The Seraphim Project

Capter Twelve

“You didn’t do that in there, did you?” I asked him, my eyebrows going up.

He rolled his eyes. “Of course not. The blackened skin and clothes did all the work for me.”

I sighed, my eyes going to Hawk. He was slumped on the ground with one shoulder against a tree to hold up upright. He hadn’t said anything since I’d seen his back, and I hadn’t figured out yet if that was just his normal silence or something more.

“Did they say how long it would be?” Falcon asked. I smiled gratefully at him. My attention was fragmented, and I couldn’t take charge when I was as stressed as I was. He nodded and smiled back.

“A few hours. It is the middle of the night, after all.”

“Might as well get some rest then, all of you. I’ll keep an eye out for them, whenever they come. I know you’re all exhausted.” No one argued, and within ten minutes, they were all fast asleep.

I sighed from my spot against a tree, watching them. I wondered what would happen now. Were the Labs really gone? Or would they be back with a vengeance as soon as we let our guards down again?

“Kite?” Hawk’s voice was so quiet that I almost thought I’d imagined it. But when I looked at him, his eyes were open and turned in my direction.

“Yeah?”

“How bad is it?”

I stood and moved to sit next to him. I didn’t want to answer him, but I knew that if I didn’t, he would assume the worst. Steeling myself and praying that I would find the right words, I said, “It’s pretty bad. I can’t even—” I shook myself and sighed. “I think you’ll be okay though. Why were you…punished…so severely?” It was hard to even say the word. I shuddered.

He held his hand out, palm up, and I put mine in it. He gripped my hand tightly and closed his eyes with a sight. “They didn’t want me. They were angry—very angry. The kids that took me were given ten lashings each. They thought I was useless, were so angry that they ordered me punished. Ten lashings for every year I was gone.”

I sat up straighter. “That’s seventy lashings! I’ve never heard of them even ordering that many before, let alone anyone surviving them.”

He smiled weakly. “I passed out at around forty. I can only assume that they finished them all before putting me back in my cage.”

I squeezed his hand gently. “That’s horrible. I’m so sorry.” We were silent, and I thought over his words. Realization hit. “Wait, if they didn’t want you, then who did they want?”

He tried to pull his hand away and turn from me, but I gripped him tightly. Finally, he said, “You, Kite. Their orders were to capture the angel with the smallest wings, but they never saw yours, so they took me instead. But the scientists wanted you.”

A chill went down my spine. “Why?”

He shrugged, wincing a little. “I didn’t overhear much. They just mentioned something about creating a Seraphim, but I don’t know what that means.”

I took a deep breath and tried to center myself. “We’ll figure it out,” I told him. “When we get to school, we can look it up on the internet.”

“You mentioned that earlier. We’re going to school?”

I sighed. “Yeah. The police found us a couple days ago. I didn’t want to have to fight our way free of them and risk hurting them, and we were all exhausted anyway. Besides, we needed a place to go after we found you, and we couldn’t go home.”

“So you were looking? All this time?”

I squeezed his hand and bumped his shoulder with mine. “’Course we were. Why wouldn’t we?”

He sighed. “It didn’t seem possible. How did you find me?”

I shrugged, letting my shoulder brush against his so he could feel the motion. “I just knew. The others weren’t so sure, though.”

“They didn’t want to come after me,” he guessed.

“They were scared. We were running for our lives, and I was asking them to head right to the people that were after us. We didn’t know why they took you, or if they wanted the rest of us too. I don’t blame them for doubting me.”

“I didn’t expect you to come. I knew you’d want to, that you’d try, but I didn’t think you’d really come.”

We were silent for a moment. Finally, I got up the courage to ask, “How much do you remember?”

He shuddered. “I woke up in that crate overhearing them talking about creating a Seraphim, and then they realized that I wasn’t you and I was…” He trembled beside me, and I put my free hand on his arm. “After that, I don’t remember anything until today. They said that… that they were going to try to use me instead. They wanted to try to fix me. They were going to operate tomorrow on my brain. But they didn’t think it would actually work. They thought I was going to end up brain dead instead.”

I was horrified. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been sidetracked. We could’ve been there days ago.”

He shook his head. “It’s not your fault. Besides, it wouldn’t have done you any good. I would’ve been out, and you might not have made it out of the building before it exploded.”

We finally fell silent, and neither of us spoke again until a van pulled up at the curb beside our hiding place. “Get up, guys,” I said. “Our ride’s here.”

Just as we started towards the van, a policeman climbed out. “What is the matter with you?” he demanded. “We were kind enough to offer our help, and then you just went and ran away to do it yourselves, and then you expect us to come to your aid just because you ask for it?”

I slipped out from beneath Hawk’s arm and stepped towards the officer. “You couldn’t have helped for weeks. By then, it would’ve been too late. We found it, and now it’s a smoldering pile of debris and we have Hawk back. If you don’t want us back, we’ll figure something else out.”

We glared at each other until he finally grunted and slipped back into the van, gesturing for us to follow. Beast and Sunny sat in the very back, with Russ sprawled at their feet. Falcon sat in the front next to the policeman, probably because he saw the murderous look in my eye. I sat with Hawk in the center two seats.

The ride back to school was long and quiet. I’d finally dozed off when a hand on my arm woke me, and I jolted upright. It was Hawk, and the rest of the misfits were already awake, looking around sleepily as the town where the school was rose up around us.

I sighed. “Sir, I think we’d better go to the hospital.”

He glared at me in the rearview mirror. “And why would that be?”

Hawk raised his hand a little. “That would be because of me,” he said. “I was kind of… whipped. Badly. So I probably need stitches. And a vet.”

The officer gave him a long look in the mirror. Then he turned on his blinker and turned away from the school, towards the imposing building of the hospital. I could already tell it was going to be a long weekend.