~~Young~~

Chapter Twenty Three

   “Go home?” Sera asked even if her comprehension was tangible, “you said that before, about Mama…” she trailed off and moaned.

   “Uh…I can explain about that…” he fumbled for words. She was too good sometimes about picking up on what he was stupid enough to say.

   “No, no it’s not that, I think I get it. It’s my back, it hurts.”

   “Hurts?” Gage asked and reached for her, but found only air, “where did you go?”

   “I’m right here,” her voice was almost below him, “I bent over, it kind of feels better this way. Not so heavy.”

   Gage wasn’t feeling so good all of a sudden, “Heavy?”

   “Yeah, I feel like there’s something…hanging there but I can’t feel anything when I try to touch-”

   He didn’t give her the chance to finish before his blind hands pulled her from her hunch and twisted her abruptly, and no sooner than she was turned from him he was hit in the face with sort of soft, sort of stiff something. Gage’s hands began shaking and he carefully reached out and ran his hand over the feathers, they were wings, and they weren’t his.

   “What are you doing?” Sera laughed lightly, “that tickles.”

   Ah, now he knew this wasn’t a fantasy. He was truly with Sera. She was in this purgatory with him, her soul finding its physical form before she moved on to her true afterlife.

   As an angel.

   Yup, this was his worst nightmare realized. And he’d bet anything this wasn’t Lucifer’s doing but God’s. The bastard just wanted to rub it in a little more what he had done.

   “So what is it?” she asked curiously, “do you feel anything?”

   “Yeah,” he said quietly and fumbled around in the bed sheets for her hand, “let me show you.”

   He took her hand and placed it on the outside curve of her wing, “your wing?” he could hear the confusion in her words, “I don’t get it.”

   She didn’t realize the sensation of touch was coming from her new appendages.

   He sighed pulled her hand around her side, crooking it up so she could touch the base of her wing just inside her shoulder blades.

   “Not mine,” he said at her gasp, “yours. It’s okay though,” he tried to soothe her, “you’ll get used to them soon enough.”

   At this moment he was glad she couldn’t see him, she didn’t need to see that painful tear roll down his cheek.

   She sucked in another short breath as he cringed and turned away, he didn’t know where he would go but this was just torture. His feet found a floor and he went to push off the bed but Sera’s hand wrapped around his arm.

    “Gage? She asked concerned, “what’s wrong?”

   “Nothing,” he shook his head without turning to her.

   “Then why are you crying?”

   Instinct had him snapping his would-be gaze to hers, “how…how do you know I was…”

   “I can see,” she said happily, “I can see you,” she ran her fingers over the stubbled hair on his chin, “I can see your wings,” now her hand ran over the length of his left wing. Better the left then the right which he tucked behind him, she didn’t need to see what had become of him, “and I can see my wings now too.”