by Nour Zikra
“Do you know his last name?” she asked.
“No, but I dropped him off around ten.” My eyes darted around the hospital. The place was surprisingly quiet, with only two people walking down the hall. As the lady typed more details into the computer, I tried to think of other ways to describe Adriel. “Um, he had some sort of white cloth wrapped around his bottom, if that helps.”
She typed something into the system and bobbed her head. “We do have a John Doe. Looks like we were unable to gather any information about him. Maybe that’s him? He was taken to the emergency room at 10:05.” She pointed down the hall to my right. “Follow the red ‘Emergency’ signs all the way down. Then ask the front-desk nurses to let you into Room 340. It looks like he’s in there right now, recovering.”
“Thanks.” I speedwalked toward the emergency room. Following the lady’s instructions, I passed by rooms with sleeping strangers and beeping heart monitors and found the room Adriel was in without talking to any nurses.
Instead of knocking on the door, I strolled right in. There was a sage polyester curtain around the bed, so I couldn’t see him at first. I yanked the curtain to the side, walked through, and pulled it back in place so that no one would notice me murdering Adriel. If that was what it took to get my brother back, I would do it. No question about it.
Adriel lay there on his side with some sort of ointment covering his back. His eyes were closed, and he kept groaning. To my surprise, his burns had become less severe than they were hours ago, unless I had imagined the bloodred, melting flesh in the dim light of the road.
“Hey.” I squatted so that I was at eye level with him.
His right arm hung off the side of the bed. When he didn’t open his eyes, I elbowed it and repeated my greeting.
A grunt escaped his lips. A moment later, his eyes fluttered and opened halfway. “Rosy Cheeks,” he murmured. Behind his half-closed lids, his dark-brown irises regarded me.
“I can’t believe I drove you in my car,” I hissed. “Where the hell is my brother?”
His lids drooped more as his eyes rolled back into his head. He was no longer paying attention. I elbowed his arm again. When he came to, he said, “Hmm?”
“My brother! Where is he and what are you doing to him?”
“What are you talking about?” But his speech slurred, which made it sound more like “Wa ah you talkin’ ’bout?” Luckily, I understood the language of the drunk, which his language resembled right now.
“Dude!” I grabbed his head in both my hands and hoisted it up, forcing him to look at me. In the process, my fingers tangled with the smooth strands of his brown, jaw-length hair. “I know you’re in a cult. Now tell me where my brother was taken.”
Silence filled the room. He gazed at me through tired eyes, but I didn’t care. He deserved the wounds and the pain. He deserved to rot in the hell he was spit out of tonight.
“Tell me where my brother is,” I repeated.
He blinked. “I don’t have anything to do with it, but I think I know.”
I removed one hand from his head, turned it into a fist, and punched him directly across the jaw. I was aiming for his eye, but my hand-eye coordination was off. With a wail, his head collapsed on the pillow and his sticky back pressed against the bed.
“Tell me everything or I’ll kill you.”
I hoped I had his full attention, because I really didn’t feel like becoming a murderer tonight.
Chapter Three
REED
The earth spun, shifting all around me, swallowing me whole and spitting me back out. My body shrunk and expanded in mere nanoseconds. Addy’s scream echoed after me, but I was gone.
“What are you doing?” I yelled as the freak of a man with the thick scars and creases on his back carried me away. I kicked wildly, my foot meeting his leg.
My physical strength must not have been up to par, because he kept moving. He threw a punch into my stomach, blowing the air out of me. “Shut up!”
We moved through a cavelike area, his filthy arms tight around me. The bastard lifted me off the ground with every step he took. The farther we traveled inside the dark cavern, the more claustrophobic I felt. A rush of hot air hit me, reminding me of the pervasive, sweltering atmosphere from the brick pizza oven at my first high school job.
Sweat trickled down my chest, soaked my pants, and dampened my socks. My hair clung to the nape of my neck, and mucus dripped from my nose to my lips, tasting like salted oysters.
Something crunched beneath my feet. Narrowing my eyes at the shadowy land, I saw small creatures stir. Roaches? Maggots? I couldn’t tell.
At some point, the nauseating warmth of the place must have suffocated me. I blacked out. I came to when the shithead, good-for-nothing scumbag threw me to the ground a while later. I didn’t know how much time had passed.
Groaning, I tried to get up on my feet, but exhaustion hit me.
“My lord, I brought you the blood child,” the sleazeball said.
Ten feet away from me, sitting on a throne made of what looked like bones and human skulls, a man stared at me. He wore a suit of armor that matched the pitch-black of his eyes. His black hair fell over the side of his face, reaching just above his shoulders. In his lap lay a tranquil, bright-yellow viper. He gently stroked the back of its head with the tips of his fingers.
“My child.” Looking at me, he stood up, tossing the snake to the ground. It slithered around the throne, its tongue hissing in and out.
I pushed myself up to sit on my knees.
The dark-eyed man now stood just a few steps away and had a grin on his face. He dropped to his knees right in front of me and touched his hand to my cheek. His skin scalded mine where he touched. I groaned.
“No,” he muttered, the grin washing from his face. He seemed heartbroken. With a frown, he jumped to his feet and grabbed the scumbag who had dragged me here by the throat. “This isn’t my blood child.” He squeezed the man’s neck. “Who did you bring me?”
The man with the scarred back whimpered. “He . . . he was there when I felt it. I felt it around him, my . . . my lord.”
Still holding on to his throat, the dark-eyed man lifted the scumbag into the air. “This. Isn’t. My. Child.” He spat each word. “You’ve wasted my time.” He brought his other hand up and snapped the scumbag’s neck. A loud crack echoed through the cave.
Just like he was throwing out trash, he tossed the man to the ground.
My eyes became the size of baseballs. I crawled blindly away from this monster. The dark-eyed man shouted for someone to take me and ordered another hideous person to get him his real blood child.
“Bring my child tonight, or you will end up like Marcius.”
I struggled to my feet and tried to run, but I didn’t get far. Another half-naked man restrained me. He hauled me out into an adjacent chamber with a big prison cell in the dead center of the room.
“What a joke! It’s obvious you’re not Lucifer’s child,” the new man said as he threw me into the cell.
I landed on top of slimy insects, some of which started crawling on me.
“See you never, kid.” The man turned, giving me a perfect view of his scarred back, and walked out of the room, slamming the wooden door behind him.
The blood drained from my face. Did he just say Lucifer? These people are crazy. What kind of fucked-up gang is this? That man had killed his own . . . what? Who was the scumbag? His friend, his henchman? He was dead now, just like I would be soon. I felt sure of that.
Addy had no way of finding me. I was screwed.
Chapter Four
ADRIEL
Rosy Cheeks came back for me with a scowl on her face. She shoved my arm to the side, the action making the blisters on my shoulder sting again.
Her piercing, dark eyes were narrowed and cold. “Hey,” she said, her voice full of rage.
Between the slits of my eyes, I stared at her, examining the hard so
ldier façade she put on. It reminded me of the way she’d looked into my eyes hours ago. Her expression had been full of sorrow, but she’d blinked all the tears away, collected herself, and let her face harden. Though deep down, the angel in me could still sense she was in deep emotional pain.
My throat was dry, but I managed to force two words from my lips. “Rosy Cheeks.”
Without any warning, she spat her next words at me. “I can’t believe I drove you in my car.” She bit her bottom lip with her teeth and peeled a piece of dry skin off. A tiny drop of blood crept out, but she continued eyeing me with a hard stare, as if she didn’t even notice what she had done to herself. “Where the hell is my brother?”
Brother? I didn’t know anything about Rosy Cheeks’ brother. I didn’t even know her real name.
Too tired to think straight, I closed my eyes for a second. A tiny speck of light flickered in the darkness, reminding me of the firefly from earlier. This time, though, the light started growing bigger and bigger. Behind my lids, I saw nothing but a warm, radiating sun.
An image flashed before me. I saw a young man—maybe eighteen or nineteen years old—getting dragged through what looked like a damp cave. His eyes were big and amber, yet something about him reminded me of Rosy Cheeks. His facial bone structure was sharp like hers. He had large pit stains, and around the collar of his T-shirt, a giant puddle of sweat slowly trickled down his body. He was struggling against someone, someone with a scarred, ugly back . . . just like mine.
When I opened my eyes again, Rosy Cheeks was yelling at me. She continued questioning me about her brother. No matter what I said, she didn’t seem to believe me.
“Dude!” She grabbed my head in both her hands, her fingers gripping my skull, and lifted my face off the pillow. “I know you’re in a cult. Now tell me where my brother was taken.”
That was when I saw it. Her features . . . the young man’s features. Although strange, I knew I’d just had a vision of Rosy Cheeks’ brother.
“Tell me where my brother is!”
I swallowed some saliva to hydrate my throat and said, “I don’t have anything to do with it, but I think I know.”
She landed a painful punch across my jaw, sending me falling against the bed on my blistered back.
“Tell me everything or I’ll kill you.”
Something about her rigid tone told me she wasn’t kidding. It took me a moment to realize how doomed I was. Rosy Cheeks needed me to tell her what I knew about her brother, and my life depended on her believing and trusting me. After all, she’d made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t afraid to hurt me.
But how would I tell her that her brother was kidnapped by a fallen angel? A demon, to be exact. In what world would she believe me if I told her I was a fallen angel too?
Taking a deep breath, I said, “It’s a long story, and I’d feel safer telling you somewhere not here.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. She stood up, moving away from me. “You want to go somewhere, just the two of us?”
“No, no. I just can’t tell you with so many ears nearby and people checking in.”
She crossed her arms. “Fine, but we’re going wherever I choose.” She came closer again, placed one hand underneath my left shoulder and the other on the side of my stomach, and shifted me to my side again. “Can you stand?”
“I can try.” Feet on the ground, I pushed myself into a standing position and grunted. The burns on my back felt as if they were peeling off.
“Are you walking out like that?” She pointed at my naked chest and the shroud around my bottom.
When I shrugged, she told me to wait and hurried out of the room. She came back a moment later with a maroon sweatshirt, jeans, and socks.
“Here, put the pants and sweatshirt on.” She handed everything over and turned away. “It’ll hide the burns and that disgusting ointment on your back.”
Even though my skin screamed in agony, I lifted my arms up and tried to pull the sweatshirt over my head. I must have made a loud noise, because she whirled around and came over to help. She yanked the sweatshirt down, helped me put on the pants and socks, put my arm over her shoulders, and started walking out with me dragging myself beside her.
I could feel the ointment soaking through the shirt, which felt sticky and moist. Still, by some miracle, the ointment had made the pain less severe in the past few hours I’d had it on. I let out a breath of relief.
“Where did you get the clothes?” I asked as we reached the hospital’s main door.
She glanced at me and shrugged. “I stole them.”
Rosy Cheeks slipped me out of the hospital. No one even batted an eyelash. In the car, she took my hand and ripped the patient wristband off my wrist before driving off.
Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself and groaned when the burns stung. I tried not to press my back too hard against the seat, but with Rosy Cheeks’ sudden shifts and turns, I couldn’t always avoid the contact.
“Where are we going?”
She didn’t answer.
We rode in silence for the next fifteen minutes or so. When she finally stopped the car at a diner with a sign out front that said “Creed’s,” she said, “Come on.” She helped me stand up again, but I felt much better, more balanced, this time.
A sign that read “Open 24/7” lay against the diner’s door. I could see a couple of people sitting at the bar eating and drinking before we’d even stepped in. A few sported light scarves around their necks. I didn’t blame them. Breath escaped my mouth like steam, and I shuddered.
Upon entering, a strange aroma struck me. I’d never smelled anything like it and couldn’t figure out what it was. I kept sniffing the air, the warm, sweet scent filling my lungs.
Rosy Cheeks chose a private booth in the back of the diner, presumably so no one could hear us talk.
She sat across from me with her arms crossed. “Tell me everything you know, but be careful. If you try anything, and I mean anything, the people here won’t let you get away with it.”
Her words were thick with irony. I thought back to the beginning of mankind, to that time long ago when I became a guardian. Now, I was sitting in a diner getting accused of being the opposite of what I had always been.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She leaned forward, her hair flowing past her shoulders. Her dark-brown eyes searched mine for answers. “Where is Reed?”
I placed my hands on the table and hoped she would believe my next words. “Let me start from the beginning. I’m not human. At least, I wasn’t a few hours ago.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just bear with me. Please.” I inched my body forward and spoke in a whisper, not wanting the waiters to hear.
Rosy Cheeks, who had tensed, moved away just a sliver.
“The burns on my back aren’t from a cult ritual. There’s no cult involved here. Whoever took your brother, he’s not someone you want to deal with.”
One of the waiters came over with a pot in hand and placed a mug in front of both of us. “Hello, my dears. Coffee?”
Rosy Cheeks gave a single nod of the head. “Please.”
The waitress poured her a hot, dark liquid from the pot and shot me a glance. “And for you?”
I looked between her and Rosy Cheeks, unable to decide. Was it normal to accept coffee? I didn’t exactly have money to pay. Although, the steam blowing from Rosy Cheeks’ mug tempted me with its enticing, rich smell.
Rosy Cheeks spoke for me. “He’ll have a glass of water. He’s recovering.”
The waitress smiled and walked away. That left me without any coffee to try.
Rosy Cheeks gestured with her hand for me to continue. “You were saying?”
“You don’t want to deal with the creature that took your brother.”
“And why not?”
“Because . . .” I tapped my fingers against the table, stalling for more time to gather my thoughts and decide wha
t I would say. I resolved to go with the truth. “Because that thing is a fallen angel.”
Chapter Five
ADELAIDE
“He’s a what?” I’d had it with Adriel. He was clearly crazy. “Are you out of your mind? Did you think you could speak nonsense and I’d be stupid enough to believe you?”
Fallen angel, he’d said. He had to be batshit crazy!
Reed’s Swiss Army knife dug into my posterior. I was practically sitting on the metal object. Pretending to adjust the bottom hem of my shirt, I reached for the knife in my back pocket and hid it in my fist. With my other hand, I reached to take the coffee mug and sipped the warm drink, my eyes never leaving Adriel. I had to stay cautious and watch his every move.
Adriel kept his gaze steady, never once flinching. “I’m telling the truth.”
“Yeah, and pigs can fly.”
He drew in a long breath. “Look, I’m a fallen—”
The waitress came back, cutting Adriel off mid-sentence. She set a large glass of water in front of him and placed a straw on the table. “Here you go, hun. Would you like anything else?”
The burgundy apron she wore reeked of bacon and eggs far more than the diner did. She was looking at both of us, so I told her we were good for now.
As soon as she left, Adriel leaned in again. “I’m a fallen angel.” His voice was so low, I probably wouldn’t have heard him if I hadn’t been bending over the table, sipping my coffee.
My hold on the knife tightened. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you trying to keep me from finding my brother? Is that what they told you to do? To stall?”
“Again, I’m not in a cult.”
“Then where is my brother?”
Adriel looked down at his hands, took a deep breath, and looked back at me. “He’s in hell.”
I jumped to my feet. “That’s it!”
All the people in the diner turned in their seats, curious. Nothing this loud ever happened here at night.
