Icarus Bleeds by Annabeth Leong

Author:Annabeth Leong [Leong, Annabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-62234-105-4
Publisher: ForbiddenFiction
Published: 2013-06-26T22:00:00+00:00

I returned to the bedroom later with a big saw and a bunch of tools. Icarus flinched at the sight of the equipment. “Relax,” I told him. “This isn’t for you.”

I worked fast and hard, relieved at finally having a way to express my anger. Bookshelves seemed weightless as I shoved them out of the way, rearranging furniture to expose the Eastern wall. One deep breath, and I plunged into it.

In a real house, inside Central City, I could never have cut through a wall with nothing but a handsaw, but this wasn’t a real house, and we sure as hell weren’t among the privileged. The flimsy wall succumbed to me so easily I wondered how it had stayed standing so long.

“What are you doing?” Icarus gasped as he watched me fling rotten wood and nails into the little piece of yard below our bedroom.

When I was younger, I’d cared about things like that, paying extra to have grass below my window instead of another alley full of discarded things and people. I had changed, and there remained no sign of the flowers I used to grow. The lack of pavement hadn’t stopped anyone from using the space as a garbage dump, and I’d have to go down, clean it all out, and cut back the overgrown grass. Any number of disgusting things could be lurking under those long fronds.

The big hole I was making highlighted another benefit of my place. It stood a little taller than the neighbors’ places, which I’d wanted so I could divide home and shop. I hadn’t even looked through the window in years, but now that I was knocking down the wall, I felt free, and just slightly above it all. It wasn’t Central City, but in my youth I’d been able to pretend it was.

“You need more space,” I told Icarus. He came to stand beside me, gaping, but I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t tell him the fantasy I had, that someday those goddamn wings would work and he could fly in and out of our house, swooping off to wherever he wanted through what used to be a wall.

I thought I was old and jaded, but when I remember moments like that with Icarus, it seems like back then I didn’t even know what jaded was.

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