn’t need to—because I was making it happen. The light zapped into my fingers, and as the storm came crashing down, I pulled it inside of me.
Almost at once, the clouds vanished, and a ray of late-afternoon light broke through the mountains. Raven stared at me, her jaw hanging open.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I flew with reckless abandon above the mountains and valleys below. Raven stayed by my side. The higher we rose, the deeper the color of the sky grew. The moon rose high above us, waiting for the sun to set. It was such a different feeling from skiing, where the speed picked up beneath my feet, pulling the very breath from my lungs, leaving me panting. Now, I embraced the wind instead of fighting against it. I embraced the feeling of letting go, and gave in to the swoop of flight.
My wings caught me. They would catch me again. I could leap, I could let myself fall. I could catch myself. The world spread out below me, the rocks and trees, houses and tiny cars. Life went on without me, the world continued to spin. And I was flying.
“Do you miss Asher?” Raven asked suddenly as we flew through a wisp of cloud.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, a little taken aback. My instinct was to lie, to say no, to act tougher than I was. But when I opened my mouth again, what came out, simply, was “Yes.”
She looked contemplative.
“I’m beginning to think I know what it feels like,” she said softly.
“What?”
“Love.”
I stared at her, so surprised I almost stopped flying.
“You do? You do?”
“Don’t look so shocked,” she said, ruffling her feathers. “You know, I didn’t think it would be this hard. I knew Devin and I were meant to be, I knew we were fated to belong to each other.” She drew a shaky breath. “But I don’t even know what that means anymore. Now that our fate has dissolved before our very eyes, I don’t know who we are to each other.” She looked at me, and a tear slid down her cheek. “Now that I can feel, I don’t know how to.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Well, how do you think you feel?”
“I think I love him,” she said. “But I don’t have anything to compare it to. It’s like . . . I feel warm inside when I think of him, like I have this secret, even despite what he did to me. But it’s a secret that I shouldn’t have, or want to have. I had been ready to kill him, and he hurt me, too—I mean, he cut my wings right off my back, for god’s sake. And still, after all that, my heart feels all twisty, and I think that must be what love feels like, right? But it doesn’t make sense. How can you love someone who’s hurt you?”
I didn’t know what to say, and the wind rushed between us.
“I thought love was supposed to make you feel happy,” Raven said at last.
“I think it is in theory,” I said. “But the only people I know who feel that way are Cassie and Dan. Everyone else is pretty miserable. So maybe they’re the exception, not the rule.”
We flew silently for a couple of seconds, both lost in thought.
“It’s very confusing,” she said. “He’s a Rebel now—something I was born to hate. I still do. I think I may finally understand how you feel.” She sighed. “You love Asher, but to become a Rebel would mean turning your back on your destiny. I love Devin, but . . .” She trailed off, looking away. “I think he fell in love with someone else.”
A heavy silence hung in the air between us, full of unsaid things.
Finally, she spoke. “Anyway, I get it now.”
“I don’t love him back,” I said quietly.
“Please,” she smirked at me knowingly. Not in a malicious way, but more like we were confidants. “Like I’m afraid of a little competition.” The smirk turned into a full-blown smile. “I’m free now, after all. I can fight as hard as I want.”
“The qu
estion is,” I said, “with all that’s standing between you, What are you going to do if you get him?”
The ground was rushing up beneath us. We were reaching our destination.
Raven didn’t answer right away.
“You know,” she said. “Devin never looked at me the way Asher looked at you. As if the whole world was bottled up within him, and only you understood what it meant.” She paused, twisted in the air to face the sky above her. “I think the universe has a way of finding loopholes when you want something badly enough.”
7
The sun hung low in the sky, and the hazy orange light cast a sepia feel over the flat, cracked streets and run-down houses. Somewhere, I thought I heard the sound of a truck backfiring—at least I hoped that’s what it was—and a chorus of dogs began to bark, followed by a siren. We weren’t in River Springs anymore.
We touched down outside of 144 Sycamore Street.
“Nice,” Raven said, raising her eyebrows.
It looked exactly like it did in my vision: a gray house, shabby, showing neglect, with a dilapidated porch, and a metal chain-link fence around the front yard. A russet colored pit bull was tied to a tether in the ground. And standing next to him, scratching his ears, was the girl from my vision.
She had the same straight-but-messy light brown hair, tied up in the same lopsided pigtails. When Raven and I pushed open the gate, she looked up quickly.
Her eyes darted between the two of us in confusion.
“Hi,” I said. “We’re friends of your dad.” I cringed as I realized that’s what creepy stalkers and kidnappers might have said. “I’m Skye.” The little girl squinted at me appraisingly, then nodded her chin at Raven.
“Who’s she?”
Raven stiffened. “I’m Raven,” she said.
“I don’t understand.” The girl had backed herself up onto the porch, one hand behind her on the doorknob. “Why would one of you”—she pointed at me—“be with one of them?” And she pointed at Raven. “Why would you be together?”
Raven and I glanced at each other.
“What do you mean?” I asked slowly. “One of who?”
“A light-haired one and a dark-haired one.”
“You know about that?” I said in surprise.
She nodded.
“You don’t have to worry,” I said. “She and I are on the same side.” The girl withdrew even farther, panic flashing across her face. “A different side!” I added quickly. “Not dark or light. Something new.”
“New?”
I nodded. “We want to stop both sides. Keep them from hurting each other, or anyone else.”
“Oh.” She looked confused.
“I’ll explain more, if you want.”
The girl twisted one of her ponytails around her finger. “Your name’s Skye?” she asked.
“Yep. What’s your name?”
She looked at me quizzically.
“Earth,” she said at last.
“What?” said Raven, just a tad too aggressively, perhaps forgetting we were talking to a small child and taking a step forward. “Are you trying to be cute or something?”
“I’ve heard of you,” Earth said quietly. Raven stopped in her tracks, and I stared.
“You’ve heard of me?” I asked hoarsely.
At the sound of a pickup truck rumbling into the driveway, Earth’s eyes grew wide. The door opened and slammed closed, and Aaron Ward came hurtling forward.
“Hey!” he shouted, bounding past us and taking the rickety porch steps three at a time—which, judging from the state of them, maybe he shouldn’t have done. “Hey! Get away from my daughter. What the hell are you thinking, coming here, out in the open where anyone can see you? Are you crazy?”
There was no mistaking Aaron Ward. He looked the same as in the picture—but older, like in my vision. His dark hair was wavy and shot through with gray, and there were lines on his face from too much time weathering the sun. The only difference was his eyes. All trace of mischief, of conspiratorial smile, was gone. It had been replaced by something gruff and surly. “Get off my porch and leave us alone,” he spat. “And you can take your spies . . .” he said, motioning toward the trees and bushes along the side of the property, “with you.”
“Dad!” Earth said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “It’s Skye.”
Aaron shut his mouth and stared at me, hard. He squinted, as if trying to place me, to determine if what his daughter said was true.
“What’s she doing here?” He nodded toward Raven, his voice so low it was practically a growl.
“Please.” Raven put a hand on her hip. “Nobody mask their disdain on my account.”
“She’s with me. Don’t worry, she’s cool. She’s not a . . . Guardian.”
“Can they stay for dinner?” Earth asked, looking up at her dad with big, brown eyes. “Please?” Aaron stared at us a little longer, then seemed to come to some kind of decision.
“I hope you like takeout,” he grumbled, opening the door.
Earth made a face at me as we walked inside.
“We always get takeout,” she whispered.
The four of us sat around a white metal table in the kitchen.
“Water?” Aaron said gruffly, holding out a glass pitcher.
I nodded politely. “Thank you.”
He took a bite of apple pie, chewing thoughtfully. He’d gotten two slices, and we’d cut them into four. Earth insisted.
“We don’t have guests a lot,” she said earnestly. Aaron glanced at her, almost amused. I could tell that this kid was a handful. I already liked her.
I studied her. If she was Aaron’s daughter, then she had traces of Rebel blood in her. And possibly some of the special Rogue powers her father had. She clearly knew about the Order and the Rebellion. Maybe even knew about her own heritage.
“Who was that out in the yard?” I asked. “He’s cute. I always wanted a dog, but Aunt Jo said if we got one I had to feed it and walk it, and I was always too busy skiing.”
“I get to walk him,” she said proudly. “That’s Milo. He’s our attack dog.”
“Scary,” Raven said, sounding like she meant the opposite.
“We got him to scare away the light-haireds.”
I glanced at Aaron. He was watching me.
“We saw you race once,” Earth said.
“Okay, Trouble, that’s enough sugar for you,” Aaron said brusquely, whisking her plate to the sink.
“He calls me Trouble,” Earth stage-whispered to me and Raven. “Because I talk a lot.”
“Not a lot,” Aaron corrected, sitting back down and mussing her hair. “Too much.”
“Right, too much. Dad says one day I’m going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and get in BIG trouble. Do you know what that’s called?”
“No.” I smiled. “Tell me.”
“It’s called eating your shoe.” She crossed her arms and beamed, impressed with this knowledge.
“I think you might want to check again,” Raven said, and I elbowed her in the rib.
“Ow!”
“Raven knows all about eating your shoe,” I said to Earth.
“It’s not a good habit.” She shook her head, as if to confirm this fact.
“No,” I said. “It’s not.” I looked up at Aaron to find him watching me again. “Your attack dog,” I said. “The Order. They’re watching you.”
“Every damn day,” he said.
“They come to my school, too,” Earth piped up. “Every damn day.” Aaron glanced at her sideways. “I can see them out the window during class. And sometimes if you sit in the kitchen at night with the lights off, you can see their wings moving outside the window. Like pale butterflies.”
“When do you do that?” Aaron asked, surprised.
“When you get home late,” she said. “Don’t worry. Milo sits with me.”
Suddenly, all the windows in the kitchen slammed closed—on their own—and the curtains drew themselves in tightly.
I flinched.
“Just in case,” Aaron said through gritted teeth. “They could be watching us right now.”
I wondered what kind of powers he had, as a Rogue. Some kind of control over wind or energy, to be able to pull off a trick like that?
I forced myself back to the conversation, and the little girl sitting next to me.
“Do you spend a lot of time alone?” I asked her. Earth nodded vigorously. “So do I,” I said. “You should come to River Springs sometime. Hang out with me.”
She perked up. “Dad used to live in River Springs! I saw pictures in his album. And then we visited to watch you ski. It’s so pretty.”
“When did you come watch me ski?” I asked. “I don’t remember—”
“Okay, Trouble. I think it’s bedtime, wouldn’t you say?”
“Do I have to?” Earth puffed out her bottom lip.
“Yes, you do, missy,” he said, giving her a nudge to get her moving. “Go brush those teeth while I talk to Skye and Raven.”
Earth got up. Suddenly, I felt a tiny pair of arms wrap around my waist, and looked down to find her hugging me good-bye.
“Hi there,” I said, and patted her head awkwardly.
“Will you come back and visit us again?” She looked up at me with big brown eyes.
I glanced at Aaron, who stiffened.
“Well, that’s up to your dad,” I said.
“I’ll talk to him later,” she whispered behind her hand.
“Okay, it’s a deal.”
“Bye, Raven!” she called over her shoulder on her way out the door.
“Hey! Don’t I get a hug?” Raven yelled after her. But the little girl was already gone.
“I bet you get a lot of sleep,” I said.
“You don’t even know the half of it.” Aaron paused, as if trying to figure out what to say next. “I’ve thought about this day.” He looked down at the water glass in his hand. “Seeing you all grown up. What I would say to you. The last time I saw you, you were her age.” He glanced at the stairs. “Earth!” he shouted. “Let’s hear that water running!”
“I’m going!” she called back. We heard a skitter of small feet climb the rest of the staircase.