by David Estes
“I know, Sam, but there’s something weird about him. Did you see the way his skin almost radiated light, even when we went inside? And his eyes were dilated, like he was on drugs or something.”
“I didn’t notice the ‘light’ thing, but if you mean he radiated hotness, then yes, I noticed that! I know what you mean about his eyes, but they make him look kind of serious and mysterious. Maybe he just had an appointment with the eye doctor and they put drops in his eyes to dilate them. Geez, Tay, don’t be such a buzz kill. You are allowed to have fun. This is college, remember?”
“I’m sure you’re right, Sam. I’ll text him later,” Taylor promised in a lame attempt to appease her well-intentioned friend.
“That’s the spirit!” Sam exclaimed.
They soon became distracted by their rumbling stomachs and the various buffet-style food stations around the cafeteria; large, colorful signs identified each type of food: pizza, stir fry, pasta, salad, dessert, drinks, and so forth.
Over dinner, Taylor learned more about Marla and Jennings. They had been dating for three years and had known each other for about ten. Their entire families, dating back a few generations, had graduated from UT and mostly still lived in the area. Marla’s mother and Jennings’ father were both professors at the university. Their families had season tickets for the football games; they never missed a Beaver’s game unless an act of God prevented them.
“You’ll be going to all of the football games this year,” Marla said. It was more of a statement than a question. “All freshman get free season tickets to the games.”
In reality, the cost of the tickets was included in the freshman tuition, which was a bit higher than for the other students. The goal was to encourage the new students to go to games and become loyal to the team, the Beavers, and to UT in general. The trick usually worked, as after only a single game most of the kids became fans for life.
“Of course we’ll go, won’t we, Tay?” Sam said.
“Sure,” Taylor replied simply. Taylor liked football, as did most blue-blooded Americans. In high school, she was a member of the pep group, which helped make signs and flags for the football team. Always wanting to be the center of attention, Samantha was a cheerleader. In their own ways, they each supported the team and enjoyed watching the games.
In addition to learning a bit about their new friends, Sam continued to gush about how excited she was for Taylor. Taylor barely heard a word she said. She couldn’t stop thinking about Gabriel: his face, his eyes, and her screams in the middle of the night.
As the conversation continued, none of them noticed the pair of dark eyes that watched them from across the crowded cafeteria.
Chapter Nine
Gabriel watched Taylor from across the room while pretending to be interested in the conversation of the normal freshman boys he was sitting with. She would not be able to see him from this distance, although he kept her in his sight at all times. He was able to see her as if he was looking through binoculars—perfectly clear, like he was sitting next to her. The bright lights in the dining hall were devoured by his nearly fully-black eyes, and then streamed across the room with the focused power of a magnifying glass. Of all my abilities, this one is underrated, Gabriel thought.
He gazed thoughtfully at her as she sat with her friends. Earlier, he had been impressed with her ability to resist his charms, but wasn’t worried. He was versatile, which was one of the many reasons he had been selected by the Council for this job.
Not interested in food tonight, he excused himself from the table and strode purposefully out of the hall. Rounding a corner into a dark alleyway, he checked in front and behind himself, and seeing no one, leapt forcefully into the night sky. Reaching an altitude of a thousand feet in just over two seconds, he arched his back, extended his arms, and with a sharp pop! magnificent, white-feathered wings protracted from his neck, just below the hairline. The impossible, five-foot wings extended two feet past his fingertips, giving him mobility without limiting the use of his arms.
With a burst of speed, Gabriel soared towards the largest structure on UT’s campus: the football stadium. He had arrived at school three months earlier than Taylor in order to prepare for the task at hand. While participating in the monotonous weeks of the summer session, he made a few friends, earned straight A’s in his courses, and found the time to prepare for her arrival. The rafters high above the stadium had become one of his favorite spots to think while he waited.
He was perched there now, having made a trip that would normally take 20 minutes on foot, in less than a minute. Like his ability to see long distances, flight was powered by light. If the moon and stars shone brightly, Gabriel never had difficulty harnessing their light to fly any distance he chose. On a particularly cloudy night, he could usually still muster enough light-power from street lamps or houses. In a worst-case scenario, he could utilize his powerful, battery-operated mini-Maglite, which he typically kept in his pocket, like all of his kind did. He preferred flying to walking.
Now, as he sat, Gabriel remembered back to when he was just a child being taught by the adults. He must have come so far that they would trust him with such an important mission. Growing up, he was never convinced that the legends were true, but now that he had seen the girl for himself, he was fast becoming a believer. Her aura was more brilliant than he thought possible. Licking his lips eagerly, Gabriel looked forward to testing it in battle. He was starting to hope she would survive.
The Great War had raged for decades, with neither side ever really gaining an advantage. Now the War was on the verge of being won, with the pitiful existence of humans resting in the hands of Taylor Kingston, and she didn’t have a clue. If only he could get her alone.
Just then his cell phone vibrated, indicating that a text message had been received.
Chapter Ten
Despite her strange dreams and thoughts about Gabriel, Taylor felt alive when she arrived back in her dorm room. She also felt free, for the first time in her life. Sure, she had a responsibility to attend her classes, study, and perform all of the other rather dull activities that go along with college, but she didn’t have her dad looking over her shoulder, and she could make most decisions by herself. No wonder so many kids go crazy when they get to college, she thought. There was so much freedom! Maybe there should be some kind of transition phase, where freedoms are slowly given to students to reduce the shock of total freedom. Nah, she thought, it was better to get it all at once.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have a good relationship with her dad. She loved him and liked spending time with him. But she was ready to give life a shot on her own. Taylor’s father, Edward Kingston, was a 55-year-old widower, who owned a small ice-cream franchise called the Ice Cold Creamery. Ed, or Eddie, as Taylor liked to call him, was your typical overprotective father, who liked to continue to think of Taylor as daddy’s little girl, despite the fact that she had moved out-of-town to attend college. When he moved Taylor into her small dorm room, he had become quite emotional when it came time to leave.
Taylor knew that while she was gaining freedom from her father, he had likely enlisted her brother James’s help in being his remote eyes and ears. James was beginning his junior year at UT and constantly reminded Taylor of this fact, as if she should be impressed or something.
James liked to show off, not only to his baby sister, but to everyone. At a couple of inches over six feet, he was much taller than his father, and had a strong athletic build from two years of using free weights at the campus fitness center. His hair was dirty-blond, styled in the intentionally-messy look that was considered cool. Like any showman, he was quite popular and liked to be the center of attention.
Taylor and her brother had never been close. While James tended to be protective of her, he seemed to view it as more of a duty of an older brother, rather than something he genuinely cared to do. She was glad that he had moved off campus for his third year, while she would be in the university dormitories, a s
afe 30-minute walk from James’s apartment.
While she was still thinking about her family, the images from her dreams suddenly flashed through her mind, like an alarm clock set to go off just then. As usual, she was losing control of her thoughts, as more and more they shifted subconsciously to Gabriel, his easy-on-the-eyes smile, and how “he genuinely seems interested in you”, as Sam had said during dinner. Enough was enough. She couldn’t wait any longer. Taylor unlocked her iPhone and pulled up his number. She thought, what the hell, I’m at college, meeting boys is part of the deal, and then typed a simple text message:
hi gabe, it’s taylor. now u have my #. would like 2 hang out sometime if u still want 2.
She reread the message, happy with herself. It didn’t sound desperate, showed a bit of her personality by calling him Gabe again, and left the ball in his court. She pressed SEND. To her surprise, he replied in less than a minute:
hi taylor, so glad u txtd me. i’m actually just sitting around right now if u aren’t busy?
Taylor was surprised to feel butterflies dancing through her stomach. At first she thought it might be a sort of uneasiness, like she had experienced before, but then she realized that they were excited butterflies, like she was some damn boy-crazy flirt. Get a grip, she thought, he’s just a cocky guy like your brother. Even so, she needed to talk to him, if only to determine who he really was. She replied to his text:
sounds good gabe. where should we meet?
He replied:
north side of commons
They agreed to meet in ten minutes. Not one to primp, Taylor pulled on a pair of mismatched socks—one gray, one red—and a pair of old sneakers. She didn’t bother to put on any makeup or change her clothes, opting to remain dressed in her sweatpants and t-shirt. She was about to leave when Sam walked in with a towel wrapped around her body.
Sam said, “I love that the showers are always nice and hot, although the pressure leaves something to be desired. Where are you off to, Tay?”
“I’m just meeting up with Gabriel for a few minutes.” She tried to sound casual.
“What!? When did this happen?”
“Just now. I sent him a text and he replied and asked if I wanted to hang out.”
“You go, girl! I think this college thing is going to be good for you.”
Reaching for the door, Taylor said, “It’s not like that, I just want to ask him a few questions. I’ll be home soon.”
“But not too soon, hun, enjoy yourself!” Sam replied with a smile.
“Whatever,” Taylor said.
Taylor walked swiftly to the Commons. She was trying to time it perfectly, so that she arrived right on-time. She didn’t want to appear desperate by being early, but she was also not the type to be rude by making someone wait. To her relief, the area was deserted when she arrived. A lone bench was waiting, unused at the moment. She sat down to wait. Within seconds, she heard a melodious voice from behind.
“Hello, Taylor,” he said.
She jumped a little and turned, startled at how easily he had snuck up on her. “Son of a—can you not sneak up on me like that? Where’d you come from?”
“Oh, nowhere in particular, I kind of just swooped in!” He laughed, a beautiful smile spreading across his face. “Thanks for texting me, I was really happy when you did.”
She didn’t hear a word he said as she stared at him, completely awestruck. His tight t-shirt clung to his well-toned muscles like a second skin. It looked natural, like he was born that way, not like her brother’s obvious weight-lifting and protein-fabricated body. His glow was as strong as ever and even more noticeable under the night sky.
“Earth to Tay…,” Gabriel said, imitating Sam’s tone from earlier in the day.
“What?” Taylor said, pretending like she had been paying attention.
“Am I boring you, Tay? That’s the second time you’ve spaced out while in my presence.”
“Sam’s the only one who calls me Tay,” she retorted.
“And as I said earlier, my grandmother is the only one who calls me Gabe. So I guess that makes us even,” he said, the perfect grin returning.
Deciding to go on the offensive, Taylor asked, “Did you go to the eye doctor today?”
“No, why do you ask?” Gabriel said innocently.
Taylor ignored his question and asked another. “Hmm, interesting. Then did you get hit by a radioactive meteor today?”
“No, not today, but the day’s not over yet.” He continued smiling, but behind the smile she could tell that he was thinking hard, like he was trying to work something out in his head.
Gabriel tried to keep a stone face, as if her questions were just normal get-to-know-you type questions, but in his mind he was stunned. He had never met a human that could so easily see his inner light. In one very rare case, a human with a particularly strong aura told him that he had very strange-colored skin and asked him what nationality he was. Gabriel was easily able to lie his way through that one. He was usually able to lie himself through just about anything. He was a smooth liar.
In this case, however, Gabriel wouldn’t lie about these simple questions. He would need to lie to Taylor many times before his mission was over, and so, he figured he would start with some truth.
“Look, Taylor, I want to answer all of your questions, but not here,” Gabriel said honestly. “Can we go for that walk I asked you for earlier?”
Taylor looked at him intently, trying to read between the lines. Why should she trust someone she just met and barely knew, especially before he had answered any of her questions? He could be a rapist or a murderer for all she knew. But for some reason she did trust him, and although she answered hesitantly, she answered in the affirmative.
They walked together in the direction of Center Avenue, an appropriately named street that ran directly through the center of campus. However, when they reached the road, Gabriel grabbed her hand and pulled her left, away from the heart of campus. “I want to show you something,” he said.
“Where the hell are we going?” she asked, trying not to sound afraid, although her heart was hammering.
“The football stadium. I was here for the summer session and I found a great spot there to think, or in our case, to talk.”
Taylor’s heart slowed back to normal as the answer sounded reasonable and she didn’t detect a trace of a lie. After all, someone as beautiful as Gabriel couldn’t possibly be a rapist or a murderer, could he? She looked at him as they walked and he looked back, grinning again, like he could read her thoughts and found her internal conversations to be hilarious.
She realized that he was still holding her hand as they walked along, but she didn’t try to shake it off this time. It felt wonderfully warm and seemed to give her a strange energy. She barely even noticed the silence as they walked, unspeaking. The quiet would normally bother her, causing her to babble on with meaningless small talk. For once, she didn’t.
After several minutes, when the silence was finally broken, it was Gabriel who said, “Why do you believe that you are not special?”
Surprised by the question, Taylor replied defensively, “How do you know that I…I mean, I don’t think I’m not…Why do you ask that?” She knew there was a bit of an edge to her voice but didn’t care.
“Don’t be offended, Tay…Taylor. I promise, I didn’t mean anything by it. It just seems that you worship the ground that Samantha walks on, when it should be the other way around.”
“I don’t worship…wait, are you saying that you think I’m special? How could you even know that? We just met. And what do you mean by special? That I ride the short bus to school?”
Gabriel laughed. “Not that kind of special. I just have a good sense about people.” They had almost reached the stadium. “Plus, you noticed certain things about me that other people generally don’t or can’t notice.”
Taylor thought about this for a minute before asking, “So are you going to answer my questions about those things now?”
Gabriel liked the way she noticed his word choice and turned it back on him. She was feisty. He thought this was a good sign; maybe she was the one who would change everything. He realized she had stopped walking and released his hand; her hands now rested firmly on her hips, as she waited for a response to her question. Gabriel stopped as well, pausing before speaking, choosing every word carefully.
“Taylor, I think it might be best if I show you the answers.”
She stared at him, trying to decipher his last statement, but with nothing making sense, she shrugged and waited patiently.
He took a few steps back from her and closed his eyes. She watched intently, but with an amused grin on her face, wondering how long he would laugh at her after his prank was over. She had become used to the dull glow and the dilated eyes to the point where she had been unaware of these oddities for the last ten minutes, except maybe subconsciously. Now that she was watching him though, the luminosity of his countenance was the only thing that she was aware of.
As if on cue, the outline of light around his body and head began to brighten. The light increased slowly at first, and then faster and faster until it was like she was looking into the sun. Temporarily blinded, she closed her eyes and put her hands in front of her face to shield them. Even with her eyelids and hands to protect her, she could still see the light, as it seemed to penetrate both skin and bones.
Just when she was considering turning away from him, the light dimmed and Gabriel’s body was returned to “normal”, with only the dim glow surrounding his six-foot frame. “What the hell was that?” Taylor demanded forcefully.