Page 5 of My Alien Angel (Supernova Casanovas #6)

Fin

Eyeing Omni’s massive wings next to my two-door clown car, I shake my head. “Yeah, this won’t work. You’ll have to take the wings off.”

Omni’s alarmed expression is so comical I have to laugh.

“Look, friend, I know you’re very dedicated to your role, but there just isn’t enough space.

You could probably fit on the back seat, but the wings might get damaged, which would be a shame.

” Despite the damage they must have taken in the fall, the wings keep moving, especially the unbroken one which occasionally stretches out.

The broken one just twitches every time Omni walks and every time it does, he winces.

For the love of money, I cannot figure out how he’s controlling them or how they even work.

There’s no hiss of hydraulics or whir of motors.

In fact, the only sound coming from the wings is the soft rustle of feathers being dragged along the sand.

Even more peculiar is the lack of harness visible where the wings attach to Omni’s back.

They look extremely heavy and simple laws of physics suggest there should be straps around Omni’s chest just to hold the wings in place, but I can’t see any through the tears in his coveralls.

For all intents and purposes, the wings look like they’re actually growing out of his back.

That’s beyond fucking brilliant design. The nerd inside of me is squealing with delight while the pragmatic part of me is wondering how the hell we’re going to transport such an expensive prop without damaging it.

“No.” Omni shakes his head just in case I didn’t understand.

Sighing, I rub the bridge of my nose. “Omni, be reasonable. You can put the wings back on when we get to my apartment, but the car is too small to—”

“No,” he repeats stubbornly. “Omni wings car.”

“You’re an ass,” I grumble.

He seems to find that amusing. “Yes. Omni ass.” Chuckling, he adds a few more words in his language, like he’s enjoying a joke I don’t understand.

“Fine. Whatever. Just get in.” Opening the passenger door, I fold the seat forward and gesture for him to get into the back seat. It’s the only place in the car he has even a remote chance of fitting.

Apparently, cursing sounds the same in every language.

I might not understand the words but I recognize the intonation of various grunts and expletives coming from his mouth every time his wings catch on something getting into the car.

Finally, Omni is fully stuffed inside of the car.

He’s curled up on the back seat with his wings filling the entirety of the back half of the car.

Sweat dots his brow, and he’s breathing heavily, features drawn tight.

“Are you sure you don’t need a hospital?” I ask, because the last thing I want is to be driving around with a dead body in the back seat. That would be difficult to explain. Mostly, because I don’t even know what’s happening myself.

“No hospital.”

Of course not. Sighing, I return the front seat to upright, grimacing at the black sludge and dirt now smeared across the upholstery. “Great. Now I’ll have to get it cleaned. Why am I doing this again?”

It’s mostly a rhetorical question but Omni replies, anyway. “Fin no ass.”

I snort. “Yeah, you bet I’m not an ass. I guess wearing a seat belt is out of the question,” I muse.

“You better pray we don’t get pulled over.

The cops wouldn’t be happy to see this.” Yet again, mentioning the police has Omni casting an alarmed look at me.

Rubbing my eyes in frustration, probably smearing the face paint into something horrifying, I groan, “Please, tell me you’re not an escaped convict? ”

He thinks about it for a little longer than is necessary before eventually shaking his head.

“Man,” I grumble. “That’s not reassuring at all. I’m not going to jail for assisting an escaped criminal. Are you or are you not on the run from the police?”

This time, the reply is instantaneous. “No. Omni no run from … police.”

There’s a word in the middle of his sentence that I don’t understand, but hopefully it’s just another curse.

I believe he’s telling me the truth, although that could just be my own naivety.

Either way, he’s already in the car and it would take too much effort to kick him out again, so I just go with it.

I can always say he threatened me if I get in trouble for helping him later.

“Alright, let’s go. I need to get the damn puppies organized for tomorrow.

” Compared to meeting a traumatized fallen angel cosplayer in the desert, my job problems seem trivial, but that doesn’t mean I can just ignore them. I have bills to pay.

Grabbing a few bottles of water and a pack of jerky from the trunk, I pass some to Omni before getting into the driver’s seat. “You need to stay hydrated. The heat here is no joke. Drink even if you’re not thirsty.”

He rumbles out something I assume is a thank you in his language.

It could also mean “fuck off” but I’m optimistic.

Now that my impromptu passenger is settled, I pull out from the side of the road and continue driving home.

I’m eager to talk to my friends about Omni but there’s no way I can call them with him in the car and, while I might be suicidal enough to invite a complete stranger to crash on my couch, I’m not suicidal enough to text while driving, so informing Caleb and Imani that I’ve done something monumentally stupid will have to wait.

The silence in the car stretches out uncomfortably and the radio isn’t doing an adequate job of filling the void, so I start talking.

Blabbering, really. “So, were you at the con this weekend? I didn’t notice you there.

I mean, there were thousands of people there, but I think I would have noticed someone with such an amazing costume.

Did you make the wings yourself? They have to be custom made, right?

I’ve never heard of any store selling anything like them.

Not that I’d look good with wings. Maybe if I went as one of those chubby cherub angel babies from the old paintings.

” Pausing to snort at the image of me as a pudgy cherub, I go back to blabbering, “Yeah, I’d rock that.

Though they’re usually naked so, on second thought, I’ll stick with murlocs.

No one wants to watch me run around naked. Least of all me.”

Omni makes a disgruntled noise, as if disagreeing with me. Or maybe it’s just another phantom pain from his broken “wing”. This guy really is something.

“You should have seen Caleb’s Legolas costume.

He actually started doing archery even though you can’t actually shoot a bow inside a convention center.

But that’s Caleb. He gets overly invested in stuff, only to drop it a few weeks later when he comes across something new.

His cake-making phase was phenomenal. The hair-dying one less so, and neither Imani nor I had any desire to join him when he got pierced in his…

you know. Private areas. That must hurt like hell.

Although, some of the novels I’ve read say it completely changes the experience. Still. Ouch.”

I chatter for a while longer before realizing that Omni is either pointedly ignoring me or asleep.

Judging by his exhaustion just from trying to squeeze himself inside of the car earlier, I’d say the latter, though it’s true that my endless talking can get annoying.

Sadly, keeping my mouth shut is a skill I’ve never mastered.

A glance in the rearview mirror doesn’t reveal anything.

The way Omni is curled up on the back seat, facing away from me, with his wings covering him like a blanket, there’s no way for me to see his face.

Hopefully, he really is asleep. God knows how long he’s been wandering the desert, because there’s no way he actually fell from the sky.

I don’t know what I saw but, surely, not that.

People don’t just fall from the sky. Well, sometimes they do, but they don’t survive, at least, not without more damage than just a few scrapes and a broken strut in their fake wing.

I must have seen a bird or a drone or something like that.

I was just lucky that it brought me to Omni when he clearly needed help.

I’m still not sure if I’m the right person to be helping him, though.

I mean, he clearly needs a therapist at the very least. Perhaps the best thing I could do for him would be to drop him off at a hospital, whether he wants me to or not, but I already know I won’t do it.

He trusts me and I might be the crazy one here, but I won’t betray that trust. I can only hope that he won’t betray mine, or trash my apartment when he runs out of drug money.

God, I really am stupid, aren’t I?