Chapter 5

A secret meeting held at Control Thanksgiving night while Dark Angel was in recovery: “This is a meeting to discuss Dark Angel’s medical condition, present are her parents, the Paladin’s Clint, Dire Wolf, and Bohica, as well as Doctor Gordon, with myself Doug Woods presiding as head of PR here at Control. Doctor if you will give us your report, Please,” Doug said gravely.

“I’m Doctor Gordon as you know, I was the one working on Angel when she came into the ER,” The doctor sighed before continuing, “When she was brought in we applied general anesthesia, like we normally do. I will state for the record, she must never again be put under not even in a hospital. Apparently she does have what Control calls a host and guest form, but something we think her subconscious, or maybe even something deeper maybe what some people refer to as the lizard brain, holds her in her guest form because whatever it is seems to understand that if the host form emerges she will die. We had to fight just to keep her alive long enough, to counteract the general.”

Everyone looked at the Doctor in shock, Dire Wolf finally managed to ask “What is wrong with her host form?”

“We know the host form is locked into what it will be when the transformation takes place. Apparently Angel’s transformation happened somewhere, “ Gordon swallowed before continuing, “between her second or third impact with the ground after getting thrown from the car. Her host form was locked in with such injuries, that the best trauma team’s in the country couldn’t have kept her alive with them. As near as we can tell from the injuries, she hit the ground face first and slid at least six feet before she started rolling. By that time her face was torn apart down to the skull, then when she started rolling she broke her arms, legs, and her spine in multiple places.”

Di whispered, “Oh my God, is there anything we can do about her host form?”

Gordon shook his head, “Not at this time, no.”

Doug looked around before asking, “Anyone have any ideas on how to handle this.”

Samuel, Angel’s father said, “This only happened under the general right, and once you countered it she reverted back.” Gordon nodded his head yes. “Then I say we let her continue like she has been, just put a note in her medical file about it. Lets make sure she never finds out,” Samuel continued with obvious pain in his voice”

“All those in favor of Samuel’s plan say Aye,” Doug said.

Everyone responded with “Aye.”

“Okay then Doctor Gordon add that note to her medical records let this be the last said of this, until or unless we have to reevaluate the situation. Meeting adjourned,” Doug finished with a sigh.

The only sound you could hear in the room was a mother crying for her little girl that could never be again.

I woke up to the sight of a tile ceiling, glancing around I could tell I was in a hospital. My mom was sitting in a chair in the corner, she looked like hell. I tried to call her but all that came out was a croak. Mom jumped up grabbing a glass with a straw, she gave me a sip of water.

After wetting my mouth and throat enough to talk. I asked, “Mom, what happened? Last thing I remember was being in the street.”

That is when a nurse bustled in, “Good, you’re awake,” She said “The doctor will be here in a minute to let you know what’s going on.” She began to take my vitals.

The nurse was still there, when a really good looking man, I mean soap opera good looking walked in “Hello, Angel I’m Doctor Gordon, How are you feeling,” He asked.

After taking an inventory of myself, I told him, “Other than my side aching I feel okay.”

“That’s good considering, you had a through and through gunshot wound, right above your left hip joint,” he said pointing to a spot on himself, “Luckily, it didn’t hit anything vital. While your healing is faster than a normal humans, it wasn’t fast enough with the amount of blood you lost which is what caused you to pass out.”

“Does anyone know how Dire Wolf and Fang are doing?” I asked. “I hope they are okay.”

The doctor just shrugged, but Mom smiled and said, “Dire Wolf said she would come by and see you once you were awake.”

That was a load off my mind. Even though I remembered seeing Fang before I passed out, I had still been worried about them. After the doctor left, Mom and I watched some TV while waiting for Di to show up. Green Acres was on, so we had a good laugh even though it made my side hurt. Right at the end of the show I saw the door move, and suddenly had Fang half on my bed licking my face.

The door continued to open as Di stepped in, “I see he found you, Fang get down,” she said laughing. Then she turned serious asking, “Do you remember what happened, last night?” I thought about it and then told her what I remembered.

“Okay, let me tell you what happened from my point of view.” She paused thoughtfully before saying, “When I got the call, I headed to your house, but something didn’t feel right so I stopped my van around the corner and got out before sending it on auto drive to your driveway. I got to the corner and looked around it, just in time to see my van explode. Are you with me so far?”

“That explains why you weren’t hurt,” I happily said to her.

She nodded, then continued, “That’s when things went sideways, from my point of view. You exploded through your living room window, flew across your yard so fast you actually ripped up the ground, did a flip right before you hit the van making it flip over three times, I saw him shoot you and the blood fly. Then you looked at him and screamed before he went down, and you started towards where my van had been and collapsed in the street.”

I looked at her and Fang, before saying, “I was so worried about you two, all I could think about was seeing if y’all were okay, as soon as I saw Fang I knew you were that’s when I passed out.”

Di just nodded, “There are some things we need to talk about back at Control. Like the fact you screamed at a man and turned his brain and other organs into mush, we need to find out if you can control that or if it was a result of you being shot,” she said before hugging me.

I was mortified, “I K-KILLED SOMEONE!” I yelled before curling up like a baby and crying. I felt my bed move, Fang had jumped on my bed and lay pressed against me.

Dire sat on the edge of my bed and ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry this happened to you so young, I was 25 before I killed someone in the line of duty. It was The Slasher, a serial killer. I killed him defending myself when I caught him with his last kill. What I’m trying to say is if you’re going to be a Paladin, you may have to kill again at some point to defend others.”

I heard what she said and it helped, but I wasn’t sure yet how much. Maybe talking to my dad would help. So I asked Mom, “Can you get Daddy for me?”

I laid there quietly, waiting on my dad. All I could think about was that I had killed someone. I mean yeah, I had killed deer for food but this was the first person I had so much as injured much less killed. During that time Di said, “Fang and I’ll see you later we still have things to do tonight.” Fang gave me a lick before jumping off the bed as Di held the door for him.

I was still staring at the wall when Dad walked in. He held me for a few minutes, “I’m glad killing doesn’t come easy for you, baby, it never should. But don’t ever hesitate if it comes down to defending yourself and others to do what you have to. This time you had no idea if Dire Wolf was alive or if they were going to attack the house next, and you had been shot so you did what you felt was needed. You were right, don’t ever doubt that baby girl.”

I felt better after listening to Dad, I knew I would. Dad handed me my Control phone. I had left it on the coffee table, “You’re supposed to get released in the morning, after that you are to go to Control for a briefing. Your mom will be here in the morning with some clean clothes for you to wear to the meeting,” he told me, giving me a big old Daddy hug.

Dad left after that so I went back to watching TV. Supper was a dry meatloaf and bad tea yuck! Later I tried to go to sleep, but every time I dozed off a nurse came in to take my vitals. Morning took forever to arrive, Mom showed up right after the sun did.

“Hi, Mom did you get some sleep last night?” I asked as she came in, carrying my oversized purse.

“Not really, but better than before, here are your clothes,” she said while handing me my purse.

“Thanks Mom,” I said, “Now I just have to wait for the doctor to release me.”

Breakfast was as bad as supper if not worse, who wants limp bacon and runny scrambled eggs. I suffered through it but told Mom, “The first thing I’m doing when I get to Control for my briefing is stopping at the cafe for real food.”

Mom laughed, just as the doctor walked in, “Hi Doc, you here to spring me from this popcicle stand?” I asked him with a smile.

He checked my chart and then took my vitals before saying, “Well, according to these numbers I am, I’ll get the paperwork started while you get dressed,” he said with a grin.

I went into the bathroom to get dressed, coming out right before the nurse came in. She handed Mom a handful of paperwork showing her where to sign. Once Mom had signed everything she said to us, “Okay you’re free to go, normally we would have you taken out in a wheelchair but you won’t fit in any of the ones we have, so you get to walk out.”

As soon as we walked outside, the first thing I did was spread my wings, that felt so good. I hugged my mom, getting ready to take off to my meeting. I guess I was feeling a bit paranoid, I took off straight up as fast as I could until I was out of missile range of the ground or tall buildings. I kept more of an eye out for helicopters than normal as I flew across town to Control. Once there I used what Clint called my Stooping Hawk maneuver, it is where I fold my wings back and dive at high speed towards my target. I aimed at the helipad on top of Control.