“So it’s because you’re a Purifier?”
Her question was confusing. “What is?”
“The reason why I feel like this around you.”
“What?” This was starting to sound a little out of my element, and I knew my face said it all.
“Not like that,” Claire quickly said. “Jeez.” My shoulders slumped in relief. “I just feel, I don’t know. It’s so hard to describe. I feel better when I’m around you. Calmer. My mind is clearer. It’s like you’re a…a battery.”
A battery? That was a new one.
“Steven said he feels it, too. It’s weird, though, because I don’t feel it with Max or Gabriel—”
“Purifiers are human,” I told her. She didn’t need to know about Witches or the first Council’s intent on a new breed of warrior. Max, Gabriel and I were all human.
Even I didn’t believe that.
Gabriel definitely wasn’t human. I came back from the dead and had visions (except for recently), so there was no way I was a typical human. Max…well, I didn’t know Max that well to judge him, yet.
“At least,” I added when she said nothing, only looked at me with her eyebrows risen, “we’re supposed to be. I’m sure a few slip through the Council’s cracks.”
“God,” Claire exclaimed, “it’s just like Buffy. Only you’re not the only slayer around. And you don’t really have any Scoobies. And there’s not some magical power that goes from Purifier to Purifier, awakening your power. You’re just trained like that from the beginning.” She tilted her head. “Okay, so maybe it’s not really like Buffy at all…”
“Let’s eat before they get cold,” I said, munching on a pizza roll that had, of course, already cooled down.
I used to think I was somewhat special. I had unexplainable visions that were kind of like premonitions. They showed the past, the present, even what the future could hold. Ever since facing off with Sephira, and feeling her hands on my neck, my life had been without them. Maybe it was a fluke. Most of my life I never had visions, anyway.
Only that time, three years ago, when Gabriel was in danger, and only after moving here, when he and I were in danger constantly. I was certain we were still in danger. Danger was my middle name, and sarcasm was his.
After finishing off the pizza rolls, I couldn’t stop thinking about Crixis and what he said. Grinding my teeth, I got off the chair and went to my room, pulling the big, heavy tome from under a pile of clothes. For the last few days, it was out of sight and out of mind. I brought it to the library and Claire glanced over.
“That’s a big book,” she said, eyeing it up as I sat down.
“Yeah. I forgot about this one,” I muttered, playing it off. She didn’t need to know who I got it from. I opened the cover and began flipping pages. Tons and tons of nonsensical writing, just like before.
I didn’t know why I thought about giving this one another chance.
I was about to close it when a sense of foreboding swept across me like a wave on the shore. I turned another page, only half an inch or so thick into the book, and my energy was sapped from me. I wasn’t a battery to myself, apparently.
A picture took up both mirrored pages, a crudely drawn picture, written only in black ink, one that I knew I’d see every time I closed my eyes. The earth, a flat land with trees and water; its inhabitants running frantically in the other direction, animals and men alike. In the sky above the earth hovered a hulking being with great, black wings and curled horns.
I’d seen those wings before. I knew I had.
“No,” I whispered, temporarily forgetting Claire was beside me, nose-deep in her own book. I closed the huge one in my hands, causing her to jump. “I’m done for today.” I didn’t want to look at books anymore.
“Oh. Okay. We still have tomorrow and the weekend before we go back to school. We can—”
“No,” I said again. “I’m going to ask Liz about it. And…I’m going to visit Gabriel tomorrow.” I was going to visit him and beg his forgiveness for what I decided to do.
Claire nodded. She didn’t push, though it was clear she was saddened that her first round of research hadn’t yielded any results. She didn’t ask about Max, probably because they spent half an hour talking this morning before he and Liz met Michael at the hospital. “Okay. You know where I’ll be. Let me know if you find out what it is.”
I walked her out, and just like that, I was alone.
I wouldn’t be for long.
Chapter Eleven – Michael
This was absolutely torturous.
I, singlehandedly, messed up the Order’s ultimate goal. I put Gabriel, the bringer of the new age, into a coma that the doctors were clueless about. There was the fact of the poisoning—I should be happy they hadn’t caught on to that, but I was still having trouble believing that somehow Gabriel had eaten it, when I handed them both their own lunches. When I specifically made them each the same thing, so they would not trade each other, and only poisoned Kass’s.
I couldn’t do anything right, lately.
Burying my face in my hands, I sighed. A rotten-eggs stench wafted to my nose, and I smelled my own armpit. I was starting to smell pretty ripe. Just as I made the mental decision to go home later today, the phone charging on the wall behind me rang. I glanced at the number before unplugging it and heading to the door, closing it gently.
A rough, stern voice—one I had heard countless of times in my life—practically shouted on the other side of the phone call, “What is going on over there, Mike? Why haven’t there been any updates?” Her tone was authoritative. She hadn’t even bothered to call the phone every Order member had. She called my personal phone.
I felt uneasy. Talking with her, especially while she was upset, was never fun. Or comfortable. “There’s been a setback.” I winced, even as I said it. I could only imagine what she looked like, hearing that, from me.
It was a while until she muttered, “A setback.” Another long, pregnant silence. “What kind of setback are we talking about?” She was back to being enraged. “How hard is it to get rid of one girl?”
“She’s quite resilient.” I wasn’t making a very good case for myself.
“Quite resilient,” she mocked me. “She isn’t a butterfly in a garden—she’s a Purifier. And from the latest reports you’ve sent, a decent one, too.”
“Exactly, she’s—”
“She’s just a girl who doesn’t suspect you. You should be able to easily catch her off-guard and finish the job, Mike.” As she said it, I mentally pictured all the different ways a fight with Kass could go. None of them were pretty. Only one of us would walk out of it alive. “Do I have to call someone else in?”
“No,” I quickly said with a shake of my head, even though she couldn’t see it. “No. I will handle it. Just give me a little more time—”
“Four days.” And then she hung up.
I knew what would happen after the four day mark was up, and I couldn’t let that happen. Staring at my phone screen, my appearance was a haggard, tired one. I couldn’t go head-to-head with Kass. I wasn’t stupid. She was stronger than me, more tactical, yet prone to rash decisions. While it was true she wouldn’t see an attack from me coming, I couldn’t just kill her. Even if I went to her while she slept, what were the odds that I didn’t trip on the clothes she left laying about and alert her to my presence? How would I explain the weapon in my hands?
No, I didn’t trust myself to go after her head-on. I needed to weaken her, first.
And in my chest of items I’d brought from my time in the Order, I had just the thing for it. I only had to figure out a way to get her to ingest it…
Just as I began running through her daily routine—they’d return to school Monday, but that was the final day of his boss’s four day ultimatum—there was a knock on the door and Liz peeked her head in, a soft smile on her face.
God, she was beautiful. Too bad it would never work out between us. If she knew what I did, what I planned to do
, she wouldn’t hesitate to go against me. Liz was by the books, and our relationship, if you could call it one, wouldn’t stop her from doing what she thought was right.
Was it the right thing? I had other notions on the subject. Forget the Demons. Forget the lesser Vampire plague. Forget the Witches and the Sorcerers and the Morphers. When it came down to it, the true pestilence on the earth was humanity.
Humans destroyed the air, cut down the forests, took nature’s fuel and used it up like greedy tycoons. They hunted animals to extinction, used them inhumanely in the name of science and research. Humanity played God as they toyed with genetics, made clones of horses and monkeys, and sought cure-alls for the ways nature and age try to stave off the population. War. Hunger. Homelessness. The rich only cared for themselves; it was no longer about the goodness for society.
Society crumbled day by day, year by year. If humanity was left unchecked, the earth would be bathed in a nuclear holocaust, and then everyone—humans and supernaturals alike, would be out of luck for thousands of years, assuming anyone or anything that had more than three cells survived.
Yes, humanity was the problem. Humanity had to be taught a lesson. What was one Purifier’s life in the scheme of things? Their lives were their occupations, anyway. That was what the Order taught me, and that was what I still believed to this very day.
Kass had to die, and this time, she’d stay dead. I’d make sure of it.
Behind Liz, Max and, to my surprise, Kass walked in. “No improvement?” Liz asked quietly as both Max and Kass went closer to Gabriel.
I shook my head as I stared at the two young Purifiers. Both were short. Both were also stronger than they seemed. Only one had to die soon, the other would wait. “No,” I whispered. The pain that painted my voice was mistaken by everyone in the room—they thought I was the grieving Guardian, not the stupid Order member who might’ve royally screwed everything up.
Kass suddenly sent Liz a wordless, pleading look, to which Liz immediately took me by the hand. “Come on, let’s get you some food in the cafeteria.” I was dumbly led out, though my mind was hard at work. Max lingered, blinking, until Liz added, “You, too, Max. Let’s give Kass some privacy.”
Privacy?
Now I was the one blinking stupidly. Why would Kass need privacy with Gabriel? They were like siblings. They shared too much with each other. They grew up with each other. They were just kids.
What did they know about anything?
Chapter Twelve – Kass
The look on Crixis’s face yesterday when I marched to his door and practically sucker-punched him as I simply said “Tomorrow” was a look I wouldn’t forget. It was also a look that stayed on my mind, all throughout the night, and it remained in my head, even as I stood there, in the hospital room, staring down at Gabriel.
Guilt.
Guilt swept over me, flooded my insides. Gabriel looked so harmless, peaceful, almost, laying there in the bed. I glanced to Liz, wanting to leave even though we’d only just got here, and she mistook it as a sign that I wanted to be alone with him.
Alone, with the blonde boy. Alone, with my best friend in a coma.
Why would I want to be alone with him?
Liz shuffled out with the two guys in tow, closing the door behind her. Maybe she thought I needed alone time because this was my first time visiting, other than day one, when I ran out of here.
I looked back to Gabriel, slowly sitting on the chair beside the bed. I tentatively reached for the hand closest to me, the one that wasn’t hooked up to tubes and machines. People held hands with friends in comas, right?
His hand was strong and pale in mine, and I traced his knuckles, gazing steadily at the tattoos on the same hand.
“I miss you,” I whispered, at first, feeling odd talking to someone who wasn’t there. It was like I was talking to myself. “I miss you so much. It’s just not the same without you, you know. You’re my best friend Gabriel.” I closed my eyes. “God. If this is what you felt when I…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Because it was just so horrible. I felt awful. I felt dead.
“I need you to wake up,” I softly spoke, squeezing his hand as I opened my eyes to his vacant, relaxed face. “I’m not doing so well without you here. I know I’m not one for smart decisions, but I think I’m crossing a line that I never would’ve crossed if you were here to slap some sense into me.” I referenced my deal with Crixis, knowing that that’s where I was headed after this trip.
Gabriel would’ve yelled at me the moment I brought it up to him. He wouldn’t have let me. There were some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Crixis was our enemy from the beginning, before we even knew his name or his backstory. He’d killed so many people in his life, some of them very important to me. I had no business training with him or seeing him or spending any time with him.
“You’re my rock,” I told him. “You keep me sane. I wouldn’t have lasted in that stupid school without you. I wouldn’t know what a big deal Star Wars and Harry Potter were without you.” I smiled, my emotions too much to bare. “I miss you and I need you, so wake up.”
The blonde boy on the bed remained still, his vitals steady.
“Without you, I’m lost. Without you, I’m just a girl making bad decisions. Just a girl who’s lost everything. Don’t make me lose you, too.” I set his hand on the bed, resting it beside him, above the blanket. I stood and leaned over him, my hair falling onto his face. “I can’t lose you, so come back to me.” With that, I set a careful, precise kiss on his cheek. I wasn’t like him; I couldn’t plant one on his unresponsive lips like he did to me.
Stealing my first kiss, the jerk.
This wasn’t a Disney movie. Gabriel didn’t awaken with the touch of my lips. He stayed still, motionless even as I left the room. I spotted Michael and Liz and Max in the cafeteria, and told them I didn’t feel good, that I was going to walk home. Liz offered to drive, but I shook my head no. Michael nodded once, letting me go. He must’ve known I needed space.
I didn’t want to steel myself for the worst, but it was so hard to look at his face and believe that he’d get better. I wasn’t an eternal optimist. I was a pessimist. I was stupid. And, finally, I was tired of it. I was tired of it all.
Did being a Purifier mean that I was fated to lose everything?
Gabriel was the only thing I had left, in the scheme of things. He was my one steady, my one constant. I never knew how much I looked forward to his sarcastic quips and his deadpanning. I never realized how much I loved his quirky habits and the way he called me a racoon in the morning.
Gabriel, I willed, wake up.
Chapter Thirteen – Gabriel
My eyes opened.
I stared at the ceiling, at the white square tiles, at the grey speckles in each square. My cheek tingled, and I reached a hand to it, touching my face. The skin underneath my fingers—my skin—felt hot. I wanted to touch the other side of my face, to see if all of me felt so warm, but when my other hand rose, I found tubes connecting me to machines, needles sunken into me. I used my free hand to yank them out as I struggled to sit.
Why did my bones feel so tired? My teeth ached. My head hurt. I couldn’t remember how I got here. I couldn’t remember anything.
Not my name. Not my past. Not anything. I never felt more alone.
Well, maybe I had, but I didn’t remember it.
I glanced to my arm. The needles didn’t even draw blood as I tore them out. They hung onto me limply, half-heartedly. My skin was spotless, faultless, without a blemish or any markings. Just skin.
Why did the sight of my bare skin cause me so much uneasiness?
I tossed the blanket off me and swung my legs off the bed. It was more than clear I was in a hospital, but for what? No sooner had I wondered when I stood, and practically fell right over. My legs were like stone, my muscles not wanting to work. How long was I out? I didn’t know why I bothered to ask myself that question, because I had no answer.
After holding onto the edge of the bed for a minute, I shuffled my way to the door. The metal knob was extremely cool, almost jarring, as I pushed it down and opened it. I had to blink multiple times for my eyes to get used to the utterly white hall that I stepped into. My legs, at least, were stronger, recovering fast.
The other rooms near me were shut off, their doors each holding a numbered plague beside them, and a window with its curtains drawn. I spotted a desk station down the hall and made my way to it. The nurses and doctors would know who I was. They had to.
I stood at the desk station for at least five minutes. No one came. The computer screens were black. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t hear anything. No commotion, no alarms ringing. There were no beeping machines or hustling doctors. I looked at the round clock above the desk.
The second hand was frozen.
My stare did not move from the clock, my expression intensifying. This was weird, right? Normally, those things moved. Constantly. My fingers gripped the edges of the counter, and for a moment, I swore the clock was about to jump back to life—so sure that my grip on the laminate hardened. It hardened so much that the laminate counter snapped in my grip.
What?
I jerked back, moving my stare from the clock to my hands. In front of me, a piece of the countertop fell to the floor, and still, no nurses came to my aid. Not a single sound in the hall, except for my erratic breathing.
“Okay. I’m sure there’s an explanation for that,” I spoke aloud, startled at the sound of my own voice. Did I always sound like that? “Is anyone here?” I shouted once I overcame the disgust that went hand in hand with hearing your own voice and nothing else. “Hello? Any doctors? Nurses? Any medically-trained personnel in the building?”
The hallway remained, unfortunately, empty.
I started walking down the hall, away from the room I came from. Within ten steps, I was power-walking. In twenty, I was jogging, my hospital gown flapping in the wind from my movement. My backside felt pretty bare.
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