Vindicated

by Keary Taylor

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I knew this was the day.

  There wasn’t any reason for thinking it. Any more reason than there would have been for it to have happened yesterday.

  I simply knew that today would be the day.

  My eyes slid open to meet the ceiling above me, the realization that I had missed my last chance to go back and make a plea making me sick. I wasn’t going to get to go back before Alex would be sucked away. This was the black date, all the numbers on the bomb had fallen. Today was the day everything was going to implode.

  I rolled over to see Alex sitting on the side of the bed, a pile of feathers beneath his wings. He sat with his forearms braced against his knees, his head hanging low. He held his wedding ring in his fingers, turning it over and over, the sun reflecting off of its surface.

  And watching his face, I knew that he knew this was the day too.

  “Would you make me some French toast?” I asked. I was proud for making my voice sound so normal.

  He looked over at me, his face haggard looking. He looked so worn out. And decayed. He reached a hand out toward me and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ears. “Sure,” he said.

  Alex stood and headed for the door, two more feathers falling before he even made it out into the living room. His skin was so tight on his bones it looked painful. His veins rose out in a terrifying way.

  It felt like I had a thousand tiny knives inside my chest.

  I stepped into the shower, trusting my instincts that Alex wouldn’t disappear before I could get out. As I lathered my hair, I noticed something inside of me felt different. I felt in control. I felt grounded. Like I was going to make this work.

  Like maybe, just maybe, Alex might make it through this day. Somehow.

  Seeing the rain that was coming down as I toweled off, I pulled on my favorite green sweater and a pair of worn-out jeans. Feeling like today of all days I shouldn’t have to hide what I was, I twisted my locks into a messy bun on the back of my head.

  Alex looked up at me when I exited our room and paused for a moment, simply staring at me.

  “What?” I asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

  “I’ve never seen you wear your hair up before,” he said, a hint of a smile cracking in the corner of his mouth.

  “I can’t remember the last time I did it,” I said, taking a seat at the bar. Alex passed a plate of French toast across. Next came the butter tray and a bottle of Alex’s homemade syrup.

  I realized then that I wasn’t hungry in the least.

  Dutifully, I poured the syrup and took a bite. As usual, it was perfection, even if I wasn’t hungry.

  As he cleaned up, I watched Alex. At times, it seemed as if the edges of him blurred, as if he wasn’t quite there all the way. He had to reach for the egg carton twice, his hand seeming to pass right through it the first time he tried.

  There was no question that today was the day.

  “I want you to do something for me today,” he said as he finished and I ate my last bite. He rested his forearms on the counter and looked at me.

  “Anything,” I promised, knowing that I would.

  “I want you to draw me,” he said, his eyes never wavering.

  “Draw you?” I questioned, my brows knitting together.

  He nodded. “Like those drawings you showed me before. How long has it been since you last drew anything?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Probably since I was about thirteen?”

  “Draw me,” he said again.

  I understood then why he was making his request. We both knew what was going to happen today, and just in in case he didn’t come back he wanted to leave one more reminder of him for me. Even though we both knew that I didn’t need it. “Alright,” I said, my voice sounding scratchy.

  Alex walked into our bedroom for a moment and emerged with some blank pieces of paper and a pencil. Taking my hand in his, he led us out onto the back deck. Rain dripped off the overhang, over the side of the deck railing. I pulled up one of the chairs, resting a notebook on my knees, balancing it and my pages before me. Alex sat in the other chair, ten feet away, his forearms resting on his knees, his wings folded behind him.

  I just looked at him for a long time, not saying a word. I used my sharpened memory to recall the way Alex looked, before Cole killed him. His skin was a bit rougher looking, like he’d already spent too much time out in the sun. His hands were more calloused. And his eyes. His beautiful, blue eyes.

  Looking down at the page before me, I hesitated. It had been so long since I had drawn anything. I knew I had had talent, but talent didn’t tend to stick around when you didn’t use it.

  I let the pencil meet the paper, letting them use each other to create lines and planes. I glanced up every so often, letting my eyes trace over the shape of Alex’s forearm, the way his shoulder rose to meet his neck.

  The pages fluttered to the ground as I filled them and shuffled to blank sheets, the sun moving from the east above our heads. We sat there in silence, each studying the other.

  I drew Alex’s eyes, as they were now and as they used to be, on the same page. I drew his hands, the way they hung together, his arms draped over his knees. I drew his silhouette, framed by only his wings in their former glorious state.

  I felt emotions trying to build up inside of me as I filled the pages. But I pushed them down, knowing that if I let them surface I wouldn’t make it through this day. Every part of me felt exhausted from the effort. And when I couldn’t draw anymore, couldn’t make any other surface of him appear on the page, I slumped back in the chair and let my eyes slide closed.

  I lay like that for a long time. I heard Alex stand, gather my filled pages, and slip inside, but I didn’t have the energy to follow him. I couldn’t even open my eyes. I knew what was coming later. I was going to need every ounce of fight I had in me in a few hours.

  Through the panes of the windows and the sliding glass doors, I heard Alex making phone calls. I recognized the first as Emily, simply from the way he spoke. Emily had been released first thing that morning but instead of coming to stay with us, Austin had gone to stay with her. Alex thanked her for being such a good friend to me. I assumed Emily had started crying as he tried to assure her, not quite able to find comforting words in a situation that involves you basically dying all over again, this time for real.

  He next called Rod. He’d tried to keep the conversation light, joking around in their usual banter. Then he had tried telling Rod that he hadn’t been able to hang out lately because he was sick. I heard him assuring Rod that no, he didn’t need him to come over. He made an attempt to say that he was going to be alright, but no one would have believed it.

  After saying good-bye to Rod with a shaky voice, Alex dialed Ted, his lawyer. The phone call was brief. He simply asked if everything had been taken care of. He said good-bye to Ted as well.

  Ten minutes later, Alex came out onto the back deck again, closed the door behind him, and leaned against it, watching me. He cleared his throat and then said “I need you to do something for me, if…” his voice cut out.

  “What?” I asked, letting my eyes finally open, staring at the underside of the boards of the upper deck.

  Alex took two steps toward me and I looked over to see him place a simple white envelope with Caroline’s name written on it in my hand.

  “I need you to give this to her,” he said. “Everything I have to say to her is in there.”

  I let my head lean back against the chair, letting my eyes stare vacantly upward again. “Okay,” I agreed.

  He was quiet and I could tell there was something he wanted to say. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Please come inside,” he breathed, pain obvious in his voice.

  I finally looked at his face again. He looked terrified. He looked like he was in an immeasurable amount of pain. And he looked so inhuman.

  Rising to my feet, I clutched the envelope tightly between two of my fingers, and t
ook Alex’s had in mine with the other hand. Together, we both went back inside and walked into our room. Closing the door behind us, we both lay on the bed. I reached over and set Caroline’s letter on the nightstand. Alex lay his head on my chest and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, resting my chin on the top of his head.

  It felt almost as if I was holding a person made of sand. Nothing about Alex felt solid.

  Today would be the day.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about this, Jessica,” he said. “But we have to consider that this is probably going to be my last day. I need to know that you’ll be okay when I go. What will you do after?”

  I let my eyes close, feeling another half a dozen rocks drop into my stomach. “I don’t know,” I answered, my voice cracking.

  “I think you should move back to Ucon,” he said, his voice trying hard to sound like we were having any normal conversation. I could tell he had thought a lot about this. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this on your own. Your parents love you. They will want to help you through this. And you’ll have plenty of money to buy a house there if you don’t want to move in with your parents.”

  I shook my head, my eyes still closed, even though Alex couldn’t see it.

  “You could open up your own bookstore too,” Alex said, trying to force excitement into his voice. “You’d do good at that, if you put your focus on it.”

  Everything in me wanted to tell Alex to stop talking. But I couldn’t do that. Not when these were Alex’s final hours. Or minutes.

  “You have to promise me that you will keep going on,” Alex said, his grip tightening around my mid-section. “You have to promise me that you will be okay and that you will keep living.”

  A sharp breath caught painfully in my chest as I tried to breathe. My ears rang.

  “Promise me, Jessica,” Alex repeated, his frame shifting more. His hands started shaking. “Promise me.”

  I held my breath for one second, willing myself not to fall apart. I couldn’t crack now, not with Alex like this. “I promise,” I whispered.

  He fell silent then. His frame continued to quake, his breath starting to grow more ragged.

  I reached for my book on the nightstand. Propping it up in front of me where Alex could see it as well, I opened it to the beginning, to the very first page.

  Eliza Booth’s name was followed by John Killerman. Who was followed by Trace Laggen and hundreds of others. “These people will come through for us,” I said, forcing myself to believe my words. “They will make it possible for us to stay together.”

  “They’ll come through for us,” Alex repeated, his voice barely understandable. His grip tightened on me.

  I watched the hands of the clock on the opposite wall. The minutes seemed to slow down and speed up in alternating shifts. Time didn’t feel consistent and I waited for it to run out.

  That distinct smell Alex picked up ever since his change grew stronger and stronger. It was pure and fresh but it was tainted now with fear and pain. He continued to shake, his breath coming in sharp spurts.

  Five o’clock rolled slowly around, and in desperation to distract myself, I observed every detail of our bedroom. The blankets around us were wrinkled and tangled around our legs. The book of names lay next to Alex, propped open to a place near the end. The dresser had one drawer pulled open, a few of my shirts hanging out of it haphazardly. The door to the closet and bathroom were both cracked open just a bit. The nightstand next to us held a book I’d started reading before the honeymoon, Caroline’s letter, a lamp. A bottle of pills. Sal’s sleeping pills.

  Alex gripped me tighter suddenly, his breath going in in one hissing gasp. I could see his entire frame shift before me.

  “Jessica,” he half cried, half moaned. “Jessica.”

  “I’m here,” I said, everything suddenly flowing to the surface. All the emotions and feelings I had been fighting all day long finally pushed its way up, bringing on a string of tears with it.

  “It’s time,” he gasped. “I’m sorry. I can’t… can’t… fight it anymore.”

  “I know,” I said, more tears slipping down my face. “I know.”

  It took everything he had in him, but Alex lifted himself up onto his forearms and looked me in the eyes. “I love you,” he said, his voice straining to come out. “I love you with everything that I am.”

  “I know,” I said as I placed a hand on the side of his face. Slowly, I leaned in, and pressed my lips to his. “I love you too,” I whispered.

  And then the air seemed to change. The edges of Alex shifted and faded. The blackness around his eyes started spreading down his face, blackness growing from his chest at the same time. His skin continued to shrink.

  Alex squeezed his eyes closed in pain, his breath catching sharply.

  A gut retching cry erupted from his lips.

  A pulse pushed through the air, emanating from Alex’s body. The blackness of his skin consumed Alex. He seemed to fade from the inside out.

  And in the space of one second, he was gone.

  I sat there stunned for a moment. Just a moment.

  The reality of this situation had failed to fully hit me. In a way I think I had been in denial that Alex would ever actually go. Alex was the most real thing of my existence. So him not being around at some point would never have felt real.

  The time was here. And already gone.

  Closing my eyes, I ran over everything in my head. How many had agreed not to claim Alex? I wasn’t sure the exact number but I knew that it would never be enough. The afterlife wanted him. The exalted wanted him.

  But so did I.

  Swiping Sal’s pills from the night stand, I was in the kitchen half a second later. I filled a glass with water and unscrewed the lid of the container. Tipping it back, my mouth was filled with as many pills as I thought I could swallow. Tilting back the glass of water, cold liquid spilled over and ran down my neck as I swallowed the painful lump and forced them down into my stomach

  Knowing it would never work fast enough, I dumped three pills onto the counter and started throwing drawers open. Settling on a wooden rolling pin, I started crushing the pills into a fine powder.

  I’d never even been tempted by drugs my entire life, but I knew that snorting a drug got it into your system a whole lot faster than if you took them orally.

  My eyes watered and everything in me wanted to force the powder out of my body. But I made myself keep sniffing the white stuff off of the kitchen counter.

  About to run back into the bedroom, I paused for a second, my eyes catching on the cordless phone on the counter. Snatching it up, I carried it with me back into the bedroom. I swept the feathers off of the bed, gathering the blankets and sheets up around me.

  “I’m coming Alex,” I said to myself as I dialed.

  “Jessica?” Emily’s voice came through on the other end.

  “You’re at home and okay today, right?” I asked, my voice sounding a little too demanding.

  “Yeah, Austin and I got back this morning. He’s staying with me. What’s up?” she asked, the concern in her voice rising.

  “I need you to come over as soon as you can. And you’re probably going to have to call 911 when you get here.”

  “Whoa,” she said, her voice at full attention. “What’s going on Jessica? What… what did you do?”

  I simply hung up the phone.

  My ears were starting to ring by that point and I could feel the gentle tug at the back of my eyes. As I lay back in the bed, I felt my limbs grow heavy and relaxed.

  It was working.

  “I’m coming, Alex,” I said, staring up at the ceiling. Lines were starting to get blurry. “I’m coming.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It felt like I’d been shot back into the afterlife with a cannon. I hit the floor with such force it knocked me off of my feet. Trying to orient myself, I crawled to my knees and looked out at the cylinder.

  The afterlife was in total and compl
ete chaos. Angels flew everywhere, hissing escaped many throats. And there was so much yelling.

  There was a gathering of angels on the narrow catwalk, creating a circle. In the middle I could see Alex. Other’s flew at them, shouting horrible things, trying to get to Alex and do what I could only assume was drag Alex down below. Endless angels argued with each other along the staircase, some of the debates growing heated and violent. Only about two thirds of the council were at their seats, the rest of them scattered about the cylinder trying to bring peace to the masses.

  My eyes went back to Alex, watching his face, feeling everything inside of me harden. His eyes were wide as if he was afraid, but I saw the firm set of his jaw, that determined way he held his shoulders.

  He looked flawless and perfect again.

  I stood and attempted to get myself out of the way of all the chaos. Two angels made their way up the staircase by way of shoving each other and shouting.

  “He must go back,” one said roughly.

  “He doesn’t belong there anymore!” the other shouted. “He belongs here! We need him! Look at what his going back has already done to our world.”

  As I tuned into what the masses were saying, it was all pretty much the same thing. A few wanted to send him back, but most were determined to keep him.

  “Enough!” two voices roared, deafening in its volume and power.

  Every body fell still and turned toward the council’s seats. The leader of the exalted sat stiff in his seat, and Cole’s black eyes cut through the cylinder as he turned them on those causing the chaos. Together their voice had been powerful enough to cause the stones of the afterlife to quake.

  “That is enough,” the leader of the exalted repeated, his blue eyes narrowed, his lips set hard. “You will all calm yourselves and let the proceedings go as usual. I will not have a war starting under my watch.

  And then I remembered Alex’s words. That he would cause a war if our plan didn’t work.

  What had he said when he arrived?

  Movement to my left caught my eye and I looked up to see Jeremiah shove another black-eyed angel off of him. Straightening himself, Jeremiah coiled his wings and flew back to his appointed seat. Cole’s jaw tightened and the two of them looked stiff enough to snap.