Whispers on a Wing

Chapter Twenty Nine

"Kathy?" Alice whispered gently next me, placing her hand on my shoulder as she tried to gain my attention. "Kathy we need to get out of here before someone sees the smoke and calls the fire department."
We'd been sitting here for I don't know how long, as I watched my safe haven fall to the ground, but I couldn't bring myself to move.
"Kathy, come on," she said gently, wrapping her hands around my bicep so she could pull me to my feet.
I was a robot, just going through the motions as I did what she said. How could this have happened? How did they find me?
I shoved my hands into the pockets of Alice's coat, feeling a chill in the air as the shock of the last few hours finally started sinking in. In the space of one night my whole world had changed, crumbled around me.
"Don't worry K, you can stay at mine for as long as you need," Alice reassured me, pulling my shoulders close to her in a side hug as we walked through the woods.
I was about to respond, about to thank her for everything she'd done for me tonight, when I felt a stack of papers graze against my fingers.
I pulled them out of her pocket, wondering if it was some homework she'd lost or something, but frowned when I saw my name on one of the sheets.
What?
I slowed my pace, focusing on the pages as I flicked through them and my veins, if possible, went even colder.
"Alice? What's this?" I asked, turning to face her as we came to a stop in the middle of the trees.
"Whats what?" She asked, looking down at the stack of papers in my hands.
They were full of notes, printed and hand written, all about me. About my routines, who I talked to, my likes and dislikes. It even had a hand drawn map on how to get to my house.
She frowned down at the pages and reached to take them from me, but I yanked them from her reach. No way was she hiding this.
"I-I don't know," she shook her head. "Where did you find them?"
"In your pocket," I told her, the accusation clear in my voice as I stared over at her.
"What?" She exclaimed, but I couldn't bring myself to respond.
My mind raced as a million things flashed through my mind. Was she the one who's betrayed me and told my parents where to find me?
My vision blurred and a kind of rushing noise filled my ears as every interaction I'd had with her since the moment we bumped into each other on that lacrosse field played back in my mind.
"Was it all fake?" I asked, finally looking up until I could look her in the eye. No way was I going to cower in front of her. No way was I going to show her any form of weakness.
"Kathy no, they aren't mine," she tried to defend herself, but I wasn't listening. "I don't know how those pages ended up in that pocket but I can promise you I had nothing to do with them. That's not even my handwriting, and how could I know half that stuff when I was at school myself, half an hour away."
I shook my head as my vision swam with a million different thoughts. "Why Alice? I thought we were friends." No way was I going to acknowledge the crack in my voice as the full reality of my situation finally sank in. She'd betrayed me, my one friend who I'd trusted beyond anyone else had betrayed me.
"K stop and think for a second, why would I do any of this? How would I?"
"You were the only one who knew where I lived," I said, my voice growing as anger started to take over. "You were the only one I'd told and you're telling me it's just a coincidence?"
"K please just-,"
"Stop calling me that!" I yelled. "My name is Kathy."
"You can trust me Kathy, I didn't do this." She sounded so sincere, her voice wavering as if she was on the verge of tears. Her skin and dress were covered in soot stains, her perfect makeup ruined with tear streaks, but I wasn't being fooled, not this time.
"Harper was trying to tell me not to trust you and I ignored her, god I even told you the secret on how to get past her. What did you tell that trick to your buddies so they could get past and set the fire?"
"What? NO!" She yelled, her own voice rising with anger as she stared down at me, her five inch heals making our usual height difference so much more drastic than it usually is.
At the mention of Harper I froze. She should be here, screaming her lungs out as the fire engulfed her territory. Why wasn't she here? Had something happened?
A loud crash echoed through the trees, sending birds flying into the night as they tried to escape an unknown threat, but one bird was missing.
Alice was still talking, trying to convince me that she was innocent and had nothing to do with the fire, but I ignored her as I dropped my bag and sprinted back to the house. Thankfully we hadn't made it far before we stopped and within seconds I was back in front of my burning home, or more accurately what was left of it.
It was now just a pile of ruins, the flames having taken the whole building down as it burned like an oversized bonfire, but I ignored it, I ignored it all. There was only one thing on my mind right now and I wasn't going to rest until I found her.
"HARPER!" I yelled into the night, my voice feeling like a chainsaw had been hacking away at my voice box thanks to the smoke. "Harper where are you?"
I whistled, our usual signal to come and find the other, but there was nothing. No returning call, no nothing.
"Harper?" I refused to believe it, refused to believe that she was gone.
Maybe the fire had scared her away and she'd eventually come back, maybe all she needed was some time to regroup and calm herself down then she'd come and find me and we'd be back together again.
I spun in a circle, looking up at the treetops, and shoved my hands in my hair as I saw her usual favourite branches empty. She wasn't here, where could she be?
I shoved my coat off and quickly unfastened the belts, freeing my wings and getting ready to take to the skys to try and find her, but when a cluster of grey feathers off to my left caught my eye I froze.
No.
I sprinted over, skidding to my knees as the scene filled my vision and for the first time all evening a gut punching sob left my lungs. Before me sat so many feathers, more than what was considered normal, even when she got into her weird over grooming faze. It looked like when a pigeon had been caught by a fox, soft feathers lying everywhere as they started the process of plucking their prey there and then.
My hand pressed against my lips as another sob left my lungs.
These were Harpers, I'd recognise them anywhere, the long grey feathers standing out against the earthy ground, and I suppressed a shudder as I thought about what her final moments would have been like.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, digging my fingers into the ground where her feathers sat, as if trying to feel for her presence. "I'm so sorry, it's all my fault."
"Kathy, what happened?" Alice wheezed beside me, panting hard after her run over here.
I stared at the ground for a second, anger filling my veins, the heat of it causing my hands to shake in the earth in front of me.
"You did this," I growled, looking over my shoulder at her. "You did this to her."
Alice flinched and took a step back, fear bleeding into her as she stared down at me, and I welcomed that fear.
"No, No Kathy I had nothing to do with-,"
"My life was fine until you showed up," I yelled, pushing to my feet until I was face to face with her. "I had my life all figured out and then you just so happened to show up and everything started going sideways. It's no coincidence Alice."
She stayed silent as she started down at me, body shaking as the cold and adrenaline of the late night seeped into her skin.
"You're never going to believe me," she whispered, shaking her head, her brown eyes glassy with unshed tears. "You're so bitter about the world you can't see the good from the bad, first with Jake and now me. You push everyone away who threatens to get even remotely close to you, well I've had enough."
She took a step back, unwavering in her heels even with the uneven terrain. "Congratulations Kayla, you've managed to get your wish. Now you can live in your remote home, way from people and never have to see a single soul again."
I didn't quite understand what was happened. Why the hell was I the one feeling guilty when she was the one who'd done wrong. She was the one who'd told people where I lived so they could burn it down, she was the one who told them how to get past Harper so they could capture her. So why was I the one feeling like I'd done something wrong?
I stared at her in silence as she turned to leave, her pink dress marked with soot stains as she weaved her way back through the trees until she was a mere speck in the distance.
The fire crackled and popped behind me, warming me even if I was just in a flimsy vest top with the back cut out and a mini skirt.
I stared down at the feathers, tears welling in my eyes once again as I thought about Harper and what she had been through. Was she even alive? My head hung low as my dirt coated fingers weaved into my hair, pulling the strands at the root as my mind started to spin into overdrive.
No. I was not going to panic.
With a final look at the house behind me, the home that had sheltered me and protected me for so many years, I turned back to pick the bag up that I'd saved from the fire and shot into the air.
I flew for hours, until the sun broke over the horizon and the stars left the sky.
I wasn't sure why I was so surprised, why Alices betrayal had shocked me so much, but every thought I tried to tell myself I was surprised.
I'd let her in, more than anyone I'd ever let in before, and with that information she'd turned around and stabbed me in the back.
Had everything been a lie? Had very reassuring promise she'd told me and every laugh we'd shared only been a means to an end, to get me to trust her so she could destroy me?
I needed to get out of here, needed to get away before my parents found me and tried to finish what they'd started, this time with Alices help.
I still couldn't figure out why she wanted to help them, how she even got ahold of them when I thought they were still in England, but that didn't matter now. My parents were here and they were going to stop at nothing until I was dead, until the monster had been put down and was no longer a threat.
Tears threatened to spill over again but I refused to let them, I'd cried to much over the last few hours. Now was the time for action.
I went to turn towards the sun, using it as my guide to tell me I was flying east, but my wings faltered as suddenly the image of Jake popped up in my mind.
I shouldn't do it, shouldn't risk going to say goodbye with my parents out looking for me, but I couldn't seem to help myself. He didn't deserve that kind of treatment.
I'd go and tell him that my cover had been blown and me and my mum were getting relocated to an undisclosed part of the country, a place he's not allowed to know about for his own safety. That way he'd know where I'd gone and he could move on with his life. Then I'd 'loose' my phone and it'd be a clean cut without me having to worry about him searching for me to.
I banked right, turning hard against the morning breeze, and made my way over to Jakes house.