Avoidables Read online

  My gaze snapped to him. Awe reflected back at me. He wasn’t hitting on me, he was being genuine.

  ‘How did this happen?’

  Purple shook his head. ‘I’ve heard of angels…but, not…they’re not…’

  My speechless best friend was a rare treat.

  ‘They left years ago. Many years ago. I don’t see how…’

  We watched each other, both as clueless as the other. I hadn’t known my father. He was never in my life.

  ‘My father…he must have been an angel…or something,’ I said the words quietly.

  It was rare to have an angel ancestor because most of them had abandoned the planet. They didn’t have a choice. The darkness had become too much for their light, so they had to leave. The history books said that it was with regret. They had tried one last attempt to revive the human race, whom they’d loved dearly, but it had backfired.

  ‘Did your mother ever tell you that she mated with an angel?’ Purple stood to pace the room.

  I shook my head. My mother had died when I was young, but I always pretended that she had died only a short while ago. Somehow the lie made me feel closer to her.

  ‘No one must know about this for now, Hope,’ he said, nodding his head and turning to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I didn’t want to be left alone with my thoughts.

  ‘To do some research. Try to get some rest.’ He left without another word.

  Chapter Two

  The word half-bred kept popping into my head as I crouched on the roof of the building in Upper Side. We weren’t sure how we had come to be. The Avoidables were ruled by the Perfects. Perfects were good looking normal humans with no inter or cross breeding. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I believed in cross breeding. Even if I did have angel in me.

  The Perfects did a test that was a government invented cruel joke. If a Perfect had a child that was less than Perfect looking by the age of fifteen, they would have to take them to be examined to see whether or not they could stay in Upper Side. Not many people made it through the test. My mother must have failed.

  The wings though, they were something else. The story of the angels trying to bring light to the earth by mating with humans suggested that the humans could not conceive with them. Maybe they were mistaken.

  A noise below cleared my mind. Crouching down, I looked over the edge of the building. There he was. Jason. I had been thinking about him for the last three days. What was it inside him that had brought out my angel side?

  I flexed my good arm as I remembered the few moments I’d had a matching one. My missing arm had always been a mystery. Something I was used to.

  ‘Are you here?’ Jason said, trying to keep quiet.

  Guards often patrolled the roads, but rarely came down the alleyways. Things were good in Upper Side. The Perfects were well behaved and never caused trouble. The Avoidables liked to come and stir up the peace sometimes though, so the guards were needed.

  I jumped down behind him. He spun when he heard my feet thump on the ground. Hanging my head low, I avoided his gaze. I didn’t know how to feel around the Perfect man.

  ‘I knew you would come,’ he said, reaching a hand towards me.

  Lifting my head, I stepped back, out of his reach. There it was again. It was like a lightning bolt hitting me in the chest as our gaze clashed. What was it about him? I hated Perfects.

  ‘Please tell me your name?’

  ‘Hope,’ I replied, shocked that the word had jumped from my mouth.

  I had planned to stay disconnected. I didn’t want to have to kill him. If I told him too much about me, he might speak to the other Perfects. Killing him would prevent him from doing that.

  ‘Makes sense.’ He tried to smile at me, but when I scowled back, a burst of laughter escaped him.

  About to spin away from him, I gasped when he caught my hand and held tight. I looked down at our joined fingers and unconsciously returned the pressure.

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’ I said, shaking my head at him. It was impossible. It was stupid. Why the hell was I there?

  ‘I can’t think straight when I’m not around you, so no, I have no idea. Tell me.’

  I closed my eyes for a brief second. When I opened them, he had come closer. There was a reflection of myself in his eyes. Blinking, I looked again and saw what he saw. There was a thin girl, with shoulder length straggly brunette hair, dark eyes and pale skin. She was an ordinary looking girl, except for the light that now radiated around her. A weird glow surrounded me. As I stared at the image, a feeling grew inside me. I had only felt it when I was young. I had felt it when my mother had held me tight and sung me to sleep. Love. I didn’t look like an Avoidable to him. I looked like love.

  ‘I have to go,’ I gasped, pulling my hand free and turning.

  ‘Oi, oi, what do we have here then?’ A Perfect came down the alley towards us.

  His brilliantly even features were amused at the scene in front of him. Jason stepped in front of me. I had to bite my lip to stop myself smiling. Perfects were petrified of us. We were dangerous, which made us powerful. That’s why they left us in Lower Side to fend for ourselves.

  Without thinking, I grabbed Jason. As soon as my arm circled around his chest, my body vibrated.

  Gritting my teeth, I held on as my missing arm grew from my shoulder and my wings burst out of my back. I started to flap them. An instinct inside me knew how to fly so I took us up and away from the alley. The guards shouted below as the Perfect who had caught us called for them. Panicking, I headed towards home.

  ‘Hope, you can’t take me there.’

  His words echoed around us as a shot fired below. They were shooting at us. There was no way I was going to get caught. Spreading my wings wide, I flapped harder. The glide was long enough to get us over the river.

  As we neared my building, I suddenly noticed that Jason struggled in my grip. Oh dear. I had brought a Perfect to Lower Side. My instinct had been to run, like usual. I hadn’t even thought about the consequences. He would be killed instantly if he was seen. Perfects were forbidden to enter Lower Side. If only for their own protection.

  Landing on the roof, I climbed down to my window. Glass smashed everywhere when I punched through it. Climbing in, I dragged Jason with me. Purple burst through the door two seconds later, a gun in his hand.

  ‘What the…?’ His dark eyes fell on Jason, who was now collapsed on the floor where I had dropped him. My wings and arm folded away as I slumped on the bed. Purple growled before taking a step towards me.

  ‘Don’t!’ Jason yelled, jumping up.

  Purple stopped and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t need to ask. Have your fun, Hope, and then get rid of him.’ He spun and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

  I couldn’t get rid of Jason. In our language, that meant killing him. A rare few Avoidables kidnapped Perfects to abuse when the opportunity arose. The ones that did were usually the people that had been kept as slaves by the officials of Upper Side. They had been through some of the harshest things known to man, just for being different.

  ‘This has to change,’ I whispered.

  ‘What?’ Jason sat next to me and looked around my room. His shivering frame shook the bed as his gaze drank in the dingy area. It was bare and dimly lit. Not a place you would proudly call home.

  ‘This disgusting divide between Avoidables and Perfects. Things have to change, or we’ll all end up killing each other.’

  My bottom lip started to wobble. Jumping up, I sucked it into my mouth. What was wrong with me? I had never been the emotional type. Glancing in the mirror, I paused. My eyes were white. A glow emanated from them. I had never seen that in myself before.

  ‘You’ve awoken your light,’ Jason said, smiling at me.

  ‘How do you know?’ It felt strange to talk to him.

  ‘I know, because I can see it. I’ve been studying the Avoidables for a few years. I agree with you. This is no way f
or our world to be.’

  ‘Why did you freak out in the club, then?’

  Ducking his head, he stared at the rough concrete floor. ‘It took me by surprise. I was living my normal Perfect life, not thinking about my work. Not thinking about the divide, or the Avoidables.’

  The whole world was divided. Few cities remained, but the ones that did no longer lived in harmony. There were two sides to every city, one for the Avoidables and one for the Perfects. The wilderness between the cities was vast and mostly dead. Not much countryside or water was left out there. It was mostly barren wasteland.

  When I didn’t reply, Jason carried on. ‘I want to explain more to you, but it’s not really my place. You need to find out for yourself. Your light will show you the way. You’ve been written about. Did you know that?’ He stood and came to me.

  I was still gazing at my face.

  ‘Does it look like we have many books over here?’ I laughed as he ducked his head again.

  Reading about something really didn’t make it real. That’s why the Perfects held such sway. They knew so much more than us. We were uneducated. We had no idea what was really out in the world. If we tried to defeat the Perfects, we had no idea what we were actually up against.

  Did he say that I had been written about? Why would anyone write about me?

  ‘You’re the only half angel Avoidable in the world, Hope. Or, so I’ve read anyway.’ He quickly looked away. Was he hiding something? How did he know so much? ‘You’re here to save the day,’ he laughed as he gestured with his hands.

  ‘That sounds ridiculous. I...’ My words stopped. A faint warmth surrounded me.

  Opening my mouth, words froze on my tongue when Jason came and stood behind me, looking into the mirror. Our eyes met, and I felt that strange feeling again.

  ‘I don’t like how you make me feel,’ I whispered.

  He placed his hand over my shoulder stub.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  A shiver went through me as an unfamiliar emotion started to grow in my chest. How could I feel for the man? I didn’t even know him.

  A warm sensation started where his hand rested. Our gaze was still locked. My chest was rising fast as I tried to catch my breath.

  ‘Hope, we got trouble!’ Purple shouted from the hallway.

  I sprung away from Jason and reached under my bed. I took out my gun and gestured for him to get under there. He went to protest, but I raised my gun to his chest. His eyes went wide before he dived under the bed. Purple opened the door, quickly closing it carefully behind him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I whispered.

  ‘Sandor’s back.’

  Purple didn’t need to elaborate. Sandor was our flatmate and she had a fetish for Perfects. It didn’t matter if they were male or female; she would use them as toys and kill them. We had rescued her from the government’s palace a year ago. She had been abused so badly, she had almost died.

  Since then, we had tried to get rid of her over and over again, but she just kept coming back. The problem with the current situation was that Sandor’s ability was extremely heightened senses. She could smell a Perfect from a long way away.

  ‘I don’t know how to stop her, Hope.’ Purple ran his hand over his hair, a pained expression on his face. ‘I think it’s time.’

  Avoidables found it very hard to stick together, but when you accepted someone as part of the family, it was hard to get rid of them.

  ‘She has to be stopped, Purple. The Perfects are going to notice that their kind is going missing.’ I cursed. ‘I thought we’d got rid of her with Hunter.’

  We had sent Sandor away with a roamer. A man who loved the thrill of trying to survive in the wilderness. He had taken our flatmate with him. It had only been four months since she had left.

  ‘She’s at the front door. You need to get Jason out of here, now.’ Purple reached under the bed and pulled the human out.

  His pale face made my heart beat. I took his hand in mine to comfort him. I kept forgetting that he wasn’t used to our way of life.

  ‘I’ll take him to the safe cave,’ I said, shaking hands with Purple before wrapping my arm around Jason and allowing my wings to come free. My new arm also wrapped around his chest and together we jumped out of the window.

  In the distance of the city, there was a red mountain that towered above it. Jumping out of the window, I flew us over the buildings to the cave in the side of the huge rock.

  I went about lighting a fire, which was set up and ready to use, while Jason climbed under the thick covers on the floor. It was a lot colder up there so we always had it prepared for emergencies.

  ‘What will Purple do to Sandor?’ Jason asked as he watched me move around.

  I came over to him, wondering what to do. The fire was high, but it wasn’t warm enough on its own. Jason pulled the covers open so I sat down next to him. We leant against the wall of the cave. He took my hand in his and closed his eyes, waiting for me to speak.

  ‘He will take her to our enforcer. She’s had a warning for kidnapping Perfects. She’s so damaged, she hasn’t stopped. They won’t tolerate anymore. We hoped that going away with Hunter, a roamer, would keep her occupied enough to stay away.’

  ‘What will happen to her?’

  His hand was warm. The physical contact was strange to me. So much had changed in the last few days. I was starting to feel overwhelmed. Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back against the rock. Jason’s hand came up and pulled my head to his shoulder.

  ‘This is weird,’ I said.

  My hand started to sweat with the contact.

  ‘It’s fate,’ Jason replied.

  ‘She’ll be exiled. We may seem like the horrible, dangerous ones, but we’re trying our best to be better. In fact, there are hardly any Avoidables that don’t follow our rules now, just the rebels. We are shunned and judged by Perfects just because of the way we look. How can you say that it’s fair to degrade and belittle a person because they are different from you?’ I felt the betrayal of tears against my cheeks. The angel side was a whole new me.

  ‘I don’t think it’s fair. That’s why I’ve been studying you all, especially you. Does it not feel like you know me?’ His hand wiped my tears away, but I kept my eyes tightly closed. I didn’t want to see pity on his handsome face.

  I nodded against his shoulder. ‘Why have you been studying us?’

  ‘Because I have, you’ll know everything soon enough. You’re going to save this city and everyone in it,’ he whispered, his words getting heavier.

  The rhythm of his breathing lulled me to comfort. We were both falling asleep, but I wanted to know more.

  ‘Don’t be crazy,’ I said, smiling to myself. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I’m not. You’re going to become a full angel and you’re going to save the planet. I know…well, I just know. And, soon, so will you.’

  His breathing levelled out as he fell into a deep sleep. I was conscious enough to wonder if it could be real. I had always felt like my life had purpose, but I could never find it. I looked everywhere. In my own part of the city. Even the Perfects fascinated me. Going to Upper Side was my way of trying to figure them out.

  If what Jason said was true, I would finally know what my purpose was.

  But could I really be an angel?

  Chapter Three

  The gentle kiss on my cheek woke me. The caress on my arms brought me from my sleep. Arms…? I opened my eyes and noticed that yes, I had both my arms. My wings were not out, but my new arm was there. Studying it, I stared at the smooth pale skin with a tiny smattering of freckles. It matched my other arm perfectly. Flexing my fingers in front of me, I held my own hand for the first time. Shuddering, I smiled as a lump came to my throat. It was odd having two arms.

  I looked at Jason in the flickering light of the dying fire. His eyes were burning just as bright as the flames. I couldn’t look away as he leaned towards me. I let him kiss me. His hands cradled my h
ead as a burst of love flowed from my heart and all over my body.

  I had never felt good in this skin, but as my inner spark was ignited, a feminine glow grew intensely. I opened myself up, mind, body and soul. Jason did the same. We kissed each other and allowed our souls to meet in the middle.

  ‘I’m not Perfect,’ he whispered a while later as I lay in his arms.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ I whispered back, kissing his knuckles.

  ‘I meant that I’m not a Perfect.’

  He stilled my kisses as he looked at me.

  ‘What are you, then?’

  ‘Can you not tell?’ His eyes didn’t reflect back at me this time. I looked at them, trying to work out what was so familiar.

  ‘I am part of you…’ he breathed across the small distance between us. I saw it then. My eyes were in his face. Blinking, I let out my breath when his eyes appeared again.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Stroking his cheek, I felt the caress on my own skin.

  ‘Some angels decide to split in two so they can come to earth to help the human race. Masculine and feminine. All souls are made up of the two energies anyway. We know the angels left the planet years ago. That’s in the normal history books. But, I’ve learnt that we…me and you…us…we decided to give it another try. To unite for the good of the world.’ He kissed me again and I felt the truth of his words. I remembered hearing a Perfect call her partner her soul mate when I had been hiding out in Upper Side. Back then, I had wondered what it meant. Now I knew.

  Was that why I only had one arm? Did he bring out the part of me that was missing? It resonated far too much for me to deny it. Yet…it was there in physical form. My arm. My wings.

  ‘Come, we need to go to the government compound. We have a mission to get on with.’

  Jason stood, leaving me to follow. I was overwhelmed with love. I was overwhelmed with purpose and passion.

  But most of all, I burned with a question.

  How the bloody hell was I going to unite the Avoidables and Perfects?