Angels, Part One

The pain pierced through me before I heard the gunshot. I screamed and fell to the ground, clutching my side.
"Fuck. I have to get up. Fuck."
I tried to get up. I did, but my legs wouldn't respond, the pain was too unbearable. It hurt so much.

And the last thing I remembered, before I passed out was a man picking me up and running. I tried to look at him, I tried to take in as much of him as I could, but everything was blurry. It was so blurry that I was imagining wings on the man's back. And then I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a room. It looked small, and the walls were covered in bits of paper. They were drawings of people, people with wings.
"Don't move. You aren't strong enough yet, and I'm afraid you might undo the stitches if you do." A voice murmured in my ear. Male. It must be that man that saved me.
"Who are you?" I asked as I turned to face him.
"My name is irrelevant right now. We will talk later, when you have more strength. For now, sleep." He replied, and threw some dust over me. I felt my eyelids getting heavier. Maybe it is best if I just listen to him, for now.

When I awoke again I was in a small cabin, obviously made for couples. The guy that saved me had put me on the bed, and he was sitting on the loveseat, watching me.
"You're awake. You've been sleeping for a while. I thought that may be you had died on me." He chuckled.

In this light, he looks absolutely gorgeous. Dark brown, maybe black hair, beautiful light green eyes, the lips that looked like they belonged to a model. Like I said, gorgeous.
"What's your name?"
"You might want to be careful; I had to wrap one of your wings so now they're out, like they should be. And the bullet hit you pretty hard, but doesn't worry; it didn't hit any of your major internal organs, so I removed it. Just be careful when moving for the next week or so."
I wish he would just tell me his name. I just need to know his name.
"Who are you and what the hell do you do? Why save me?"
I was getting a bit frustrated now because he had turned around to look out the window. I looked out too.

No matter how many times I see the world like this, it always scares and surprises me.
The earth had been burnt to ashes a long time ago. And now things were starting to grow back. But it still looked like the earth was dying.
"I think you know why I chose to save you." He turned away from the window and looked at me.

"It's because of what I am, isn't it?"
No need to answer that though, that's the only reason that anyone chooses to help me.
I'm an angel. Not one of those stupid spread God's word type of thing. They don't exist, everyone knows that. I am an angel, I have wings and grace and I can get up to speeds that no human can ever reach. There were only a few angels left, 7 to be exact. One for each element. One for earth, one for fire, one for air, one for water, one for light, one for dark, and me. I control each element. Every angel will always be able to control each element when they are young, but as soon as they get their wings, they will surpass in one, and only one, element. Except for angels like me. We can control every element; we are stronger than the others. Back before the war, an angel like me would control every other angel. I should be in charge, a Queen. But I'm not. Any angel that is caught now will have their wings pulled off and their eyes ripped out so they won't ever be able to wield their power again properly. With no eyes, you can't see where to aim, and no wings means no powers. That means we would be turned to a human. The lowest of low.
But that hasn't happened in years, because as angels, we know who to avoid. Usually.

"What do you do? Are you a tracker?"
He snorts and looks at me as if to say, 'as if! You would be dead by now if I was.'
Now that I think about it, that's true.
"No, your blood would be across all the walls and your eyes in my hands if I were. No, I am a Savior. Well, I used to be; now I am just a nomad, trying to find angels like you."
Oh, that explains a little bit.

A savior was someone who dedicated their entire life to protecting and saving their angel, or any other angel they see that is in need of help. Generally they stick to the one angel, but all the saviors have either been killed now, or they are hiding. I haven't come across one yet. Until now. Because being a Savior is one of the most important jobs, and not many people are good enough to become one. Saviors are given the gift of immortality as soon as they graduate from the sav training facility. So basically, if they pledge to help angels, and not turn to the other side and become a tracker, they are given to gift of immortality.

"Where is your angel?" I asked. He should be guarding his angel, not pulling bullets from angels he doesn't even know. But I have to admit, it's nice once in a while to have that happen, so you don't have to go to the trouble of having to do it yourself. At least this way I wasn't conscious.

He turned back to the window and looked out it for a few minutes. I didn't pressure him to answer. Everyone knew, never pressure a sav - what as us angels call saviors - into answering any questions. They deserve more, and some of them have had difficult pasts.
"She was killed. We were getting chased by some Trackers and they had an immobilizer on them. They shot it before I could act. I ran to her to see if she was still breathing, but before I got to her they shot her 3 times. Once in the head, twice in the heart. She was only 12. Her element was fire. She was so young."

I could see the hurt in his eyes. I immediately felt the guilt too, I shouldn't have asked.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't of asked." I whispered, feeling so damn guilty now.
He looked at me with his beautiful green eyes, and I swear I felt myself melt.
"Not your fault." All the emotion in his eyes I could see before, the hurt, everything, was gone. Not a trace on his face.

Wow, he was good.
"Hurry up and eat, your food is on the table" he ordered, pointing to the table just across from the room.

I got up and walked over to it and sat down and slowly started to eat the food. I didn't recognize what it was, couldn't even taste it. I just sat there staring at the wall, eating my food and thinking about that girl. 12, that was so young.
So god damned young.

She would've only just got her wings, just specialized, and then they took her life. That was wrong. Unfair, uncalled-for. What would they do if we walked into their houses and started to shoot al of their young kids, made the parents watch while we shot their kids in the head, slowly, one by one. And then shoot them too. Or, on the off chance we were feeling really cruel, shoot the parents and then kill every kid but one, take the one survivor and torture them.

I immediately go back to the night that the Trackers came to my house. I remember I was in the dining room with my Mum, Dad, older sister, younger brother and my Uncle. The came bashing on the doors and windows, yelling and screaming at us to open the door and let them in. Dad said no and turned to us, he said that no matter what happened, we had to get out of the house and run. Get as far away as possible and survive on whatever we can find. I then remember a big bang and realized that they had smashed the door in. I remembered screaming and not being able to stop. My Uncle ran to the front door and started yelling at them to leave us alone, saying to them that none of us were angels, but the Trackers knew this was a lie. They knew none of this was true. They knew what we all were. My Mum, older sister, Dad and I were the only ones who had wings, we were the only angels. My uncle had a different mother than the one my mother had, so he wasn't completely an angel, on half. Sometimes half angels get wings, but most times they don't have wings, they usually only had enhanced skills, faster and stronger than humans. Like my brother.

The Trackers shot my Uncle, right in the head, in front of all of us. We all saw him hit the floor, with the bullet in his head. Mum screamed and started to run over to him, but Dad held her back, we all knew if she ran to him, she would be killed too. The Trackers ran over to us and pinned us all against the wall, making sure none of us could escape. We were all stuck there like caged animals in the zoo, and there wasn't anything we could do about it.

They killed Dad first. A bullet straight into the middle of his head, not a centimeter off. Then Mum. They pushed my brother and sister and I in closer together, and then they shot my brother in the head. And my sister. They were about to shoot me too when one of them said to leave me till last, he wanted me to see what happened if angels wouldn't do what they said. They went over to my Mum's body, they held her up by her neck, pulled her shirt off her, exposing her wings. My Mums wings were a beautiful light blue, like her eyes. One of the Trackers yanked out a handful of her feathers and laughed, spitting on her. Another one of them called her a whore, a prostitute and said that they should take her to their HQ and do what they usually do. I knew what they were saying, even at 14 years of age. They were going to rape her, for their own amusement. I screamed insults and curses at them until one of them finally took notice of me, the one that was obviously in charge of the squad. He walked over to me and asked me if I wanted to end up like my mum, dead. I screamed at him, calling him a wanker. He laughed at me and walked off to his squad, obviously planning what to do with me.

I knew the one thing I could do to get their attention was to insult them, call them the one thing I could never call a Tracker. He turned around and glared at me, asking me what I called him. When I didn't reply he spat in my face and yelled at me, saying that I wasn't as tough as I tried to make out. He turned around, barked out some orders at the other trackers and walked out the room, smashing all the family photos. He stopped on the photo of me, mum, dad and my sister with our wings out. We were all smiling, and my brother was laughing.

I remember when we took that photo; it was the day that we had a picnic. It was right before they bought in all the Trackers and angels were allowed to go around their houses with their wings out, not having to worry about getting killed for being different. I shook my head, trying to clear out all the images of my dead family for my head for now.
"You okay?" He asked.

"I would be if I knew your name" I replied.
He stood up, grabbed a black backpack from the floor and walked over to the door.
"C'mon, let's get out of here before someone catches us." He didn't even look at me to see if I was following, just walked out of the door.

I figured that if he was good enough to pick me up off the ground and risk getting killed by the Trackers, he was good enough to follow. For now.