Daredevil’s Run

Prologue

It started the way it always did, with the dream of waking up in the darkness, of being afraid, terrified. Heart racing, pounding, sweating and shaking, wanting to cry but knowing he was too big to cry. He didn’t want to be a baby, did he?

He didn’t cry, he didn’t. But his chest and throat hurt as if he did.

Then the noise. Terrible noises-things crashing, breaking, thumps and bangs, voices yelling…screaming. A man’s voice yelling. A woman’s voice screaming.

There were other voices, too, small frightened voices-not his!-whimpering, “Mommy…”

And finally…finally the other voice, the one he’d been waiting for, praying for, soft as a breath blowing warm past his ear. “Shh…It’s okay…it’s gonna be okay. I won’t let him hurt you. Nobody’s gonna hurt you. You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

He felt safe then, and warm, and when the loudest noises came, he crouched down in the warm darkness and waited for the crashing and banging and screaming and yelling to stop and the lights to turn on, so bright they hurt his eyes. So bright he woke up.

“Wade-Wade-”

Mattie’s voice. Mattie was standing beside his bed, poking him, shaking his arm.

“Wake up, Wade. Wake…up!”

“I am awake. Stop poking me.” He glared up at his brother’s face, just a dark blob in the darkness of their room, and scrubbed furiously at his eyes. “What’s the matter? What did you wake me up for?”

“You were crying.”

“Was not.”

“Yes, you were. I heard you. Did you have a bad dream, Wade?”

“Maybe. So what?” He was the older brother, after all. “Big deal. It was only a dream. Go back to sleep, Mattie.”

Mattie’s shadow didn’t move, just went on standing there beside Wade’s bed. A small voice said, “I can’t. I’m all awake now, too. Can I get in bed with you, Wade?”

Wade let out an exaggerated breath, but the truth was, he didn’t mind. “Okay…but you better not kick me this time, or I’m pushin’ you on the floor.”

He scooted over and Matt lifted the edge of the blankets and crawled in beside him. For a few minutes Wade lay still, listening to his brother’s uneven breathing, feeling the warmth of his body drive away the last lingering chill of nightmare.

After a while, he heard a whisper.

“Was it the pounding dream, Wade?”

Wade’s voice felt gravelly as he answered, “Yeah.”

“And…did he come?”

“Did who come?”

“You know who. The angel. The boy angel.”

After a pause, Wade said on a long breath, “Yeah…”

“I knew it,” Mattie said, wriggling down into the pillow with a yawn. “He always comes when you need him…”

A moment later his breathing became a soft snore, and a moment after that, Wade, too, was asleep.

Wade dialed the phone from his hospital bed. He closed his eyes as he counted the rings, but it didn’t help to shut out the image of his brother the way he’d last seen him, making his way slowly and awkwardly through his apartment in his wheelchair.

The rings stopped after only two, surprising him. Always before when he’d called, it had taken at least six rings for Matt to get to the phone.

“Man,” he said, “that was fast.”

“Cell phone,” his brother said. “Who’s this?”

“It’s me-Wade. How are you, buddy?”

“Hey…Wade. Wow-been a while.”

“Yeah.” He gritted his teeth against a double whammy of pain waves, one from his leg, suspended in a sling and swathed in surgical dressings, the other in his heart. Pure guilt, that one. “Listen, about that-”

“Forget it, bro. It’s cool. I understand. So…how you been? Bad guys keepin’ you busy?”

Wade laughed-tried to do it without moving anything that might hurt. “Yeah, well…I guess I’ve been better. But hey-that’s not why I called. I’ve got somebody here who wants to talk to you.” He paused. “You sitting down?”

“Oh, yeah, funny. Very funny. So who is it? Hey, don’t tell me. You got married?”

Wade looked at the woman standing beside his bed, reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly. “Not quite,” he said in a voice gone raspy with emotions he knew better than to try and hide. “Not yet. Soon though. We want you to be there. And I promise you, man, you’re gonna love her. No-this is…” He paused, looked up at the other faces bending over him, and muttered half to himself, “Jeez, I didn’t think this was going to be so hard. Uh…Mattie? Remember those nightmares I used to have? I told you about ’em, remember? There was this voice-you said it was-”

“An angel. Sure, I remember. I was a kid-what can I say. So? What about it?”

Wade took a deep breath and grinned up at the man standing poised, his face a mask of suspense that didn’t come close to hiding his emotions, either.

“Well, little brother…guess what? He’s real. And here he is. In person.” His voice broke, and he barely got the rest of it out as he handed the phone over to Cory. “Mattie, say hello to our Angel. The brother you didn’t know you had.”