Free Blest by Blaise Lucey Page A

hurt.
    Then he blacked out.

7
    Jim groggily rolled around on top of the stiff covers of an unfamiliar bed. Something itched on his back. A lot. He went to scratch his shoulder with his hand and felt feathers. Wings . He had wings.
    “They’re always itchy when they first come in,” a girl said, appearing above him. He blinked against the blinding white light streaming in from a window. The girl’s long blond braid hung over her shoulder. Behind that, he could see a pair of beautiful white wings reflecting the morning sun.
    “Sydney?” he asked. Sydney Lumen was an angel? He wanted to laugh. The number of times Sydney’s group had teased him and bullied him didn’t seem to qualify her as angelic. He sat up and saw that all of Sydney’s usual group was in the room, too. Lounging around on a couch and a chair in a room where the cushions, blankets, and carpet were all cream-colored, as white as clouds. He recognized Leo, Miles, and Nora from school. But now they all had white wings. “You’re all . . .”
    Sydney beamed, helping him up. He rubbed his sore back, but his hand met the wings again: hard bones covered in soft feathers. “This is . . .”
    “Amazing?” Sydney asked. “I remember last year when I got my wings, I was so excited.”
    “Sure, yeah,” Jim said slowly. The words ‘messed up’ had come to mind, but Sydney’s blue eyes were shimmering with excitement. Was she actually excited that he was an angel? She had barely even looked at him before.
    “What happened? At the beach?” he asked.
    Sydney’s face darkened and she walked away from him. “Freaking Shane Morrisey. That’s what happened. I don’t think he would have done anything, but—”
    “He was trying to get Claire to cut my wings,” Jim said quietly.
    Sydney turned around. “That used to be an old demon initiation ritual. Kill an angel to get acceptance. But not here, not on the Field. Not since the Pact, at least.”
    “The Pact?”
    Sydney nodded. “The angels and demons have a truce on the Field right now. We don’t kill each other. It’s been that way for ten years.”
    “Ten years?” Jim asked. “What happened ten years ago?”
    “Whoa, bro,” Leo said, his big face looking up from his phone. “Your dad didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
    Sydney waved her hand dismissively. “Everyone knows Michael Blest is a coward. He’s been trying to forget he was ever an angel. It’s pathetic.” The harsh words wheedled Jim’s ears. She turned to him, her face stony. “We thought you were going to go down that road, too.”
    “Is that why you guys always, uh . . . treated me . . .”
    “Like crap?” Leo asked, grinning.
    Jim nodded.
    Sydney sighed. “You have to understand, Jim, there’s nothing worse than being a Wingless. Humans are kind of ignorant and, yeah, they get trapped in their own tiny, selfish worlds. But Wingless like your dad, they just . . . they’ve given up on their duties in the Endless War. They turn their back on their people .”
    “Most of ’em actually pretend their kids have a deformity or something and get their wings taken out, without the kids ever knowing,” Leo said. “It’s sad.”
    Jim shook his head. “My dad told me the truth.”
    Sydney pursed her lips. “And you chose to be an angel, after all the things he told you?”
    “I just thought it was my choice to make.”
    “You made the right one.” Sydney flashed a smile at him. “Now you’re part of the Pearlton Feather.”
    “Feather?”
    “That’s a group of angels,” she said. “We’ve only had four, but you’ll be five. You know Leo, he just got his wings this summer.” She motioned at Leo, who had one leg up over a futon, his head lying on a pillow as he looked up into his phone. Leo was a big guy with a black buzzcut, a little overweight but with muscled arms and a square jaw. Jim recognized him from a few classes from freshman year. Leo mostly made farting noises when the teacher wasn’t