***FIONNA***
Russell spent all day Wednesday driving us down to Bearville. I've held Kensi's hand the whole time, and for whatever reason, we haven't both been awake at any one time. But I've been awake in enough fits and starts to notice one or both of the boys staring at us. Each time I caught them, I thought something along the lines of, Yeah, you big fat cutieheads don't get to be the only couple around here. Then I would turn away, burying my head in Kensi's hair. You could say I was getting familiar with her scent. Sure, when she was all over me the night before, I had no problem smelling her, but that was more her sweat. Her default scent is softer, sweeter. Like jasmine. I inhale that perfume - from her shampoo, I think - and run my thumb over her knuckles, one after the other.
Her thumb is her secret weapon. I've learned so much from it, and imitated its style beautifully.
For now, though, I'll have to wait for more thumb adventures. It's a good thing we spent most of Wednesday sleeping off and on, because by the time we returned to Bearville around nine at night, Russell made it clear we weren't stopping to sleep.
First, he took me to the armory under our apartment building, where he got me a wingsuit. "Generation IX prototype," he said, putting the shiny black material into my arms and gesturing to what looked like a chem lab emergency shower concealed behind a curtain. "Lightweight and breathable, and you can wear it like thermal underwear. Or...or a Spidey-suit." He pulled up his own shirt, revealing a suit of the same material underneath. "Binds in the crotch less, though."
"Am I supposed to trust it 'cause you wear one too?" I asked.
His brother Harlan walked in at this point, smelling like he'd just smoked a joint. Scarfing down a brownie, he said, through a full mouth, "The secret is woven-in hemp fibers."
"Good to know," I said. "Uh..." I looked over to the shower, the only private space in the room thanks to the array of security cameras in all the other corners. "Can I have a knife? I'm gonna need to-"
Russell and Harlan both reached for the Swiss Army knives on their belts, and Harlan, despite being stoned like always, got his first. "Don't cut all the way down to the hem of your shirt," he said, gently putting the knife into my hands.
"Or jacket-" Russell cut in.
"And try to make the cuts an inch and a half away from where your spine would be," Harlan added. "That's how we do it. Angels do it an inch, but their wings are a tad bit less bulky than ours."
"Not that I could tell the difference." I got into the shower and closed the curtain, then stripped down to my underwear. I wondered if I should get completely naked before putting the wingsuit on, just based on Russell's "Spidey-suit" comment, but in the end, I decided against it. The suit turned out to not be so skintight anyway.
I couldn't spread my wings to their full span in the cramped space, but after putting my street clothes on over the suit, I opened them as much as I could and took a celebratory selfie. It was only my second time in a wingsuit, but this one was so much less clunky than that one I stole from that asshat in Holly's army. That was awesome enough to use, but this one was a whole other story.
Wearing regular clothes over the armor, I felt like an angel.
Now we're approaching the secret Terminal door in the back of Russell's place, for a purpose none of us teenagers know about yet. Truly, our work is never done.
Ariel gazes with wonder through the door after Russell opens it. "I can't remember the last time I visited this place."
"Did you ever have the cookies?" Russell asks.
"I'm still alive, aren't I?" Ariel gives him a grin as he passes through the door.
I turn to Kensi and exchange smiles with her, then I do the same with Gabe. Except he doesn't smile. He's too tense. Harris bites his lip, then asks, "You okay?"
"I just..." Gabe takes Harris' hand. "I know we're not gonna get to see Alex, but I wish we could."
Alex. Oh man, did you have to remind me? Well, sure, we'll be in Hell for this mission, but still, Heaven will only be a stone's throw away. It'll only be too easy to detour over to the Bridge and pay Feathers a visit. After all, being dead mortals, we can do it invisibly and undetected now.
"I wanna see him too," I say, seeing Harris nod along with me. "But like you said, we can't. We're just gonna take that missing piece and go, yeah?"
Someone knocks on the doorjamb. It's Russell. "Guys! You want cookies or not? Red and green like Christmas, and it's not even Halloween yet!"
Harris tugs on Gabe's hand as some kind of gravitational sugar force draws him (along with the rest of us) into the Terminal. "Don't worry, Gabe. I wanna meet Alex too, you know."
"Did you talk him up for Harris like you did for me?" I ask Gabe in a stage whisper.
"Why wouldn't I?" Gabe doesn't even bother pretending to keep the conversation private. "We're each other's biggest champions, me and Alex."
On the other side of the Terminal door, Russell and Ariel (the latter lowering the Black Mirror onto a desk) stand next to Grace Muscat and her array of Christmas-colored cookies. "Sono squisiti, sì?" She pushes the plate towards us kids. "I got these special from Italy."
"She means she got them from Trader Joe's, and they had Italian packaging," Russell says. "Not that it makes them any less good."
Ariel looks down at his own half-eaten chocolate-drizzled cookie. "I never understood why the trip between universes cost so much blood sugar."
"Better that than an arm and a leg," I say, scarfing down a cherry macaroon whole. (Wait, aren't macaroons French? And aren't they usually coconut-flavored?)
"Literally or figuratively?" asks Kensi.
Harris can't keep his good cookie down, he's so busy laughing. Gabe isn't, because he still looks a tad bit more nervous than the rest of us. It's okay, I think. We'll find some way to let Alex know we're back.
You swear?
Yeah. Now that I've made this promise, I so very much don't want to break it.
Once we're all cookied up, Ariel picks up the Mirror again, and he and Russell take us to a door marked with the familiar crescent-armed triangular Hell symbol in red. "How do you know this is the right door?" I ask.
"The system usually automatically assigns the right door to whoever's looking for it," says Russell.
"Usually," Grace chimes in from across the chamber as she sticks her cleaned-off plate of cookies back into her desk. Does she have a Star Trek replicator in there somewhere? Or maybe a mini-oven? The Terminal's got some pretty advanced medical technology - how else were they able to fix up people like me and Kensi and Gabe and Harris after we died? But about the other kinds of technology, I'm not so sure.
Russell opens the door and invites us through with a flourish. On the other side is a dark, damp forest late at night, and there's tons of mud to go around right in front of us. Gabe growls as his feet, his pretty brand-spanking-new Converse (a gift from Harris, who'd noticed his old ones were, well, old), sink into a couple of inches of semisolid brown. (That came out sooooooo wrong.) "Do we always have to come out of the Terminal and step in mud?" he asks nobody in particular.
"Why, does that happen a lot?" asks Russell mischievously. "Not my fault the doors like to open up in the woods."
Harris steps in the mud himself - out of solidarity with his Sweaty Elf Boy, I'm thinking - and hums what sounds to me like the Salem theme song. I think the DVD box set was Gabe's gift to him in return for the shoes. A bit of overkill and overcompensation, but leave it to Gabe to really show the love. Him and Alex both, those sweet Snow Bros.
"So where are we?" I jump into the mud pit, with Kensi right behind me, then look up to see big trees all around us in the dark. "Coldfire Creek?"
"Close to it," says Russell. "About, uh, four miles east of town."
Gabe twitches and looks around. "Are we near that cave?"
"What cave?" asks Russell.
"Alex and I used to hang out at this cave sometimes," Gabe says. "It's somewhere in the woods east of Coldfire Creek." He scuffs his muddy new shoes against the moss growing up the trunk of the nearest tree. "Good luck finding it in the dark, though. I'm not even 100% sure where we are."
"We're four miles east of-"
"Yeah, you said that already, Russell," Gabe mutters. "This could be anywhere in the Sierras, really."
"He's right," I say. "So if you know where to find that cave, 'cause you know where everything else is-"
"I think I might've lost my ability to be a living GPS years ago," Russell says. "But I think I know that cave too. There were a couple of cigarette butts littering the floor when I last saw it-"
Gabe gasps. "What the f...were you stalking me and Alex?"
"We kept an eye on you for years," Russell says blithely. "My dad wanted us - me and Annie, I mean - to make sure the Red Rain people didn't try and take you to use your powers at puberty or whatever."
"'Cause God knows we couldn't let that happen," Gabe growls. "No, just wait till we're seventeen. No difference, am I right?"
Kensi, Harris, and I illuminate the woods and lead the way as we take a look around. It's not long before we finally find the cave Gabe's been talking about. It's small, but we can all fit inside, no problem. Though they'd still be some cramped quarters.
I think Russell has this in mind when he says, "Okay, let's go. Uh, Kensi, Harris, you two can stay here and fire up the Mirror."
"Wait, don't we need the last piece first?" Harris asks.
"And why does it gotta be..." Kensi begins. Then her eyes spark as she realizes something. "Oh. 'Cause I'm a light scriv, you think I can-"
"Get the Mirror running?" Ariel finishes for her. "Yes, please. Although after Dana's had her hands on it, who knows if it's still in good working order?"
"Cool," Harris says with a shrug. "Coolcoolcool. Kensi, let's get this done, all right? Just so you know, I almost failed my physics class."
"What does that have to do with fixing this crap up?"
"Electricity, huh?" He crosses over to me and hugs me tightly. "I dunno if these big boys can keep my boy safe," he stage-whispers to me, "but I know you can."
Russell and Ariel clear their throats, but I ignore them. "As long as you protect Kensi too."
"Deal." Harris goes over to Gabe to kiss him goodbye, and I do the same with Kensi. Then Gae and I follow the big boys through the woods until we find the road, at which point we go invisible. Even though we're still a few miles out of town, Russell doesn't want us to take any chances.
Sticking closely to everyone else, I find my way to Ariel. "So, Mr. Mystery Man, what's your story?"
"Let's see...I'm a gay demon born in Heaven, so I used to get relentlessly bullied by all the angel boys, but-"
Whoops, wrong Invisible Man. I sidestep Gabe and try again. Why isn't it possible for us to see each other when we're invisible? I used to think the invisibility thing only worked on live Primers. "Same question, Ariel. Unless you want me to repeat it?"
"No, I heard you the first time." I don't think I'll ever get used to the sound of disembodied voices. Even Gabe's sounded a little creepy just now.
"Care to answer?"
Ariel sighs, the sound only audible because there's, unusually, no wind. "I used to do more interesting work, but a lot of that is classified. Nowadays, Peppermint employs me as what I would generously call a 'skull-cracker.'" He laughs humorlessly. "Normally, that means I go to their competitors and intimidate them into either backing down in some kind of tech-product war, or, occasionally, encouraging a lawsuit for publicity." Pause. "Don't look so surprised. All the major corpor-"
"You can't say I look surprised," I laugh. "How would you know? You can't see my face."
"I don't have to." This laugh from Ariel actually sounds amused. "So that's what I was doing at Dana's place. They sent me there to get her to give up the prototype. They wouldn't tell me why I needed to get it back - they said it was confidential."
"You mean 'classified,'" says Gabe.
"Same difference," Ariel says. "But even though they pay me enough not to think about why I do this job, I still do." He lowers his voice as we pass the "Welcome to Coldfire Creek" arch covering the road. "And I think they're aware Dana's stiffing them on the obsidian. That's what they wanted me to confirm, and given she had me ambushed and locked up for a good long time..."
"Why?" I ask. "What's in it for you?"
"I'm sorry to say I made a deal with Satan," Ariel says with another sigh of regret. "My son, he has very limited powers. His wings never developed fully in the womb, and his elemental powers either won't come in or will be very delayed. He's nine years old - he should be flying and throwing dark balls with the rest of the boys in his class."
"I'm sorry," Gabe and I say simultaneously.
"Peppermint promised to research Isaac's condition and see about fixing it," Ariel says. "Every mission I complete for them, they'll get him a step closer to normal. But after so long out of contact, I don't want to know how much they've not helped him. Or, worse, they might have allowed him to regress..."
Russell shushes us as we get into the residential part of town. Funny that we're here to find something of Ty Jackson's - the first side street we pass by going off the main road, that's the one he lives on. I send some good-vibe thoughts his and Kelly's way, even though by now they must be asleep. And...oh yeah, Kelly would be in her room at Castledown. Does she have another roommate by now? I hope so. Castledown's up on the hill overlooking their street, so at least I'm sending those good vibes in the right direction.
I head up this street, and I think Gabe does too, but then I hear Russell yell, "Hey, where are you guys going?"
"This way to Ty," I say, jerking my thumb over my shoulder even though Russell can't see it. Can he? Then again, he's got the ability to see in a slightly different spectrum than the rest of us.
"No," Russell says. "Jasmine kept me apprised on the situation. The missing piece, Ty doesn't have it."
That's when I remember Alex saying something to that effect right as the dream ended. And now Russell and Ariel can probably see me blushing. "So where would it be?"
"Coldfire Creek PD."
Oh man, we gotta break into the police station? That's not cool...but hey, it's Coldfire Creek. They couldn't make heads or tails of the Aqua Killer case, so I doubt they have anywhere close to top-notch security.
"Why's it with the cops?" Gabe asks as we keep going down the main road. It's going to be an even longer walk now - the police station is on the west side of town, and we came in from the east. At least I thought to wear comfy shoes with good arch support, but the Spidey-suit armor I've got under my clothes, I think Russell exaggerated about how breathable it was. Sweat's starting to bead up in uncomfortable places.
"I thought you said you talked to Alex in a dream," Russell says. "Didn't he tell you? One of Dana's people tried to take the arrowhead from Ty, but they stopped him, and he took a suicide pill."
Ariel scoffs. "That was one of Dana's people? I think not. He might have been a Peppermint plant." I start everyone else giggling at this, and Ariel being Ariel, his response is a flat "What?" Then he clears his throat and adds, "No, but seriously. I've been around Dana long enough to know she doesn't supply her people with suicide pills."
"You talk about her in the present tense," I point out.
"Yeah," Gabe chimes in. "Like she's still alive."
"We haven't seen the body."
And on that note, we stop talking until we get to the police station. It's mostly dark, but the lights on either side of the front door, and the lights visible through said front door's frosted-glass windows, are still going.
"Have you been here before?" asks Russell.
"I have," Gabe says.
"You? Really?" I shoot a surprised look in his general direction.
"Let me guess," Ariel says. "Walking home from the bar, you needed the bathroom. Public urination."
"That's...oddly specific. And no, it was after...after you died, Fionna."
"They didn't think you did it?"
"No, they just wanted my statement. Mine and Alex's."
"Oh." Yeah, that was stupid of me to think the boys could be accused of my murder. They wouldn't hurt a fly. (Unless you count Elijah, who's one of those bloodsucking flies that gives you sleeping sickness or some shit.)
"So how well do you know your way around here?" Russell asks.
"Barely? It's been almost a year."
"So you wouldn't know where the evidence locker is?"
"Probably in the back," I say. "So all we gotta do is get in that way."
"Yeah..." Russell muses, his voice trailing off for a second. Then he asks, "Hey, where's Ariel?"
"How should we know?" Gabe becomes visible just long enough for me to see him flipping off Russell.
"He's probably in the back," I mutter, heading that way myself. "If he's not there trying to break into the back door with a dark spike or some shit..."
Lo and behold, he is, and it turns out his scriv powers aren't so invisible. Not when he's solidified that dark spike I was just talking about. I hadn't known that was possible before - I know Kensi's light powers don't work when she's invisible, because light pretty much only exists when it's observed. Or so I gleaned from my piss-poor understanding of sophomore-year chemistry. I really do need to get more serious about studying science.
"How's the break-in coming?" Gabe asks.
Ariel drops his spike, which leaves a smudge all over the doorknob he's been trying to pick open. Does he seriously need such a huge spike to do the job? In any case, it disintegrates without his hand to support it and keep it fueled.
"Allow me." Russell goes in and tries to pick the lock with a smaller, thinner spike, but again to no avail.
I elbow them aside and decide to use my woman's touch instead. Sorry, boys, but I got the fire in me, and it's going to set your dusty dark powers ablaze - literally. Damn, I almost forgot how flammable dark energy was. It's like crude oil, but good luck using it to make good gasoline. Thank God we have Gabe here - he can freeze the flames before they set off the smoke alarm.
Even invisible, we only miss once before managing to properly fist-bump.
Inside, there's a piercing siren coming from an alarm box by the door. Russell and Ariel both smash it with fresh spikes, consigning it to sparking oblivion. But it's too late - a couple of officers burst in on us, guns drawn.
Oh wait - they can't see us.
I walk in front of them with a foolhardy urge to touch my thumb to my nose and wiggle the rest of my fingers in the air. Which I do. Yep, they're not gonna see us-
"WHAT THE FUCK?"
BOOM!
Shit! I was visible just long enough for them to shoot me! God, that hurts like a bloody motherf...oh, but that armor, though. Damn. It may be lightweight, but it hasn't sacrificed any durability.
Fire races up my arms - now that, unlike Kensi's light, I can still see while invisible. "Get outta here!" I yell at the guys, but I think the officers take it as if it's directed at them. They back away, slowly at first, then they really turn tail after I start launching fireballs.
I look around just long enough to see a side door open, seemingly on its own. Sorry, cops, but my friends need this distraction.
Noticing that one of the two cops dropped their gun, I pick it up and aim it at the door those two just disappeared through. They come back a second later with backup, then one of them - a youngish guy who looks more like he could be Russell's brother than Harlan does - pats the holster on his hip nervously.
I swallow, then cock the gun. At least, I think I do. I've seen tons of these things in movies, so I should know how they work. Right? Or maybe not. I aim high and pull the trigger, but nothing happens. Crap, the safety must be on. How do you turn it off? That, they never seem to cover in the movies.
You have failed me, movies!
Whatever. I can still scare the dookie out of these guys. Can, and will.
I'm still not entirely sure how the wingsuits work - do they have some kind of micro-needles burrowing into our spines to tap into our neural energy? Or can they simply respond to psychic brain waves commanding them to activate? Even scrivs haven't been able to develop technology that's receptive to our telepathy...or have they? You never know what Harlan can cobble together while stoned. As much as Russell's tried to wean him off his weed, it's so helpful to him that I can't see him ever giving it up.
But back to the wingsuits.
Or, more accurately, my wingsuit. Singular.
Whatever technology makes them work, I unfurl the mechanical wings through the slits I cut into my shirt and jacket earlier. Then I rise into the air, hovering with my feet about four feet off the floor.
My arms are still flaming, so I fly after these cops, sending them scattering again. And, because I've got it stuck in my head at another not-so-opportune moment, I scream some words from the Salem theme song: "'Better pray for Hell, not Hallelujah!'"
Silly, isn't it? Using "demonic" language against demons? Then again, it's a Heavenly show, set in a time when the angels were so scared shitless of us. Points for historical accuracy from the Puritan angel perspective, I guess.
Either way, it gets the job done, sending the cops fleeing the room in terror. They know not what otherworldly forces they've brought upon themselves, hoarding that vital plot device! (Imagine I said that in God's voice, which, in case you're wondering, sounds a little less like Morgan Freeman than you'd think. More like Shohreh Aghdashloo. If you don't know who she is, she's an Iranian character actress with a very distinctive raspy voice.)
I put the gun down - still haven't figured out the safety - and fly back across the room just in time to see the side door open up again. "That was fast," I say.
"At least the locker was well-organized," says Gabe.
Russell holds up the arrowhead, which has a thin leather ribbon hanging from one end. Why would it - oh yeah. I sort of remember now, Alex said Ty wore the arrowhead around his neck. "Now can we get outta here?" he asks. "I'm not enough of a rebel to feel 100% comfortable with this."
"I can see that," Ariel says. "You tried to leave everything else exactly as you found it."
"Just being polite."
Leaving the police station, we fly back into the woods and find Harris and Kensi still in that cave, fiddling aimlessly with the Mirror and its controls. I'm about to say something to them, but then I feel overwhelmed with a wave of fatigue. Kensi sees me slumping and catches me before I hit the rocky floor below. With a soft sigh, I drift into dreamland, folding myself into her arms.
When I wake up, the sun shines outside, and I'm still cozying up with Kensi. The adults are nowhere to be seen, and Harris is staring intently at the Mirror, where the arrowhead's been reattached with his sticky Dark powers. (Capital D. I'm actually getting used to saying it like that for him.) Gabe, meanwhile, stands in the cave's entrance, gazing outside.
"Mmmmmfffff..." I roll out of Kensi's grasp, startling her awake as well. As she kisses my cheek, I ask, "What time is it?"
"Late afternoon," Harris says. "You two slept like logs."
I get to my feet and approach Gabe, who doesn't turn to see me, but he knows I'm here. "Morning, sleepyhead."
"It's still morning?" I eyeball Harris dangerously, as if to get him to back up his BF's side of the story.
"Just an expression," Gabe says. A few yards outside the woods, I see Russell pacing out from behind a tree, then vanishing from view again. "He and Ariel are standing guard," Gabe says, following my gaze.
"And you're the last line of defense?" I ask.
"Something like that." He shakes his head a couple of times. "But...I was in the cave with you guys, with Harris-"
"Sixty-nineing?"
"I heard that!" Harris yells, laughing along with Kensi.
"You know we haven't done any kind of sex, right?" Gabe rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, I know. You like to wait."
"'Cause I've had my heart broken by not waiting." I squeeze his hand for a second, then wait for him to continue. "Couple minutes ago, I, uh...I felt something."
"What? The urge to pound his skinny ass against the wall?"
Harris really bursts out laughing at this one. "Yeah, Fionna, give him ideas, why don't you?"
Even Gabe can't help but chuckle, but then his face clouds over. "I haven't been apart from Alex this long before, ever. But now that I'm this close to him again...he's in Hell right now. Trust me, I know it."
"I believe you." I look up into his eyes - God, why did he have to get so tall? "No one loves you more than Alex does."
"So when do I get to meet him?" Harris asks. "I mean, just to know my competition."
"Yeah," Gabe laughs, striding back into the cave and grabbing Harris in a headlock, kissing the top of his head. "There is no competition. I love you, but I'll never love anyone more than my old womb-mate."
"Hey, you actually said you loved me!"
Kensi gasps and points an accusing finger at Gabe. "You never told him that? Why do boys hate to show the love?"
"He's just kidding!" Gabe pulls Harris' head closer to him, and Harris pretends to have had his neck snapped. "Right?"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Capisce."
Gabe lets go of Harris, then we all hear the sounds of two grown men stalking through the woods at a fast clip. We all leave the cave just in time to see Russell and Ariel racing off through the trees, then some distant voices echoing our way.
I take Kensi's hand as a flash of fear cuts through me. But then I hear a familiar voice say Russell's name. I step forward, and then I see them. Alex, Kelly, and Ty. "OH MY GOD!" I run up to them, dragging Kensi with me the whole way until I let go of her and give them the huge hugs I've been dying to hand out for eons.
Behind me, I hear Harris call out, "Yo! Sweaty Elf Boy! Is that your brother?"
I stand back as I watch the twins embrace. Am I crying? Yeah, I'm crying. So are Harris and Kensi. No shame. No bloody shame.
Gotta enjoy the little things.