Page 132 of Even Angels fall
I know what button is on this holo.
I won’t let that happen.
Before he can say a word to activate his holo and turn it on, I grab the dagger that was embedded in his left foot and spears it through his throat.
His eyes bulge out of their sockets and blood spills from his lips as he chokes on his own blood.
My eyes stay on him until I see the light in his eyes drain, and he finally lays lifeless in a puddle of his own blood.
I remove my daggers from his foot and throat and finally give a look to the war ground that is theparvis.
It’s a mess. It’s bloody and there is a pile of bodies on the side of therue du cloitre—cloister street—wings peeking out here and there.
I’m relieved to see that they’re mainly bird wings until I remember the doubt I’ve seen in the eyes of some of Michaël’s guards.
No one deserved to be piled there, no matter what way the madman used to get them to fight for him.
But that pile isn’t the only thing I see. A few bodies fall from the sky, but when I look up, I see that no one is fighting anymore. The few bird shifters that are still up there are fleeing Notre Dame, and the ones that are on the ground are pinned with spears to the ground.
None of the people holding the spears have wings, though.
I feel an arm slide around my waist.
“You’re late,” I tell Elhyor when he kisses the side of my forehead.
“I unexpectedly found friends. Or maybe they’re the one who found me,” is his only answer and I don’t need to ask what he means when I recognize the lady that took overLibérationwhen Elhyor killed their leader.
“Well, I guess it means we’re rebels now,” I say with a chuckle.
“I guess we are,” Elhyor answers with a smile, “let’s go home."
89
Angélique
“How do you feel?” Elhyor asks me when we’re finally back in our room.
I stayed under the shower for a very long time, drowning my thoughts under hot water. Not that I really needed soothing.
I feel numb.
I think I don’t realize what just happened.
Or maybe I do.
I killed a tyrant.
But it’s like my brain isn’t really computing that I killed my father and my genitor at the same time.
I still think he would have done way worse to me if the roles were reversed.
So, why don’t I feel euphoric at the idea I finally destroyed my nightmare?
“Fine,” I answer to Elhyor.
It’s true, but I have a niggling feeling that I should either be ecstatic or ashamed that I killed a man, especially if said man was my father.
I’m unsettled by my mild reaction to what just happened.
