I refused to answer, turning my head away, but he reached out and delicately ran his fingers through the disheveled strands of my hair.
“Yes, I am complex. You’re trying to understand me but you lack the capacity to do so just yet. Very frustrating, isn’t it?”
I still couldn’t meet his eye and I pulled away from his touch.
Hadrian stood then. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Teagan. Remember, I enjoy a good challenge. Won’t you reconsider my offer? You can leave all this behind and finally feel like you belong.” He held out his smooth, pale hand to me. “I may not offer again, so I suggest you choose wisely.”
I can’t say why, but I rose to my feet and faced Hadrian, now with strange new eyes. My beautiful angel lay crumpled at my feet but I allowed a vacant mist to spread through my body, numbing me happily. I stepped around the debris that was once my bedroom, picked my way around Garreth’s lifeless body and reached for Hadrian’s hand even as Garreth lay bleeding. I never knew an angel could bleed, never thought about it before, but he was much more human now than he had ever planned to be.
The dark eyes that sought mine promised so much that nothing else seemed relevant. It was no wonder the others had fallen. Whether human or Guardian, the spell Hadrian wove was fiercely mesmerizing.
It was at that moment I saw the glimmer of something small and yellow barely concealed by the night. As I tried to make out what it was, everything suddenly came into perspective. Could it really be that simple? My hand reached, not for the hand of the dark-winged angel before me but for the instrument that could possibly save us all.
The air shifted as Hadrian tensed, his eyes no longer bright and imploring me with invitation, but instead darkly sinister and hollow. A storm announced itself with thunder clapping like an enormous rip across the sky. Suddenly, the dark wings above me trembled and spread open before me as my arm slid beneath the disheveled mess of my overturned bed. I withdrew the dagger Garreth had entrusted to my care, awed by its simple beauty, but careful not to keep my back turned to Hadrian for too long. Hadrian quivered with rage, his wingspan full and splendid, nearly knocking out the walls as they filled my room. They overshadowed me like an ashen cloak, lifting him in ferocious beauty off my floor.
I was crouched as low as I possibly could be, fully prepared to feel his wrath, when his face contorted into a sly smile. Then, like a nearly forgotten trophy, Garreth was effortlessly scooped from the floor and Hadrian’s dark laughter echoed throughout my skull and then whispered itself away with the wind.
And I was left alone with the dagger.
Chapter Twenty-three
I expected morning to wake me from the nightmare but there was no light. There was no sun to warm my skin, only the dark of night that was exaggerated by the ever-building storm outside my window. Wading through the shock that quickly invaded my body, I began throwing clothing and blankets over the pieces of furniture that were destroyed. In doing so, I wondered if I too could ever be repaired.
I wrapped my quilt tightly around me, as if securing what I had left of myself, and curled up on the floor where Garreth had fallen, closing my eyes, picturing his warm white light, but all that was left was my cold, hard floor.
Silence tried to comfort me, closing in like a soothing whisper. I let it hold me and with it I was able to think about what had happened, but it all came rushing back too fast. The deeper I let myself sink, the more I became aware of a growing rage deep inside me.
Then it occurred to me, the rage I felt wasn’t malicious anger. It was strength. The tables had turned now. I had to go after Hadrian if Garreth was to survive. Thunder cracked loudly, making me jump and I pulled the quilt tighter as lightning illuminated the sky, splitting the dark with jagged streaks. Even though it was early morning, it was as dark as night and I needed to stop the darkness.
I needed to save my light.
I needed to save Garreth.
The mark on my hand burned gently with hope and I knew at last what had to be done. I held the small dagger in my hands, its weight confirming my decision. When Garreth had given it to me, he had meant for me to use it on Hadrian but that wasn’t possible just now. Hadrian was more powerful than either of us could ever have imagined, but I knew how to defeat him. I would give him his wish and become his challenge.
As I formed the plan in my head, I knew I had to act quickly. I knew what it would do to my mother when she walked in to say good-bye to me in the morning but I couldn’t take the chance of waiting any longer. And, if I took my time, I might chicken out and Garreth was much too important for me to risk that.
My thumb rubbed over the tiny raised octagram that stood out from all the other etchings on the golden handle. About the size of my thumbnail, the tiny sphere reminded me of a miniature sunburst and it glistened, as if revealing the magic it held deep inside. It was my angel calling to me, my sun, my light, and as it sparkled, I knew he was still alive, though he wouldn’t be for long. Hadrian had one reason for taking Garreth.
And that was me.
My shaking was nearly uncontrollable, but the picture I held of Garreth in my head was enough to keep me from losing all control. I prayed the thunder wouldn’t wake my mother. I prayed that God would forgive me; this was going against all I had learned while growing up, but this was the only way. I knew very little about the octagram, just what Garreth had told me that day in the chapel, the day I found out he was my Guardian. I stared at the beautiful little star, wondering how such an uncomplicated symbol could be such a powerful gateway between two very distinct worlds.
If an angel could cross into my human world, then couldn’t a human cross into the angels’ world? Through the same portal? As I thought of Garreth, Hadrian’s words interrupted and echoed inside me.
Heaven would be nothing more than a dream compared to the world you and I could create…
Wasn’t this a new world already? That angels and humans could know of each other and coexist? Garreth told me that heaven started in our minds, that as long as I believed and was happy, it existed.
Well, I do. It exists. Garreth still exists and no one, especially Hadrian, was going to take that away from me.
I took the dagger, its shining blade reflecting the lightning through the glass of my window, shining my reflection back to me as I held it in front of me. My eyes were wild with fear but behind the uncertainty was hope and that hope was more powerful than anything.
The little voice inside my head was telling me to trust that hope, though it wouldn’t stop my heart from wrenching the way it did when I thought of Garreth trying to touch my subconscious from another plane.
My room felt cold, and in my head I heard the mimicking laughter of black wings.
Time was running out.
I pulled the blade toward my chest in one quick thrust and felt it slice into my skin with ease, giving me the oddest sensations of warmth and cold. I was no doubt delirious by this point, and for the moment the sharp steel awakened me. At the same instant the smooth slice hit me, the sky opened and I heard rain falling, each drop soaring its way down to its death below, their pelting kisses to the earth amplified in my ears.
My senses began to sift through the numb fog that was filling me. Scared, I reached out in front of me. I heard a strange voice that seemed to be my own whisper, “Please, help me,” as the curtains slid limply through my fingers then pooled around me. I felt tingly and tired and before me a mirage of two faces appeared, though I knew they weren’t really there.
One had eyes so black they made me shiver, and the other was the incredible aqua blue of a boy I met once in a courtyard at school. The rest faded away as I plunged into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-four
Waking up in death was not what I expected.
I waited for the pain, but strangely it didn’t come. I peeked, first with my left eye and then my right, sure it would hit me at any moment. Slowly, both eyes opened and I stared down at myself, grimacing in expectancy for what was sti
ll absent.
My shirt held no stripes of crimson evidence. Nothing.
No blood.
No wound.
The only tangible proof the portal had worked was that I was still breathing and the bittersweet taste of urgency hung heavily in the air, reminding me of unspeakable sadness.
All around me I sensed a longing for the untouchable, a yearning for what had been left behind, and also for what might lie ahead, an unknown that was just within my reach.
Garreth.
I suppose I expected to open my eyes to some surreal world, if it was safe to expect anything at all. Perhaps some foreign, otherworldly terrain, a mystical realm, but this was surprisingly earthlike, even though Garreth explained that heaven is more than just a place. It starts with a peaceful state of mind, but my subconscious clearly expected something else.
Wasn’t Garreth supposed to be waiting for me the moment I opened my eyes here? What about Hadrian? Was he somewhere nearby, watching me as he always does?
But I was alone in this sort of purgatory that looked both so familiar and foreign to me. It was my street but there were no people, no houses.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
If Garreth was my heaven and if I was so close to finding him...
Please, let this be true.
If Garreth could link his heart to mine and manage to control my fears to calm me, then...
Oh, God, will this work?
I had to try. He needed me now and if I’ve been given any sort of—I didn’t know what to call it...angelic prepowers?—then I might be able to mesh my heart with his. I could keep him alive. It had to work.
Each day Garreth spent on earth put him at risk. His light was dimming and mine was...changing...like an electrical current transferred from one outlet to another. Garreth knew the consequences. He knew he could become earthbound but it didn’t stop him from making himself known to me. It didn’t stop him from warning me about Hadrian. He was willing to take that risk because...because he loved me.
I had to keep moving.
I had to find him.
He had risked all for me and now I owed it to him to do the same.
It was faint at first, but I was sure I hadn’t imagined it, a second heartbeat slightly out of rhythm with my own. As I concentrated only on that one sound it became a little stronger each second. Tears stung my eyes as it pounded away in my ears and then I felt it in my chest, like a confused palpitation.
I couldn’t believe I was doing it. I sucked in a large breath of excitement but then forced myself to slow down.
Take little breaths. Small breaths.
He was here! I closed my eyes and took a deeper breath this time. I thought of what he meant when he said he would find me but this was different, this was remarkable. I was doing this on my own.
A beautiful scent floated across my face, bringing stinging tears once again. I wanted to catch it and hold in my chest forever. It was his scent. That warm, safe, spicy scent that rolled off his skin like magic whenever I was close to him; that heady incense that was his alone, that permeated from the warm light he held within him.
Then, without warning, another scent flashed across my face like a cold wind, bringing with it pine and damp. Instantly, I knew where he was. My nostrils filled with the smell of molten wax while I felt the heat of a thousand candles on my skin and cold stone beneath my feet. Then I felt dizzy, as if something spiraled high above me, spinning, flying, sending the air in waves down upon my face. His breath broke out of sequence with mine. Something was happening, something was coming from above. I knew my way to the woods but I wasn’t sure I could get there fast enough.
I looked down at my feet to find the dagger lying there and I slowly picked it up and examined it. The blade was clean. Panic washed over me. Would they find me at home? What if they buried me? I let out a deep sigh.
What’s done is done.
Very carefully, I wrapped the blade in the fabric at the bottom of my shirt and tucked the dagger into the front pocket of my jeans. I forced my legs into a run. Back home, in my time, the world was covered in the darkness of the night’s storm; yet here, in a place of such uncertainty, it was quite the opposite. The blue reminded me of the safe haven I so desperately needed to find again, pushing me forward to find him.
The importance of my task hovered in the air. The more I breathed it, the more I wanted him; and the more he felt farther and farther away
Chapter Twenty-five
Desperation settled into the very marrow of my bones and steered me on a course over which I no longer had control. My feet knew the way to the woods but getting there seemed to take forever. The entire time, my thoughts were tormented by images of what Garreth might be enduring, and my trying to hold fast to the thin traces of him within me.
I had heard that your life passes before your eyes when you die. And although I wasn’t truly dead, I still saw all I held close and dear, like a movie unfolding before my eyes. I saw my mother applying the last bit of hairspray and then walking slowly to my closed door, her hand hesitantly resting midair before knocking.
“Let me sleep.” I willed with all my might, picturing my words floating to her on an unseen wind. To my relief, her hand dropped to her side and she walked away.
I brought the photo of me and my father to the very edges of my mind, hearing twinkling baby laughter from long ago as he bounced me on his knee. I saw the crease in the second picture flatten and run smooth, as though newly printed from the long-discarded Polaroid it had come from—and I knew I was being given full reign to clean the slate.
Suddenly, I was thrown to the ground by some unseen force and my hand sprung to my forehead. I felt a warm stickiness but my fingers showed nothing. I wanted to scream out as waves of pain squelched my visions of home. A warmth trickled within me, as if coming to life, and I knew I was feeling Garreth. I knew he was being hurt.
I forced myself to my feet but my legs ached horribly from running. I urged myself on, and before long I arrived at the mouth of the forest. The narrow trail beckoned me and I followed it. Jutting brambles and thorns that were now overgrown in wild anticipation of my arrival caught at my jeans, as if they purposely arched themselves outward to keep me back, making my plight all the more sweet in the end.
My chest heaved. I was openly crying now, on the border of hysterics, fearing I couldn’t reach him fast enough. I felt so incredibly alone.
From out of nowhere, the stone chapel took shape in the haze I had been trudging through, rising high like an old castle. This wasn’t the simple chapel I had visited before and I realized that what stood in the woods back home was only a scrap of the splendor it used to be. The rubble was revived in this green spotlight, still very much alive within this otherworld.
The smell of hot wax was strong, filling the air with perfumed heat as I quietly made my way across a courtyard to an open hall lined with high, arched passages. I spied a wooden door that spilled a golden glow through its cracks and seams, warm and inviting. I felt the dancing light from behind it breathe and pulse, begging me to enter.
It reminded me of the concrete fortress a few nights ago where nameless, faceless teenagers entered in droves, music pounding, lights splitting the dark, splattering their beams on the walls and out the door onto the waiting line, like an enticing siren. But my mind quickly cleared, and only a caressing wind could be heard, running its fingers through the overgrown thick of green around me.
I opened the door.
A scream that was half sob wrenched itself loose from my lips. “Garreth!”
Through the arched doorway, in the middle of a large stone vestibule, stood my beloved Guardian, still and beautiful. His skin was paler than ever, his wings hanging crumpled behind his back. As I quickly crossed the uneven stone floor, I noted that his arms were gathered limply at his wrists, bound by a thick leather strap.
“Garreth,” I whispered. “Oh, what has he done to you?”
My hand trembled as I reached up
to touch the side of his face that a few hours ago had been covered in blood. His skin was ice cold but it didn’t deter me from clinging to him. I was so incredibly relieved that I had found him and he was still alive. I wrapped my arms around his chest and pressed my face into him.
“I need to tell you something I didn’t fully understand until now. All this time, I’ve wanted something I wasn’t ready for. The dream every girl wants, but I failed to realize what it really means to have that dream and to hold on to it.” I looked up at his beautiful, pale face and with absolute certainty released the words that had been hiding inside me. “Garreth, I love you.”
But he looked right through me, his blue eyes reflecting eerie milky white in the candles’ glow.
“Can you hear me, Garreth?” I dropped my arms to my sides, completely baffled. I had listened to my heart and finally said the words. But there was no response from him at all.
He stood as still as a statue, seeing nothing, feeling nothing.
I looked around to discover we were not alone. Scores of other angels stood in rows the entire length of the chamber.
The corrupted.
Some were male, some female, others exquisitely androgynous. I hadn’t noticed them until now, I had been so intent on finding Garreth. Had I seen the silent group of Guardians upon entering, I still would have had no trouble singling out my Guardian, for he was more beautiful to me than all the others combined.
They were all dressed in hues of white; transparent eggshell, bone, and snow, wings silenced behind their backs with chains. Velvety feathers, all varying shades, littered the stone floor, bringing immediately to mind struggle and defeat. I had seen what happens to a person once their Guardian has been taken from them. I knew of the change in personality, in character, how without a Guardian to breathe choice and decision into their souls they instead became lost.
But seeing a Guardian after a separation was more than I could bear.
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