Wings

Chapter 4: A Visit

I had been awake about an hour, sitting and talking with Lou on and off when voices sounded in the hall. It was banter, friends having fun, and it was something my ears hadn’t heard for a long, long time. A small laugh, a chuckle, sounded and it was so foreign to me that it took me surprise. Thinking back, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard a true laugh. I had been on my own so long, I had probably spoken to Lou already more than I had spoken to anyone in all my conversations combined in the last six years.

            “The boys have been anxious to meet you since I told them you woke up,” Lou spoke softly as she straightened a shelf across the room.

            “Wait, how long was I out?” I hadn’t thought to ask this before; I had assumed it had been only a few hours.

            “Well you were out for about ten hours straight after you arrived.”

            “Ten hours?!” I repeated in disbelief. I didn’t think I had ever slept that long in my entire life. I was always up at the crack of dawn, it had always been to unsafe to sleep in; sleep let your guard down and that was something I couldn’t afford. Before Strazier’s takeover, my father had to get up just after dawn everyday to go to work and I had usually woken soon after, hearing his feet pad around the house as he prepared to leave for the day. My heart hurt just thinking about life before and my family. It was a topic I tried to not think about and never dwell on.

            Another laugh sounded in the hall and then the oak door to the room opened, in striding a group of five young men.

In front was the man who had wielded the ax. His face was incredibly kind, lit up with a smile now, surprising me after my first impression had been of his face contorted with anger and exertion of swinging his heavy weapon. His hair was a medium brown, his broad wings matching closely in color but with a bit more of a gray undertone. I noticed a tattoo on his arm as he waved. It was a long quill with a few spots of ink near the tip. I liked it a lot, it was unique.

Then was the Irish boy, his blonde hair brown at the roots and a smile that could turn anyone’s heart to mush plastered on his face. His blue eyes were alive, sparkling with laughter and I didn’t doubt that it was he I had heard. His wings were folded to his back but I could remember them; they were white with black tips.

Beside him was a smaller boy, shorter. He had tawny wings, freckled with brown, the color suiting his hair, a sandy brown. He had it swept to the side over his eyes, eyes full of humor. And suddenly I didn’t doubt that he had caused the blonde boy’s laughter. I noticed inkings on him too, the most prominent being a song bird on his forearm.

There was also a boy who seemed shyer as he entered the room. He had black hair and wings, perfectly matched in color. His skin was tan too, giving him a more foreign look than the other boys. His thick eyelashes and high cheekbones made him very pretty, something I didn’t think I had ever used to refer to a boy before, but for him it was true. He wore a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing one of his forearms to be covered in tattoos, numbers, words, and symbols.

Coming in behind them all was the boy who had carried the broad sword. He had curly brown hair, not little kid curly but sexy, tousled curly. His face was very attractive; I had no doubt he drew female attention. His wings were folded behind him carefully but they were so long I could see the tips hanging behind his legs; a dark black-brown. At night they would be invisible but during the day they would be a brunette, slightly darker than his hair. He was well muscled but not too much; he had lean muscle that rippled under his skin. He wore a cutoff shirt, revealing the tattoos littering his left arm; a boat, a heart, nails, a star, and lots of words. Two tattoos peaked out from beneath the collar of his shirt but I could not tell what they were. What was with these boys and tattoos? As I studied him, perhaps longer than was considered polite, his eyes flashed towards me, their bright green shocking, before he looked away again. It was just a glance, but it still sent a bolt of electricity through me and I didn’t know why.

“Hey, how are you doing?” the boy who had used the ax asked, snapping me from my observations. I could no longer mentally call him “the ax man” in my head because it seemed far too scary a name for a person with such a friendly face and air about them.

“Better.” I kept it short. I was nervous around this many people, two on one conversations was what I was used to, at the most. Six years basically alone and you lost all your social skills.

The boys all settled onto the beds either side of me, apparently planning to stay for a bit. “We just wanted to come say hi and see that you’re doing okay dokey,” the boy with the tawny wings spoke. I was pretty sure this was the most awkward conversation I had ever been in. I didn’t even know their names and I was so nervous around five poeple, let alone the fact that they were all attractive boys.

Then the blonde one spoke up. “But apparently there is nothing we can really talk about because we got a speech from Simon-“

“And it only lasted about four hours,” the tawny-winged boy threw in sarcastically.

“And basically,” the blonde one continued, “We can’t tell you anything about ourselves or where we are and it’s really stupid.”

I hadn’t been around teenage boys almost ever but they seemed like some of the nicest and funniest. I felt a smile, a genuine smile, growing on my face at their easy banter, as short as it bad been. You could tell they were good friends; they all seemed really comfortable around one another. Between way the two had just played off of each other’s sentences and the ease with which they were around one another, you’d think they were brothers. They must have known each other a long, long time.

“It’s really silly because you would never tell The Straze about us, you’re just as much against them as we are I think,” the boy with the ax said.

“And how against them are you?” I asked, wanting to know a bit more of who they were. I was, of course, against the tyrant; he had ripped my life apart and now the guard had tried to rape me. Nothing could change my hatred towards them.

“Well our lives are dedicated to taking them down,” the black haired boy spoke, his voice carrying a slight accent. It was British, but he had one from a specific area. I wracked my brain for a moment, trying to remember from where he would come. I was pretty sure it was a Bradford accent but I wasn’t positive.

“Simon found each of us struggling alone after Strazier took power,” the blonde one told me. “He took us each under his wing and taught us to fight. He knew we had the drive to succeed, the kind of drive he needed in his group. He’s been recruiting for years, finding people as against this ruling as he is and finding them ways to aid the group so one day we can bring Strazier down.”

“You seem to think it can be done,” I questioned.

“There’s no doubt in that.” Harry had spoken for the first time and the other boys all looked at him in shock, as though this had been the most unexpected thing that could have happened. “He will pay for what he has done,” Harry continued. I think I saw the tawny-winged boy’s eyes bug. Apparently this was very weird for Harry.

They tried to recover quickly, as though attempting to hide their shock at his words. “Yah, we think that if we train enough we have a chance,” the blonde one said, still seeming a bit shocked, his eyes flicking to Harry over, then back to me.

I was about to comment on how good their fighting skills already seemed to be when the door opened to the ward. “Boys, leave her alone, Lou says you’ve been here half an hour!” Simon was outside.

“She exaggerates,” the tawny boy answered the leader in a exasperated tone, but stood up to leave anyways. He led the way out, waving goodbye and the others followed, the blonde one sending me a bright smile as he disappeared out the door.

The last to leave was Harry. He seemed to hesitate at the door a moment, as though torn about leaving. Was he going to say something else? “C’mon,” the boy with the Bradford accent spoke. Harry then left without a backward glance, shutting the door behind him.

**Thanks so much for reading!! Please vote and comment if you enjoyed it :) My goal with this fanfic is to update at least every Wednesday and Sunday, but I will also update other times if I have time to write in between those days**