by Andrew Weis
“Stop it, smart ass,” I said. “I’m not getting squeezed by an ungrateful boy like you. We have to work through this together.”
“Ungrateful? Up yours, sweetie,” Daniel said with a boatload of condescending attitude, the kind I hated most. I never saw him behave this way, but considering what he’s gone through so far, I let up on the leash a little. Besides, he looked cute when he got mad.
A car rumble outside grew louder, then shut off.
“That engine sounds familiar. You guys wait here. Daniel, stay!” I said.
“Look, girl, I don’t need you telling me—”
“Wait here, okay?” I said with a pointed finger inches from his perfect face.
Daniel pursed his lips as he looked about the room. I wasn’t about to betray him again no matter how much I loved him.
Chapter 18
I WENT OUTSIDE to the porch. The red Chevelle’s glossy paint, still showing off the damage I did to it earlier, reflected the overhead streetlights. Coz slid out of the car, then stopped cold when he saw me on the porch steps.
He pulled out a gun, then like a predatory lion, seemed to stalk toward me with his gun glued to the side of his leg. His head tipped to the side as he walked in a stylized sideways gait.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“Who the hell are you, Blondie?” he asked.
Despite changing my skin color to brown, I kept my hair blonde to bury any chance of anyone recognizing me. But, when Coz called me Blondie, my cover didn’t conceal my grade school memories of when we attended Garfield Elementary school.
I was new to the school and Coz, like the other kids who lived in Englewood Rails all along, harassed me for being the new kid; being white didn’t help, but I never thought of skin color as a reason not to at least be friendly. He called me Blondie when we were kids. I loved my long, silky blonde hair, as did everyone else. It was a special feature about me that people noticed. I guess he had to put up a front to make sure everyone saw he was the top dog.
“Can I help you find something, Coz? The nearest jail is a mile south of here.”
“I know Daniel’s here. He ain’t going nowhere else, and we still got his old man.”
“Daniel isn’t here. What do you want with him?”
Coz raised the gun at me with a gangster grip.
“Sideways? Come on, where’s Reggie, big man?” I asked.
“He’s fine. T’s on the move and you in the way. I’m here to flatten the speed bumps on this road, girl,” Coz said, cocking the gun’s hammer.
A wave of fear overcame me. Since I stood before him in human form, I remembered from my episode at Double N that when someone knocked me out, I was as vulnerable to pain as any other human. If Coz killed me, he would mess up my ARV and ruin everything by sending me to turnaround.
Coz had already killed me once, but I sure as shit didn’t intend to let him do it again. I sauntered down the steps, all the while staring him in the eye. As I approached him, he looked straight back at me with a squinted eye and tilted head.
“You’re not killing me or Daniel. Understand, boy?” I said, crossing my arms and putting my foot forward.
In a flash, I swatted the gun from Coz’s hand. The gun flew across the yard and slid underneath a row of evergreen bushes. I kicked Coz’s knee, causing him to crumple to the lawn.
Some of my punches connected and struck his throat, causing him to gag, but it didn’t seem to be enough. I resisted hurting him too much since I still might need him to help me get Reggie back.
Coz kicked my face, which knocked me on my back. I needed to hurt him enough to keep him from pummeling me into the ground.
He scoured the bushes then found his gun. He pounced on my chest and wheezed while he fumbled to grip the gun. The harsh pressure of his legs compressed my breasts as I struggled to push his gun away from my head.
The gun discharged with a loud pop. For an instant, I thought he killed me again. Instead, the bullet struck the grass a few inches from my head. The shot sounded like a grenade exploded next to my ear, which caused a surge of adrenaline to boil within me.
A slight reddish glow grew within Coz’s eyes and his face tightened. A vein bulged across his forehead, and his jaw clenched as if he strained to lift an engine block. He slugged my face, then aimed the gun at me again. I punched his groin and rolled him off me.
“Who are you?” Coz asked, pursing his lips as he got on all fours and stood.
Coz and I turned and saw the headlights of a car as it approached from down the street.
“We ain’t done,” he said, pointing at me and shuffling to his car.
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
Coz drove away in his Chevelle. Still coping with my near-death experience, along with the fact that Coz seemed to have unusual strength, not to mention what happened with his eyes, I inrepped and darted into the night sky above the atmosphere where stone cold peace surrounded me.
A portal to Hali blinked open nearby. Several angels emerged and continued to various places on Earth. The thought of taking the quick way out of my ARV by flying into the portal fought my urge to succeed.
I wouldn’t be a lifer in the Outer Edge if I quit, but I’d stay as a watcher. That wasn’t so bad, right? Arlen didn’t say anything about fighting demons or whatever powers Coz had. Regular human eyes didn’t glow the way Coz’s did.
After realizing that I didn’t understand my full situation, I had to get answers. The longer I stayed in the vacuum of space, the calmer I became. The silent passing of countless successful angels weighed on me. I wasn’t content with failure, never was, nor would be.
While I considered my options, none of them good, I remembered that Nemo, Nero and Daniel waited for me in the house. If I wanted to see my ARV through, I’d have to ride out this cluster jam to its bitter end. I dashed back down to Daniel’s front porch.
I took myself out of inrep, breathed deep and ventured inside the house. Nemo and Nero sat on the living room couch with bouncing knees and tapping fingers. Nemo snapped to his feet.
“You okay, Abbey? We heard a shot,” Nemo said.
“You mean a gunshot? Nah, that was a backfire,” I said.
“Don’t school me, girl. I know a gunshot when I hear one.”
“Remember who you’re talking to,” Nero said.
“Okay, things got heated when Coz tried to blow my head off, but I’m okay. He left,” I said. “Where’s Daniel?”
“Gone,” Nero said.
“What?”
I ran to the back door where I heard the GTX’s engine fade away, along with the distinct sound of squealing tires.
“I told Daniel to wait here,” I said. “Did he muscle himself away from you guys again?”
Nero frowned and sighed.
“Hey, girl, the boy didn’t muscle nothing. He said he don’t like you pushing him around so he left to get his dad,” Nero said.
“Damn, that boy spawns an attitude fast. What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
I shook my head as I looked back at Nemo.
“What?” I asked.
“You helped with that, Abbey,” Nemo said.
“Helped with what? He can’t do whatever he wants whenever he wants. He’ll screw up everything if he keeps going like this. Now I have to find him again.”
Sometimes, I thought it was a waste of time helping people. Free will always seemed to trip up common sense.
“We can see your frustration, girl, but ease up on the leash. He’s been through a lot.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Look, it’s late. You guys go back to Xtremes but keep a lookout. I’ll go get Daniel, again!”
“For real, girl. The boy’s been through a lot. They killed his family and kidnapped his dad. Let him know you’re on his side. It’d be worth your while. It might even help you do whatever you got to do,” Nero said.
Unbelievable. Daniel came face-to-face with a real angel and doesn�
�t show an ounce of respect for me. Maybe people needed a good beat down. Maybe I did.
I inrepped, then zipped out of the house through the roof. With my vision blued out, I could see as if it were daylight. With clear vision, I scanned the streets for the GTX. Within seconds, I spotted the car stopped at a red light. I set down on the passenger seat and watched Daniel.
He mumbled to himself while he clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles. As he rocked in his bucket seat waiting for the light to turn green, his breaths shortened.
Materializing now would scare him, so I stayed out of sight. He kept his brown faded hair cut in the same style I remembered when he was alive. I remembered when he told me about a movie he saw set in the 1920s and how much he liked the men’s hair styles of that era. He talked it up big, so he got his hair cut with that style. My heart raced at the result and his sex appeal transfixed me.
“I should’ve done something, never should’ve left her hanging. Damn Coz,” Daniel said.
Daniel ducked when the driver side window exploded and bits of glass flew everywhere.
“What the hell?” Daniel shouted.
“Out of the car,” a masked man yelled as he yanked the driver side door open.
The carjacker dragged Daniel out and shoved him to the ground. He climbed in, then pulled the door closed. With a lead foot he stomped on the gas pedal, but the car didn’t budge, not with me applying angelic muscle and keeping the car put. I returned myself to solid form. When the carjacker saw me, he nearly pooped his pants.
“Bad timing, pal,” I said.
He aimed his gun at me, but with my angelic powers, I turned the gun into water. He looked at his wet lap, dumbfounded in the transformation. I gripped his neck and crushed it like an apple. His body collapsed. It was doubtful he experienced any pain, but I couldn’t be sure.
Daniel stood awestruck as I took care of the dirty work. The thick summer heat along with the stink of fresh asphalt couldn’t mask the ugliness of the deed I completed.
“I’ll be a minute,” I said with angelic conviction.
I dragged the carjacker out of the car. Like an Olympic hammer thrower, I flung him off the street. Several pedestrians jumped back and gasped when his body flopped in front of them. I gave Daniel my best supportive smile, but it wasn’t easy.
Daniel wiped broken glass off the car seat and climbed inside. I entered on the passenger side. He put the car into gear, barreled through the intersection and avoided a speeding pickup truck about to broadside us.
“Most people wait for a green light before moving through intersections,” I said in a softer, gentler tone.
My anger at him vanished as I thought of what I’d feel like if that carjacker had shot him before attempting to drive away.
“Did you kill him?” he asked.
“Yeah. No one will miss him.”
“I think his mother will, if he had one, but folks can’t go around taking people’s rides neither,” he said.
“He made a bad choice,” I said.
I remembered from my teachings about killing humans. There was a way to call telepathically upon the library in Hali to see what residual effects there’d be if a human got taken out of circulation while protecting a ward.
My eyes closed while I reached out to the library about the man I just iced. In my mind, I saw the rows of towering bookshelves in the massive library, and as if the library read my mind, the answer I sought appeared before me. I read the ruling, and I was in the clear.
“She won’t miss him,” I said. “It turns out he murdered her last night.”
“How do you know?” Daniel asked.
“I’m not allowed to explain the details.”
“Whatever. Look, you can’t go around killing people.”
“But it’s better that he died instead of you, right? Daniel?”
“Yeah right.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to maintain your safety, but thank you, Daniel, for taking off on me and engaging in another stupid opportunity to get yourself hurt, or in this case, almost killed.”
“I’m trying to save my dad, no thanks to you.”
“When I tell you to wait for me, just do it. Not everything has to be discussed and debated to death.”
He reared up again, then I stopped him cold. My vision went blue as I tried in vain to control my temper.
“I’m doing this because your life depends on it,” I said.
He skidded alongside the curb. He thought things over, about what I didn’t know, but I might’ve gotten through to him.
“Someone’s going to kill me?” he asked.
“I was speaking hypothetically, but someone might if you keep taking off on me.”
He hit the gas, and we drove along again.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Double N. I don’t care if you come with me or not.”
“You better care. Look, Tyrone’s bad people. I’m here to protect you. So be cool, cooperate, and I’ll be out of your life in no time. After I’m done, you can grow into the old, stubborn, selfish person you always wanted to be.”
He pursed his lips and steered the car to the curb again.
“Daniel, what the hell?” I asked.
“Wait. Your job is to save me?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Anything could happen while trying to save his father from Tyrone’s will, but his stop-and-go driving habit got on my nerves.
“Look, we can’t go after your father and hope we luck out against Tyrone. You’re way too emotional about this. We’re going back to your house now, so I can figure out our next move.”
“So, if you have to protect me, that means you have to stay with me no matter where I go or what I do.”
“I suppose so, but it’s not that straightforward,” I said.
Damn. I didn’t have a solid answer.
“You can’t muscle me, lady. You can’t tell me what to say or do. Where I go, you go,” Daniel said.
“Listen tough guy, don’t tell me what to do. You saw what I did to that sack of crap a couple minutes ago.”
“You ain’t telling me shit. I’m telling you what the next move is, so take it and bake it,” Daniel said, punching the gas pedal.
Damn his stubbornness, but he was right. True, I had to go anywhere he did, but I never considered that this ARV was a two-way street. Maybe this partnership would work better if I let him do a little work. It made little sense to spend our time bickering regardless of the fact that he was a little responsible for my death and that I held a grudge about it. Sulking wouldn’t help so I swallowed my pride.
“Okay, you make a few good points,” I said. “But, if we’re going to get anywhere, we have to work together. So, before you get too excited at the prospect of pushing me around, don’t. I’m capable of riddling your life with annoyance, so don’t get cocky. Deal?”
Once again, he skidded the car to the curb. I never knew he was such an annoying driver.
He dipped his head, then looked at me.
“Okay, deal,” Daniel said. “What’s your name again?”
“It’s Abbey,” I said, holding out my hand.
“I never heard of anybody around here named Abbey. Did you go to Roosevelt?”
I thought fast and surprised myself.
“No, Saint Hubert’s,” I said without hesitation.
Daniel nodded.
“My name’s Daniel.”
We shook hands like real adults. My heart skipped as I seemed to rejoin with him, at least on a basic level. That was a good starting point for me.
“Good. Let’s go get your father,” I said.
While we continued our drive to Double N, it relieved me that we reached an understanding and perhaps took one step closer to my ending this damned ARV. I never expected to serve as Daniel’s bitch. That notion bothered me, and I knew I’d be fighting it as long as we were together. Humans sucked.
Chapter 19
DANIEL AND I didn�
��t speak for the rest of the drive to Double N. I changed my appearance enough to keep anyone from recognizing me, but I never considered changing the sound of my voice. With Daniel’s father mixed up with Tyrone’s quest to rob a federal bank, I’m sure the last thing he thought about was the sound of a voice he last heard over two years ago.
Daniel’s demeanor changed a lot since my last day. He seemed angrier, jaded and disillusioned. I suppose any boy forced to work for a first-class jerk like Coz could become those things. My breaking his heart didn’t help.
Daniel always had a beautiful smile. His mocha complexion bronzed wonderfully in the summer. The one time I saw him in a swimsuit at Rainbow Beach forever etched in my mind that he was the one boy I could love forever until death we would part.
Perfect wasn’t a strong enough word to describe his appeal. It sometimes seemed as though I behaved like one of those lovesick girls in those cheesy 1990s teen movies who swooned over their men even if they sprinted to the bathroom after a burrito eating contest.
As much as Daniel and I liked each other when I was alive, he was always fearful that Coz kept me under watch. I figured that after high school was over, Daniel and I could leave Chicago. It wouldn’t have gone over well with either of our families, but the sentiment was there.
Daniel parked the car on the side of Double N’s main building. Near the front door sat a familiar green Camaro. Daniel shut off the engine and gripped the steering wheel.
“Well? Are we going in?” I asked.
“Yeah, but what will I do when I see my dad?”
“This is why we should think this through first. Don’t you get it?”
He rolled his eyes in frustration.
“But since we’re already here,” I said, “We’ll start in the back. I have a lot of experience with helping people. Just be quiet, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” he said.
He climbed out of the car, then slammed the door. I swooped in front of him.
“Your way or no way, huh?” I asked with my hands glued to my hips.
“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked.
