Shattered Grace (Fallen from Grace)

by K Anne Raines

  Again she heard a noise, but this time to her left. Annoyed, she glanced over her other shoulder. Nothing. Whipping around, she was ready for whoever was sneaking up on her. What the hell? No one was there, only a low growling noise that increased in volume the longer she stood there. Nervously, she flashed her gaze around the parking lot, spinning her body back and forth. Grace saw only students making their way to cars and buses—nothing to explain the noise.

  When she spun on her heel to beat feet out of there, she noticed a shadow. And then another. Not shadows of people, but amorphous black blobs roiling and slithering a little above the ground. Grace wondered if clouds might be casting the shapes, but the sky was bright blue and clear. No birds, planes, clouds … nothing. They were getting closer. And growling? She ripped her key from the front pocket of her backpack and fumbled to shove it into the lock. Fighting with her key, she risked a quick glance behind her. The things were only a couple of car lengths away.

  Finally making a connection and unlocking the car door, she threw herself and the backpack in the front seat. As soon as she was out of the parking lot, Grace heard her cell buzz from a text.

  Quentin: We need to talk.

  “Uh, yeah,” she said aloud.

  Grace: U think? Manor in 10.

  Not waiting for a reply, she tossed her cell in the passenger seat, pressed her foot against the gas pedal, and hoped like heck the cops were patrolling somewhere else in Woods Cross.

  “Shadow Hounds?” Grace plopped down on the sofa. Not this again. This conversation had no room for Bible stories or folklore. Something seriously freaky was stalking her in the parking lot and she wanted to hear something logical. Shadow Hounds sounded anything but. “What exactly is that?”

  “Have you ever heard of a Hell Hound?”

  “Should I have?” Grace snapped. With two fingers from each hand, she massaged her aching temples. Another headache was settling in just behind her eyes. Wonderful.

  Not hearing a reply, she opened an eye. Quentin was scrutinizing her. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  It was obvious from his gentle tone he was concerned, but Grace didn’t want his pity. “I’m fine.” Her voice was edgy; her hands trembled slightly as she dropped them to her lap. “Tell me what a Hell Hound is.”

  “Are you sure? I can get you an aspirin if you need one.”

  If one more person asked if she was fine and if she was sure she was sure, she was sure she was surely going to lose it. Surprisingly though, his offer managed to soften her irritated edges a little. “No, I’m fine. Tell me what a Hell Hound is and why I need to know about them.”

  Quentin still watched her. Probably because he doesn’t know what’s going to come from me next, she thought. Nice one minute, angry the next; telling him to leave, then asking him to come back. The more Grace thought about it, the more she made herself dizzy with motion sickness. She could only imagine how he must be feeling right now. She changed tactics, putting on her most encouraging face, hoping he’d continue.

  “You remember everything we talked about last night?” he asked.

  Sarcasm tempted to spill out with her words, but she bit her tongue. “How could I forget?” Quentin didn’t take his gaze from hers, apparently still trying to gauge her mood. “I remember, Quentin.”

  “Remember when I told you others would try to find you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What I didn’t tell you was that a Chosen becomes completely Chosen on his or her eighteenth birthday. From that day forward, a Chosen is no longer off the grid. You’ll feel other Nephilim, and other Guardians. And they’ll all sense you. What you won’t be able to sense are Fallen.”

  Quentin sat back on the couch with a large breath, hands rubbing anxiously across his knees. She could feel his eyes still on her, but she couldn’t move. Like a pivotal point in a movie, where everything comes together for the character, she could see the truth in his words. Logic swooped in, however, and cut it all to shreds. He might as well have been telling her for her eighteenth birthday, crazy aliens were going to stop at nothing to abduct her. Surprise! No thank you, she didn’t want that kind of present. Like that would ever happen anyway. Aliens. Don’t. Exist.

  But what happened with Limye didn’t make sense either unless she bought his explanation about being able to see and sense things once she turned eighteen. Wait a minute, I’m not eighteen yet, she realized. “But I’m not eighteen, and I saw and felt something weird today. How could that be if your story’s true?” She plopped back against the sofa, raising an eyebrow in smug triumph as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “That’s just it, your change didn’t wait for you to turn eighteen. Your change completed in the middle of the night. You’re a Chosen now, Grace.”

  The slight shake of his head couldn’t have been a good sign. As the furrow of his brow deepened and worry clouded his eyes, she felt a chill rush over her and had to remind herself to take air in and out of her lungs. “How do you know I’ve changed?”

  With his right hand, he lifted the left sleeve of his shirt to show the tattoo wrapping around his bicep.

  She chuckled awkwardly. “What, a fortune-telling tattoo?”

  Quentin sat up and scooted along the couch closer to her, determination in his eyes. “This isn’t a tattoo. It’s a seneschal band and it links me to you.”

  Caught up in the fire glinting from the diamond specks in his gray eyes, she heard herself say, “What does that mean?”

  Quentin lowered the sleeve of his shirt, fisted his hands, and scooted away again, bringing her out of her stupor. “The band completed its change and that only happens when you’ve completed yours.”

  “But I’m not eighteen!” she snapped.

  “I know!” Quentin shot back.

  “And. What. The. Hell. Are. Shadow. Hounds?” Her temper rising, Grace bit her lip to keep from completely freaking out.

  Quentin must have sensed her fear because he reached for her hands. Grace recoiled to the far end of the sofa, leaning dramatically away from him. She could barely deal with what she was feeling. If she was bombarded with his feelings too, it might be enough to push her over the edge. “Don’t touch me!”

  With palms up, Quentin moved to the sofa across from her. “I’m sorry, I won’t. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Grace wasn’t afraid of him. He would never hurt her; she knew that. Quentin completely misunderstood her response. So like a man.

  “Shadow Hounds are the shadows cast from Hell Hounds. They were on your trail. Well, they were on a Chosen’s trail, not Grace Morgan’s.”

  “How can you be so sure they don’t know who I am?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Because the Shadow Hounds didn’t touch you.”

  “And how the heck do you know that?” she shrieked. Wound up like a tight coil herself, Grace flinched with surprise as she sensed him relaxing, seconds before he visibly released his tension, easing back into the couch and slouching down into the sofa cushions. What the hell was that, her inner voice shrieked.

  “I was watching the whole time. It was close, too close, but they didn’t.”

  Over and over she replayed the second she heard the first growl, and how fearful she was. The thought of Quentin watching her while those things stalked her—and doing nothing—was like a swift kick to the gut. Anger spiked her heart rate instantly. The roaring whoosh of beats sounded like a steady drumbeat in her ears before settling to a hammering pain behind her eyes. She resumed rubbing her temples, unwilling to meet his gaze. “You saw what happened today and did nothing?” Her accusation was quiet, almost a whisper. “I thought you were my Guardian?”

  Before she could stop it, he was kneeling before her, his hands covering hers. Grace focused on the onslaught of sensation as she dragged air in and out of her lungs. An ethereal heat washed over her skin as their emotions collided. Fear matched fear. Despair with despair. Confusion. Quentin was wound as tightly as she was. Miraculously, he was holding h
imself together.

  “Please understand, Grace. It took everything I had to hold myself back. If I had come anywhere near you, they would have found you instantly.” His eyes pleaded with her.

  “Why is this happening? I just want to be like everyone else.”

  Quentin softly shook his head. “But you’re not like anyone else, Grace.”

  “I don’t want to be the Joan of Arc of the twenty-first century. I’m not even eighteen.” The panic inside picked up in pace with each passing second as she hugged herself and rocked numbly. The calm Quentin managed to channel did nothing to tame it.

  “Joan of Arc was only nineteen herself.”

  “Yeah, and then she died!” she threw out frantically. “See, another reason not to be like her!”

  Quentin lifted her chin with his finger. “Look at me. I am your Guardian, and I swear to you I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you. Ever.”

  That’s about when she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her two-day streak of dry eyes was over. Instead of holding it in, she let it out. All of it. Her issues with her grandfather, her parents, her greedy family, and her fear of what was coming—all of it spilled out in wracking sobs. Quentin gently pulled her off the couch and onto his lap, rocking back and forth, stroking her hair with one hand and holding her tightly with the other while she cried.

  “This sucks, Quentin,” she sobbed against his chest.

  Over and over he shushed her fears and told her it was going to be okay. When the sobs faded away and the tears were finished, she wiped her face with the palms of her hand and noticed the large round wet pools she’d left on his chest. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

  He gazed at her with compassion as he brushed a lock of her hair from her face. “It’s just a shirt. You’re way more important.”

  No one had ever been so tender with her. Sure, she’d had a boyfriend before, but she’d never call him tender and he certainly didn’t light any fires within her. His first kiss had been soft and sweet, and totally misleading. The ones that had followed weren’t anything like the first. He’d had one thing on his mind. The only thing on Grace’s mind after she realized what her boyfriend had wanted was to drop him like the slimeball he was. And so she did.

  Cutting through her thoughts, Quentin cleared his throat and gently transferred her to the floor. She watched as he got up and walked out of the family room. He came back with the box of tissues he’d brought for her last week.

  After pulling a few tissues from the box, he offered them to her. “Here you go.”

  She blew her nose, most definitely unladylike, crumpled the tissue, and stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans. The gravity of the situation rested heavily against her, pressing her into the floor. Grace tried to see through blurry eyes. “Now what? No more surprises, Quentin. Just give it to me straight. Please.”

  “Now you move here to the manor so I can protect you better.”

  That was the second time in two days her moving to the manor was brought up. Wondering why in the hell she had to move, she folded her arms over her chest and looked back to Quentin. “How can you protect me better if I live here? And what about my mother?”

  Even though she and her mother had their obvious differences, she couldn’t just leave her. If the Shadow Hounds came searching for Grace and found her mother instead… The mere thought sent a violent shiver racing up and down her spine. She couldn’t leave her mom now, even though she’d thought about it.

  Quentin’s eyes were guarded as he spoke. “You and I need to be together always, so I can protect you. Your mother will move too.”

  Her heart rate was not beating normally, at all. The thought of Shadow Hounds finding her mother kicked her in the chest, but the thought of Quentin being with her always stopped her heart completely. Confused, she shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she should be feeling. But then she wondered if her mom would be willing to move. “What if she won’t? I can’t just leave her.”

  Quentin’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Don’t worry about that, she’ll move.”

  Instead of arguing the possible reasons Laney might not want to move, or why he seemed different all of a sudden, she relented, trusting in Quentin’s quiet confidence.

  “Anything else I should know?”

  Grace noticed Quentin taking a couple of steps back, his confidence noticeably wavering. “And, tomorrow you’ll withdraw from Woods Cross.”

  Wait, what? Suddenly she felt like she was thrown back in time before women’s suffrage. Any possible aspirations or future plans she had were wiped away as if she had no right to them. Grace was slowly disappearing and the new Chosen was taking over. It was bad enough she didn’t get any choice in being Chosen; she wasn’t going to let it rule every facet of her life. Standing up to Quentin, she squared her shoulders. “I’m not quitting school.”

  He stared at her as if she wasn’t speaking English. “Why go to school when you no longer have to? With what your grandfather left you, you won’t have to worry about school or money for the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah, and then I’d be no better than the rest of my family,” she scoffed. Tension began to roll off Quentin in waves. He looked ready to do battle, but Grace braced herself, determined not to back down. “Look, I appreciate what my grandfather did for me. I’ve literally won the lottery, I get it. But this windfall doesn’t make me lucky because I don’t have to work anymore, or ever go to school again. I’m lucky because of all the opportunities I have now. I can afford to go to any school I want and not settle on a job I hate.”

  She paused for a moment and smiled. “Or I could not go to college and get a fun job at Latté Da’s or Starbucks. I can travel to other countries and do some kind of mission work. I don’t know, something, anything. To me, the possibilities are endless.” The smile fled her face as she locked her gaze with his. “But I will not allow this duty, which was forced on me, mind you, to rule my life. It sounds like you want me stuck here, imprisoned, and I won’t settle for that.”

  She peered down at him from her soapbox. Resolve and courage settled in the frame of her shoulders while she stood her ground, ready for him to fight back. Quietly, she watched as a twitch set to motion in the corner of his left eye. Grace refused to cower at what he might say, and braced herself for battle.

  Without a word, the weight of his shoulders slumped forward, the fight obviously leaving him. “You’re right. I don’t know how keeping you here is going to solve anything. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She looked away, waiting for a clue to tell her what might come next.

  “So, how does this work,” Grace began, when they finally slid into Quentin’s Jag. “Am I your boss, or are you mine?” The last half of her question made her face scrunch up.

  “This,” he said, waving a finger between them, “is a partnership, not a dictatorship. My job is to keep you safe and advise you on how to keep out of trouble. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  A million more questions bounced around in her head. Overwhelmed, she left the questions to their bouncing, their all too persistent bouncing. It was upsetting, to say the least, to think about what she was—a Chosen—and what that meant. What if she didn’t have it in her to do this? What if she didn’t want to…would the others still come to find her? As she leaned her head back against the coolness of the leather headrest, she felt the weight of all the unanswered questions wrap coldly around her already laden shoulders, pressing her further back against the seat. What could she possibly do? She wasn’t even eighteen yet. Heck, she was just a kid! Not that I’d ever admit that to my mom, she thought darkly.

  Spiderman was just a kid himself, she mused, and yet he was able to fight villains and protect the people around him. On the flip side, his uncle told him, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Could that work in reverse? With great responsibility comes great power? Because she could use a little power right now. If not, she had nothing. In gym class the other day, she barely
managed a pull-up.

  It should have bothered her that Quentin didn’t need an address or directions to find her home. He probably guarded outside while she slept. Her heart squeezed a little, finding a small amount of comfort in knowing someone cared enough to watch over her. Parked in the driveway, she could see the inside of the house was pitch black. Her mother’s car wasn’t in the garage either.

  “Looks like we’re waiting if we want to talk to my mom.” After she unlocked the door, she stepped aside to allow Quentin by and shut it behind him. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked as she walked to the kitchen. Pausing, she turned back to him. “Actually, we haven’t eaten dinner. Are you hungry? I’m kind of hungry.”

  “Sure, I could eat.” One corner of his mouth lifted.

  That smile, she decided, was her favorite. “What?” she asked.

  “You cook?” The look he gave her teetered on the edge of disbelief.

  O, ye of little faith. “Yes, silly man, I can cook and I’m pretty good at it.” With her back facing him, she continued walking. “I’m not sure what there is to cook though.”

  With one hand on the handle of the refrigerator door, she noticed a note from her mother hanging from the top panel. She twirled around to tell Quentin about the note and was startled by how close he and her favorite smile were. Her stomach fluttered, her heart raced, and her breathing came in quiet pants. “Um, my mom’s out. Won’t be home till late,” she said, stumbling over her words.

  He inched a little closer, reaching for the note hanging slightly above her head. “That’s what it says, alright.” He took a step back and shrugged indifferently. “Looks like a sleepover.”

  Like there wasn’t enough on her mind already? “Why do you need to stay here?” Not that the thought of him in the same house while she slept wasn’t kind of exciting, because it was.