Divinity Falling

by Nour Zikra

  H

  Not far from the apartment complex, Addy stopped the car in front of a convenience store. Without saying a word, she hopped out, taking her keys and wallet with her.

  I opened the car door. “Addy, where are you going?”

  She didn’t look back. I left the duffle bag in the car and headed after her. If anything happened in my absence, not only would I be unable to do anything, but I would also regret not protecting Addy.

  Inside the store, Addy marched through the aisles, never stopping to check out the products she walked past.

  I walked behind her, my attention being pulled this way and that. Some aisles smelled like roses and lilies, and before I could ask where the scents were coming from, I noticed candles and air fresheners. As I followed Addy, I surveyed the bright-yellow signs taped to specific rows to indicate sales and buy-one-get-one-free deals.

  “What are you looking for?” I inquired.

  Addy stopped walking, and I nearly crashed into her while looking at a variety of bags containing white undershirts on the row to my right.

  She grabbed two bags from the opposite row and tossed them at me. I caught them just before they fell to the floor.

  “I’m looking for these.” She walked off in a hurry, her face red.

  It took me two seconds to study the bags and realize what they were. I smiled. Men’s boxer shorts flustered Addy, and she was getting them for me.

  I continued after her, passing aisle after aisle until I found her in the back of the store standing in front of the tools and supplies section. She was looking at a couple of different multitool pocket knives similar to the one she’d used on Lucifer.

  I took one for analysis and pulled out all the attachments. “You do realize that you can’t kill him with this, right?”

  “Just because I can’t kill Lucifer with it doesn’t mean I can’t use it to protect myself.”

  She examined one of the red, bigger pocket knives by grazing the sharp edges of each tool against her fingers. I waited for blood to seep out, but she was gentle with the knife, not letting its tools cut her.

  “His demons are apparently all over the place, and we just lost Simiael. Plus, Lizzy’s guardian is with her. This,” she said, raising the knife in my direction, “is the best we can do.”

  Taking the bags of men’s boxer shorts from my hand, she moved to the front of the store to make the purchase.

  H

  Back in the car, I could tell Addy had no idea what to do next. She made a few quick calls to Lizzy and Reed to make sure they were still safe. Once she hung up, she sat looking at the parking lot around us for a while, not saying anything.

  A middle-aged couple moved past the car on their way to the convenience store. Addy shrank in her seat, her eyes fixated on the man and woman.

  “They’re just people,” I said.

  “For now.”

  Addy started the car and began driving. In a few minutes, we were on the highway, traveling away from her apartment.

  I closed my eyes and let the morning sun shower me, like it had on my first day as a human. Even now, the warmth continued to amaze me.

  With my lids still shut, I asked Addy, “What’s the plan?”

  When she didn’t say anything, I looked at her.

  “Addy?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I just want to be as close to Reed as possible in case they come back for us.”

  “Are we going to stay with him?”

  “No. But somewhere nearby.”

  The highway was full of dawdling cars. Addy explained that everyone was heading to work at that time, which was why they were driving so slowly. We sat in traffic, moving what seemed like mere inches every couple of seconds. Addy checked her phone multiple times and fidgeted in her seat. She checked her rearview mirror often, her eyes scanning the road behind us.

  It took us more than forty minutes to exit the highway. Addy stepped on the gas like she always did, speeding as if something was chasing us, which I couldn’t exactly dispute. She seemed to know the area well. For the first time, I realized I knew nothing about her. Had she lived here all her life? What was her childhood like without a dad? Did she ever have a father figure growing up?

  Moving through back roads, she managed to avoid traffic lights and the sluggish flow of cars.

  “We’re almost there,” she said.

  I didn’t know where “there” was, but my eyes surrendered to sleep before I could ask.

  In the darkness, the firefly returned. Its light beamed brighter than before. For no reason other than my imagination going wild, I thought the little creature looked happy.

  “Hey.” I put my hand out, palm up.

  The firefly came and rested in the center of my palm, its eyes fixed on me.

  “You keep disappearing before I get the chance to talk to you.”

  The firefly’s light wavered for a split second, then lit up again.

  “Are you here to show me something?”

  The little creature flew off my hand. It hovered close to my face, its small wings flapping gently.

  “What is it?”

  The firefly tapped its leg against my nose, then took flight in the other direction.

  “Wait! Please come back.” My voice sounded far away. “I have some questions.”

  With the firefly gone, darkness came back.

  “Hello?” My voice, a mere whisper, sounded as if it came from another room. I called out at the top of my lungs, but that didn’t make a difference.

  My body shifted in this black hole. I had no sense of direction, no way to differentiate up from down. As if my old wings were carrying me, I rose up. I floated for a long time, and when I fell back down, I landed softly.

  Sense of the space around me came back, although I was still in the dark. The surface underneath me extended past my arms and legs and felt like cotton. It reminded me of Addy’s bed. Instinctively, I reached out, searching for her.

  “Adriel?” Her voice reverberated like a sweet chorus of angels.

  Something stirred above me, trapping me in place by the hips. A hand rested flat on my chest. Moving my hands around, I felt legs on either side of me. I held on, trailing my fingers up, up, up until I found a set of hips.

  She came down, her lips meeting mine, her hair everywhere. I groaned, pulling her closer and gripping her waist. I lost myself in her, feeling nothing but her touch and smelling only her. She was a succulent rose in the dark.

  When she pulled away, I opened my eyes. Her face hovered above mine. Bright lights shone behind her.

  I reached for her face and asked, “Are you an angel?” It was a stupid question, one that I knew the answer to. But she was just so beautiful, so pure, so light, I felt certain in that moment she was an angel. With my hand tangled in her hair and her dark-brown eyes staring into my soul, pulling me inside her, inside her being, I just knew.

  I shouldn’t have been feeling what I felt. It was wrong, I knew that. But I didn’t care just then. Not when she looked down at me with her full lips parted. Not when her cheeks blushed the rosy shade I loved. If wanting her meant descending into hell, I would want her just the same.

  Yellow light glittered in the distance, like rain made of gold. It drizzled behind Addy, seeming to pour on her. She smiled.

  I held her tightly. “What’s going on?”

  The light engulfed her. Her body lifted off mine, turning weightless.

  “No, don’t go!” I brought her hands to my face. “Don’t go . . .”

  Her smile faded with the rest of her.

  I lay alone on the featureless mattress now. I dropped my head back, missing her. The yellow light kept growing where Addy had been. It surged through the space around me, blinding me.

  From the golden glow emerged a pair of wings, gold like the sun.

  “Michael,” I said. My hands reached out to touch the shimmering yellow feathers, which belonged only to one an
gel. They were both soft and strong at the same time. Though they felt smooth against my skin, their roots were hard. Nothing but his own strength could yank them out.

  I sat up, expecting the archangel to make an appearance any second.

  As expected, he burst into existence from the golden light. I thought he would be in his armor, but his chest was bare. And yet, he had strapped his famous sword onto his unbreakable belt. He stretched his golden wings back, flexing the muscles in his chest and shoulders.

  His eyes glimmered with happiness as his glistening feathers and blond hair ruffled in the air. He smiled and said my name in greeting.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m here to protect you.”

  I whined from the pressure of his hand. I shut my eyes, feeling moisture threatening to trickle down. “What . . . what are you doing?”

  He didn’t respond. I still felt the tightness of his grip on my shoulder, but from the darkness behind my lids came an image.

  “Do you see?” Michael said, his hand steady on me.

  I groaned. There was a fire. It grew from afar until it reached me. On the other side of the fire, a person was running.

  Michael’s hand squeezed harder. “Listen to the voice.”

  “There is no voice.” I couldn’t hear anything. I could only see.

  “Pay attention.”

  The blaze cloaked the air. Everywhere I looked, there was a thick red film, and I saw dark smoke around the edges of the fire. Michael’s fingers dug into my shoulder, reminding me he was still there.

  I looked through the red haze, my vision’s lens shifting forward. It zoomed in, showing me a clearer view of the person I saw running earlier. The figure stood behind the fire, an arm covering his or her mouth.

  “Listen to the voice, Adriel,” Michael repeated. “This is important.”

  I could only hear my heart pounding in my chest. Was that what he wanted me to notice? That I was human?

  “You are not listening, Adriel.”

  “Listening to what? Michael, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Shh. Just listen.”

  Taking a deep breath through the pain, I tried to listen past the hammering of my heart. I was about to say I didn’t hear anything again when the sound of wind gusted past me. The figure behind the fire looked like he or she was coughing. Hunched over, the person’s eyes stared through the red, foggy cloud of smoke. For a split second, the eyes glanced right through me. Dark brown, wild, and angry. I recognized those eyes.

  “Addy?” I muttered.

  “Yes.” Michael’s grasp on my shoulder never faltered, but his voice stayed gentle. “Pay attention to her. Pay attention to what is around her.”

  He sounded like a loving grown-up speaking to a child. It reminded me of the way Jenna had spoken to her son throughout the years before he passed away.

  I looked at Addy through the fire, though I doubted she could see me. It was just a vision, after all. I wasn’t really there.

  She moved out of sight.

  “Where is she? Where did she go?”

  “She is just behind that door. She is outside a house.”

  My eyes narrowed. Right where Addy had been standing was a window, and to the right, where she’d disappeared, was the door Michael was talking about.

  A distant shout came through the fire, the first real sound I’d heard. I tried concentrating on just that sound until I heard a clear voice.

  “Erica!” Addy yelled.

  Over and over, her words kept coming. First like a whisper, then growing into shaky screams. Suddenly, I could hear nothing else.

  “Erica, where are you?”

  The door opened. Addy appeared before me. Flames whipped in her direction, escaping out onto the street. She ducked, avoiding the fire. Another figure appeared behind her. A man. He pulled her away. She clutched at his hands around her stomach, almost like she was trying to pull them from her body.

  “That is you,” Michael said.

  “What’s the meaning of this? Why are you showing it to me?”

  Addy continued to shout as I dragged her away from the scene. All the visions I’d seen in the past few days had come true. Was this vision about to take place too?

  My vision’s lens drew back, zooming out and away from Addy and me. I thought of Reed. We were driving toward his college. If his dorm was on fire and he got hurt—or worse—Addy would be destroyed.

  “No,” I said. “She’ll be heartbroken. You have to save him.”

  “This is Adelaide’s mother’s house,” Michael said. “You are still not paying attention.”

  “To what? What is there other than Addy and the fire?”

  “Listen to the fire.”

  “What?”

  Michael’s fingers seemed to tear through my flesh. I screamed, but he hushed me.

  “Adriel, this is important. I need you to truly pay attention.”

  Tears poured down my cheeks. I felt them stream past my chin, slide across my neck over the hollow point of my throat, and run down my chest, soaking the cotton shirt I wore.

  “I can’t!” I cried out. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  I took another deep breath and did what he asked me to do. I listened to the fire.

  It thrashed through the room like fire tends to do, consuming everything like a hungry beast in battle. I knew that couldn’t be it. No way was that what he wanted me to hear. So, I listened harder, even though my shoulder was in itself on fire.

  “Ade,” the flames seemed to murmur. “Ade.”

  “I hear her name,” I said. “Or one form of her name, I think.”

  “Keep listening.”

  “Ade . . .”

  The fire started screeching in my ears, loud, high-pitched, earsplitting. I opened my eyes, exiting the vision.

  Michael’s hand eased off my shoulder, and he let out a harsh breath. “You let go too soon.”

  I fell onto the mattress, my hand holding the swelling spot where Michael’s fingers had dug in. Tears kept spilling from my eyes. They drenched the bed, leaving me feeling like a child, out of control. My body trembled, and I gripped the edge of the mattress with my other hand, trying to get a hold of myself again.

  Michael placed his hand on my back. “Tell Adelaide to drive to her mother’s house.”

  Gazing up at him through the wet blur, I saw him smile. I had so many questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth. I knew if I did, I would probably scream.

  He lifted his hand away from me, placed it over his heart, and said, “Your journey has just begun.”

  The burning pain in my shoulder began to dissolve—Michael’s doing.

  Michael’s smile remained as his golden wings extended behind him, ready to soar. The yellow, glittering light came back into view, and he was gone.

  In a few seconds, I was breathing evenly, my heart back to its normal rhythm. Lying on the mattress, I imagined myself as a firecracker dwindling in cold water.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ADELAIDE

  Adriel winced in his seat. His eyes had been shut for some time, but he kept panting and groaning. I parked the car in front of a motel just a few minutes from Saint Vincent College and waited for Adriel to wake up. His hands fisted. Every vein in his body seemed tense. It was the tears, though, that broke me. What is he dreaming about?

  “Adriel?” I shook his shoulder gently. “You okay?”

  His fingers uncurled. He reached out and clenched my forearm with both of his hands.

  “Adriel?”

  Like iron claws, his grip was tight, too tight. Blue veins swelled in his wrists. I fought to free my hand, but he was strong even in this sleeping state.

  “Adriel, please!”

  The color had drained from my hand. If he kept squeezing, I had a feeling my tiny wrist would b
reak.

  His eyes shot open and he stared ahead like he didn’t know where he was. For a few seconds, he just blinked. When he looked at me, tears dripping down his cheeks, his chest expanded and he let out a sigh.

  “Addy . . .” Looking down, he noticed his grip on my hand and released it. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  Wiping the tears off his face, he rested his head back against the headrest. “I had a vision, but it wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He rubbed his left shoulder and winced, his hair falling across his face.

  “I saw Michael.” He looked at me through red, wet eyes.

  In my head, I went through a list of faces I knew. I thought of my coworkers, who I hadn’t seen since last Thursday, just before my entire life turned upside down. I even thought of people I’d seen at Euphoria, like Lukas and some of the bartenders. When I couldn’t match a face with the name, I said, “Who’s Michael?”

  “The archangel.”

  “What?”

  “I saw the archangel Michael in the vision. Actually, I saw him in my dream, and he showed me a vision.” Removing his muscular hand from his shoulder, he brought it to my face. “You were there too.” His fingers entwined in my hair, right behind my ear.

  His skin was warm against mine, but the good kind of warm. He didn’t feel like the burning heat coming from deep within me. Without thinking, I leaned into his touch, my eyes closing for a sliver of a second. He responded by pulling my face toward his. When I was mere inches from him, he stopped.

  It would have been a lie if I said I didn’t want him to kiss me again. Still, when I remembered how he’d treated me just a few hours ago after kissing me, I resolved not to let it happen a second time.

  Maybe it was exhaustion, but his eyes drooped in the outer corners, making him look somewhat sad. He let out a breath, one that traveled in a straight line and touched my mouth.

  Shaking my head, I pulled away. “What was the vision?”