I pressed the little red button on my phone, ending the connection. My mother sounded happy.
I sighed. The thought of a chilly nighttime storm made me cuddle deeper beneath the covers. I picked up the borrowed copy of Frankenstein and settled in.
“Garreth!” I heard my voice call out to him, but he wasn’t listening. Instead, he was doubled over with pain again. Only this time I was closer. I could reach for him—but he wasn’t reaching back. Like he no longer recognized me, or he had chosen not to.
At last, his blue eyes focused on my face. He was speaking without words and I couldn’t understand. I shook my head back and forth. Then the iris of his eyes turned black, obliterating the blue.
Suddenly, a cracking sound filled the space around us as Garreth attempted to straighten himself. I helplessly watched him struggle as pitch black wings began to extended behind him.
“Garreth!” I called out once again. He needed to turn around before it was too late!
Whatever was behind him was close. Too close. But as he stepped towards me I could see the wings follow him, and with alarming disbelief, I could see that he and the darkness were one.
I awoke with a start frantically wiping my damp hair from my face to see if the black wings were indeed real and were smothering me. A shimmer of light glinted within the scope of my peripheral vision. I turned my head. A shoulder and a wisp of blonde hair was all I could see before the image wavered and dissipated into the air.
“Garreth,” I breathed into the dark. But it was another voice that answered me. I turned back to find Hadrian staring at me again.
I grabbed the blankets and pulled them in towards my chest.
“He’s come twice today, seeking you,” Hadrian’s voice sliced the silence.
“How did you know? Are you following me?” I was sitting up now and perfectly awake, but I couldn’t help staring after the now-faded image of my guardian.
“Yes.”
I was about to ask why, but I didn’t think it relevant to continue. Why wouldn’t he follow me? I had practically begged for him to come back. Little did I know how my own thoughts would betray me.
My gaze wandered over to my computer, which was now going into snooze mode, re-setting the desktop background of a picture of me and Claire at the beach.
I looked up at him, “I write to Claire. It’s stupid, but I email her. I guess … it comforts me. But you always show up soon after I send it. Why is that?”
Hadrian took a step forward. “Every thought is filtered to me now. It is a link you yourself created.”
“Every thought?” I asked, cringing.
But he only looked at me intensely.
“Is Garreth in trouble?” I summoned the nerve to ask.
“Yes, your dreams are significant.”
“But I don’t know how to help him,” I sighed, wrapping the covers tighter around me, partly because I was cold and partly because he was now standing right over me. I wondered if he knew about the feather hidden beneath my pillowcase? If he had seen my moment of weakness, of wanting—or perhaps he had been the one to prompt it. I kept my eyes averted. Although I wondered it, I didn’t really want to know.
“You’ve saved him once already. Don’t you think it’s his turn to save himself?”
I stared at the beautiful angel in front of me, absorbing his question. Did Garreth need my help? If I didn’t try, then who would?
“The human experience is overwhelming. Some cannot handle it when it crashes into them all at once.”
“So really, this is my fault? This wouldn’t be happening to him if he didn’t become earthbound.”
Hadrian leaned a bit closer, settling his green eyes on me. “I would do the same,” he whispered. His hand reached out for me and caressed my face.
“That, Teagan, is the unfortunate fate of us both.”
As much as I felt myself drawn to his touch, I pulled away, conflicted. First, there was Garreth. Then there was Hadrian’s cryptic message, unfortunate fate. What was that supposed to mean? I couldn’t help feeling I had ruined the lives of two angels. Was I a disease or something? As my thoughts flew back to Garreth, Hadrian looked at me knowingly.
He straightened himself, regaining his regal stance. “You need to realize that Garreth is at risk. Anything earthbound is fair game now.” His beautiful face followed the shadows Garreth had retreated into. “There are souls free for the taking.”
“But what about me? I’m human.”
“No, you’re different. Lucifer fears you.”
Puzzled, I looked at him.
“You don’t know about the prophecy, do you?” Hadrian asked me and I shook my head.
He took my hand firmly and opened my palm. My mark burned and sizzled painfully before my eyes. The delicate scrolls of my mark blazed and extended toward each other, touching end to end and in an instant, my beautiful mark was changed. I stared down in wonder. A number eight met my disbelieving eyes. An eight, perfectly burned into the palm of my hand. Hadrian tilted it sideways.
“Lemniscate,” he whispered wonderingly and his eyes met mine. “Surely you know the infinity symbol?”
I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t understand. Why did it change?”
“Because the prophecy claims there is one who will come to bridge the darkness, allowing the wonder that is heaven and the simple ways of the earth to become one.”
I looked at him, awestruck. Hadrian spoke as if he were reading from an ancient text, memorized eons ago.
“She will be the light,” he continued, his voice resonating throughout my being, “and she is you.”
“I don’t feel like the light,” I murmured. My thoughts were dark, full of temptation.
“That’s because you are afraid to acknowledge the choices you are faced with. But in the end you will choose what’s right, and it will save us all.”
My mother’s good night phone call had pulled me from Hadrian’s gaze and when I hung up the phone, he was gone. I laid for hours contemplating the prophecy he had revealed to me. If anything, I was destroying my own life with my choices and bad attitude lately.
I drove to school the next morning, dodging downed branches and puddles the size of quarries from last night’s storm. My quiet ride grew into a predictably mind-numbing day when I learned Ryan was absent. He hadn’t seemed sick yesterday; in fact, he seemed absolutely fine. Grabbing the antibacterial lotion out of my bag, I gave my hands a quick cleaning just in case a virus was making its way around and made a mental note to call him on the way home.
He had seemed pretty distracted when we spoke yesterday. I had to admit, I was a little disappointed that he took the news of my after school trip to Brynn’s house so lightly, but then again, I had been the one to offer her a ride home and had agreed to go inside. Maybe he was just being polite, not second-guessing my sense of judgment.
The funny thing was, whenever I spotted Brynn’s friends, she wasn’t hanging out with them. And when I did see Brynn, she was devoting her available time to someone else.
And that someone happened to be my guardian.
Lately, it seemed Garreth was hanging around her locker between classes, and I couldn’t help feel pangs of jealousy and confusion when I noticed them eating lunch together in the courtyard. The very courtyard where I had first met Garreth. It infuriated me, but I didn’t have any ground to stand on. I had brought Hadrian back.
To make matters worse, our parents were coming home tonight, which meant one thing: dinner. Not the usual come home from vacation, get yourself situated, read the mail, catch up on laundry thing. Nope. Dinner. The four of us. Blech.