It was a lose-lose situation. It was late in the night before I was finally able to sleep but it wasn’t for long. I was woken up by someone moving around in the cell. I opened my eyes to see a woman that I didn’t recognize. She had black hair and blue eyes and she stood in front of me, waiting for me to wake up. Should I pretend to be asleep? I still didn’t know how she had gotten in. The door was closed and locked and I had never heard it open.
“I know you’re awake Rachael,” she commented. So much for that plan.
“Who are you?” this seemed to be a common question for me to ask lately. A lot of people I didn’t know who knew who I was were approaching me for no apparent reason at all.
“You don’t need to know who I am,” I got this response a lot too. If they were allowed to know who I was, I should be able to know who they were.
“Well what are you doing here Miss “You don’t need to know who I am?”” I don’t think she was all that happy with my question.
“I’m here to warn you about someone,” she told me, sounding irritated. Yeah, well I was irritated too.
“Who would that be considering I am locked in a little cell, all by myself?”
“The one who comes to you at night is not to be trusted. He is not what he seems, or what he claims to be,” of course I immediately thought of Joshua but he wasn’t actually real, was he? I mean you start to doubt something like that when it stops happening.
“Do you know who I am speaking of?” she wanted to know.
“Of course I know who you are talking about. Doesn’t everyone know exactly who you’re talking about?”
“Don’t mock me. It is very important that you remember this,” she insisted.
“I’ll remember it alright,” I said. If I had been in here nine days like I had been last time, I might want to talk to anyone I could talk to. But since I had only been in here less than a day and I was not all that happy about still being here, I didn’t really want to talk to another one of those people who knew me but I didn’t know them and they wouldn’t tell me who they were yet they had a really important question for me. No. Just no.
“Make sure that you remember,” she decided.
“And if I don’t?” but suddenly, she wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t. She probably hadn’t even been there to begin with.
32
I expected another long duration, possibly even a permanent one but it only took two days for them to come back to let me out.
“Today is your lucky day Miss Taylor. Your mother signed you out. You can go home,” the male nurse from before was the one who let me out. I think he was glad to know that he wasn’t going to get in trouble for the death of a patient. I stood up and he undid the straitjacket. “I only work here because I can’t get a job anywhere else. No one is hiring,” he said as he worked. “I don’t mean for anyone to get hurt. I just have to do as I’m told. If I was in charge, no one would end up here.”
“Thanks,” my arms were sore from being restrained for so long. I hadn’t really felt it last time.
“Yeah,” he led me down the hallway and back to my room where the clothes that I had been brought here in were waiting.
“Your cellphone is at the main desk. You can get it on your way out,” he said before he left. I quickly changed out of the uniform and back into my own clothes. There was nothing I wanted more to do than get out of here. I couldn’t believe that my mother had changed her mind. Jesse must have told her what was going on. No one, no matter how angry they were, could let themselves be responsible for the death of their own child.
I opened the door and walked down the few hallways to the main desk. The other patients looked at me with envy, I felt pity for them. They didn’t have the hope of leaving. The demon leader was waiting for me in the shadows across from the main desk but strangely I wasn’t afraid this time. He knew that he had lost and I knew that I was getting away from him, at least for now.
“Have a nice day Rachael,” the receptionist handed me a large envelope with my belongings in it as I passed her.
“Thank you,” I told her.
“Have a nice day Rachael,” the demon mocked. I kept walking but he wasn’t done. “I will find you and nothing will be able to stop me this time.” A security guard opened the main door and I walked out into the sunlight for the first time in a very long time. I guess two weeks wasn’t that long of a time, but it felt like an eternity when I had spent the entire time tortured or alone.
Jesse was waiting by a car I didn’t recognize with a woman that I didn’t know. Was this some kind of trick? Who was she?
“Hey,” he hugged me and I hugged him back, keeping my eyes on the woman.
“Where’s my mom?” I asked.
“Right here,” he said.
“Jesse, that’s not my mother,” I told him.
“Actually, this is your real mother,” did he find this funny?
“I don’t expect you to remember me,” the woman said. “My name is Anna. I’m your biological mother.”
“But I wasn’t adopted,” I insisted. What was with everyone being named Anna all of the sudden? Was that a popular name during the 1960’s?
“How about we get in the car and go get something to eat? There is a lot you need to know,” she suggested. I glanced at Jesse who motioned to the car, looking very pleased with himself. Ok, sure. Let’s get in the car with some strange woman.
“Come on,” Jesse encouraged. I moved over to the car, opening the passenger side door and getting in as Anna got into the driver’s seat and Jesse got into the back. She turned on the car and pulled out of the parking lot. It was awkwardly silent as she drove. I mean, what was I supposed to say to a woman who claimed to be my mother and what was she supposed to say to me if she was my mother who left me alone with another woman for my entire life?
“What’s with the envelope?” Jesse asked. I think he was just trying to break the silence because it was kind of obvious as to what would be there.
“My stuff,” I told him.
“You had that much stuff with you when they took you to the asylum?” now that he mentioned it, it did seem overly full. All I had with me that day was my cellphone.
“No,” I answered. I opened it to find my cellphone and another envelope inside of it marked “Since you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“What is in there?” he couldn’t see it from the back seat and I didn’t think it would be the best thing to tell him. I don’t know why, I just didn’t.
“Just a bunch of information about the asylum,” I said.
“Well that’s boring and pretty worthless,” he decided.
“Yeah,” I agreed, putting the smaller envelope back inside the other one. “Since you wouldn’t listen to me.” Was it from one of the demons or the strange woman who had been in my cell?
“So, do you kids like fast food?” Anna asked. I think she had noticed the other envelope, but she didn’t mention it.
“We’re in high school. If it didn’t come from the school cafeteria, we like it,” Jesse answered.
“Alright, sounds good to me,” Anna pulled into the parking lot of some burger place and shut off the car. I guess that was fine with me. It was slightly normal. I mean, compared to everything else in my life right now it was very normal.
We ended up sitting in a booth as far away from anyone else as possible. I guess whatever it was I needed to know, it wasn’t safe for the ears of other people.
“Did everyone get everything they ordered?” she asked. I wished she would just tell me what was going on. It was kind of shocking to hear that your mother isn’t really your mother. It might be better when it was explained.
“Yep,” Jesse said. I didn’t even bother checking. I didn’t really care.
“So, would either of you like to explain to me what is going on?” I questioned.
“Well, I guess I’ll start by saying that your mother wasn’t really your mother,” Anna began.
“I know that already. T
hat was what I needed explained,” I told her.
“Your father was a very good man. He was married to your mother and they had one child. A son named Avery. Your mother was done having kids but your father knew that he had a duty to pass on his bloodline,” she wasn’t quite making sense here. “I had a child with your father. That child was you. The woman he was married to was extremely angry and even more so when your father and I fixed your birth certificate and medical records so that she was your biological mother.”
“I couldn’t raise you since I was technically not your mother anymore so your father took you to raise you. He died soon after. Your half-brother, Avery, knew most of this. He was the only thing that kept that woman from putting you up for adoption or just leaving you somewhere. Because I couldn’t stay with you, I wanted to make sure that you would be protected. I talked to several of the people that I work for and they agreed to help me. You haven’t been alone even though it has seemed like it at times.”
“When your brother died, the woman you lived with decided that there was nothing standing in her way to get rid of you anymore. Until Josh continued to come around to see you. She then realized that he was the person that I had sent to keep you safe and she needed to find any way possible to get him out of the picture. It was by sheer accident that she stumbled upon some of your father’s belongings.”
“What she found there allowed her to summon a group of demons to kill Josh and you with him. She succeeded in killing Josh but was shocked out of her mind when you survived. I didn’t know how it was possible when I found out. When that didn’t work and she had nothing left to give the demons, as she had already sold her soul for this deal, she knew that she would have to do the job herself.”
“You did not jump off of that bridge Rachael. You went there because it was a place that was familiar to you. A place you could feel safe when you felt like you were a mess up because of everything she was telling you. She followed you there, knowing that you would trust her even if she had been cruel to you.”
“She pushed you off of the bridge and you fell into the river and drowned. It was her greatest triumph until she got a call from the hospital saying that they had found you by the river, barely alive. She was incredibly angry but she covered it up, claiming that you had been a depressed person and that she had been worried that you would attempt suicide. The hospital of course believed her. There was no evidence otherwise and you didn’t remember it at all.”
“Her next plan hatched when another group of demons came to her and told her that they were looking for you. She led them to you numerous times. When no one believed you, it was her perfect chance to send you to the asylum where they had set up headquarters. She never expected you to get out. Everything wrong that has happened to you since Avery died has been her trying to kill you. “
“Avery wasn’t the only one who knew about this though. He knew that he might not be able to live to help you so he told one other person. An elementary student that no one would suspect. Jesse.” That was slightly expected since Jesse had been the one to confirm that it was demons that were after me.
“When there was nothing left that he could do to help you, he came to me. We would have gotten you out sooner but even after I switched back your biological mother, they required a DNA test. I have a feeling that Mrs. Taylor will be arrested for kidnapping as well as attempted murder. You won’t have to deal with her ever again.”
I felt a sense of relief. All of the chaos and the danger in my life was finally over. I wouldn’t be attacked anymore because the woman who had done all of this to me was gone. But that didn’t quite explain one thing.
“There was a woman there who claimed her name was Anna. She said she was an angel,” I decided to mention it since they seemed to have all of the answers right now.
“She was a very sad mistake,” Anna said. “Angels can shift their memories onto someone else in order to hide themselves. It’s like making a decoy. I had to do that with Anna.” And there comes yet another shocking addition to this story.
“You’re an angel?” Ok, I could believe the demon thing and the my mother isn’t really my mother thing. But this was getting completely too weird for me.
“I should probably have mentioned that sooner,” she admitted.
“Wait; are you this guardian angel that everyone keeps saying I have? Cause you’ve done a really awful job,” I told her.
“I have done an awful job as a mother,” she sighed. “But I am not your guardian angel.”
“How many angels have been around me in addition to all these demons?” Was I dreaming again? I had finally thought that all of the chaos and weirdness was over and here it came again with an ever greater vengeance.
“There have been three around you almost constantly and it seems that another one came to you while we weren’t there,” she answered.
“So of all four of these angels, not a single one had the guts to save me from these demons? Well aren’t you all a bunch of worthless wings,” I got up, grabbing the envelope that I had brought with me.
“I am not done explaining to you,” Anna said.
“Well I’m done listening,” I left the fast food place and went out into the parking lot but I didn’t really know where to go. I pretty much didn’t have anywhere.
“Rachael!” Jesse ran after me.
“What?” I stopped walking.
“You remember how I said there are some things that you don’t know?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t that right before all of these angels let me be drug to a demon infested asylum?”
“Well one of those things that you don’t know is how angels and demons work together,” he explained.
“Oh, so both the angels and the demons were working together to kill me. How nice.”
“Just listen to me. You know what the City of Chaos is, right?”
“Yes. That whole Heaven combined with Hell thing,” of all of the people in the world, I had thought that Jesse would have been the one to be on my side but it didn’t seem like he was.
“Well it happened for a reason. About a thousand or so years ago the veil that keeps Hell out of Earth formed a tear, which is known as a rift. Because there was no way to repair it, the angels and demons had to make a pact to work together. This meant allowing the entire contents of Hell to be placed in Heaven. Well it didn’t work out so great. But the only thing keeping the veil together today is the power of both Heaven and Hell combined. If an angel were to attack a demon for any reason, there would be a war and the veil would be torn again.”
“Earth would be over-run by the afterlife and all life would cease to exist. That was why the angels couldn’t help you. They did their best to make sure you stayed alive, but that was all they could do.”
“Why me? Why am I a demon target and why are there four angels surrounding me?”
“It’s because you aren’t a normal human being. Did you ever stop to think about how you are with the people you care about? I’m an unpopular, disliked and bullied kid and you never once let anyone hurt me if you were there. You beat up the captain of the cheerleading squad because she said it was my fault my mom couldn’t find a husband. You may not like to admit it but you’re a hero to a lot of the kids at that school. You’re the only one who isn’t afraid to stand up to other people. That’s not normal behavior for a high school student. Did you ever wonder why you are like you are?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I told him.
“The reason the demons are after you and the reason the angels are watching you is because of your soul. The demons want to force this deal forever so that they will be able to have control everywhere. The angels have been trying to find any way possible to fuel the veil so that they can kick the demons out of heaven. It would take an immense amount of energy to make this happen. That energy is found in your soul.”
“Who was my father?” Having an angel for a mother did not account for that.
“Your father was a
member of a rare society in the City of Chaos. He was a demon who followed the angels, or rather pretended to follow the angels. He was corrupt and everything your brother told you about him being a hero was a lie. He was the first one willing to feast on a human soul. But his blood was very powerful.”
“What does that make me?” I asked.
“Extremely powerful.”
33
“We need to get you as far away from here as possible to a safe house,” Anna explained as she drove once again. “Before we leave, there is one more person that we need to get.” That was when I realized that she was driving towards the school.
“Who?” there was no one there that I would want to come anywhere with me. I hated them all.
“One of the angels who have been looking after you has been attending the school. He was unauthorized in his watch over you but most of the angels are too afraid of him to tell him that he can’t do what he wants,” she said.
“What angel?” I wanted to know. That seemed odd that there would be an angel like that watching me. Then again, everything in my life was odd right now.
“The angel of death,” she answered. Oh how lovely. “He is the reason that you didn’t die in the alley and the reason you didn’t die in the river. None of the rest of us have any power over death. We would have lost you long ago if he hadn’t intervened. He is a solitary angel that rarely speaks to anyone so we were all shocked when he developed this interest in you. No one questioned him though. We needed his help.”
“Who is he at the school?” I asked. I couldn’t think of any new students that had come there. Certainly none who could be the angel of death.
“He didn’t want any of us to tell you so he can tell you himself,” she seemed to be afraid of him too. Was everyone afraid of him?
“Here we are,” she pulled into the school parking lot. “I don’t know where he’ll be so it might be best if we split up. Jesse take Rachael with you. See if you can find him on the schedule he is supposed to be on. I’ll see if I can find him elsewhere.” School was still going on. It was only a little after lunch. I had no idea still who we were looking for. I guess that was why I was going with Jesse. He knew.
The Rift Page 8
