by C. L. Coffey
At first, I didn’t even recognize the noise until I saw the glow on the couch under my bunk. It was a message from Harrison. I’m in the Common Room. Want to watch that movie?
Instead of replying, I unplugged the phone I’d left charging and made my way to the Common Room.
Despite Greenwood Prep being an exclusive college, it was extremely conservative and felt more like what I assumed a boarding school would be. The U-shaped building had two wings and the top floor of each were the dorm rooms. One side for women and one for men. And neither sex was allowed in the other wing.
Strangely, most students obeyed the rule. The only ones I’d really seen breaking it were Leigh-Ann and Ty. Maybe a nephilim wasn’t the best person to be setting an example.
Between the two were the four common rooms—one for each class. Although I was old enough to be a senior, I had joined the college late. Even I couldn’t find an argument to disagree with being a freshman. If I had gone to any other college in the country, I would still be completing my first year.
The corridors were deserted. Last semester, even when I had been coming back from studying in Gabriel’s office just before curfew, there were always doors propped open and students coming and going from each room.
Tonight, all the doors were closed.
This college was still grieving. Students were scared.
The theory was confirmed when I walked into the Common Room. It was a large room. On one side, there was a pool table. Along the back were tables for those who wanted to work, and on the other side, a bunch of couches sat in front of a fireplace. Hanging above the fire was one of the largest televisions I’d seen.
Despite the size of the room and the number of options for someone to be doing something, the only person in there was Harrison. Stretched out on one of the couches, he sat up when I walked in.
“Do you need to take a shower or something?” I asked him as I walked over.
“I farted,” he responded, deadpan. He swung his legs around, making space for me.
Easing myself down beside him, I wrinkled up my nose. “Nice.”
“No one leaves their rooms anymore. The events committee is considering cancelling the rest of the social events scheduled this semester.” There was a slight smile on his face, but his eyes didn’t match up.
“How are you doing, Harrison?” I asked, gently. “You lost at least one friend that night.”
The smile completely slid from his face. “Leigh-Ann told me about the dreams. I know they came for me. I know everyone who died—”
“Woah.” I held up a hand. “That was not on you. Those fallen angels came onto the campus on their own accord.” I shrugged. “Or they were ordered on by a bigger, badder fallen angel, but that fallen angel wasn’t you.”
“You know badder isn’t a word, right?” His lip quirked up.
“Like you also know that wasn’t the point I was making.”
Harrison’s head flopped back, and he stared at the ceiling. “I’ll make it right.”
“I think that’s something you need to leave to me.” I prodded his shoulder. “Don’t make that be the reason you need a guardian angel. From what I can gather, Heaven is hunting the Fallen anyway.”
Harrison said nothing, continuing to stare upwards.
Reaching for the remote, I turned the television on and opened up Netflix. “What are you in the mood for? Oh, they have Die Hard.”
Almost like a possessed doll, Harrison turned to look at me, aghast. “You know it’s April?”
“And?”
Harrison snatched the remote off me. “I’m not watching a Christmas movie in April.”
Thanks to all the moving, and the regularly depleting funds, we hadn’t always had a television, and when we did have, it never came with a cable subscription, much less Netflix. But I’d seen Die Hard several times, usually late at night after a shift while I ate.
“Die Hard might be set at Christmas, but it’s not a Christmas movie,” I told him, vehemently. “And this film is far too good to be watching only once a year.”
The appalled look remained on Harrison’s face. “Are you sure you’re an angel? That’s sacrilegious.”
My eyes narrowed. “This alone is why you and I are never going to hook up.”
Harrison suddenly went red.
I froze. “Is . . . is this supposed to be a date?”
“Hell no.” Harrison shook his head so hard that I was almost offended. “Cash is joining us when he finishes speaking to his dad. And I invited Leigh-Ann and Ty. If I was going to ask you on a date, I would do it properly. But I don’t like you that way.”
“Then why did you go red?” I asked, despite my embarrassment at misreading the situation.
“Because Lottie might have accused me of liking you, and I might not have denied it,” he mumbled.
Closing my eyes, I let out a long breath. There was no way Lottie was ever going to stop hating me. She’d acted like I’d had eyes on Harrison from the beginning.
“Do you like me?”
Harrison blinked a couple of times and then shook his head. “I just said, I don’t like you like that.”
“Then set her straight.”
“I just wanted her to leave me alone.” When I just glared at him, he sighed. “Fine.”
Settling back into the couch, I turned my attention to the television. “I don’t care what we watch. I’ve not watched a movie in a long time.”
“I’ll wait for Cash to get here,” Harrison told me. He pulled out his phone and quickly tapped out a message. “He said he wouldn’t be long.”
“What about Leigh-Ann and Ty?”
Harrison shook his head. “They’re busy. And we’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to know what my sister is doing.”
What Leigh-Ann was doing . . . I suppose what wasn’t as accurate as who. And we both knew the answer to that.
Stretching out my legs, I rolled my neck back and forth. My muscles were tired, although thankfully, not aching.
“How’s the nephilim training center?”
“I’m not finding it as exhausting as most of the other nephi . . . the what?” Our gym sessions were supposed to be top secret, and no one was allowed to talk about it. It didn’t really surprise me that somehow someone had worked out a way to tell another someone what we were doing, but at the same time, it surprised me that Harrison knew.
“We came back, and Dean Pinnosa announced that some people would have new schedules and all the ones that disappeared include you, Ty, Lottie and Cody. And a few others I saw fighting those fallen angels. Plus, you all go to the gym for hours and come out either looking exhausted or with bruises which miraculously heal within half the time of a normal person.”
“We’re not allowed to talk about it,” I told Harrison, frowning. “I’m not even sure if I’m going to be able to say much now. I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about it.”
“I don’t think anyone else has worked it out yet,” he said with a shrug. “Most people think all of you have switched to a Sports Science major or something. There were a few who wanted to do the same, but when they saw you all coming out of the gym looking like you’d been put through the Navy Seal fitness test, they changed their minds.”
Despite the ward, I’d never really expected our class to stay a secret—not completely, anyway. “You couldn’t have been the only one in the college who drew a connection. Even Leigh-Ann hasn’t said anything.”
“I see you all.”
“I’m fairly certain the rest of the student body isn’t blind.”
Harrison reached over and took my hand, holding it out between us. “You have a shadow. Not like that.” He pointed at my shadow as it fell on the couch. “It’s like an aura, I guess? A glow, but black, like a shadow. Except you. You’re different.”
“If you’re about to tell me that I’m a Watcher, I will stop you there because I’m not.”
Looking up at me, Harrison’s usually easy-going s
mile was gone. “I know. But you are different. You have a shadow, and you have an outline.”
“That doesn’t make much sense.” I told him. And his seriousness was strange and left me feeling uneasy.
“It’s like if I took a photograph of you and then drew around you with a sharpie. You have an outline which no one else seems to have. You still have that shadow, there’s an outline too.” He nodded, as though confirming his own words. “Yes, that’s the best way to describe it.”
A shiver ran down my spine. It felt too ominous. Why did I have an outline? And how could Harrison see it?
As I looked down at my hand, trying to imagine what he saw, the door opened. “What’s going on here?”
Harrison let go of my hand and jumped to his feet like we’d been caught doing something we shouldn’t. “Nothing.”
I glanced over, noticing the slight shake of his head. Cash might have been family, but apparently, Harrison hadn’t told him about any of this. Fine by me.
“We were about to arm wrestle over whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie,” I said.
Cash moved over to the couch looking up at the television before looking down at me. “Of all the movies on there, you want to watch one as old as this college?” He wrinkled up his nose, grabbing the remote. “We’re also not watching a Christmas movie.”
My eyes narrowed.
“I’m going to go grab some cans of coke.” Harrison stood then headed for the door. “Any preference?”
I shook my head and settled back into the couch. After waiting for Harrison to leave, Cash moved around, standing in front of me.
“What’s up, Cash?”
Despite being wrong about Die Hard, Cash seemed alright. As he was a junior, we didn’t have any classes together, so the only times I really saw him were in the cafeteria. This was the first time we’d been alone together.
And he was frowning down at me like I’d been caught in the middle of committing a crime.
“You need to stay away from Harrison.”
“Excuse me?” My voice unexpectantly climbed a couple of octaves.
“I know what you are, and I will not allow you to destroy Harrison.” Cash folded his arms.
My heart seemed to speed up more than during the intensive workout sessions.
How did Cash know I was a nephilim? Had Harrison told him?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Me and Harrison are just friends,” I told him.
Cash continued to stare at me, his eyes narrowing further. “We both know that isn’t true. People like you are attracted to power.”
My eyes widened as I finally worked out what he was talking about. Harrison’s dad was a senator, and his family was wealthy. Cash thought I was trying to get close to Harrison for his money?
I almost laughed before I realized what he was insinuating. My hands instinctively curled into fists as I pushed myself off the couch.
Cash was tall, but so was I, coming in at almost eye level with him.
“The last thing I care about is Harrison’s bank account. If I actually was interested in Harrison, it would be because of him and not his trust fund.”
“That’s not—”
“I guess it’s my turn to ask what’s going on here?” Harrison said, as the door closed.
Shooting Cash a dark glare, I turned and walked over to Harrison. “Sorry, I’m going to rain check on the movie.”
I slipped past Harrison into the corridor, closing the door behind me before he could stop me.
My hands were still shaking when I got back to my room.
Chapter Eleven
“Dora.”
The whisper had me bolting upright in bed as though it had been screamed in my ear. It had been a long time since I’d heard it, but I would recognize my mother’s voice anywhere.
Except this was Greenwood Preparatory College deep in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and my mom could not be in my room.
Without thinking, I flicked the light on. It was only when it illuminated Leigh-Ann’s empty bed that I realized she hadn’t come back to the room. I was alone, again. And as I suspected, my mom was nowhere in sight.
Although I’d spent the last few weeks focused on training, I hadn’t stopped thinking about my mom. She’d asked me to stop looking for her, and I had, using the excuse of the campus being on lockdown. But Gabriel and I had gone to the Vatican City, and I’d not been in detention because of it, despite Pinnosa’s threats about what would happen if we left the campus.
I’d not even asked him.
Flopping back onto the bed, my hand hovered over the light switch when I looked back over at Leigh-Ann’s bed again.
The covers were disheveled.
Leigh-Ann had been here. “She’s probably in the bathroom,” I mumbled to myself.
Something about that thought didn’t sit well with me. Sitting back up, I looked over in the direction of our small en suite shower room. The door was open, and the light wasn’t on.
“Crap.” Throwing back the covers, I climbed down from my bunk and slipped a pair of shoes on. Hurrying to the door, I found it unlocked. “Crap.”
This wasn’t the first time Leigh-Ann had left the room in the middle of the night, not for a secret rendezvous with Ty, but because she was sleepwalking. Worse, I’d promised her I’d look after her to stop her from doing it again.
I hurried along the corridor, looking for any open doorway she might have walked into. When I made it to the main staircase, I paused. Straight ahead was the boy’s dorm. She could have gone to Ty.
Last time, she’d ended up at the river in the dead of winter, wading into the icy waters.
As I toyed between which direction to take, something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. At the top of the stairs was an enormous window. The center of it was clear glass, but the edges had gilded metal in a pretty design. It wasn’t the window that had made me look twice, but something outside.
A figure in white.
Was that a ghost?
Before I could panic, I turned and ran down the stairs. Instead of the main entrance, I ran towards the classrooms under the boy’s wing. There was an exit along there which would save me from running around the building.
The door slammed behind me as I ran outside, scanning the grounds. Last time there had been footprints to follow in the snow. Now it was spring, so I wasn’t afforded the luxury.
Following in the direction the figure had been heading, I ran as fast as I could across the grounds, towards the small church on campus.
Although there were no lights shining inside, the door was open a sliver. I slowed my pace before I crashed into the door and then pulled it open.
In the center of the aisle, walking barefoot slowly towards the small stage the priest would deliver his sermons, was Leigh-Ann. The white I’d seen wasn’t white, but the baby pink pajamas she was wearing.
I darted down between the pews to head her off before she got to the altar. As I came up in front of her, I stopped. “Leigh-Ann?” I said, keeping my voice low. “Leigh-Ann, you’re sleepwalking again.”
Leigh-Ann came to an abrupt halt. Her head turned to face me, but with the rest of her body remaining completely stationary, there was something eerie about it. Not as eerie as her eyes. Wide open, the blue of her iris was pale, like death.
Unblinking, she stared at me.
“Leigh-Ann?”
With no warning, she launched herself at me. “Cave custodes. Daemon petunt. Et ego daemonium perdere,” she yelled, her words echoing around the church.
Bracing myself, I reached out to stop her. Only she completely ploughed me to the ground like a linebacker the NFL would be proud of.
My body slammed into the stone floor, stunning me. It took only a second for her hands to wrap around my neck. “Cave custodes. Daemon petunt. Et ego daemonium perdere,” she shouted in my face as her fingers tightened.
Grabbing her wrist, I tried to pull her off me.
Somehow,
my petite human friend was stronger than she should have been.
“Cave custodes. Daemon petunt. Et ego—”
Swinging my weight, I rolled us over, so I was lying on top of her. “Leigh-Ann, wake up,” I yelled, punching her upper arm. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her but shoving her on her back hadn’t even woke her up.
The blue in Leigh-Ann’s eyes suddenly deepened. “He is coming.” She gasped. And then all resistance was gone. Before I fell into her, I shifted my weight and collapsed on the stone beside her, trying to catch my breath.
At the sound of her whimper, I rolled over, my eyes wide. “Leigh-Ann? Are you okay?”
Leigh-Ann shook her head. Her body was trembling. “I felt it. The heat.” As though realizing we weren’t in our room, she looked around. “Where are we?”
“The church.”
With a sob, she threw herself at me, crying in my arms. Then she suddenly leaped back with a scream like I’d stabbed her. “It hurts!” She ripped back the sleeve revealing an ugly red mark.
“Is that a burn?” Even as I asked the question, the red mark seemed to fade away.
Leigh-Ann collapsed back against a pew, her body shuddering as she drew in ragged breaths. “This church was on fire. I was trying to get out, to warn everyone.”
“You were speaking Latin again,” I told her.
“What is going on in here? Why are you two out of your beds at this time in the morning?”
I almost fell over as I turned to find Dean Pinnosa standing in the doorway.
“It’s my fault,” Leigh-Ann hurriedly told her before I could jump in. “I was sleep walking.”
“And speaking in Latin?” Pinnosa asked, her hands falling to her hips. Despite the crazy hour of the night, she was still in her suit. I wasn’t sure if she’d not yet gone to bed or gotten up and dressed, but it was pristine as always.
I shared a look with Leigh-Ann, shaking my head, but before I could come up with a lie to explain why we were here, Pinnosa was standing over us.
