Chapter Thirty

Reaching Cloud Nine

I’m on the roof of the hearse again. We’re nearly there. Just a little longer. Just a little longer. A gust of air on my right counters the tailwind, I’ve gained enough balance to even lift myself off the roof a little. Overhead the Fallen are swarming distantly, approaching like a swarm of locusts on the horizon. I don’t know how their numbers have grown so fast. I keep firing lightning into the ragged mass but it’s never long before they regroup. Like throwing pebbles into a pond, you’re bound to run out of pebbles before you run out of pond.
It doesn’t matter. Soon this clichéd cross-country chase scene will end and we can be normal teenagers again. Do normal teenage things like watch b-movies, smoke things we find under rocks and skin rats. Also karaoke.
With my lightning deemed ineffective I switch tactics, summon a thick barrier of air and send it hurling at them. This appears to slow them, their tattered wings catching the wind and repelling. But it’s taken all my energy to buy us a few hot minutes at most. I wipe the spit from my mouth and growl, “Stay away from my friends you asstastrophes.”
Then I promptly tumble onto the windshield as my legs give out. Through the Plexiglas I see my favourite cocktail of DNA aged to perfection. Mark’s been chauffeuring us superbly for a guy only one functional arm and I blow him a reassuring kiss. Him and Blaze are screaming something along the lines of, “Can’t see the road…gonna crash….move that tight little a*s…” It’s all very vague and complimentary. I haul myself in through the window and watch my Disney-channel-original-movie-star-baby master the road. Soon Blaze orders Fabez to take the wheel while I get the pleasure of rewrapping Markie’s fracture. I notice the way our Romanian’s nails sink into the steering wheel as he does so.
I flop unceremoniously into the backseat and twist up beside Mark excitedly. He extends the injured arm out gingerly. My gaze lowers, as if on its own accord, to the blood. His blood. It’s scabbed and clotted and whispering my name. Pulse hammering in my ears and breath so rapid black fuzz starts to creep into my sight. A muffled groan slips out of my lips.
“Uhm you want this to cut off the old bandag-“ We go over a bump and the scissors jerk forward into my shoulder. Their rusted tips barely penetrating the skin. My eyes slither up to meet his. “Oh geez, oh crap I’m so frickin sorry uhhm…” We remain in this position, neither daring a move.
“Oh, is that all?” I purr. My steady fingers slide over his trembling ones and I chuckle quietly, “Here, let me show you.” I angle the blades so they’ll miss the clavicle and start nudging them into the flesh.
“Woah woah, this is like the opposite of what we should be doing.” The muscles in his arm go taught, preventing me from pushing the scissors any deeper.
I grin maliciously, “Oh c’mon.” His grasp squirms under mine. “Why don’t you cut a little deeper?” I lean in. The tips pierce deeper. Scarlet bursts. “I SURE DON’T MIND!”
“Quit it!’ He cries and pulls out the scissors in an unintentional show of dominance that makes me absolutely throb. His voice has been firmer these days; like something I could chew on.
Coral groans from under my knee so I press down a little harder into her gut so she’ll shut up.
My head snaps to one side, then the other. I pout at the crimson stain seeping across my silk shirt. “Doctor Chance I’d like to schedule an appointment, I’m a poor sick sick boy. I think I need a big ol injection…”
“What the heck?! I’ve never even been to medical school! Rippir I am in no way qualified to-” The hand I’ve secreted behind his back tightens, clinging to the skin between his scapula. I pull him close and our breath matches pace. Lungs pumping in unison. Adrenaline oozing off our skin. The spectrum of my hair reflects off his glassy eyes, shimmering like the Northern lights. My celestial cyanosis baby. His lips are small and chapped and I want them more than cells want to tear themselves apart. It’s how we keep living.
I feel the cold barrel of a gun nuzzle up to my neck. "Rippir. Let him go."
"Trying to make a move here Phoe,” I snarl.
"Let him go,” she repeats icily. “You’re hurting him."
I roll my eyes and drop my hands from his head. "No-o I'm not, as a matter of fac-" There's skin under my nails. "F-f**k. F**k you Blaze. Why would I hurt Mark? Huh?! I'm kinda crazy about him. So why do you all think I'm gonna hurt him! I’m not some kind of…I’m not…" They’re staring at me in that way I don’t know but don’t like. "There's nothing wrong with me!" I shout frustrated, running my hands through my hair.
"Yes, yes there is," says an unmistakable meek voice.
Mark. I can hardly believe it. Not him too.
I feel my breath grow shallow- desperate. "No. No Mark look at me." I grab his face in both hands. His eyes widen in that cute way they do when I invade his personal space. "Look at me," I insist and he finally complies. I notice he's shaking, who's making him say this? "I'm fine there's nothing wrong with me." I even give him a wavering smile. "We’re good. We’re still good.”
"Acheron," he slowly removes my hands and responds gently, "I don't think we -this- can ever work.”
I sputter and smooth the scales of my pants aggressively. "Yes, it can. Of course it can. You're mine. I’m your Rippir and you're my Mark. When I’m with you the rest of the world slips away and everything makes sense. You're the eye of my storm Mark...and if anyone tries to take you from me I'll grind open their back and chew on their spinal cord!" Suddenly it doesn't matter who's listening or what’s chasing us. All that matters, is my self conscious little Mark thinks I’m not seriously into him.
He sighs despondently "I don't know Rippir, you just make me uncomfortable all the time."
“It’s ok, I get nervous around you too.” I reassure him. “I've never felt this way about anyone. But the butterflies digest. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you. You're not just my squeeze of the week. I want us to be buried laying on top of each other, so that I can decompose into you. I'm with you until we're in the same steaming mass of decomposing matter."
"Acheron I don't think that's healthy," he admits.
I falter more bewildered than anything. "But Mark... it's all I have to give you. It's all I can give you. Isn't...isn't it enough?"
"Oh, it's plenty, I mean it's a lot- I mean-"
"Don't worry. I know what you mean.” I wrap my arms around him tightly and my confusion melts away. “I love you too.”
Do I?
God damn it of course I do. Of course I do...
The car halts abruptly.
Coral makes an incoherent sound. She's been gandering out the window all ride, hazy as a hotbox. Little does she know her pain is all about to end.
“We’re here.” Fabian declares, saltily I might add.
Blaze looks odd. “So… this is it.” She muses. “And then what? We just go back to our lives?”
“I don’t even know what I have to go back to anymore.” Fabian confesses cracking open the last Bailey's from the stash. “The liar, the cățea and the house that smells like euthanasia.”
“Wait so-” I pause trying to wrap my mind around it, “You didn’t grow up in the caves of Transylvania?” He glowers at me and I twirl away dramatically, as best one can in the backseat of a hearse.
“I don’t know, my mom’s gotta be pretty whacked out.” my boyfriend remarks. “She worries about me.”
“Honey, everyone worries about you. You’re Mark,” Blaze chides.
“Yeah but I’ve put her through enough already. Her family doesn't talk to her anymore since I started,” he gestures towards his head. “yeah, uhm. Sign of the devil. Whatever. The usual religious nonsense…No offense!” He adds quickly. “Nonsense except for demons. You're all super legit… and angels I suppose… Anyway point is I’m all she has left. Well except for Dad, but he’s off fighting overseas…last I saw him was somewhere around a year ago.” He continues his rambling absentmindedly “I wish I could know him better. But…I guess anything’s better than nothing.”
“No. No it’s not.” Blaze retorts heatedly. “Sometimes it better if s****y parents can learn to stay the hell away. I say f**k going back.”
Fabian drinks to that, his misty eyes wander down to the unconscious blonde. “Except Coral.” He says, in a softer voice than I've ever heard him use. “Coral deserves to get home. She deserves a decent brother.”
I stretch and let out a laugh at their misfortune. “You all need to meet my folks soon. Talk about portrait of perfect parenthood.”
“You live with both your parents? Isn't one, y’know a demon?” Blaze asks skeptically.
“Ugh no. It skips a generation. It's a tempestra thing you wouldn't get it. Now let's get this party started!” I flick the sleeping beauty wannabe in her bruised nose. “Wake up girlie. This is the part where everything changes.”