“You once did the courtesy of saving me from myself. I need your help again.” His voice, thick with emotion, charged the air.
I stared at him, not wanting to ask the inevitable.
“What have you done this time, Hadrian?” I whispered.
“Not me. Him.”
My eyebrows knit together questioningly. I opened my mouth to ask, but Hadrian saved me the trouble.
“Lucifer.” Hadrian’s voice nearly broke on the last syllable, his eyes searching my face. “He’s coming for us.”
I shivered. My room faded slightly. “What did you say?”
“The one I have renounced as my brother seeks revenge, not only for the control I have tried to take from him, but for what I have become of late.” My brain stumbled over his words, trying to process them. Was it possible that a greater darkness had indeed washed over Hopewell?
I had been contemplating a lot of things lately but nothing this frightening. Lucifer wanted to take over the corruption Hadrian had started … and then finish what I had started. Which was getting rid of Hadrian.
As unsettling as it was to have Hadrian stay with me while I worked his words through my head, it was also comforting my fear, and I was eventually able to get a little rest. When I woke, I was alone and realized that sometime during the night, a startling clarity had settled over me.
I needed two angels.
Simply allowing myself the guilty pleasure of feeling something for Hadrian was ripping me in half, literally. I swore Hadrian still had a soul, that he could be helped, and I didn’t want anything to happen to him. But each and every time I felt myself being pulled closer to Hadrian, I felt the knife slicing me and Garreth apart. Even now, my feelings for Garreth were still so fresh. The fact that he was turning into something else couldn’t erase my love for him.
And I missed him desperately. To make matters worse, I still had Brynn to worry about. Somehow, I put myself in this position. Torn in all directions.
Maybe I deserved this?
I slogged my way through the first half of the school day. Taking notes, smiling here and there, appearing as normal as I possibly could.
During lunch, Ryan and I agreed to meet under a large spruce on the corner at seven-fifteen that night. Dinner would be long over. Brynn’s wonderfully original topping bar would be praised for the umpteenth time and cleaned up by then. Probably by me. The evening would unwind, Brynn would grow restless, eager to meet her friends for the night and Ryan and I would perform our first act of breaking and entering. Really, what kind of person was I becoming?
Fate seemed on my side today when I encountered Emily in the same bathroom around noon. I had uncurled the wire from my spiral notebook in the bathroom stall and inflicted a nasty tear in my tights. Emily was mortified when I emerged sporting a run the size of the Andreas Fault line and a dead cell phone. She promptly encouraged me to borrow hers to call home for a replacement. While she was busy lint-rolling her own pristine pair of hosiery, I made a quick text to Brynn’s phone about the party tonight. The one her friends were planning without her. I was hoping this would buy me and Ryan some time. Brynn would be vying to win back her position as head snob, while he and I rummaged through her house in search of the journal.
I crossed my fingers that it would work.
By the time the eighth period bell rang, I had decidedly set my brain into action mode. First and foremost, I had a ruthless beeyotch plotting to do me in and I needed to fight back. My angels would just have to wait, so I pushed my thoughts of them to the back burner and began to plan.
During my free period, I headed outside to clear my head and made myself comfortable on the bottom bleacher of our football stadium to mentally map out this evening’s heist. I had been a guest in Dr. Dean’s home only once and I was having trouble remembering the layout.
That’s when my hand started going crazy.
The energy crackled high above my head, filling the air around me. I could feel the pull yanking me in two separate directions and turned my head to locate the chaos. Half of the football team out for practice was huddled near the far gate speaking to someone through the chainlink fence. That someone was Garreth. My Garreth. Even from the distance that separated us, I could see he had changed in the time that had lapsed since his authoritative hallway appearance. He seemed huskier. His hair was longer, which I suppose was normal, but he had a wildness about him that seemed to accompany his unkempt appearance.
Suddenly, it felt like the universe slowed, pausing for a moment. The guys continued their banter, seemingly unaware. But I felt something. And so did Garreth. His blue eyes found mine and only he and I were in motion. My spine tingled. There was recognition but no warmth.
After feeling guilty about projecting Hadrian back into my reality, I spent hours planning what to say should Garreth and I come face to face. Well, this wasn’t exactly what I imagined, but it was close enough. All the questions, the thoughts I had prepared simply melted from my mind as I stared back at him.
And then the air stirred again.
I looked into the cool breeze. Beneath an elm at the opposite end of the school’s property stood a tall, lean figure in black. I shook my head, mouthing the word “no,” which fell silently from my lips as my books slipped soundlessly from my lap, my papers scattering beneath the bleachers.
By the time I exhaled the breath that had been lodged in my lungs, they had already crossed the field to each other. Derek Arnold was still and confused as he looked from Garreth, then back to the fence he had just been on the other side of. I made my way down onto the field, not sure if that was a smart idea but unable to stop my feet from moving closer to them.
Stunned, I tried to head off the confrontation. But what shocked me most was the look on Garreth’s usually serene face. His jaw was set and his eyes, they were the worst. This newly found rage had transformed the iridescent aqua into a deep and smoldering storm.
Garreth turned to face me. I stood trembling, realizing his anger was now directed point-blank at me.
“What have you done?” His tone was ice.
I shook my head. What could I say?
I felt a presence behind me, then felt Hadrian’s hand rest protectively upon my shoulder. I wanted to shake it off; to prove to Garreth I was still his. To prove I was sorry. But I couldn’t find the strength to do it.
It instantly registered what I was witnessing. Garreth was jealous. He was fuming and Hadrian was reveling in it.
If only I hadn’t believed that Hadrian still existed. If only my mind could have locked the door I never wanted to reopen … for Garreth’s sake.
For my own.
But I believed there was something good about Hadrian. How could I ignore the truth?
Now I was the one paying for it.
“I see you’ve made a choice, Teagan,” Garreth said, bitterly. I barely recognized my guardian when he spoke.
“But,” I began stammering. My feet were firmly rooted to the ground beneath me, yet I felt like I was falling. His blue eyes, so tender a few days ago, glared back at me.
“What choice have I made, Garreth? Tell me. Because I wasn’t the one who walked away.” I was angry now. Calm down, Teagan. Stand your ground; he’ll come around.
The look on his face was unrecognizable, but the pain in his eyes was deeply familiar. It was my pain, and it mirrored back to me now. It was obvious that Garreth was more changed now than either of us could have ever expected. There was no more room inside him to see the good in things, to see all sides, to give anyone else a respectable chance. Instead, it was all about him. His new emotions were raging through him like teenage hormones.
Uncontrollable. Lethal. He saw only one thing now.
That I had made a choice.
And it wasn’t him.
While I was busy trying to make right out of wrong, light out of dark, doing all I could to make sense of who I was … he was changing. This was way beyond what we anticipated. I thought he was pretending for me, trying to fit in. When all along right under my nose he was undergoing his own transformation.
“You’ve gone too far, Teagan.” Garreth gave his head a sharp nod, pointing to Hadrian behind me.
Hadrian.
The culprit.
The instigator.