“So, you snooped through confidential information for your school assignment? Do you know how much trouble you could get into--or get me into?”
“I needed a good grade.”
Samuel took a deep breath before answering. I tried his patience. “So, what did you find inside the locker?”
“Nothing, really. Just a few gum wrappers. A few loose-leaf papers.”
“Nothing? Tommy goes to the trouble of hiding something inside Francis’ locker, something he intends to retrieve later, and you expect me to believe you found nothing?”
“Honest.” I tried to look sincere, but I don’t think he believed me. “Tommy probably picked it up before he died.”
“Or you’re hiding something,” Samuel pressed.
“What does it matter, anyway? Tommy’s death was a suicide. Investigated and completed.”
Samuel grew serious, and straight lines furrowed over his brows. “That’s just it. I’m not so sure it was a suicide anymore.”
“Not a suicide? Why not?” I tried not to sound flabbergasted.
“Because when I went back on my own to investigate the rooftop, I found fresh fingernail scratch marks on the edge of the roof. Why would someone committing suicide try to hold on?”
I shoved another spoonful of soup into my mouth. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I didn’t want Samuel to go down the same road I had, to be put in the same dangers. Mom had already lost Dad, and she couldn’t lose us, too. Samuel lived with Mom to keep her company after Dad’s death, to be the man of the house. If Dameon ever got to Samuel, I don’t know how either Mom or I could handle it.
“Doesn’t make sense, does it?” He cocked his left brow, and I knew he desperately wanted to get his hands on whatever it was I had found inside that locker. Fortunately for me, I kept the iPhone with me at all times, inside my purse. If he ever searched my room, he wouldn’t find it.
“Maybe those marks were made by someone else?” I tried to raise doubt as I washed my bowl and headed out of the kitchen.
“Well, whatever all this is, I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
I tried not to concern myself with what he said. I couldn’t even imagine how much havoc that could mean to the family, the city!
Bouncing back upstairs to my room, I closed the door and fell backward on my bed. As I stared at my ceiling, I felt a mist fall over my skin even before Kian appeared at the foot of my bed. With a white wingspan that reached from one side of my bed to the other, I’d never seen anything, anyone, more elegant.
“Kian. What are you doing here?” I almost felt like he violated my privacy. He could just pop in and out when he wanted, without invitation and without warning. What if I had been dressing?
“I told you; I’m never leaving your side. Nighttime is the most dangerous time for humans who are aware of us. Dameon will use the night, use your sleep time to his advantage. I have to stay, or he will come in.”
“Oh!” I said with a feeling of both dread and exhilaration. Dread that while I slept, I would have to worry about being killed, and exhilaration that Kian would be watching over me...just inches away...every night. Like a personal body guard.
“Don’t worry, Ali. I’ll let you have your privacy when you need it.” I blushed at his words. Could he tell what I thought?
“I’m not worried. I just...” I glanced at the floor away from his brilliant amber eyes. “I haven’t had a guy in here all night before is all.”
“Trust me; I’m a perfect gentleman.” His thin lips and glowing skin reminded me of heaven, and I believed no words could ever be truer than his.
Nodding, I combed my hair over my shoulder as I stood in front of my vanity and then gave him the look that said turn around. “I have to change.”
“Of course.” His glowing face turned toward the window, and I could only see his wings, his magnificent wings.
After changing into my pink cotton pajamas, I walked up to him and placed my hands on his wings. I had only wanted one touch, but I couldn’t stop stroking them. Silky and soft, the feathers tickled my fingers as I raked my fingertips over them. “Truly amazing!” My hands outlined the arch over his back which descended over his lower legs.
Pivoting back around to face me, Kian responded with a nonchalant shrug, “You get used to them.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them.” I stroked with both hands, one on each wing tip. His face was only inches from mine, and his breath lay heavy on my neck. And, although he usually wore a shirt, because of the wings he didn’t have one on now. His chest looked so comfortable, delicious, warm. I wanted to curl up and fall asleep against him.
Touching his hands to my wrists, he brought my hands back to my side, while his fingertips lingered over my skin from wrist to elbow and then to my shoulder blade. Goosebumps rushed up my arms and neck.
Drawing my lips to his, our kiss lasted only a few seconds before he pushed me back, and I noticed a few feathers falling from his wings to my floor. “We can’t.”
“But why?”
“Because of Rule #2.”
“Rule number what?” I could hardly remember the rules with him bare-chested in front of me.
“Angels and humans cannot be intimate. If we are, we lose our wings.” I noticed another feather ruffle out from under his wings and fall to my carpeted floor. Each feather reminded me of my sin.
“I...I didn’t know; I’m sorry.” I felt ashamed, stupid. He told me the rules. I should have known. This is why he never tried anything with me, when he had so many ample opportunities.
“I want to kiss you more than anything in this world.” Kian bit his lip, and I yearned for him even more.
“Forget it. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have...”
“Don’t blame yourself.” Kian blushed. “I may have given you mixed signals. When I’m around you, it’s hard to control my pheromones.”
“Yes, you do have an intoxicating smell.” I stared at him like if I looked away I might lose him forever.
Knock! Knock, Knock!
The sound broke my concentration on Kian, and I jerked around. “I’m coming in!” Samuel’s voice announced from the other side of the door. As the door opened, I glanced over my shoulder to find Kian, but he had vanished.
Samuel stepped inside the room. “I just wanted to apologize if I sounded abrupt or harsh earlier. I don’t want there to be any tension between us.”
“No, no. There is none. I get why you would have thought I found something.” I tried to play cool as my eyes searched around the room for Kian’s hiding place. “It’s just that I didn’t.” I shrugged and plopped onto my bed.
“Ok, good. I just wanted to make sure. Anyway, have a good night, and I’ll talk to you later, kiddo.”
“Later.” I smiled, and my brother shut the door behind him.
Then I frantically searched my room for Kian, peeking behind the closet door and under my bed. Within minutes Kian reappeared from the vapor he had become outside my window, and all the fear I had accumulated inside was immediately alleviated.
Sunlight Kisses
Sunlight kissed my face through a diagonal crack in my curtain when I rolled from my back to my side. Waking up, my lids fluttered slowly as I rubbed my eyes. I yawned and stretched my arms before I noticed Kian lying right beside me. Copper blond hair glistened under the morning sun and I realized I noticed him before he saw me. It made me feel like I invaded some private club or something. It made me feel special, because no matter where we were at any given time, Kian always had full attention of everything, even of me. But now, in this moment, I had full attention of him as he lay there seemingly helpless with his lids closed.
I wanted to whisper his name, to have his brilliant hazel eyes open next to mine, but even more, I wanted to watch him sleep, to watch his still lips rest in a quiet smile, to watch those strong arms under his short sleeved t-shirt flex intermittently. How peaceful he seemed to me then, like grace and love wrapped into a sle
eping hug. Then I wondered how much angels slept?
Such calm radiated from his skin and poured over me! No wonder I had slept so soundly, perhaps the best I’d had managed in a long time. But I had to get dressed for school, so I slipped off my side of the bed and tiptoed to the closet. Lifting my nightgown over my head, I stood in my cotton lingerie. Then I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Kian lifted his head and propped himself upon his elbow.
Flushing red, I turned to him, and we stared intensely at each other for a few lingering seconds before I made my embarrassed retreat to the closet and Kian rolled over facing the curtain.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were up yet. Usually, I’m up before the humans.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I threw a sweater on over my head and shoulders, then pulled the blue fabric to my waist. Pulling up a pair of jeans, I finished. “Tell me, how long do you usually sleep anyway? Do angels sleep everyday like...humans?” I realized that was the first time I made a distinction between his kind and mine.
His voice vibrated across the room. “Yes, we sleep everyday...or at least we try to. But we don’t have to sleep as much as you, per se.”
“Then, how long?”
“A few hours here and there.”
“You must have been beat then?” I turned around, ready to face my day.
“Yeah, I haven’t gotten much sleep the past few days. Dameon has kept me on my toes.”
“So...” I walked around to meet him on the far side of the bed. He looked up at me as he raked his fingers through his hair. “How are we going get around Dameon today?”
“One day at a time. We’ll see when we get there. In the meantime, we stick to our plan. Attend each class, and I’ll meet you at the door after each class. Don’t wander off...”
I interjected, “Stay in crowded and public areas, and never -ever- go anywhere alone.” I half-joked with an exaggerated movement of my hands and intonation.
“Yeah.” Kian’s lip curled into smile. “That’s about it, except I can’t emphasize enough to never let anyone else know what is going on. You don’t want to make anyone else have to run for their lives.”
Putting my hand on his shoulder, I tugged on him. “Come on, you have to get ready, and I have to get going. School is going to start soon, and I don’t want Mom catching you up here.”
Just as I said those words, I heard Mom shout from the other side of my door, “Who are you talking to in there?”
Within a micro-second Kian vaporized, and I dashed over to the door. I unlocked it and pushed it open a few inches, and Mom poked her nose in. “Are you going to let me in?”
“Sorry; I’m just getting ready.” I opened the door the rest of the way after I saw that the room was completely clear of anything Kian.
“So, who were you talking to?” Mom waved her hands and searched the room with her dark eyes.
“No one. I had the radio on. You probably heard that.”
“Ok, never mind. Anyway, I wanted to see you this morning before I head off to work to let you know that I will be getting home late today, and Samuel has a banquet to attend. You will be home alone until eight tonight.”
“Ok, Mom.”
“So, you’ll be fine.” Mom rested her hand on my shoulder with a squeeze.
I knew she meant, since Dad’s death, since the school boy’s suicide, since Dameon turned out to be a jerk (well, a demon really, but she didn’t know that), but I just nodded. Besides, I wouldn’t really be alone. I would be with Kian.
“Good. I’ll see you later tonight then?”
“Later.” She disappeared after I kissed her on the cheek.
When the door clicked shut, Kian blew like a mist through the bottom of my window and over my carpet before solidifying before my eyes. Slowly, fog swirled thicker and thicker until arms and legs appeared, followed by his face and eyes. Amber first, and then hazel. The image never got old...like something out of a sci-fi movie. Just like his wings, his jeans somehow magically clung to him whenever he needed them, as if they were a part of him. But his chest was bare. I still couldn’t believe my eyes. But every time he did that, or every time he grew his wings, I was reminded that the New York City I once knew would never be the same.
I gave Kian a puzzled look, wondering how he managed to arrive at Millennium High clothed when he always ripped his shirts when he morphed. He must have read my expression, my eyes searching his chest.
“I keep a bag of t-shirts near the school.”
“Ahh.” My brows rose as he washed his face in the sink down the hall.
Jennifer pulled up to my driveway, honking for me at the time Mom left the house. Samuel had left hours ago. Shouting down to Jen from my open window, I hoped she wouldn’t be too angry if we arrived late. “I’ll be right down.” Scrambling for my bag, I watched Kian, like magic dust, disperse out the window and into the sky. He’d be morphing angel soon, and I needed to get going.
“Whatcha doing, Ali!? Come on!” Molly yelled from the passenger-side window.
“Be there in a sec!” I told her just as firmly, and I pulled my hair back into a twister before rushing downstairs to grab the toaster strudel Mom had prepared for me from the toaster.
As I slid into the backseat, Jen revved the engine, and we raced down the street. “We have to make up for lost time. I have a test first period!” Jen’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“Gesh, Jen...it’s just a test.” I knew I sounded defensive.
“Well, I arrived late as it is, and I thought you’d already be waiting on the sidewalk for me. I can’t believe you were late too...of all days!” Her head shook.
“Sorry; I didn’t know,” I apologized.
“Still, I can’t believe my ears!” Mol turned her head around to me, her cheek touching the side of her leather seat. “It is just a test? Since when did you, Ali, stop caring about tests?”
I paused. Frankly, all I could think about was this new world of angels and demons and how I would survive today. “I...just think there are more important things than tests, like...like friendship.”
“Ok, Ali.” Mol rolled her eyes as if she didn’t believe me, but I meant it, and then she turned back around.
When we arrived at school, the three of us rushed through the front doors just as the first bell rang. We had several minutes to get to our lockers and to first period class. But I would just as soon skip first. I didn’t feel up to seeing Dameon today, to pretend that the very sight of him didn’t make my skin crawl.
“See you later!” Jen rushed off in the opposite direction, and Mol skipped off to her art class as I rummaged through my open locker.
“Later.” I stood alone, without my best friends. The halls grew more and more empty the closer the clock on the wall ticked to the late bell. I became very aware within seconds that the last five students I could see disappeared behind the corner.
Shutting the locker, I held my assignment folder in one hand and the Gucci bag I brought from home in the other. With my NOOK in the bag, I couldn’t leave home without it. Where are you? I worried to myself about Kian, and then the black jacket turned the corner. Oh, God! The tall figure strolled toward me. Light from the window on the wall blinded me. I could only make out his silhouette; I only had the image of the black jacket to go on, and I knew who wore black. Dameon.
Stepping backward, I kept my gaze ahead as I inched further and further away from my locker. “Don’t come any closer.” I held my hands out as the Gucci bag slid down my shoulder. “Stop! Stay where you are.” I tried to sound forceful, but the figure kept moving forward until his hand reached forward and his forefinger pointed.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class, young lady?” His raspy voice sounded familiar.
“Assistant Principal Krougar?”
“Yes, dear.” The light from the window was shaded by a passing cloud, and I made out his features and sighed. “Now, get to class before I mark you down.”
“Yes, sir.”<
br />
Bustling down the hall, I rushed into my English class, bracing myself. If Dameon hadn’t been in the hall, he had to be in class. But when I opened the door, his seat set vacant. In class, I couldn’t keep my mind on anything the teacher said, worrying about where Kian was and why he wasn’t waiting at the English class door for me, or where Dameon was and why he wasn’t in class.
When the bell rang, I thought I might explode. Class went by so slowly! Jumping to the door, I was the first person to swing the door open. I heard a few comments like, ‘Damn, Ali, pushy much?’ and, ‘Leave her alone; Dameon broke her heart.’
I didn’t care much what the kids at Millennium High said about me; if I really thought about it, I never had a reputation before Dameon, and in a way, at least now students knew I existed. But honestly, none of that even mattered to me now. The only thing I cared about was seeing Kian’s face on the other side of the door.
Stepping out of the room, I looked around. When my eyes finally met his and I scurried up to him, he was resting against the lockers along the wall beside the English class. I slapped his shoulder, and he straightened.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Where were you? We had a deal! You weren’t waiting for me before English! What if he...”
With a hand on my shoulder, he pulled me to his mouth. “Dameon is not here today.” His words breathed over my skin...and I just wanted to swallow him whole.
“Where is he?” But I pulled away, angry.
“With his gang.”
“Gang? You mean the demon spawn?”
“Precisely.”
Why?” Wrinkles formed on my forehead.
“Not sure. That’s why I was late. I kept an eye on him for as long as I could, trying to figure out what he was up too.”
“And?”
“And Krysta is watching him now. I didn’t want to leave you alone for too long.”
“Thanks.” I leaned into him, aching to kiss his lips before I remembered that for every act of intimacy, he lost feathers from his wings.
She Speaks to Angels: YA Angel Thriller (AngelFire Chronicles Bk #1) Page 14