Authors: Amber Hughey
She poked him, her lips tight with worry. “Gabriel?”
He jerked back to motion, offering her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, got lost in my thoughts.”
“They changed everyone first thing. That’s the first thing they do,” she explained as she started walking, following a small set of footsteps through the dried and broken grass. “They make sure you can make the change successfully. At first, they weren’t. Successful, I mean. That’s what Paul told me. They grabbed some they thought should make it, but they didn’t.”
Gabriel followed Sam, holding Amalia firmly in his arms, using his wings for balance as she jerked and seized. “Aleks figured it out. Either that, or he stole Owen’s research.”
“Owen?” Sam said with a start, staring back at Gabriel in surprise.
Gabriel nodded as he followed. “That’s how Owen found out Vicki would make the transformation.”
“Then, they start the experiments. Lots of blood work,” she said, rubbing the bruises and wounds that decorated her thin arms, “Then the vaccines. In batches, of course.”
“Of course,” Gabriel muttered as they entered the dark woods. The trees loomed overhead, creating a dark wall in front of them.
Sam crept in front, slowly making her way forward. Following the tracks that Amalia had left, Sam led them through the dark woods, using just the scant starlight and sliver of moonlight to find the path. “None of the vaccines worked on me. Or most
of the others. Sometimes, they hurt. Sometimes, they killed.”
“How many?” Gabriel questioned as he shifted Amalia’s weight. She’d gone quiet and still, and it worried him.
“While I was there? Three,” Sam stated flatly, placing a hand on an old tombstone.
“Three,” Gabriel echoed, gently touching Amalia’s neck, trying to find a pulse. There. Weak and thread, but there. Good. She let out a small, painfilled moan, making his heart skip a beat in a moment of terror.
“Three,” Sam repeated, “and that’s just in the week I was there. Paul’s been there for a couple months. And he’d known someone who’d been there even longer.” She wound her way through the cemetery toward the bright car.
“My car,” he said, walking past Sam.
“Keys?” Sam replied.
“Her pocket. I can feel them,” Gabriel said.
Sam reached into Amalia’s front pocket and pulled out the keys. Unlocking the car, she helped Gabriel into the passenger seat with Amalia still in his arms.
“Is this normal?” he asked after Sam carefully slid into the driver’s seat.
Sam looked at Amalia’s still frame. “For some.” Reaching over, she laid a cool hand against the sweating brow. “Normal,” she said softly. She’s
changing, that’s all. I thought you’d been around a human transforming?”
Gabriel shook his head and stared down at Amalia. “No. Never.”
Sam slowly nodded, “then you’re in for a treat. Where’s a safe place for her to change?”
“Matt’s,” Gabriel stated, holding Amalia firmly as she starting to shake.
“Where?”
Giving her the directions, Gabriel focused on keeping Amalia from thrashing around the interior.
Her eyes were gritty, bringing up memories of the few times she’d gotten plastered with Sam and Vicki. She tried to raise a hand, but her arm felt heavy and slow, as if it had been coated in concrete before falling asleep. She breathed heavy, deep breathes and tried again. This time, she succeeded.
The motion brought a groan to her throat as the pain filled her movement.
“Hey,” a deep voice came from beside her.
She turned her head towards the voice, opened her eyes and saw Gabriel sitting in a chair next to her bed. Not her bed, she realized, but the Gabriel’s bed. She blinked slowly and felt a smile creep over her sore face. “What happened?” she asked hoarsely, wondering why her throat felt as gritty as her eyes. She stared at Gabriel, who didn’t look right. Not quite like the Gabriel she remembered. His hair, for one. When had he gotten red tips done? And his wings. She didn’t remember seeing the patterns that looked like fire in a dark sky that were so obvious.
“Drink this,” Gabriel said, avoiding the question, offering her a glass and straw. Ice clattered and clinked in the glass as he got maneuvered the straw to her mouth.
She sipped the drink through the bright orange straw, grateful to feel the cool water coursing down her throat.
“Gabriel,” she repeated, glad to feel the grittiness disapate, feeling her heart start to race as she started noticing details that she hadn’t seen before. Like being able to see Sam’s individual strands of hair from where she stood in the doorway. What the hell –
“How much do you remember?” Gabriel asked as he cut off her train of thought, absently setting the glass on the small table next to the bed, a vivid stoneware coaster sitting next to it.
She closed her eyes, remembering the noises, the smells that surrounded her. Shutting off the details that swam in her vision, she replied, “I remember getting you out of your cell. Meeting Aleks. Getting thrown. Pain. Lots of pain.” She shifted her weight with another groan as her sore muscles protested the slight movement. There was a heavy, unfamiliar weight on her back. She figured it must be a heavy blanket, and she started to shiver, unsure of whether it was from cold or adrenaline.
“About Aleks,” Gabriel started, and then stopped. He leaned forward and took her hand in his, gently squeezing it.
She could see worry in his light eyes, and it sparked a knot of worry in her stomach. “What about
him? I remember something about him trying to save his sister? Gabriel, what happened?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said slowly, ignoring the last question. “When he threw you…when he threw you,” he said, trying again, “he threw you into a tray of instruments.”
“He killed Donovan,” Amalia said, cutting off Gabriel, closing her eyes at the memory of the correspondence she’d found between him and Donovan.
“He killed a lot of humans trying to save Natalia,” Gabriel replied, briefly frustrated. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?” Amalia said, taking a deep breath.
“Amalia – “he stopped, frustrated. Running a hand through his hair, he looked up and saw Sam standing in the doorway, her cream and peach wings framing her slight body, her dark hair in stark contrast to her pale face. He nodded to her.
“Amalia, I need to show you something,” Sam said, bringing Amalia’s attention toward her friend as she walked around the bed.
“What?” Amalia asked, trying to loosen her tight muscles.
“This,” Sam said, lowering a mirror for Amalia to look at.
“What am I supposed to see? All the bruises?” Amalia asked, trying for light but not reaching it.
There was no regret at the way she’d received the bruises in her voice.
“No, this,” Sam said, angling the mirror so Amalia could see her shoulders.
Amalia froze as she saw dark chestnut wings lying on her back. The dark chestnut wings, flaked with copper and gold, looking like falling stars in a sky of fire Her breath hitched, and she turned her head, realizing why her body felt so heavy. She swallowed, and then looked at Gabriel. “I’m…I’m angelus?”
Gabriel nodded slowly, his face grim.
“That’s what Aleks did to me. He infected me? How?” She had to breathe. Had to. She was seeing back spots, and they started to cover her vision.
He nodded again, not responding other than the slow nod. After he controlled her breathing, he said, “when he threw the tray of instruments at me, one of those was a needle filled with the serum. The serum ended up in you.”
He looked at her, noting the dark bruises that were scattered on her pale skin. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got hit by a truck. A very large truck. Moving quickly.”
Sam giggled in relief. If she was joking, she’d be fine. That had been one of their codes after Donovan and Williams. Thank god. “That’s because you changed so quickly. From what I saw, most
humans take a couple weeks to fully change. Not under twenty-four hours.”
“So how’d I do it?” Amalia asked as she stared at Gabriel’s wings. The pattern was almost alive as he shifted, sending the feathers waving.
“Some humans do it quickly, although not as quick as you. Some take a couple weeks. Some take even longer,” Sam said with a shrug.
“It depends on how close the angelus in your background is. How many generations away, I mean,” she heard a deep voice from the doorway.
She craned her head around and saw Matt leaning against the door. His brown wings were patterned like the bark of an oak tree, now. Not just the plain oak colored leaves she’d seen before.
“Matt?” she couldn’t help the happiness that she heard in her voice.
“Hey beautiful,” he said with a smile. “Heard you got to join us.”
“So I feel,” she said, a tinge of bitterness in her voice.
“Didn’t really want to be with Gabriel until the sun goes black? Don’t blame you. Join me instead. The dark side lies about having cookies, anyway,” he said with a laugh, flipping a coin in his hand, the silver glinting off the light that came in through the window.
Gabriel sent him a dark look. “Back off,” he growled.
Matt smirked. “What, afraid I’ll tempt her to the side of the light? I mean, she should be with her own race, right?”
Gabriel narrowed his gray eyes at Matt and stared. “Back off,” he repeated, voice low in warning.
“Seriously,” Matt said, ignoring Gabriel’s warning, “They lie about having cookies. We don’t. We have them, I mean. You’ve had my cooking. It’s damn good.”
Amalia raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “Yeah, but with the food I’ve seen you eat? I don’t think I’ll take what you’re offering.”
He gave a dramatic sigh and shrugged. “Well, had to try. You said you have a hot cousin, right?”
That surprised a laugh out of her. Her ribs didn’t hurt anymore. Must have healed along with changing, she thought. “Morgan, yeah. Actually,” she paused, “you two would probably get a long pretty good…”
“Then invite her over. Quickly,” Gabriel said dryly, returning his attention to Amalia.
“What’s this about generations?” Sam asked curiously, changing the subject.
Matt looked at Sam, and then turned his brilliant smile back on Amalia. “Your great-grandmother is one of us. Well, one on each side, actually. Sam’s is about ten generations back? Some are even further. The further the relation, the longer it takes a human to change.”
Amalia closed her eyes and winced as she tried to move. It hurt. It was slowly getting better, but it hurt. She opened her eyes and looked back at Gabriel. “How do I sit up?”
“Carefully,” he said, feeling a smile on his lips at the look of annoyance that fleeted across her face. He helped her sit up, showing her how to sit so she didn’t injure the new wings.
“How long has it been? When did this happen? Sam said something about twenty four hours?”
“Just yesterday,” Gabriel said, standing over her as she looked up at him.
“Just yesterday?” she asked in disbelief, sure that they were jesting.
“Just yesterday. Do I hear an echo?” Matt said as he stared at Amalia, who was balancing on the edge of the bed, staring at her new wings.
She looked up at the ceiling, trying to calm her racing nerves. “Where did they come from? The wings?”
“Your body,” Sam answered as she walked over to Amalia and perched on the bed next to her. “Basically, it pulled the minerals and everything from your reserves.”
“You really didn’t want them,” Gabriel said as he watched Amalia trying not to touch her wings.
She shook her head. “It’s not that I have a problem with not being human…I mean, what girl
hasn’t dreamed of having a pair of wings or a unicorn of her own, but this…” she said, gesturing back at the wings that now hung off her shoulders, the heavy weight unfamiliar. And heavier than what she’d thought. “The reality of it…I just would have liked to actually make it a choice. Not have it made for me, even accidentally, you know?”
“Yeah, well. Too bad, so sad. You’re alive. Most of them aren’t. Be happy with your lot,” Matt said simply, help her stand. “Plus, sorry to break your heart, but no unicorns.”
“None?” Sam asked. “So, no flying and no unicorns. So far, this bites,” she teased, running a hand over her formerly luscious locks.
“I didn’t save them?” Amalia asked, ignoring Sam’s quip, distraught at the news.
Gabriel shook his head, and then gave her a smile. “No, we did,” he said, emphasizing the ‘we’. “Not all of them, though. Two didn’t make it. Two that tried for the elevator too late,” he finished. “The four on the elevator made it, actually. They were badly wounded, but they healed.”
“Paul? Kasey?” she pressed, needing an answer.
“Both alive and with their families,” Gabriel replied. “Matt saw to it this morning.”
“Matt did? What’d you do?” she asked, trying to stand straight but finding it nigh impossible with the wings pulling her backwards.