by Lucy Swing
By the time I made it back to my house everyone was in a tizzy. No surprise there. Claire and Nate, in their own little bubble, were talking about the consequences of Amy’s involvement, and the possibility that she had been possessed by Lilith—which, unfortunately, I had to confirm was true. They went on and on about strategies we could follow to get Amy back safely, but I was only half listening. I was more interested in Avan, who, at the moment, was gazing out the window.
“I am sorry about all this,” I said, going over to him. Even now, with him no doubt furious at me for making his whole world crumble, I could still feel our bond. I gazed into his distant eyes, but they showed no anger.
“I’m pretty sure you hate me, and I can’t say I blame you,” I said to him. “But I will make it right.” I turned to him and put my hand on his biceps. “I will not let anything happen to you, do you understand?”
He didn’t respond or even so much as look my way. He just stared off again. I had lost him.
I let my hand drop to my side. My breaths grew shorter and sharper. I couldn’t let him see me cry. He had seen my world and what truly came with it, and was walking away from it and from me. I knew it. I turned and went over to Claire, who sat on the couch, her left leg going up and down like a sewing machine.
“Why are you so nervous?” I said. “You’ve been around for six hundred years. I’m sure you’ve seen all this before.” I sat next to her, letting the whole weight of my body slump on the couch.
“You don’t understand, Jade,” she said. “We have gotten too involved with mortals. This could turn out badly for us.” Her eyes screamed in desperation. She shook her head as she added, “We can’t lose any more human lives, or we’ll be forever exiled from heaven.” I saw Avan slowly turn around to face us. Hopefully, he would realize that it wasn’t just him in danger, but all of us.
“Okay, we’ll find Amy,” I said. “Lilith is after me, so we’ll find a way to lure her to me. What do we do once we have Amy, though? How do we get her back to normal? Will she remember any of it?”
“There is a special angel who would need to be called to erase her memories,” replied Claire. “It’s quite simple. She just needs to drink a purple liquid from a vial, and it’s done.” She must have caught my horrified look, because she quickly added, “She will wake up in her bed with no recollection of the past few days.”
I nodded and hoped we would find her before anything worse could happen. Avan was still at the window. “What about Avan?” I said. “We need someone to watch over him.” I was trying to work out all the ways this could go down, and was surprised when he spoke first.
“What about my guardian angel? Surely those exist, too, right?” He was now sulking on the other side of the coffee table, staring at Claire. His eyes were changing. They didn’t have their usual wild sparkle.
Claire looked from him to me and back. “Well, when Jade fell she was cast as your guardian angel while on earth, but I will talk to them, since Jade is in extreme danger as well.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. “I didn’t even know I was his guardian. Why didn’t you tell me? I suck at this angelic life.” My face was buried in my hands now.
“There are many things you still don’t know Jade,” Nate said. “It takes a really long time to get it all down, and sometimes, unfortunately, we have to learn from experience.”
I swiped my hand over my cheeks and looked over at Avan. His eyes were killing me inside. The anger he shot my way cut me in two. I couldn’t find any more words to express how wretched I felt about everything, and he was no longer listening to me anyway.
“Well, you may want to find someone else. She doesn’t seem quite up to the job.”
Ouch.
Claire looked over at him and cocked her head to the side, analyzing him. From the look in her eyes, she saw something in him I couldn’t yet read.
I winced at the cut and felt the need to defend myself, but after all, I guess he was right: I was a pretty crappy angel. All I had done so far was create more trouble than I solved.
