The Talon Family Bloody Snow Part 2

The Talon Family

Bloody Snow

January

Draft_2

By: Chase L. Currie

 “Why did you make me come along?” Raphael asked.

                “Because I like torturing my brothers.”

                “That’s the truth.”

The small jet hissed through the sky heading far north to link up with the U.S.S Antenora sitting in a sea of ice and then sending them to Neptune’s Hall. It was a couple of hours flying time to the ship, and they were in the deep of it now. There seems to be a nasty storm hanging over the base for days which had Gabriel was worried about, but Paladin knew what they were doing on this mission, or she hoped.

                She glanced over to her younger brother thinking of how much he looked like their father. His face was long like his runner’s body, his hair a dark blonde almost brown like her father’s but his eye a darker blue than her like their mothers. He had the same nose as Michael, long a little big but fixed perfectly on their faces while she wore the nose of her mother, short and pointed. She smiled at him happy to have him sitting next to her. She had great friends around the world but her best friends, the people she loved the most was her family. She never grew tired of them, irritated at them sometimes, but never tired of having them around. The family was all that matter to her.

                “What?” Raphael asked sitting on his phone not looking over at her.

“Nothing,” Gabriel said. “Is everything alright?” She asked after a moment, “You been acting a little wired.”

“Everything is fine,” he said, “just like being alone, sometimes.” Something else he shared with their father.

“Yeah but you are always alone.”

“Gabe,” he said being the only person allowed to call her that name, “I’m fine, and I don’t want to talk about it. You try to make me talk about anything I’ll jump out of this plane.”

She grins. “Fine, we’ll sit in silence the whole time.”

“Sounds fantastic.”

It wasn’t a full minute before Gabriel asked, “It is Helbis? Are you still upset at her?”

Raphael sighed and growled, “No.”

“I mean I would understand if you were.”

“I’m not,” he said trying not to sound like he was lying.

Gabriel stared at him for a long moment as he stared back hoping the lie took hold. “Fine,” she said.

“Thank you, now ---”

“Then what is it?” She asked. “What is going on with you?”

Raphael was about to tell her the truth how he found out their mother was one of the world’s greatest assassins and killed more people than he could count. Not to add, she was the reason Helbis mother was killed. Their lovely mother gave Helbis’s mother enemies the location to find them. He was about to say he couldn’t stand it anymore knowing all he knew and wanted nothing more than to get away to start his own life, but there was nowhere to go, and he was stuck in this family. He was stuck in this life he didn’t ask for at all.

So, the best thing for him to do was to give his sister a little what she wanted. “I got rejected from all the colleges I was trying to get into,” he said turning back to his phone. It was not a lie and sadly, the truth.

“Oh,” Gabriel said. “How?”

“Well, they don’t like homeschool kids even if they are from one of the world’s greatest minds,” he told her, “and I bombed all the entry exams.”

“Really?”

“Turn out I’m really bad at taking tests,” he explained. “I freeze up and my mind goes blink, some kind of stress for tests taking, I don’t know.” He didn’t like thinking about it at all. He has been in all kind of combat zones before, fought people he wanted to destroy the world countless times, and never once second-guess himself, but asked him to say ‘B’ or ’C’ on a test and his chocks up. He stared at the letters wishing someone was shooting at him instead of testing his mind. And then, the frustration washes over him like a river of self-doubted because he knows the answer, just can’t recall it on the test. It was as if someone walked into his mind picked up the answer and ran away with it. If he was asked after the test what the answer was, he could give it to you in a heartbeat but couldn’t put it to paper.

He wondered if this was how Michael felt trying to read. His little brother was plagued with learning disabilities and couldn’t read well or write either. Sometimes, on bad days, Michael had a hard time spelling his name, but he had the strength of a truck and a silver tongue to boot. It must have been the way he got Sesily to date him, to fall in love with him.

Another think Raphael seemed to long for in his mind. He needed another girlfriend or like his little brother had and not a girl to make out with, something a little more than all his other girlfriends. He longed for love but couldn’t have one with the insanity of his life. He would have been alone until he found a way out from all of this craziness.

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said.

“It is what it is,” Raphael said typing away on his phone to some girl he knew back home.

“When we get back I can help you study if you need it,” she said.

“I’m good.”

“You are going to take them again?” She asked.

“Not for a bit,” he said. “We have more important things to deal with anyways.”

“I guess so,” she said.

The jet cut through the sky like a silver knife being tossed by God, and they sat quietly for a while until Raphael asked, “You like doing this?”

“This?” Gabriel asked.

“Being a hero, being an agent of Paladin?” He questions. “You know not having a normal life?”

“I didn’t for a while,” she said with a shrug, “and then I remember what mom uses to say all the time when I hated being stuck.”

“Which was?”

“Honey,” Gabriel said sounding scary close to their mother, “don’t wish your time away, God has you right where he wants you.”

“That helped?”

“After the Atlantis thing,” she said with a nod, “it really did. I’m not happy how we got our powers, but we have them, and God is going to use them for good. So, might as well be happy with it. We can do some real good in the world.”

“You are starting to sound like Michael,” he replied.

“Yeah we---” a sharp beep from the cockpit cut her off pulling her eyes down to the radar and making Raphael sit up. “Huh, that is wired.”

“We are close, but no one is talking to us,” he said. “Maybe, the storm is messing with their equipment?”

“Maybe,” she said, “let’s see if anyone is home.” She cut on the radio called out to the ship with her callsign and waited for a moment. She repeated the message, but nothing came back. She glanced over at her brother not sure what to do next and said it one more time. An eerie nothingness came back over the radio to them.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” Raphael said.

“It would be our luck,” she told him taking control of the plane to land on the ship.