The Girl From Above [Ground: Zero, Book 1]

8: Welcome to the Apocalypse, Now Get Some Rest

The room grew eerily quiet. Ryan was suddenly very interested in her shoelaces. She sunk further into the beanbag. The smell of aching oak and mountain air flooded her senses. She figured what Liam said was important, but it failed to register. Part of her yearned to talk to Zack again, if only for the reason that she was tired of straining her neck to look the other magics in the eye.

Harbinger. She had heard that word before, she remembered it meant something bad, yet she couldn't put her finger on it.

Devany's voice cut through the silence like a sharpened dagger. Her cat-like eyes glowed in the night. Carson stood perfectly still next to her, his claws polished by the night sky.

"Liam." Devany said, her hands shook and balled into fists. "I need you to go now."

Liam's gaze remained fixed. His hair held him still in the air like many yellow-green arms. Ryan crossed her eyes to focus on the tendril that Liam had used to point at her. It was thick and pointed, like some kind of whip.

She squinted. Liam's hair wasn't hair at all. Instead, it was made of thousands of tiny strands of grass and gave off the smell of mountain wildflowers.

"Do I need to repeat myself, Devany?" He said. "She's a harbinger. The harbinger. You know what this means, with all the other signs?"

There that word was again. Ryan desperately wished that Liam wasn't so vague. She felt like she was the third wheel at a party of friends who knew all the juiciest gossip and she was the only one left in the dark. Only instead of gossip, it was strange talk of omens and eclipses. Lucky her.

"Oh no, I heard you just fine, but you aren't dragging Ryan into your doomsday conspiracies." Devany said.

It was like all the scattered puzzle pieces of Ryan's brain had suddenly fit together. A chill went up her spine. Harbinger, she had read that word countless times in the library. She knew what it meant, but that didn't ease her thoughts. According to Liam, she was like the grey clouds before a thunderstorm of pain and misery.

Ryan rubbed her face, her eyelids were heavy, and drooped like a leaf laden with heavy rainfall. Somehow, the fact that she was a warning of bad things to come didn't surprise her.

She remembered her aunt once told her if anyone wanted their lives to go downhill, all they had to do was become her friend. Her aunt wasn't wrong, either. Every person she got close to somehow suffered a terrible fate only a few months after she met them. Debt, loss of a loved one, car crashes, terminal illness, anything that might turn a person's life upside down, she'd seen happen to those close to her. As if she were watching a ticking time bomb, she counted the days until they broke the news to her. Forget the apocalypse, she was an omen for people's lives going to hell in general.

The creak and groan of something rocking back and forth pulled her from her thoughts. Ryan glanced up to find a hammock hanging from the ceiling, violently flailing about.

She spotted Dominic. He was wrestling with the hammock, his claws poked holes in the fabric and his wings and tail feathers folded and unfolded like shutter doors on a windy day.

"The damn thing has gone crazy!" He yelled.

Without warning, the hammock spilled over and Dominic fell face flat onto the ground with a loud thump. His wings and tail feathers fanned out. He groaned as he laid still in the middle of the group, stiff as a board.

"Nice entrance." Carson quipped, a smirk painted on his face. "Do you belly flop off of furniture for hobby or sport?"

"Shut up." Dominic replied, his voice muffled.

He hastily got up, his gaze lept between Carson, Devany, Liam, and Ryan. Ryan could see the broken gears turning in his head, as if there was one single brain cell left in his mind that was bouncing off the sides of his skull.

Dominic folded his wings and scratched the back of his head. "Is someone going to tell me what's going on or—"

Carson shoved his hands in his pockets, his glare fixed on Liam. "Liam's gone geek-mode again and Dev isn't too happy about it."

Carson flashed a grin on the word "too," his voice danced and spun around his words with a smug happiness that only someone like Carson could make utterly obnoxious.

Dominic rolled his eyes. "Don't act like you're any better, twit. I'm pretty sure Dev's lost at least half her lifespan since she met you."

"Boys." Devany warned.

"Oh yeah? I'm pretty sure she sees you as the scrawny failure you are, Dom." Carson growled.

"Boys!" Devany yelled.

Dominic's feathers fluffed up. With his scrawny figure, he looked like a tall, dark, and angry chicken. Ryan briefly imagined Dominic clucking and dancing around. She tried to wipe the thought from her mind. She really needed sleep if she was coming up with thoughts like that.

"Oh, I'm the failure? At least I actually try, instead of thinking I'm the greatest gift to all magickind." He pressed his hands against his face and made a fake surprised face, his fangs peeked out from his mouth. "Oh, look at me, my name's Carson! Bow before my arrogant tail feathers or die!"

Devany pushed the two away from each other, the palms of her hand squashed their noses. She bared her fangs, her ears flat against her face. She looked like an agitated cat bracing itself for attack.

"Would you two cut it out!" She yelled. "Stop putting words in my mouth, you birdbrains!"

The room exploded, Carson reached past Devany and tackled Dominic. Devany screamed and grabbed at his shirt, trying to pull the two off of each other, but to no avail. The two clawed and wrestled with each other like rabid dogs, feathers flying through the air like confetti.

Ryan sat and watched the scene play out. Her head was stuffed with daffodils and cotton balls. Her vision blurred, the three magics' bickering turning to nothing but white noise in her ears.

As they bickered in the background, she spotted Liam in the corner of her eye had turned his attention towards her. He smiled and ran a tendril of his hair across her face. Almost instantly, her muscles relaxed. She wasn't sure how, but her senses were suddenly filled with everything good in her life. Musty hand-me-down sweatshirts, dandelions cracking up in old beaten down walkways and the tangy smell of cheap coffee in a rundown tourist trap.

It made her feel at home. Not with aunt in her bed, but home.

"Devany said your name was Ryan." Liam said. "A lovely name for a lovely little girl like yourself."

Ryan hesitated and tried to pull herself up from the beanbag, only to be pushed back down by Liam's hair.

"Oh, now, now, you must be exhausted." He whispered sweetly. "All this new information to process must be scary, yes?"

She murmured softly and nodded. Liam was nothing but a green blur in her vision as he towered over her. The beanbag cradled her as the moon rose further in the sky.

Liam hummed and wrapped his hair around her waist. "Rest now, little omen." He said, his voice lulling her like a lullaby. "Rest while you can."

Ryan's consciousness slipped from her mind and she was swept away by the inky embrace of her dreams.