Read Rising for Free Online Page B

his fingers.
“Confusion. Chaos. It’s the perfect killing ground. I went back over my list
and found a few other cases, down in Florida during a hurricane, up in New York
during the blackout. These guys have been at it for a while.”
    “You think we’re looking at multiple
wings?” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth. Crapola.
    “Lots of bodies.”
    “Are you even sure we’re dealing with
angels?”
    “Nope. No way to be sure until we go and
check it out.”
    “We?”
    “I already have a bag packed. Let me
know when you’re ready.” Gabe is a study in cool confidence. If I didn’t know
him so well, I might actually be fooled.
    I decide that now is an apropos time to
shift his focus. “So, did you ever find anything out about The Totem, or
whatever? You know, the group that posted that YouTube video?” I keep my voice
as casual as possible, like the thought just randomly popped into my head.
    “Oh yeah.” Gabe swivels around in his
chair. “The angel-hunter extraordinaires,” he says sarcastically. “I’m sure
those dime-store masks had angels everywhere wetting themselves.”
    “Did they, I mean, did you ever find
anything on them?”
    “Nah. I pulled their shitty cell phone video
down three months ago and traced the IP, but it was public access up in
Washington.” Gabe crosses his arms and looks at me. “Didn’t you already ask me
that, like, twice?”
    “I was worried they’d post another
video,” I say quickly. “They know about angels. They were trying to blow the
lid off this whole thing.”
    My brothers have assured me that exposure
of our little underground war would be a catastrophe. They paint an apocalyptic
picture that features humans lining up by the thousands begging for the change,
human feeding farms like the one we found in Poughkeepsie popping up all over
the planet, and governments sending armies to fight their own citizens. It
would be like a living Gears of War nightmare.
    “No one believes anything on the internet,”
Gabe scoffs. “Plus, they’re total pretenders. Even if they manage to stumble
across an angel, they’ll get dead real fast. Problem solved.”
    “Serves them right,” I say with forced
nonchalance.
    Rain Bailey – his name rings like a big church bell in
my mind.I remember his sleepy brown eyes, the cuts and sores covering
his body when we rescued him last year from the grip of some particularly
sadistic angels. When he’d gained consciousness, those eyes had looked at me so
accusingly. I’m not sure why I haven’t told my brothers that Rain was part of
The Totem, his face hidden behind the penguin’s mask, or that I recognized one
of the other group members in the video as well.
    Maybe it’s because I don’t want to admit
how much I think of Rain, or how I’m pretty sure he’s out hunting for me,
seeking vengeance for the sister he thinks I killed. Dysfunctional much? I
think to myself.
    “So we should start getting ready,” Gabe
says, interrupting my thoughts.
    “There’s no ‘we’,” I tell him and pull
my phone out of my pocket.
    Gabe’s aura swells with thick bands of
angry orange. He lets the silver rabbit off his lap and then eases himself on
the couch in the living room.
    “Ten bucks he doesn’t say ‘hi’ or
‘hello’. No, make that a hundred bucks. A thousand.”
    I ignore him and dial Tarren’s number.
    “He never says ‘hello’,” Gabe says.
“Have you ever noticed that? It’s always ‘Yes?’ or ‘What is it?’”
    Tarren picks up on the second ring.
“What is it?”
    Gabe arches an eyebrow.
    “You in a good place to talk?” I ask.
    “Yes.”
    “Gabe might have found some wings. I
think it’s worth checking out.”
    I lay out Gabe’s weather hypothesis and
the possibility of multiple angels lurking somewhere around the Midwest. While
Tarren takes a moment to ponder the details, I strain to catch any noise in the
background for clues to where he is or what he’s up to. I hear a bird chirp