Falling Darkness: The second book in the Falling Awake Series (18 page)

That was all I wanted and it was already more than anyone else had given me.

***

Matoskah dropped me back at the Harbor while it was still daylight and I got out of the truck, not having a clue what time Leah would show up. With any luck it would be soon. It was getting cold out and I didn’t want to be hanging around after my encounter this morning at this exact same spot.

We were standing there no more than about fifteen seconds before a dominant figure stepped into view.

Sully.

He was looking at us with a scorned expression on his face and he eyed Matoskah like he wanted to come over and ring his neck.

“Do you know him?” Matoskah asked me, looking a little more than just wary.

“You could say that.” Well I better go face the music.

“You hang with some pretty angry people.”

“That’s me,” I said. “Listen, thanks for today.”

Matoskah closed the truck door behind him and came and wrapped me up in a hug. I laughed out of unexpectedness, and hugged him back. His frame was solid and warm, I didn’t really want to let him go. A hug felt like what I needed right now. He loosened his hold on me and stepped back.

“Just come back, okay?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “You could come to Friday Harbor sometime. I mean, if you want to.” I hoped he wanted to. I kinda wanted to see him again.

“You bet. Just the sound of that place is cool and your there, so hey, added bonus.” He smiled at me and the gleam in his sea green colored eyes clutched at something inside me. I really felt like me and him could be friends. So far, even including the strange circumstances, he had proved trustworthy enough.

The wind rustled through the strands of his loose hanging long hair and lifted it up off his shoulder, blowing it behind him. The rest was still tied back and I was overcome with the urge to tell him how amazing his hair was. The thought almost brought a smile to my lips. Why didn’t I ask him what shampoo he used while I was at it?

I didn’t realize I was staring until I became aware that he was staring back at me with just as much intensity.

I cleared my throat and brought myself back to the present. I wasn’t even attracted to him in that way, what was I doing?
Just appreciating something beautiful
, I told myself.

“Gimme your phone.”

I pulled my phone out of my coat pocket and passed it to him. “Why?” I asked.

He tapped the screen a few times and then handed it back to me.

“My number.”

I looked down at the new saved contact and then put my phone away. “Okay, so I’ll call you.”

“You better,” he said, showing me those perfect white teeth again.

“Bye, Matoskah.” I smiled to myself as I walked over to Sully and without a word, not even a hello, he walked me over to his boat, which I would now absolutely call a fishing boat. Yacht was being too kind.

When I stepped on board, the grin that was still clear as anything on my face, was soon enough wiped away when I saw Caleb stood there resting against the railing of the boat, glaring at me.

Oh shit.

“You wanna tell me what you think you’re doing?” Caleb asked me, with the same glower on his face.

“Having a nice day out,” I said in the same belittling tone he was using on me.

“Will you ever do as you’re told?”

I put my finger up to my chin and looked out to the sea with a fake look of deep concentration on my face. “Hmm, let me see…”

I heard Caleb sigh next to me.

“As long as there’s such a thing as free thinking and my brain is in perfect working order, and oh yeah, as long as I’m not wearing a dog collar,” I spat, “then no, I won’t do as I’m told as you so delicately put it.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Yeah, I do know what you meant. You want me to do what you say so long as it suits you but as soon as I put a foot in the other direction, you don’t wanna know.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“So you keep saying. Well do yourself a favor, Caleb. Don’t bother.” I wasn’t waiting for any kind of reply. I stormed off down into the cabin and intended to stay out of his way for a long as it took us to get home.

At Caleb’s, I was free of most of my agitation from earlier and when we came in, Leah shot us both an amused look. “Looks like you two had fun.”

“Shut it,” Caleb hissed, causing her to push herself back in the chair, pretending that she was hurt by that comment. I knew Leah well enough to know that she fed off this kind of confrontation.

“What were you even thinking taking her out there? And flying no less. Seriously, Leah, tell me because I am this close,” he pinched his fingers together, right in front of her face, “from ripping your head off.”

“And is that because you thought there was genuine danger or because you just really couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to your precious little darling?”

Caleb straightened up and the veins in his arms pumped under his skin.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Leah taunted, squaring up to him. “Every day we tiptoe around you because you are turning into the fucking devil himself and if I have to do shit like this to get through to you, then so be it. I’ll do whatever it takes. Remember why you’re in this, Caleb. Your wings are gonna be nothing but a dream unless you get it together.”

I watched the two of them in disbelief. She took me out to Neah Bay for no other reason than to rile up Caleb. She put me in deliberate danger. Never mind Caleb wanting to rip her head off, I wanted to.

“I’ve got it together,” he seethed.

“Yeah,” Leah said with guttural laughter. “What little heart you have left will soon be as black as the deepest pits of hell and the one thing that has any chance of stopping that happening, is standing right over there.” She pointed her finger at me and glared at Caleb at the same time.

“I-” I started, but was quickly shut up.

“You think we don’t know?” Leah carried on. “You think we don’t know that you’re in love with the one person you can’t have?”

“Shut up, now,” Caleb growled.

What was she so angry about? She thought Caleb loved me, well she couldn’t more wrong.

“If you’re not going to help her,” Leah threatened. “Then I will and you will never see your wings again. There’s a lot more riding on this anyway then you finding redemption.” She unlocked her eyes from his and turned angrily, taking brisk steps towards the door. “Oh and by the way,” she stopped with the door wedged partly open. “Whoever the fuck Tamara is, get rid of her.”

***

I couldn’t sleep that night. Caleb had gone back to my house and I was tossing and turning in and amongst the sheets in one of the bedrooms that was now classed as mine. I couldn’t get over Leah. She wanted to help me but it sounded like it was only for the benefit of getting some kind of reaction from Caleb, or was I just being too sensitive and taken the whole thing the wrong way? Whatever it was, the stress of it was suffocating me. I kicked the sheets completely off me and slammed my arms down on the bed at my sides in frustration.

My eyes were wide open and when I couldn’t take anymore of staring at the ceiling, I got up and slipped into my dad’s room. I didn’t know if it was the guilt from today or just the safety that he always gave to me but as soon as I lay down next to him, sleep slowly began to find me.

I woke up, sweating, hanging onto my dad’s body for dear life.

Eyes. I could feel them on me. My skin was crawling with the sensation.

I sat up and ran over to the light switch, flicking it on. Light filled the room, highlighting every single nook and dark corner, but apart from my still and silent dad, I was completely alone. My eyes darted around the room, and I was fully expecting something to jump out at me. Ten minutes of standing and constantly surveying the room, only to reveal nothing but my dad and the shadows, I climbed back onto the bed wrapping my arms around my dad.

“It’s okay,” I murmured to myself.

I might not have been able to see anything, but the prickle on my skin told me we were definitely not alone.

“
H
and me that socket wrench please?” I asked Mellissa, sticking my head out from under the hood of the last car I would be fixing in a long time. Caleb was closing the garage after tonight, until my dad was back to take control of if properly. I hated it, but he was right. None of us had any time to run it anymore and it didn’t make sense to pretend like everything was normal when it wasn’t.

“Uh, do I look like I know what the hell a socket wrench is?” Mellissa asked, gaping at me, her hands spread wide in the air.

I rubbed greasy fingers over my forehead. “Drake?” I asked. He smiled and moved off into the garage and came back with nearly everything I needed.

“Thanks, just put those on the floor there.” He dropped the tools by my feet and I got back to work, fitting the socket wrench to an extension bar. I pulled the wire plug from the engine and worked it carefully till I got to the spark plug and freed it with the ratchet. The spark plug had mega sooty build up and I set about fitting new ones.

Twenty minutes later, happy with my work, I dropped the hood and called the owner to come and collect it.

“What kind of girl are you?” Mellissa asked me, just after Kevin, whose Volvo I had just fixed, paid me and left. “And how come Kevin couldn’t do that?”

“He probably didn’t have the tools,” I told her. “They can be more expensive than what’s wrong with the car.”

“Or maybe
Kevin
, prefers to bake cakes over fixing his own car.”

I rolled my eyes. “You are so black and white.”

“I’ll wait in the car for you,” Drake said, shaking his head with the tilt of a smile.

I emptied the register and started locking the tools away.

“How’s everything with you and Drake?” I asked Mellissa, whilst I made sure everything was switched off.

“Good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said, helping me clear everything away.

“And Jason?”

She stopped and her eyes locked onto mine. “He was just harmless flirting. I’m over it.”

“Good. I like Drake.”

She smiled. “I like him, too.”

I stood at the juke box with Ressler and shuffled through the titles. I recognized hardly any songs. Too much hard rock for me.

Sully’s was rowdy, and it was Friday night. I had managed another whole week without me and Tamara ripping into each other and I was happy to be nowhere near school, or her. She had Caleb, that much was true, but I held onto hope that without my jealous reactions, having him was made that much less sweeter.

“Was everything okay at Gracey’s?” Ressler asked me.

“Fine. She asked to see my dad again and then like ten seconds later she just smiled like a mannequin and shook the thought away, like she couldn’t even remember what it was she said. How long is that gonna hold up anyway?”

I selected ‘Wish you were here’ by Incubus and took my drink from Ressler.

“As long as it needs to. Until Gabriel wakes up.”

Leah had planted the false memory in Gracey’s head that she does in fact visit my dad in hospital, regularly. And every time she suggests going to see him, she remembers that she’s already been and then just forgets all about it. It was incredible to watch and even though Leah had protested against it profusely, there was no other way. Any suspicion of where my dad really was, would be a disaster; that was one thing we all agreed on.

I rested my shoulder against the jukebox and sipped my soda through a thin straw.

Ressler matched my stance and asked me, “Are you going to go back and see Matwau?”

“I was hoping to go back tonight.”

Ressler shook his wrist free of his sleeve and looked down at his watch. “It’s already after seven.”

“I can stay at Matwau’s. I’m sure he’d be okay with that. I kinda wanna have the whole weekend there.”

“The whole weekend?”

“I’ve got so much to still find out. It makes sense.”

Before Ressler could even bother to go there, I stepped in first. “Don’t even mention Caleb to me. Please, I could really do without it.” I gestured around the busy and heavily smoky room. “He isn’t here, is he?”

Ressler didn’t need to look around to know he was nowhere in sight. He was only downstairs, I knew that much, but it was beside the point.

“He’s not himself,” Ressler started.

I nodded and drained the last of my drink. “I know that.”

“Sully’s working tonight, but I’ve got another idea.”

I very much liked the sound of that.

Less than ten minutes later, Ressler had taken Drake from his game of pool and I had packed a bag with clothes and other stuff I would need. I brushed my hair through quickly and put on a pair of leggings and a plain black tee under my hoody. I laced up my wedge high tops and kissed my dad goodbye. Caleb was in the bathroom so I quickly left before he had a chance to come out and give me a mouthful.

At the marina, the ugly old girl that was Sully’s fishing boat, bobbed silently on the water. We got on board and I went and put my things in one of the bedrooms downstairs. I could feel the boat moving before I even came back up the stairs. Ressler and Drake were both on deck and I had to do a double take to see who was driving the boat.

Sully sat in the navigator’s cabin, his face completely expressionless, looking as if he were only one on this boat and there weren’t in fact three other people here.

Unsociable, meet Sully.

I stood next to Drake and Ressler. “I thought he was working?” I looked over at Sully.

“He left Tony in charge,” Drake said.

“Tony?”

“He drinks there. He’s a regular,” Drake confirmed, smirking at Ressler. “The bar can look after itself. As long as there’s someone to serve, everything’s good. Caleb’s only downstairs if there’s any trouble.”

“What kind of bar just lets the patrons run the place?” I asked, imagining all kinds of alcohol fuelled disasters that might take place throughout the night.

“The fallen angel kind.” Ressler put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring shake. “Don’t worry. It’s fine.”

“I’ll get the ferry next time.” It would be my fault if chaos did break out at the bar because I so desperately needed its owner, or maybe zoo keeper was more fitting.

“How many times are you gonna go out there?” Drake asked me. He slouched down into one of the wire mesh chairs on the deck and flung one arm over the back.

“Well I was thinking maybe…” I bit down on my lip, not wanting to say what I was about to. The look on Drake and Ressler’s face didn’t hold out a lot of trust in what I might come out with.

“Spit it out,” Ressler urged.

“Well, I was thinking I might invite him to this Thanksgiving festival that I have to arrange for school.

Drake and Ressler both shot each other a doubtful look.

“It was just an idea,” I said under my breath.

“What’s the harm?” Drake asked me with a smile behind his eyes that I couldn’t quite read.

“Really?” Was this a trick?

“Your life, right?”

Right,” I agreed. “My life.”

“Are you inviting that guy, too?” Ressler asked.

“What guy?”

“Long hair, thinks he can do whatever the fu-”

“Matoskah,” I said. “His names Matoskah and he’s nice. You’ll like him once you get to know him.”

“I’m sure you must be living on a different planet right now,” Ressler gibed, and Drake shook his head in muted laughter.

“Thanksgiving’s next week. You better get a move on if you’re planning a festival. You never mentioned anything about it before.” Ressler didn’t look quite as pleased about the suggestion I had just made as Drake seemed to be. He looked completely aggravated.

“And I’m so glad I have you guys to help me,” I declared with a smirk of my own. “I don’t know how I would get it all done without you.”

***

It had grown too cold for me out on the deck, the further we got out into the ocean and I retreated downstairs into the comfort of the small double bed that was in the bedroom I had claimed. I pulled off my hoody and my leggings and buried myself under the covers, leaving on my underwear and my t-shirt.

I pulled the quilt right up to my chin and curled up into a ball. I was tired and the sea air was making me drowsy. Before I knew it or could care to even try and fight it, I was falling asleep.

I was dreaming and I was in the swimming hole that was buried out of sight on the Cape trail. I pushed up on the heels of my feet out of the water and brushed the water back through my hair with my fingers. I looked down at myself and I was wearing exactly what I had worn to bed.

I wasn’t alone either.

“Caleb,” I whispered.

He was staring at me, sitting atop a boulder of rock and the feel of his eyes on me was causing a rising heat to rip through my insides. I waded through the water, and sat by the edge, twisting my legs in Caleb’s direction and keeping my knees close to my body. He looked around us, taking everything in. he wasn’t saying anything but his eyes always told a story. He told me everything with those eyes. I could imagine all kind of thought’s passing behind them. “Nice place,” he said, at last.

“It’s real. I came here today with Matoskah.”

I saw the instant dislike flit across his face. What had Matoskah ever done to him? One more glance at him, and it was gone. His face was a blank canvas again.

“I didn’t think I’d see you like this again,” he confessed.

“What do you mean, like this?”

“As myself. I forget what it feels like to just be me sometimes.”

“I know that it’s not your fault,” I said, taking in his far-off expression. “Leah told me.”

“Did she tell you that the more I lose sight of who I really am and why I’m here, the less I care whether you live or die?”

An angry frown settled above my eyes and I looked away. Well that stung.

“At least you’re honest.”

“You being safe, and you coming out of this completely unharmed was my motivation.” I looked back to see him settle his gaze on me. “I stopped really caring about my wings. They were insignificant, a bonus. And now-” he laughed, “Those damn wings are all I can think about.”

“I want to help you, Caleb,” I offered. “I won’t let you turn into Dr. Evil.”

He quirked his brow. “Dr. Evil?”

“Really?” I said “Dr. Evil… Austin Powers?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

I smiled in disbelief. “What have you been doing your whole life? Everyone has seen that movie. It’s not great, but…”

“I don’t watch movies.”

I let my eyes explore the full length of his body. “Of course you don’t.”

He should be in the movies, not watching them. He would play the role of every girl’s fantasies and the ultimate heartbreaker.

“How did you get to be so good?” he asked me.

“I’m not good all the time,” I stated. “I’m human.”

“I don’t think there’s one ounce of badness in you.”

“Then you don’t know me well enough.” I skimmed my hand over the water and tried not to think about all the things I wished me and Caleb could be. How can something that starts so great, end so badly? “I’ll do whatever it takes to help you, Caleb. I don’t care about Tamara. If she’s what makes you happy then I’ll learn to live with that. I won’t like it but I’ll get over it.”

Caleb surveyed me like he was trying to understand me. “The witch doctors dead. He done this to me.”

“I don’t care. There has to be something and we’ll figure it out. You never gave up on me and I’ll die before I give up on you.” It was a little on the heavy, but it was true. “I want to ask one thing from you in return.”

He rubbed his jaw and looked down at me under his lowered lashes. “What is it?”

“I know you already know that I met my mom’s husband and it turns out I’m no further forward.”

“No, you’re ten steps backwards.”

I gritted my teeth.

“If you know anything…”

“You need to ask Gabriel, not me.”

“What if he-”

“Never wakes up?” he asked me sharply. “He will wake up, and when he does, he will tell you everything you want to know. But I’m not the person to do it.”

“If you knew what it was like at all to just be a regular person, with regular feelings and problems, you would have the tiniest insight into what this is like for me. How hard this is.”

“You are anything but regular, and it doesn’t matter how much you try and fix me. I’ll never want any part of this.”

“And why’s that?” I lashed out. I stood up, feeling silly and small in what little I was wearing.

“Because you are going to get hurt and that is something I don’t want to see.”

“You don’t know that.”

“But you do. And yet you’re still putting yourself through it. Tell me right now what you’ll gain from this?”