“You- What?” Angel looked dumbfounded at Ghost, who was obviously enjoying it. “How? Why?”
“That’s why. I don’t get asked questions.” Angel continued to stare at her. “Well, I mean, I got asked them, but I couldn’t answer. Plus, I could fly. At other times in my life, I only had one of those pleasures.”
“Which was flying.” It wasn’t a question, but what followed was. “What exactly did you mean before, ‘you used to have wings’?” Ghost bit her lip and looked down as Angel stood to his normal height.
“Couldn’t you have asked an easy question? Like, ‘are you hungry?’ or ‘would you like me to leave you alone for a while to recuperate?’”
“You just said those seven months were the best of your life,” Angel said dryly, folding his arms.
“Well... yeh, but-” Ghost sighed, twirling a strand of her hair. “You were s’posed to let me get away with my excuse.”
“You want another question? Fine! How about, what did that paragraph on the paper Kate gave me say about you?” Wincing, Angel took a deep breath, hoping what he had said hadn’t sounded quite so harsh to Ghost as it did in his head.
“How- How much did you read?” The girl’s voice was quiet, and she didn’t look at him. Angel mentally kicked himself.
“It said something about you being the same girl who- what?” Angel reached forward and pushed a strand of hair out of Ghost’s face, hoping she knew he hadn’t meant to yell.
“It said that- I’ve been in their records before, okay? If you really want to know, why haven’t you asked Kate?” Ghost pulled away from his touch, sitting on the floor, still facing towards the vampire. That fact seemed important to Angel, though he didn’t know why.
“I think I was hoping you would tell me.” In truth, Angel really didn’t know why he hadn’t asked Kate- he just hadn’t thought of it. “Is that really how you want me to find out?”
“No!” After Ghost said it, she remembered that it had been the first word she had said to Angel. “No, I don’t want you to find out at all.”
“But if you had to choose.”
“I specialize in not choosing,” Ghost snapped, jumping once again to her feet.
Angel rested his hands on her shoulders. “Ghost- please.” He paused. “If you’re not going to tell me that, at least tell me why you haven’t turned your back to me.”
“Oh.” She looked surprised. “You noticed. I guess I should be happy about it, but- it’s weird.” Ghost sounded surprised. “Angel, it’s..... Well... Look.”
Ghost half-turned, then stopped, apparantly building up her courage. Finally, she turned her back to Angel, and he could see the feathery sprouts of wings just below the tips of her hair. Quickly turning back around, Ghost stuttered out some sort of explanation.
“I- they stayed when I turned back. I didn’t mean to turn back, not really, but then I didn’t mean to become a bird. I didn’t think I could get back. But I was hoping- that this might mean- I’m getting them back.” Angel blinked hard a few times, then stepped forward and tilted Ghost so he could see her back.
“So- you did mean this. I wasn’t sure before.” Angel released Ghost, who looked suspicious that he was going to ask a question. Instead, he turned her again and studied the small, black wings protruding from her shoulderblades. Ghost shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t resist. Angel felt her stiffen as his eyes scanned over something underneath the wings. The girl spun, staring frightened at the vampire, waiting, and perhaps hoping that he would stay quiet.
“The scars. They’re from your old wings.” Ghost nodded slowly. “Who did it to you?”
***
Thousands of thoughts ran through Ghost’s mind in the few moments after Angel asked her the question. She came to a decision perhaps more quickly than usual.
“Angel,” she said slowly, her voice very soft. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. I can hardly bear even thinking it. Just listen.” She paused, taking a deep breath in order to hold back her tears.
“I did this to me. It was a while ago, a few years, and I had recently discovered my magick- and had grown my wings. Every witch or mage or whoever I went to said I was extremely powerful- they gave some stupid technical reasons for not being able to help me, but I think they were all too scared of my power and appearance. Finally, one of them gave me the location of a witch who might be able to help me. Of course I went to her, because I was out of control, sort of like the first weeks here; destroying everything in sight every time I concentrated or got angry.
“She lived in a one-story version of a haunted house, out in some woods. I’m not sure where in the world this was, because I was only- thirteen then? And everything was confusing me, understandably. She greeted me at the door, as if she had been expecting me. She had been, after all. She seemed nice enough; old and grey-haired, sweet, but still powerful. She wouldn’t give me her name, but knew mine already. She gave me food and water, and a few days to recuperate before introducing me to training.
“I didn’t know what she was doing then, but if I look back on it now, all she did was feed my power with crystals and enchantments. I still don’t know her motive for driving me crazy, but that’s what she did. After a few weeks, I was much, much worse than I had been before- I destroyed things intentionally. I summoned storms, rocking the house and the forest. One time, I ran outside and into her circle of broken stones- I had never thought about what it was before, but as I entered it I heard her laugh. Lightning came down from the sky, striking me. I- I’m not sure exactly what happened, other than it hurt more than I could’ve imagined, and when it was over, I was still burning- or at least my shoulders were. The blood down my back felt fire-hot, and the deep gashes where my wings used to be stung so bad, I couldn’t do anything but lie there and weep. The witch was gone, nothing but her scathing laughter left with me. Her house was gone too.
“Eventually, they found me- the police, I mean. They thought I had been attacked, and got an ambulence there, but the sirens scared me and I went nuts. I started screaming and yelling, and throwing things everywhere. Or should I say, throwing people everywhere, with my power. They shot me quite a few times before I collapsed, though they had only been shooting me in the legs. They had to inject a tranquilizer into me and strap me into the back of the ambulence, and even then I caused trouble. I was taken to a sort of mental institution for magick-addicts, and was monitored twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Everything went smoothly for them for a while, until one day. I don’t know what was different that let me do it, but all that matters is that I did.
“That’s what that paragraph was about. Saying that this girl was the same one who had broken out of the secret hospital. It was ‘secret’ ‘cause of the magick things. Anyway, I didn’t kill anyone, but many people were injured and crippled because of me. I- don’t really want to go into details. But I got out, and started wanding about aimlessly, creating a broken path in my wake, somehow escaping the government and police. And then you found me, and here I am now.”
As Ghost finished her last words, she choked on a sob in her throat. Angel wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to sit on the bed as she began to weep into his shirt. Ghost let herself be hugged, and found that it was actually comforting.
“I’m so sorry, Ghost,” Angel whispered, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. You were incredibly brave, to tell me about it. I don’t know how you did it.”
Ghost sobbed harder, hating herself at that moment, because she knew how she had done it. Every single word had been a lie.
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