Veined (A Guardian of the Angels Novel) by Anyta Sunday

was covered in bird shit. I figured it was a pretty harmless way to get one on Attic without ruining his friend’s car.
    I locked the car and headed up the drive. Every step the guilt grew. It was true Attic got under my skin, but tonight he had made sure I was all right after my hallucination. And he didn’t have to lend me the car. In fact, from everything Maddy and Marcus had told me, I got the feeling he really shouldn’t have left it with me at all. It also wasn’t his fault he had to leave before answering any of my questions. Plus, he did promise to tell me everything.
    I headed back to the car. Dad’s cruiser wasn’t in the garage, so I drove the Porsche in front. It jerked to a halt and the angel hanging on the rearview mirror twisted, turning its back on me. I froze, staring at it. The wings were the same shape as the tattoo on the torn body. I shivered at the memory, about to look away, when something else caught my eye.
    I grabbed the angel and switched on the car light. Where the two wings met was a ring with interlocking spirals. Exactly like my mark. Just a strange coincidence. It had to be.
    Suppressing a shiver, I hung the angel back up. Jeez, I’d gone through so much weird stuff tonight that my mind was jumping to even weirder conclusions. I really needed to sleep.
    I entered the house. Nobody was home. Dad was no doubt hard at work, and Mom and Jeffrey had a parent-teacher evening. I hung up my jacket. The frames on the bookshelf glittered in the evening light coming through the stained glass in the door. I glanced at them. The picture of me had gone. Probably fell down the crack at the back.
    I didn’t care enough to retrieve it. The evening kept replaying in my head. I shuddered, shut my bedroom door, and opened the window. I didn’t care it was cold. This way, I felt less enclosed.
    My bed creaked every time I tossed and turned, irritating me to pieces. Each time my eyelids closed, I saw gold. I jerked them open again. My brain, pulsing with questions and hypotheses, was not helping. He’d better explain tomorrow.
    Close to midnight , I’d had enough. Abandoning the bed and breathing in the fresh fall air, I slipped on some jeans, a sweater and black sneakers. Maybe walking would be the best medicine. I tugged my sleeves over my hands, holding the cuffs with my thumbs, and stalked out into the night. I didn’t have a particular destination in mind, I was happy to let the breeze make the decision for me.
    The wind pushed from behind, massaging my back, and my mind relaxed with it. It was only halfway up the hill I realized where I was heading. Foxtin was a small place, and there was only one lookout point. I briefly contemplated turning back, but the air felt so inviting, like it encouraged me to co ntinue. It was almost a whisper. When I paused, it pushed me harder from behind.
    I let it lure me to the top.
    It was dark except for a sliver of moonlight and the speckled lights of the streets in the valley bellow. Three parked cars, separated by large and equal distances, crowned the bald lookout.
    Allowing an extra perimeter of space, I passed behind the first car, its windows steamed up. The second car was empty, as far as I could tell without looking too hard, so it would’ve been safe to take the pedestrian zigzag path in front of it, down to the valley.
    A heap of red and yellow leaves sidetracked me, twirling a few meters to my left, gracefully dancing toward the other end of the parking lot. I watched, fascinated, and hardly noticed I’d followed them until they stopped moving and I was only a few meters from the third car. 
    I didn’t know what possessed me to do it, but I looked inside.
    The driver’s door was slightly ajar, making everything in the car light up. As clearly as if I’d been sitting across from him in the school cafeteria, I saw Attic. He sat in the passenger seat, leaning towards a blonde woman. She flicked out her tongue and ran it down his throat. He grabbed her