Out in Blue Read Online Free Page A

length from his work.”
    “Understandable.” He watched her work, her hands as sure as a medic who had patched hundreds of wings. “All the way across the continent is more than arm’s length, however.”
    She taped the end of the bandage in place. A dry laugh whispered past her lips. “Devin sent me away from Haven when I turned twenty so I could have a normal human life. I came to Vermont to work for a pharmacist who provides medical supplies to Sanctuary.”
    He studied her face. “No other aspirations? You’re human; you can do anything you want with your life.”
    “I am doing what I want.” She met his gaze, no hesitation in her expression. “The pharmacist lets me help with his donations to the colony. My job makes me happy and gives me purpose.
    “I haven’t found any other meaningful pastime outside of the colonies. I’ve never felt at home in human society. Even people who weren’t blatantly hateful toward demons withdrew from me after I told them about myself. And what’s the point of having friends if I have to hide who I am?”
    “At least you have the option.” He flicked his good wing.
    She shook her head. “Pretending to be someone you’re not is depressing and demeaning.”
    “What about the owner of this property? You called her a friend.”
    “I keep up the pretense of being “normal” for Claire because we work together every day in the pharmacy. She doesn’t know what our boss and I do on the side. She is a good friend, but the boss warned me she’s squeamish about demons. As much as I hate the charade, I don’t want to risk things getting awkward, or worse, between us.”
    “Your boss knows who you are. He must be a good friend, at least.”
    She chuckled and shook her head. “He is, for an eighty-year-old man. He’s a great person. Everything he does for the colony he pays for with the money he should have used for retirement.”
    Wren sighed. “We—Sanctuary, that is—never needed medical support when I was young. My father took care of everyone.”
    “He was a doctor?”
    “No. Has Devin made you aware that some archangels have psychic talents?”
    She nodded, her eyebrows high.
    “My father was a gifted healer. He could mend any sort of traumatic injury in a matter of seconds, no healing fever required. Demon children die occasionally during healing fevers, even if the injury is a simple broken ankle, so he saved many lives, as you and your boss are doing now.”
    Wren paused. Why did he feel so comfortable talking to this near stranger?
    She leaned forward. “You were just a child yourself when you left the colony. Where have you been all this time? No way you’ve been hiding out in abandoned houses for so long.”
    “No. There was a barn, too.”
    Ginger frowned. “Seriously. You don’t look like a hermit.”
    Wren shifted his injured wing as the throbbing pain heightened. “Where is that bottle of painkillers?”
    “They actually helped?”
    “A little is better than nothing.”
    She got up and went to the kitchen area, where she poured a glass of water. As she dug around in the duffel bag, which she must have retrieved while he was in the shower, he said, “When I ran from Sanctuary as a child, I went to the safe house.”
    She handed him the glass and the pills and resumed her perch on the edge of the bed, one ginger eyebrow arched.
    Wren continued after he swallowed and set the water on the bedside table. “My parents had a safe house near the Canadian border that even Lark didn’t know about. When my mother—who came from a wealthy human family—gave up her old life and moved into the colony with my father, she sold her home and used the money to buy the safe house under a false name. Father would fly her up there every year to maintain the place, and they brought me. I traveled on foot when I fled the colony, but I managed to find my way.
    “My parents had stocked the place with enough non-perishable food for three people to live on for some