Windswept (The Airborne Saga) (28 page)

This time Adalyn did earn a frown. Avery was having a hard enough time as it was. Maybe it was the blast, the concussion, or the lack of sleep, but her mind was having trouble holding onto thoughts. Adalyn’s complaining wouldn’t make that any easier.

“I’ve fought off worse,
” Avery said. That somehow seemed to comfort both of them.

Adalyn tilted back on her haunches and gave up the badgering. Even after she’d had time to reorient herself from being prisoner, she didn’t look quite the same. Her hair lay flat and her skin pale. Every line on her face was more apparent than ever before and she didn’t hold herself with the same stamina. It’d been only a few months since her father died. Since she’d seen Mason. That was the last of Adalyn’s family. The
female was true harpie, sharp and vicious, but she still had emotions. And Avery couldn’t help but wonder what Adalyn felt. Or what she had been doing for the last few months. She didn’t seem to blame Avery or Mason for her father’s death. She was even working with ex-members of the Band who had ultimately killed him.

“What are you staring at?” Adalyn suddenly barked.

Avery’s thoughts had manifested on her face. She turned away, staring at the ocean instead.

“Can I ask you something?” Avery couldn’t help herself. Her brain told her to shut up.

“What?”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you still helping me and Mason?”
Shut up
, Avery’s brain urged her.
Shut up.

“I’m helping Mason, not you.”

Avery didn’t look back to see if Adalyn had moved but could hear a sense of urgency pick up in her voice.

“Why are you helping Mason? Do you still love him? Were you planning to move back with him?”
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
These were the kinds of questions that made people rethink their allegiances. Rethink running towards certain death. Rethink running in the first place.

“Oh, why? Are you scared that I’ll steal him away again?”

Avery answered only by a look backwards. The sarcasm wasn’t quite bitter enough to be realistic. The harpie just frowned.

Avery had nailed one thing on the head. Feelings still remained on Adalyn’s side of the relationship. While Avery knew first hand that emotions typically lingered long after the end date, she equally knew that they’d fade drastically with time. Mason wouldn’t look at Adalyn the same way she looked at him. Mason hadn’t even cared when Adalyn was off with Patrick. It was almost brutal to think about because Avery almost stood in Adalyn’s shoes now.

“It’s bigger than Mason. It is. We’ve always supported Jericho’s bloodline. And our world underneath that rule is threatening to change. I’m doing my civic duty.”

Avery looked on skeptically.
Adalyn abruptly changed the subject.

“So what about you? Why are you doing this? If you stand with the harpies, you may die with the harpies. But if you disappear, run off to your human world, you can live securely and happily. Even if we do save Mason this time around, there will be times in the future where danger will rise. Or do you just like living
in the harpie capitol that much?”

Living
in the harpie capitol? Avery should have bit her tongue but the words spilled from her instantly.

“I don’t. I hate it. Everyone’s working against me because I’m human. They’re passing around rumors every time I turn around, twisting everything I say…”

Adalyn laughed quickly, and Avery bit her lip to keep from retorting to the mockery with something equally nasty. But then what could Avery say? Adalyn’s laughter indicated that she obviously thought her statement was dumb or right. The woman wiped an absent tear away that had sprung from the chuckling.

“Lemme guess, did they start shoving their daughters at him too? The perfect match? I suppose any match is better than a human match.”

Avery squeezed her own wrists until they turned white. She didn’t know how to respond, but the urge to yell back itched at her. Everything that she’d experienced at the island was about to manifest on as anger aimed at Adalyn. Especially when the woman laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world that people didn’t like Avery. That people didn’t think she was ever good enough for Mason—the same thing Adalyn had said in the past.

“Just stop. He’s over you, okay? You had your chance with him. You let it go, now don’t hate me for being in the picture.” She regretted it after the words escaped her. Not only defensive but deeply personal, Adalyn would have no choice but to acknowledge it.

“You’re right,” the harpie said surprisingly. “You would have had no chance with Mason if I had wished to stay with him and if I hadn’t betrayed him. And you should stop talking promptly, human, because you don’t understand our world. You don’t understand a damn thing about what it takes to be a monarch’s wife.”

Avery opened her mouth but was shushed before the first word even got out. Adalyn snapped a hand into the air
, but she didn’t need to speak. Avery felt it. A pulsating aura of Willow magic that made Avery light headed. Eva was supercharged and moving fast. Too fast.

“Damnit, go!” Adalyn roared. She nearly threw Avery out of the cave before she had a chance to catch her. The two burst into a rocky start of flight
, but Adalyn kept them ten feet above the waves. The flight was dangerously quick and somewhat uncontrolled but they were advancing on the island rapidly. Like Adalyn had promised, the fog was dense and few of the island’s light’s pierced it. The rain, culprit of the fog, still drizzled relentlessly.

Adalyn swung them left. The world swirled. Eva’s trailing aura headed north
while they were coming in from the west. Eva had beamed by so quickly she probably didn’t have enough rebels willing to chase her. Or even a single one that could keep up. With their distraction gone, their time was running out.

Wings snapping shut, Adalyn roughly landed. Avery’s feet met the wet sand and stumbled. She could only see silhouettes of houses f
arther up the beach. But she could hear sounds of people shouting and footsteps pounding in the dirt.

“Get down!” Adalyn ordered, giving Avery another shove towards the ground. Mimicking the blonde, Avery ducked down and they moved quickly. Adalyn had some internal compass worthy of legend as she snaked them around the back of a building and a bustle of trees. Only when they reached a thatched wall did they stop. They both dropped to a crouch.

For the first time, Avery could really see what had stopped Adalyn. Barely visible was a sidewalk running in front of the houses. Harpies took long, calculated strides up and down it. There was no uniform, but the spears and the intense scrutiny to surroundings were enough to identify them as rebels. Adalyn and Avery were already outnumbered.

If Avery was correct, they were still on the outskirts of the island. Making a run towards the capitol
was impossible.  They both pressed their backs against the wall of a hut in some attempt to flatten themselves. Above Avery’s head was a window.

“There are people living here?” Avery
quizzed. While she only heard silence, she could smell food and life. She wanted to shrink back into herself. They were literally pressed up against someone’s home.

“No one was allowed to leave the city when the rebels took over.” Adalyn gave her a dumb look when she had to explain.

“So what are we waiting for?” Avery hissed back. She didn’t want to find out if the civilians would rat them out in a heartbeat.

“My contact is supposed to be meeting us here.”

A few moments ticked by. Avery flinched when she saw the hint of harpies landing on the beach in the distance. People paced by to the left, but they clearly weren’t out on a jot. It became clear the only people outdoors were the enemies. This was a nightmare. They’d be spotted immediately because they were the only ones dumb enough to be outside.

“Where is he?” Avery urged. The pacing guards from the sidewalk strode closer.

Adalyn held a hand out, but her face had paled. Something told Avery these contacts weren’t coming. “We have to move,” she urged. Snatching Adalyn’s wrist, she gave her a yank in the direction opposite the rebels. Adalyn followed swiftly, but Avery didn’t know the area well. They needed some place to disappear. Trees? This place didn’t have any real forests. A building? They were all full of civilians and scouted by the rebels.

Her heart nearly beat itself out of her chest. They crossed into the open. A lone rebel guard whirled and rushed them. Adalyn lashed out, quicker than the young boy and silenced him with a knife to the throat. The body landed with a thump.

Avery grabbed Adalyn’s wrist again and kept them moving. The strain on her body threatened to overwhelm her. Her mind began to branch out in a million different directions and she couldn’t keep track of where they had come or where they had gone. She pulled them around another corner only to find a group of rebels. Avery threw herself and Adalyn up against a set of doors maybe half a second before the rebels would have spotted them.

“We’re trapped
,” Avery gasped. Her throat was constricting. They couldn’t go back. Based on the sudden screeching in the distance, someone had found the rebel Adalyn had taken out. Meanwhile the path in front of them was rebel packed. And they had run so far from where this contact was supposed to show up. Their plan of just blending in with normal people was shot as the entire island stayed under rebel law.

She tried to reorient herself and think of something else but her head felt so fuzzy. They could take off into the sky
, but there was no way they wouldn’t be seen. And they didn’t have a chance of fighting anyone off like that either.

More than anything else, Avery didn’t expect the door to give behind their backs. It took all of her effort not to cry out in shock. They spilled over the floor. Adalyn’s hand went for her knife but they already had someone staring down at them.

“Leon!” Avery could have burst into tears just seeing his face.

“You can’t stay here
,” he whispered reaching out for them.

“Back off!” Adalyn had launched herself backwards, standing defensively. The blonde was tiny in comparison to the trained Guard member
, but he didn’t fight her. Holding hands up and open, he made a slow but clear ‘follow me’ gesture.

“Don’t trust the Guard!” Adalyn hissed
, but Avery was already following him.

Leon
corralled quickly through the backyard. In a few moments, he threw them through the doors of another home. A family of harpies stared back, their dumbfounded looks able to match Avery and Adalyn’s.

“Hope.”
Leon pointed and with the tiniest nudge to Avery’s shoulder, he disappeared out the door.

The chubby harpie in the middle of the family was the first
who seemed to remember how to move.

“You are our
hope,” she parroted. Without any explanation, she dashed over to the sofa and pushed the heavy wooden furniture aside. Yanking up a thick carpet beneath that, she pulled a nearly invisible indentation in the floor. It was a hatch and a door sprung open. She violently gestured them inside.

Avery hesitated before jumping into the darkness. The cellar didn’t seem deep but small
, and apparently already packed with packaged foods and dust. Adalyn’s shove was the only thing that made her move, and they both slipped inside. The chubby woman slammed the door shut and concealed them in darkness. Scrapes above their head indicated the woman pushed the furniture back into place. Then came the silence.