Wings (A Black City Novel) Read Online Free Page A

hospital. I gently take his hand.
    “You don’t have to come in with me,” I say. “I know you hate these places.”
    My mother and Dr. Craven held Elijah hostage in their laboratory in Black City and experimented on him. It was his venom they used to create the Golden Haze, which killed several teenagers in Black City and resulted in my mother being sent to prison, so obviously Elijah’s not a big fan of hospitals. Or Dr. Craven. Or my mother.
    His gaze drops to my hand, which is still holding on to his. “Anything for you.”
    Guilt coils up inside me, and I move my hand away. Hurt flickers across his face. Elijah confessed he had feelings for me a few weeks ago, when we were traveling to Thrace, and we’ve both tried to pretend like he never said anything, but it’s always lurking in the corners of our friendship. He holds the glass door open for me, and I enter the hospital.
    Everything inside the ward is clinical and white, apart from the green door at the end of the room, which leads into Dr. Craven’s laboratory. The ward is filled with all sorts of machines that whir and beep, and whose sole purpose, I’m certain, is to give me a migraine. Rows of metal beds line both sides of the room. Standing by one of them are my parents, who are in the middle of an argument.
    “I’m not going to discuss this again, Jonathan,” Mother says tersely. She’s painfully thin, with sharp cheekbones, pale skin, and black hair that is neatly pinned up into a chignon.
    “She was my daughter too,” Father says in the stiff I’m-trying-not-to-shout voice that he uses when he’s
really
mad. “I raised her as if she were my own flesh and blood.”
    I’m still caught off guard by the sight of my father. Until nine days ago I thought he was dead, so it’s taking a little getting used to, having him back in my life, especially since the man standing here now isn’t the one I remembered. Father used to be classically handsome, like a movie star from the old films my sister and I used to watch, with a strong chin, mischievous blue eyes and an easy smile. He never smiles now, although it’s probably not easy for him to do after the Wrath mauled his face.
    I was with him when he was attacked, and his wounds were so severe that it seemed impossible Dr. Craven would be able to save him. So when my mother told me Father died, I’d
believed
her. I didn’t even question her when she refused my request to see his body, saying it would be too traumatic, or why she demanded a closed casket at his funeral. I’d just assumed she didn’t want people looking at his mutilated face. In reality, my father had been stabilized by Dr. Craven, and then secretly transferred to this facility to be nursed back to health, while we buried an empty coffin.
    It hurts that my parents kept this enormous secret from me, but I understand why they did it. My father was considered a traitor of the state, so it was safer for all of us if he just stayed “dead” while my mother continued working for Purian Rose as if her loyalties were still with him. To a point, they were; I know she agrees with his segregation laws. But my mother’s first loyalty is to this family, as I came to realize months ago when she confessed she only agreed to Purian Rose’s plan to infect Darklings in Black City with the Wrath virus, because he threatened Polly and me. She’d ally with whoever is most convenient to us at the time. Right now, that’s the Sentry rebels.
    “Siobhan, we can’t keep putting this off. She’s not coming back,” Father says.
    To my surprise, Mother lets out a pained sob and crumples against my father.
    “I can’t do it, Jonathan, I just can’t,” Mother gasps between sobs.
    Father wraps his arms around her. I’m stunned at how broken my mother looks. I’ve only ever seen her like this once before, on the day she was sent to prison. She hasn’t spoken to me about what they did to her there, but I’ve heard the rumors: torture, sleep