Awakening (Children of Angels) (19 page)

She knew, somehow, that Leonara was still there, or at least close by. She turned her thoughts swiftly away from the Angel. For some reason that even she did not know, she didn’t want Leonara to know she was awake. Her bones still ached, and out of curiosity, she did a quick sweep of her body, to see how well she was healing. It was surprising that now she knew what she was looking for, she found that Leonara had been right. There
was
power throughout her body. She saw it and felt it returning, a dull glow throughout the parts of her that still ached, a more intense glare in the parts that didn’t. Her heart and her head burned fiercely and proudly, and so did her lungs which no longer hurt when she breathed in. She took a deep breath, savouring the feeling of being able to breathe freely. Temptation got the better of her, and she decided to take a little of the power from her lungs to soothe her aching stomach. Leonara need never know. And
anyway,
it was Mia’s own power that she was using. Surely
she
should be the one to determine when and how she should use it?

Carefully, she repeated the process she had followed earlier, to heal her head. She constructed a new vein, and gently teased a little power from her lungs and sent it to her stomach. It was more uncomfortable this time, as the power began to seep back into her stomach, and the warming turned to a fiercer blaze. It felt as though she had a bout of food poisoning, and the sensation was making her feel quite sick. She focused on remaining calm, and decided to stop the healing, even though her stomach was not fully healed. It had a better glow now than it had before, and that would help it on it’s way to healing properly. She could not stand focusing on it any longer, the white hot power caused great discomfort there, and the less she focused on it, the less uncomfortable she felt.

She lay in the darkness once the channels were closed and the thread of power had been returned to her lungs, where it belonged. The tingling she felt all over her body, more intense in the areas where the power was almost fully restored, roaring heat in her heart, head and lungs, faded gently away as she turned her mind away from matters of healing and back to the room around her. She listened silently, for any sign that Leonara had stirred, or noticed what she had done. She was sure Leonara was there, but why didn't she speak?

Perhaps she was asleep, Mia mused. She had not thought to ask if Angels sleep and eat, or whether she only did herself so because she was, somehow, part-human. After a few minutes, she was satisfied that Leonara had not seen or known of what she had just done, and she sat up to fluff the pillows on the bed. She turned over, and lay on the cool side of the freshly fluffed pillow, and drifted off to sleep. For the first time since she had left her home, she began to dream almost immediately.

In the chair at the foot of the bed, Leonara sat watching the sleeping girl. She had watched in silence as the girl had healed herself, seen the familiar glow through the sheets, and could not really pinpoint why she hadn’t stopped her. Curiosity, fascination - fear? She did not know. But for some reason, something in her gut told her that she may end up regretting her decision to sit idly by, whilst the child used powers she had been specifically told
not
to, theoretically unsupervised. Satisfied that the girl was asleep again, she left the room, to report this latest development.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

T
he boy watched the pretty woman leave from his position by the
window, where he stood invisible and undetectable to the others in the room. Well, not so much watched her leave as saw her vanish into thin air. It didn’t surprise him at all - he had been Shifting for years now himself. How strange it must look though, to someone who was not used to seeing such things - a person there one moment and gone the next. He turned his attention away from the empty chair, and to the figure of the sleeping girl in the bed. Softly and silently, he crossed the room and stood beside the bed to look down on her sleeping face.

She was just as pretty as he had remembered. Of course he had seen her since the night of the ‘dream’, but not this close. He hadn't dared to get this close, especially since she knew how to access her power now. He reached out to stroke her hair, but pulled his hand back. He didn't want to risk waking her, but something in him had made him want to touch her.. She looked so vulnerable there, so child-like. That the other one would simply leave her here alone, sleeping and defenceless, was unfathomable. Especially since they both knew that others were searching for this girl. That
he
was searching for this girl. And now he had found her, he didn't really know what to do about it.

He had his orders, they were clear enough. But whether or not he chose to obey them was another matter entirely. It had been simple: recruit her, or neutralize her. And since, as far as they knew, there was no way to take away her powers, the only way to remove her as a threat would be to kill her. As a general rule, Evan had no problem with banishing
them -
the closest they could come to killing their enemies was to banish their souls. To where, Evan didn't know - or care. And if humans got into the fray, and stood in his way, then yes, they were expendable too.

But something about knowing this girl was like
him
, made her a special case for him. Although if she insisted upon siding with
them
, he would, he supposed, have to kill her, as she would be a bigger threat to him than
their
whole army put together. But knowing all these years that she was out there, trying to find her, finally succeeding and seeing that yes, she was like him, he was not the only one…he wasn't sure if he could kill her. He cursed his own weakness. Emotions. Useless things, a part of humanity that he loathed. His life and his purpose would be so much easier without them. He would be so much better without them. Stronger.

Perhaps it would have been easier if he had not met her. If she was just a name. A face. A target. But he had met her. He had looked into her eyes, and he had tried to help her. To
help
her. When the whole purpose of breaking through that other one’s pitiful attempt at Truth merging was to get to her while she was weak. He felt angry. Angry at himself. And angry at
her
, the girl lying in front of him. She was making a fool of him, without even trying. There he went again. His emotions running away with him.

His head snapped up, and he listened in silence. He felt a shiver in the air, heard the faintest, barely audible (even to him) ringing, which meant there was a Truth Shift in progress. He had learned this trick fairly recently, how to pick up on Shifts. It was a great advantage to him. He knew when people were coming or going, and could quickly Shift before they arrived, if he wanted. He hadn't yet figured out how to determine
who
was coming, but knew that there must be a way.

For now, he could be fairly certain that it was that other one, the one called Leonara. She was, in theory, the only one who could access this room. He snorted softly at the notion of her, a supposedly powerful and wise
Angel
, had thought that a few parlour tricks he had learned when he was barely out of the cradle would stop him. He quickly swept around to make sure he hadn't left any trace of himself. He must not get complacent. True that the other one would not be able to follow him, or find him, but he would rather she didn't know he had been at all. He did not want her getting her guard up - her lax approach to ‘security’ suited him very well.

He had been foolish to stay last time, after Mia had woken up. He had wanted to see her awake, alive. He had broken the other one’s Influence, and allowed the girl to wake up. He still didn’t know why he had done it. He must make sure that he took no more chances like that one. Now that the girl was accessing her power, even without her mentor's permission - indeed, against her express instructions - he did not want to risk her getting her guard up and taking extra precautions herself. He wasn't sure he would be able to find her again, if she did not want to be found. Another thing he hated about her - she made him doubt himself. In
his
world, there was no need to doubt himself, he had no equal and he knew it. But here lay another like him, and he had no way of knowing if she was equal to him, or worse - stronger.

As it was, it had been a stroke of pure luck that he had found her so easily this time. She had basically summoned him there, calling to him the way his peers did when they needed him. Of course, she did not know that she had done it at the time. And he could not rely on being so lucky again, not now that the one called Leonara was teaching her shielding and control.

The shivering in the air grew more intense, and the ringing grew louder.

“
Goodbye Mia. I
’
ll see you soon
”
he bent to kiss her on the head, and then stopped, unsure of why he had wanted to do it in the first place. He had never kissed anyone - on the head or anywhere else. What purpose would it have served? He frowned, looking down at her.

He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, and managed to Shift at almost the exact same moment as Leonara arrived back in the room. She cast a glance around in confusion, sure that she had felt a disturbance as she had arrived.

There was no trace of any power other than that coming from the sleeping girl. After standing perfectly still, listening carefully and using her power to seek out any minute traces that anyone else had been here, she tested the ‘shields’ that she had placed over the room, and found them unbroken. It did not look like anyone, human or otherwise, had even attempted to access the room. That was good - they were still safe. Satisfied, she sat down again in the chair, and waited for the sleeping girl to awaken. She wondered what it was like to sleep, as she sat there in the darkness and silence broken only by the slow, rhythmic breathing of the child. She thought it must be nice, to be able to relax like that. She waited for morning.

Mia was dreaming, and aware that she was. She realized that she had not dreamed since she had left home. Home. The word sounded strange now, even in her mind. It was a foreign concept. A home. What did it mean? She had no family now. No, she had never really had a family. Those people, whom she had loved, they were not really her family. They didn't miss her. But she missed them. And home. She missed home. Where was home now? This room? For how long? Forever? She hoped not.

In her dream, she was walking to school. That was one thing she would not miss. Or had always thought she wouldn't miss. Now she thought it might be quite pleasant to walk down the tree-lined streets of her small town, down the same familiar roads she had walked down a thousand times before. It was sunny in her dream, and warm. She closed her eyes, and walked with her face turned up to the warmth from the sun. She didn't need to look where she was going. She was familiar with these roads.

She bumped into something then - something that should not have been there. She opened her eyes in surprise, to find that it was a person she had bumped into.

“
Oh, I
’
m so sorry, I
…”
her sentence tailed off as she saw the face of the person she had bumped into. It was
him
. The boy from her dream. The boy who was like her.
“
I
…
I wasn
’
t watching where I was going
”
she said in a small voice.

She should run from him, surely. She should wake up. She should be terrified. She was terrified. Or was she? No, she realized, she wasn't. Her heart was racing, her mind going a hundred miles an hour. But most of all, it was curiosity. Curiosity about him, the only other one in the universe - or universe
s
in the plural, if Leonara was to be believed - who was the same as her. She stood and looked up at him, his handsome face looking even more dashing in the morning sunlight.

“
You should
”
he replied coldly
“
You should be very careful where you tread.
”

“
I
’
m sorry
”
she replied, in her small voice again, taken aback by his hostility.

But of course he would be hostile towards her, why wouldn’t he? They were enemies. Born to be enemies. Born to fight one another, or…something. Mia didn’t know quite what they were born for. She only knew that they were at once the same and very different from one another.

He continued to look down at her with distaste, then leaned forward, as though he was going to kiss her forehead, before pulling back and scowling. It was odd. Mia wondered what on Earth he had been planning to do to her. She remembered, almost unwillingly, the way he had changed in the last dream, and the way that the fire had started.