Authors: Amber Hughey
There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. "I sent Matt to get you out of there; social niceties were the least of our concern. The news about the body is already out. I’m not sure how, but we’ve both been connected to it, and not in a good way, and not in a legal way. Someone who, I’m guessing, has something to do with the missing people-“
Now that her fear was gone, she was filled with an adrenaline-fueled anger that she unleashed at Gabriel. She cut him off with a sharp reply, “You think? First we find one of the missing people, dead, floating in a river, and next I get attacked? ‘Cause I sure as shit was just attacked.”
She looked back at Matt, who had an uncomfortable look on his boyish face as the zip-tied the twitching umbren. Ignoring his comfort, she continued her tirade.
He let her rage for a few more moments before quietly interrupting. “Amalia, when I got home, there was someone waiting for me. I was able to briefly apprehend my assailant, and I…convinced him to tell me a few details. Only small details, as the
solan bastard overpowered me, but enough for me to figure out that you’re next.
They know where you live.
You
know
this. One already found you.”
His words sent a chill skittering up her spine, shutting her mind down for a brief second. He’d been attacked. Like she had. Shit. “That much,” she shot back, annoyed that he thought he had to tell her those details, “is obvious. Really, really obvious.”
“These people know that you’re working with me. And they’re not happy about it. Now, unless you think that being
actually
kidnapped by the bad guys makes for a smashing good time, I think you really need to go with Matt. And quickly dear, if that’s not asking too much," he added sardonically, wishing he could reach through the phone and drag her to safety instead of having to count on someone else, even if it was a close friend, to get her to safety for him.
"Fine. And don’t call me ‘babe’ again." She hung up on his response and handed the phone back to Matt. She’d already decided she didn’t want to stay in her home, where an assailant who could overpower someone as powerfully built as Gabriel, knew to find her. And she really didn’t need Gabriel to tell her that she shouldn’t stay there. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her jangled nerves.
Both Donovan and Williams would have treated her exactly the same way. That ‘must save the woman’ mentality must be prevelant everywhere,
even in the angelus. She turned to Matt and glanced down at the body that was once again still. Whatever he’d done, she most decidedly didn’t want to know. "Where are we going? And what are we doing with him?"
"To my house," he said easily as he spread his wings, the light in the kitchen highlighting streaks of light tan that she hadn’t noticed earlier. Mathieu stared down at the solan who’d stopped from waking on the floor, his previous movements streaked the blood on the wood floor. “I’m leaving him here. Gabe called someone to come fetch him.”
“Let me grab my things,” she said with a sigh as she stared at the floor, starting to feel a little shakey from the lack of adreneline, “and I need to clean up the mess.”
Matt waved a hand at her. “Go pack. Cleaning stuff under the sink?” After she nodded, he continued, “I’ll clean up. Least I can do, since it’s partly my blood.” He finished with a slight teasing grin, letting her know that he wasn’t too pissed at her having sliced his cheek open. Luckily for him, it wasn’t deep enough to do anything but bleed for a few minutes. Within the time she’d spent arguing with Gabriel, the wound was already nothing but a thin scar that would soon disappear. The blood, however, would take some soap and water to vanish.
She’d call her neighbor tomorrow and make sure Kohl was taken care of. She made sure she left
enough food that it should last him a week, but knowing him, it’d be gone in a couple days.
After packing enough clothes for a couple nights, she met him outside the front door and called to Lucy. He looked at her, questioningly.
“I’m not leaving Lucy behind,” she said defensively.
He gave a shrug and walked towards his car, a mid-sized SUV. “No problem. Backyard’s fenced in. I used to have a rat terrier, so if Boingo couldn’t get out, neither can she.”
She gave him a grateful smile that he hadn’t argued about Lucy, followed him, and paused. “You drive?” She sounded a bit surprised. When Gabriel had offered to drive her home last night, she’d blithely assumed that he had a driver, not that he drove himself. She couldn’t unravel how they could drive with those wings in the way, and Donovan hadn’t either, in the few weeks he’d had his own wings.
“How else are we supposed to get anywhere? Not all of us can afford chauffeurs, you know,” he replied, unlocking the doors, and opening a back door for Lucy. He looked at the car, wondering if he could get into it without smearing or dripping blood all over the leather seats. Even though the wound had healed, his shirt was still covered. Looking at the seats, then at his shoulder, red with drying blood, he
seriously doubted that possibility, and then grimaced as he didn’t look forward to cleaning the interior.
She looked at his wings, then back at the car. “No clue, but I really want to know how you fit the wings in the car.”
He grinned at her, showing off even, white teeth. “Very carefully.”
She smiled back and climbed in. She watched him carefully climb in the driver’s seat. As he said, he carefully sat down, ruffling his wings to rearrange the feathers. She realized that the back of the seat was very low-it barely came up past the small of his back, and his wings curled around it. He looked at her amazement at the different seat before starting the car. “Can’t use a car with regular seats, at least, not without a shitload of discomfort, but one that’s been modified for wings is no problem,” he told her lightly.
“So,” she said as he drove down the driveway and onto the deserted road, “Why does Gabriel think I’ll be safe with you?”
“Because people won’t connect Gabriel and me, not in a personal manner, at least,” he replied, glancing at her before wiping the drying blood off his cheek. It clung to his cheek and smeared. “We work together, but strictly in a professional manner. Most angelus, solan and umbren alike, seem to think that I’m working for him because I can’t get another job.” He gave a brittle laugh, “As if I’d want to work for
most of the solan asses who’ve tried to hire me. They don’t connect us as actually being friends, what with us being different races.”
She stared at him, trying to make out his features in the dim light of the dashboard. “Aren’t you umbren?” She could see the shiny blood, glittering in the dashboard lights. “Sorry for cutting you.” She added, not actually feeling sorry at all.
He shrugged. “It was a lesson in human etiquette. Besides, you were on edge. I should have known better.”
She smirked at him. “That’s putting it mildly. Anyway, back to my questions, if you will.”
He shook his head slightly, still managing to splatter drops of blood onto the car window, “No, I’m not. Let me guess: you saw the darker wings and thought ‘umbren’.”
“Well, yeah. I thought that’s how it worked,” she replied, confused, “dark wings equals umbren, light wings equals solan. Right?”
“It usually is, but there are exceptions. My mother is a solan, my father an umbren. I’m a solan due to my freaky genetics, but I still got some of my father’s umbren, which leads me to have darker wings than what’s considered ‘normal’ for a solan. So, I’m one of the abnormal solan. Most other solan in my position would bleach or dye their wings, but I see no reason to hide my heritage,” he finished with a self-deprecating shrug.
“Oh. So if solan can have darker wings, and I’m guessing that umbren can have lighter wings, how are you any different?” She asked, curious.
He glanced over at her before focusing on the road. “Well, yeah, but the colors of the wings are only a surface difference. Skin deep, so to speak. The real difference, the physiology, that is, is the one that can’t change - and can’t be hidden without difficulty.”
“So what is it?”
“Have you seen Gabriel smile? Really, smile, I mean,” he said demonstrating with his own pearly whites, dodging her question with an art he’d perfected over the years.
She thought about it for a moment, then admitted, “no, why?”
“Wait. When you see, you’ll understand. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it anymore. It’s not really my place to tell you, and - Anyways, we’re here,” he finished, pulling into a garage next to an older farmhouse.
“Hey,” she said awkwardly, “honestly, I’m sorry for, uh, cutting you with my bottle.”
He softly laughed, “Don’t worry about it. I’m mostly healed up anyways. It’s not like you got my throat or anything. Advantages of being an angelus, you know.”
He showed her and Lucy to their bedroom, showed them the kitchen, a bathroom down the hall, and backyard before retiring to his bedroom to nurse his wounds. She sat down at the small desk in her bedroom and stared at her laptop case, wondering if she had it in her to do some more research. She was off work for the next few days anyways, as luck would have it. She’d originally taken the next few days off work to fix up the house a bit, but that definitely wouldn’t be happening.
Sending Morgan a quick text to let her know that she wouldn’t be home for a few days, she plugged her phone into the charger and unpacked her laptop. She toggled through her calendar, making sure that she was set. Saturday – wedding. Check, she thought, with a grin on her face. Sunday and Monday – uneventful. Tuesday – work. And dead body, she amended. Wednesday – kidnapping. Check, she thought, a wry look crossing her face. What comes next, she wondered.
She wiggled her toes as she realized a Sheltie was fast asleep on them, making sure that if she moved, Lucy would know and follow her mistress wherever she went. She reached down and gently stroked the sleeping Sheltie. Lucy shifted at the light
pressure, even in slumber, grateful for the familiar company.
She checked her various e-mails and message boards, replying to a few messages. Logging on to Facebook, she did a quick search for “Gabriel Winterbourne.” As with her last few attempts, nothing came up. Frustrated, she ran a search for “Mathieu Girard’, trying the spelling a few different ways before coming up with the right angelus.
“Bingo,” she said, pulling up Mathieu’s Facebook. She glanced at it. He had most of it pretty open, and she easily found a few bits of information that she thought were interesting, like that apparently he loved frogs, and Canadian Bacon. And Britney Spears. With the last, she had to swallow a laugh as she pictured Matt rocking out to Britney. He’d even posted a Britney Spears music video, not one she recognized, though. Must be a newer one.
Searching his friends list, she quickly found Gabriel’s Facebook page. He must have had it set so that no one could find him through the search function that she’d used earlier, like she had hers set. Trying to look at his wall, she found it locked down tightly. Tighter than a virgin on her wedding night, Amalia thought to herself, getting a quiet giggle out. Not even the option to send a message or add him as a friend. The only thing she could see was a picture of a silhouette of his face, framed by his wings, and
that he was male. Nothing else, she thought, annoyed.
After doing a bit more searching through Google and finding nothing, she called it a night. Shutting the laptop, she climbed to her feet, climbed into bed, and fell asleep before she could count to three.
She was woken by the smell of coffee, and sound of low voices talking in the room below hers. Lucy wasn’t in the room anymore, she realized as she groggily climbed out of warm, comfortable bed. Looking at her cell, she realized that she’d slept a lot later than she’d intended. Normally she wouldn’t have a problem waking so late, but as a guest in a strange home, it felt oddly slothful. Looking outside, the wind was roaring, and the dark clouds hung low. With a shiver, she pulled on a clean pair of blue jeans and a heavy sweater before exploring a little bit.
She found the small bathroom down the hallway. When she opened it, a bright, cheery bathroom became apparent. It seemed too large to her, but the setup was just right for someone with wings, giving them just enough room to maneuver. The shower was huge, she thought as she rinsed her face off. They probably needed all the space, though, with how much space their wings occupied. She pulled her hair back, quickly loosely braiding it. Glancing at herself once more in the mirror, she opened the bathroom door to find Lucy lying outside it, staring intently at the stairs.
She descended the stairs and walked into the kitchen where three of angelus talked around a small, round table that was covered with food. Bagels, rolls,
bacon, eggs…her mouth watered just thinking about the way it tasted. She just hoped that it tasted as good as it smelled.
The one with his back to her turned around and gave her a tight smile before gesturing towards the empty chair.
“Sit,” Gabriel told her as he handed her a plate, “eat.”
“Woof,” she muttered to herself as she took the plate and started to fill it. As she started to eat, the conversation quickly resumed. She wondered where Lucy had disappeared to, and found her when she moved her feet under the table, gently kicking the fluffy dog. “So who are you?”