The sun was halfway across the sky when I gave in and touched down to the ground again. I hadn’t forgiven Devin for being a sarcastic ass; I was starving, having burned calories I hadn’t eaten that morning.
“Welcome back to the earth,” Devin said.
I scowled at him, but it turned into a smile as he threw a neatly wrapped package at me. I tore into it, mouth watering at the calorie rich mix of dried meats. “Thank you,” I said, my voice still a little tight, before I turned my attention to devouring the contents of the package.
Devin hummed a soft sound as his response, walking slightly in front of me so that he would face any dangers first, giving me time to drop the package and react if we were attacked. I tried not to be grateful. But I couldn’t help the slight smile, though I tried to hide it by biting viciously into a hunk of meat.
“What’s wrong with your comm?” Devin asked, his pace slowing slightly as he frowned at my raised arm.
I paused with my hand halfway to my mouth, dropping the chunk back into the box so I could look at my comm. I understood his worry immediately; it was flashing, not the usual soft white pulses like a heartbeat, but erratic flashing colors that were so bright they were almost blinding.
“It’s overloaded,” I said, grimacing and lowering my arm. It had happened before, during the war, when too many people were trying to reach me for help or orders. When too many channels were trying to make contact, even my comm couldn’t handle it. The only way to make it stop was to wait for people to stop trying to reach me… or to force them to stop.
I hesitated with my fingers hovering over the comm, an uncertain frown scrunching up my face. Devin made me jump when he slid his fingers over mine, pulling my hand away.
“Don’t kill the channels,” he said, his voice soft but stern. “If you kill them, they’ll think you’re dead. At least they know you’re alive and ignoring them. Just lock it, and I’ll cover it for you.”
I hesitated again, then sent me fingers to the comm and traced a quick pattern over its surface. It would lock it, meaning nothing would affect its touch surfaces until I traced the same pattern. We stopped walking as Devin dug in his pack, coming up with a roll of bandages. I held my arm out for him. He touched me gently as he wrapped the bandage around my arm; it took the whole roll, three layers, to covers the comm’s blinking light.
Devin tucked in the end of the bandage. “There. Don’t itch at it, I don’t want to redo it.”
“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” I scoffed, making a face at him before I turned away and kept walking.
Devin snorted back at me. “You always play with your bandages. I’m just warning you- I’m tying it tighter next time.”
“Fine,” I sniffed, taking another vicious bite of of the chunk of meat in my hand. Devin reached into the box, and I smacked his hand. “Shoo,” I ordered, holding the box closer.
He frowned at me, arching an eyebrow. “It’s not all for you.”
“Didn’t you pack your own food?”
“I packed for both of us. I didn’t think you’d hog it all, pig.” Devin made a face and snorted at me, noises I assumed were meant to sound like a pig.
I blinked at him, my fingers digging into the box as my other hand curled into a fist. Devin was the only one who could really piss me off. I was a half second away from punching him when a familiar ‘twang’ reached my ears.
“Devin!” I screamed his name as I lunged, tackling him to the ground, the food we had been arguing for going flying.
The arrow just barely missed my head, the electrified arrowhead singing strands of my hair as it passed. Devin and I rolled across the ground, coating ourselves in dust. I winced as the rocks pulled out feathers, and my blood splattered the dirt.
Devin grabbed my arm, yanking me to my feet and thrusting me behind him as he drew one of his guns, the larger one that was holstered at his hip. The gunshot was loud in my ears; I barely heard the shriek as the gun hits its intended target.
“Move!” Devin snapped, giving me a push back toward the city.
I ignored him. My wings spread, ready to give a powerful push and send me launching into the sky.
“Eli, no!” Devin leapt toward, me, but he was too late.
I screamed as agony laced through me, starting at the apex of my left wing and arching through my nerves. The wing folded as the arrow sent electricity crackling along it. The numb muscles couldn’t support the weight of my wing, much less my entire body. I couldn’t even fold the wing up against my body; the feathers dragged against the earth as I slunk closer to Devin, a snarl curling up my upper lip as I reached around him to take the gun he kept strapped to his thigh.
It was a familiar weight in my hand. I clicked the safety off, curling my hand around it and putting my back against Devin’s. “They’ve surrounded us,” I hissed between clenched teeth. The gun jumped in my hands when I pulled the trigger, jerking my arms up, but the bullet hit the man who had tried to crouch behind a cluster of boulders. He fell, screaming and clutching at the hole in his chest.
“I know. Don’t distract me,” he growled back. His gun went off several times in quick succession, each shot followed by somebody screaming as a bullet tore through them.
I couldn’t be anything other than impressed. I had forgotten how ridiculously good he was at this- because he always let us take the lead, hanging back and cleaning up after us. Rubbing my back while I sobbed over the loss of my comrades. It suddenly seemed a great injustice to always have our guardians on the sidelines.
“Eli!” Devin snapped my name, bringing me back to attention.
My arms moved, my body reacting without thought, the trigger pulled and another gunshot splitting the air. The man that had been charging me hit the dirt, his blood seeping out from the hole in his leg. I winced and shot him again so that he wouldn’t die slowly. “Sorry!”
“Don’t apologize, just pay attention, or you’ll get us both killed!”
“Yes, sir!”
It was an automatic reply. I hadn’t been in an honest fight to the life for a very long time. It was dragging forward the Eli I hated, the Eli I kept trying to kill. He was snarling just under the surface, baying for blood. I tried to keep a hold on him, but he fought harder for each shot that went off, and I could feel him taking over. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to go feral- and even losing control out in the middle of the desert surrounding the city could have disastrous effects.
I needed to get out of there before I lost it.
Devin sensed it in the tension in my body. “How much longer?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I don’t know.” I reached behind me, my fingers curling around the arrow that was lodged in my wing; a sharp pull later, blood coated the feathers around the wound, but the arrow wasn’t jolting me with electricity. I threw it to the ground and stomped on it, snapping it in half. Carefully, I stretched the wing out as far as it would go. “A minute tops!”
“Great. Do me a favor and stay sane until then?”
“You got it!”
We were a perfect team, trained to work together for ten years. When Devin moved, I moved with him- spinning out of the way of arrows, whirling to find the source of them and take them down. Even surrounded, we were holding our own. But I could feel Devin beginning to tire. After all, he was only human.
I tried to flex my wing again, and it moved, stretching up over my head. “I’m good to fly!” I said, the small victory making me grin.
“Then get your ass moving! I bet they’re after you- distract them, and I can pick them off!”
I nodded, and ran forward far enough that the sweep of my wings wouldn’t knock him off his feet. My wings pumped, and I lifted off the ground.
I hadn’t gotten more than a foot before Devin’s shout distracted me. I faltered, and it was enough. My eyes went wide, and I dropped the foot I had raised.
It wasn’t possible. Weapons didn’t move without hands holding them. And yet, there was a crystal dagger at my throat, the deadly edge of it close enough to slice me if I flinched. The sunlight made it glow red, tossing reflections to the sand.
“Wings out, bird boy.” I recognized it, barely kept myself from flinching and slicing myself on the dagger. The man who had attacked me in Elozan sauntered up to me, his eyes a glowing pale blue. His fingers curled around the dagger, and it disintegrated into his skin.
I lunged for him; he caught me by the throat, which would have been impossible- if he were human. I glowered at him, my lips curled into an ugly snarl.
“If you don’t want to play nice, neither will I,” he said, his voice calm.
I whimpered at sharp pains on either side of my neck, where his fingers pressed against my skin.
“Eli!”
I tried to look up as Devin shouted my name, but I couldn’t move. My heart pulsed faster, but it only made it worse; whatever the man had done to me, it moved in my bloodstream, spreading through my body. I was going numb, my eyes slipping closed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing to stop him from dropping me to the ground.
I couldn’t do anything but watch as Devin howled, rage twisting up his face as he lunged at the stranger. Nothing but watch as he, too, was caught, the same whimper coming out of his mouth as the man attacked Devin as he had attacked me. I watched Devin collapse to the ground, and a hoarse cry came out of my throat as I tried to reach for him.
“Tch. She told me you’d be strong, but honestly? How can you hold out against her poison this long?”
I glared silently at the man as he nelt next to me, because it was all I could do. My eyes went wide as he raised his hand. A crystal slowly formed in his cupped palm, all jagged edges, glowing red. He smirked at me, cocky- and then drove the crystal into my chest.
My agonized scream filled the air, my back arching as the pain lanced through me.
“There’s a good boy. Now,” the stranger raised his hands again, and a smaller crystal formed at the tips of his finger, that one pale blue. He reached forward, and his hand hovered over my forehead, “Lights out.”
I wanted to fight, but I couldn’t move. And the second he touched my forehead, I did exactly what he wanted; I fell limp, my vision going black I was dragged under, losing consciousness as he laughed.
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