@aethercal
You use something long enough, his father told him once, and it becomes a part of you. And you get to pick that, Sam. You get to pick what’s a part of you. He’d known, back then, what his father had wanted to be a part of him. A bible, maybe. A helping hand. His father had wanted him to pick up every good thing he found and pass it along, because that was what he had done. At a very young age, Paul Wilson had picked up the good word.
And Sam had picked up a gun.
His father was a preacher. He was a good man. But Sam? Sam was a soldier, and he’d never been sure he could claim to be anything but. He knew how to fight and he knew how to kill and there were days he didn’t know how to do much else at all. He’d picked up a gun, and he hadn’t found anyplace to put it down without hurting people yet. But it wasn’t the only thing he’d picked up. He’d picked up a pair of wings, too. He thought his father might’ve liked that. He’d given Sam a biblical name. He might like to convince himself, were he alive today, that his son was an angel. But Sam wasn’t.
His wings were metal and grease, built to fly him through a warzone. They were dark and heavy things, and they were hard to carry.
They were nothing like those on the back of the man hovering a few feet away from him now, looking just as surprised to see Sam as Sam was to see him. This guy’s wings were feathery, light, natural. Riley would’ve been impressed, he thought with a pang. “Nice ride,” he greeted. “We almost match.”
