“And what, cheating on me, exposing me to STDs, that wasn’t enough? You had to go and murder me?”
“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice in that matter.”
“What the hell do you mean, you didn’t have a choice?”
“It was Courtney’s idea.”
“I don’t give a fuck whose idea it was. You killed me. You shot me! You ended my life before I had any sort of chance to live it. You killed me, Mitchell. You killed me.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry? That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked with a shrug. “Yeah, I lied to you. Yeah, I cheated on you. A lot. I mean, a lot. I’ve cheated on Courtney too, not that it matters now.”
He glanced at Courtney, who was looking paler and paler by the second.
“And yes, I shot you. The second you stepped out of that car, I shot you in the back of the head. Pulled the trigger. It was the only option. If I had broken up with you, you might have gone to the cops. Girls are emotional like that.”
“Girls are emotional like that? You shot me, motherfucker!”
Anger, pain, fury surged through my body as I pulled my arm back, punching him in the face. I don’t know that I’ve ever hit someone so hard before, and I was ashamed to admit it felt good to hit him after everything he had done to me. I had practically forgotten about my broken foot, my gunshot in my shoulder...all I could focus on was how infuriated I was at my ex-boyfriend. I pulled back again, hitting him as many times as fast as I could, blood pouring from his face.
Mitchell shoved his gun into my rib cage, cocking it, but I ignored the sound. He could shoot me as many times as he wanted, but if it wasn’t going to kill me, I wasn’t going to let it stop me. Instead I reached down, twisting his wrist back. He grabbed my shoulders, shoving me to the ground.
I landed hard on the dirt, my head falling backward and hitting the ground. Pain shot through me, but I didn’t care. With my arm, the uninjured one, I reached up to his eyes, poking them, trying to gouge them out. I had moved from simply angry beatings to self-defense as he let his full weight press down on me.
“Let her go!”
Parker reached over, trying to pull Mitchell off of me. He grabbed Mitchell’s arm and yanked him, but Mitchell pulled him over, throwing him to the ground. Parker slowly climbed to his feet, stumbling back toward where Mitchell and I were still fighting. Parker took a handful of Mitchell’s hair, tugging until Mitchell fell backward off of me. I scooted backward, trying to find my footing, but my foot throbbed as I tried to stand.
Mitchell swung toward me again, face contorted in rage as he threw himself on top of me. His weight hit me, forcing me back, knocking the air out of me. I clawed at him, using whatever I could to get him off of me.
“Meg!” Parker called, returning to pull Mitchell away from me.
“No,” I choked as Mitchell pressed down on my chest. “Go, Parker. Go, take Hope with you.”
“I’m not going to leave you.”
“You have to,” I said as I ran out of air. “They’ll find you soon if you don’t. Get on a plane, go far away. Please, Parker.”
He hesitated, turning back to Hope.
Black spots appeared in my vision as I struggled against Mitchell. I couldn’t see Hope and Parker, but I could hear them talking.
“Parker, you can’t leave.”
“Hope—”
“I won’t let you. Absolutely not. I have so many questions, so much that I want to hear about, but I can’t let you leave with me.”
“I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’ll be okay, Parker. I promise. But if you leave, she won’t be.”
“Hope—”
“If you love her, you’ll stay.”
I kept clawing at Mitchell, trying to get him off of me, struggling to hear what Parker and Hope were saying, but things in my world were going black. I couldn’t breathe, I struggled to move. Mitchell was stronger than I was, and he had the upper hand. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get him off of me, couldn’t free myself. I used my knee, trying to push up, kneeing him in the stomach. It didn’t matter. I was losing this fight, and badly. I knew he couldn’t kill me, and I was pretty sure he couldn’t knock me out, but he could certainly injure me enough that when the demons came back for me, I couldn’t run.
I blinked several times, trying to regain my vision. When I opened them again, I saw Parker standing over me. He reached down, yanking Mitchell’s arm, dragging him off of me. Air hit my lungs in a sudden gust and I rolled over, coughing as I tried to get as much oxygen into my body as possible. My hands clawed at the dirt as I tried to regain my hold on this world. I felt dizzy, like I might throw up.
After a moment I was able to ground myself, and I turned to see Parker and Mitchell engaged in a fight. Parker was still worse for wear with the claw mark down his back, but Mitchell’s face had been pummeled almost beyond recognition, swollen and covered with purple bruises and scarlet blood.
Mitchell swung at Parker, his fist flying through the air, but Parker blocked him with his hand.
Parker used his opposite fist, hitting Mitchell square in the stomach. Mitchell doubled over as Parker landed an elbow to the back of Mitchell’s neck.
Mitchell fell to the ground, one hand on his stomach and another on the back of his neck. From here he grabbed Parker’s legs, pulling him to the ground as well. The two grappled, both trying to get the upper hand. Mitchell swung and connected with Parker’s face, while Parker kneed Mitchell between the legs. Mitchell rolled onto his back, howling in pain, as Parker took a moment to regain himself.
Parker jumped on top of Mitchell, pummeling him once more with punch after punch to the face. Mitchell reached up, hitting Parker in the back where the blood had soaked through onto his shirt. Parker cried out, falling to the ground. Mitchell stood up, ready to kick Parker.
From where I was still lying on the ground, I could see the gun I had kicked under the bushes earlier. While Parker and Mitchell were fighting, I crawled along the ground, my foot throbbing with every beat of my heart. My hands closed around the metal, cold in my hands. I had never actually shot a gun before, and I wasn’t sure of my aim, but thankfully Mitchell was standing and Parker was on the ground, so odds were even if I missed terribly, I wouldn’t hit Parker. Even if I did, he wouldn’t die.
I closed one eye, aiming the gun at Mitchell. I had cocked the gun, ready to pull the trigger.
“Hey, Mitchell,” I said.
Mitchell turned toward me, foot still hanging in the air in mid-kick. When he saw the gun in my hands, his eyes widened. He put down his foot and lifted his hands in the air, but there was no way I was going to trust his surrender.
“Hey now,” he said.
“Step away from Parker.”
“Meg, come on. We both know you don’t know how to use that. Even if you did, I don’t think you would fire it.”
I shrugged. “Should we find out?”
“Meg—”
“Step. Away. From. Parker.”
Mitchell scowled, a look of pure evil crossing his face. “You want me to leave your new boyfriend alone, is that it? You’re angry at me for cheating on you , but you’ve been dead for two weeks and are already saying ‘I love you’ to this guy!”
I could have screamed at Mitchell about how it was different, how Mitchell had cheated on me during our relationship, not after, how I had actually known Parker for an undefinable amount of time, or how much Parker and I had been through together. But I didn’t owe Mitchell any sort of explanation. I moved my finger toward the trigger.
Before I got a chance to pull it, the ground began to shake.
“Shit,” Parker murmured from the ground.
Mitchell’s eyes went wide. “What’s that? Is that an earthquake?”
“Not exactly,” I said, looking around nervously.
I could see them coming even over the lines of the trees, the lizard with wings and th
e giant spider. We heard the sound of people crashing through the woods, and moments later the guards burst into the clearing where we stood, guns aimed at us.
“Megan Cross and Parker Cole!” one of them shouted.
I ran across the ground to Parker. If we were going to be sent back to hell, I wanted it to be in each other’s arms.
“I told you to run,” I whispered.
“I couldn’t leave you here,” he said. His face was bloody and bruised, but I didn’t let that stop me from leaning down and kissing him on the lips as I cradled his head in my hands.
“What the fuck is going on?” Mitchell shouted.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said to Parker, threading my fingers through his.
“We’ll probably never see each other again.”
“I know. But we had a good run, right?”
“We’ll always have Paris. Or dreams of Paris,” he said with a pained smile.
“Get up!” one of the guards shouted, guns still trained on us.
I stood, helping Parker to his feet. Neither of us ran, only standing there with our hands up. The time for running had passed. We were caught.
“You’re coming with us,” the guard said.
“Not so fast.”
The voice came from behind us, and we turned to see two women and a man standing there.
“Shit,” one of the guards said. “Angels.”
Chapter Twenty–Seven
The trio stepped out of the shadows so we could see them better. If they really were angels, they weren’t like the ones described in the Bible. These angels were stunning. The one in front had dark skin and ebony hair that reached her waist. Her lips were full and her eyes wide and framed by long lashes. Behind her was a woman who seemed to be her polar opposite, short with pale skin and white-blonde hair in a pixie cut. Next to her was a man who looked to be of Asian descent, with high cheekbones and dark eyes. I had never seen anyone who looked that stunning. They were even more mesmerizing than the Victoria’s Secret model ladies I had met in the waiting room.
The guards put their guns down, but still kept their eyes on us. The apparent leader of the guards turned to the angels. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
The woman in front gave a small smile. “Like you, we were sent here. We follow our orders.”
“Why have you been sent here?”
“The same reason you have.”
“This isn’t your jurisdiction.”
“That’s not your decision.” She still had that slight smile on her face.
The tension in the air was palpable as the two sides faced off, the demons and guards with scowls on their faces, the angels with expressions of peace. They were unshaken.
The guards, not so much.
“You have no right to be here!” the man in charge said. “They belong to us. They escaped hell, and now we have to bring them back.”
The head angel arched an eyebrow. “What sort of place are you running if prisoners can escape?”
“It won’t happen again,” the guard said. “Their escape was unexpected. Now they’re coming with us.”
“That’s not your decision,” the angel repeated.
“What on earth makes the people upstairs think they have any right to these prisoners?”
“There are those who don’t believe that these two deserve to go back to hell. We only follow orders.”
“We follow orders, too, and our orders are to bring these two back.”
The angel shook her head. “Our orders override yours. You know that.”
“Do you know what will happen to us if we return without the prisoners?”
The angel rolled her eyes. “That’s not our problem. But if you’d like, I can send down a word for you.”
“These two have already spent endless time in hell. They belong to us.”
“Let’s not be territorial,” she said with a sigh.
“The decision was already made.”
“Decisions can be reversed. You know that.”
From behind me, Mitchell spoke up. “What the fuck is going on?”
The angel rolled her eyes again and snapped her fingers. Mitchell, Courtney, and Hope all froze.
“We have been asked to renegotiate on behalf of the prisoners,” the angel said. “You aren’t going to be taking them back with you.”
“Renegotiate?”
“Well, they won’t be going to heaven. But I think we can work something out.”
The angel stepped forward, closer to where Parker and I were standing. “Parker Cole?”
Parker looked up at her, his eyes wide. “Yes?”
“You were sent to hell because of a deal you made, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you explain the nature of this deal?”
Parker glanced over at where his sister stood frozen on the side of the hill. “My parents had died. I was taking care of my sister and little brothers. I worked three jobs and didn’t have time to raise them properly, and we were still only barely scraping by. I made the deal for a better job.”
The angel cocked her head. “A better job? Not just money?”
“No, I wanted to earn the money, but I didn’t have the education to get the job otherwise. I worked to set aside money for my family.”
The angel turned to the guards, and this time, she had fire in her eyes.
“You know better,” she hissed. “There are rules about making deals with vulnerable individuals!”
“I guard the prisoners, I don’t make the deals,” the guard said.
The angel shook her head. “I apologize,” she said to Parker. “We have rules, and the demons enjoy breaking them. Often times they don’t get caught. Sometimes they do.”
Parker only nodded.
The angel turned her gaze to me. “And you, what did you do?”
I took a moment to answer, gathering my thoughts. “I was a bad person,” I admitted. “I was selfish. I stole money, and ultimately, that hurt people. Honestly? I deserved to go to hell. I’m no Hitler or Steve Bannon, but I wasn’t the kind of person who’d get accepted into heaven, either. I only thought about myself. There are reasons, I think, stemming from my upbringing, that contribute to why I was that way, but those aren’t excuses. I was a bad person.”
The angel looked at me for a long beat. “You use the past tense.”
I glanced over at Parker, taking his hand in mine. “I’ve been back on Earth for about forty-eight hours, and in that time, I’ve learned so much,” I said. “My eyes have been opened to the hardships that other people face. I’ve found a renewed compassion. I’m a different person.”
“We’ve been watching you,” the angels said. “Monitoring the things you’ve done. We’ve been very impressed by the changes you’ve made.”
“You’ve been watching us?”
“We observe all souls on this earth, whether they’re alive or not.”
I nodded.
“Was there anything specific that led you to these changes?” the angel asked.
“Parker,” I said, smiling at him. “He’s opened my heart. Look, I know that I’ve changed, but the things I did while I was alive still sentence me to hell. But Parker, he was an amazing person while he was alive. He still is. Please, do what you want with me, but Parker deserves the best you can give him.”
“Meg—” Parker tried to protest, but I cut him off.
“Don’t argue with me,” I told him. “You keep telling me that I’m better than I think I am, but there’s no way I’ll ever be as good a person as you. If any of us deserve a happy ending, it’s you.”
“We’re going to discuss now,” the angel said, interrupting Parker before he could protest again.
“Um, hold on,” I said, raising my hand like a schoolgirl. When she turned her attention to me, I pointed at Hope, Courtney, and Mitchell. “Are they going to be okay?”
“A snap of my fingers and they’ll be right back to normal.”
“Ho
w could they see all of this?” Parker asked.
“That was us too. Like I said, we’ve been observing you.”
The angel turned her attention back to the guards, and suddenly, we couldn’t hear them speaking anymore. Their mouths were moving, but we could hear no sound. It seemed like they could hear each other, though; they seemed to be conversing back and forth. The guards still stood stiffly, on edge as they spoke, while the angels stayed at ease. It was clear who was in charge of the conversation, and it was clear that the demons were unhappy about it.
“I think they put themselves on mute,” I said to Parker. I hadn’t been sure I’d be able to hear myself, but I could, and so could Parker.
“Seems that way,” Parker said. “I guess they want to keep us out of the conversation.”
“A little rude. That’s our eternity they’re talking about.”
“It’s kind of like court. You get to testify, but ultimately, a crew of strangers makes the decision for you.”
“Fun times,” I said with a sigh, watching them. The conversation appeared to have become more heated. The guards were throwing up their arms, their faces turning red, while the angels had steeled themselves and locked their jaws.
Parker squeezed my hand. “Meg?”
I turned to face him, and he grabbed my other hand too. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” he said.
“I was only telling the truth.”
“Not just now, but overall. You helped my family. And because of you, I might not have to go back to hell after all. I just wish you hadn’t been so hard on yourself.”
“I was telling the truth,” I repeated.
“You were telling your truth, not the whole truth,” he said, pulling me in. I wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his shoulder. He leaned down, kissing the top of my head, letting his lips linger there. “I’m terrified I’m going to lose you,” he said.
“I only want you to be happy.”
“I couldn’t be happy without you.”
“Don’t say that,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You could. You will be.”
“Meg—”
“I don’t regret what I said to them,” I told him. “I could be tortured for the rest of time, but if I know you’re safe, it’s all worth it.”
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