Page 22 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

At one point, I stop in front of the broken window, breathing in the scent of the ocean and the passionflowers. I brace every muscle in my body and clench down on my jaw and try to stick my hand outside.

The pain is like having my fingers cut off.

I howl and drop back down on the bed, sucking down deep, frantic breaths. Of course, my fingers are still intact. Undamaged. But the pain in my foot, which had started to fade, flares back into existence again, and all I can do is lie on the rotting mattress and weep.

But eventually, that pain fades, too, transforming from a debilitating agony into a dull, distant ache. I stare up at the vine-wrapped ceiling, with its cracked, peeling fresco. I’m thirsty, my throat dry. And when I realize I’m thirsty, my stomach pangs with hunger.

I sit up, a new fear working its way through me. I’d been so focused on escaping that I hadn’t thought about what would happen if I didn’t.

I look at the window again. What if I hurled myself through it? Hurled myself through the pain? Would I survive the torment and be able to escape that way? It doesn’t seem to physically hurt me, after all.

But the thought sends a hot, pulsing revulsion through my entire body, strong enough that I lean over and retch, spitting up stomach acid on the dirty wooden floors.

No. No, I won’t try that yet. But I won’t be trying anything if I don’t find fresh water.

So I gather up my courage and leave the room again.

I wander down the hallway until I find a bathroom, as big and spacious as all the other rooms in this place.

Seventy years ago, it was probably beautiful, with its enormous claw-footed tub and pale pink tile walls.

But right now, it’s covered in grime and filth.

I go up to the sink and turn the faucet. Deep in the walls, the pipes groan and clank, but nothing comes out.

The mirror is coated in dust, so thick that I can’t really see myself. I don’t bother wiping it away.

I step back out into the hallway, listening. The mansion is silent.

“I need water!” I shout into the emptiness. “And food! If you’re going to keep me here, you need to give me that much, at least! ”

For a moment, my only answer is silence. Then the house seems to yawn, creaking on its stilted foundations. There’s the heavy thump of wing beats.

And then he’s in the hallway, too.

I didn’t see him arrive, only sensed it. One minute I’m alone, the next I’m not.

“Do you even understand me?” I snap. “Don’t answer that, unless you want to kill me.”

All his eyes blink in unison, which is somehow more unsettling than when they blink independently.

“Was that a yes?” I ask.

Another unisoned blink.

Something shivers through me. It’s not fear, not exactly. But he’s trying to communicate without hurting me, and?—

And I don’t understand why.

I take a deep breath. “So if you, um, blink twice, that’s a no?”

One blink, all twelve eyes fixed straight on me.

“Are you going to let me go?”

Two blinks.

Despair fills me up, as sure as the ocean. I breathe out. I want to say why not, but he can’t answer that, can he?

“Is there fresh water here? That’s safe for me to drink?”

One blink.

“Do you even know what’s safe for me?” I add.

One blink.

Then, there’s a hot gust of wind and suddenly my feet aren’t on the ground because the winged man has lifted me up, his long, thin arms wrapped tightly around my back.

His body is hot to the touch, like glass that’s been left out in the sun, and he presses me into his chest where the eyes are, his eyelashes fluttering against my cheek.

I’m too terrified to speak. And too confused. Because we’re flying, but we’re also passing through the walls of the house, through the rotting plaster and the thick vines and roots that have grown up into the frame. And then we’re in a hot, sunny kitchen.

He drops me on the marble floor, and I lean over and retch again, this time from the vertigo that feels like I’m being flung around in a washing machine.

When I look up, he holds an etched crystal goblet of clear, clean water.

“Where did that come from?” I demand.

One blink.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

He just pushes the goblet at me. Some of the water sloshes over, and it’s cold, like it’s been refrigerated.

It also makes my jaw ache. I haven’t had anything to drink since before I left Pearl’s last night.

I take the glass from him. His long, elegant fingers leave condensation in their wake, but when I sniff the water, it smells fine. I take a small, hesitant sip?—

It’s water, and it has the faint sweetness that water has when you’re really thirsty. Which I am.

I tip the glass back and gulp down the water with big greedy swallows.

When I finish the glass, the winged man takes it from me, and the world goes fuzzy for half a second, and then he hands me another full glass, and I drink that too.

Some part of me knows this is dangerous, drinking this water. But it’s also exactly what I need.

I gaze over at him when I’m finished and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. He’s watching me with an intensity that seems to peel my skin back, and my whole body prickles with electricity.

When I look down at the goblet, he’s refilled it again.

And I drink that too, although more slowly, telling myself I can’t die of thirst if I want to escape.

The whole time, the winged man watches me, standing beside the half-collapsed counter.

It’s unnerving, and I try not to look at him directly, even if I can feel all twelve of his eyes burning through me.

When I finish the glass, he reaches out for it, but I sidestep him and put it on the counter. “I don’t need any more,” I say, forcing myself to look at him.

When I do, I notice a thick ridge tenting his oversized pants.

I jerk my gaze upward, my whole body crawling with dread. Which means I look at his chest. At his slow blinking eyes.

He doesn’t move toward me. Doesn’t try to attack me. But I can still feel something crackling in the air around us.

“Thanks,” I mutter, taking slow, careful steps backward out of the kitchen.

The winged man just watches me go.

I walk back to the room where I woke up. I almost think of it as my room, which is as unnerving as seeing evidence of a monster’s erection after I gulped down three glasses of ice water.

He’s waiting for me there.

“What the fuck?” I try to dart back out into the hallway, but it’s like the world gets twisted around, and I just run into the room instead.

I’m hit with another swirl of vertigo, too, and for a moment everything tilts sideways.

When it straightens back up, the winged man is pointing to an old vanity shoved in the corner.

There’s a plate on it. With food. I think.

I look at the plate. Back at the man. At least the outline of his cock isn’t quite as prominent as it was before.

“Is that for me?” I finally say.

His eyes blink once. Yes.

My stomach grumbles a little at his response, and when I look over at the plate, the food looks more appetizing, even though I don’t know what it is because it seems to shift around.

Sometimes it looks a little like chicken and dumplings and sometimes it looks a little like the ropa vieja Raquel, one of the other waitresses, makes for everyone on holidays.

But then I blink, and it looks like the crab dip on the Pearl’s appetizer menu.

The winged man appears beside me, making me jump. I stiffen at his closeness, thinking he’s going to force himself on me. But he doesn’t. He only picks up the plate and hands it to me.

“What is this?” I say.

All I get is a single blink.

I sigh. It does smell good—like garlic fried in butter, like hamburgers cooking on an open grill. There’s even a spoon, bright and silver, that I didn’t notice before.

“You made this?” I look up at him.

Yes.

I shiver. Made it how? Made it like he made the water?

Which I drank. And I’m fine. I think.

But I have to have water. I can go without food, at least for a little while.

It just smells so damn good, though. Every time I breathe in, I get that hungry, desperate ache in the back of my throat, and my stomach pangs sharply and rumbles around. It feels like a cavernous pit, like I haven’t eaten in days, not hours.

The winged man steps closer to me and leans down. His hair falls like ribbons of kelp around his face. I can feel his eyes burning into me.

I really, really shouldn’t eat this.

But god. It just smells so damn good .

I pick up the spoon with a shaking hand. The winged man is still staring at me, and I want to tell him to stop, to back off, but I doubt it would matter. Maybe if I take a bite, he’ll leave me alone.

So I scoop up a spoonful of the ropa vieja or the chicken and dumplings or the crab dip or whatever this is and take a bite .

It’s fucking delicious.

That one bite is all it takes. I shovel the rest into my mouth, eating it as greedily as I drank the water. The winged man steps back, giving me space, and something has changed in his expression. Almost like?—

Almost like he’s smiling.