I quickly started the engine, determined to act, not talk. It sprang to life and set into motion the second I pushed down the gas pedal.
My anxiety over the safety of those I loved, not to mention my own safety, must have shown on my face because Jaden calmed down quickly and changed his tactics.
“Don’t worry,” he patted my arm, “I’ll be there when you need me.”
I grmpfed and concentrated on the road. This was another thing I wasn’t going to discuss with him. Relying on him just made me feel more vulnerable. I made a mental list of what I needed to do to take charge of my situation. Protect myself against the demons. Help Chris get his wings back. And of course, I needed to know everything Mr. Baker could tell me about demons. I needed—
“When’s the last time you’ve eaten?” Jaden asked, interrupting me mid-thought.
“What?”
The road was almost empty. It was late. I hadn’t noticed how late it was and my stomach responded to Jaden’s question like it had a mind of its own.
“Let’s find a place to eat,” he suggested. His voice was back to all friendly and controlled. There was no hint of his distress left in his tone and, from the corner of my eye, I saw that his face was relaxed.
“Looks like Bobby’s is open,” he announced, pointing through the windshield. “How about it?”
I pulled into the nearly empty lot, parking where the light from the windows fell most brightly.
Jaden’s change of mood made me feel better. I needed his support these days, not his disapproval.
I climbed out of the car and waited for Jaden to do the same. After a few seconds, I bent down to take a look inside the vehicle. He wasn’t there. The car was empty.
“Jaden?” I asked into the darkness, fear creeping up my neck. Where had he gone?
After a few seconds, I asked again, “Jaden? Where are you?”
“Right here,” a voice beside my ear said.
I jumped and almost fell into the car as I leaned forward in reflex.
Two hands caught me by the shoulders and pulled me back. They turned my body around with a little too much force to be comfortable.
“Sorry.”
I stared into Jaden’s golden eyes.
“You scared me,” I complained, out of breath. My heart was thumping at top speed.
Under the pair of golden eyes, Jaden flashed me a boyish grin.
“Don’t do that again.” I swatted his arm with the flat of my hand and grinned triumphantly when he reacted with an exclamation. Although in truth I doubted how much he had even felt my blow. I was pretty sure it took much, much more to make an impression on him. I shook my head in annoyance—what a child he could be.
“Let’s go,” I commanded, enjoying the chance to boss him around even if it was just over when to enter a restaurant, and marched ahead. Jaden opened the door for me and I stepped in with my guardian angel close at my heels.
When we entered the restaurant, a cloud of voices and the sound of cutlery on china mixed with laughter greeted us. Jaden walked ahead. He crossed the room in quick strides, aiming for a table at the back.
“Take a seat, please,” he said, politely pulling a chair out, and waited for me to settle down on the uncomfortable looking piece of wood.
“Thanks.” I walked around the table and sank down onto the chair. It felt strange to be with Jaden in such a public place. He was there at school, every day, but there we officially didn’t know each other any more than he did the other students. There we were just classmates and nothing more. Now we were—what exactly were we?
I was his fosterling. He was my guardian angel. He had become someone I could trust, somebody who was there for me. He had healed my wounds and taken away my pain. Images of the disaster in the demon’s villa last year flashed through my mind. He had let the enemy capture him to be able to protect me, to be there for me. He had endured pain and humiliation just for me. He was more than just an angel. He was my friend.
My eyes wandered across the table until they found Jaden’s face on the other side. He was already studying the menu, just another late-night customer with food on his mind. A pang of affection ran through my body.
“What can I get for you?” The voice of the waitress interrupted my thoughts. I looked up at her blankly.
Behind a pretty face and a mane of reddish-blond hair I saw a sign saying “Burger of the Day plus soft drink”.
“I’ll have the burger of the day, please,” I shot, surprised by the speed of my decision.
“To drink?” the pretty face asked in an unnerved tone.
“Nothing,” I shook my head to the side and looked at her more closely.
“Sure?” Strands of reddish hair bounced from her shoulder as she cocked her head with an unbelieving expression like I had just said no to the jackpot.
I felt myself blush and gave her a quick nod before I looked back down, examining the tablecloth with unwarranted interest.
“Got it,” the waitress sighed. “And for you?” she addressed Jaden in the same manner.
“The same as the lady, if you please,” he said with a slight snicker.
“Okay,” she said between her teeth which were exposed in a bizarre friendly grin. She turned on her heels in a somewhat elegant spin and disappeared behind a corner.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked into the red and white pattern of the tablecloth, not really expecting an answer.
“Pregnant,” he said quietly but without hesitation. “And her boyfriend’s on drugs.”
I looked up, half-expecting him to show me a victorious grin that would tell me that it was a joke; but there was no grin on his face. Not the hint of a smile decorated his lips.
I leaned forward to get closer to his face. “Are you serious?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted an answer to that.
A tiny nod confirmed my worries.
“How do you know?” I asked before I could think.
Jaden leaned back in his chair and smiled at me with white teeth. He seemed to be enjoying this. “Already forgotten who I am?” he challenged me, with an indulgent grin and a twinkle in his eye.
“You’re my—” I began, but then his eyes flickered around the room and I broke mid-sentence and lowered my voice. “You’re my guardian angel.”
“Correct,” he answered, equally hushed, “but I’m more than that.” He eyed me for a second like he was waiting for the theatrical tension to build up. I waited for him to speak, watching his lips.
“I’m an angel.”
Okay, I already knew that. I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t do that,” said Jaden with a forbidding look on his face. “I’m a real angel.” He said it as if he was sharing a top secret with me.
“And Chris and Jenna are what?” I asked, a bit confused.
“Half-breeds,” said Jaden in a whisper.
“Which is a bad thing?” I asked, somewhat disturbed by the way he way he said it.
“No.” His answer was curt.
“What then?” I folded my arms across my chest and leaned back, fixing him with my eyes.
Jaden looked back at me. His golden eyes looked flat in the slightly orange light in the restaurant. He picked up a piece of bread from the basket that was standing in the middle of the table, separating the flat surface into two halves—his own and mine.
“Nothing,” was all he said and took a hearty bite, keeping his eyes locked on mine.
I watched his jaws move rhythmically. I had never taken Jaden for someone who cared about what people were, where they came from. I had always thought that he was someone who judged people by what they did, not who their parents were.
After a moment, I dropped my eyes. I felt bad. What if he hadn’t meant it the way I had understood? What if he really just meant half-breed as a sort of description of a creature’s roots. Like a mixture of races. Nothing good, nothing bad. Just a statement.
“Oh, come on,” Jaden said and I looked up uncertainly.
I wasn’
t sure if he sounded angry or amused. It was something in between, and I neither felt like being shouted at nor like being laughed at.
When my head was completely lifted, I noticed the waitress slouching towards us with two heavily laden plates in her hands. My eyes snapped to her stomach. She had a small round belly that was too pronounced to be part of her slender form. My eyes fluttered from her to Jaden, to her and back to Jaden.
The guardian angel nodded a tiny little bit and I almost coughed at my own stupidity.
Of course she was pregnant. It was obvious. I just hadn’t noticed before.
“Here you go,” the girl said without enthusiasm as she set down the plates on each side of the basket. She didn’t sound like her mood had improved at all.
“Thanks,” I said but my eyes were back on her belly until she turned around and vanished behind the corner again.
“Don’t think I’m stupid,” I told Jaden.
He gave me an innocent look.
“You saw her belly.” My eyes bore into his accusingly.
Jaden withstood my gaze for a minute before he shrugged. “Sure I saw it.”
I felt myself grow a few inches by the victory of seeing through him.
“But the belly didn’t show the part about the boyfriend.” He leaned over his burger, picked up fork and knife and started eating.
“Maybe he isn’t,” I suggested and instead of just grabbing my burger, I mirrored his movements, grabbing my cutlery as well and slicing up the burger that sat on a mountain of fries on a plain white plate.
“Be sure, he is.” Jaden swallowed his mouthful of burger and replaced the vanished food with a fork full of fries.
“How can you know that?” I asked again, expecting a better answer than before. I even paused eating to listen to his answer.
“I already told you... I’m an angel. I know things.”
I stared at him until his movements slowed and finally stopped.
“What now?” he asked, somewhere between amused and irritated.
“Don’t tell me you can read minds,” I dreaded the worst. “Because if you can, I swear to God, I’ll...”
“Don’t swear to someone you don’t know,” he interrupted me with cold eyes.
I swallowed the rest of the sentence and looked at him, feeling guilty.
“No,” he sighed and let a half-smile flash across his face as he took in my expression, “I can’t read minds—fortunately. The mess of feelings in this room is enough to drive anyone crazy. I don’t feel any need to know what they think exactly.”
Jaden started to eat again while I watched him.
“I can assume a little better than the part-angels can. Call it intuition. I know almost exactly why somebody feels the way they do without asking.”
Once more I was amazed by what this heavenly species could do and once more I felt transparent, like I was nothing more than a glass bottle filled with reasons and motives, all visible to this thousand-year-old man across the table.
We finished the meal in silence and left an extra-large tip sticking out under the bread basket. I had to admit that half a cow and a ton of French fries could make a hungry girl feel better, even if the dinner conversation had been exceedingly unusual.
There was a cold, steady breeze blowing as we walked out into the darkness and climbed into my car. Spring was not imminent. I shivered just a little and decided to ask Jaden one more question.
“When do you think they will attack?” I asked while I was steering the vehicle out of the lot and back onto the street.
“They?” Jaden asked, surprised.
“The demons,” I whispered and instantly wondered why—we were alone in the car.
“Don’t know,” he answered with a lightheartedness I hadn’t expected to hear in combination with this topic.
“I’m still afraid,” I admitted. He would know anyway.
His low snort and then a hushed chuckle as an answer made me wonder what he was thinking. Was he trying to downplay everything so I wouldn’t get myself in danger?
“I’m going to talk to Mr. Baker on the weekend. I have to find out what else he knows,” I returned to the discussion earlier this evening. “I think, maybe he could help a little.”
I was positive that Mr. Baker knew a lot of things that could help us and I wanted to know every single one of them. I had the strong feeling that his knowledge might be essential one day. One day soon, the voice in my head corrected me.
I hurried down the corridor to the classroom the next day. I was late to school again. Jaden had left the minute I turned off my car the night before, promising to be there for me if I needed him. I had felt safe enough to take a quick shower, but once in bed sleep refused to come. It had taken hours of tossing and turning for my body to finally shut down, and when it did, the dreams had come. Adam had been in them, and the awful, aching pain in my chest. The last dream had left me hot and drenched in sweat, my heart pounding as if I had just run a marathon. It hadn’t been a nightmare.
“Over here,” I heard Lydia call me from nearby. She waved at me and gestured at a free chair beside hers.
“Thanks,” I whispered and sat down the moment the teacher entered the classroom.
Lydia already had her books open in front of her. I searched my bag for my books and came up empty. I hadn’t packed the right things for the day. Instead, I had taken another shower right after I had rolled out of bed in the morning.
Sweat was building up on my neck when I just thought of the dream. I blushed and bent down, pretending to put down my bag, so I could hide my face.
I could feel Adam’s hands gliding down my neck, my back, my jaw, my throat, my chest, my thighs...
A loud cough brought me back to reality. My hand was lying on my neck, my fingers in my hair where Adam’s hands had been only a few hours before. With a start, I snatched my hand away, and looked surreptitiously around the classroom to see who might have noticed.
No one. Everyone was paying attention to the lecture. With one exception. With the tiniest nod and the biggest grin, Jaden let me know he had been enjoying my minute almost as much as I had.
Dang, I thought and hid my face behind my hands. Jaden always knew how I felt—always. So he had known last night. I felt myself die from embarrassment and shifted lower into my chair. The earth beneath me didn’t open a hole and swallow me like I was hoping. It remained rock-solid beneath my feet for the rest of the morning.
“Steamy night?” Jaden asked mischievously when he caught up with me in the corridor after class. His golden eyes twinkled.
“Ummm—” was all I could get to leave my mouth. I felt my face turn pink and looked around for Lydia who had to be somewhere near.
“Lydia,” I half-shouted when I spotted her ahead in the corridor. I hurried on and left Jaden standing where he was. I simply had no idea what to tell him. I had never had a dream like this before. Not even when Adam had been...alive...
All the heat of the dream was gone within a fraction of a second. Suddenly I felt dizzy.
Dead, the voice in my head echoed. Dead.
I felt the blood drain from my head, and numbness take command of my body. My heart, on the other hand, screamed silently in pain as if some terrible unseen knife were slicing it into a million pieces. A pale haze blinded me and I reached out reflexively for something to grab onto. My fingers curled desperately around something soft.
“Are you alright?” a frightened voice asked. It was Lydia. I was hanging on to her.
I tried to nod. I had to be strong. I would not be some labile creature so easily destroyed by, by... by what? I didn’t know. I had promised myself to be strong and I had failed. Again, the voice in my head added and the frequency of its appearance in my thoughts should have alarmed me, but I had more immediate problems.
I couldn’t see, and the sound of my blood was a roar in my ears. My legs had turned to pudding. Everything was blurry and the noise of my blood rushing through my body was so loud that I could
hardly distinguish the sounds coming from outside my body. A cool hand pressing down on my face helped me refocus. I directed my eyes toward the face behind it and continued staring until I finally made out the outline of a familiar face.
From a distance I could hear someone saying. “Claire! Claire! Are you ok?”
I was silent for a moment, unable to process either the question or a reply.
“Sit down,” the voice commanded and pressed me down until I landed in a hard chair which supported my weight willingly but didn’t make me any more comfortable. I felt a wave of nausea and then, in a split second, it was over.
I was sitting in an empty classroom and Greg and Lydia were crouched protectively around me. My right hand was still clenched on Lydia’s sweatshirt. I forced my hand away from her.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed out weakly. “Don’t know what happened there—”
I looked away so I wouldn’t have to explain myself for the hundredth time, because for the hundredth time I wouldn’t have a new reason—it was always the same.
“It’s ok,” Greg said. “Just stay quiet for a minute.”
Only then did I notice Jaden. My guardian angel, but not with me. As far away as he could get from me without leaving the room. Instead of showing alarm or concern or any intention to take action, his beautiful face was crumpled in agony. He made not the slightest move. Greg was speaking again.
“Can you stand up?” Greg’s voice claimed my attention. He looked concerned when I did so. “Do you think you can walk?”
I pondered his question for a moment. “I think so—” I answered truthfully.
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