Feather Dark

Chapter 22

Keira

The sound hit us first; a wave of noise that caused us to flinch and grip each other tighter. The smash was so loud, my ears hurt; the sound of a dragon with diamond teeth crunching through a crystal cavern.

Then, the debris. I screamed as the glass shards pierced my flesh, each piece as large as a steak knife and twice as deadly. Leigh and I instinctively raised our wings as shields against the deadly projectiles, but they still slashed at our feather-coated skin and penetrated through the gaps where I'd been plucked.

I turned my face into Leigh's chest, breathing him in, certain that each breath would be my last opportunity to hold his scent in my lungs. His hands were at the small of my back, his lips pressed to the top of my head. We were intertwined so that I couldn't tell whose wings were whose, and an image played in my mind, the two of us impaled together on a single glass shard, a romantic and depressing death tableau.

More gunshots: some close, some from deeper in the rainforest room. The debris had finished falling, and Leigh and I snapped our wings away, staring into the gloom. My eyes had adjusted and I could see shapes moving all around us, some descending from the sky, others sprinting through the darkness. "Squadron," I said, my voice nearly a sob.

"Look up," said Leigh. The glass dome was gone, nothing between us and the gleaming stars. "Keira, we're free!"

"I can't fly."

"I'll carry you." He attempted to lift me, and I cried in pain. "What is it?"

"I've been shot." I didn't want to frighten him, but when Bob and I had struggled, the gunshot had clipped my thigh. I hadn't had a chance to assess the damage yet, but my leg was numb and coated in blood. I couldn't stand, and the pain of the wound was beginning to compete with the bloody holes where my feathers had been torn from.

Another volley of shots, closer this time. Wings swooped above us, and I looked up to see a giant bat silhouetted against the sky. Leigh said, "We have to get out of here. I'll-"

A swift shape barrelled into us, and I went sprawling, my leg an ocean of pain. "Leigh!" I screamed, trying to see where he was, what had attacked us.

The dark mass was wrestling on the ground, two men, one with wings. The other one shrieked, incensed. "You, boy! I should have just shot you in the head when I had the chance!"

"But you didn't, Bob," said Leigh, flipped out of Bob's tackle and pinning him to the ground. He planted a foot squarely on Bob's chest. "And that's on you, old man."

One of the guards lay nearby, a mass of cable ties spilled from his pocket. I crawled over and snatched up a handful. "Leigh, here."

He caught them and secured Bob to a nearby tree. Around us, the gunshots had trailed off, and a familiar whumping sound travelled towards us.

A tall figure landed beside me, and I sobbed in gratitude as I recognised him. "Noah!" I hadn't laid eyes on him since the night of my birthday, when he'd landed on the balcony at the beach house and told me he still wanted me, when he and Leigh had fought and I'd fled. I'd lived a lifetime since then, and I knew now that I loved Leigh with all my soul, with every breath.

It was still good to see my gargoyle though. Noah, typically, didn't over-emote at seeing me again after so long. "Keira," he answered politely, as if we were meeting coincidentally at a train station. "Brother."

"Hey, man," said Leigh. His words were casual, but his tone was suddenly stiff. Were they still fighting? I needed to put this right, and as soon as possible. Once I'd told Leigh how I felt, whether or not he loved me back, everyone could make their peace with the situation and we could start to heal our strange little family.