Fallen Academy: Year Three (Fallen Academy 3)

When we reached the top, I didn’t know what to expect since I’d never been to San Fran, but I didn’t expect this. Every single streetlight had been replaced with red so the entire city had a rosy hue. The one nearest me was decorated with a hanging human body; a sign around his shoulders read ‘Angel Lover.’

I whimpered, lowering my head, and trying to look elsewhere.

Shea’s hand slipped into mine and she squeezed.

“Over here!” Noah called, jogging down the street to a motel whose sign said ‘Rooms by the hour.’

“Uh, Noah?” Chloe called after him. “That’s a brothel.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Shea shared a raised-eyebrow look with me and shrugged. Luke was barely able to walk the final fifty feet, his back leg giving out, but we helped him along. A few people we passed on the street looked at him suspiciously, but minded their own business in the end.

By the time we’d reached the motel, Noah already had a key and was shepherding us inside. The man at the desk looked mildly curious at our bleeding bear, but then he simply went back to his reading material.

After a short walk down a hallway, Noah opened the door to room 106. It took some difficult squeezing of Luke’s massive body, but we eventually got him inside, where he promptly passed out on the ground.

“Shit!” Chloe shrieked, throwing herself around Luke’s furry neck.

I locked the door behind me, and went to the window where the curtains were parted, giving us a nice view of a busy roadway. The second I pulled them closed, a blinding golden light filled the room.

Spinning around, I saw that Noah had pulled his wings out and was kneeling over Luke doing two things simultaneously, a healing scan and a rapid healing. It was something you did for serious cases.

“Bri, can you assist?” he asked me.

His words shocked me. I’d spent so long down in Hell with Lucifer fighting, killing, and being drugged that I’d forgotten I could heal people. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I walked over to kneel beside him.

“It’s… been a while,” I confessed. Other than a mild self-healing, I hadn’t done anything along those lines in months.

He looked over at me, all glowy and golden, and took my palm in his. “One doesn’t forget what they were made to do.”

With that, my palms started to heat up. Noah placed them on Luke’s back leg, while the healing light began to pour from me in a steady stream. I’d forgotten this feeling, the almost heady bliss of being able to help save another person’s life. It was one of my life’s greatest passions, something I wanted to get better at and learn more.

Taking a deep breath, I scanned the tissue in Luke’s back leg as Noah had taught me. “No arteries were hit, but the muscle is deeply torn,” I stated, surprised at how much I remembered.

Noah grinned. “Correct, and that’s something we can heal, don’t you think?”

I nodded, my own grin in place.

Luke was going to be okay.

We’d made it to San Francisco, and everything was going to be okay.

After a four-hour intensive healing, we got the bullets out of Luke’s hind leg and stopped the bleeding. Now he was shifted into his human form, with a bandage dressing Shea bought across the street at the pharmacy. I stared at his sleeping form curled in one of the two beds. Noah’s eyes were rolling in his head he was so exhausted, but the sounds of people having sex loudly next door was keeping us all awake. All except for Luke.

“Why did you have to pick a seedy brothel?” Chloe asked as we waited for Shea to return with earplugs.

Noah lay back on one of the beds. “Because they didn’t ask for ID, and they won’t ask questions. They just want their money.”

Chloe groaned, slipping into the bed next to Luke, while I collapsed on the couch.

Finally the lock turned, and Shea came in with a couple bags full of snacks and five pairs of earplugs. Her hair was bright green now. She’d been changing her identity each time she went outside in case the tunnel thugs were still after us.

“Any trouble?” Noah peered at his woman with concern.

She shook her head. “No, but this place is… hardcore. There’re people strung up everywhere. They absolutely hate angels here. You and Brielle need to be extra cautious.”

I didn’t even have the brain power to respond. Running through those tunnels, healing Luke, it had taken everything out of me. I simply held out my hand for her to deposit the earplugs.

“Oh, and I paid the motel owner a hundred bucks to say we were never here if anyone asks,” Shea added.

Noah nodded. “Smart,” he mumbled, putting the earplugs in, and closing his eyes.

Within thirty seconds, he was snoring and Shea looked at me with a giant grin. “Does Lincoln snore?”

Such an innocent question, but it tore me open inside. I hadn’t slept next to Lincoln in forever. “No, but he steals the covers,” I offered.

Chloe had drifted off as well, and now it was just Shea and I.

She knelt next to my little couch bed, taking my hand firmly in hers. “We’re going to find him and get him out of here. I truly believe that.”

My throat tightened with emotion at her words. Sometimes when you felt like you were losing hope, you needed others to hold the hope for you. Shea was my strength in that moment.

I squeezed her hand and nodded.

“Night, Bri.” She placed her earplugs in and I did the same.

I was going to wake up in the morning with a kickass idea to find Lincoln.

The next morning, we all woke refreshed. Well, everyone except Luke, who was doing okay but would be on the mend for a little longer.

“Shifter healing is good, but those bullets chipped the bone too, so it’s going to take some time,” Noah explained after scanning him again. Our healing had stopped the bleeding and mended the muscle, but Luke’s body needed to do the rest.

Luke nodded. “Awesome. I’ll just stay here and listen to the sex through the walls.”

Noah chuckled, and reached over to the nightstand, grabbing the remote. “Watch some TV.”

After getting Luke settled in bed, Chloe, Shea, Noah, and I all sat around the couch and tossed around a billion different ideas on how to find Lincoln.

“I know he’s using a fake name here. It’s Tray Fox,” Noah interjected.

Chloe scrunched her face. “Tray Fox? That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard. It’s like a porn name.”

Shea reached out and smacked her behind the head, and Chloe quieted.

Noah shrugged. “He didn’t pick it. The Fallen Resistance did.”

Horrible name or not, it would lead us to him, so that excited me. “What else? Did he say where he’d be stationed? What he would be doing? What was the last thing he said to you before he left?” I asked Noah.

He swallowed hard and looked at his feet, shame coloring his cheeks. Shea reached over and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.

Oh. I was picking up that maybe they didn’t have the best parting.

“I punched him in the face and tried to stop him from going. He didn’t say much after that.” Noah’s voice was void of emotion, but I could see how much it hurt him.

“I would’ve done the same to Shea,” I told Noah.

He nodded but didn’t look any happier.

“All I know is the human trafficking struck a chord with him, ever since you were taken like that. He can relate to those families. He asked to be stationed in a way that he could help smuggle the human slaves back out of San Francisco and get them home, but… I don’t know anything else.” Noah’s voice was resigned, but something about what he said had given me an idea.

A crazy idea.

“What if you guys sell me?” I blurted.

Shea raised one eyebrow. “You need your coffee. It sounded like you said to sell you.”

I nodded. “Sell me into the underground trafficking ring or whatever, and I’ll see Lincoln.”

Chloe laughed. “Maybe. Or you won’t, and you’ll be sold to Russia or some shit.”

I shrugged. “Or that, but they don’t know I have these powers. If I don’t see Lincoln, or they try to put me on a boat, I’ll go postal and fly away.”

Noah shrugged. “She has a point. She can fly, and she did stop a ton of bullets with that crazy shield.”

“Then I’m going too. Sell us together.” Shea folded her arms across her chest, readying herself for the fight.

Noah looked over at her, and I fully expected him to tell her how crazy she was being, but he stayed silent.

“Umm, no. I’ll go. We don’t need to get anyone else involved in case this goes south,” I told my bestie.

Tears formed in her eyes and she dropped her hands, balling them to fists. “How dare you! You’re being selfish. You have no idea what you being taken did to any of us, and now you want to leave again! Screw you, Bri!” she shouted, bursting into tears before running into the bathroom and slamming the door.

My eyes were wide, as I stood there with my jaw dropped open.

“Shit.”

Noah placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “You’re her family. You can’t ever leave her like that again.”

That time tears were welling in my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much my talking of going after Lincoln would trigger Shea. Yes, it was dangerous, but it was worth it to me to find my soul mate. But for her…

I nodded and walked over to the bathroom door. We’d had a few fights growing up, obviously. Shea would run off and slam our bedroom door, but when I tried the handle it was always unlocked, like she wanted me to come in after her.

I placed my hand on the bathroom door handle, and I jiggled it. Relief poured through me when I realized she’d left it unlocked, just like old times.

Opening the door, I found her standing there, arms crossed, the look on her face saying she was capable of murder. Shea was a unique creature; when she was hurting, she masked it as anger.

Stepping inside, I closed the door. we reached the top, I didn’t know what to expect since I’d never been to San Fran, but I didn’t expect this. Every single streetlight had been replaced with red so the entire city had a rosy hue. The one nearest me was decorated with a hanging human body; a sign around his shoulders read ‘Angel Lover.’

I whimpered, lowering my head, and trying to look elsewhere.

Shea’s hand slipped into mine and she squeezed.

“Over here!” Noah called, jogging down the street to a motel whose sign said ‘Rooms by the hour.’

“Uh, Noah?” Chloe called after him. “That’s a brothel.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Shea shared a raised-eyebrow look with me and shrugged. Luke was barely able to walk the final fifty feet, his back leg giving out, but we helped him along. A few people we passed on the street looked at him suspiciously, but minded their own business in the end.

By the time we’d reached the motel, Noah already had a key and was shepherding us inside. The man at the desk looked mildly curious at our bleeding bear, but then he simply went back to his reading material.

After a short walk down a hallway, Noah opened the door to room 106. It took some difficult squeezing of Luke’s massive body, but we eventually got him inside, where he promptly passed out on the ground.

“Shit!” Chloe shrieked, throwing herself around Luke’s furry neck.

I locked the door behind me, and went to the window where the curtains were parted, giving us a nice view of a busy roadway. The second I pulled them closed, a blinding golden light filled the room.

Spinning around, I saw that Noah had pulled his wings out and was kneeling over Luke doing two things simultaneously, a healing scan and a rapid healing. It was something you did for serious cases.

“Bri, can you assist?” he asked me.

His words shocked me. I’d spent so long down in Hell with Lucifer fighting, killing, and being drugged that I’d forgotten I could heal people. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I walked over to kneel beside him.

“It’s… been a while,” I confessed. Other than a mild self-healing, I hadn’t done anything along those lines in months.

He looked over at me, all glowy and golden, and took my palm in his. “One doesn’t forget what they were made to do.”

With that, my palms started to heat up. Noah placed them on Luke’s back leg, while the healing light began to pour from me in a steady stream. I’d forgotten this feeling, the almost heady bliss of being able to help save another person’s life. It was one of my life’s greatest passions, something I wanted to get better at and learn more.

Taking a deep breath, I scanned the tissue in Luke’s back leg as Noah had taught me. “No arteries were hit, but the muscle is deeply torn,” I stated, surprised at how much I remembered.

Noah grinned. “Correct, and that’s something we can heal, don’t you think?”

I nodded, my own grin in place.

Luke was going to be okay.

We’d made it to San Francisco, and everything was going to be okay.

After a four-hour intensive healing, we got the bullets out of Luke’s hind leg and stopped the bleeding. Now he was shifted into his human form, with a bandage dressing Shea bought across the street at the pharmacy. I stared at his sleeping form curled in one of the two beds. Noah’s eyes were rolling in his head he was so exhausted, but the sounds of people having sex loudly next door was keeping us all awake. All except for Luke.

“Why did you have to pick a seedy brothel?” Chloe asked as we waited for Shea to return with earplugs.

Noah lay back on one of the beds. “Because they didn’t ask for ID, and they won’t ask questions. They just want their money.”

Chloe groaned, slipping into the bed next to Luke, while I collapsed on the couch.

Finally the lock turned, and Shea came in with a couple bags full of snacks and five pairs of earplugs. Her hair was bright green now. She’d been changing her identity each time she went outside in case the tunnel thugs were still after us.

“Any trouble?” Noah peered at his woman with concern.

She shook her head. “No, but this place is… hardcore. There’re people strung up everywhere. They absolutely hate angels here. You and Brielle need to be extra cautious.”

I didn’t even have the brain power to respond. Running through those tunnels, healing Luke, it had taken everything out of me. I simply held out my hand for her to deposit the earplugs.

“Oh, and I paid the motel owner a hundred bucks to say we were never here if anyone asks,” Shea added.

Noah nodded. “Smart,” he mumbled, putting the earplugs in, and closing his eyes.

Within thirty seconds, he was snoring and Shea looked at me with a giant grin. “Does Lincoln snore?”

Such an innocent question, but it tore me open inside. I hadn’t slept next to Lincoln in forever. “No, but he steals the covers,” I offered.

Chloe had drifted off as well, and now it was just Shea and I.

She knelt next to my little couch bed, taking my hand firmly in hers. “We’re going to find him and get him out of here. I truly believe that.”

My throat tightened with emotion at her words. Sometimes when you felt like you were losing hope, you needed others to hold the hope for you. Shea was my strength in that moment.

I squeezed her hand and nodded.

“Night, Bri.” She placed her earplugs in and I did the same.

I was going to wake up in the morning with a kickass idea to find Lincoln.

The next morning, we all woke refreshed. Well, everyone except Luke, who was doing okay but would be on the mend for a little longer.

“Shifter healing is good, but those bullets chipped the bone too, so it’s going to take some time,” Noah explained after scanning him again. Our healing had stopped the bleeding and mended the muscle, but Luke’s body needed to do the rest.

Luke nodded. “Awesome. I’ll just stay here and listen to the sex through the walls.”

Noah chuckled, and reached over to the nightstand, grabbing the remote. “Watch some TV.”

After getting Luke settled in bed, Chloe, Shea, Noah, and I all sat around the couch and tossed around a billion different ideas on how to find Lincoln.

“I know he’s using a fake name here. It’s Tray Fox,” Noah interjected.

Chloe scrunched her face. “Tray Fox? That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard. It’s like a porn name.”

Shea reached out and smacked her behind the head, and Chloe quieted.

Noah shrugged. “He didn’t pick it. The Fallen Resistance did.”

Horrible name or not, it would lead us to him, so that excited me. “What else? Did he say where he’d be stationed? What he would be doing? What was the last thing he said to you before he left?” I asked Noah.

He swallowed hard and looked at his feet, shame coloring his cheeks. Shea reached over and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.

Oh. I was picking up that maybe they didn’t have the best parting.

“I punched him in the face and tried to stop him from going. He didn’t say much after that.” Noah’s voice was void of emotion, but I could see how much it hurt him.

“I would’ve done the same to Shea,” I told Noah.

He nodded but didn’t look any happier.

“All I know is the human trafficking struck a chord with him, ever since you were taken like that. He can relate to those families. He asked to be stationed in a way that he could help smuggle the human slaves back out of San Francisco and get them home, but… I don’t know anything else.” Noah’s voice was resigned, but something about what he said had given me an idea.

A crazy idea.

“What if you guys sell me?” I blurted.

Shea raised one eyebrow. “You need your coffee. It sounded like you said to sell you.”

I nodded. “Sell me into the underground trafficking ring or whatever, and I’ll see Lincoln.”

Chloe laughed. “Maybe. Or you won’t, and you’ll be sold to Russia or some shit.”

I shrugged. “Or that, but they don’t know I have these powers. If I don’t see Lincoln, or they try to put me on a boat, I’ll go postal and fly away.”

Noah shrugged. “She has a point. She can fly, and she did stop a ton of bullets with that crazy shield.”

“Then I’m going too. Sell us together.” Shea folded her arms across her chest, readying herself for the fight.

Noah looked over at her, and I fully expected him to tell her how crazy she was being, but he stayed silent.

“Umm, no. I’ll go. We don’t need to get anyone else involved in case this goes south,” I told my bestie.

Tears formed in her eyes and she dropped her hands, balling them to fists. “How dare you! You’re being selfish. You have no idea what you being taken did to any of us, and now you want to leave again! Screw you, Bri!” she shouted, bursting into tears before running into the bathroom and slamming the door.

My eyes were wide, as I stood there with my jaw dropped open.

“Shit.”

Noah placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “You’re her family. You can’t ever leave her like that again.”

That time tears were welling in my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much my talking of going after Lincoln would trigger Shea. Yes, it was dangerous, but it was worth it to me to find my soul mate. But for her…

I nodded and walked over to the bathroom door. We’d had a few fights growing up, obviously. Shea would run off and slam our bedroom door, but when I tried the handle it was always unlocked, like she wanted me to come in after her.

I placed my hand on the bathroom door handle, and I jiggled it. Relief poured through me when I realized she’d left it unlocked, just like old times.

Opening the door, I found her standing there, arms crossed, the look on her face saying she was capable of murder. Shea was a unique creature; when she was hurting, she masked it as anger.

Stepping inside, I closed the door.