Damsel[ed]: Rescue Required (#3 of the Damsel[ed] Series)

Chapter Nine: Rescue is Part of the Job Description

Hev.

"H-h-el... p?" 

I'd slung my mother's armor over my shoulders, gripping her gloves so tightly the armor's metal plating gashed my skin. They held a faint trace of vanilla and polish, faded from years of disuse. My heart clenched up in my chest. It was undeniable; my mother was Nebula. And for a few moments, I didn't want to return what had been given to me. My inheritance. My mother died in it, so I should have it.

Then came Angel's muted scream, still just as raw, still just as distinct as it had been when he was thrashing through the air as he tumbled down, down, down by the windows of Death Tower.

My superhearing, to keep me sane, filters out what I don't want to hear. It's a trick that took me years to hone. But now, I close my eyes and let the mental barrier down. A quietness settles over my mind. I hear the creak of pulleys, the murmur of tenants, the hum of electricity as it surges to hundreds of apartments. A thousand heart beats, a thousand pulls of breath. "I low-key think I got a one hundred on the test."... "Naw, man. You're an idiot."... "What do you want to eat?"... "Uggggh....school."..."I love you, Jessa."..."My daughter? What the hell do you want with her?"... "Pretty simple. I'm surprised Fallout hadn't ordered us to do it before."...  "No more treaty, no more rules."... "Help!"

The distant smell of smoke draws my eyes open, and then I'm running toward the elevator where Angel's scream mingles with Jaylin's and the thump of his wings resounds through me with such clarity its echo rings under my skin like the strike of a tuning fork. I'm hurling myself through the hall, elbowing through copper doors without as much as flinching when they crumple around my form or crush against the dark walls of the elevator shaft. There's an eerie smell of lilacs and cotton candy come the farther I drop, but to me, all that matters is saving Angie and Jay before they paint the elevator's insides an alluring shade of red. "Hey!" I shout, my body becoming a missile as I free fall. "Guys!"

The screaming cuts off, forms taking shape around me. Angelos, bent backward by the weight of his own wings, with his waist bridging and his knees and elbows knobbed forward. Jaylin, so pale she glows against Angel's crumpled form with her ear pressed to his chest. I swoop down, a muscly arm catching around my friend's waist, letting his weight bring the bone clicking downward in its socket so I don't bring his tumble to a stop as I spiral to the ground. Jaylin heaves, her voice a rasp of a scream. "Gass!"

"Jimmy these doors open, wontcha?"..."What's goin on in there?" A pink mist fizzles around me, making my head spin and my eyes droopy. I hold my breath, a perk of having bigger, better lungs that work in high altitudes. Angel's gone all limp and still, his eyes shut and his short, shaggy hair fanning out around his head. When his chest doesn't move, I lift his head and elbow him in the stern with just enough force that will, hopefully, open up his airways without breaking a rib or two. One, two, three, four, rescue breaths, so quickly, he's gasping, choking up a chalky pink powder that dusts the floor. I slap him, once, twice, but he's out, his breathing quick and shallow.

"Bastards," I growl, sparing a glance at Jaylin whose sprawled on her hip. Colors have begun to take shapes behind my eyelids, thick and sprawling. A bird, a house, a boat, a sea, crashing and swelling into fuzzy little crawling creatures. Purple and green. The smell of peach sherbet. I teeter on the toes of my tattered sneakers. Angelos, hefted over one shoulder, Jay slung over the crook of the opposite arm. Fingers have crept through the doors, edging them open with a low creeeak that pours a milky, artificial light across Angel's curled body. He groans, raising a meek hand that latches onto my shoulder with the painful tenacity of a leech.

"Get out of here, girl," says a man I can't quite see, his towering form casting a dark sheet of shadow over the elevator floor. When I squint, I make out the squareness of his body, the thickness of shoulders and the silhouette of sagging jowls that sink against the chest, all of him cast in a black, watery hue because of the dark of the basement.