World After (21 page)

“Your sister.”

“Why is she so important?”

“She probably isn’t.” He glances at me sideways, giving me the impression that he thinks otherwise. “But I’m desperate.”

He’s not making much sense, but I don’t care as long as I can see the video. He presses a button on the machine below the TV set.

“That thing really works?”

He scoffs. “What I wouldn’t give for a computer.” He fiddles with the dials and buttons on the old TV.

“It’s not like anyone is stopping you. Computers litter the Bay Area, ready for the taking.”

“Angels aren’t exactly a fan of man’s machines. They prefer playing with life and the creation of new and hybrid species. Although I get the impression they’re not really supposed to be doing that.” He says this last part in a mumble, like he’s talking to himself. “I’ve snuck some equipment in but the infrastructure on this rock was far from state-of-the-art to begin with.”

“The stuff out there looks pretty cutting edge.” I nod toward the window. “Way more than what was in the aerie basement.”

Doc raises his eyebrows. “You saw the aerie basement?”

I nod.

He cocks his head like a curious dog. “Yet, here you are. Alive to tell me about it.”

“Believe me, I’m as surprised as anyone.”

“The aerie lab was our first,” he says. “I still clung to the old ways back then—the human ways. It required test tubes, electricity, and computers, but they wouldn’t let me have a lot of what I needed. The angels’ resistance to human technology hampered me in ways that made that lab into some kind of 1930s Frankenstein basement.”

He presses PLAY on the video machine. “Since then, I’ve grown to like the angelic ways. They’re more elegant and effective.”

A grainy, gray picture of a dismal room appears on the screen. A cot, a bedside table, a steel chair. It’s hard to tell if it used to be a jail cell for solitary confinement or sleeping quarters for a sad bureaucrat.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Somewhere along the line, somebody installed a surveillance system on this rock. Not surprising, considering it was a busy tourist attraction. I added sound in some of the rooms. The angels obviously don’t know they’re being watched, so don’t go around announcing it.”

On the screen, the metal door of the room slams open. Two shirtless angels shuffle in holding a giant between them. Even
through the grainy video, I recognize the demon Beliel. He has a bloody bandage wrapped around his stomach.

Behind them is another angel who looks familiar. I can’t tell the color of his wings in the grainy video but I’m guessing it’s burnt orange. I remember him from the night Paige was taken, the night he and his buddies cut Raffe’s wings. He holds little Paige in one arm like a sack of potatoes.

Her face is uncut and her legs dangle, atrophied and useless. She looks tiny and helpless. This must be the night Paige was kidnapped.

“Is that your sister?” asks Doc.

I nod, unable to say anything.

Burnt angel tosses Paige toward the shadowy corner of the room.

“You’re sure you want to see this?” asks Doc.

“I do.” I don’t. I want to throw up at the thought of anything that might have happened while I wasn’t around to protect her.

But I have no choice. I’m compelled to watch the rest of the video.

T
HE
BLURRY
blob flying into the corner resolves into my sister again when she lands with a thud. I cringe as she bounces off the wall and crumples on her useless legs.

A tiny squeal of pain escapes from her, but no one in the room seems to notice.

Burnt angel has already forgotten about her as he lifts Beliel’s legs. They toss him onto the cot. Beliel comes down onto the squeaking springs. He looks dead. I wish it were true.

Behind them, my baby sister drags herself further into the shadowy corner and cringes there. She pulls up her legs with her hands to curl them against her chest in a fetal position as she watches the angels with huge, terrified eyes.

Beliel’s unconscious head lolls at an uncomfortable angle against the metal bar that serves as a headboard. All they’d have to do is pull him down a little and he could lie in relative comfort. But they don’t.

Another angel comes in with a plate of sandwiches and a large glass of water. He lays the food and water on the bedside table. While he does that, two of the angels exit, leaving Burnt and the delivery guy.

“Not so bossy now, is he?” says Burnt.

“I wonder how deep that cut went into his stomach muscles?” says the one who brought in the sandwiches. “You think he can reach the food?”

Burnt casually pulls the rickety table just out of Beliel’s reach. “Not any more.”

The angels give each other sly grins. “We brought food and water like we’re supposed to. Is it our fault if he can’t sit up and reach it?”

Burnt curls his lip like he wants to kick Beliel. “He’s got to be the bossiest, nastiest, most self-important reject I’ve ever had to work with.”

“I’ve worked with worse.”

“Who?”

“You.” The angel laughs as he shuts the door behind them as they leave.

Page huddles in the dark, apparently completely forgotten. She must be getting hungry and thirsty herself.

If she could walk, she could have snuck over and snagged a sandwich. But without her wheelchair, she would have had to slowly drag herself across the floor, grab it, and drag herself back. It could be done but I can see why she wouldn’t try. It’s hard to feel like you can steal something when you can’t run.

The video fades out.

When it turns back on, there’s light coming into the room, probably from a small window somewhere off camera. Time has passed. It’s hard to guess how much.

A painful growl rises to a howl of angry frustration. Beliel is awake and trying to sit up. He flops back onto the cot with a disgusted grunt.

He lies there panting, seemingly unaware of Paige still curled on the stone floor in the corner. Bright blood stains the bandages wrapped around his waist. He turns his head and stares at the water. He reaches out without leaning forward. The table with the sandwiches is just beyond reach.

However hungry and thirsty he is, Paige must be hungrier and thirstier. She’s tiny. She doesn’t have much stored up.

Beliel drops his hand and slams it against the cot. He grunts in anger and pain as the motion tears at his wound.

He lies back, trying to stay still. He gulps a dry gulp and looks at the glass of water on the table.

He takes a deep breath as if to brace himself and reaches out again. This time, he manages to stretch a little farther but not far enough. He pants through gritted teeth as he inches forward toward the water. The pain must be enormous. If it had been anyone else, I would have felt sorry for him.

He gives up with a frustrated grunt and slumps back down. His face is contorted in pain.

Paige must have moved or made a noise because he suddenly glares into the corner.

“What are you doing here?”

Paige shrinks back against the wall.

“Did they send you here to spy on me?”

She shakes her head.

“Get out.” He practically spits out the words. “Wait. Make yourself useful and bring me the water and sandwiches from that table.”

Paige stares at him in fear. Poor baby. A part of me wants to shut the video off. Whatever happened happened. My watching it won’t change anything.

But I’m mesmerized by this window into my sister’s past. If she had to go through this because I wasn’t there to protect her, then I don’t deserve to be protected from watching what she went through.

“Do it now!” Beliel bellows at her. He’s so loud and forceful that I jump.

Paige shrinks back even more.

Then, she lies on the concrete floor and drags herself toward him. Her eyes look huge and her pant legs lie almost empty as they drag.

“W
HAT
’
S
WRONG
with you? Are you broken?”

“No. I just can’t walk like other people.” She puts her arm out and drags herself forward a few more inches.

“That means you’re broken.”

She stops on the hard floor, propped on her elbows. “It means I move in a different way.”

“Yeah, like crawling on the floor like a worm. Show me, Little Worm. Entertain me. Crawl over here and I’ll let you have some of my water.”

I want to punch my fist through the TV screen at him.

Where were you when she needed you?

My little sister looks at the water and takes a dry gulp.

“I can see you want it. The thirst is probably cracking your throat right now.” His own voice sounds dry and cracked. “Soon, you’ll get a headache and start feeling dizzy. Later, your tongue will swell and every instinct you have will be whispering at you to bite it so you can drink your own blood. Ever been thirsty enough to want to kill a man for his cup of water? No? You’ll know that feeling soon.”

He touches the bloody bandage as if wanting to share the pain. “Come over here, Little Worm. Show me how the broken
and abandoned ‘walk’ in a different way, and I’ll give you something to drink.”

“I’m not abandoned.”

Beliel scoffs. “Name one person who didn’t abandon you.”

She looks at him with her wide eyes and pixie face. “My sister.”

“Really? Then where is she?”

“On her way here. She’ll come and get me.”

“That’s not what she said.”

“You talked to her?” The hope in her face breaks my heart.

“Sure, I talked to her. Who do you think gave you to me?”

I clench my fist so hard my knuckles feel ready to split.

“You lie.”

“It’s the truth. She said she feels bad about it, but she can’t handle the responsibility of taking care of you any more.”

“You’re lying.” Her voice wavers. “She didn’t say that.”

“She’s exhausted. So tired of waking up every morning, knowing she has to find food for you, carry you, wash you, do everything for you. She tried, but you’re such a burden.”

All the strength drains out of me and I have to stagger back and lean on the wall to stay up.

“They’re all like that.” Beliel’s voice is not unfriendly. “In the end, they always abandon us. No matter how much we love them or how much we do for them. We’re never good enough. We’re the rejects, you and I. The abandoned.”

“You’re a liar.” Her face crumples and her words blur. She hiccups as she cries, lying there on the stone floor, utterly helpless. Her tone almost begs for this monster to comfort her.

My chest feels like there’s a heavy weight on it, and I have trouble breathing.

“You’ll see. Nothing will ever be given to us freely the way it is for other people. Not love, not respect, not even friendship. The only way we’ll get any of that is to put them all in their rightful place beneath us. The last thing we can afford is to be helpless and
weak. You have to be strong and beat them into submission. And if they beg and behave, then maybe we’ll let them be our lap dogs. That’s the closest outsiders like us will ever come to feeling wanted.”

It’s bad enough that he’s crushing the fragile hopes of an innocent seven-year-old. But what kills me is that we proved him right. The image of her tied and yanked like a wild animal will be burned forever into my memory.

“Would you like some water?” Beliel’s voice is neutral. Not nice but not overly cruel either.

My sister gulps and tastes her parched lips with her tongue. Desperately thirsty even though she’s crying.

“Crawl over to me, Little Worm, and I’ll give you some.”

She lies still on the floor with her upper body resting on her forearms. She looks at him with distrust. I absolutely dread her falling for his game, and yet there’s a part of me that wants her to go to him because she needs to drink.

Paige slowly puts her arm out and drags herself laboriously. Once, twice, until she gets a slow rhythm crawling across the room. Her dead and dried-up legs drag behind her.

Beliel claps in a slow beat. “Bravo, Little Worm. Bravo. Such a miniature likeness of your kind. You monkeys are so cleverly desperate to do whatever it takes to survive. Compared to your people and the things some of them will do, I’m practically a nice guy.”