The second his enemy turns his back on him, the injured angel collapses to his knees between his severed wings. He looks like he’s bleeding out pretty fast and I’m pretty sure he’ll be road kill in a few minutes.
I finally manage to suck in a decent breath. It burns as it goes into my lungs, but my muscles unclench as they get oxygen again. I revel in a moment of relief. I unwind my body and turn to look down the street.
What I see sends a jolt through me.
Paige is laboriously wheeling herself down the street. Above her, Burnt stops his ascent, circles like a vulture and begins to swoop down toward her.
I’m up and ru
My lungs scream for air but I ignore it.
Burnt looks at me with a smug expression. His wings blow my hair back as I sprint.
So close, so close. Just a little faster. My fault. I pissed him off enough to hurt Paige out of sheer spite. My guilt makes me all the more frantic to save her.
Burnt yells, “Run, monkey! Run!”
Hands reach down and snatch Paige.
“No!” I scream as I reach out to her.
She’s lifted into the air, screaming my name. “Penryn!”
I catch the hem of her pants, my hand gripping the cotton with the yellow starburst sewn onto it by Mom for protection against evil.
Just for a moment, I let myself believe I can pull her back. For a moment, the tightness in my chest begins to relax with anticipated relief.
The fabric slips out of my hand.
“No!” I jump for her feet. My fingertips brush her shoes. “Bring her back! You don’t want her! She’s just a little girl!” My voice breaks at the end.
In no time, the angel is too high to even hear me. I yell at him anyway, chasing them down the street long after Paige’s screams fade into the distance. My heart practically stops at the thought of him dropping her from that height.
Long minutes pass as I stand panting on the street, watching the speck in the sky shrink to nothing.
CHAPTER 5
It is long after Paige disappears into the clouds that I turn around, looking for my mother. It’s not that I don’t care about her. It’s just that our relationship is more complicated than the usual daughter-mother relationships. The rosy love I’m supposed to feel for her is slashed with black and splattered with various shades of gray.
There is no sign of her. Her cart lies on its side with its junk contents strewn beside the truck we were hiding behind. I hesitate only for a moment before yelling out.
“Mom?” Anyone or anything that might have been attracted by noise would already be here, watching in the shadows.
“Mom!”
Nothing stirs in the deserted street. If the silent watchers behind the dark windows lining the street saw where she went, nobody is volunteering to tell me. I try to remember if I had maybe seen another angel grab her, but all I can see is Paige’s dead legs as she is lifted from the chair. Anything could have happened around me at that time, and I would have been oblivious to it.