Guardians: The Fallout Read online

  “Marcus, stop playing around. This is serious.”

  “I’m not playing. I am going to reassure your fingers, your hand, your arm, and the rest of you that this doorknob is not the safe zone; I am.”

  “And how will you do that?”

  He puts his head down towards my hand. He then gently rubs his lips on the knuckle of my index finger. Warm sensation makes its way down my hand. He rubs his lips on my index finger a few more times. That convinces my index finger to loosen its grip. Then to weaken my resolve entirely, he skillfully nibbles the tip of my finger. I inhale sharply as my hand releases the doorknob.

  I lean back into the door and close my eyes. I’m feeling lightheaded. I force myself to take a deep breath and focus. I open my eyes and he’s standing in front of me. He leans in and whispers in my ear.

  “Better?” he asks in barely a whisper. I don’t remember how to talk so I just nod my head, “Yes.” He takes my hand and finally we head out the door.

  *************************

  It’s almost April here in New York but the chill in the air makes it feel like winter has just started. It doesn’t help that it has been raining nonstop the past few days. The sky holds its breath like a child. It’s “cheeks” puffing out angry bursts of gray clouds. The possibility of rain is more than likely. I should have worn a coat instead of a sweater. But then again, who cares? I’m with Marcus.

  We walk down the street mere inches from each other. Thanks to the rain, there are puddles everywhere. Please don’t let me fall into one of them. I will die on the spot. I am a fairly coordinated girl but since I left my house, I’ve had to force myself to remember how to perform the most basic tasks.

  Walking: Right, left, right, left, right…

  Breathing: inhale, exhale, inhale…

  “Emmy?”

  “Huh?” I turn to him.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Um…I guess the park is out of the question since its been raining so much.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

  “What do you mean? It’s not your fault it rains.”

  “No, but I may have something to do with how long it rains.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Then he tells me that Angels who are in emotional turmoil can cause the rain to keep going once it has started. And that there is a good chance Ameana may be doing just that.

  “Ameana is making it rain?”

  “She’s keeping it from stopping. Well, for the past few days anyway.”

  “Another Angel could be responsible for that.”

  “I saw her back at the house a few hours ago, she’s not doing too well.”

  “You saw her?”

  “Yeah, she found out about the punishment the Council handed down and she came over.”

  I resist the desire to ask him if he’s made up his mind. Since the Council came down, he has not wanted to talk about it at all.

  I’m also suppressing the desire to find out more about Ameana’s return. Every once in a while I get a flash of Ameana walking into the room; Marcus sees her and falls at her feet. He then decides he would rather be with her. Yes, I see that I’m being insecure. But hey, I started out that way and well, I like to be consistent.

  At least I don’t give into my insecurity by asking him about it. Instead, I make myself behave like the nice girl I hope I am.

  “How’s Ameana doing?”

  “Well, I broke her heart.”

  “You were honest with her.”

  “Don’t defend me, Emmy. I let my teammates down and I’m going against everything The Sage said. So, I’m gonna say that all-in-all, I kind of suck as First Guardian.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself for everything. Look, I could have stayed away from you. That would be the wise thing to do, but I didn’t. So, we can split the blame, okay?”

  “Why didn’t you stay away from me? It would have been the wise thing to do,” he says.

  “Wisdom is for suckers. What’s life without a little life-threatening romance?”

  “Is this a romance?”

  “It’s scary, ill-advised, and feels good…so, yes. It is.”

  “Then I better start sweeping you off your feet, huh?”

  Without another word, he lifts me off of the ground and right into the air. Shocked by the sudden move, I panic and flare out my arms and legs.

  “Emmy, look at me.”

  I look into his eyes and suddenly it’s all gone; the panic, the uncertainty, the worry. I focus on his eyes. Calm washes over me. I look up and see his luminous wings flapping defiantly against the moody night sky. It eats up the night air in great strides. The speed at which we are traveling is inhuman. But his hold on me is secure.

  It starts to drizzle lightly but I’m not the least bothered by it. The sight of raindrops glistening on his feathers hypnotizes me.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I pull myself away from the magnificence of his wings and look into his face. The rain has gotten stronger. His hair is completely wet. The thick drops of rain causes his lashes to bind together. I gently put my hand up to his face and separate his lashes. He’s more beautiful than I thought.

  Please, don’t take him away from me…

  “Emmy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you mind the rain? I can land if you want.”

  “No, I don’t want to land, ever.”

  He smiles and somehow manages to enhance his already perfect face.

  “Where are we going?” I ask. Not that it really mattered to me.

  “To see the sunrise.”

  “The sun won’t be rising for hours now.”

  “The sun is always rising somewhere in the world. How do you feel about Japan?”

  “I had Sake once. And when I was a kid, I owned a Hello Kitty bedspread.”

  I feel his chest move against me as he laughs.

  “Glad you’re familiar with the culture. So, to Japan we go.”

  But we don’t get to Japan. We don’t go anywhere because at that exact moment, a raging, fury -fueled ball of fire, heads straight for us. Marcus sees it first.

  He turns me around to shield me. But the blast is stronger than either of us anticipated. Once the flames engulf Marcus, he is unable to maintain his grip on me. “Emmy,” he calls out, but it’s too late. I am plummeting towards the earth.

  *******************************

  CHAPTER SIX: FAIR PLAY

  As I fall helplessly from the sky, the wind and rain sing in my ear. It sounds like white noise mixed with laughter. Apparently both the wind and rain think my impending death is very funny. Or maybe they think the whole thing is funny. A simple, lackluster girl like me, helping to save the world and getting the guy? Yeah, I could see why they would laugh. And maybe I would even join in, that is if I wasn’t hurdling towards a painful and messy death.

  The ground is coming closer to me at a speed I dare not think about. I think it’s a park I’m falling towards but it all goes by too fast to be sure. And although my mind knows that nothing can save me from this fate, my body isn’t yet convinced. My arms and legs fight as if they could some how get gravity to go against its nature; As if I could move with such ferocity that gravity would give up. For my mother’s sake, I hope they are able to gather enough of me to have a decent funeral.

  Finally my arms and legs understand that it’s no use; they too brace for the inevitable.

  It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna —

  Everything stops abruptly. My body is no longer freefalling. I’m being held up by something or someone.

  I look up in amazement at the angel who has caught me. The Angel who catches me at the last second, only a few feet from certain death, is Ameana. She looks down at me with serious and disdainful eyes. Then, just as abruptly as she caught me, she lets me go.

  Before I can process that I have been dropped, I land face first into an industrial size trash bin, somewhere in Hu
dson River Park.

  Ameana had used her powers to move it so that when I fell, I would land in it. And land I did.

  The smell of rotten fish and fruit permeate my nostrils. I’m standing on something mushy and I swear there is something crawling inside my shirt. I could care less, I’m alive! I’m actually alive! I look up to thank Ameana but she is already several feet in the air.

  Mayhem spots her and aims his deadly daggers right for her.

  “Look out!” I yell but she is too high up to hear me.

  Still, she must have sensed the attack because right as daggers are about to make contact, she uses her powers and redirected them down toward the demon named Frenzy.

  Frenzy doesn’t see them headed his way because he is too busy electrocuting Jay. Jay squirms and shakes uncontrollably as the volts of electricity make their way down his body. His teeth are clench in agony and his face, like his body, is contorted in unnatural positions.

  I know I can’t make it in time to stop Frenzy but I don’t care. I can’t lose Jay. I won’t.

  But Ameana’s aim is just like her, flawless.

  The daggers head straight for Frenzy’s chest.

  At the last second, he sees them and manages to dodge all but one of them. It lands in his shoulder. He grunts in pain as he rips the dagger from his body. Furious, he turns his attention to Ameana.

  He sends two powerful bolts of lighting straight for her. She may have been able to dodge it but the weather is in Frenzy’s favor. It is raining heavily now and the lighting seems to thrive off of that. I’ve seen Frenzy’s bolts before, but they’ve never been this big or this fast.

  The lighting cuts through the air like the hand of Omnis himself. It looks as if it means to yank Ameana out of the sky. She will not be able to dodge it. It is too fast and too powerful even for her.

  Thankfully, at that very moment, Rio’s shield appears and is able to block the attack. Frenzy, pissed-off that Rio has gotten in the way of his attack, takes to the air after him.

  Now is my only chance to go over to Jay. The mud and rain make every step slippery. I come close to falling on my face a few times.

  I finally reach him. He is motionless on the ground. I get down beside him. I can no longer feel the rain attacking me with its cold, sharp droplets. I don’t notice the thunder and lighting above my head. Even the battle taking place in the sky between the Akons and Guardians, have faded into the background.

  All I see before me is Jay. The torture of Frenzy’s attack is engraved in his face. I try to comfort him but it’s hard to know where it hurts. He doesn’t bleed so there is no way to really tell where the pain is.

  “Jay, Jay, get up. Jay!”

  He starts to stir. Relief washes over me. I’m shivering but not because of the cold. I’ve just come too close to losing another friend. I can’t handle that. Not after losing Reese and Sara.

  Then out of nowhere, a buzzing sound begins in my ear. Where is it coming from? I shake my head thinking it’s coming from me. But it doesn’t stop. The buzzing only gets louder. And now the buzzing has given way to words. And it is repeating it over and over inside my skull.

  “Stab him. Stab him. Stab him.”

  I look down at Jay’s barely moving body and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

  The feeling of concern and love that I had when I first ran up to him is gone. All I want to do now is stab him. I want to puncture as many holes into his body as I can. I want to hack him to death over and over again.

  I look around for something to kill him with. And a few feet away from me lay the dagger that Frenzy had dislodged from his shoulder. I pick it up and plunge it into Jay’s chest.

  Before I can make contact, Miku grabs my hand. I am only inches away from killing him. How dare she stop me?

  “Emmy, no!”

  “Get off me!!” I screech at the top of my lungs.

  “Emmy, its Chaos. He’s controlling you. You have to resist him”

  “No! I have to stab him. I have to!” I use both hands and every single ounce of energy I have to get the dagger to rip into Jay’s body.

  “Emmy, you’re too close to me. If I sing, it will kill you. You have to stop.”

  Stab him. Stab him. Stab him.

  The buzz is now a full chorus chant. The only thing I can do, the only thing I want to do is rip into him with this blade.

  “I’m sorry, Em,” Miku says. Then she begins to sing.

  I drop the dagger instantly and cover my ears. The sound of the melody is like acid in my eardrums. I cry out and try to crawl away from it. But it stays with me. There is sadness everywhere. I have to make it stop. It is breaking my heart. The only thing to do is pull my heart out from its cavity. That way I will get some relief from this all-consuming sorrow. I rip and claw at my chest. I scream as pieces of my flesh gather under my nails. When the gashes I make first across my chest, they are white and jagged. Seconds later, drops of blood appear. The drops connect with each other and form a crimson stream down my chest.

  As I claw myself, rolling away from the sound becomes impossible. Nothing matters more than removing the part of me that hurts the most: my heart. I have to get rid of my heart.

  “It’s okay. It’s over, it’s over,” she says reassuringly. Only then do I realize Miku has stopped singing.

  Rain pours over me as wave after wave of sobs engulf me.

  “It’s okay. I swear, everything’s okay now,” she says as she strokes my hair.

  I manage to quiet down and control my sobbing. But I’m too weak to do anything but lay there on the wet ground. A few yards away from me, Jay moves slowly regains consciousness.

  “Pretty!!” Rio shouts from above.

  We look up and both Chaos and Frenzy have surrounded him. Miku takes to the air and tackles Frenzy. The two of them crash into each other and spiral down from the sky.

  They land in the middle of the water. The impact causes a huge sucking void to form in the middle of the Hudson River.

  Rio uses his shield to block out Chaos and his demonic suggestions. Chaos attempts to break his shield by ramming into him. But Rio is quick and moves out of the way just in time causing Chaos to hit a nearby building and fall straight to the ground. Rio quickly dives into the river to find his twin.

  Suddenly a horrible thought hits me.

  Where is Marcus? He was in flames the last time I saw him but he’s usually able to save himself from Rage. There’s no way he wouldn’t help the team unless…

  Then I see him. He is a few yards past Jay. He isn’t moving. But his motionless body is not what causes terror to zip though me like one of Frenzy’s bolts.

  What has my whole body rigid with fear is the sight of Rage hovering just above Marcus, fireball in hand.

  “Jay! Help him!” But what was a thunderous roar in my head turns out to be no more than a whisper. No one hears me, least of all, Jay.

  There is no one nearby to stop what is happening. Rage throws the fireball back and forth between his hands. I can see his nefarious glee all the way from here. He has been waiting for this for a long time.

  I don’t really know where the will to try and call out to Jay again comes from.

  But I open my mouth and this time, I think all of Manhattan hears me.

  “Jay, help him!!”

  Without warning, there is an empty space where Jay’s body was.

  He Glides over to Marcus so quick I don’t see him until he has gotten Marcus to safety. Once Rage realizes that his prey is no longer there, he aims his fiery wrath at Jay.

  Ameana, having just wrapped Mayhem around a lamppost, sees Rage about to strike. But before he can gain the momentum he needs, she hurls one of the parked cars at him. It hits him in the midsection and he literally goes flying past me. He is now pinned behind the car.

  Ameana flies down to him. I curse my body for not being able to recover from Miku’s song. I’d like to be of help.

  But judging from Ameana’s demeanor, she is more than capa
ble of handing Rage. She looks at him with a smug satisfaction that I have never seen before.

  “So, what is this, foreplay?” Rage asks.

  Ameana replies “No, this is.”

  And with one simple wave of her hand, a nearby Jeep cuts through the air and makes its way towards Rage’s head.

  The Jeep collides into the wall and the entire park shakes. Once the jeep slides down the wall, it reveals the spot were Rage’s head should have been.

  Ameana and I look up in time to see Rage being airlifted by Frenzy. Once airborne, Rage turns around to face Ameana and blows her a crude kiss.

  Ameana looks at him with what I am certain is some form of admiration. But that makes no sense. Damn, Miku’s song is so powerful, it’s got me seeing things.

  ***************************

  After the Akon’s hasty retreat, Marcus and Jay quickly come over to help me up. Right away I can tell they’re going to fuss about the blood running down the front of my shirt. Smurfette is no longer blue. She is now a ghoulish reddish-brown.

  “Guys, I’m fine,” I say in hopes to alleviate their concerns.

  No such luck. Marcus looks me over from head to toe.

  “We have to take you to the hospital” he says.

  “Me? You were set on fire.” I protest.

  “I’m fine,” he insists.

  “You couldn’t get up, you’re not fine.”

  “She’s right. Rage got you real good. And Frenzy had me down for most of the fight. It’s like their powers got stronger somehow.”

  “They almost cracked my shield.” Rio says as he and his sister land down next to us.

  Ameana appears shortly after.

  “Something was different about them tonight” she says.

  “We can’t worry about that now. We have to take Emmy to the hospital.”

  “There’s no time for that Marcus.” We all turn around and find a six-year-old Indian boy standing on a black Frisbee they call a Port.

  The Sage continues to speak as if it is completely normal to pop up out of nowhere.

  “All of you meet me back at the shop” he says. And with no further explanation, the Port spins around and disappears into thin air.

  “Jay, Glide with Emmy. She shouldn’t fly after hearing Miku’s song. Is everyone else good to go?” Marcus asks.