by C. G. Blaine
He half-smiles. “Cringing the entire time.”
I take a deep breath, determined to regain my Kelley Christmas spirit. There are plenty of days for grieving, but today isn’t one of them. “Well then, you know I have some eggnog to get through.” At the bottom of the stairs, I spin around. “Would you like to watch me get drunk and lip-sync to Christmas music?”
Mad at him or not, being around someone who knew them makes everything feel a little better.
It only takes a second for him to shrug and walk over. “I’ve been doing it since you turned sixteen. Why stop now?”
Surrounded by every Christmas decoration I could squeeze into the space, we spend the afternoon drinking through seven different batches of eggnog. I only make it through one glass of each, but Cass has two and proceeds to polish off the one made with whiskey. He frowns at the empty pitcher, so I hang over the side of the bed and retrieve the rest of the bottle from underneath. Angels apparently have a much higher tolerance than mere mortal-angel hybrids.
“You went all out,” he says, reading the label. “Top shelf.”
I lie back on my pillow. “This is what the Kelley family trains for all year. We don’t mess around.”
“I know.” He leans back against Terra’s bed and messes with some of the fake snow covering the floor beside his leg. “I had to keep Brice from falling off the roof when he tangled his foot in a hundred feet of twinkle lights.”
“Only once?” I ask in disbelief.
He brings the bottle to his lips, fighting off a smirk. “Once a year.”
I smile. “That sounds about right.” I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, thinking about all the amazing moments they gave me. “I worry, no matter how long they’re gone, I’ll never stop missing them this much.”
Cass stays quiet long enough that I check to make sure he’s still there. Our eyes meet, and I wait for the look I hate, but it never comes.
“I should go,” he says, pushing off the floor.
I sit up, confused. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
“No.” He stops with his hand on the doorknob covered in shiny purple wrapping paper. “But I thought I would try leaving before one of us is mad at the other.”
“How are you getting home?” I ask, remembering he appeared out of thin air.
He tilts his head back and forth, deliberating, and then cocks an eyebrow. His hand falls to his side, and he comes back toward the bed. I hold my breath as his knee lands on the mattress between my legs. My mouth becomes his focus, and he inches closer.
“Cass…”
“Shut up, Hannah.”
The whiskey on his breath ends up more intoxicating than the eggnog. Warm fingers skim over my jaw before they curl around the back of my neck, and I can’t think straight anymore. I close my eyes, waiting for his lips to brush over mine, but the weight of him leaves the bed along with his touch. And I’m alone in a ridiculously overdecorated room.
I hide my face in my hands, taking a few deep breaths to clear my head. What are you doing, Hannah?
A buzz makes me peek through my fingers at my phone.
Thanks for saving me the cost of a cab. Stop drinking before you reach Brice circa eight years ago.
The year we lost my dad for an evening. He turned up on a porch a few houses over, wrapped in garland. Apparently, he’d been all over the neighborhood, performing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s version of “Carol of the Bells”—which is completely instrumental. He thrashed around and scared some kids. They held a neighborhood watch meeting over it the following week.
I drop back on the bed and smile after one of the best Christmases I’ve had in a long time. The first one I haven’t spent alone in five years. Now I just need to make it through next month and the worst week of the year.
Rosdan frantically searches under couch cushions, tossing them everywhere in the once-tidy living room. He pulls at the back of his hair hard enough that it’s a miracle the dark strands don’t come out. “I know Alexandra had her binky before I laid her down.”
Chaz’s eyebrows pull together, and he shoots me a what the fuck look. I shrug. I don’t speak nanny or anything baby-related and have no plans on learning. Ros throws his arms in the air when he finds a nipple-looking thing under the coffee table and runs out of the room.
“He needs to get laid,” Chaz says. “A lot.”
I chuckle and relax back in the oversize easy chair.
Rosdan’s charge works in investment banking, giving him the funds for not only a full-time, live-in nanny, but also a house with three living rooms. Sorry, one’s a family room because God forbid they watch a kids’ movie on just any couch.
Chaz nods at the crystal ball glued to my hand. “How’d the chickens go over?”
“Beautifully. But I caved and stopped screwing with her.”
He steeples his fingers and brings them to his dimpled chin, mimicking Rosdan whenever he’s overly serious. “Now, why would you do that?”
Rosdan reappears, sparing me from Chaz’s inquisition. He drops onto the cushion-less couch and heaves out a sigh. “We can talk now.”
“So, you had another attack?” I ask.
He nods and wipes his hands over his face. “A few days ago. It went after Mark at work. He took the stairs instead of the elevator as part of his New Year’s resolution. The demon portaled in on one of the landings.”
I roll my globe over the arm of the chair, my eyes following it back and forth. The day Hannah’s car wouldn’t start in the empty parking lot, I caught a demon watching us. No one else was around when he showed up, same with the alley. My other hand swipes over the ball, bringing up Hannah. She’s sitting in class, surrounded by fifty other students.
“Kasdaye.”
I look up at my name.
Chaz leans forward in his chair across from me. “What are you thinking?”
“They’re only targeting them when they’re alone.”
He thinks for a second, then nods. “That adds up with the attack on mine. He was by himself in the locker room at the gym.”
“And when they went after Alistair walking home from school.” Rosdan yanks at the back of his hair again. “But why? What do demons want with a Nephilim? They don’t have their powers, and most rituals using their blood need a bigger astrological event than a full moon. Right, Cass?”
I nod, my attention drifting back toward the ball. “And there won’t be anything strong enough for a few months.”
Hannah leans on her hand, propped up by an elbow. I keep looking at her like if I stare long enough, I’ll discover whatever they want with her. Not her powers. Not her blood.
“What if they want to take us out?” Chaz taps his finger on his leg. “It only takes one charge for each of us and no more Fallen Watchers.”
Rosdan lets out a long sigh. “Then they could use Nephilim blood anytime they want, no matter how small the ritual.”
“No more risk,” I finish out our collective train of thought.
We all sit quietly, searching for holes in the logic. But it makes the most sense out of anything we’ve come up with so far.
All three of us reach for our phones within seconds to text Samy. One of the nice things about knowing each other our entire existences is the predictability aspect.
“I’ll be the buddy,” Chaz says. “Ros, act concerned and let him know what’s up. And, Cass … be Cass.”
I’m already hitting send on my message, doing just that.
I’m done fucking around. Get your shit together and call me, or I’m going angelic bounty hunter on your ass.
Rosdan pockets his phone. “You two had better go. Alistair’s carpool will be dropping him off from school soon.”
Chaz snorts and jumps up. He pulls Ros in for a hug, slapping him on the back. “You’re the best mommy out of all of us, Armaros.” Knowing better than to try heartfelt embraces with me, he gives a salute. “Let me know when you de
cide to take charge of your charge again.”
I flip him off. “Stop worrying about my charge and call your own, Blondie.”
He winks and holds his phone to his ear. Triggering a charge’s adrenaline so we can drop wherever we need to go is the most efficient form of travel for us. We scrub the incident from their mind the first chance we get. Although one of the rare perks of Hannah knowing: I won’t have to this time.
His charge answers, and Chaz’s face grows serious. He uses a low, gravelly voice to say, “I’ve been watching you, Avery. At night, when you think you’re alone in your room.” He heads toward the kitchen, and not long after he walks around the corner, his voice stops.
“And people think I’m an ass,” I say, pulling up Hannah’s number.
“How’s that going?” Rosdan asks. “With her knowing our big, bad secret.”
I shake my head, staring at her name on my screen. “Half the time, I want to grab her face and wipe it all away.”
“And the other half?”
I give a half-shrug and walk away. “We’ll talk soon, man.”
The light centers in my chest before Hannah answers.
“Cass?” She sounds confused, surrounded by the bustle of a busy hallway.
“Glad you figured out how caller ID works.”
“You’ve never called me before.”
I lick my lips to keep from smiling even though she can’t see me. “I have. You just don’t remember.”
Silence.
“Hannah?”
My extremities warm.
“Why wouldn’t I remember?”
“Because I can wipe your memories.” And I drop, my feet landing in the living room of my apartment. “Thanks, sweetheart. I gotta go.”
I end the call and chuckle, heading to take a shower. Something tells me my powers will be in the on position for quite a while.
I’m prepared for the third week in January to be rough. It contains four of the worst days of the entire year, all back to back. Hannah’s mom, Fiona, kicks us off with her birthday. She and Brice met the next day. The one after is their wedding anniversary, and then day four brings us to Brice’s birthday. We make it through the first three days with less moments of panic than the previous years. Granted, I only sleep an hour a night, and Hannah’s not far ahead of me.
She’s in class on day four while I prematurely celebrate being done with this shit until the day they died in September. The ball sits on the bar while I explain what a day originally meant to a man I’ve dubbed Carl, who’s passed out on the stool next to mine.
“The term’s meant to qualify the time between two events. If I say, ‘You were a sex god back in the day,’ I wouldn’t mean that you were a sex god for twenty-four hours. I’d mean you were a sex god in the period between when you started being one and stopped.” I sip my beer and look over at him, sweaty and unkempt and drooling on the bar top. “My point is, Carl, the time between sculpting the universe and creating man was eons. Not a literal day. And there were a lot of resets back then that you never hear about. You wouldn’t believe the number if I told you.”
Sunlight on the back wall distracts me from my companion. I look behind me at the front entrance, and in walks the last person I expected. Hannah stands there, her hair wet from the snow. Blame the alcohol, but I double-check with the orb, verifying it’s really her. With a close-up of her face, I see she’s crying.
I slide off my stool. “See ya later, Carl.”
She notices me coming and swipes away the tears on her cheeks. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“It’s the closest bar to your lecture hall, Hannah. What are you doing here?”
Her laugh sounds sad as she glances around at the tacky decorations on the walls. “It’s the closest bar to my lecture hall.” She looks down at her snow-covered boots, crying again. “Thanks to statistics class, I now know the exact odds of being hit by lightning.” She forces a smile. “And dying in a plane crash.”
Shitty timing.
I want to tell her none of it matters because they were destined to die. If they weren’t, I would have felt Brice before it happened rather than after, when our bond broke. But that’s not what she needs right now.
I keep my eyes on her while craning my neck around enough so that the bartender can hear me. “Can we get a couple of shots over here?”
“What do you want?” he says.
My eyebrows rise at Hannah. “Lady’s choice.”
She doesn’t even think it over, answering, “Tequila. And keep them coming.”
Hannah was playing it conservative with the eggnog on Christmas but not today. Today, she came to forget.
As an angel, I can’t fully understand human grief. I can feel loss, but I’ll never have to come to grips with my mortality. And that’s what the death of a loved one does to man. It reminds them that what they know will end one day, and they can’t stop it from happening.
I only let her get to the point of giggly before I cut her off and haul her ass back to the dorms. She used to laugh a lot. Her nose wrinkles when she starts, and if she’s not careful, she snorts. We’re walking down the hallway when it happens. It makes her laugh harder, and she stumbles into me. I hold on to her until we reach her room.
She leans against the wall and hands me her keys. “I’m not even going to try it.”
I smile, shaking my head as I unlock the door.
“You should smile more.” She studies me through her lashes. “I might like you more if you did.”
Our gaze holds for a second before I say, “I’ll get right on that.”
I follow her in and shut the door behind me, not sure how long I need to stay. Tipsy and alone makes for a pretty easy target if any demons are waiting for their chance.
“When’s Terra get back from class?” I ask.
“Soon.” She tosses her bag on the bed and slips off her shoes. Her mood’s heavy again when she turns around. She stands in front of her bed and stares at the floor, happy Hannah fading to black in front of me. “If I ask you something, will you swear to answer honestly?”
“I don’t make promises,” I tell her. “But I’m probably too drunk to lie to you at this point.”
Her eyes stay lowered, voice quiet. “Why didn’t you make me forget what happened in the alley?”
“The light alters the brain enough. Add it on top of a concussion, and I could have left you permanently damaged.”
She nods like she understands, but her eyebrows pull together. “But I’m fine now. What’s stopping you from making me forget who you are?”
“Where are you going with this?” I ask, a bite to my tone. I find the question grating, and I’ve entertained her long enough.
“Wouldn’t it be easier for both of us if I went back to not knowing who you were?”
“Is that what you want?” I snap. After all the tiptoeing around I’ve done, she doesn’t even want the fucking memories? “Because we can. Just say the word, and I’ll erase every memory of us until it’s like we never met.”
She doesn’t answer, staring at her socks, and anything I have resembling patience is gone. I close the space between us and take her face in my hands, like I should have done that night in front of Gabe’s.
“Say it,” I command, tilting her head back.
She looks up then, her eyes wide, and light slams into me. Mixed with tequila, it destroys any chance of rational thought. Hot and intense as it burns through me. Before I can stop myself, my lips crash down onto hers. She gasps, sending another pulse through me, and I thrust my tongue into her mouth, needing more. More of her, more of the light—all of it. Then she starts grasping at the back of my hair, dragging me deeper. I can’t breathe without her filling my lungs or move without the chill of her skin on mine. I’m drowning. Inside, outside—she’s everywhere. Inescapable.
I break away from her, unable to stand it anymore. And without so much as looking at her, I walk out.
/>
Even if she’d asked, I wouldn’t have taken the memories away from her. I want her to remember. I want her to remember every second between us.
If I have to be miserable because of her, then I want her to be fucking miserable with me.
My mind’s scattered around the room when Cass storms out. I stand, shaking, my lips still warm from his. For the past four days, all I’ve felt is wounded. Hurting in ways I doubt will ever heal. But just then, I wasn’t thinking about any of it. I wasn’t feeling any of it. And I need him to make it stop again.
Without bothering to put shoes on, I yank the door open and run after him. I’m not even sure if he’s still in the building or already back to wherever he goes when he’s not with me. Then, at the bottom of the stairs, I spot him walking across the common area.
Catching up with him, I touch his arm. “Cass.”
He jerks around, his eyes dark and feral. Before I can take a breath, he’s pushing me into the janitor’s closet. I can’t see anything, but it doesn’t matter. His lips are on mine again, kissing me hard. I grab at him, whatever I can to get him closer. He backs me into the wall, pinning me there with his body, and I wrap my arms around his neck.
“You want to forget me, Hannah?” He practically growls in my ear while his feverish hand slips under my shirt. It stays flush with my skin, sliding under the top of my leggings and panties. “Or do you want something else?”
My head falls back as he pushes between my legs, and his palm presses against me.
“Is it this?” he says. His fingers dip inside me, and I bite my lip to stifle a moan. They pump in and out of me, faster and harder, his other hand tangling in my hair. “Tell me, Hannah. Tell me what you really want.”
My heart races, and we both know what I want.
“Make me forget everything but you.”
I barely get the words out, and Cass’s mouth descends on mine, his tongue demanding. I feel the heat through his clothes, his mouth, his hands. It’s almost too much, but it keeps everything else away while he does exactly what I asked him to do.
