Save Me - Chapter 5
I spent a fretful day perched uncomfortably on that bale of hay.
James moaned and groaned pitifully.
I sat beside him and cried.
In between bouts of pain, he turned to me. “Miley?”
“Yeah? Do you need another drink of water?”
James nodded his head before his face contorted into another painful grimace.
I held the bottle for him and some of the water dribbled down his chin.
“I can’t fight it anymore…”
“James…” I reached out to touch his face.
“James! Don’t give up.” I begged.
“That man might come back, you can’t leave me alone here. You can’t die now, not after everything that has happened.”
James curled in yet another spasm. “Gaaaa!”
I watched helplessly as tears streamed down my cheeks.
“You’re not bad, I know you’re not bad, James. If you were really a bad man, you wouldn’t have pulled me up to the roof, you’d have let me fall.”
“Lara?”
“No, it’s me, James, it’s me, Miley.”
“Lara, why didn’t you wait for me?”
“I’m here James, I’m waiting for you to get better,” I cried.
“It’s me, Miley.”
James was heaving heavily, now on all-fours. “Help me, Lara.”
“With what?”
“Help me take off my shirt. Arggggg! I can’t stop it any more.”
“I’ll help you, James, but don’t die okay, don’t give up!”
I tugged on the bottom of his filthy and drenched T-shirt. I pulled it up and over his head as he pause between being clenched in pain.
I gasped as I saw the ugly red welts all over his back. They criss-crossed his back glowing an ugly shade of red. His whole back was writing with movement.
“What is it? What is wrong with your back? What happened to you, James?”
“They whipped me, Lara, it was part of the payment. It was what I had to do to get away… gaaaaa! And you didn’t even wait for me!”
“James, it’s me Miley. I’m waiting for you.” I sobbed.
There was something under his skin. His shoulder blades where lumpy like elbows pressing through his skin. With each spasm of pain, the lumps at his shoulder blades swelled as though they would burst through.
I reached out to touch them with shaky fingers. The lumps were hard and I realized this was what he was containing. This was what he was fighting. He was trying to stop whatever what happening on his back.
“James, please stop! You’re hurting yourself. Stop trying to stop it!”
“But it will mean I can’t stay with you, Lara. If they come back, I have to go away, I can’t stay.”
James was sobbing now, the strain of his internal battle had worn him out. He was a mere shell of the tough man who didn’t care about much of anything. He had broken into a thousand pieces and was now just as fragile as a butterfly.
“You can stay,” I promised. Arguing with him logically wasn’t going to work. Instead I pretended for a moment that I was the Lara he spoke of in his delirium.
“James, you can stay with me, no matter what. I’m waiting for you, James.”
“But not like this, they won’t let me stay like this!”
“They will, they have! You can stay with me, James. I promise, you can stay with me.”
“I can’t fight it any more, Lara!”
“It’s okay.” I cooed to him in soft tones. “Please stop fighting it, I can’t bear to see you in pain. It will be okay, you can stay. You can stay with me.”
James reached out blindly to me, he grabbed my hands in his clammy hands and buried his face in my knees. He wrapped his arms around my waist and with a final shudder, let go.
I thought for a moment he was going to die then and there resting on my knees with his hands linked behind my back. His body found a momentary calm. His breathe was deep and warm and I smoothed back his sweat soaked hair.
“I’m here, I’m waiting for you,” I whispered.
His grip tightened on my waist as a huge wave of pain clutched his body, making his back arch up and as it did the strange lumps on his shoulder blades surged up and outwards. The sound was sickening as his skin split and moved aside for what press outwards.
Blood oozed out of the split but was replaced by a fist sized lump on each shoulder blade.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the gory mess of his shoulders. James was calmer between each spasm. As each spasm shook him, the lumps grew larger and the blood pooled around my knees.
“Please don’t die,” I begged.
With another groan, James back arched again and again and the lumps grew and grew, they sprouted tiny white feathers. They were wet and gory at first but as his wings got larger, the wounds they had made seemed to cover over. As they grew, I heard bones snapping and creaking with the pressure of such rapid growth. James was growing a full set of wings that would extend down his back to his ankles. To the sides they extended farther than his reach.
“I’m sorry, Lara, I couldn’t stop it any more. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sobbed into my knees.
The rain still fell as I sat there in the chill of evening in darkness. I could see the soft glow of James’ wings in the dimness of near total darkness. He was calmer now and breathing deeply. He was asleep on my knees and only the occasional shudder of pain told me the wings were still growing. I was exhausted too, I huddled the plaid jacket closer to myself. I sat with my head leaned back against the hay and one hand on James’ head. I stayed that way the whole night, listening to him snore softly. His arms were limp on the floor by my sides. I pulled his jacket up to try to keep him warmer where his scarred back was bare.
I was completely and totally emotionally and physically drained.
I dosed off a little and by morning found myself lying on the table cloth with James’ leather jacket over me.
James was stroking my face gently. He stopped as soon as he realized I was awake.
“Are you okay?” I ventured.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he whispered
“Oh, thank God!” I breathed.
James frowned.
“Are you hungry, Miley?”
I nodded.
“Here.” He handed me a peanut butter and jam sandwich. “I found some stuff in the farm house.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. My stomach had clenched and cramped most of the night, granola bars and water no longer enough to quiet it.
I sat up and James watched me eat.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I already ate.”
I licked the peanut butter off my fingers a little while later. “So, what are you James?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He asked, extending his wings out in a stretch.
“You’re an angel?”
He nodded, “I was an angel.”
What happened?”
“I fell, I fell… I fell for someone and they didn’t choose me.”
“Is that what the drugs were for? To stop this?”
James nodded again.
“And those marks, the marks on your back?”
“Ancient history.”
“You weren’t allowed to fall?”
“Angels aren’t supposed to fall.”
I reached for a second sandwich he held out for me.
“Who was Lara?”
“Don’t you know?”
I shook my head confused.
“Your mother.”
“Mom?”
“I guess you don’t usually call her by name.”
“You fell for my mom?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that why you saved me?”
“Because I was supposed to protect her and I chose not to, and…”
“And?”
“There is a very good chance that you are my daughter.”
The news shocked me.
“What if I’m not?”
James shrugged. “You look an awful lot like your mother, when I met her a century ago.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, you look like her okay… when I actually cared about something.”
James fell backwards in an arch like he was in immense pain, but this time it wasn’t from his back or wings.
“Can I do something?”
James opened his eyes a crack. “Nope, you’re alive, that’s enough for me.”
“If you met my mother a century ago… how is that possible?”
“You’re mother is only half human.”
“And so I’m…”
“Only three quarters human.”
“Yeah, one quarter what?”
“Encantando.”
“Encan… what?”
“Encantando, an immortal water being from
Brazil. Don’t worry about it Miley, you’re mostly human.”
“Then if I’m mostly human, I’m not your daughter.”
“Look, I don’t really know, we were together only once in modern times, then she ran away and never looked back.”
“You really fell for her.”
“Yes.”
“Then you loved her a lot. She goes by Laura now.”
“Yes,” he choked out a little more roughly.
I slid my arms around his back and hugged him. “Thanks for not dying last night.”
He held his arms aloft like he didn’t know what to do with them, then slowly lowered them to return the hug.
