by D. N. Hoxa
“But where? How will we know who’ll turn into one of those…things when they see me?”
That waiter had looked so normal.
“We’ll figure it out,” Adrian said. “Until then, you’ll keep your face covered.”
“What makes you so sure that you won’t turn into one of them?” I said as the voice in my head warned that it could be worse.
“I won’t,” Adrian said, and he sounded so sure. “I already made a deal with him and broke it.”
“So why isn’t he coming after you?”
It might’ve come out the wrong way, because I was glad that nobody was after him. I wouldn’t have been able to protect him like he protected me, but I was just trying to figure it out.
“I have a feeling he will, but you’re a priority,” Adrian mumbled.
“Do you…” I didn’t know if it was okay to ask him the question, but I asked anyway. “Do you think your brothers are after us?”
Adrian looked away. “It’s possible.”
That was probably why he wanted us to run as far away as we could.
“So, what now? We just run, and I keep my face covered at all times?”
I was close to becoming hysterical.
“Yes, for now. Until we find a safe place to stay and figure out what comes next.”
“And where is that safe place? Is there any safe place?”
Adrian shrugged and started the car. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“How is this possible?” I asked for the third time in an hour while he drove. But this time, he replied, though he knew I was just talking to myself.
“I don’t know how, but it is. I saw him. I felt him. He marked me,” Adrian said.
“Marked you?”
He nodded. “With a tattoo of a star and a goat on my back.”
“That’s his?”
I shivered. I’d seen that tattoo that night. The one and only night me and him were naked together. I shivered again at the reminder.
“Yes. When we woke up from our dream, we all had it. The same tattoo on the same place on our skins.”
“How was it?” Half of me didn’t want to know, but the other was more desperate.
“It was…” Adrian shrugged. “Like a dream. Exactly like a dream, because it was one.”
“What did he look like?” I could almost picture him…
“Just a guy in a suit.”
“What about horns and stuff?”
“No, no horns,” Adrian said and a ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Just a guy with dark eyes and a dark suit. Until I said that fucking word, and he turned to flames.”
“What word?”
“Deal,” Adrian said, flinching. “I thought…I thought it was just a dream. How the hell was I supposed to know that it was real? I was sleeping.”
“I know,” I said, but then I wondered if that were true. How would I know, anyway? “Your dad…” I didn’t know how to ask the question, but he understood.
“My dad will be fine,” Adrian said reluctantly. “As long as my brothers continue…” he hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand a couple of times. “I couldn’t let them, Willow.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t let them hurt you. I love my dad. I would’ve given my life for him. I did give my life for him, but not…”
Me. He wouldn’t give me up.
I didn’t see what I was doing until I found myself with my arms around his neck, resting against his shoulder. He left his father for me, and it made me hurt. It made me cry. It made me trust him, though I knew that there was always the possibility that he was playing me.
“I’m really sorry you got into this, Willow.”
He drove slower now. Much slower.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I want to kill him for doing this to you.”
I knew he meant George, and unfortunately, I almost wanted him to. I let go of his neck and sat back when he grabbed my hand and stopped the car at the side of the road, right in front of a building that looked empty. He turned so fast and kissed me, I forgot how to breathe while I kissed him back.
His lips sang the saddest song, leaking desperation, and I felt his pain. All of it. For his father. For his brothers. For me. And I kissed him back like I wanted to take it all away. Every last bit of it. But I knew he’d never let it go.
“I love you, Adrian.” He needed to hear it. And perhaps I needed to say it.
He sighed loudly and touched my forehead with his.
“Still?” he asked reluctantly.
“Still.”
“Then you are just as fucked up as I am,” he whispered and kissed me again.
We were going to Wyoming, Adrian said. According to him, there was a town there called Lost Springs that was home to only a handful of people. It was close, just a few more hours of driving. It was isolated, and he could hide me there. He didn’t say that last one, but I figured. It wasn’t hard.
I must’ve slept while I tried not to think about all of it, because when my eyes opened, it was dark outside. The car wasn’t moving, and Adrian was nowhere to be seen.
My heart was already pounding in my chest by the time I climbed out. We were in the middle of nowhere. All I could see were a few buildings at the side of the road, all dark. They looked like nobody had been there in a long time. No cars, either. The sick feeling in my gut spread. The road ahead was straight, and I saw nothing there. Behind me, the road turned to the left and went behind a building.
“Adrian?”
My voice echoed in the night. I had no idea what time it was, but I started to go back with slow, reluctant steps. I called his name again, but I heard no response. Instead, I heard a shout of pain.
My feet froze.
Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe it was just an animal.
But then I heard it again. I looked back at the car for a second, before I started running for the building. Three steps, and Adrian turned the corner, running like his life depended on it. I stopped again.
“Get in the car!” he shouted. It was all I needed to turn back and run as fast as my legs would let me. I threw myself inside and closed the door, then waited for Adrian with my heart in my throat.
He jumped in and started the engine even before he closed the door.
“What’s going on? Where were you?”
I couldn’t even hear myself over the panic.
“A man stepped in front of the car out of nowhere. He dragged me all the way back there before I could beat him,” Adrian said, breathing heavily. “I thought…I thought someone else was already in the car with you.”
“No, I’m fine. There was nobody there,” I said, swallowing loudly. What if someone had been there, but we’d left before he could get to me? Could I even trust my own eyes?
“I don’t think this one even saw your face. And he came after me,” Adrian mumbled.
“Shit,” I breathed. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“Nothing. We’ll keep going. We’ll be all right,” Adrian said, then the next second, he hissed. “Shit!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“He’s going too fast!” Adrian said, looking at the rearview mirror.
That’s when I noticed the headlights of the car behind us, driving like mad. He was too close to us to drive that fast.
“Adrian?”
But his name didn’t save us. I kept my head turned to the back until I couldn’t see the headlights of the car anymore. I couldn’t see them, because they crashed into our car’s trunk.
I was thrown from one side of the car to the other. I saw nothing, but I felt every time my head hit the window of the car. We spun around and around, and Adrian kept calling my name, but I was too shocked to be able to answer him. The car didn’t stop spinning for another lifetime. When it finally did, I had to remind myself how to breathe.
The door to my side opened, and Adrian’s blurry face was in front of me. He slapped me a couple of times before he t
ook my seatbelt off and took me in his arms. I squeezed my eyes shut when sound and vision came back to me, full speed.
“Look at me, Willow!” Adrian urged me. I did. “You have to run. Now. As fast as you can, okay? Run!”
My feet touched the ground the next second. Adrian pushed me. I had no idea where I was going, but I ran. The car was a mess, the windshield broken, the trunk completely gone, and steam coming out of the hood. The other car was a big one. A Jeep. And its door opened.
I couldn’t run fast enough, because I couldn’t look away from Adrian who came out of the car with the rifle in his hands. I wanted to tell him to run, too. To just follow me. But I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t running anymore, either. I was walking, dragging my feet forward as fast as I could, which wasn’t much.
The gunshot whispered in my ears, just as another set of headlights hit my face. Another car was coming towards me, and I’d seen enough to know that that wasn’t good news.
I started walking towards Adrian, just as he started running to me. I think I began to cry when I saw him, relieved that he’d pulled the trigger. Relieved that he was alive.
He reached me, rifle in hand, and pulled me by my arm back to the Jeep. He opened the passenger door for me and threw me inside.
But before he made it in, too, the other car reached us. Adrian didn’t think twice. He fired at the first man coming out of the passenger seat. Then, the driver came out, his face the same pale one, his eyes black. And he aimed a small black gun at Adrian.
I screamed just as he fired. I stopped when the door to my side opened again, and Adrian dragged me out.
“Run,” he repeated and pushed me to the side of the road, to the dead buildings. He wanted me to hide behind them.
“Come with me!” I cried. I couldn’t leave him alone. This was all happening because of me. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to him.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Adrian said, just as another shot was fired. “Go!”
I started forward, but I couldn’t run. My body was too weak. Another gunshot. Two. Three.
When I turned around, Adrian was lying on the ground.
I had no more voice in me left to scream. I ran back to him and fell to my knees. The full moon lit his face and chest. The chest that was covered in sticky red blood.
“Willow, run,” Adrian said, looking behind me where the Jeep was, behind which was the man who’d shot him. I barely saw his face from the tears.
“Please don’t die,” I begged. “I’ll carry you. You’ll be fine.”
“Listen to me,” he barely said, as he swallowed too many times, the pain written on his face. “You need to run. Keep your face h-h-hidden. Please.”
“No, I’m not leaving you!” He couldn’t ask that of me.
“Willow…”
Someone stepped right behind me. He was blond with a reddish beard, dead eyes, and gun in hand. He looked at my face like it wasn’t even there. Without focus. But he didn’t move.
“Go, g-g-o!”
“I’m not going to leave you!”
“He’ll kill you, Willow. Please,” Adrian said. His face grew paler, and he tried to touch my face but couldn’t. I’d never cried as hard as I did then.
“He’s not moving!” I shouted. “I’m going to carry you.”
I put my hands under his torso and pulled, but he was too heavy.
“Willow, please…” Adrian cried. I was hurting him. “Please go.”
I kissed him and I told him I loved him in whispers as many times as I could.
The man behind me took a step closer.
“I love you,” I said to Adrian, while I thought to myself, there are worse ways for a person to die. I’m here with the man I love. I convinced myself that I was ready. I kissed Adrian again. Both our faces were wet, and we could no longer tell whose tears they were. It would all be over in a second.
But it wasn’t.
In a second, it all began.
Adrian Ward
“Willow!” I shouted with all the strength I had left. The bullet in my chest tore me apart all over again, but she wasn’t answering. One second, she was crying, and the next, she stopped breathing. She stopped looking. Her eyes fell down to her lap, and she wasn’t moving. I hadn’t heard a gunshot. She was still alive; she had to be. She had to run.
The man who shot me looked at the back of her head for a long time while I called her name before he turned around and disappeared. I couldn’t understand what the hell was happening. What was wrong with her?
With a deep intake of breathe, she came back. She breathed heavily, both her hands to her chest, and she continued to cry just like she’d never stopped at all.
“Will…”
Strength left me together with air. The strangest feeling of suffocation took over my throat. I couldn’t breathe properly. I couldn’t speak.
“Hush now,” Willow said. She took my face in her hands and kissed every inch of it. “I love you so much, Adrian.”
Her tears washed her smile. She kissed me like she was happy. Her blue eyes stopped right in front of mine, and I saw myself in them. I saw her whole life in them. I wanted to break the world in half just to see her smiling for real again.
Then, she said: “Don’t come after me. Don’t search for me. Forget about me, as fast as you can.”
Words screamed in my head, but they wouldn’t come out of my mouth. What the hell was she saying?
“I never want to see you again, Adrian. You hear me? Never.”
She stood up then, looked at me once more, wiped her tears with the back of her hands, and disappeared. I wanted to call out to her, tell her to stop, but I couldn’t. I heard a car door open and close. Then the man who’d shot me drove away, with Willow on the passenger seat.
The same second, the pain started. It had been bad when the bullet went through my skin, but this time, it was that, multiplied by a thousand, or more. I couldn’t even scream as my chest caught fire and burned slowly. My bones were melting inside my flesh, or so it felt. I looked at the dark sky above me, my mind blank but for the pain that gave me the feeling it was never going to stop.
“What do we have here?” someone said. I didn’t care enough to look, even if I could move. But soon, he towered above me. I could see his face, but more importantly, I could see the things behind him. The things that almost looked like wings. I figured I was hallucinating.
“Adrian Ward,” he said, shaking his head. He looked tall, his skin white and his hair as black as the night sky above us. “I’m really disappointed to see you like this.”
The pain started to ease. Maybe I was imagining it, as a mechanism to keep from losing my mind, but it felt like it began to fade. I could slowly start to breathe again.
“You should’ve known better than to make a deal with the Devil,” the man said, grinning. That was how I knew he was a figment of my imagination. Nobody knew about my deal, except my brothers and Willow. “Tell me, what are you willing to give me if I free you right now?”
I would’ve laughed if I could. Couldn’t he see I was dying?
But then again, I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel like I was dying anymore. I was breathing. My lungs were filling with air, and the pain had lessened.
“Or, I could just leave you like this, and you can continue to be his toy. Suit yourself,” the man said, shrugged, then disappeared from my sight with a whoosh, and something—something like feathers—touched my arm.
What the hell was going on?
“W-w-wait,” I whispered. I could speak again. The footsteps stopped.
“Yes?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. It hurt so much to speak. The bullet inside my chest…wasn’t there.
I felt it a second ago, and the next, when I tried, it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there.
“Willow.” What had she done?
“Yes, Willow saved your ass. You’ll be all right, physically speaking,” the man said as he towered over me again.
“The question is, do you want to free your soul?”
No, no, no. It couldn’t be true. Willow wouldn’t do something like that. She wouldn’t fall for the same trap as I did. Willow wouldn’t make a deal with him, not even to save me.
Would she?
“I really don’t have all night, Adrian.”
“Yes,” I breathed. Anything. Anything at all to get me on my feet so I could go after her.
“And what are you willing to give me?” the man said.
“Everything. My life,” I said. “After I find her and make sure she’s okay.”
The man laughed then, and it was soothing. He kneeled at my side and put the heel of his hand on my forehead.
“Et dimittamte de custodiaautem Primus Angelus.”
My whole being centered on the heel of his hand. Bright blue light blinded me. I could see it, even with my eyes closed. I stopped existing for a long second. I felt like time passed without me until I was thrown back onto the ground as if I weighed more than the sun.
But when I breathed again, my head was my own. I didn’t share it with any pain. I didn’t even feel dizzy. I’d forgotten what it was like to live without a headache, and I almost cried in joy when I breathed easy.
“There. You’re free.”
My throat hurt when I started to cough. The bullet was gone. The headache was gone. I could even move my hand to touch the wound in my chest, but it was barely there. My shirt was soaking wet with blood, but the wound had all but disappeared, and it had left nothing but a bright red mark on my chest.
I sat up, expecting to feel dizzy, but I didn’t. The man who’d spoken the funny words was leaning against the Jeep, his arms crossed in front of him. He wore jeans and a white shirt, nothing out of the ordinary. But the wings…there were real wings behind his back.
White and grey and even black. They were taller than he was, and the tips of them touched the ground right next to his ankles.
“Yes, they’re rather impressive,” the man said, and moved his wings.
I dragged myself back instinctively, but I couldn’t look away, not for one second.
“My name’s A. And yes, I’m an Angel.”
I thought about laughing, but it didn’t seem like the appropriate reply.