by SJ West
Well over half of the rebellion angels phase to join us.
“You’re nothing but a bunch of hypocrites and cowards!” Hale shouts at them angrily.
“No,” Cleo tells him, “many of us are thinking for ourselves for the first time in our lives. Just because you don’t agree with our decision doesn’t make your choice the only right one. I think you and the others should leave now, Hale. Your numbers are too few to defeat us and Anna’s War Angels, not that you ever had much of a real chance against them anyway.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but when Hale looks at me again, his eyes are filled with even more hate than before, and I know he’ll find a way to retaliate. It may not be now, tomorrow, or even next year, but sometime in the future he’ll do something that may force me to kill him.
“Let’s go,” Hale tells the few rebellion angels still loyal to him.
They phase from the courtyard, leaving only God and those who have chosen to protect me. God walks closer to us.
“Hello, Anna,” He says, smiling benevolently. “I’m glad to see you looking so well.”
“Thank You for coming,” I reply. “And thank You for helping us solve this problem.”
“Well, I wouldn’t give all the credit to Me.” God looks at the rebellion angels who have decided to side with us. “I believe their decision is what turned the tide in your favor.”
“Yes, but it was Your presence that reminded them of home.”
God grins and nods His head once in agreement with my assessment. He turns His attention to Lucifer.
“I know this was one of the missions you set for yourself before returning home,” He says to my father. “Are you ready to come back with Me now?”
“I believe so,” Lucifer answers. “I’ve done what I came to do.”
My father turns to me, spreading his arms wide, silently asking for a hug. How could I deny him something I also want?
“Thank you for coming to help me,” I tell him, tightening my arms around his waist as he holds me firmly around my shoulders.
“There is nothing in this world that I wouldn’t do for you, Anna,” he says. “I’ll be watching to see what Hale and the others do next, but I don’t believe you’ll be hearing from them for quite some time. Enjoy this moment of peace while you have it. There’s no way of knowing how long it will last or what will happen to disrupt it next. If I see that you need my help again, I’ll return.”
I nod my head against his shoulder, silently letting him know that I understand his words of caution. Happiness can make you complacent at times because you can’t imagine anything being able to interrupt it. I’ll need to remain vigilant against the remaining rebellion angels who hate me and for the possible return of Helena if things don’t work out how she plans with Cade. I can well imagine she would blame me for such a failure.
I pull back from my father. “Thank you for talking with Helena earlier. I know it must have been hard for you, but at least she’s decided to end her vendetta against me. Well, at least for now.”
“I would like to believe that I played a role in her decision, but if she didn’t have a good man who loved and believed in her, I’m not sure my words would have been as effective.”
“She just needed to know that you care about her. Every daughter does.”
My father kisses me on the forehead and hugs me tight one more time before letting me go. I know he needs to return to Heaven. It must have been hard for him to be away from my mother for so long, but I am eternally grateful that he returned to help me. Without him, I fear what might have happened.
“We should probably be going back too,” Jess says before turning to my papa. “Unless you’re marrying the Empress of Nacreous soon. We could probably stay long enough to attend the wedding.”
“What?” I immediately ask, looking at my papa. “When did you have time to ask Olivia to marry you?”
“I haven’t,” he replies, sounding as surprised as I am about his upcoming nuptials. “Not yet at least. I was planning to wait until things settled down before I even asked her out on a proper first date. I swear to you, Anna, I have not asked her to marry me yet. You would be the first to know if I was even thinking about doing it.”
“Oh, come on, Andre,” Jess says. “It’s so obvious by the way you talk about her and look at her when she’s around that you’ll be popping the question soon.”
“Can I at least decide that for myself first?” my papa asks in exasperation. “Besides, we need to all focus on the upcoming election.”
“Oh yeah, the election,” I say with a grimace. “With everything that’s been going on, I completely forgot about that.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” God tells me. “I have a feeling you’ll remain the Empress of Cirrus for a very long time to come.”
With His words, my worry instantly melts away.
“Thank You.”
As we finish saying our good-byes to everyone, my mind drifts off as I wonder how Helena and Cade are doing. I’ll miss Cade dearly, and I hope he comes to say good-bye to us before he leaves with Helena. I truly hope they can find happiness together and live a long, long time treasuring every moment.
Chapter 22
(Helena’s Point of View)
After I leave the Mars pavilion, I phase onto the porch of Cade’s beach house on Earth. It was the place his phase trail led to when he left Lucifer and me to talk on Sierra. I feel hesitant to enter his private sanctuary. Mostly I’m worried he’ll tell me to leave him alone, unable to forgive me for what I did to Virga. Yet Amalie was able to forgive Lucifer for far worse than that. He had, after all, prodded the Great War along, which resulted in almost a hundred times more deaths than the destruction of Virga.
A part of me wishes I could feel guilt for what I did, but I would only be lying to myself and to Cade if I said I was sorry. All I can do is hope he can overlook what he views as a character flaw. Hopefully clearing Anna’s name of all charges will be enough to prove to him that I do place value on his feelings. I need him to forgive me and try to find a way to give me a second chance.
I hate feeling as though I need him in my life, but that’s exactly the way I feel. There’s no getting around the fact that he is the single-most important person to me right now. If I had to exist without him, it would only be a half-life at best.
I take a deep breath and place my hand on the front door’s brass knob. I turn it and step inside, ready to do whatever it takes to make Cade understand how much he means to me.
I find him sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island. He has his hands folded in front of him, looking contemplative as he sits in the mostly silent room. The only sound I hear is the rushing of the ocean waves behind me as they crash against the shoreline.
Slowly, Cade turns his head to look at me. He stands from his seat and takes two steps toward me, but stops, as if he’s waiting for me to come the rest of the way to him.
“I cleared Anna’s name,” I tell him. “And you need to know that I did that for you, not her. She won’t be exiled now, and I see no reason why she won’t win the election in Cirrus to remain in power there.”
“Thank you for doing that,” he says, looking relieved. “And did you get things straightened out with Lucifer after I left?”
“As well as could be expected, considering our history together,” I reply. “I think we both got what we needed out of our conversation.” I clear my throat as I let go of the doorknob and take another step into the room. “I’m a creature of habit,” I tell him. “I don’t see myself changing overnight, and I hope you don’t expect that of me.”
“I don’t expect you to change who you are,” Cade says, taking another step toward me as we slowly close the gap between us. “I only expect you to think about me when you make decisions that affect those I love. What you tried to do to Anna is beneath you, Helena. On Sierra, you gave me a glimpse of the person I want to be with for the rest of my life. I won’t take less than the woman I he
ld in my arms and made love to.”
“Are you willing to forget what I did?”
“I can’t forget it,” he says. “I can’t even comprehend it fully, but just knowing that you helped Anna gives me hope that someday you won’t feel the need to hurt others for your own personal gain. If you’re here, that means you’re willing to change, even if it’s just a small bit.”
“Right now,” I say, taking another step forward, so that we’re only two steps away from each other, “all I want is to take you somewhere else and never come back to this planet again. I want us to have a chance at a real life together. A place where I don’t feel the need to watch Anna’s every move and figure out a way to cause trouble in her life. If I can learn to let go of my hatred toward her, maybe I can finally live.”
Cade takes another step and holds his hand out to me.
“Then let’s go, Helena. Let’s find a planet where no one knows who we are and we can have a fresh start.”
I take the last step and place my hand into his.
“As long as you don’t force me to live off the land,” I say jokingly, remembering his musings when he was chopping wood on Sierra. “I have certain standards of cleanliness that I won’t change for anyone, not even for you, dear heart.”
Cade chuckles. “I think we can work with that.”
“Then you’ll go with me?” I ask, just to confirm that he’s agreeing to my suggestion.
“Will you let me come back here to see Anna, Lucas, and the others?”
“If you must,” I acquiesce, knowing that if I say no he might change his mind. I’m so close to having what I want, I can’t even conceive of having it snatched away from me now.
“Then, yes, I’ll go with you, Helena. Lead and I will follow you to the end of the galaxy.”
I quickly phase us to the Nexus in Hell.
“It’s about time you came back here so I can talk some sense into you,” my alter ego says as soon as I enter my domain. “Have you lost your mind?” she demands hotly. “Why did you help Anna? And why are you planning to hide on some other planet with this piece of meat?”
I leave Cade’s side and stride up to my mirror image, even though I know he can’t see her. She’s simply a manifestation of my subconscious that I can’t control while I’m in my domain.
“Go away,” I say through gritted teeth, determined to shut down this part of my brain once and for all. “I don’t need you anymore. I have everything I want right in front of me. All I have to do is take it.”
“You mean you had everything you wanted until you decided to clear Anna’s name!”
“She doesn’t matter to me anymore!”
“Helena?” Cade says behind me, sounding worried since he sees me talking to nothing but empty space. “Are you okay?”
I turn my head and tell him, “Let me handle this first and then we can go.”
I whip back around and stare into the eyes of my own id.
“I’m happy for the first time in my life, and I won’t allow you to take it away. Do you hear me?” I shout. “You,” I say, pointing to my phantom, “can stay here and run things. I don’t need this place anymore.”
“Place?” she questions incredulously. “This place is you! It’s like you don’t even remember that anymore since you found a way to split yourself into two. You will never be able to leave here because it will always be inside you. You are Hell and Hell is you. I’m just the rational part of you that remembers that fact. You’re not meant to live a happy life. You’re meant to torment those who end up here because they were bad people who died with sins so great this is where they were sent to spend their eternity. You’re deluding yourself if you think that meat-suit over there is going to change your life for the better. You are what you are, and the sooner you accept that fact, the better off we’ll both be.”
I shake my head. “You’re wrong. I can have happiness because he’s standing right there,” I say, pointing to Cade. “Not even you can stop me from loving him.”
“Love?” I hear Cade say behind me. “Did you just say you love me, Helena?”
It takes me a moment, but I suddenly realize what I just said. I turn to face Cade, drinking in the sight of him as I allow myself a moment to work through my feelings. When Lucifer fell in love with Amalie, I thought him the worst type of fool. And while I watched Anna fawn all over Malcolm, I decided then and there that love had to be a drug that made you lose all reasonable thought. They both acted so foolishly in my eyes that I associated love with insanity.
Yet, as I look into Cade’s eyes, all I see is his love for me. Maybe love is a drug, but it has to be the best kind. In this moment, all I want to do is accept what he’s offering me and lavish him with my own feelings in return. I begin to feel a burning sensation build up inside my chest, urging me to follow what’s within my heart and tell the man in front of me exactly how I feel about him.
“I do love you,” I say far more easily than I could have ever imagined. “I love you,” I tell him again, feeling even freer of the bonds trying to keep me shackled to reason. “I …”
Cade doesn’t allow me to finish because he phases over, wraps me inside his embrace, and kisses me as if the world is about to end when the complete opposite is true for us. We’re about to embark on an adventure without knowing exactly what awaits us. It’s the first time in my life that I don’t know what will happen next, and I couldn’t be happier about that fact.
I feel myself lose all of my inhibitions, allowing the love I feel for Cade to course through my veins like molten lava. Pure happiness consumes me, setting my body on fire.
And then I realize Cade isn’t holding me anymore. His mouth is no longer pressed against mine, and I can’t feel the frantic beating of his heart against my breast.
What I do hear is maniacal laughter coming from behind me.
“Smooth move, Cinderella. You just killed your Prince Charming.”
My alter ego’s taunt forces me to open my eyes. Cade is nowhere to be seen. When I look down at my hands, I see that they are now covered with sparkling black ash. As I let my eyes fall to the floor in front of my feet, I see that a pile of ash lays where Cade once stood.
“No,” I say with a shake of my head, unwilling to comprehend what I’m seeing, “this can’t be happening.” I take a step back but can’t seem to make myself stop staring at the pile of ash on the floor. “This isn’t happening!”
“Poor Helena,” my alter ego croons. “You found love, but unfortunately for Cade, your kind of love kills.”
I swiftly turn around. “You did this!” I accuse myself. “I don’t know how, but you killed him because I wanted to leave this place!”
“I am you, silly. Yes, we killed him, but only because you loved him too much.”
“I didn’t kill him!” I protest.
“Your undying love for him did though. Do you remember when Anna got so angry after Levi killed Millie that she went searching for him?”
“Yes,” I say, not seeing where this is leading. “What does that have to do with this?”
“Anna was so angry at Levi that she lost control of her powers and accidentally killed one of her own Watchers. The one they called Daniel.”
“What does that have to do with this?” I yell again hysterically.
“Anna’s uncontrollable anger killed Daniel just like your uncontrollable love for Cade ended up killing him,” my phantom explains.
“No!” I shout. “No, this is some sort of twisted game that you’re playing with my mind. I know how you work. You twist reality and make people believe their worst nightmares have come true.” I place my face in front of hers and demand, “Where is Cade? What have you done to him?”
“He’s right there on the floor behind you,” she replies calmly. “I’m not lying.”
In a growl of rage, I phase myself to my bedroom in Hell.
“Cade?” I call out, quickly looking around the room for any sign of him. When I don’t see him, I run out o
f the room and into the dimly lit hallway of my dark fortress.
“Cade?” I call out again, but more urgently. I know the mind games my domain can play, and I refuse to be a victim of one of them. “Cade! Answer me!” I demand again, picking up my pace as I run down the hall, checking each room as I go. As I continue to search, realization slowly begins to sink into my heart.
I come to a complete stop in the middle of the hallway and look down at my hands. The black glittering ash still covers them like a permanent stain. I take in a deep breath. And then another. And another, each time filling my lungs to capacity. All I can hear is my heavy breathing and the roar of blood in my ears as the truth of what I’ve done finally becomes real.
I’ve killed Cade.
I’ve killed the only person in all of existence that I loved and who could love me in return. Giving him all of my love wasn’t a moment in some fairytale. It was the very thing nightmares are made of, crumbling everything in its path to black, glittering ash. My love was poison, and it killed the only person who mattered to me.
I hear horrible, heart-wrenching sobs, but they sound so far away at first. It takes me a moment to realize that they’re coming from me.
In that moment, I realize Lucas’ prophecy has come true. This is why I was crying so uncontrollably in his vision. I should have known then that only the loss of Cade would make me lose control over my emotions and cause me so much grief all I can do is cry out my sorrow and wish I could join him in death.
