Galdoni (11 page)

He grinned. “You think you can just march in
here and take my daughter-”

“
She’s not your daughter,”
Brie cut in, her voice tight.

Rob ignored her. “And I’m going to let you
off without a fight?” He pursed his lips and his tone grew ugly.
“What kind of man would I be if I let my daughter go off with a
perfect stranger?”

I met his eyes. “A better man than one who
beats his wife and scares little girls.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed. His finger
tightened on the trigger.

I leaped forward and grabbed the gun with my
left hand before he could shoot, then I punched him with a right
hook to the jaw hard enough to make him stagger against the
door.

“
I’ll beat the
living-”

I cut Rob’s words off with another punch.
His nose broke under my fist. He cupped his face, his nose
streaming blood. I handed the gun to Brie and she took a few steps
onto the grass with her mother.

“
Why you-” Rob swung at me
and I ducked, then bowled into his chest with my shoulder. The door
opened behind him, sending us both sprawling onto the living room
floor. Rob jumped up and tried to kick me in the groin, but I
grabbed his foot and rolled on it, forcing him back to the floor to
avoid a broken leg. He yelled and punched me in the ribs but I
barely felt it past the rage that clouded my thoughts.

My instincts screamed for me to snap his
neck and with each punch the feeling intensified. I stumbled back
against the wall in an effort to control my anger. Rob picked up a
lamp, throwing the lamp shade to the ground and ripping the cord
from the wall.

“
Didn’t realize who you
were up against, did you?” he said with a triumphant grin despite
his bleeding nose.

He swung the lamp at me. I blocked it with
my forearm and the bulb shattered. I punched him square in the face
with my other hand. He stumbled back and dropped the lamp to clutch
his bleeding nose again.

I turned back to the door and closed it
before the others could come in.

Rob stumbled back against the couch,
fumbling for a rag that lay on the ground beside a spilled can of
beer. He pressed it against his face. “How dare you come into my
home and take my daughter from me.”

I could smell the liquor on his breath and
fought to calm my pounding heart at the sight of the torn up house,
broken lamps, pictures fallen off the walls, end tables upturned,
and a hole through the television. The fear in Allie’s voice echoed
in my head, and it was all I could do to keep from knocking the man
down again. I remembered Nikko’s advice and took a deep breath.

“
She’s not your daughter,
she’s your step-daughter, and you’ve treated her as no child should
ever be treated.” I took a step closer to him despite the warning
in my mind to stay as far away as possible to keep from killing
him.

I slipped off my trench coat but kept my
wings held tight to my back. “You’ve hurt people I care about, and
I don’t take kindly to grown men who beat up women and terrify
children. There’s not a place in this world for men like that.” I
walked toward him as I spoke, following him as he backed up around
the couch.

“
This is my house and
that’s my wife and daughter,” he said in protest. At my glower, he
leaned against a chair by the wall.

My hands ached to throttle him. “You might
own a wooden frame and a few pieces of furniture, but you don’t own
anyone’s life. You have no right to touch a hair on their heads
with the intent to harm.” I lifted my wings and he cowered back
against the wall with a squeak of surprise. “Threaten or harm them
again and it’ll be the last thing you do. Understand?”

He nodded.

“
Then say it,” I
growled.

“
I un-understand,” he
stuttered, his eyes full of terror.

“
Anyone you tell of this
will think you’re crazy. You don’t want to go to a mental ward, do
you?”

“
N-no.”

“
Then this is between us.
Take care of your loved ones or I’ll take care of you.” I tried to
hide an amused smile at his speechless nod and tucked my wings back
down. I took a deep breath and forced the anger away even though my
instincts demanded for me to finish him. I slipped on the coat
before I left through the door.

“
Mrs. Ross,” I said in
passing with a nod of farewell. She stared at me, then glanced
through the door.

“
Let’s go,” I said in an
undertone to Brie.

The sisters followed me down the driveway
and across the gravel road to an orchard. After about ten minutes
of silence, Brie hurried to catch up. “Did you kill him?” she asked
in a whisper so Allie couldn’t hear.

“
Did you want me to?” I
asked back. I fought to keep my tone carefully neutral. My heart
tightened at the glance she threw me. “You expected me to.” The
realization felt like a knife through the tattered shreds of my
heart. I clenched my teeth and strode faster, purposefully leaving
them behind.

She thought I would kill him, and didn’t
protest when I went into the house and shut the door behind me. Was
it because she was afraid of me, or because she felt Rob deserved
it? It didn’t matter. Either way, the fact that she thought I would
kill an unarmed drunk man burned through my limbs with a fiery
hatred for what I was. What was worse was how close I had come to
giving in to my instincts and ripping his life away.

We walked away from the house into the
sparse countryside lit by the first gray reaches of early dawn. I
kept silent until I could control my emotions enough to face them.
I avoided Brie’s eyes and knelt to talk to Allie.

“
We’re going to go for a
ride. Is that okay with you?” At Allie’s nod, I shrugged off my
coat. She shivered slightly in the cool air and I wrapped it around
her shoulders. She gave me a small smile. “Don’t be afraid,” I said
quietly. She nodded again.

Still kneeling, I opened my wings slowly to
their full length. Allie stared at them for a second, then, to my
surprise, she stepped closer and ran her fingers through the
feathers. At her gentle touch, a shiver ran through me and she
smiled. “I think you need the coat.”

“
I’m okay,” I said past my
tight throat. I opened an arm and she stepped underneath. I rose
and motioned for Brie. “Ready?”

She nodded, her expression unreadable. I put
an arm around her waist and beat my wings hard. We rose into the
air, the weight heavier than I had expected after the long journey.
I pushed harder and forced us high above the trees. We glided on
the morning breeze, a dark speck above a waking countryside.

Allie shivered in the crisp air and curled
against me. Eventually, I felt the steady rise and fall of her warm
breath against my arm as she slept. Brie stayed silent, a fact for
which I was grateful because it took all my concentration and
waning strength to make it home.

Nikko and Jayce ran out when we landed just
after sunrise behind Nikko’s house. With a quiet thanks, Jayce took
the sleeping girl from my arms and carried her to their home next
door. Brie began to fill Nikko in on what had happened, so I left
them and stumbled wearily into the house. I fell onto the couch
with the intention of resting for a minute before making my way to
the bedroom, but the cushions beckoned invitingly and I didn’t have
the strength left to protest.

Chapter Eight

I stared at the back of the Galdoni boy’s
head. He tried to throw an elbow in protest, but I tightened my
hold around his neck and he froze.

“
Well done, KL426,” the
passionless voice spoke above us. I looked up to see that the rest
of the lunchroom had fallen silent. When I met his gaze, the guard
gave a cold smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Now finish
him.”

Anger at what the boy had done still
clenched in my gut, but I fought against it and shook my head.

“
He stole your food, you
won the fight; now finish him.” The words were spoken as though
they made perfect sense. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw older
Galdoni push each other aside for a better view. The boy in my
choke hold was older than me by three years. We had fought before,
but something had brought out the rage in me tonight. He now held
perfectly still even though I loosened my hold.

I shook my head again and dropped my arms.
The boy fell to the floor, his brown wings ruffled and throat
bright red. I could feel the claw marks from his fingers across my
chest. He rolled over and looked at me. Our eyes met for the
briefest second, his filled with relief, mine with trepidation.

“
When are you going to
learn, KL426? You don’t let an enemy go.” The onlookers scooted
back a half second before the whip cut into my chest, carving a
deep gash from my collarbone to the bottom of my ribs. I gasped and
stumbled to my knees. The second lash wrapped around my neck and
cut deep along my jaw. I ground my teeth and fought to stay silent.
The older Galdoni boy sat still on the floor in front of me, too
scared to move. He held my gaze in silence.

***

“
Kale?”

I opened my eyes at the sound of the
doctor’s voice. Dr. Ray smiled at me from his seat near the table.
“Yes, doctor?” I rubbed my pounding head and slowly sat up. My
muscles protested and my stomach growled.

“
You’ve been asleep for
quite a while.”

I glanced around and found the others
watching me with concerned expressions. Allie sat on Brie’s lap on
the other couch and gave me a beaming smile. “You okay?” Brie
asked, her brow creased.

I nodded, but it was hard to ignore the ache
in my over-used wings. I glanced out the living room window and the
sun setting beyond. “I slept the whole day?”

“
Two days, in fact,” the
doctor replied with a humored smile.

“
But school!” I stood up so
fast my head spun and I had to reach for the table to keep from
falling over. Jayce grabbed my arm to steady me.

“
Whoa, there,” he said.
“You just wore yourself out, that’s all. You can miss classes for a
day or two.”

“
You would know,” Nikko
replied.

Jayce laughed, but he watched me with
worried eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

I nodded, embarrassed at the attention. “I’m
fine. I can’t believe you guys let me sleep that long. And on the
couch? What if someone walked in and found me here? Everyone would
be in trouble.”

Jayce shrugged. “So what? After what you did
for us, we’d all go down fighting.”

I stepped back from his grasp and stared at
them. Everyone had the same expression, defiant and stubborn. Even
Dr. Ray met my gaze without flinching, though his jaw tightened
slightly at my frown. “You can’t do that.” I gestured at the room.
“You can’t endanger what you have here because of me. It’s not
worth it.”

“
It is-” Brie stopped when
I held up my hand.

I shook my head, exasperated. “It’s not, and
I don’t know what to do about it.”

“
Nothing needs to be done,”
Jayce said with his own frown.

“
I should go.”

“
No,” Brie and Allie
replied at the same time. The little girl stared at me with big
brown eyes that matched her sister’s. Her blond hair had been
combed into two braids and hung from her shoulders, a bright
counterpart to her red shirt. Innocence shone from her face and it
was hard to look away.

“
Going back now would
defeat the purpose of hiding,” Nikko argued. “We still have
research to do.”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch
and glared at the floor. But Nikko was right. I took a deep breath
and let it out slowly. “Alright.” Out of the corner of my eye, I
saw a smile pass between Brie and her brother. I gritted my teeth
in frustration. “But we’ve got to be more careful. This isn’t worth
any of you getting thrown in jail, and your license taken away,
Doc.” I looked at him, but he merely shrugged.

Jayce threw himself on the couch. “Good,
it’s settled. Everything goes back to normal.”

“
Let’s make dinner,” Brie
said to Allie.

I rubbed my eyes in an attempt to organize
the thoughts swirling in my head.

“
You did a good thing,
Kale,” Dr. Ray said gently, taking a seat next to Jayce on the
couch.

“
Surprised?” I
asked.

He shook his head. “Relieved. I wish I had
been here to get Allie myself. Kids should never be mixed up in a
situation like that.”

“
We should have gotten her
out of there sooner,” Jayce said, his eyes full of regret. “Dad’s
planning to file for full custody so that she never has to go
back.”

“
I don’t get it,” I
admitted. “Why does your mother stay with Rob if he’s
abusive?”

Jayce shrugged, his expression sad. “That’s
what I’d like to know. But you can’t reason with her. She loves Rob
and he treats her well when he’s not drunk.”

“
So he can beat her up and
just apologize?” I stared at him.

Jayce shrugged again and studied his
hands.

Dr. Ray gave me a thoughtful look and
changed the subject. “How have you been doing having to stay in the
house all day when you're not at school?”

I shrugged. “I get a bit restless,” I
admitted.

He pursed his lips, hesitated, then said,
“What do you think about getting a job?”

I stared at him; Nikko and Jayce did
too.

“
A job doing what?” Jayce
asked with a laugh. “And why?”