by A. Catherine
“Is it for a paper or something?” he asked, referring to my books.
His words brought me out of my curious thoughts that I found myself in while looking at him. He smiled, almost as if he knew.
I adjusted the heavy books in my hands, “Um, sort of, a portion of my paper I haven’t yet finished. Are you um,” I looked at the book in his hand trying to figure out what he was taking. “Are you taking a religious studies class or something?”
The book he held was titled Christianity in East and Southeast Asia.
He lifted it and laughed a little to himself. “Uh, yeah, you could say that.”
I nodded, suddenly feeling a little awkward standing there with large heavy books talking to a stranger.
“Alrighty, then. Good luck with your finals!” I swiftly turned away and walked back to the table Miles was at.
He looked up from his laptop and noticed me rushing over awkwardly. “Did you get lost or something?” he teased.
I thought about the guy, and it evoked images of smoke, fire, and lightning. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” I put down the books and sat down, clicking my laptop back to life.
I glanced back to where I had just come from, to see that guy looking at his book with amusement before he lifted his head and caught my eye. He smirked and winked at me then walked behind the stacks, disappearing out of sight.
But I didn’t know why there was something familiar about him. Again, my mind went back to the dream. His physique certainly matched that of the shadowy figure in it. But I swear I had never met him or even seen him before.
And his voice…that was familiar too.
It was forty-five minutes after Miles and I had started studying that he had to leave to go take his final. I had only been working on my paper for thirty of those minutes. Taking some time in the beginning to finish my lunch, needing the brain food.
Out of the three books I had chosen off the shelves, only two turned out to be decent sources for my paper. It would have to do for now. Writing an additional two and a half pages, I clicked save and took a long deep sigh.
My fingers and brain ached. Finals were always a tedious and stressful time of year. I missed the days when I could take a multiple-choice test, the higher the course numbers got the more and more finals were long essays requiring annotated bibliographies, footnotes, and case studies to back up theories you create on your own. It just made me dread having to write my final thesis.
Taking a break, I decided to browse the internet for a while. I scrolled through all the engagement, wedding, and baby announcements happening in the lives of my old friends.
Seeing all the feed filled with those sort of life updates, I couldn’t help but feel behind somehow. Even though I made the decision during my early twenties that marriage wasn’t a realistic goal for me.
Sure, if love found its way into my life I wouldn’t turn it away. But I wasn’t going to go looking for it.
I had all my research to factor in as well. In reality, the construct of marriage was built to suppress one of the parties involved, most notably women. Not to mention, my high expectations for people. I hated the masks people wore when dating, and how ugly their true selves turned out to be in the end.
I’ve dated before, but each time I let someone get remotely close enough to consider a lifetime commitment, they disappointed me. If only people were their truest selves from the get-go.
Honesty and transparency were rare finds these days. So while I scanned past Lyla Hill’s pictures of her new engagement, the focus of the image set on the big rock on her finger and all the flashy things her fiancé did to make it memorable, I didn’t feel resentment or jealousy. I felt pity.
“Mind if I sit with you?” A voice drew my attention away from my computer screen to the mesmerizing figure I had met earlier.
He was leaning slightly forward, holding the back of the chair across the table from me, waiting for a response. The grin on his face made something wiggle in my stomach.
I tried to answer, but my breath caught in my throat.
Crap, forgot to breathe.
I cleared my throat. “Um, yeah. Sure.”
I watched as he slid the chair out and slipped in it with ease. His eyes never breaking contact with mine. There was something challenging about his expression.
Was he waiting for me to say something else? Was he expecting a conversation icebreaker or something? I’d never been great at those.
As if sensing my struggle for conversation starters he asked, “How’s the paper going?” Motioning towards my stacks of books.
I flipped the open book closed. “Almost finished. I should be able to finish the rest before tomorrow. How’s your studying going?” I felt nervous, could it be the basic stranger-danger instinct that all women possess from birth when being alone with a guy?
No. It didn’t feel that way, I mean we were in a public library, almost every other table in the fishbowl was occupied by other students.
Additionally, he didn’t give me a dangerous vibe. At least not in the I need to be careful type of dangerous. Or at least not the I need to be careful because I’m in danger way, more like an I need to be careful cause he’s kinda dreamy sort of way.
And he was dangerous alright, dangerous in the could show up in my sexual fantasies for eternity kind of way, definitely.
Oh, god. Get it together, you blushing fool.
“I’m pretty confident I will pass,” he stated.
I scoffed. “Lucky you, if only everyone else felt that way.” I stretched my hand across the table. “I’m Heather by the way.” He stared at my hand for a second and a knowing smile came across his face.
A flashback, I know who you are. I nearly shuddered in my seat.
He held my hand and squeezed it. “Kale.” When his hand released mine I felt like I had just touched hot coal, and the residual heat made it start to sweat.
I pressed my lips together and smiled meekly. Turning my attention back to my computer to avoid the awkwardness of my internal mess of reactions.
“Got any fun plans for the break?” I asked. I felt so stupid, small talk was painful to partake in.
He chuckled, the sensual sound of it drew my eyes back to his.
“Going hunting I guess.” He chuckled some more as if it was a private joke. I decided to shrug it off and go with it.
“Gonna spend time with your family for the holidays?”
“My family doesn’t celebrate the holidays. I see them all the time, so any time spent with them is always the same,” he answered. “You going home for the holidays?” he asked.
I shrugged. “My parents live on the opposite side of the country and I don’t like traveling that far in bad weather, so I’m just gonna stay here and work on research.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that time supposed to be spent taking a break from studies? Or are you just a highly devoted nerd?”
I rolled my eyes.
“I take ‘nerd’ as a compliment, thank you. I’m a grad student, we actually enjoy doing research. Anyway, I have a big study abroad trip coming up this summer that I need time to work on,” I retorted.
“Where you going?”
“Xian, China. It’s, uh, where the—”
“Tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi. I’m impressed,” he finished.
I blinked once, twice.
“Um yeah. Wow, that’s amazing. Most people don’t ever know what that is unless they see a picture of it. Did you see it recently in a class?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve seen a lot of tombs in my line of work,” he stated plainly.
My eyebrows raised. “What kind of line of work takes you to China? Better yet, to a lot of tombs? I mean, you’re too young to be an anthropologist.” Mirth edging in my voice.
He smirked and shot me a swoon-worthy wink that made my toes curl a bit.
“How old do you want me to be?”
Smooth…
I mean, I guess he had a point. I was a
ssuming. But he was flirting. Hard.
But I didn’t much like being played with by a complete stranger, who may or may not be bad news.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to assume. You look like you’re in your mid-twenties and the youngest anthropologists are typically in their late twenties to mid-thirties.”
“And what if I said that I was over three thousand years old?” he asked.
Even though I knew he was joking, his delivery was so confident, it almost felt real. I laughed awkwardly, strange joke indeed.
“Pfft. Right, yeah, okay so you’re what? Immortal? Okay.”
I shook my head, chuckling. This guy was trying way too hard now to fulfill a fantasy that was meant for a much younger audience.
I returned my eyes to my laptop and opened up my email to scroll through my inbox. I could see in my peripheral vision that he was still watching me with amusement. I chose to ignore it and began replying to emails.
I snuck a glance back at him above my laptop. He was looking at the table, almost as if he were listening to something. Doesn’t he have a phone or something to look at?
Speaking of, I looked down at my phone to check the time. Two-thirty-three. Geez, I’d been here for longer than I had meant to be. I missed my last class.
I glanced back at the Kale guy. Who names their child after a leafy vegetable anyway?
With his biker gang vibe I would’ve pegged him for a Rufus or Mac. Even though my better mind told me that the ‘bad-boy’ energy he was emanating was overrated and juvenile, despite my inner teenager tickling with an attraction to it.
And I knew, somewhere deep down that I should take it seriously. My eyes scanned him while his eyes were elsewhere.
The immortal joke was amusing, in a flirtatiously cliché way. But there was something inhuman about him. I tried to imagine the silhouette of the figure and then imagined Kale with a shadow over him to compare.
Hm, sure they were similar, but was I just reading too much into it? I mean, why would someone I hadn’t met before appearing in my dreams only to meet them in person the very next day?
That’s impossible.
In all my thoughts I hadn’t realized that his eyes had met mine once more, and we were just staring at each other. I cleared my throat and looked away quickly.
“Sorry, staring off into space,” I mumbled.
He tilted his head to the side, almost like a predator sizing up its prey.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
I looked back at him to see another confident smile across his lips. He was daring, I’ll give him that.
“Have we met before? I mean before today?” I asked suddenly.
For a moment, his eyes blinked quickly, surprised by question. Then they shifted to curious amusement.
“Where would we have met?” he asked playfully. Did he know something I didn’t know? Or just more games?
“Well, I don’t know. I’m probably just being paranoid. Finals’ week has me having these weird dreams lately. And for some reason you resemble someone I saw in one, and the only explanation I can think of is that we’ve met before. Does that make sense? Or is that weird? I read in an article once that when you see someone you don’t recognize in a dream, it usually means you’ve seen them in passing and your subconscious just holds onto it.”
His expressions gave me mixed signals. They shifted from recognition to surprise, then from bright-wonder to excitement then finally to a playfulness demeanor. The quickness of every shift nearly made me dizzy, but I caught each one of them.
“Are you saying I’m the man of your dreams?” he teased.
Although his tone was that of flirtatiousness, his eyes betrayed him, telling me that he knew more than he was saying.
No longer in the mood to play along. I rolled my eyes and began collecting my things. “Never mind. It’s dumb. I should get home.”
He didn’t seem happy by that response.
“You’re leaving? We only just started talking.” He stood. I put my school bag over my shoulder.
I looked at him and sighed in defeat.
“Look, the whole flirting session was fun and all. But I’ve got a lot on my plate, and playing games only gets in the way of productivity. So, it was nice to meet you, Kale. Good luck with your finals and have a nice day.” With that, I left.
He didn’t appear to follow me, so I made the long trek across campus to where my car was parked in the school lot, keys between my fingers just in case. It was only when I was locked inside my car driving down university avenue when I felt some semblance of normal again.
TEN
Kale
PURE AMUSEMENT, that’s what Heather’s final words gave me.
She had spunk, a little plain otherwise, but at least she wasn’t afraid to call out bullshit.
It was interesting that she recalled me in her dreams the night prior. Supernatural entities such as high-class demons and angels should be able to enter a human’s subconscious mind and leave unnoticed.
I made sure to keep myself shrouded in shadow to be safe, since she had recollected the Guardian in her earlier experiences. She shouldn’t have been able to connect my appearance in the dream to my physical form in the real world.
And yet…she did. That’ll have to be something I mention to the others later.
While I was spending time with her in the library Seere relayed a message that she and Iaoel were headed to Reapers Creek to try to see what was happening in-between veils. I hadn’t heard from anyone else, including Gabriel.
At least Seere was staying in touch as promised. Seere was my right hand, but more importantly she was my best friend. She understood me in ways no other could, Daevas came close, but not as close as her.
Seere shared my disdain towards my father and helped me vent all of my destructive emotions in more productive matters.
Rather than go on a cataclysmic rage like the last time, and the time before that.
While Heather may have walked away, I never truly left her presence. Easily shifting into the Ethereal veil to conceal my presence from her—I accompanied her in her car as she started for home.
The whole ride back she seemed lost in thought, occasionally grunting and scoffing as if she was reacting to her own inner monologue. I watched in amusement, knowing that it was likely me that was in her thoughts.
I never ceased to stir up humans and their fragile emotions.
“Three thousand years old, seriously? Does he think I’m some thirteen-year-old girl just waiting to be swept off her feet by a fictional book vampire who sparkles in the sunlight? Fucking joke,” she said aloud.
I couldn’t help but laugh, she wouldn’t hear me while I was riding the border between the Ethereal realm and the mortal one.
“If anyone had a Twilight complex, it would be featherbrain,” I joked.
She continued driving, completely oblivious to my presence.
Her nose scrunched up and she let out an aggravated sigh. “Ugh, why do I even care? He’s not even my type, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Just get over it Heather.”
My smirk now permanently plastered on my face. “I have that effect on people.”
The buzzing in the back of my head turned my attention elsewhere. Opening my mind to allow Gabriel to come in.
What’s up, glitter-bomb? I asked.
How are things? Gabriel asked as a form of greeting.
Doing just fine down here. Human is safe and sound, living her boring life.
Good. I’m on my way back. Any news from the others?
Seere and Iaoel checked in, they’re at Reapers Creek. But other than that, I haven’t heard from anyone else. I answered.
Jade and Jophiel are leaving Egypt, bringing a few scrolls with them, I think they’re going to stop in Siberia to speak to a couple of Scribes. Gabriel explained.
Naturally, they would report to him since they were both angels. I wondered what Daevas and the others were finding down below.
�
��What the hell is that?” Heather exclaimed. My eyes shot to the front windshield.
In the middle of the road, three hundred feet ahead, there was what looked like a human woman, but something was off. I looked closer to see the woman’s eyes were slitted vertically and teeth were thin and sharp as needles.