It was an extraordinarily clear night for LA, the city lights sprawling out until they dissolved into the darkened sky above—probably the nicest night I could’ve asked for to plummet to my death. I twisted my body away from the rapidly approaching ground, flipping to face the faint stars sparkling above. Or is that light reflecting off tiny shards of glass that are about to impale me? Either way, my attention was quickly drawn to a spark of color in the otherwise indigo landscape: a red dress flapping in the chilly night air.
I watched her twirl, as I had so many times before, her arms sailing through the air as bright red feathers appeared to sprout all along them. She paused, falling next to me for a moment, like she was taking a breath, then—WHOOSH! She extended her arms and rose above me, her feathers catching the air and expanding to form sweeping scarlet wings. The sight of her soaring through the sky used to make my heart leap in my chest, but feelings of nostalgia did nothing to stop the darkness clouding my thoughts at that moment.
Would she save me this time, after everything that’s happened? After everything that’s been said?
She got smaller and smaller as I continued to plummet and my stomach continued to sink. I closed my eyes. I tensed and untensed my body, unable to predict when it would finally end. It felt like I was falling forever, stuck in a purgatory remembering every choice I had ever made for eternity. Maybe I would never hit the ground. Maybe I already had.
The feeling of falling continued, but I became aware of a vague heat dancing across my cheek. The warmth crawled across my face, then down my neck and along the left half of my body. I opened my eyes to see her falling beside me. Her black hair was flying everywhere, covering her face in a blur of movement. She rotated towards me, stretching out her wings. They wrapped around to embrace me.
“Hold on,” she commanded. She didn’t need to tell me twice. I wrapped my arms around her and felt relief as falling turned into flying. The chill of the cool air blowing past me melted away and I buried my face into her shoulder, rubbing the small bits of condensation that had formed at the corners of my eyes into her plumage. She beat her wings powerfully and we turned to face the building from which we were plummeting moments ago, now rising—floors passing in a blur.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we continued to ascend.
“I’m not leaving him behind.”
“We barely got out of there alive,” I protested.
“Are you coming or not?”
“Yeah.”
Suddenly, my ears were barraged by the sound of distant glass shattering and the crackle of machine gun fire. I glanced up to see a hole in the exterior of the building about five floors above us, and could just barely make out the white barrels of four machine guns poking out. They opened fire again. Ayumi took evasive maneuvers, no longer rapidly climbing, but bobbing and weaving through the air sporadically. PFFFFT! A few bullets whizzed past us. I tightened my grip, clutching onto her torso for dear life. She beat her wings, taking us higher. A star glinted at me through a hole in her left wing, a few feathers now missing.
We hovered a few floors above the guards, giving me a clear view of them scrambling to reload their weapons. I could tell we were moving slower now, and Ayumi must have sensed it as well, because she twisted in the air, then tucked into a nose dive straight towards the edge of the building. The guards scattered as we came careening through the hole in the wall. I released my grip on her, tucking my body into a roll before I hit the floor.
The carpet did a good job neutralizing my momentum—despite my knees and arms feeling like I was dragging them against a cheese grater—as I slid through the mundane layout of some kind of office space and came to a stop beside a row of cubicles. I glanced up to see a Patriot guard crouching down a foot in front of me and we made awkward eye contact through the slits of his white mask. He whipped his gun to point straight at my face. CLICK! I thanked a nonspecific deity for his dismal reload speed. He swore and slung the gun behind him, reaching now for the baton strapped to his belt. I launched myself forward, grabbing his arm before he could slip it out of its loop. Behind me I could hear the clunk of body armor as another guard approached. I placed my other hand on my attacker’s shoulder and swung him around me. His squadmate opened fire and the guard’s body jerked as each bullet embedded itself into his armor. I pushed forward slowly, closing the gap between us. CLICK!
I threw my human shield forward onto the ground, the other wannabe cop jumping over his fallen comrade and charging at me with a baton of his own. Electricity crackled along its surface as he activated it, but before he could even begin to swing it at my head, I had wrapped my fingers around it. There was a weak whine as the stick depowered, my hand beginning to vibrate instead. I drew my fist back as the energy swooped across my chest to concentrate in the fingers of my opposite hand, before I sent it rocketing into the guard’s stomach. He flew backwards into his squadmate, who had just managed to clamor to his feet right before they both toppled into a heap.
I turned to my right. One of the other two guards was on the floor, struggling against the glinting red feathers that were embedded into the carpet around him, pinning him to it. The other was firing bullet after bullet at Ayumi, who was slowly moving towards him with one wing in front of her, its feathers now tucked tightly together into a makeshift shield. She closed the distance, then lashed her arm forward, whipping him with her wing and knocking him to the ground.
My attention was quickly taken by the sound of a door bursting open behind me. I pivoted on my heels to see another Patriot guard emerge from a nearby stairwell. He was carrying a futuristic looking briefcase, composed of large geometric white plates hovering over a black foundation. He placed it on the floor and the panels on the bottom immediately flipped down like the legs of a tripod, as if to anchor the device to the ground. The top panels also lifted off the recessed black base with an audible click. All of a sudden, I could detect a change in the air. The hairs on my arms stood on end and even though it was twenty feet away from me, I could feel the device’s energy tapping against my chest like raindrops on a lake. The top half of the briefcase rose into the air, revealing a cylindrical glowing core housed in a metal frame. It spilled a harsh blue light across the room and a high pitched whine filled my ears. The guard who had set the device down quickly dove back into the stairway, slamming the door shut behind him. The tingle of the device's energy continued to intensify as it charged up—now like waves lapping at my chest.
I hope this works.
I raised my arm towards the device and concentrated my vision on it. My heart pounded in my chest and my lungs expanded as I breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. I cleared my mind, letting all the other stimuli fall away until I was left with only one feeling: electricity. It was pouring out of the device now, like a pot boiling over. The device began to whir louder. I steadied my hand, focusing on the center of the storm. I flicked my fingers towards my body. All at once I felt the energy rush into a glowing orb in my hand, and I clutched my arm as the feeling of millions of pins and needles smashed into my palm over and over again. Shit, that hurts. I clasped my hands together, smooshing the energy between them. The light dissipated as I absorbed the energy and the feeling shot down my arms, spreading throughout my body and morphing into what I could only describe as a mildly disturbing burning sensation.
The device sat motionless by the door, now completely dark and silent. Ayumi walked up behind me, brushing off a few feathers that were barely holding on to her wings. “They really didn’t get the memo that you have electric powers yet, did they?”
I turned to look at her. There were a million things I had to say to her at that moment. I opened my mouth. “Ayumi…I—”
She immediately cut me off, accurately sensing I was probably about to start baring my heart in some long-winded speech. “We can talk after we make it out of this alive.” She grabbed the handle of the stairwell door and threw it open. “They’re probably already being evacuated, we need to cut them off at the parking garage.”
I took the lead and we began descending the stairs two at a time.
“They’re in the stairwell!” A guard’s voice echoed up from somewhere not too far below us. As I skipped the last few steps and jumped down to the next landing, he rounded the corner of the flight just below me. We made eye contact and he reached for his gun. I leaped forward, curling back my arm and focusing my charge into my fist again, until it was physically quaking with energy. The guard’s machine gun rose in slow motion in front of me, giving me a clear view down the barrel. I braced myself for the feeling of a tiny piece of metal tearing through my face. Suddenly a maroon feather whipped across my vision, lodging itself in the side of the rifle. A shot rang out and a bullet screamed past my head. My fist connected with his chest.
Instantly it felt like the skin on the back of my hand was being ripped off. A shockwave pulsed outward and sent me flying into the jagged staircase behind me. The guard blasted backward through the concrete wall of the stairwell, soaring over cubicles and crashing against the exterior wall on the other side of the building, creating a giant spider web of cracks in the glass. I looked down at my arm and winced at the sight of brown—the entire forearm of my tuxedo’s beautiful sleeve had been shredded clean off, revealing my skin underneath. I tried to stand, but a sharp pain in my back caused me to collapse against the stairs again.
Another guard appeared next to me, stepping onto the landing with his baton in hand. Upon seeing me, he ignited it and the air was filled with the popping sound of a live current. He lunged towards me. I reached up, focusing my remaining energy into my hand, and launched it at him. It zapped into his baton, causing it to short circuit and send jolts of electricity coursing through his body. He spasmed and collapsed onto the floor next to me.
I rolled to my side and managed to stand. My attention was drawn back to my hand, which burned as it swung through the air. I turned it over. The skin of my knuckles was red and raw, like I had actually run it against a box grater a few times. Shit. Ayumi appeared on the landing above me. At that moment all I wanted was to show it to her and have her take care of me.
“What happened? Are you okay?” she asked, approaching me as I stood there staring at the back of my hand.
“Yeah.” I put my hand behind my back. “I just got a crazy charge from that briefcase device.”
“Okay, well we need to keep moving.”
We continued to descend the stairs as fast as we could. At some point my legs began to move on autopilot, carrying me down flight after flight. My knees began to ache, the impact of every jump to the next landing after what must have been twenty flights of stairs catching up with me, but I pushed forward.
“Fifth floor,” Ayumi suddenly yelled from behind me. I had become so focused on descending the stairs, I might’ve missed it if she hadn’t said anything. We busted through the stairwell door and into a fancy looking reception area. In front of us windows wrapped the entire exterior of the building, only broken by a pair of glass doors that lead to a sky bridge. It stretched over the street below, connecting the building to the murky concrete walls of a parking garage. Through the glass I could see the bobbing heads of a crowd of suits disappear out of sight as they descended down a ramp, the head of a very large man sticking out above the rest.
Without a second more to waste, we threw open the doors and raced across the bridge, following them down the large ramp in the middle of the parking garage. A curtain of darkness followed us as I absorbed power from the garage’s fluorescent lighting, charging up for whatever fight inevitably lay ahead of us. Through the columns we caught glimpses of Tsuyosugi’s shiny green kimono being ushered along by his entourage, the bright blue of his son’s suit peeking through closer to the back of the group. We ran down a few more rows until they were straight ahead of us and almost to the three black SUVs that were parked at the far corner of the garage.
“Haruto!” Ayumi called out.
The boy stopped in his tracks, the other staff passing around him like he was a rock in a rushing stream. It was only Tsuyosugi’s glance behind and subsequent sudden stop that caused his entourage to do the same. As he stepped towards his son, I could’ve sworn he grew a few inches taller and wider. The fabric of his emerald kimono shuddered as if every single one of his upper body muscles were rippling underneath, begging to tear free. His eyes drifted from his son to us and his fearsome glare pierced into my skull, sending an icy dread washing over me. Now that we were in his sights, the reality that we were about to pick a fight with one of Japan’s top heroes had set in…what the hell are we doing? I glanced at Ayumi. She either wasn’t having any second thoughts or she wasn’t letting it show, because she was stepping forward with a resolute look on her face.
Tsuyosugi directed his attention back to his son. “Haruto、ここに来て。” Haruto flinched at the sound of his father’s voice, but didn’t move. One of the staff called out something and pointed at the SUVs. A few of them moved towards the cars. “こっち来い！” Tsuyosugi marched forwards and grabbed Haruto’s arm, pulling him towards the others, but his son’s feet didn’t budge.
Then the boy spoke. “もうこれやりたくないよ、父さん。”
Tsuyosugi stopped dead in his tracks. “何？”
Haruto hesitated, but continued to mumble a few more words. “これ以上、こんなことをしたくない。”
In an instant Tsuyosugi’s arm swung through the air, slapping his son straight across the face. Haruto gave no reaction other than to let his head fall forward, as if he had no control of his own neck, his jet black hair now obscuring his face. Tsuyosugi roared back to life. “言う通りにすればいい。さあ、行くぞ！” SMACK! The boy put up no fight, allowing the momentum to take him down—his skinny figure crumpling to the floor.
“Stop!” Ayumi yelled, already running forward.
The staff reacted too, stepping out from behind a row of pillars brandishing new weapons they had retrieved from the now open trunk of one of the SUVs. “その少年は電撃の能力を持ってます！” one of them called out.
Another bodyguard stepped forward and slung a large white gun with a fat barrel off his back. He raised it, aiming it directly at me. THOOP! He staggered backwards as a giant cylindrical capsule pelted out of the gun. Ayumi whipped her arm forward, flinging a feather and knocking the gun out of his hands, but it was too late. I tried to dodge out of the way, but felt a shooting pain as the capsule impacted the side of the chest. Small arms with silver contacts snapped out of the device and clamped themselves firmly onto either side of my ribcage. I tried to claw off the device, but a searing pain began crawling across my chest. The air began to crackle as bolts of electricity arced between my skin and the projectile, followed closely by the now all too familiar feeling of my muscles spasming. I flung my hand on top of the device, trying to focus on it. I desperately searched for the tingle of its power source, but all I could feel was the constant flow of electricity cycling through my body. My legs buckled and as I hit the ground, it came to me: the device doesn’t have a power source—I am the power source.
Ayumi froze halfway to Haruto, jerking her head to look at me as I collapsed, her eyes shining with concern. I tried to fight against the current, but my muscles were no longer responding to my brain. “I think they finally got the memo…” I croaked weakly, my body now twitching uncontrollably on the floor. “I’m…sorry…”
Her vision darted across me, a panic slowly seeping into her eyes. There was little time to think, however, as Tsuyosugi soon drew her attention as he continued to berate his son.
“今さら私に口答えできるとでも思っているのか？” His head swiveled to glare at Ayumi and he switched to English for a moment. “That girl has poisoned your mind. She is American, not Japanese. She is not like us. She does not know what’s best for you.” Ayumi gave no reaction to his verbal attack, his words merely washing over her as if she had heard them a million times before. He turned back to Haruto. “感謝すべきだ—お前がした全てのことにもかかわらず、私はお前を養い、役に立たせている。さあ、立て！”
Haruto’s shadowy form sat hunched over motionless on the ground. He slowly raised his head, revealing a cascade of dark fluid pouring out of his nose and onto the floor. He looked up at his father, blood streaking down his lips. “や…やめてよ...”
Tsuyosugi's massive hand reached towards his son, grabbing the lapel of his suit jacket and lifting him off the ground like a lion carrying a cub by the scruff of its neck. He moved towards the cars, his son’s limp body dragging against the concrete floor.
“Don’t touch him!” Ayumi flicked her wrist, sending a feather screaming through the air. It embedded itself in the wall behind Tsuyosugi’s head. His eyes snapped to her, his death stare returning—channeling what I could only describe as pure contempt. A slit of blood began to form across his cheek.
“This circus ends here.” He released Haruto, who collapsed into a heap on the floor, before stepping towards her. “You are a stupid, small girl. I saw your wings and thought you were special, but then I heard you talk. You think speaking a little Japanese makes you understand us? Someone should have taught you to stay out of others' business.” He raised his fists, his face twisting into a sickening smile. “You should have run away when you had the chance.”
Ayumi stepped forward as well, raising her wings in anticipation. In her eyes was a fury that reminded me of the night I had met her parents—an unbridled rage, like a fire that had been burning since long before I knew her. “I’m sick of trying to twist myself into what other people want me to be. I’m done holding back how I feel, and to be honest—you’ve really pissed me off.”
“お前が今言ったことは、一言も理解できない,” Tsuyosugi shook his head with a crude smile on his face, like she had just said something completely silly.
Ayumi snorted. “さすが。”
Tsuyosugi let out a spirited shout, then charged straight towards her. She jumped off the ground and flapped her wings violently in response. There was an audible crack in the air as they snapped and she soared backwards, a whirlwind of air blasting towards him. She flicked her wings, sending a barrage of feathers flying in his direction. He dodged some, while others sliced along his arms, which he had quickly raised to cover his face. He lowered them, the sleeves of his kimono now tattered and stained by trickles of blood. He plucked off a few feathers that had embedded in his skin and flicked them onto the floor.
In an instant he was charging at her once again, with surprising speed for a man of his size. She raised her wings to attack, but it was too late. He closed the distance and grabbed her by the shoulder—the torn sleeves of his kimono rolling back to reveal his bulging bicep as he catapulted her over his head. He pivoted, then slammed her into the ground. She scrambled back to her feet, only to be met with a sucker punch straight to the jaw. She hit the floor again and coughed, a glob of blood dribbling out of her mouth. Tsuyosugi lifted his arms to pound her further into the ground, but she scrambled out of the way. He yelled in pain as his fists met concrete, fracturing its surface into a spiderweb. He lunged towards her again, but she was even quicker this time, beating her wings and soaring out of the way. She hovered for barely a moment, her wings pumping once…then twice, sending her careening back towards him. She extended a leg, smashing her foot into his nose as she blew past him. She pivoted quickly in the air before diving back in again. Her feet slammed into his back, sending him crashing into the ground and leaving another large crack in the concrete floor. She pushed off his body and landed on her feet, straddling one of his legs. Her arms became a blur as she reached into one wing, then the other—slinging feather after feather at him and pinning every edge of his kimono to the floor. He tried to sit up, but found himself bound by her plumage and the sheer quality of Japanese craftsmanship.
The device attached to my chest suddenly let out a loud click, popping off my chest and retracting its arms back into the capsule. Ayumi noticed the noise and glanced back at me. I tried to get up, but I had barely shifted my arm when millions of pins and needles rocketed through every fiber of my body, as though every single one of my limbs had fallen asleep. I cried out in pain, slumping back onto the floor.
RIPPPPP.
My eyes shot up to Ayumi, and I watched in horror as the now nearly naked figure of Tsuyosugi rose from behind her, his white undergarments accenting the rest of his unrealistic beauty standard of a body—his biceps were coconuts, his pecs two rotisserie chickens, and his abs an eight count set of dinner rolls. She swung back around, but it was too late. He charged into her like a football linebacker, knocking her clean off her feet and slamming her into the hood of one of the SUVs, whose alarm began blaring in protest. She struggled to try and get out of the now crumpled metal, but Tsuyosugi seemed to have no interest in fighting fair—drawing his fist back, then sending it rocketing into her chest. She cried out in pain, but he was already winding up and pummeling her in the stomach once again, his conviction unwavering. Every hit stoked an inferno in my chest. How can he so easily strike a woman half his size like that?
I tried to get up again, fighting desperately against the phantom force that was possessing me, but my muscles couldn’t take it. I collapsed back onto the floor in defeat. All I could do was lay there, my face pressed against the cool concrete, and wince as she took punch after punch to the gut, as if every strike were to my own.
Finally he paused for a moment, almost as if he had grown bored. Ayumi remained motionless on the hood of the car, her eyes closed and her face still twisted in agony. Then he leaned over her and wrapped his large hands around her neck. Instantly her eyes shot open and she began gasping for air. She grabbed onto his arms and struggled against him—trying to reduce the overwhelming pressure currently collapsing her windpipe. My vision was fully red now and the scene in front of me was beginning to blur. Ayumi’s hands were perched on her attacker’s triceps, her wings now brushing against his sides. She must have noticed, as she tucked her elbows in aggressively, plunging the razor-sharp tips of her feathers into his skin. Tsuyosugi let out an aggravated yell. He released her, stumbling backwards, his sides now covered in crimson cascades of blood. He let out another yell and launched one more punch straight into her face. Her head whipped backwards, slamming into the windshield.
Tsuyosugi hobbled towards the tattered remains of his kimono. He picked up a large chunk of the green fabric and began wiping away the streaks of blood that seemed to be oozing from his armpits, before reaching into the folds as if searching for something. Behind him, Ayumi lifted her head off the windshield. She coughed again, sending a splatter of blood onto the glass. Nevertheless, she heaved herself up and off the hood of the car.
Tsuyosugi withdrew his arm from the kimono, his hand glinting as he clutched one of the Miyaku devices. My stomach plummeted. He’s going to kill her. A green light illuminated under his thumb and the mouthpiece began to extend. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The tingling permeating my entire body was joined by the lightest tap dancing on the tip of my fingers. It’s no longer fully insulated. I flexed them, pointing upwards towards the light above me, grimacing as it felt like someone had injected static into my nerves. I let the dancers in, extinguishing the bulb above me and, in a swift motion, flicked my fingers in the direction of Tsuyosugi’s face. He lifted the device up to his mouth when…BANG! It erupted like a firecracker, sending a blackened shard of circuitry flying across the room and leaving a gaping hole in the side of the device. Tsuyosugi startled for only a moment before his anger quickly returned.
“そもそも必要なかったんだ。” His voice was powerful, but his expression didn’t exude quite as much confidence. He threw the device to the floor and glared at Ayumi. She shifted her feet and took an aggressive stance, but her movements were now noticeably slower.
He lunged towards her with his hand outstretched. She managed to sidestep it, but he had closed the distance between them. As she raised her wings for a counterattack, he grabbed hold of one with his other hand. Her face flashed with shock that quickly turned to anguish as he wrenched it downwards and twisted it behind her back, causing her to yelp in pain. He swung his other arm forward and around her neck, trapping her in a headlock. She flapped her wings, her feet lifting off the ground for a moment, but he held fast. His bicep was bulging, now the size of a small cantaloupe, and digging deeper and deeper into her neck. She coughed and sputtered, beginning to futilely claw at his arms. She tried to jab backwards with her wings again, but she was unable to expand them and they merely slapped against his sides uselessly. My breath caught in my throat, the traumatizing image of her lifeless body dangling in his arms now burned into my imagination.
Then she ceased her sporadic movements, placing her hands on his arm and clenching her now blood-stained teeth. Her jaw opened slowly, a drop of saliva flying out as she threw back her head. The air was filled with an earth-shattering scream. Suddenly there was a glow between them. Tongues of flame licked slowly up Tsuyosugi’s chest. They grew taller and taller until he was completely engulfed in a blaze and, with a roar, was blasted backwards. There was a cracking sound as he collided with one of the concrete pillars in the middle of the garage and crumpled to the floor. He clamored to his feet, wincing as he stood up straight to face her. His chest heaved and his once confident expression was now nowhere to be seen. He flinched as she began to slowly walk towards him, the slight click of her feet against the concrete floor echoing through the silent garage. The fire had spread from her back to arch across both of her wings, to the point where I could no longer tell where the flames stopped and her feathers started. Despite radiating off her back, their flicker reflected in her eyes, as though her irises were literally ablaze.
She stopped and turned towards Haruto, who was now on his feet but still frozen in place. “Go!” He glanced back once, before fleeing towards the staircase on the other side of the garage. The guards moved to stop him, but he quickly extended his hand and they jumped backwards, letting him pass.
Tsuyosugi took a step towards Ayumi, but moved no further, instead glaring at her from afar. She hobbled over to me, the flames on her back slowly dissipating and the dark maroon of her feathers becoming visible again. I tried to get up, but pushing against my wrists sent a torrent of tingling up my arm once more, and I collapsed. My entire body was still numb, obviously not getting the memo that it was time to wake up and get the hell out of here.
Tsuyosugi directed his attention towards his entourage, shouting something angrily at them. “何をしているんだ？ あいつらを捕まえろ！”
Ayumi hooked her arms under mine and tried to hoist me up. She pushed me against her shoulder, shuffling a few feet forward before grimacing as my body collided with her chest. “Come on, I need you to hold onto me,” she pleaded. Behind her, Tsuyosugi's guards were approaching fast.
I summoned all the will I had left and reached my arms up to clasp them behind her head. She spread her arms wide, her feathers straightening as they caught the air. With a snap of her wings, I could feel my feet leave the ground below us. My clasped arms fell against her neck and I yelped as a terrible combination of shooting pain and numbness exploded across my arms. I tightened my grip, searching desperately somewhere deep inside myself for the strength to keep from plummeting to the ground. My legs dangled in the air, and I willed them to move as hard as I could, managing to swing them up and around her back. She cried out as they struck the side of her ribcage and I quickly blurted an apology, but she grit her teeth and continued to beat her wings.
As we swooped through the concrete columns into another row, my eyes skittered around my surroundings until my gaze fell upon the fluorescent lights lining the ceiling. I felt a prickle across my fingertips and, without hesitating, let it in. The lights above us extinguished, and after a moment, so did those in a radius around us. Row after row flickered out until the entire parking garage was plunged into darkness.
Ayumi weaved down another two rows and we continued to pick up speed as she pumped her wings vigorously. I could hear the guards shouting in Japanese, but it had become mostly echoes—the sources now somewhere deep in the darkness.
We sailed over the railing of the parking garage and out over the streets, ascending higher over the breathtaking view of Los Angeles that sprawled out below us. My back was met instantly by a gust of cold air, but being in the presence of her heat made it quite tolerable. The parking garage was quickly shrinking from view, but our labored climb into the sky soon became flying level, which soon became gliding ever so slightly downward, as each subsequent flap of her wings grew more sluggish than the last.
I looked up at her. “Ayumi?” Her eyelids fluttered shut for a moment before they shot open again.
“I—can’t…” Her right arm faltered and we pitched to one side, curving around a skyscraper and diving much quicker than I would’ve liked. I held on for dear life as we careened down a street towards a row of buildings. I craned my neck to look ahead of us. An upside down five-story apartment building loomed in my face. I closed my eyes and braced for impact. At the last second, I felt Ayumi lurch in what must have been a last ditch attempt to slow our velocity. My back met gravel as thousands of jagged pebbles tried to claw their way through my jacket. I grit my teeth, the only thing keeping the pain tolerable being the peace of mind that it was happening to me and not her.
We slid to a stop after a few seconds, the pounding on my back replaced with a fiery ache. She was slumped on top of me, her wings splaying over me like a maroon blanket.
“Ayumi, hey.” I rolled her off of me and against the brick wall to my right. If we had landed even a few feet to our left we would’ve been pancaked on the side of the small bulkhead that stuck out of the roof like a boxy pimple. I brushed the curly mess of black out of her face. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes drifted open. “No,” she croaked. “But I think I’ll live. Just don’t make me carry you anymore.” What was left of her tattered wings slid back through large flaps in the surface of her skin.
The sweetest wave of relief washed over me. “Okay, yeah, no more carrying. We can do that,” I said, tears springing to the corners of my eyes. My insides felt like a mess—I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh, cry, or just wrap her in my arms and tell her how glad I was that she was still alive. Instead, I leaned against the wall and just tried to catch my breath. We were both silent for a moment, our ears filled only with the soft whistle of the breeze and the wailing of sirens in the distance. In front of us lights dotted as far as the eye could see, climbing up the shadowy forms of the Hollywood hills.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said, breaking the silence. “For catching me and all that.”
“Of course.” She coughed. “If the roles were flipped, would you not have saved me?”
“No.”
“Then can we stop pretending like we don’t care about each other?”
The floodgates behind my eyes threatened to burst open. I looked away, trying to focus on something else, but the cityscape was quickly becoming a singular shade of purple. “It’s just so much easier to do that.”
She shook her head. “I know it is, but that doesn’t get us anywhere.”
I sniffled, trying to suck up the snot that was making a run for it out my nostril. “I didn’t think it would be this hard.” A tear trickled down my face, followed by another. “Like I’m the one who broke up with you. Why is this still so hard for me?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” she responded.
I reached up to wipe my eyes and the world slowly came back into focus, including the gorgeous girl laying next to me. I hadn’t quite processed it before, but she had taken quite the beating. Her left eye was swollen and bloodshot, and a streak of semi-dried blood painted from her right nostril to the side of her jaw, as well as down from her bottom lip to her cute round chin. She noticed me staring and scowled slightly.
“You don’t have to say it. I know I look like shit.”
I reached down to wipe away the blood from below her lip. “Even looking like shit, you’re still the most beautiful person I know.” Any filter I had before was gone now, and whatever words felt natural were just spilling out of me—for better or for worse.
“Why do you have to say things like that?” she complained, her voice catching as she laughed, which immediately caused her to wince. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes—whether it was because of the pain or something else, I didn’t know.
“Because they’re true.” I couldn’t help but smile at her. I used all the willpower I had to fight the desire to kiss her on the forehead right then and there. As she looked into my eyes, I looked back into hers and nearly fell right in. What were once shallow pools were now bottomless shots of espresso—so deep and dark, one might question if they even had a bottom. I was once again gazing directly into her soul, like she was letting me see every single part of her. I couldn’t stop staring, that is until she shifted and broke my trance. She lifted her torso up to lean her head against the wall and peer out at the city.
“It’s kind of nostalgic…being up here. Like that last night in Boston.”
I chuckled. “I feel like that was a little different.”
“I don't know, both were thanks to a great sacrifice on my part…”
“Ah, is that what you call using your powers for a bit of fun?”
“What can I say, doing something like that would not have even crossed my mind back then.” She paused, her jaw swaying idly as she contemplated something. Then she spoke, her tone more sincere now. “It’s stupid, but I see you in the smallest things...like when I cooked jollof last weekend, all I could think about was that time I forced myself into the kitchen and made you teach me how to make it.” She shook her head. “Or sometimes I even catch myself listening to that one Charli XCX album and actually enjoying it.”
I shifted to sit next to her, a grin spreading across my face. “To be fair, that album goes so hard.”
She cracked a small smile, before a melancholy look washed over her face. “What can I say, you’ve changed the way I see the world—and I don’t just mean my taste in food and music. Even though you left me, I think I’ve realized that those parts of me are here to stay if I let them.” My stomach churned, but for what felt like the first time that night I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up at any moment. Then she turned and hit me with a curveball. “Do you want to try and explain how you felt about my promotion?”
“I don’t know,” I said instinctively. “I don’t know why it affected me so much.”
“Think about it. I’m not planning on doing anything but lay here for a while, I’ve got time.” She closed her eyes, as if preparing to take a nap while she waited. I sat there, willing my mind to replay the moment when she broke the news to me. Remembering the sinking feeling in my gut and the wave of fear that washed over me…accompanied by the feeling of my life crashing down around me. I took a deep breath.
“It made me feel…incompetent. Not because I believed you didn’t deserve it, but because it made me feel like I didn’t.” Ayumi opened her eyes, but continued to listen silently. “Ever since I joined the Agency…I mean, even way before that—I’ve felt like I’ve always had these expectations to live up to. I’m the one who inherited my parents’ powers, not my sisters. I’m the only one who can carry the family legacy…and that was being a top agent at the Agency. That’s the bar I’m being compared against. I changed my mind about following in their footsteps so many times growing up because…what if I’m not good enough for that?”
She watched me intently, waiting patiently for me to continue. I swallowed the lump that had risen into my throat. “When I passed the interview and finished boot camp, I thought that maybe I had finally proven myself and I wouldn’t feel this way anymore, but in some ways it only made it worse. Now I couldn’t shake this feeling that somehow it was only because of their legacy that I was here. And when you got promoted so quickly and I didn’t…I couldn’t help but take it as a sign that feeling was right…” I looked back over at her. Her eyes were shimmering now, reflecting the lights of the city. She scooted backward, grimacing for a second as she sat up fully and leaned against the wall.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she said softly, placing her hand on my leg. A shiver rippled up my body, but I didn’t move away. “I stand by what I said before. I think you were just as deserving as I was—to be here and to be promoted—regardless of who your parents are. But I know that feeling of not belonging…I know it doesn’t listen to reason. I wish we could’ve talked about this back then.”
I shook my head, a pit beginning to form in my stomach. “It’s not just that.” For a split second I was once again compelled to keep my mouth shut, but I shook it off. “I think I’ve realized you were right…” She cocked an eyebrow. “This wasn’t all just about your promotion. The truth is things hadn’t felt right for a while—ever since that night when I met your parents for the first time and we had that fight…I could never tell if you were keeping things from me. I kept expecting to wake up one day and for you to suddenly be a completely different person.”
Her face fell and she retracted her hand, placing it back in her lap. She seemed to cower, as if she was actively trying to make herself smaller. “I know things were supposed to be different with us, and I tried—I tried so hard. But you were also so much more important than anything that came before and when I was scared I was going to lose you…I just fell back into what I thought I needed to do to survive.” She swallowed, her voice wavering. “I just couldn’t stand to think that I’d be the one to fuck everything up again.”
She looked down, silent for a moment, before turning back to me. “But that’s not an excuse. I should’ve tried harder, and I still broke your trust. I’m sorry if what I did made you relive even a small part of everything you went through…and I’m sorry for comparing you to your dad. I think us having this conversation proves you’re nothing like him.”
I nodded, taking a moment to navigate through the waters of my mind, which was swimming with thoughts again. “I think we both acted out of fear. I can’t hate you for that, and I hope you don’t hate me for it either.” I swallowed. “I have to apologize too. I could sit here and list all the reasons I did and said what I did back there, but none of that would make it okay that I said those things because I knew they would hurt you. I’m sorry.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m willing to forgive you for it.”
“Thank you.” It wasn’t the absolution of guilt I was hoping for, but it would have to do.
She let out a sigh, her gaze drifting out towards the city. “If I could go back in time, I don’t think there’s a thing I wouldn’t do differently…” She looked back to me, a solemn expression on her face. “But…I can’t. So I guess this is the part where I ask—is there a way we can still make this work?” A shiver ran down my back. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest and scrambled into her arms, but my brain began to panic.
“I—I don’t know.” I picked through her eyes, trying to gauge her reaction, but she continued to wait patiently for me to finish. “I want to, but there’s still something inside of me that’s just constantly freaking out every time you’re around me…I don’t think that should happen.”
“Do you think that over time that could change?”
“I don’t know.” I dropped my gaze to stare at my hands. Streaks of pink skin still ran down the back of my right hand. She didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could feel that she was still staring at me.
“Do you think you'll ever be able to trust anyone again?”
Tears welled up in my eyes all at once. “I don’t know.” They began to fall, with no sign of stopping. My mind had gone completely blank, empty except for one tiny thought; one that didn’t appear often, but had before. Something that only crept into my mind when I was faced with the worst parts of myself, unable to escape them any longer. Something I would never vocalize to anyone in my life—that is, anyone except maybe her, had we still been together. But we weren’t, and even though I didn’t really know how exactly I felt about her, before I knew it, the thought was slipping out of my mouth. “I—I think I’m broken.”
I said it so quietly I wasn’t even sure she heard it, but based on the way her eyebrows pushed upwards and her eyes became wide and glossy, she definitely had. “Oh, Devonte…” She reached out and grabbed my hand, clasping it tightly between hers.
I squeezed her hand and began to sob quietly. “And—and you deserve that…you deserve someone who trusts you. Someone that doesn’t question the way they feel about you. You deserve someone better than me.”
She let out a small laugh and blinked back tears. “Devonte…I don’t deserve someone better than you. I don’t think I deserved you in the first place. That first week at the Agency—walking into pass-or-fail boot camp for the job I dreamed about having since I was like seven—I should have been terrified, and yet I found myself feeling more comfortable than I had in years…because you were there. Despite all my instincts, you made me feel like I didn’t have to put up a façade around you. And then…when I showed you the girl hiding inside, you didn’t run away. You wrapped me in your arms and loved me even more.” Tears were streaming down her face now as well. “You didn’t just want the cool, confident girl you had been crushing on at work, you wanted the girl I didn’t even want to be anymore.”
I couldn’t help but smile—a weird feeling when there’s a steady flow of ugly tears dribbling down your face. “I think you give me too much credit.”
“I think you don’t give yourself enough.” She mustered a smile back. “You’re not broken—you’re imperfect. We all are. It’s okay to question how you feel about someone, I think we all do that from time to time.”
“I don’t think the amount I do it is healthy,” I sniffled.
“Maybe it’s not, but I think we have to accept that this whole thing is a work in progress. We both still have a lot to unpack, but…if you can be patient with me, then of course I can be patient with you too.”
My tears were beginning to dry up and I wiped my eyes with my hand. “I don’t know.”
She winced, but forced a smile. “You’ve got to give me something more than that.”
“I don’t know. As usual, I don’t know anything!” I exclaimed. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I just quit my job because I was going to get fired anyway—not that I’d even want to work there anymore—but now I’m right back where I was two years ago with no plan and probably a target on my head because I was stupid enough to break into the fucking Genesis Gala.”
“Hey, I’m in the same boat too,” she remarked. “Even if I didn’t explicitly resign, I helped the target of a black op escape instead of killing him—I don’t think me being an L4 is going to make a difference there.” Her eyes glazed over in thought. “I have my rainy day fund, but with rent in the city…I should probably just move back home, but…” She trailed off. “What I’m trying to say is that this would suck a whole lot less if I didn’t have to figure it all out alone.”
Of course, I didn’t want to be alone either. Like always, her words made sense on paper, and I wanted them to make sense. But I couldn’t run away from reality anymore. The reality that I was running away from things, and I had been for who knows how long—possibly for half my life. The reality that I had subconsciously sabotaged this relationship because I was afraid to need someone who might decide to leave me too. And the reality that, at that moment, I had barely even scratched the surface of all of it, and was far from being able to overcome it.
I wanted it to be easy—I would’ve done anything to go back to the way things were, as ignorant as I may have been. I wanted to just jump right back in where we left off, now empowered with this tiny spark of knowledge—as if that alone could make it turn out differently this time. But the ache in my heart didn’t cease, and as soon as I noticed it, it intensified, as if to tell me what I already knew. As if to prove to me that it wasn’t just in my imagination. As if to prove to me that no matter what, things will never be the same as they were.
“I wish it were that simple.”
“But?” Her eyebrows furrowed and her chest was motionless as she held her breath, waiting for me to confirm her deepest, darkest fears.
It’s like I’m having to do it all over again.
“I’m sorry, I think…” I swallowed, trying to drown the lump that had formed at the back of my throat. “I think I just need a fresh start.” I wanted to look away, but I forced myself to keep eye contact. Her lip had begun quivering and her eyes were filled with constellations.
“Okay…” she whispered. Despite it being my choice, her agreement felt like a shard of the glass window had lodged itself in my chest and was just now finally finding its way directly into my heart. It screamed out in pain, calling to her and begging her to make this all okay again somehow. But she couldn’t hear it. And she didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say.
We sat there for a little while longer in silence, minutes passing—or maybe hours—as we both knew that the moment we walked away, this would truly be over.
Finally, Ayumi leaned forward, planting her hands on either side of herself and attempting to stand up.
“Let me help you,” I said, scrambling to my feet and extending my hands. She took them and I pulled her to her feet. I approached the metal door of the bulkhead and tried the handle. It didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”
She walked slowly towards the edge and onto the raised lip of the roof. “It’s fine. I can take you down.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Now come here before I change my mind.” She spread her arms, beckoning me in as deep red feathers began emerging all along them. She didn’t need to tell me twice. I stepped up onto the lip and wrapped my arms tightly around her. Then, I felt her wrap her arms around me too, embracing me in a hug. A cold sweat ran down my back, but I didn’t protest. I owe her this.
As much as I told myself that, I couldn’t help but melt slightly into her arms like I had so many times before—like our bodies were fusing into one. She shuddered slightly and I didn’t need to look at her face to know why my shoulder now felt slightly wet. She squeezed me tighter. I squeezed her in return.
She loosened her grip and sniffled loudly. “Okay, raise your legs.”
I lifted my feet off the ground and wrapped them around her backside. Her arms released from my back and spread out to our sides. She gingerly rotated in place so my back was towards the edge, then leaned forward and we began falling. Her wings expanded, catching the air, and she beat them slowly as we drifted comfortably to the ground. Her feet made contact with the sidewalk and I released my legs from around her, leaning backwards to stand on my own two feet.
She looked at me, her eyes still glistening with tiny sparks of light. I examined her perfect face one last time. My gaze drifted down to her lips—just for a moment. She glanced at mine. They met, and immediately the waves of my heart crashed out of their containment, flooding my entire body with dopamine. My mind screamed across the universe, returning to the planet paradise I thought I had left far behind. The feeling of being there again after everything that had happened was so much more intense, but as I gazed out at the sea, the sun wasn’t blinding anymore and the sand under my feet was colder than I remembered.
I reached my hand up to hold the side of her face for a moment, stroking it tenderly with my thumb. Then, we separated. She stared at me for a moment, then turned and walked down the street, her bare feet barely audible on the pavement.
A gust of wind blew by me, sending a shiver down my spine and reminding me of the now tattered shape of my once magnificent jacket. I turned the opposite direction and hurried down the block. I paused at the corner, looking up at the moon that shone through the indigo clouds slowly drifting across the sky. The walk sign illuminated.
I stuck my hands in my pockets and moved forward.