Chapter Twelve

AYRIE

After I had left Elle, I had walked in the jungle for a long time trying to work up enough courage to deploy my wings. The rustling of the wind in the leaves sounded ominous, but I tried to ignore it. I was being ridiculous — the noise of leaves wasn’t sinister. It was part of nature.

For some reason, I was even more reluctant than usual to take my wings out. I felt like I was a teenager again. I had been unwilling to do it and afraid I wouldn’t be strong enough to stand the pain.

I waited until I thought Elle might be getting worried, and ripped them out, harder than necessary. I had to spend extra time recovering from the excruciating torment due to my carelessness. Once in the air, I let myself soar to clear my head. I didn’t feel like I was thinking clearly. I wanted to be sure telling her was the right thing to do.

Arnon had said keeping his wings a secret from Jayne had been an issue, and everything was better after the secrets were out in the open.

I was still nervous about showing Elle. I didn’t know how she would react or what she would think.

Would she even let me carry her out of here? Taking flight was my grand plan for getting off the island. If I had been by myself, I could have flown away at any time. But having Elle with me removed the option because my father had sworn us all to secrecy. We weren’t supposed to tell anyone about our wings until we knew our people were going to survive.

The only reason I had decided to show her now was that I was getting concerned about her health. She had fainted twice already. When she tried to get up this morning, she had almost keeled over. We were on our own out here. If she became gravely ill and I didn’t know how to help her, I would be responsible for her death, and I didn’t want that responsibility.

I needed to show her my wings and get us out of here. I would figure out everything else later. My resolve solidified, and I glanced at Elle sitting on the sand far below me.

I was going to show her the truth and hope she wouldn’t reject me. I felt a little sick myself because I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be.

I landed beside her on the sand with a bump. Elle looked up with a wrinkle between her eyes, and her mouth dropped open. She scrambled backward and onto her feet. My palms began to sweat. What would she say? What would she do?

For the moment, she was staring at me and not saying anything.

“What do you think?” I couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

“You really are an angel.”

I shook my head. “I’m far from that. I’m a person, just like you. The only difference is I have wings.”

Elle moved toward me, and I took a step back. “Has it come to that, Ayrie?” She dropped her hands to her sides. “I just want to see them.”

I didn’t know why I had moved away from her. I felt like a scared little boy standing on the playground for the first time in school. What if she hated me?

She moved toward me again. This time, I forced myself to remain still and not back away from her. She ran her hands down my wings, and I shivered.

“Can you feel that?”

“Of course. It’s not like you’re touching my skin, but my wings are part of me.”

She walked around me, putting her hand on the spot where the wings attached to my back.

“Don’t touch the pouches.” I didn’t want to collapse in front of her from the pain.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.” She came back around to face me.

I looked at the reaction on her face. It seemed positive, so far.

“Are you sure you’re not an angel?” She lifted an eyebrow.

I shook my head. “I’m just from Auxem.” I shrugged and made my wings flutter. “This is how we are.” I wondered if she was going to reject me. Would she think I was a freak?

“I’m not supposed to know about this, am I? None of the humans are. Wait a second. Does Jayne know?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say.

“Well, does she?”

“Yes, she knows.” I finally found my voice. “She found out accidentally. You can’t tell anyone, Elle. It could mean the end of Auxem.”

“Come on, Ayrie. That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“I wish it was. If the people of Earth find out about them, they might not want to marry us, and our race will die out.”

“Yes, I know that already. Your women have died, and the men who are of child-producing age will soon become infertile from the virus. You need women from Earth who don’t have the H4T7 gene to produce lots of girl babies with all you sexy Auxem men.”

“You got it, Elle.”

“But why don’t you want us to know about your wings? To tell you the truth, they’re pretty sexy. I think you could use them as a selling point.”

Her eyes twinkled, and a hint of a smile played on her lips.

“That’s a bad idea. We can’t tell anyone.”

“You’re still keeping something from me, aren’t you? You don’t trust me completely.” She spoke the words without anger or sadness. She was telling the truth, and we both knew it. If I wanted her to trust me, I would have to trust her first.

The sun was beginning to set. We wouldn’t be able to leave today, anyway.

“I’m going to show you something. It will be shocking, but don’t worry.” I pulled my wings in without thinking about the pain.

An ache spread through my entire body, and I curled up while trying to avoid making a sound. I didn’t do a very good job because from somewhere outside the haze of suffering I heard Elle’s voice calling to me. The agony shot through my arms and legs before creeping along my skin.

I knew nothing but torture for a few miserable minutes until suddenly it was gone. Elle was looking at me in distress.

“I’m sorry for springing everything on you so suddenly.” I wanted to hold her but wasn’t sure how she would take it. “It’s kind of hard to believe if you don’t see it.”

She nodded without saying anything.

“What you saw when I took my wings in happens all the time.”

She frowned. “You mean it hurts that much?”

“Yes. But it’s worse when the wings first come out when we’re teenagers.”

“I can’t imagine anything worse than that. I thought you were going to die.”

“I know, but some kids don’t make it through the excludunt phase.”

“What do you mean by that?” Elle’s brown eyes darkened with distress.

“They decide death is a better alternative.”

She turned and started walking back to the camp site.

“Wait a second.” I wished my voice didn’t sound desperate for her approval. She stopped and turned around. “What do you think?”

“I think there’s a big conspiracy and everyone is keeping critical information from us.”

“Otherwise you wouldn’t agree to help us, right?”

“Of course we wouldn’t. No woman in her right mind would make her child suffer like this. Thank goodness we’re not bonded, and I’m not pregnant.”

I felt myself deflating. I knew Elle wouldn’t understand.

“My people are going to die out. All we need is one generation of females from the outside to help us. Once there’s a core of Auxem women, we can take care of ourselves.”

“Auxem women.” Her eyes went dead. “That’s something I’m not, and I can never be. Ayrie, I don’t know what you’re looking for, but it’s not me. I understand now. I didn’t want to before, but I get it. You want a woman like your mother. I don’t have wings. And I have issues with the past.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m not enough for you.”

“Elle, that’s not what I meant at all.”

“No, it’s okay. Thank you for trusting me with your secret, but it’s not going to fix anything. Trust is important, I admit it. But what’s going on between us goes deeper than that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m wrong. I’ve always been wrong. And nothing I do will ever make me right.”

I gazed into her eyes. I thought I had found a way to fix everything, but somehow I had made things worse. She turned away from me and started walking toward the camp.

I spoke to her back. “I’m going to get us out of here. I’ll fly us back to civilization.”

She stopped walking but didn’t turn. “That’s good news.”

I caught up with her and came around to face her so I could look into her eyes. “Let’s not do anything hasty. Once we’re off the island and back in a familiar situation, things will make sense again.” I hoped so, anyway.

“Yes. And we can get a divorce so you can find someone more suitable.”

“You want me to divorce you?” The idea came out of nowhere, stopping me in my tracks.

“There isn’t a bond between us, so you shouldn’t have a problem with it. Find someone who will make you happy. I want you to have that, Ayrie. You’ve made it clear many times. I kept thinking something would change.” She shook her head. “But I can see now that I’m not the woman for you. I can’t make you happy, no matter how hard I try. Fly us out of here tomorrow so you can find someone else.”

She looked miserable, but it was the determination in her eyes that worried me the most.

At dawn the next day, we left the shack behind and ventured onto the beach. We had been here many times before, but it was different today. Elle climbed onto my back and wrapped her legs around me. She was wearing my shirt so she wouldn’t have to carry it. I had retrieved it from the jungle where I took out my wings yesterday.

I jumped into the air and pumped my wings twice, lifting us off the ground and into the sky. My heart lifted. I was still trying to understand what Elle meant yesterday, but moving through the air always made me happy. She clung tightly to me until we were high enough to catch an air current and start gliding. After we had been cruising for a while, she relaxed, and I could feel her head turning so she could look at the sights.

“Elle, do you like the view from up here?”

“Yeah.”

The stilted feeling of the exchange cut me deeply. Would things be like this until we boarded the mothership and got a divorce? I knew Elle had meant what she said when she started asking legal questions I couldn’t answer.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she wanted to live life on her own. We had never been right for each other. The first ten months of our marriage were mostly silence. Our island time together had been an anomaly. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to go, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

Maybe things were for the best this way. If I let her go, she could find someone who would make her happier than I ever could. But as I felt her sweet body pressed up against mine, it was hard to imagine ever living a happy life without her.