Tales from Stratosphere – Clipped-Wing Angels

August 2067. After her return from Hong Kong, Ghost finds herself in a hospital bed. Her medicines have failed her, causing her organs to rupture. Under the worried gazes of her fellow Angels, she gets to explain the meeting she had with Lucia and the implications of her discovery.

As Ghost woke up from her drug-induced slumber, she slowly managed to open her eyes. Her mind was still trapped in a labyrinth of dying lights and soft, everchanging shapes, her senses dulled and shaken. Yet, little by little, she was returning to reality, returning to the place she had tried to leave behind. She stared at the ceiling, with a sigh that mixed relief and dejection. She recognized it. It was Stratosphere HQ’s medical bay, one she had visited several times. Which, indeed, meant she was somehow still alive. Not the result she had expected, but not one she could complain too much about either. If she was alive, it meant that Lemur was alive. That was the one silver lining of her – their whole ordeal. As her sight became sharper, accustomed to the whitish neon lamps that littered the room, she finally noticed it. Her own face. She could clearly see it. A soft oval, dotted by two deep grey eyes, surrounded by beautiful, slick, neck long jet-black hair. Yet, there was something weird about that face she identified as hers. It wasn’t moving as she thought she should have. Was that a defective mirror? Of course not, nobody would put a mirror in front of a hospital bed – let alone a defective one. Which could only mean one thing.

“… Katja…?”

As the face that looked like hers beamed, she knew she had guessed it right. No mirror, no video, no magic show trick. Just plain old Lemur. Her beloved twin sister. Which, for once, was sporting a different expression than annoyed by design. She was smiling. That was kind of upsetting. Katja… pardon, Lemur, smiled sparingly and almost only to get lucky with a guy she met during one of her rare nights out. She was, by all definitions, a true man-eater: None of her boyfriends lasted more than one week, before being dumped, dumping her or being summarily executed by Ghost herself. Lemur wasn’t even mad at her for that (she had to know about it first to be mad, after all), but indeed wasn’t one to smile often. Only once, Ghost realized, she had seen her jump around like an excited rabbit – the one time she told Lemur how she was going to date a guy. Which ended up with said guy needing the help of a troupe of paramedics and Ghost in tears, sitting alone on a bench in the park, consoled by her sister with words she kept close to her heart, right until she had to go back to HQ. That made that awkward situation twice as puzzling. Lemur. Smiling. No, it had to be the effect of the medications, no way she was really smiling at her. They both had forgotten how to do that, back during the bombings in Sarajevo.

Still, the more she looked at her, the more she had to accept that statistical weirdness as her reality.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, sis.”

Lemur’s voice broke the spell, or, if possible, made it seep deeper into her. Ghost liked her sister’s voice, better than her own. It was pretty similar, but Lemur’s was slightly higher pitched, more pleasant to listen to. Which was a blessing, since she was the most talkative of the two, being able to strike a conversation with anyone, while off duty. Everyone except Ghost, that is, but they didn’t need to talk – their senses, their bodies, were always connected. Talking was completely unnecessary. And yet, this time, Lemur was addressing her, with a warmth in her voice Ghost hadn’t heard in years. She was right near her, sitting at the side of her bed, still donning her white camo outfit, body armor included, as if she had been on the frontlines till not long before. Ghost felt her hand on her cheek, felt her soft touch behind the heavy glove. She jerked, startled by that unexpected sign of affection. Then, she realized her situation. Her body, her mind still healing, after her breakdown.

After having tried to kill...

“… Lucia! Is Lucia still alive?”

“Lucia? You’ve really met Lucia?! How’s she?”

“Pray, give her a little room to breathe, Niva-chan. She’s clearly in need of some fresh air and some solace. You shall be able to question her later.”

Those two voices didn’t belong to her sister. One sounded way too young, with a marked Indian accent. The other way graver, more solemn, and had almost no inflection, in a perfect exercise of diction. The first voice belonged to a very short girl, with brown skin and brown hair, a small red dot on her forehead, between her hazel eyes, her body still in the process of fully developing. The second voice was that of a tall woman, with flowing black hair, almost touching the floor. She was wearing make-up with black brush strokes, creating delicate butterfly wings on her cheeks, on her black-tinted lips, around her equally dark eyes. Their outfits couldn’t be more different either. The smaller girl was sporting a ripped brown cape, gauze and bandages wrapped around her arms and legs, with no actual wound to mend, as her fingers and toes peeked out of that weird mummy-like arrangement. The taller one was instead clad in a sort of ceremonial furisode – a long sleeved kimono. In her waking stupor, Ghost barely recognized them – but barely was enough. The short girl was Nivandra Rajaam, the Sixth Angel. The other was Miho Teruchigawa, the Second Angel. She shook her head, as her vision was still hazy. She had to still be dreaming – those two being there didn’t make sense. They weren’t close to her or anything. They weren’t Lemur. So, why…?

“Wouldn’t leaving her alone make her recover faster?”

A third voice, monotone, yet not fully unpleasant, almost free of intonation. A voice that belonged to another woman, sitting on the other side of the room, with her neck-long platinum hair crowning her even paler skin, as her ice-blue eyes sat unmoving on the bedridden Ghost. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, her legs crossed too. She was wearing a swamp-green tank top and camo pants, heavy leather boots and black gloves. Her right forearm was littered with small scars, all in the shape of a cross, all of slightly different sizes. Those scars were too many too count, might as well have been two or three dozens. She was slightly younger than the tall woman in a kimono, but every movement, every word, every gesture made her look ancient in comparison. Something about her mimic evoked a robot, a machine shaped like a woman, but not quite – a being skirting the uncanny valley between a human and an automatic system. Yet, her gaze, her eyes, had a weird spark inside, something that was hard to qualify.

“Pray tell, how shall that work? Human beings don’t function like that, Nagase-san.”

Miho didn’t seem all that pleased by her interruption, a tip of anger had poured out of her lips, together with her words. The response didn’t wait a second longer, again in that monotone voice, albeit with a hint of curiosity.

“So, having a group of acquaintances standing around you and reducing your influx of oxygen speeds up your recovery after a massive organ rupture? Acknowledged.”

That weird remark caused both Miho and Lemur to shake their heads, almost at the same time. That woman was the First Angel, Nadia Nagase, the Deathbringer. And, yet, she seemed to miss many basics of being human, with her mind working in bizarre ways. Rumor had it that she had spent one whole afternoon watching a grandfather clock’s pendulum swing left and right, without uttering a single word, only to feast on chocolate as soon as she realized that – indeed – it wasn’t supposed to stop. A weird specimen, even among them, someone most other Angels didn’t know how to deal with, if at all. Miho, among them, lacked the patience to stand her antics.

“Why are you even here in the first place, Nagase-san?”

Nadia didn’t even look at her, kept her gaze on Ghost, while showing something that might have been interpreted as slight discomfort, on her mostly expressionless face.

“Nivandra stated that it was necessary for me to be here. I assumed that was the will of Mr. Greschnik and complied. It turned out that it was instead her personal request. Still, going back to my lodging would have been a useless waste of energies. Addendum: There is something I need to tell Ghost, so there is at least one reason for me to be here.”

Ghost was staring at the small crowd gathered around her bed with even more confusion than before. The First, Second, Fourth and Sixth Angels… all there for her. That must have been a first. She tried to force her arms to move, to help her stand up. Yet, the commands of her brain seemed to be slowed down, or even interrupted, as she felt it hard to even raise a single finger. The words from Nadia echoed in her brain. Massive organ rupture. That sounded terrible, that shouldn’t have happened. Yet, that was exactly the reason why she was lying there, on that bed inside Stratosphere HQ’s medical bay.

Because her death suppressant failed to trigger.

On her trip back from Hong Kong, she suddenly felt her body exploding, being chewed inside out, breaking down, blood pouring from every orifice. She reached for her medicines, desperately consumed the last pill, but without effect. Her organs kept tearing apart, as the personnel on board of the Stratosphere jet tried to help her, to administer first aid to the best of their efforts.

Yet, as she felt her ears ringing, as her sight turned black, as shapes started fading and distorting in a dance of hypoxia, she collapsed, in a dreamless sleep, with her last thought going to Lemur.

Hoping she wouldn’t feel her pain.

When she opened her eyes, she was in that bed, surrounded by four other Angels, all somehow interested in her state of health. Something she didn’t expect, something she hadn’t taken in consideration. Yet, there were two conspicuous absentees. The new Seventh Angel, who was probably still being taught about her Gift and sparring with Del Toro and Renka, and… and…

“… where is Yu?”

The atmosphere changed, as that name left her lips, the mood darkened. Lemur clenched her fists, her fingers pushing hard against her palms, stopped only by the thickness of the gloves. Nivandra fell silent, Miho too. Nadia’s expression changed imperceptibly, as she rested her cheek on her hand, after tilting her head slightly.

“She’s being schooled by Mr. Greschnik as we speak. That was what I came to report.”

Then, as if something snapped inside her, she squinted her eyes, her mouth distorted in what could only described as a hint of disgust.

“Addendum: That bitch deserved it.”

Which caused the other four people in the room to blink in disbelief.

“Nadia…?”

“Nagase-San?”

She suddenly seemed to realize that something had gone extremely wrong with her countenance, quickly returning to her reassuring, emotionless self.

“Correction: The Fifth Angel Yu Vampyr is culpable of having subtracted death suppressant from the Third Angel Ghost, causing her sustained damage and physical pain, in order to force her to abide by her will and make contact with the previous Seventh Angel, Lucia Lunarossa. Yet, the cause of Ghost’s sudden illness is to be ascribed to a defective stash of death suppressant pills, according to our medical experts. It is up to debate whether the defective pills were also part of Yu’s schemes, but no conclusive evidence has been collected so far.”

Ghost’s mouth fell agape. Not only had Yu blackmailed her into hunting Lucia, she might even tried to get rid of her altogether? That was difficult to believe, even more difficult to accept. There were no friends among Angels, but that was a line that nobody had ever crossed. The torture she was subjected to was already something that Greschnik would have never allowed. Yet, the alternative felt much scarier. If Yu didn’t sabotage her supply, that meant that death suppressant might fail to stop the trigger. The thought scared her to no end. If every time she took a pill there was a chance the effect was weak or none at all, it wasn’t much different than being at the mercy of fate. She scanned the room, the visages of all of those gathered there. Each of them must have thought the same. Each of them must have realized that, if death suppressant was flawed, what happened to Ghost could repeat without any warning. That was what had moved them to go and visit her: Anyone of them could have been at her place, if that was the case. An existential threat, something that undermined the core idea of being an Angel. Thus, believing that Yu was behind it was easier to stomach, despite its ugly implications. Yes, it had to be Yu. No way their only means of survival could backfire. Yu was it, the filthy scum that sabotaged her supply. Yes. There was no other possibility.

“That bastard.”

Lemur gritted her teeth, punched the bed frame.

“She did that because I wasn’t around, right? In our Tokyo HQ, no less. Torturing my little sister to do her bidding?! I wish her one thousand deaths and I hope Mr. Greschnik is spanking her hard, now! I swear, next time she’s holding a concert for a Stratosphere PR event and I’m appointed head of security, I’ll be sure to aim my Duke Leto at her masked-ass face and accidentally pull the trigger! I hope she knows that she ain’t sturdier than a chaingear!”

“I… I can still fix her.”

It was but a whisper, but everyone heard it. The deep, calm voice of Miho Teruchigawa had flinched for an instant, causing all eyes to fall on her.

“Miho?”

As Nivandra’s voice reached her, she quickly shrugged as she hadn’t said anything, went back to her usual aloof manners.

“Nothing. It was nothing.”

Ghost gazed down at her bed sheets. Of course, Yu had tortured her. Lucia had been correct in her assessment. The Fifth Angel had taken away her death suppressant right when she needed it, causing her extreme, lacerating pains that weren’t possible to ignore. Somehow, she had got wind of her promise to Lucia, the promise to find her if she needed help. Yu was jealous. Felt jealous about her and Lucia sharing something. She had told her that, plainly. She was the only one entitled to other people’s feeling. Ghost would have liked to kill her, to smash that wicked smile of hers, rip that mask from her face, smash her teeth. Yet, she had caved in, because of her biggest strength, her biggest weakness. Synchronicity. Whatever pain she felt, Lemur would have felt it too. If by chance Lemur had felt her discomfort and rushed to Tokyo, she would have suffered her same symptoms. Ghost couldn’t allow it. Ghost couldn’t let her risk her life like that. So, if the choice was between Lemur and Lucia, the decision was clear: Lucia had to die.

But was she actually dead? If not, was she ever going to forgive her?

Ghost felt her breath accelerating, her heartbeat too. Lucia… Lucia was having the time of her life, back there. True, her shape was strange and she had changed a bit, but the way she talked freely, the way she felt in control of her own destiny…

Suddenly, she remembered about it. The medicines, the small box she had given her. Why? Lucia knew Ghost was there to kill her. So, why give her that gift? How to be sure of its content? Could she trust her, especially after having betrayed her? What could she do? And…

“Question: Have you really met Lucia, Ghost?”

Nadia’s direct inquiry didn’t allow her to avoid the topic for much longer. Ghost tucked herself under the bedsheets, her arms finally following her brain’s commands, albeit very clumsily.

“I’ve met her, yes. She was in her… how do I call it?”

“Fleabag form.”

Lemur’s remark made Miho chuckle, hiding her smirking lips behind her slender hand.

“No, not that one. The… the one where she looks like a hybrid between a human and a wolf?”

“Oh, the furry porn movie form?”

Once again Miho had to stop herself from wheezing, as Lemur interjected with her deadpan tone again. But then, Nivandra’s curious gaze lighted up, as she heard those words. She started tapping her index on her lips, trying to make heads or tails of what she had just been told.

“What’s a furry porn movie?”

“Answer: A movie explicitly filmed to cause arou…”

“NO! C… cover your delicate ears, Niva-chan!”

“But I’m already seventeen!”

“You are just seventeen!”

“And? I’ve already killed five people!”

“This doesn’t mean you are mature enough to know what furry porn is!”

“And how do you know, Miho?”

“T… that’s because…”

“Stop it.”

Nadia’s voice. A tombstone on their bickering, with a little bit of annoyance – maybe due to how Miho had decided to shut down her factual explanation of the term requested by Nivandra. In the silence that resulted, Nadia addressed the bedridden girl once more, to put the discussion back on rails.

“Ghost, go on. I acknowledge the noteworthy remark that Lucia wasn’t in her base, human form.

That would mean she has remained in her hybrid mode for the past three months, which isn’t something I’ve ever seen her doing. The question is how she managed to survive this long. Where did she get the death suppressant?”

“That’s…”

I don’t need it anymore. I’m free .

“That’s something she didn’t want to tell me.”

Nadia nodded, as if that was the answer she had expected all along.

“Acknowledged. We’ll inspect our supply chain to identify possible avenues through which she might have got access to it. If there is indeed a mole, we need to find them ASAP.”

Ghost bit her lips. Why did she tell a lie? Why didn’t she say what Lucia told her? That felt wrong.

Was that a way to cope with her betrayal? She didn’t know, she couldn’t understand herself. In effect, what she told wasn’t even completely false. If Lucia didn’t get her death suppressant anywhere, it was as good as not telling anyone where she got it, Ghost rationalized it. That was it, she hadn’t been disloyal. That was the truth, from a certain point of view. Yet, she could tell something else, to feel less guilty about her lack of commitment to Stratosphere’s cause.

“Lucia wasn’t alone, though. A big sharkman was accompanying her everywhere. Golden skin, emerald eyes, pecs for days. Very well spoken and intelligent. A dangerous one, he kept his tabs on me the whole time we sat inside that cafe, drinking tea together.”

“Was he her boyfriend?”

Miho and Lemur stared at Nivandra with a dead gaze, blinking a couple times, incapable of figuring whether the short Indian girl was playing coy or she was just starved for spicy anecdotes she felt robbed of because of her age. Yet, Ghost couldn’t help but notice that she had asked herself that selfsame question too, with a touch of bitterness. Not that she was interested in the shark, not at all (aside from some healthy curiosity about his biology), but the fact that not only Lucia was living her best life but also having such an impressive partner left her at least a little bit jealous of the runaway Fallen Angel. Miho came to her rescue in no time, evidently startled by the amount of concerning questions Nivandra was asking.

“Niva-chan, these are not details you shall ask Ghost-san! And why so much interest in boyfriends, pray tell? Do you intend to follow a path of depravity and become a filthy man-eater wench like Lemur-san?”

Lemur groaned at that low blow, gritted her teeth.

“At least I’m not a Christmas cake like you!”

Miho was left petrified, as Nivandra started staring at her, as if to ask what does a cake have to do with this? . Before she could even open her lips, though, Nadia’s voice broke the stalemate once again, with something akin to slight amusement seeped deep into her plain, calm tone.

“Fact check: Miho is twenty-seven years old and neither married nor engaged, while Lemur is still twenty-three. Lemur’s statement is factually correct.”

Which led Miho’s face to become as pale as white ceramic and Lemur to almost choke in laughter, under Ghost’s and Nivandra’s perplexed gaze. Lemur had not simply retorted – she had chosen violence. Her first instinctive reaction would have been to remark that getting laid for the first time might have helped Miho get a little less stuck-up, or, at least, fix her holier-than-thou attitude of Pure Woman in her late twenties. Then, she remembered that both Ghost and Nadia had never had a boyfriend, let alone a one-night stand, putting the three of them in the same experience basket as Nivandra. Which brought to her mind how much Ghost had cried after her first (and only) date, on that bench in the park. Not wanting to drive the knife through that still open wound, she had decided to direct her stab at her main opponent, avoiding as much collateral damage as possible. That had been a full score, A+ with flying color, much to Miho’s chagrin. Lemur, though, couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her previous line of attack. Among the Angels, she was the only one who had several partners and intimate experiences with them, even two or three at the same time. It was her coping mechanism, something that let her survive the life of a broken bird in a cage and forget her daily woes, at least for a bit. Yet, she couldn’t say she didn’t like it – it was still enjoyable to learn her boyfriend-of-the-week’s life story. Their mutual nightly tango was something that greatly improved her mood too, a moment she prized every time it happened. Yeah, no other Angel was as consummate as her in the art of finding a partner. Ghost was still untouched, but might or might not have experienced some of that passion through their synchronicity trait – which was maybe the reason why she didn’t feel the need to find a significant other. Miho was as pure as a chrysanthemum flower (her words). Nivandra was not yet of age. Nadia was aromantic and asexual, or so it seemed from all circumstantial evidence collected through their time spent together. If Nadia truly craved for human contact, she showed it with the same enthusiasm of a washing machine. Lastly, Yu was laser-focused on a guy that rejected her years before, with the same energy of a stalker, while keeping herself ready for him to be her first. Which left only Lucia and she as outliers. Lemur wasn’t really up-to-date on Lucia’s experiences, but she definitely had some in her time before becoming an Angel. If she had started dating a buff handsome sharkman in the meanwhile, that would have deserved at least a small round of applause – if anything, compared with the abysmal performances of her former colleagues in fact of romantic relationships. Ghost watched with slight amusement as those three bickered in front of her, with Nadia seemingly enjoying the chaos and even hinting at something resembling a smile. That was such a peculiar, rare sighting: Nadia kept the same icy, calculating demeanor for ninety-nine point nine percent of her daily life, only to be struck by sudden yet rare sparks of emotion. And yet, she didn’t seem to accept it, almost apologizing to herself every time she showed a smidge more humanity than usual. Ghost closed her eyes, inhaled, exhaled. Her body had been repaired, everything was in working order again, but, despite those moments of levity that brightened her mood, cleansed her mind from her nightmares, that dreadful feeling of impotence remained with her. The feeling of not being able to do anything, while her organs were breaking down, while her lungs were collapsing, while blood was pouring from all of her body. Dying, realizing she was dying and not being able to prevent it. Slave to drugs only Stratosphere produced. The chain yanking to her collar. The boundaries of her world.

I don’t need it anymore. I’m free .

She still couldn’t believe, couldn’t accept that. Yet, that moment on the jet plane, a terrible accident that most likely had nothing to do with Yu, despite what everyone wanted to believe, had been a horrible wake-up call. If their medicine began to fail, all of a sudden, all Angels would simply die. All except Lucia. She fidgeted with her bed sheets, as her mind kept mulling over that realization. The pills Lucia gave her… it was a risk to trust her blindly, but was it a bigger or a smaller risk than dying because of a batch of faulty death suppressant? That was something she couldn’t conclude yet.

Then, it dawned on her, the point she didn’t have time to elaborate on, the reality she didn’t want to face.

Lucia was probably dead.

She had killed her, with that motion octopus.

The person who gave her a chance to survive lay motionless under the rubble of a cafe in Hong Kong. Even an Angel had a breaking point. A point blank explosive was not something anyone could shrug off – not even Nadia, let alone Lucia. She shrunk in her bed, all of a sudden, curled, her knees pressed against her chest, her eyes empty.

“… I killed her. She died. Lucia died. And… and I did it just because…”

A hand on her shoulder, a hand wrapped in a military-grade glove. Lemur’s hand.

“Sis, I feel it, you know, right? Your sadness, I mean. I’m… sorry. I wish you told me about that masked bitch before… before…”

Ghost – no, Rebecca – found the strength to raise her gaze, to face her sister. It was Sarajevo once again, sitting in the rubble, eating stolen loaves of bread while evading soldiers, hiding together, supporting each other, sleeping in turns to keep watch at night. Rebecca. Katja. Lemur.

Ghost. Never separated, never again.

“Lucia isn’t dead.”

Nadia’s voice broke the spell, stopped her trip down memory lane, with a dry, concise statement.

She waved her hand a couple times, before resting her chin in its back.

“A small explosive device like that could take out Nivandra, Yu and you twins – no questions about that – but Lucia’s resilience, especially in her mixed form, is on par with Miho’s and mine. She was most likely badly hurt, but I can’t see the potential for life-threatening wounds.”

She snapped her fingers, without averting her gaze, still wearing her seemingly emotionless expression.

“Addendum: Remember that she survived the collapse of the building that killed Renka and was able to sneak out of Tokyo that same evening. To dispose of her, you should have carried some demolition dynamite, not a motion octopus. Those are perfectly fine to get rid of Lemur’s boyfriends, though, so I understand why you might have a surplus of them. Suggestion: Next time, use three of those and wire them together to explode when the first triggers. You’ll dispose of your remaining stocks way faster and you will get some interesting light effects out of them.”

At that remark, Lemur side-eyed her sister, with a puzzled expression.

“You didn’t…”

To which Ghost, knowing lying was useless against her, simply replied by curling even more, hiding under her bedsheet while her cheeks blushed.

“O… only a couple times! And not to those you really liked! I swear!”

Lemur shrugged, smiled softly, while patting her head.

“Oh, well, don’t worry! I’d probably do the same, if you got lucky half as much as me. Imagine being on guard duty and feeling your sister banging her new boyfriend every other week.

Sometimes I wonder how you’re still standing me, Becky. You’re waaaay more patient than I would be in your shoes. What’s your secret?”

Ghost’s voice squeaked from under her bed sheet fortress.

“Moving two city blocks away every time I feel you getting excited.”

“Only two? Jeez, I didn’t expect our bond to fall off so quickly with distance!”

“If it didn’t, I’d be ruined.”

They suddenly broke into laughter, feeling each other’s quiet, relief, amplifying it, sending it back to the sender, in a loop that made them both cry tears of joy, incapable of stopping.

“Stop it, Becky! Stop laughing! I can’t…”

“What? You need to stop it Katja! I… I…”

The burst into laughter again, while hugging each other tenderly, under the confused gaze of three other Angels. Slowly, the hilarity died down as Ghost wiped Lemur’s tears off, while her sister did the same to her.

“You idiot, you know what happens when we are so close!”

Ghost puffed her cheeks, while still trying to keep her residual urge to laugh again in check.

“You too, but that didn’t stop you!”

“Okay, visiting time is over.”

Nadia stood near the bed, her arms crossed. Lemur and Ghost could take a good look at her scars, that constellation of stars carved on her right forearm. Her mantra. One life. One scar. Each of those was a person whose life she had personally ended.

“Lemur, Miho, Nivandra. Please, leave the room. Mr. Greschnik is waiting for us for a debriefing.”

The three of them fell silent, nodded almost in unison.

“Ghost. You stay here and recover until at least 18:00 sharp. The doctors want to run some additional tests on you. His Holiness will step by later. I believe he wants to ask for a recount of the Hong Kong events personally and inquire you about Lucia’s whereabouts.”

Again, that weird inflection. If Nadia wasn’t the emotional void they were sure she was, the way she had said His Holiness might have contained hints of sarcasm. Which might or might have been granted, since all of them used to call him like that – abiding by his preferences – but none of them considered him like a real god. Greschnik was a highly dangerous individual, though, and there were rumors that he had even survived a high-altitude helicopter crash unscathed, even before starting the Angel program. Said individual, a man child with too many millions in his bank account and too many properties around the world, was also the one person who could make their lives a living hell, if he wanted.

“Get back in shape, sis! I need you on the field!”

Lemur waved her hand at her, still having a hard time not starting to laugh again. That had been therapeutic for both.

“I’ll be there in no time! Just wait for me!”

As Nadia drove all of them out, she stood on the threshold for one long instant, before performing a military salute.

“Your services are very much appreciated, Ghost. Please, be sure to recover soon.”

Then, as she said that, she finally left the room, leaving Ghost alone. A veil of melancholy fell on her, as silence became her only companion once more. She had enjoyed that bickering, that little bit of camaraderie. They had talked more during that last twenty minutes than during their whole time together as Angels. They needed her almost-death to get tighter as a group, instead of a bunch of solos without connections. She wondered if they would have been able to go all together to a cafe, once, drinking some tea, chatting about stuff that had nothing to with work. She pictured Nadia staring at her mug, trying to understand whether she was supposed to drink her tea hot or cold, Lemur talking about her second boyfriend of the week, Miho covering Nivandra’s ears, while trying to divert the topic on a piece of theater she liked, Nivandra fighting Miho’s grip to talk about guys she found hot with Lemur, prey to her teenage awakened hormones. What was weirder was that her mind picture included even Yu, standing at the side, watching her phone and streaming their meeting on her socials, while complaining that her beloved Seu didn’t follow her feeds yet… and maybe Lucia too, still in her half-wolf shape, licking her paw’s back while talking about the latest Mezzalenco collection with her, with Rebecca. Not Ghost. Rebecca. The girl who died in Sarajevo.

It was a nice picture, one she hoped she could see realized at least once, in the future. Though, she knew wishes didn’t come true, especially the impossible ones. She lay down again in her bed, hugged her pillow, squeezed it. No, her dream was hopeless. It was way more likely that one of them died in the next two years, leaving back nothing but ashes in an urn. She closed her eyes, hoping for Morpheus to grant her some peace.

And that she could still find something to enjoy in her sheltered life, before the inevitable came.