Forgiven

by Gina Detwiler

  Panic fills my chest. Hot, breathless fear nearly suffocates me. I’m trapped.

  Though I walk through the valley…

  I start to sing, softly, only to myself.

  Keep going.

  Was that my voice, or God’s?

  They will come looking for me once they realize what I’ve done. They will find me—

  Keep going!

  That nagging voice. Ariel, is that you?

  I heave out a breath and haul myself upright. On shaky legs, I slide along the wall, hoping against hope that there is another way.

  And then I nearly fall over a step.

  I drop to my knees and clasp my hands together, almost crying with gratitude before I crawl up the steps—there are only four—to another door.

  In the gloom, I feel around but there is no door handle. My heart hammers. Please please please… I press both my palms against it and push as hard as I can.

  It gives. I let out a gasp of relief and push harder. The door scrapes against the stone floor. I thrust against it and manage to open it a little more each time. A rattle on the other side indicates that it has hit something. I reach in to figure out what’s blocking it.

  Shelves.

  I throw my back against the door and shove as hard as I can. Blood pulses in my head, awakening the concussion. My vision turns red and my body shakes with strain. What I wouldn’t give for Jared’s superhuman strength right now.

  The door moves enough that I can squeeze through into the tight space between the shelving units and the wall.

  Thank you thank you thank you…

  I feel around on the shelves—boxes and jars, bottles of pills. It appears to be a storage closet of—drugs? Medical supplies?

  I work my way along the wall until the shelving stops at a door—regular sized, and modern, with a knob. I open it a crack and stick my head through.

  I’m greeted by light and noise—people talking and moving around a long hallway with a curved ceiling, like a subway tunnel, the stone walls painted white. Old-fashioned fixtures at intervals overhead cast pools of light on the tile floor.

  There’s a great deal of hurried activity—people in white coats moving from one passage to another, some pushing gurneys. Excited chatter echoes through the halls. It seems to be a medical facility or a hospital. Is it possible that Jared might be here somewhere?

  I step through the door and dash into the first room I find. It’s another closet with a few white coats hanging on hooks on the wall. I put one on and walk out again, careful to hold my head high and act like I’m supposed to be there.

  I saunter down the hall. People rush by without noticing me. Everyone seems extremely busy. I peek into rooms and see patients in hospital beds, hooked up to IV’s. Many have bandages on their heads. They must have already had the treatment.

  I pass two operating rooms—one empty, another in use—as I turn corners and go down more hallways. Curious, I peer in the window. The patient lies on the table. A weird contraption is attached to his head, like in some old science-fiction movie. Is this how they administer the treatment?

  Part of me wants to watch longer to see how this works, but I have to keep moving. I have to find Jared. After a while I realize I’m lost. The hallways extend in every direction like a rabbit warren. I’m going around in circles.

  Help me.

  I see a guard approaching, a rifle strapped to his chest. I duck into a room and wait until he passes. Then, maybe by instinct or divine guidance, I follow him.

  The guard takes several turns before he stops at a set of double steel doors. He scans his badge and a buzzer sounds. The door closes behind him when he goes through. I race forward and try to grab it, but it clicks shut. I lean against it, my heart pounding in my chest.

  But not only my heart. A second beat echoes like a distant drum—slower and more labored, an echo of my own.

  Jared.

  He’s here. Somewhere beyond these doors.

  A hand falls on my shoulder and a voice barks in my ear, “What are you doing here?”

  I turn to face another armed guard, his face hard and mocking. I swallow. Think fast.

  “Let me see my husband,” I yell. All activity in the hall stops and everyone turns to look at us. Heat rushes to my face. This is my only play. “You can’t keep me locked up forever. I demand to see Jared. Now!”

  The guard releases me, uncertain. I press forward to address the onlookers who are murmuring to each other.

  “Darwin Speer has kept me prisoner here. He’s not who you think he is. He’s a—”

  “What’s going on?”

  Lucille appears from nowhere and pushes the guard aside. Her eyes burn into mine.

  “Grace, you’re ill. You shouldn’t be out of bed. Come, let us take you back—”

  “I want to see Jared.” I force myself to stand straight and face her without blinking. “You people have lied to me. I need to know he’s okay.”

  She glances around at the curious crowd and pastes on a fake smile. “No problem at all. I’ll take you to him. But you need to calm down now.” She puts her arm around my shoulder. “Everything’s fine, go back to work.” She waves the guard off and scans her badge at the door. “This way.”

  As soon as we’re through the door, she pushes me into the wall, her face inches from mine.

  “Don’t you ever do something like that again,” she snarls.

  “You can’t hold me prisoner here—”

  “You are not a prisoner. You are a patient. You came here with a severe concussion. We offered you medical treatment. That’s all.”

  “And Jared? What are you doing to him?”

  She hesitates. “I have nothing to do with that.”

  “And I suppose you know nothing about Dana Martinez either.”

  “Who?”

  “Your brother’s girlfriend. The one he murdered.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Am I really? So how come you haven’t done the treatment yet?”

  She opens her mouth but closes it again.

  “You know what it’s doing to him. He’s a monster. He’s a Nephilim.”

  She backs away. “You have no idea what you’re saying. You’ve had a severe concussion and have probably sustained some brain injury. However, despite your opinion of me, I do have a heart. I will take you to Jared if you promise to go back to your room and not speak of this to anyone.”

  “Sorry. I can’t do that. But you will take me to Jared. Now. Or I will find him myself.”

  “The guards are armed.”

  “Then they will have to shoot me. Is that what you want? To explain to the authorities how a girl your brother kidnapped ended up dead?”

  She bites her lower lip. “Come with me.” She takes my arm and leads me down the dark hallway, her high heels echoing in the curved space. After several turns, we end up at another steel door. A guard sits on the chair beside it.

  “Open it,” she orders. He looks at me, then her, and does as he’s told.

  “Down there.” She points down a long stone staircase.

  “You first.”

  She glares at me and starts down the steps. I follow. The dim light changes from white to red. The stairs end in a large cellar-like space with a single red light bulb hanging from the low ceiling. It smells of mildew and human waste.

  I wrinkle my nose. “What is this place?”

  “It’s…a holding facility.”

  “You mean it’s a dungeon.”

  She doesn’t respond.

  It looks unoccupied, and I’m certain I’ve walked into a trap. Then Lucille steps a little farther into the room, and I make out a human form lying on a stone ledge built into the far wall.

  He faces away from me, his body shrouded in black. He doesn’t move. I step closer, fearful.

  “Jared?”

  Slowly, he turns over and peers at me. His shirt is ripped open, revealing several ugly wounds. Blood smears his skin. I hear a loud clanking sou
nd and realize he’s chained up, his arms and legs manacled. A thick steel collar is fastened around his neck.

  I clasp my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

  “Grace?” His voice is very faint. He squints into the dark—I don’t think he can see me.

  I stumble toward him and fall to my knees at his side.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “He…shot me.”

  “Who? Speer?”

  “He was…showing off. For his friends.”

  I gasp and turn to Lucille.

  “Are you people insane?”

  “It was only a demonstration for the Group,” Lucille says. “No major arteries were hit. He’ll be fine.”

  I touch Jared’s face. His skin is hot and clammy but not in his normal way. His glow is completely gone. His eyes are darker and almost black.

  He’s sick.

  That’s impossible. Jared can’t get sick.

  I examine his wounds. They’ve healed over but are an ugly shade of purple. I touch one of them and he winces.

  “He’s not healing,” I say to Lucille. “His wounds are infected. Can’t you see that?”

  “It’s only taking a little longer because of the blood loss. But he’ll recover.”

  “He needs medical help. You need to let him go.”

  “We can’t. He attacked Darwin.”

  I remember the doctor telling me this. I turn to Jared.

  “Why?”

  “Because I…couldn’t do this anymore…” He reaches into his pocket, pulls something out, and presses it into the palm of my hand. “Take this…keep it safe…”

  My fingers close over the fabric. Is this some sort of memento? I have no idea. I only know it has to be kept hidden.

  I bend over him and start to cry, shaking my shoulders and rocking so Lucille won’t see me stuff the fabric in my waistband. I stand up and face her.

  “He’ll die if you keep him here.”

  “It’s not my call,” Lucille says.

  “Then tell your brother—”

  “He’s not here. He’s at CERN. The collider goes online today.”

  Today?

  “It’s time to go,” says Lucille. “You got what you wanted.”

  Jared will die. They’ve taken too much from him, but there’s nothing I can do to help him.

  Except…

  God, please, help. Please.

  I take Jared’s face in my hands and force him to focus on me.

  When he does, I sing.

  55: The Light

  Jared

  She sings the AngelSong.

  It’s like the first time I heard it in the school atrium, when it shot through my body like liquid fire to ignite every muscle, every nerve, and every molecule of my being.

  The Dark has descended so thoroughly in the last days, I have not even tried to fight. It’s the first time in my life I can remember feeling real, soul-killing pain. Pain so intense and pervasive, it’s become my very existence, renewed with every breath.

  This is your destiny, said the voice in my head, Azazel’s voice, over and over. I warned you this would happen if you rejected me. I would die in chains but I welcomed it. It was like penance. It would be an end.

  But suddenly, there is Grace.

  And Light—a light only I can see, pure and Dark-defeating.

  I grip her hand and try to absorb every note through my skin. The music washes over me and through me, exposing all the dark places and suppressing the pain like a narcotic.

  “Stop it!” Lucille shrieks. She covers her ears, the Song like a knife in her soul, piercing and terrible. I see her demons twisting and contorting in agony, screaming for silence.

  But the Song only grows louder until the very stones of the prison vibrate and shift.

  Lucille flees up the steps. I rise from the ledge, compelled by Grace’s voice as if I’m levitating. She puts her arm around my waist—whether to help me up or to keep me from floating to the ceiling, I’m not quite sure. I raise my arms and wrench the chains from the wall. Dirt and stones shower us. I strip the cuffs off and then the collar—it’s so easy, like tearing paper. I yank the leg chains from the crumbling wall.

  “Jared…” She stares at me in breathless wonder, as if she can’t believe what just happened. I glance down at the packet of sunflower seeds still on the floor where Mike left them. I was not abandoned. Not forsaken. Maybe I was even forgiven.

  I hold her. It’s all I’ve dreamt of, having my arms free so I could hold her again.

  Thank you.

  She wraps her arms around my waist, sobbing into my chest. I’d stay there forever if it weren’t for the fact that the walls of this prison are crumbling around us.

  “I think we need to get out of here,” I say.

  “Good idea.”

  We run for the stairs. A guard blocks our way and points his rifle at us.

  “Stop!”

  There’s a flash of Light before me, compressed into a single blade, and that blade is Michael.

  The gun jams.

  We push past the confused guard and run down the passage, searching for a way out. A discordant alarm sounds, and the hallway is suddenly choked with people rushing around and yelling in panicked voices. This can’t be about us. Something else is going on.

  “Jared!” Grace points down another hallway, where people careen toward us. They’re running away from something. Then, I see the source of their terror.

  Rael.

  He barrels down the passage, knocks light fixtures from the ceiling, smashes holes in the wall, and tramples anyone not fast enough to get out of his way.

  It’s Rael, but only parts of him.

  He has no tail. The tentacles have been severed to stumps and one of his hands is missing. He’s more of a horror now than he had been before.

  I pull Grace away from the flow of people and duck into a doorway. Rael continues past us. He sees nothing and no one—he only wants to destroy. Like Godzilla decimating Tokyo. Blood looms in his wild blue eyes.

  Whatever they have done to him, it’s worse than what they did to me.

  The halls are mostly empty now, except for the injured. A lone guard darts out of a room and fires at Rael. The bullets only aggravate him. He swats the gun away and hurls the man into the wall—his body makes a sickening crack and falls in a heap of plaster.

  “Come on,” I say.

  We follow the Nephilim down another passage that dead ends at a blank wall. There is no way out. He slams his fists against the wall, over and over. Plaster cracks and breaks off. The lights overhead shiver and fall to spray sparks everywhere. I look behind us and see three guards with tranq rifles creeping toward us, followed by two men in white coats. We’re trapped, but Rael continues to punch the wall.

  “Rael, stop. We need to fight now. They’re coming.”

  But he doesn’t stop. To my amazement, daylight shines through the holes he’s made amid the clouds of plaster dust. The stones of the thousand-year-old castle wall give way to his punishing assault. The guards are almost upon us when the Nephilim lunges through the opening. Grace and I stumble after him while the guards scream at us to stop.

  This is my first glimpse of sun and my first intake of uncirculated air in many days. I savor the moment, but it doesn’t last long.

  We’re at the base of the castle, on a steep, grassy slope that leads down to the lake. Drones whir overhead. Darts sail past and somehow miss us.

  Rael hurtles down the slope. I follow, half-carrying Grace. We make it to the edge of the water by the time several ATVs roar down the hill. Gunshots echo in our ears—warning shots, I assume. They won’t kill us. Rael is in the water, wading across the lake.

  “We’re trapped,” Grace whispers.

  A voice on a megaphone commands, “Stop at once!”

  Grace sheds the white lab coat and I take off the ripped hoodie. We look at each other, grab hands, jump into the water and start swimming.

  From within the
small motorboats that zoom toward us, men shoot at Rael. He roars and slaps the water, stirring up great waves. Grace is swamped and disappears under the surface. I dive to search for her. The huge waves churn the bottom up, making the water murky. I can’t see her so I dive deeper, fighting the pull of the current Rael has created as he turns the peaceful lake into a turbulent ocean.

  She’s been under too long.

  When I find her, she’s drifting, limp, eyes closed. I pull her to me and fight my way to the surface, although it keeps shifting away as I swim toward it. Bubbles escape from her mouth and nose. I kick harder, thrusting my body upward against the force of the undertow.

  Just when it seems I will never make it to the surface, something clamps onto my shoulder and hurtles me out of the water, Grace still in my arms. We slam against a slimy surface—it’s Rael’s stumped back. I cling to him, holding Grace with one hand as he wades across the lake, only his head and shoulders above the water. The gunfire stops. I assume the boats have probably been swamped, but the drones still buzz overhead.

  We reach the opposite bank and Rael runs up the slope and deep into the trees.

  “Stop!” I speak the word like a command, not expecting him to obey. “Hide. Grace isn’t breathing.”

  I’m a little shocked when he ducks under a thicket of trees, and crouches low. I slide off his back, taking Grace with me. The water will have calmed and the boats will soon get to the shore. We have little time. I lay her on the ground, give her mouth-to-mouth, and thump her chest until she vomits water. While she coughs and gasps, I turn her onto her side. She’s alive.

  “Sorry about this,” I say, and hoist her onto my back again. Rael and I continue up the slope, remaining under the cover of the trees, but the drones keep up with us. When I hear crashing in the underbrush below us, I know that our pursuers are closing in.

  We reach the end of the tree line. The top of the ridge is all grass, no cover.

  “We need to get over the ridge,” I say. They’ll be here any second. There’s no place to go but up.