Let the Sky Fall (Sky Fall #1)(9)

No boundaries. No limits.

I am the wind.

My years of training vanish as an uncontrollable urge pulls at me. I yearn to take off, to follow the wind’s teasing song to the ends of the earth and beyond. The farther away, the less the pain will be, until it’s gone and I’m free.

Free.

The idea is so tempting. . . .

No!

I focus on the one thing that keeps me grounded: my father’s face.

His lips are stretched wide with a smile. A faint dimple peeks out of his left cheek, and his sky-blue eyes have crinkles at the corners. He looks happy. Proud. I have to believe he would be.

Under control now, I flow swiftly through the open window, thrilling at the rushing motion as I swirl around Vane.

Time to wake up.

My thoughts fill the whispers in the air, speaking for the wind in the secret Easterly language. But the words aren’t enough to break through. He needs more than the tendrils of my breezes wrapping around him, grazing his cheeks and tousling his hair.

He has to breathe me in.

I sweep across his face, waiting for him to inhale. When he does, I follow the pull in the air. Once I streak past his lips, I break free from the rest of his breath and press deep into his consciousness. To his very being.

It’s dark and confined inside his mind. I thrash to escape, longing to push free when he exhales. The pain amplifies the tighter I’m contained, and my winds rage. I’m a tempest, battering his thoughts, trying to tear them loose.

Wake. Up.

Something stirs around me, a warm tingle of energy building to a hum—but no breakthrough. Not yet.

The urge to fly away tears and pulls at me like cold, clawed fingers. But I focus on my father. He was always calm, always confident. So full of life and love. What would he do?

He would be gentle. He would care.

So I ignore the pain and lessen the force of my drafts, letting only the soft threadlike breezes weave through the strands of Vane’s consciousness.

Please, Vane. Wake up.

His body moves.

I’m reaching him.

Your people need you, Vane.

I almost add that I need him. But I can’t bring myself to say those words. I don’t want them to be true.

He doesn’t need to hear them.

He wakes with a gasp and I retreat from his mind with the rest of his startled breath in a frenzied rush.

Finally.

My drafts stretch and spin, relishing the freedom as I watch him look around, his eyes wild. Feral.

There’s only one way to know if the Easterlies have truly broken through.

I gather the winds—my winds. Me. All the parts of myself that float on the breeze—and hover in front of him. If he’s had the breakthrough, he’ll be able to see my true form. Otherwise, I’ll be as invisible as the wind.

Please see me.

His eyes widen and he scrambles to his feet, shouting something I can’t understand over the roaring rush.

But he sees me.

Vane Weston is ready.

With the last of my strength I pull myself in tighter. When I have a firm hold, I send the winds away.

Burning hot pokers and battering rams and a million other pains I can’t begin to explain. The particles of my dress cool me where they cling, but there aren’t enough of them to extinguish the fire in my skin as my body re-forms.

I stagger as I meet Vane’s eyes. His mouth hangs open from something he must have said when I was blind and deaf from the pain.

“It’s about time,” I mumble.

Then I collapse.





CHAPTER 7


VANE


Ten million questions squish together and burst out my mouth—along with a healthy mix of words my mom would kill me for using. But I don’t care about her conservative language rules at the moment.

I have a freaking ghost girl passed out on the floor of my room.

I suck in a huge gulp of air and let that process. She’s here. If I want, I can reach out and touch her.

I take half a step toward her, then shudder and back as far away as my small, cluttered room allows. She may be real, but that doesn’t explain what she is, or what just happened to me. It felt like she was actually in my head, an eerie presence inside of me.

Not to mention the wispy ghost thing I saw floating near the ceiling. A swirling cloud of dark and light and color and wind—with a face. Her face. Then somehow all the chaos mashed together and bam!—passed-out phantom girl on my bedroom floor. If I didn’t feel my heart thumping against my chest, I’d be convinced this is a horrible dream.

“Vane, you okay in there?” my mom calls through my door.

I jump so hard I crash into my desk and knock off some books and video game cases.

If my mom comes in and finds a gorgeous girl in a skimpy dress passed out on my worn gray rug, I’ll be grounded for the rest of eternity. Especially since all I have on at the moment are my Batman boxers. Pretty sure she won’t buy my ghost/guardian angel/freak-of-nature theories either.

I stumble toward the door, prepared to barricade it with my dresser if I have to. “I’m fine, Mom,” I say as I grab the first T-shirt I see off my floor and throw it on, along with my gym shorts.

“Then what’s all that banging?”

Come on, Vane. Think!

Inspiration strikes. “I found a date roach in my bed.”