by D. N. Hoxa
“Adrian?” she said. She was surprised to see me, all right.
Seeing her face after so many days that to me felt endless, I let go of a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding.
“Willow,” I said. “There you are.”
“Uh…what are you doing here?”
“I was going in there to buy some things,” I mumbled, pointing at the store.
She squinted her eyes at me. “Right,” she said with a nod and turned around to walk away.
“Willow, wait,” I said as I followed her, but she didn’t. “Okay, I was following you.”
“Why would you do that?” she said and looked straight ahead as she walked, like I wasn’t even there.
“Because I wanted to see you.”
“Why did you want to see me, Adrian?”
“Hey, can you just wait for a second?”
She finally stopped and turned to me. She’d never looked at me like that before. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face, and I found that extremely hard to swallow. As stupid as I was, I’d expected her to be the same as she had been the last time I saw her, though I’d disappeared without a trace for days.
“I’m in a bit of a hurry, so…”
“Look, I’m sorry I disappeared.” She started walking again. “I was just busy with work.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations, Adrian. I really need to go.”
“I understand that you’re mad—”
“Why would I be mad?” she said. “Because you show up wanting to talk to me every single day for five days in a row, and then you practically run away from me before you disappear completely for four days? How’s that reason enough to be mad? I’m not mad, Adrian.”
I risked a smile because, fucking hell, how sexy she looked angry! And I was a jerk to even think about that. I followed her without speaking for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. This was good. It was good that she didn’t want to see me anymore. That was what I’d wanted when I stopped myself from going to see her, right? It was the right thing to do, walking away from her. Not filling her head with lies and hope.
But now I was there, and I saw her, and she had her hair down. And she looked so good. So much better than I remembered. Call me a selfish asshole, because that’s what I called myself, but I grabbed her arm and I turned her to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m a jerk.”
“Probably. But I wouldn’t know that, would I? Because I’ve only seen you a handful of times,” she said, but she didn’t try to move her arm away.
“You do know that, Willow. Trust me, you do. Look,” I said and sighed. Lying to her made me sick, but I had no other choice but to dance around the truth as well as I knew how. “There are some things I can’t explain to you for now.”
“And you really don’t need to, Adrian. Ever. I’m not your girlfriend. You can hardly even call me a friend. Like I said, you owe me nothing. You can disappear for as long as you want without telling me.”
“But I don’t want that, Willow.”
I realized that just then.
She took a step back and smiled sadly. “It’s okay, Adrian. I know you don’t like me that way, and—”
“But I do.”
What the hell was wrong with me?
She froze for a second. “You do?”
“Yes.”
I did. And I was fucked for having told her that.
“I thought you…” She didn’t continue. Just shrugged.
“I should’ve at least texted you,” I said.
She looked at me for a long second before she sighed.
“Walk me home?” she said. “Not all the way, because, you know, my mother…”
“Okay,” I said, smiling like a little kid.
My heart was pounding in my chest. Girls had refused me before, but I never, not once, felt like I would lose my mind like that. I never had the urge to say anything, do anything, to get anyone else to stay. And that showed me how deep into shit I really was.
“So, how are you?” she said.
“I’m okay. You? What are you doing out of the shop so early?”
“Mom’s leaving for Paris tomorrow. I’m helping her pack,” she said.
“You’re excited,” I said. I could read it in her face now that she wasn’t trying to ignore me.
“I am. I can’t wait to have a few days to myself. What about you?”
“Nothing,” I said, shrugging. “Just working with my brothers.”
“Disappearing without a trace…” she said, nodding.
“Like I said, I’m a jerk.”
She laughed. “Zoe says hi.”
“Zoe? The Zoe?”
Her smile almost tore the corners of her mouth apart.
“Yeah. I’ve been talking to her every night on Skype this week.”
“That’s amazing, Willow.”
“It is. We worked things out. I might’ve even called her a bitch for what she did,” she said, laughing. “And we’re talking every day now. Just like old times.”
“I’m really happy for you.” I couldn’t say how much it meant to me to see her like that, because I hadn’t figured it out myself yet.
“I also told my Mom that I’m going to college.”
I stopped in my tracks.
“What did she say?”
Willow shrugged. “Nothing. She’s going to think about it while she’s in Paris, and we’re going to sit down and talk when she gets back. I think it’s time I really left.”
“You think?” I said, laughing. “Of course it is! You should’ve left a long time ago!”
And maybe that fucker George would’ve never come to our house.
“You sound awfully happy about it,” she mumbled, and I realized how it might’ve sounded to her.
“I am. I’m happy for you, Willow. Just for you.”
We stopped at the corner behind which was her house.
“I know,” she said. “But…”
“No buts. Your life is waiting.” As I said that to her, an idea popped into my head. “Tell me something, what are you going to do if she says no?”
“I don’t know,” Willow said.
“Willow, you can’t let that stop you, you hear me? No matter what she says, you should leave.”
She started to laugh. I didn’t see why that was funny, but she laughed her heart out for a few seconds.
“You changed me, Adrian Ward. You changed me in just a few days, when I didn’t even know I needed changing. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that,” she said and gave me a quick kiss, before she turned around and left, leaving me stuck in place.
I turned around and went to nearest bookshop I could find. One that sold stationery, too. I needed a piece of paper and an envelope. I borrowed the pen from the cashier girl, and I wrote two sentences.
She is leaving as soon as you return from your trip. Go get your money and your request back today.
I wrote George’s name on the envelope. I put the letter in their mailbox as fast and as silently as I could.
Then I went home and waited.
“She’s going to college,” I said to my brothers, just a few minutes after midnight. George never came, but I still waited.
“Does that change anything?” Doc said. The smoke from his cigarette blew in my face, but it didn’t bother me. My mind was elsewhere.
“I hope so. I mailed him a letter today. Told him she’s leaving as soon as they return.”
“Return?” Alan repeated. I hadn’t told them about the trip, I realized.
“They’re going to Paris,” I said. “And she’s leaving when they get back.”
“We’ve never done that before. We’ve never contacted the people,” Doc said.
“Well, we’ve never been asked to kill a person before, have we?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Alan mumbled.
“I told him to come take his money and his request back,” I said. “He hasn’t come.”
“
I doubt he will,” Doc said. “Did you see how lost he was that day? I doubt he even knows how to find the way back here, if he tried.”
“He will if he wants to,” I insisted.
“He doesn’t want her to go to college, Adrian. He wants her gone,” Alan said reluctantly.
“He wants her gone from his wife’s life. Her going to college will take care of that.”
“And if he doesn’t come back?”
The question stayed with me long after the boys went inside to go to sleep and left me alone on the porch. The moon was full, the night beautiful. I watched the starless sky as I tried to figure out what it was that made me want to throw my guts up.
Then I did.
Willow was going to college.
That was the best case scenario. Everything I was hoping for. I could almost see it in my mind. He comes in the morning, takes back his request. Willow goes to college.
I never see her again…
The perfect ending.
So why did it make me want to throw up? Was it the thought of not seeing her face ever again? The thought of not hearing her laugh, not tasting her lips, not holding her hand?
What exactly had I gotten myself into?
Just as I was thinking that, she texted me. The phone vibrated in my pocket and I jumped.
You’re probably asleep, but I just need to get it out there: OMG I’M SO EXCITED I CAN’T SLEEP!!!
My short laugh echoed in the night.
I’m not asleep, but you should be. It’s late. What a lame text.
What are you doing up so late? You should be asleep yourself.
Thinking, I said, and watched the screen without blinking for the ten seconds it took her to reply.
About what?
You, I typed, then deleted the word. It was too heavy. It meant too much. Revealed too much of what I still couldn’t understand completely. I finally settled for: Just life.
Am I in there somewhere? she replied. My heart began to pound as if she were right in front of me and could see right through me.
You are. In college. Going to classes, parties. Living. But she’d never know just how that made me feel.
Can you come see me tomorrow? At my house? she said. Then: I took the day off.
I typed yes. I typed no. I deleted both, then I looked up at the sky as if it were going to give me the fucking answer. It was hilarious, really. Maybe that’s why I laughed.
Please? she said.
Yes.
Eae
The masquerade party had just begun. I sat in one of the few chairs in the room covered in red velvet everywhere I looked—the chairs, the tablecloths—searching faces as I always did. Trying to find that spark I was desperate for.
Failing.
A year was almost gone, and I was alone. No helper.
Netzach was right. I was a failure.
I drank like I could actually get drunk, but I couldn’t. Alcohol didn’t work for us the way it did for humans. I missed the wine of the clouds. It had a foul taste, but it got you drunk. And I needed that so much. I needed to forget.
Nobody watched me, because I didn’t want to be watched. It was illusion, what we Angels used. We could make humans think what we wanted them to think by simply creating the illusion we wanted to create. It was what most would refer to as magic, but it wasn’t. Not really. We just had the ability to tap into brain waves and alter perception.
So, nobody was watching me because to humans, I was not there. To any of them.
Except one.
My first thought was that I was hallucinating. Humans couldn’t break through our illusions, no matter how strong their wills. Not even my helpers could see me when I didn’t want them to.
But there was a girl in that room, all the way to the other side, sitting at the bar, looking at me. Looking straight at me, like she could see me.
I sat up right. Blinked a few times. Maybe the alcohol was working?
But, no. I felt her. And I looked around the room, at people right across from me, and they couldn’t see me. They never looked at me, and I was a big guy.
Yet there she was, long blond hair, a mask with black feathers covering half her face.
She looked at me like she could really see me. Her black eyes searched every inch of my face, and while they did, I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure why, but it was like I knew her. Like I’d seen her before. Felt her watch me like that.
And that never happened to me before.
She didn’t smile. She gave no expression. She didn’t move any part of her except her hand while she played with the glass filled with red wine.
I walked as if I was hypnotized, barely breathing, my eyes on hers. She moved then, when I got close enough. She stood up from the stool, still looking at me. I could hardly believe it. She was human, of that much I was sure. But I had no idea how she could see me. How she could see my wings, because her eyes moved to my sides, right where my feathers were.
Right before I spoke, right before I asked her how, she turned her back on me and disappeared in the crowd.
Trying not to touch or bump into the people around me slowed me down as I followed her. I saw the back of her head disappear inside a door I’d never even seen before, and I opened it.
It led to another, bigger door, and that one took me outside. The alley was dark and smelly, loud like the rest of Manhattan. And the girl was nowhere.
My wings stretched, ready to take me up. If she was running, I’d have a better chance at following her if I was in the air. I needed to find her. I needed to ask her if she could really see me. I needed to prove to myself that she was real, and that I hadn’t lost my mind.
But before my feet could leave the ground, it happened.
The feeling shook me to my core. I turned around as if I were going to see it right there.
I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. The roots of this feeling I had came from far away. From Wisconsin.
A human. A deal. A will so strong to break it, it nearly brought me to my knees.
I felt it. Heard it, loud and clear. Whoever it was, they were stronger than any man I’d met in the past century. They were so close to breaking the deal. So, so close they could taste it.
I stretched my wings again and flew, the girl forgotten. I needed to be in Wisconsin. I needed to find the human who was going to break his deal, and I needed to find him first.
Perhaps I was not going back to Heaven after all.
Xara
I had waited for this day for almost a decade—the day I would see the Angel.
I grew up picturing him to be all kinds of creatures, but Trip was right. He looked just like every other man. Except he had wings attached to his back.
No, that’s wrong. He didn’t exactly look like every other man. He was beautiful. More beautiful than even Greek Gods probably were.
And he saw me looking at him.
I cursed under my breath as I ran away, hidden in the shadows, just like Trip had taught me. I shouldn’t have let him see me. He shouldn’t have known that I could see him. I was supposed to follow him while I stayed hidden. He was never supposed to see my face.
And instead, I was running away from him.
What other choice did I have?
When I thought I was hidden well enough, I looked back. Nobody was there.
I was so sure that he’d follow me. The way he’d looked at me…it was almost as if he’d been waiting for me, too.
My phone rang and I nearly screamed. With shaking hands, I took it out of my purse and turned the sound off before it could give me away to anyone. To the Angel, though it didn’t look like he’d bothered to follow me at all.
“What?” I hissed when I picked up.
“Where the hell did you go?” Nora said.
“I’m going home,” I said, and I could practically see her freeze in place. I’d lived with her for the past three years. I even knew the way she breathed. She was my best friend, after all.
“Get your ass
back here, now!” she said.
“I shouldn’t have come to this stupid party in the first place.” But I was damn glad I had. Otherwise, who knew when I would’ve seen the Angel? “I’m leaving.”
“God, Xara! You’re killing me! I need you to be here.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t need me, Nora. You’re fine all by yourself.” She really was.
“What if he comes over to talk to me?”
I almost laughed. The reason why she’d dragged me to this fancy masquerade party was to see this man she’d been crushing on since forever.
“Then talk to him! What do you need me for?”
She argued with me for another minute, then begged me to go back for a few more seconds, then she hung up on me. That was expected. Like I said, I knew my best friend. She’d be fine by morning.
Besides, I had more important things to take care of. I had to find Trip.
He lived not far from where I was, but I was still going to need a cab to get there. I waited for another fifteen minutes, just to make sure the Angel wasn’t hiding somewhere, waiting for me, before I left.
The more time passed, the more I panicked. I’d trained for a long time to finally see that Angel. I was supposed to follow him, and eventually, he would lead me to my brother. That’s what Trip said.
And now, I had this terrible feeling that I’d ruined it. Completely.
When the cab dropped me off at Trip’s building, I was shaking from head to toe.
I’d never even seen Trip angry. Not once. He was always grinning, ever since the first day I saw him.
I was eighteen years old, fresh out of the foster system and the worst high school in the world, when he found me trying to buy a joint from the neighborhood dealer. I grew up in an orphanage and six different foster homes, so, yes, I liked to smoke weed every once in a while. But that day, he found me.
“I knew your father,” he said with that grin of his that freaked me out as much as it attracted me.
It was like a dream, all of it. I never knew my father. I never knew my mother. Probably because they left me on the doorstep of the orphanage when I was barely two.
“You knew my father?”