Contents
Copyright
THE TRAGIC + DIVINE
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
Thank you!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
The Tragic + Divine
Copyright © 2019 Melody Felix-Prieto
Internal Design © 2019 by Nearly Famous Press, LLC
Cover Design by Dissect Designs
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Nearly Famous Press, LLC. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-7329677-1-7 (ebook)
LCCN: 2019936399
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
THE
TRAGIC
+
DIVINE
MELODY FELIX-PRIETO
For my husband, Luis, who
never stopped believing in me.
CHAPTER
1
Julian’s lime-green Volkswagen Beetle cruised along the back roads hugging every curve so slow it felt like my head was going to explode from boredom. The drive to Atlanta from Dixon was about an hour and a half even though Dixon was only forty miles away.
I hated living in Dixon. It was a town frozen in time. Nothing exciting ever happened there—and to my displeasure, probably never will. Dixon was so behind on everything modern it was as if they were still living in the fifties. They didn’t even have an indoor movie theater. All they had was the North Star Drive-In where they still played the Dancing Hot Dog trailer from 1957. How pathetic was that?
Gazing out the window, I stared at the vast countryside underneath the moonlight. The tips of the trees glowed, and the dark empty field looked somber like my mood. My insides suddenly churned with regret. What was I thinking? I couldn’t believe I agreed to sneak out of my room so I could go to a club in Atlanta. Since the arrival of the angels, Atlanta had become a haven for higher than normal crime rates, and kidnappings—or so I’d seen on the news. It ranked number three in the country right below Los Angeles and New York.
As a kid, my grandmother used to tell me the story of how they arrived. She said the sky lit up like the 4th of July. Asteroids engulfed in flames hurtled toward the Earth and landed in different parts of the world—one right outside of Atlanta. It happened as the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000, when the world was preparing itself for an electronic meltdown. The doomsayers took shelter inside bunkers because they believed it was the end of the world. People flocked to the locations of the fallen asteroids with cameras in hand, but what they found shocked the nation; beautiful dark-winged creatures with long hair who looked human and claimed to be angels.
Not everyone believed them, of course, especially people from smaller towns who were super religious. They thought the angels were aliens trying to invade the Earth. They weren’t thrilled about co-existing with a superior race who was faster, stronger and could fly. As a result, angel hate groups sprung up all around America, the most notable known as the Knights Army.
Living in a small hick town like Dixon, meant no angels. We were too far north from the city, too deep in the mountains, too in the middle of nowhere to attract them. The only way in and out of Dixon were back roads that made the trip to the nearest highway painstakingly slow.
I gave myself an imaginary slap in the face, angry for allowing Dawn to convince me to sneak out again. I hated how incapable I was to resist any offer of freedom. I secretly hoped Julian got lost giving us no choice but to turn around and go home.
After a few moments of allowing my mind to wander, I leaned forward and positioned myself between my two best friends Julian Flaim and Dawn Wilde, reached for the radio and turned down the music.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I asked.
“Yup,” Dawn said waving her cell phone. “According to the map, we are twenty miles away.”
“So thirty minutes,” I figured. I snatched Dawn’s phone to check our location, but the screen was frozen. “Dawn, you have no signal.”
“It’s fine,” Dawn said tapping her head. “It’s all in here.”
I squinted my eyes skeptical of Dawn’s sudden sense of direction—I mean, the girl got lost in her own closet. So I turned to Julian.
“Julian, where are we?” I asked sweetly.
“Girl, I’m just the driver. Ask my co-pilot.”
Seeing no way out of this, I sat back defeated.
Dawn dropped the sun visor admiring her reflection in the mirror as she slathered a layer of lip gloss to her shiny lips. Dawn’s been one of my best friends since I moved to Dixon. Unlike me, Dawn had style and wore a little bit too much makeup. It was the result of watching too many YouTube makeup tutorials and following popular style bloggers. She was the curvy blue-eyed bombshell all the boys wanted to date because she had big boobs, I, on the other hand, was the lean, athletic tomboy they avoided because I was too much of a ‘shit-talker.’ It wasn’t my fault I was brutally honest.
“Your negativity is ruining my good vibes,” Dawn complained.
“I am not being negative. I’m just…” I trailed off.
“Scared?” Dawn finished for me.
“Of course I’m scared.” I crossed my arms as I focused my mind on counting the road kill. “What if we get kidnapped, or drugged? Did you know another girl went missing last week?”
Dawn turned to me and said, “Nothing is going to happen to us because we have our very own bodyguard to protect us.” Dawn patted Julian on the arm. “Ain’t that right, boo?”
“I ain’t about to mess this piece of fine art for ‘yo ass,” Julian said waving a hand over his face. “I spent two whole hours on this masterpiece.”
We all burst out in laughter for so long, the tension in my body relaxed.
“Seriously? Two hours on eyeliner and glitter?” I teased.
“Perfection takes time,” Julian answered.
Breathing deeply, I let go of the fear that stirred in my chest and allowed myself to have fun. Julian always managed to make me laugh no matter the situation. Like Dawn, Julian’s been my best friend since middle school. He had the build of a linebacker, but the personality of a unicorn. His eyes were a gorgeous honey brown that perfectly complimented his smooth caramel skin. Together, we were the three amigos.
Before I knew it, the scenery chang
ed. Bright flashes of light dashed by me, a sign we were out of the mountains. I straightened myself as soon as I saw the highway stretched before me, its smooth black roads looping in different directions going places I could only imagine. A twinge of excitement swelled in my belly. In one year I will be navigating those roads on my way back home to Los Angeles. Back to the life I loved, the life I was forced to leave behind when my family moved to Dixon.
The city skyline began to take shape deep in the horizon enveloped by shimmering lights. I couldn’t help but catch my breath and take in the sight. That’s when I saw it, looming in the distance to my far left was Stone Mountain. It stood high above the city in the darkness like a hunter waiting on its prey. While many of the asteroids that fell throughout the world shattered upon impact, Stone Mountain didn’t. The asteroid remained intact, and over time the minerals and rock blended with the Earth’s surface forming a dome-shaped mountain. Not much was known about Stone Mountain, nor did I care. My mother always warned me to stay away from there, so I did.
As we got closer to Atlanta, Stone Mountain faded into the surface and away from my mind.
“We’re here,” Julian’s sing-song voice brought me back to reality.
I gazed out the window in awe of the tall buildings of the city and its labyrinth of noisy streets. A billboard of a female angel model sporting the latest Calvin Klein towered above me. I marveled at her long jealous-worthy hair that came down to her hips; her tan flawless skin, high cheekbones, and unearthly translucent gray eyes. The model’s black wings were folded at her sides as she posed with lips slightly parted.
Right as we passed the billboard, there were numerous flyers plastered all over the city’s concrete walls with missing girls. Underneath, Templar crosses were spray-painted in black—the symbol of the Knights Army—along with a quote: ‘Save Humanity. Save the World.’
My excitement quickly faded and the hairs on my arms raised. I searched for my sister among the smiling faces, even though I knew she wouldn’t be among them. Priscilla ran away from home seven years ago. She called the house every month to check-in, but we hadn’t seen her since.
As Julian cruised through Peachtree Road, it was buzzing with energy and alive with people hopping from one bar to the next. Hungry musicians filled the air with their music while the owners of Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s sat on the hood of their vehicles parked at an angle perpendicular to the road, flashing diamond studded necklaces, designer clothing, and women.
My eyes quickly shifted to the male angels dressed in police uniforms guarding the streets with their human counterparts. They looked taller than they did on TV. I rolled down the window to take a closer look when suddenly, one of the angels spread his black wings then took flight. I watched as he disappeared into the sky.
“Holy crap!” I shrieked. “Did you see that?”
“I did!” Dawn joined me with the same level of excitement.
The loud music from the bars reverberated through Julian’s car, I closed my eyes and felt the chilly wind of freedom. I was so busy taking in the energy of the city, I hadn’t realized the car stopped.
My mouth dropped. I stared at the enormous Gothic structure before me when I realized, “It’s a church.”
Why would anyone turn a church into a nightclub? It felt so wrong.
“Oh. My. God. We’re going to hell,” Dawn said wickedly. She rushed out of the car to the cathedral’s entrance where there was a long line of college-age girls, maybe even younger, dressed in tight revealing dresses and pumps. I felt underdressed.
“What is this Chippendales?” I scoffed with a sarcastic tone.
“Whatever this place is, it sure ain’t holy,” Julian miffed.
I scanned the cathedral as Julian, and I walked toward the line. There were large monstrous gargoyles perched along the roof looking down on the club goers like guards. That, paired with the ominous black paint the church was covered in gave me the chills.
“This place looks freakin’ amazing!” Dawn gleamed.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m going to get zapped by lighting as soon as I step inside,” I said eyeing the place suspiciously. “Are you sure this is a teen club? These girls look like they’re at least twenty-one.”
“Way ahead of you, honey.” Julian handed each of us an I.D. which looked as fake as Dawn’s eyelashes.
“Mable Johnson?” Dawn met Julian’s eyes with a dirty look.
“Mable is my meemaw’s name. What’s wrong with it?”
“No one in this century names their kid Mable!” Dawn screamed at him. Dawn snatched the I.D. card out of my hand. “What’s yours, Alexis?”
She looked down at the woman with dark sunken eyes staring back at her, she seemed older and looked nothing like me.
“Deedee Saint?” Dawn cocked her eye irritably at Julian. “We’re gonna get caught you, moron!”
“Bitch, you need to calm yourself. If you wanted fancy names, you should’ve made them yourself,” Julian exclaimed.
Anxiety and fear ripped through my stomach at the thought of catching a ride in the back of a police car. I constructed all the possible excuses I could give my mother for sneaking out, but none of which she’d believe. Before I could gather up the courage to walk away, I noticed a short bald bouncer walking down the line with a security wand metal detector.
“Come on ladies, you know the drill, pull ‘em out,” he hollered down the line.
“Pull what out?” I thought out loud. One of the girls in front of me turned around as she rummaged through her handbag.
“They disable your camera before you can go inside,” she said. “They don’t like being photographed.”
They? I watched as the guard scanned everyone’s cell phone instantly disabling the camera.
“You two lied to me,” I said fuming with anger.
“Don’t blame me, it was her idea,” Julian said pointing the finger at Dawn who smiled at me innocently.
“So I told a small lie to get you out of the house. Big deal.”
“It is a big deal. You told me we were going to a normal club—with humans!” I combed a hand through my hair. “This is an angel nightclub. If my mother finds out I got arrested here for presenting a fake I.D. she’s going to decapitate my body and feed it to the rats.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Dawn said in a low voice. “We’re not going to get arrested.”
“You must be on medication if you think they’re going to let us go,” Julian told Dawn, arms crossed.
“You’re the one who made the I.D.’s genius!” Dawn retorted.
I rolled my eyes over how stupid, and clueless Dawn acted. “If anything, they’ll probably use us as an example for future underage intruders,” I said trying to prevent myself from having a panic attack.
I was about to step out of the line when I heard someone with a stern voice behind me say, “I.D.”
Even though I was too scared to move, I somehow managed to twist around slowly. My eyes were wide with terror as I stood face-to-face with the security guard.
“I.D.,” he said again with a cold demeanor. I sensed the irritation in his voice; I was getting on his nerves for holding up the line. Despite his short stature, the guard’s muscles bulged out of his black SECURITY t-shirt that looked significantly bigger than my head.
Taking my fake I.D. from Dawn, I gulped hard before handing it over. The security guard flashed a light over the card scanning for defects. He looked up at me quizzically which I returned with a nervous smile. He glanced down at the I.D. again trying to match the face on the card with mine.
“What’s your birthday?” he suddenly asked.
“Uh…” I began but couldn’t remember the date on the license. I dug deep in my subconscious when Julian whispered it to me from behind. “Actually, my birthday is in a few hours. October six.”
After a short pause, he handed back the I.D. and wrapped a bright red bracelet around my wrist with glowing angel wings. I blew out a sigh of relief.
Inside, the Gothic architecture continued throughout the nightclub. Vaulted ceilings complete with stained glass windows surrounded the church. The colorful twirling lights danced in unison with the techno-industrial music giving off a kaleidoscope effect. On one wall, a huge red neon sign that said EVE’S PARADISE hung over a garden filled with flower petals of crimson, yellows, oranges, and purples. The mural reminded me of Georgia O’keeffe’s famous flower paintings. Upon closer inspection, I noted it resembled the inside of a peach than a garden. I grimaced once I realized what it was.
What a bunch of pervs, I thought.
The dance floor was crowded with dancing bodies. It was dark and claustrophobic. It stood center of the church where the pews once stood. The bar was on the far left corner of the room where the bartenders were busy mixing drinks to the thirsty crowd. As we got closer to the dance floor, I could see a giant electric-blue cross behind the D.J. who was spinning the wheels on the turntable from the pulpit front and center of a reredos where bikini-clad devil eared go-go dancers replaced statues of Saints and angels. The dancers seduced the crowd with their dance moves and encouraged everyone to raise their hands in the air—which I found so overrated, but the crowd seemed to love it. They were going wild grinding their sweaty bodies on one another. The air felt rich with lust and desire, I thought I might catch an S.T.D.
“Whoa,” I let out.
“I know, right?” Dawn beamed.
Dixon was sunshine and flowers compared to this cesspool of sin. It was a completely different world than mine. I was inside the lion’s den and, although I would never admit it, it scared the hell out of me.
Dawn led the way and I clung on tightly to her arm, Julian not far behind. In every dark corner of the club, I could make out glimpses of couples making out and soon became aware of the nasty glares some of the girls shot my way over my choice of clothing. My black torn jeans and combat boots didn’t blend well inside the walls of Eve’s Paradise, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to impress anyone.
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