Galdoni (8 page)

He gave an answering smile. “One day
successful. Most of human life is spent living one day at a time.
We don’t have every hour mapped out for us. It’s what we do in our
unscheduled time that makes us who we are.”

“
It feels unstable, like
there’s too much choice and opportunity to mess up.” I glanced at
the books. “But I think I finally understand what Benjamin Franklin
meant when he said, ‘Those who can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety-‘”

“‘
Deserve neither liberty
nor safety,’” Dr. Ray finished with an approving smile. “Yes,
liberty is bought at a high price, but in the end you’ll see it’s
highly rewarding as long as you learn to spend your time
wisely.”

“
Something that’s never
been my own ‘til now,” I mused. “It’ll take some getting used
to.”

Brie walked in the front door with Jayce
close behind. “What will?”

“
Time,” the doctor and I
said together.

Jayce gave a dramatic sigh.
“Don’t tell me Dr. Ray is catching you on
and
off the clock with his
professional rants.”

The doctor gave him a patient smile. “The
things you could learn if you but had the patience to sit and
listen, Jayce.”

“
I do way too much sitting
and listening in school as it is to hear more of it when I’m home.
Do you want to wear Kale out on his first day?”

“
Jayce,” Brie
chided.

Dr. Ray rose from his seat and patted her
shoulder. “No worries. For a student interested in law, Jayce has a
fairly flippant attitude toward the educational system. We’ll just
hope it doesn’t rub off on his feelings toward true justice.”

Jayce grinned and ran a hand through his
blond hair. “It already has. Why else do you think I plan to minor
in drama? I’m going to need some help acting interested in some of
those ridiculous cases. Justice? More like waa-fest,” he concluded
with a dramatic sigh. He fell on the couch and glanced over at me.
“Speaking of justice, Kale’s been rubbing elbows with Dane
Daniels.

Dr. Ray’s eyebrows rose. “Rubbing elbows?”
He turned to me. “You mean fighting?”

Jayce laughed. “I don’t think I’d call it
fighting. More like Dane throwing punches and Kale redirecting him
to the floor.”

Dr. Ray frowned. “School bullies are
something I didn’t plan on.” He glanced at me. “You managed to keep
from killing him?” His tone was only half-joking.

I nodded. “Dane obviously hasn’t had any
training, and I just let his momentum carry him into a locker. It
was kind-of refreshing knowing I could beat him and not doing it,
if that makes any sense.”

Nikko walked into the room. “If what makes
any sense?”

“
Kale was just telling me
about Dane,” Dr. Ray explained.

Nikko nodded with a concerned frown. “I hope
Dane can be smart enough to back down when he knows he's
over-matched.”

The doctor shook his head. “Lucky for us,
Kale has self-control to counter his lethal training, but I need
the rest of you to act as a buffer between him and the rest of the
school. Dane shouldn’t have been able to get near him in the first
place.”

“
Sorry, Dad,” Nikko
apologized. He looked at me with a hint of awe in his eyes. “But
Dane came looking for a fight and Kale's instincts were to protect
Jayce; he shut him down before any of us could move.”

It was weird to watch Nikko and Jayce defend
me even though I was in the wrong and knew it. My instinct was to
take down an attacker regardless of his target; Jayce just got
lucky, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them that.

Dr. Ray frowned. “You never know what course
of action a bully will take, especially when his pride’s at stake.
Promise me you’ll keep Kale out of his way from now on.”

Brie and Nikko nodded with apologetic
expressions; Jayce sighed as though he had enjoyed seeing Dane meet
his match, but at the doctor’s look, he quickly agreed.

Dr. Ray turned back to me. “Let’s check your
wings. It’s time to change the dressings and I want to test your
range of motion.” He walked to my room and left me to follow.

Brie gave me an encouraging smile. I took a
deep breath and crutched after the doctor. He closed the door and
motioned for me to sit on the bed. I lifted my splinted knee and
turned so that my back faced the doctor.

“
I think we’ve both been
putting this off,” he said as he carefully worked the bandages from
my feathers.

I nodded, my throat tight. I hadn’t let
myself think about what I would do if I couldn’t fly. No matter
what the Academy did to us, I wouldn’t give up my wings for a
normal life. I didn’t know if it was the bird DNA in my blood, but
the call of the wind haunted my dreams.

I gritted my teeth as I felt the doctor
loosen the last of the bandages and lift the padding free from my
left wing, the one that had been shot. I forced myself not to ask
questions and hid a wince at his gentle prodding. He lifted the
wing joint and carefully extended it a few inches. I bit my lip at
the pain and tried to ignore the hope that rose when the motion was
even possible.

“
Mmmhmm,” Dr. Ray said
before he applied a salve and covered it with a new set of
bandages. He then turned and checked the right wing which had been
broken just above the shoulder joint. “It’s been five weeks now,
too soon to know exactly how it’s healing. But the splint’s held
and the bones were set straight before it was bound.” He patted my
shoulder. “Keep them immobile for a few more weeks and I have
reason to believe you just might fly again after all.”

I pushed down the hope that rose in my chest
at his words and forbade it from showing on my face when he
finished binding the wings close to my back. I turned around
slowly.

He must have seen something in my eyes,
though, because he gave a small smile. “You know, it’s okay to hope
just a little, Kale.”

I shook my head. “It’s better to face
reality. Right now, I can’t fly. I don’t want to let myself believe
I might again just to have it taken away.” I clenched and
unclenched my jaw against the rise of emotion in my chest.

Dr. Ray nodded. “As you wish. But our
ability to hope is one of the things that set us apart from the
animals. Looking toward a brighter future can give us the strength
we need to get through our trials.”

I gave him a small, ironic smile. “Well,
fortunately for you, you’re a lot further removed from those
animals than I am.” I motioned toward my wings. “The animal inside
me warns against looking toward the intangible. That way, if it
becomes unattainable, I won’t have thrown my life away for
something I could never have in the first place.”

Dr. Ray tipped an imaginary hat. “Touché.
Maybe between the two of us, we’ll find a happy medium in this
unpredictable world.”

“
I hope so,” I heartily
agreed.

He grinned at me and left. I worked my
tee-shirt back on. The others had set the table by the time I made
my way back to the living room. My mouth watered at the smell of
dinner.

“
Who would have thought a
day of sitting in classrooms would make me so hungry?” I mused out
loud.

Jayce snorted. “Now you know why I’m always
eating.”

“
Yeah,” Brie replied with a
smirk. “But you eat the same amount during the breaks.”

“
Breaks make me hungry,
too,” Jayce said. As if to make his point, he scooped a generous
helping of spaghetti onto his plate, and then doubled it.
“Perfect.”

“
Perfectly disgusting.”
Nikko sat across from Jayce and helped himself to some garlic
bread.

“
Where’s Dr. Ray?” I
asked.

“
He had a class to teach,”
Nikko said with a shrug.

“
And our dad’s working late
again,” Jayce said around a mouthful of spaghetti. “So it’s another
night of ‘kids, fend for yourselves.’ We get that a
lot.”

“
Because there’s not enough
food in the world to keep you fed,” Brie said.

Jayce threw a piece of bread at her and she
laughed.

I found myself watching them, the way they
bantered as if they knew each other so well no one would take
offense. Words like that would spur a usually life-threatening
fight at the Academy. I found it hard to wrap my mind around their
easy acceptance of each other’s faults and idiosyncrasies.

“
Kale?”

“
Yes?” I asked, jolted back
to the present.

Jayce smirked and Brie smiled. “I just asked
if school met your expectations.”

“
Exceeded,” I replied. I
motioned with my fork, a habit I’d unconsciously picked up from
Jayce. “It’s amazing how much you’re taught every day. It must take
some practice to remember everything in time for a whole new day to
start tomorrow.”

“
You think we remember
everything?” Jayce said with a laugh. “It generally goes in one ear
and out the other, then we have to cram it back in for the
tests.”

The others laughed and nodded in agreement.
“The goal is to graduate,” Nikko said. Jayce looked at him in
surprise, and I wondered if they had argued the point before.
“After we have our diplomas, we can start our own lives. This is a
holding point until then.”

My brow furrowed. “But this is your lives.
If you keep waiting for the ‘after’, you’ll miss everything that
happens now.”

Brie nudged me with her elbow. “That’s what
I keep telling them. I think they’ll catch on eventually.”

Chapter Six

The weeks flew by. Galdoni
were being arrested and brought back to the Academy. We caught
every scrap of news about the Galdoni round-up we could find.
Rumors continued about the
A
rena reopening. They released
statements that the Galdoni were a danger to the public and that
they needed to be used for the purpose for which they were created.
Galdoni were considered a national threat, and anyone found hiding
them were prosecuted as accomplices.

Reporters claimed that funds from the Arena
were going to be reallocated toward the building of new city
centers. Nothing surfaced about the Academy’s lawsuit and the
original closing. Even Nikko’s research came up empty. The only
real facts he found hinted that the charges were being dropped
toward some of the major officials, and that the fights were to
start up again soon. It seemed like the drop in gambling and cost
of relinquishing the Galdoni hurt more than initially
projected.

I expanded my studies with Dr. Ray to better
understand what they did to create us. The splint on my knee was
eventually removed, and though I still limped, the doctor promised
that the pain would go away with time.

“
Now about those wings. I
took the splints off yesterday. Have you taken the chance to try
them out?” Dr. Ray studied me intently.

I hesitated, aware that Brie and Jayce
watched from the other couch. A pit formed in my stomach and I
shook my head.

“
Nervous?” Dr. Ray
guessed.

At my lack of answer, he gave a knowing
smile. “Many of my patients are afraid to test their limbs after
their casts are removed. It’s normal. But in your case, it’s the
only way to see if what we did worked. I know you have to do this
in your own time, but try to have some faith.”

I smiled at him. “One of your other
intangibles.”

“
Well then, if you won’t
give me hope, belief, faith, or prayer, you’ll truly have to do it
on your own. Good luck with that.” He nodded at the others and left
the room with a chuckle.

Brie pushed away from the table. “I’m tired
of studying. Does anyone want to get some fresh air?”

My head hurt from all the cramming, and I
breathed a silent sigh of relief that someone else felt the same
way. “Definitely.”

Nikko laughed. “Two weeks of school and
you’re already acting like a student.” He pointed his pencil at me.
“But beware; once you start slacking, it’s all downhill.” He put
the pencil behind his ear and sat back with a biochemistry book on
one knee.

Brie shook her head. “Jayce’s slacked off
for years and he still hasn’t reached the bottom of the hill.”

“
I heard that!” Jayce
shouted from the kitchen. The refrigerator door closed and a can of
soda cracked open. I fought back a grin.

Brie grabbed my hand and headed for the
door.

“
Hey, Kale.”

I turned back in time to catch the coat
Nikko threw at me. I stared at it for a second, horrified that I
had almost left the house without covering my wings. At my look,
Nikko smiled. “Don’t worry about it. We all start losing our minds
after hours of studying. You need to get out. Fresh air’ll do you
good.”

I shrugged into the light trench coat and
followed Brie out the door, my heartbeat a bit louder than
usual.

I had felt myself slipping over the past
week. My dreams were filled with images of flying. Even now, the
wind toyed with my hair as if beckoning me to follow it. My wings
ached, but I was afraid to use them, afraid to find out that they
hadn’t healed correctly; I was afraid to be neither human nor
Galdoni. I had barely slept because of the dreams, but they had
started to haunt my waking hours as well.

Unaware of my torment, Brie slipped her arm
through mine and we walked in the twilight toward the forested area
near the school. A light fog twisted slowly between the trees like
lace sliding through a woman’s fingers. Brie talked about her day
and I let the words settle over me in a soothing balm.