Angel of Distrust

by Tabitha Barret

  Before he could decide whether he would offer her assistance, she slid back down the hill and tipped onto her side, unable to catch herself. He ran to her aid but skidded to a stop when he heard her sniffle. Dear God, was she crying? Of all the things that he could stand idly by and witness, seeing a woman cry was not one of them. He should have walked away and let her gather herself, but he couldn’t.

  He looked down at her smudged face as a big fat tear rolled down her cheek leaving a light colored trail on her sunburnt face. His heart shattered into a thousand pieces. What was wrong with him? She was in his charge. Even if he intended to hand her over, the rules of warfare would dictate that he hand her over in reasonable condition, or at least no worse for wear. The situation was even worse than that since he wasn’t actually at war with her. Prisoners were at least fed and given water while in captivity. How had he become this cruel?

  Gazing at the cloudy horizon, he thought long and hard about what he should do. For the umpteenth time, he repeated his favorite mantra. I wish I had never met her.

  He mentally kicked himself and crouched down next to her. He let his backpack slide off his shoulders and he pulled out his canteen.

  “Here,” he said gruffly.

  She stared at the object in his hands for longer than necessary before nodding and taking it from him. He pulled a clean bandana from a side pocket and reached out to wipe her tears. When she pulled away from his hand and sneered at him, he slowly approached her again to show her what he was trying to do. Though she continued to stare at him as if were demented, she allowed him to wipe away her tears.

  When he was done, he watched her guzzle the water until she suddenly stopped and gulped loudly. “I’m sorry. Here. I don’t want to take all your water,” she said politely.

  He was surprised by her offer to return the water. He shook his head and pushed the canteen toward her. “It’s okay. Drink all you want, I can purify more water,” he replied.

  She nodded and proceeded to drink half of the canteen.

  He dug through his pack and tossed her a brown plastic bag. Her quizzical expression almost made him laugh.

  “It’s an MRE. Meals Ready to Eat. The military use them to feed their soldiers. I hope you like beef stew; otherwise, I have chicken and rice with vegetables,” he said.

  “Beef stew is fine,” she said softly, still marveling at the package.

  He took the package and began to dissemble it. She was curious about its contents, so he showed her each item in the box from the stew packet to the chocolate brownie. Aware that she was analyzing his every move, he showed her each step to prove that he wasn’t trying to poison her. Once he placed the stew packet inside the heating bag, he turned to see her giant blue eyes staring at him.

  “Why are you feeding me?” she sniffled. She wiped her face and smeared more dirt across her cheek.

  He hesitated but felt that he owed her some kind of an answer. “I may have been overzealous in my attempts to get you back to my ship so quickly. I forgot that you aren’t cargo but a living person. I shouldn’t have treated you so roughly, though I doubt you would have come with me if I had requested your company when I first arrived,” he explained. He could only imagine how the conversation would have gone if he had been up front with her and told her to come along quietly to her doom.

  “Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have come willingly,” she snickered. He noticed that her eyes never left the food packets. It seemed that he had underestimated her hunger.

  “When was the last time you ate?” he asked. Apparently, he hadn’t punished himself enough along this journey, and needed the extra self-loathing to add to the fire.

  She tore her eyes away from the box containing her food and looked down at the gash on her knee. “Last night I had some tuna and before that I had some chips for lunch.”

  Viktor hung his head and tapped his finger on his leg. He was an ass. He hadn’t taken into consideration that she had been someone else’s prisoner before he had taken possession of her and had already suffered from poor treatment.

  He stood up and took his canteen to the small stream a few feet away. He then took his blue bandana from his pocket and dipped it into the water. Wringing out the bandana, he returned to see her still drooling over the food.

  “Anjali,” he stared, but paused as his throat ceased up. Why had he said her name? Somehow just saying her name and humanizing her caused him physical pain.

  She met his gaze, but he didn’t finish his thought. Instead, he knelt down next to her and cleaned her face with the bandana until he could see her pink skin. He then wrung out the cloth and placed it on the back of her neck to cool her.

  Reaching into his bag, he pulled out his medical kit and water purification tablets. Once her meal was warm enough, he tended to her knee while she gobbled up her stew, crackers, nuts, high calorie bread, and washed it down with instant coffee.

  He did his best to be professional as he cleaned her skin and bandaged her in a few different places on her legs and arms. He didn’t need her wounds getting infected. More than once, he caught himself about to caress her soft skin, but he didn’t want to appear to be a pervert. She had no idea who he was and if he had his way, she never would.

  When he was done, he couldn’t help but put his hand on her cheek and lightly rub his thumb over her velvet skin. She pulled away, surprised by his touch, but he refused to apologize. Instead, he busied himself with assembling his own meal and waiting for it to heat.

  “Viktor, there has to be a way to work this out. You have to understand that I’m not going to allow myself to be handed over to your boss. I will fight to my last breath to protect myself,” she said as a warning.

  His stomach fluttered at the sound of his name on her lips. He closed his eyes and memorized the sound of it before he quickly packed up the trash in a plastic bag and reassembled his pack.

  “Let’s get moving,” he replied as he stuffed the components of the MRE into his cargo pants for later. He held out his hand to help her up, but she refused him. Her rejection stung slightly, but he reminded himself that he was the villain.

  She wiped her nose with the back of her wrist and got to her feet. It was for the best that they didn’t get any friendlier for no good would come of it. He told himself yet again that he was better off without her. If only he could believe it.

  ∞

  Dizzy and breathless, Haydn pulled himself out of the pool and took in as much air as his lungs would accept. Coughing and gagging, he rolled onto the brick patio and stared up at the sun. It had taken longer than he would have liked to extricate himself from the ropes between losing consciousness and being in complete darkness during the night. He had even tried to disappear from the pool using his power, but his mind was too overwhelmed with his body rebelling against him due to the drowning and the poison.

  He felt like a fool for forgetting the spare knife strapped to his leg. Thankfully, Anjali wasn’t good at patting down her prisoners in an effort to remove their weapons, something he had learned the hard way as a Recruit. It took some time for the rope to absorb enough water to loosen up and enable him to wiggle his legs high enough, while crouching down low enough to reach his backup knife. It was rare for him to need his spare knife, which meant he was getting sloppy.

  Taking in yet another deep breath, he moved his body around to see if the poison was out of his system yet. Thankfully, the pain was manageable, which meant it was time to find Anjali.

  He glanced around the pool area and found no sign of her. As pissed off as she was, he doubted that she would have left him to drown all night without trying to negotiate. He had been in no position to deny her anything, except maybe his loyalty. Even that was open to discussion after he had lost consciousness the 30th time.

  If she had been rescued, he would have likely lost his head or been arrested by the Celestial Warriors. He wasn’t sure which would have been worse. He had to presume that wherever she was, she was with an enemy.

&nbs
p; He thought about summoning the other Predznak and letting them find her, but that was dangerous. He would be inviting certain death when the Predznak under her command appeared and realized that he had captured her.

  It bothered him that she was helpless and without any allies because of him. Well, certainly not helpless, but in no condition to free herself, despite her tricks.

  Seeing the afternoon rays shining through the trees, he closed his eyes. He felt that same burning in his chest that told him to pull her out of the ocean and made him feel dishonorable for pushing her to the ground. It no longer mattered that he had planned to kill her. She needed his help and he was duty-bound to rescue her. Once she was in his possession again, he would reassess the situation.

  He turned his head when he heard a sound to his left. A little fur ball jumped on his back and licked the side of his face. He laughed at the absurdity of the moment. He petted the Yorkie’s head and shooed her away.

  “I noticed that you only came to see me once I decided to find your master,” he laughed as he scratched the dog’s neck.

  He looked around and saw a can sitting on the counter. He popped to his feet and shook out his hair. The dog barked at him when it got caught in the spray of water.

  “That’s for helping her,” he winked.

  He waved his hand and dried his clothing, but left his hair to dry on its own. The humidity would ruin it anyway.

  Reaching for the can, he spied his knives beneath the bar. Thank Heaven for small favors. He quickly attached his sheaths to his thighs and smiled at the satisfying feeling of being armed. He carefully cut open the can of peaches and set it down on the ground for the dog to eat. He had no idea if dogs ate peaches, but at this point, it was better than starving.

  His stomach dropped when he realized that Anjali was saving the peaches to stave off her hunger. It was doubtful that she would be able to feed herself while in the possession of an enemy. Worse still, she would soon deplete her energy and pass out, leaving her unable to defend herself.

  The jingle to his left indicated that the second dog had arrived to eat. The bulldog sat at his feet and growled at him.

  “Your buddy is much more forgiving than you are,” he sighed as he reached down to pet his head.

  The bulldog dropped something out of his mouth onto the patio. Haydn reached down and picked up the item. Upon inspection, his heart stopped. It was a scrap of the hideous dress, the one he wanted to leave at the bottom of the ocean. It had been unevenly ripped and was covered in sand. There had most certainly been a struggle last night.

  Pushing his wings through his shirt, he launched himself into the air. He wasn’t sure if she had been taken by someone from their world or from the Mortal Realm. A mortal would need a way off the island, so he decided to fly along the coast in search of any vessels. If an immortal had taken her, she could be in a different country, or worse, a different realm. He hoped for the better of the two options but prepared for either type of enemy.

  Flapping his wings harder than usual to keep himself in the air, he searched for anything out of the ordinary. Thinking back to his training, he remembered to stay low to the tree line to avoid being out in the open for an aerial attack and was careful not to fly in a straight line, lest he make himself an easy target from the ground or the air. He covered large areas to make sure that it was clear, but doubled back often to search for minor disturbances in the landscape that he might have missed. It felt strange to return to his training after all these years. He had abandoned the warrior’s methods upon leaving the fold for a number of reasons. Though Aeries had once commanded him, he was not in charge of the Predznak and didn’t show any interest in continuing his former way of life.

  Learning how to scout out an area had been easy for him, but the physical fighting had been a challenge. During his first week as a Recruit, he went to bed sore and exhausted. There came a point when he didn’t want to get out of bed to train again. It was a grueling schedule and Aeries was merciless. He showed little to no compassion when one of the recruits was injured. He yelled when they failed in their tasks and he threatened to throw them out of the program if they continued to fail.

  Haydn had befriended one of the other Recruits on their first day because both of them had been bleeding too much to finish their training. Recruit Perin didn’t have much in the way of a sense of humor, but he was a kind angel who believed he had the heart of a warrior. They often relied on each other for moral support.

  Perin was good at following orders, whereas Haydn was better at assessing a situation before jumping into the fray. He wasn’t as strong or fast as the other Recruits, but he was smarter than they were. He knew when to back away from a fight and when to engage in order to win. Of course, this drove Aeries insane. The Lord Commander expected him to do as he was told instead of stopping to interpret the situation and devise his own plan of attack. Aeries wanted him to fight until the death, whereas Haydn preferred to negotiate when he was able and attack when there weren’t any other options. According to Aeries, he thought too much and talked too much to be a warrior.

  Aeries’ biting criticism still stung after all these years. He told him that a warrior wasn’t meant to judge, he was meant to act. If Haydn wanted to pass judgement on people and decide for himself if they should live or die, then he would never be a true warrior. Warriors followed orders. They didn’t follow their hearts, or carry personal vendettas against anyone. They were merely the instruments of justice for Heaven to command. Aeries believed that he understood what made an angel succeed as a warrior, but Haydn believed that there was more to it. He wanted to help people as much as he wanted to serve justice. The two of them differed on many points, but Haydn refused to quit so he worked harder to be what Aeries wanted—a drone who did as he was told.

  Swooping lower through the trees, he weaved in and out of the branches. If he wasn’t searching for his master, he might actually enjoy the scenery. It had been a long time since he’d been afforded a moment’s peace to enjoy any wondrous sights before his eyes. He had long forgotten how beautiful the blue sky was and how miraculous a jungle could be with its array of vegetation and its unique animals. He wished that he could live out his days here, alone, but it was not meant to be.

  He knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to tempt the mortals, but he had grown to hate them all. They were suspicious creatures who would rather steal from one another in order to survive than join together and live as a community. They spoke about each other behind their backs because friendship was merely a word, not a lifestyle. He hated seeing their fake smiles and later hearing their harsh criticisms of their supposed friends. They pretended to care about their neighbors, all the while plotting their demise. They had no sense of loyalty, which they proved the day he had given up on his mission.

  The Predznak had been the same way. In the beginning, they pretended to get along and care about each other, but one by one, they all turned on each other. Alazar thought little of him and Aeries considered him a pathetic waste of time. There were countless times when he wanted to tell Aeries the real reason he had quit, but he had sworn never to reveal the truth to anyone. If he told Aeries the truth, it would have disgraced the good name of the Celestial Warriors.

  As the years dragged on with the Predznak, he became more disillusioned by his post, but had no recourse since their master was absent. He thought about going before the Council and asking to be relieved of his duties, but knew it wouldn’t bode well after quitting his training to become a Chancellor and a Warrior. An angel could only request a new job so many times before the Council questioned his dedication to Heaven and decreed him a faithless Forgotten. Instead of being cast out into the world as a Forgotten, he kept to himself and did his best to fulfill his duties as a miserable Predznak.

  He suddenly thought about the look on Anjali’s face when she was yelling at him by the pool. She was angry that he wasn’t fulfilling his duty, which meant that she hadn’t really given up on h
im. It was different from the way Aeries and High Commander Vladimir yelled at him. They had expected him to fail for some reason. Anjali, on the contrary, expected him to get off his ass and do his job. Something stirred inside of him at the realization that he had disappointed her. Aeries could barely look at him after he quit, whereas Anjali refused to let him quit. That same spark of hope ignited in his heart, the one he felt when Anjali had smiled at him in the cave. For better or worse, he was a Predznak and his master was in trouble.

  Chapter 8

  Having walked the better part of the afternoon, Anjali watched the sun dip lower in the sky. She was no closer to figuring out who Viktor was or who he was working for. She had tried multiple times to start a conversation to learn more about him, but he had become tight-lipped and refused to commit to any of her accusations one way or another.

  She had pieced together a few things about him, despite his refusal to speak. He knew his way around the island, or at least how to orient himself based on the sun and the landscape. He was adept at walking through the untamed jungle and didn’t rattle easily. Twice, they had come across wild animals: the first was a crocodile sunning itself on the shore of a large river that cut the area in half, and the second was a jaguar sitting high up in a tree. Both times, Viktor told her to keep quiet and carefully navigated them out of danger. He kept his cool as he guided her to safety.

  He also had a compassionate side, which he was trying to hide. She was surprised that he had fed her and cleaned her wounds. Regardless of the trouble he had gotten himself into, deep down he wasn’t a bad person. Even if he was a nice guy, she didn’t trust his motives for getting her off the island. Once his boat was in sight, she would take advantage of an old knee injury that made him limp slightly when he was tired. She was grateful that Calin had taught her how to spot an opponent’s weak points.