Torn

by Ashley Stambaugh

  "We don't have to decide right now," said Phinneas. "We didn't bring him here just for you two to compare things. We also wanted him to learn. I think we should start by discussing everything openly."

  Melina nodded her head in agreement.

  "All right then," said Phinneas. "Let's begin by talking about the pain you still experience after you use your powers. Walter said that after your incident yesterday you told him that the pain went from its usual sharp, throbbing feeling to a strong burning sensation."

  "Wait. You still have pain after you use your powers?" Dean asked abruptly, a concerned look on his face. "It didn't go away after you gained control of them?"

  Melina let out a low sigh and then shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. It was always just minor pain in my head, hardly noticeable really. But it was still there. I thought that over time it would fade away, but it hasn’t. Over the past two weeks it's actually started to grow worse." She glanced over at Phinneas. "And yes, the usual pain I experience suddenly changed to an intense burning feeling. It felt like the inside of my head was on fire. It was awful."

  Her hands were clasped together on the table, and Lee took that moment to place one of his hands on top of them. Melina met his eyes long enough for him to give her a comforting smile, and then she looked back over at Phinneas.

  "I was hoping you’d have some idea as to why this is happening."

  Phinneas raised his eyebrows. "Well, you and Dean are the first to survive the powers, so we're in uncharted territory here."

  Melina nodded as this point had been made to her before.

  "But," Phinneas continued, "I wouldn't go to directly thinking that your life is at stake again. Let's keep an open mind and try to remain positive."

  She gave him a small smile and then turned her gaze to Dean. "Walter told me that you never really had much pain, even before you gained control of your powers."

  "That's right," he said as he leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. "I did have some pretty bad headaches, and the pain did start to move down to the rest of my body, but it wasn't as intense as the pain that I've been told you went through."

  "How long did it take you to fully control your powers?" she asked.

  "About a month," Dean replied.

  Melina slid her hands off of the table, causing Lee to retract his own hand, and crossed her arms in front of her chest. She stared down at the table for a few seconds, contemplating, and then looked back up at Dean. "And when did your pain become its worst? When did you start to feel it all over your body instead of just in your head?"

  "Well," Dean said and then paused shortly, as if he were thinking. "It started as a dull throb in my head right after I developed all of the powers. Then it slowly turned into painful headaches over the next few weeks. I didn't experience the pain all over my body until right before I finally succeeded in helping my charge."

  She held his gaze for a moment and then looked over at Walter. "That all happened to me but in only a little more than a week's time. Everything happened so much faster and with so much more intensity for me.”

  "Yes, and we've established that that's because of your parents," said Walter.

  Melina nodded. "I know. I'm just—"

  "Excuse me for interrupting," Dean said to Melina and then turned to look at Walter. "What do you mean that it's because of her parents?"

  "Both of Melina's parents had the unique ability as well, so the powers developed faster and stronger in her," said Walter.

  "Wow," said Dean. "That would definitely explain why your experience was so much more painful than mine."

  Melina uncrossed her arms and leaned over onto the table, her forehead creased. ”But is that really the reason why I still have pain and you don't? I just can't shake the feeling that it's something else."

  Everyone looked at her as if they were unsure of what to say. She didn't blame them. It was apparent that no one in the room, not even Phinneas, knew the answer.

  "Melina," said Phinneas, interrupting her thoughts. "I know you're scared and confused, but we won't give up until we find out what's causing your pain."

  She gave him a small nod. His words did comfort her, and she knew he meant what he said, but would he and the rest of the elders really be able to figure it out?

  "We will figure it out," said Walter, responding to her thoughts. He smiled at her and then asked, "Now, do you want to talk about that Noxin demon you saw?"

  She glanced over at Dean to catch his reaction to the word ‘demon.’ His eyes weren't wide with fear, and his forehead wasn't wrinkled in confusion. Instead, he looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to begin.

  "Um," she said as she turned to look at Walter. "Does Dean already know about the Noxin demons?"

  Walter nodded. "After he gained control of his powers, we filled him in on how everything used to be with Adelia and the demons. That's the time that we also told him about you, so he knows why you're scared that you saw one yesterday."

  She turned her gaze back to Dean. "You don't act as if you're scared, though. Why is that?"

  His mouth turned up in an amused smile. "I've always believed that angels and demons existed, so none of this was much of a shock to me. Well, me being able to absorb angel powers was, but you know what I mean."

  She gave him a small smile but remained silent, so he continued.

  "The fact that Noxin demons can steal a human's soul and kill him is frightening," he said. "But I guess I won't really be scared of them until I've gone through what you have and had that actually happen to me.”

  Melina couldn't help but think back to that terrifying moment in the park almost three months ago. The moment when she had nearly died. She could still remember the feeling of the demon trying to suck out her soul—heavy pressure on her chest that turned into a squeezing sensation around her lungs and then slowly moved upward, closing off her throat. She didn't want to experience that ever again.

  She swallowed hard and looked Dean straight in the eyes. "I hope you never have to go through what I did."

  He gave her a sympathetic look. "I can only imagine what it must've been like to have a demon try to kill you by sucking out your soul."

  Melina's brow furrowed as she glanced between Walter and Phinneas. "You know, that's something I've always wondered about. Would it have actually killed me if one of the Noxin demons had taken my soul? I guess I'm sort of confused because of how it was worded sometimes, that the demons were to suck out my soul and then kill me." Her eyes landed on Phinneas.

  "Yes," he said. "I learned quite a bit about the demons from Adelia, so I guess something good did come from all of my time spent helping her." He straightened up in his chair and continued.

  "The answer is yes and no. When a Noxin demon takes a person's soul, that person is left in a comatose-like state, but because Noxin demons are evil and it's just in their nature, they always kill their targets after taking their souls. And even if the demon didn't kill the human, which is unheard of, that human couldn't live without his soul and would eventually die on his own. The only possible way to save him would be for a Noxin demon to return his soul to him, but that's unheard of as well."

  "Wow," said Melina, her eyebrows raised. "So what's the second part of your explanation? How is it possible for a person to still live after a Noxin demon has taken his soul?"

  Phinneas took in a deep breath. "Adelia once told me that a human could live after having a Noxin demon take his soul if the demon left a part of the soul intact."

  ”But why would a Noxin demon only take part of a soul?" asked Dean.

  Phinneas shook his head. "I don't know. I've never heard of it happening before, but I can only guess that even though the human would still have part of his soul, he wouldn't be much of a human anymore. The soul, in its entirety, is what makes a person."

  Melina tried to imagine what a person with only part of a soul might look like and then shuddered as she pushed the image out of her mind. Dean's face had te
nsed a little, but overall he still appeared to be calm about all of this new information. Turning her head a little to the left, she tried to catch a glimpse of Lee without him noticing that she was looking at him. She had been so worried about Dean being scared away by all of the demon talk that she hadn't been paying attention to see how it was affecting Lee.

  His expressionless face didn't tell her much, but his body appeared to be tense and rigid. He was staring down at the table when she slid her left hand over. She placed it atop his and he flinched.

  She hadn't heard any thoughts from him throughout the entire conversation, at least not any that were more than a one or two word reaction to something that was said, and she didn't hear any now. But she didn't need to. When he turned to look at her, she could see it in his eyes. He was scared.

  Chapter Five

  Lee quickly turned his gaze away and slid his hands off of the table. Melina pulled her hand back into her lap. This was exactly what she was worried about. If he was going to stay in her life, he needed to know about these things. She kept her eyes on him a moment longer and then glanced over at Dean, Phinneas, and Walter. None of them were looking at Lee. Either they were trying to be polite by acting like they hadn't seen the exchange, or they actually hadn't noticed it. She doubted it was the latter.

  "So…" Melina said in a drawn-out voice as she looked at Phinneas. "What else can you tell us about the demons that we don't already know?"

  "Well, we've come up with a theory about how they gained the ability to fly."

  Melina sat up a little straighter, her interest piqued.

  Dean looked confused. "They gained the ability to fly?"

  Phinneas nodded. "We've never known them to be able to fly before, but then suddenly they could when they started hunting down Melina."

  Dean rested his elbows on the table and raised his clasped hands up under his chin. He looked as if he was deep in thought, but all Melina heard him think was, Hmm. That's interesting.

  "Our theory," Phinneas said, "is that Adelia somehow figured out how to transfer her ability to fly over to the demons." He looked at Melina. "Like she did with her protective light shield in the park. Remember?"

  Melina nodded. She remembered everything from that night in the park.

  Phinneas continued on. "Now, if that's true, then they only had a temporary ability to fly."

  "But now they shouldn't be able to at all, right, with Adelia being gone?" Melina's eyes darted back and forth between Phinneas and Walter.

  "If our theory's correct, then no, they shouldn't be able to fly anymore," replied Phinneas.

  "Excuse me," Lee said suddenly, causing everyone to jerk their heads in his direction. It was the first he had spoken during the whole conversation. "If you had been helping Adelia for all those years," he said, addressing Phinneas, "then how did you not know that the demons could fly until Melina's case? Wouldn't you have seen it in one of the other cases before hers?"

  When Melina had first explained everything to Lee a few months back, he had raised his suspicions about Phinneas, if he could really be trusted. She thought she had eased those uncertainties by giving examples of the elder's trustworthiness, but it was apparent that she hadn't done as good a job as she had thought.

  Phinneas shook his head. "There were some things that Adelia didn't share with me. This was one of them. And even though I knew about all of the cases, I wasn't as involved in them as she was. I mainly just did side work. You know, whatever Adelia told me to do. The only reason I found out about the demons being able to fly with Melina was because she survived long enough to tell me. If I had any initial contact with any of the previous humans, they died before they could tell me."

  Lee nodded at Phinneas, seemingly satisfied with his answer. Everyone else remained silent, so Melina spoke up.

  "Then with Adelia gone the demons shouldn't be able to fly anymore. But they also shouldn't be able to find humans like us anymore," she said as she gestured between Dean and herself. "So how did one find me yesterday?" She stared at Phinneas with an almost desperate look.

  He stared back at her and then slowly shook his head. "The only thing I can think of, the only thing that makes sense, is that the demon just happened to be in the area and saw you use one of your powers. Thanks to Adelia, the Noxin have become quite familiar with guiding angel powers and how they're displayed in humans like you, so it probably wouldn't have been hard for the one you saw to notice."

  Melina nodded. "That could be a possibility if I had used one of my more active powers, but I didn't teleport to anywhere or use my light shield. And he might’ve been able to tell when I was having a vision, but I didn't have one of those either. I hear people's thoughts all the time, but there's no way he could've known I was reading people's minds. That's not a power you can see being used."

  "No," said Phinneas, "but you did show a significant amount of pain after hearing everyone's thoughts in the coffee shop, did you not? Maybe he saw that and followed you out of curiosity."

  "Maybe." She didn't like all of the uncertainty, although she already knew that's what she was going to receive. A heavy sigh escaped her. "So what should we do now? Walter told me that even though we have control of our powers now the Noxin demons can still take our souls."

  Dean straightened in his chair, his face paling a little.

  Phinneas nodded. "That's true. It will be a lot more difficult for them now, but it can still happen."

  "You told me the demons want our souls so they can have our powers," said Dean as he eyed Phinneas. "How come they can't just take them from you?"

  "Well," said Phinneas, "Noxin demons take things by stealing souls. They can't take the powers directly from us because that's all an angel is—a soul or a spirit. We can't be killed, per say, only destroyed, and destroying us also destroys our powers."

  "But why do the demons want our powers?" asked Melina. "Can they even use them?"

  Phinneas shook his head. "I'm not sure why or what they could actually do with them. They would have to channel the powers from the souls they took, and that would make the powers very weak."

  Melina frowned but then slowly nodded her head, accepting his answer.

  "If you really think you're up for it," Phinneas said to Melina, "then I think we should stick to the original plan and have you and Dean work together with your powers. I know you want to avoid using them as much as possible right now so you don't have any pain, but I actually think that having you and Dean compare your experiences might help us in figuring out what's causing the pain."

  She looked at Dean, who gave her a small, nervous grin, and then glanced back at Phinneas. "Yeah, I'd like to try."

  "Good," said Phinneas. "Now just as a reminder, keep an eye out for Noxin demons, especially when you're out and about with Dean. We've described to him what they look like in both their human and demonic forms, but since he's never actually seen one, he won't be able to recognize them. At least not at first, and then it could be too late."

  She nodded at Phinneas and then turned her eyes to Dean. ”You're probably tired from traveling, so we can start tomorrow after you've had a good night's sleep."

  "Thanks," he said. "That sounds good."

  Melina smiled. "My head associate, Gwen, is coming in a little late tomorrow, so I have to help my manager, Tessa, open the bookstore in the morning. But after I explain everything to them, I can meet up with you. Would sometime after lunch be okay?"

  "That works for me," said Dean. "So will you call me, or should I call you?"

  "I can call you," she said as she stood up from her chair. "Let me run upstairs to fetch my cell phone, and then we can exchange numbers." As she passed by Lee, she gently touched his arm and said, "I'll be right back." He gave her a brief smile, and then she rushed out of the room and headed up to her apartment. She knew Lee was probably uncomfortable being left alone with the other three men, so she hurried and was back downstairs within a couple of minutes.

  As she approache
d the door to the break room, she heard Dean's voice say, "She's very lucky to have someone like you. You know, someone she can share all of this with."

  Melina stopped abruptly and peeked around the side of the door. Dean and Lee stood only a few feet away from her, but fortunately they both had their backs to the door and didn’t know that she had returned. Walter and Phinneas were still sitting at the table discussing something with one another and didn't notice her either. She leaned back out of sight again and continued to listen.

  "Yeah," Lee said. "I try to support her the best that I can."

  There was a brief pause before Dean spoke up again. "It'll be nice for me to finally have someone to talk to about all of this. I'm really looking forward to sharing my experiences with Melina."

  "Yeah, me too," she heard Lee say in a sarcastic tone.

  Melina's brow furrowed. Did he say that out loud? She didn't hear Dean say anything back, so maybe not. Suddenly she remembered that Dean could probably hear her thoughts with her being so close, so she quickly tiptoed away from the door and made her way back to the stairwell that led up to her apartment.

  Lee wouldn't make a remark like that to Dean, would he? If he had, surely Dean would've commented back, and he hadn't, so maybe Lee just thought it to himself. Either way, why would he even have that thought at all?

  She sat down on the bottom step as she remembered how she had heard Lee's thoughts earlier, before Dean arrived. After she had expressed her worries to him, he had hoped that he wouldn't have anything to worry about either. It was obvious he was jealous, but why would he be jealous?

  She wanted to remain seated on the stairs so she could continue to ponder the matter, but her prolonged absence would only cause the others to worry. With a sigh, she stood up from the step and made her way back over to the break room.

  As she approached the door, she saw Dean and Lee standing with their hands in their coat pockets, staring off in different directions. It appeared as if they had run out of things to talk about. She cleared her throat and entered the room. "Okay, I've got my phone."