His eyes pierced me. “I don’t know, Max. But we’ll figure this out. I have a friend out in Los Angeles that can possibly help us.” I nodded and placed the paper towels back on my ears.
I closed my eyes again and relaxed against the rough upholstery. Jones started the engine and it purred to life.
Finally, a working car.
We drove until we reached Albuquerque and stopped for sleep. Jones and I hadn’t said much since Clayton and I’m still in somewhat of a state of shock. He pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6. I waited in the car while Jones booked a room and I looked down at my hands to see them shaking. I rubbed them together to get rid of the jitters but they were still there. I leaned against the window and closed my eyes with thoughts of my mom and what she might tell me to do.
“We could go see Mary Lou? Her delectable coffee cake will cheer you right up, baby,” she would have said in her soft, feminine voice. “Or let’s go to the beach! There’s a spot under the pier I found the other day that you would love! You’ve been too stressed, honey. You just need to rest.”
A tap on my window brought me back to the present and I opened the door.
“I’ve been screaming your name for like five minutes,” Jones said as he rubbed his eyes in frustration.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“Yeah right,” he said sarcastically to himself.
I snapped. “I said I was sorry! What more do you want?!” The sound of my mother fresh in my mind. Instead of being calm, I only felt more riled up. I was on the verge of a breakdown but I’ve held on for this long, I can’t break now.
“What are you talking about Max? I didn’t say anything…” I stared at him with furrowed brows. I heard him loud and clear.
“You said ‘yeah right’ like I was lying or something and I wasn’t,” my breathing became ragged and I felt a sort of desperation overwhelm me. Keep it together, Max, this isn’t a big deal.
“Okay Max, take a deep breath and relax,” he said as he grabbed most of our bags from the front seat. He then came around to the back and crouched down in front of the open back door where I sat, “Listen, stay here for a moment and calm down. You see that room straight ahead on the second floor?” I nodded when I followed his gaze to the door. “That’s our room, when you hear me, give me a shout, okay? But make sure you are trying to listen for me, got it?”
I nodded.
Jones got up and with most of our things went up the stairs to our room. Once he shut the door behind him, I sat there and waited. I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do and after a couple of seconds, I got out the car and grabbed my duffle.
“You smell like my gym socks,” Jones said and I turned around looking for him but the parking lot was empty.
“Hey! I resent that!” I yelled. My body stiff, I flung my duffle on my back and jogged to the stairs and up to our room. Before I got there, the door was open and Jones was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. Worry lines covered his forehead and he looked more frustrated than usual.
“What? What’s wrong, did my dad call?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
I continued walking towards him. I brushed past him and dropped my bag on one of the beds.
“Max, we may have a situation on our hands,” Jones closed and locked the door. “You heard me talk to you but I barely whispered it. It seems your hearing has amplified. Do you feel different?”
I felt the change in my body the moment it happened—when the cold burn coursed through my veins that night with Abbadon—but I hadn’t known what was actually going on with me. I think I subconsciously knew that once the pain was over, nothing would be the same. I just didn’t know the extent of the change.
“Max, are you listening to me?” Jones said as he waved his hands in front of my face.
“Huh? Yeah…” I said but I hadn’t heard a thing he was saying.
“Doubt it but I’m not going to get into that. I want to test this theory out. Light up.”
“What?”
“Go up in flames, don’t think, just do it.”
In a moment of clarity, I did just that. I didn’t think I just did it. It’s like I have an internal light switch now that I can actually control it without having to make myself angry. On a hunch, I snapped my fingers and a small flame lit up on the tip of my pointer finger.
“Holy smokes, are you seeing this?” I said to Jones in excitement. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I spread the fire down my hand to my forearm and up to my shoulder. Like riding a bike. Amazing.
“How are you doing that Max?”
“I don’t know but it’s easy, not like before…I wonder what else I can do.”
Jones ran over to the windows and started closing the blinds. He grabbed towels from the bathroom and stuffed them in front of the bottom of the door. “We should train,” he said with a sly smile. I thought about it for a moment, we hadn’t really trained since we went on the run. But this was as good of a time as any. And it’s time I try and make an effort to fix things between Jones and me.
3
“I’ll have the All You Can Eat original pancakes with scrambled eggs and cheese, bacon, sausage, and hash browns with the biggest glass of orange juice you have—oh, and can I get a side order of French toast?” Jones said as he handed the menu back to the waitress.
“Are you sure that’s enough food?”
“We’ve been on the run for over a month and with all the training we did last night—a man’s gotta eat.”
We had spent almost the whole night working on my senses—sparring with a blind fold, I was able to use my enhanced hearing instead of sight. It wasn’t the first time Jones trained me with a blindfold but it was the first time I was able to do it with ease. The simplicity of it baffled me and I’m pretty sure Jones as well. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t tired. We sparred almost until sunrise and I could feel the lack of exercise in my muscles. But I welcomed the soreness with open arms. I felt different this morning, more alive and not the empty vessel I’ve been for a while. I still wasn’t a hundred percent, but this was a start.
“Alright kid, I’m starting you off with four pancakes and then you just holler when—” the waitress didn’t get the chance to finish handing us our meals. The glass doors to IHOP burst open and two men came in. Dressed in all black, they stopped by the hostess podium and scanned the dining room. They didn’t look like the grey scaly demons that we usually encounter but I wasn’t going to underestimate them either. Zoning in on our table, their heavy boots echoed in the now silent restaurant—they stopped next to our waitress. Her hands shook as she still held on to my country style omelet. The sweat beads on her forehead glistened against the New Mexico sun that seeped through the window and she wasn’t the only one nervous—the other patrons gazed at the two mystery men who took off their sunglasses.
“Maximillion, the Nephilim of Wrath,” one of them said as he alternated looks between Jones and me. He was really tall and bald—the sun reflected off his scalp—but it was the Asian curve of his eyes that really made me stare.
I cleared my throat, got up from the booth, and looked up to the gorilla sized man that blasted my government name in the middle of IHOP. “Yeah?” I sized him up, looking for a weakness, anything to give me the advantage.
“You need to come with us,” the other one said just as I saw the one in front of me favor his right leg.
“Like hell I do,” I said as I kicked the guy in front of me in his knee. He jerked and doubled over; I put him in a head lock and cut off his circulation. I looked to Jones and saw that he already had the other man pinned to our table.
Damn, my coffee spilled. And to think I thought this was going to be my first good day in weeks.
Our waitress dropped the plates in her hands and screamed for someone to call the police as everyone fled the restaurant.
“Who sent you?” I spoke into the man’s ear and loosened my grip so he could speak. I knew it was
Abbadon who sent them, but I needed him to tell me this himself. I needed confirmation that Abbadon was the one after me. After a while, I can never really tell who the bad guy is.
Silence.
He didn’t move or say a word until something slammed on the table behind me—well more like someone. I glanced back and Jones let the limp body he had pinned to the table drop down to the floor.
“What? He kept flailing his arms and it was annoying. Anyways, you look like you can use some help with this interrogation before five O gets here.” He cracked his knuckles and squatted down to meet the guy at eye level. “Okay big guy, I have some questions that need answers, so I’m going to need you to cooperate before I tell my buddy Max here to set you ablaze. So first question—what are you?” I loosened my grip on him again.
“I am Zafar, one of the fallen.”
“How did you find us?”
Before I could react, Zafar gripped my forearm and flung me over his shoulders. I slid across the dirty, grease stained floor—coming to a halt as I slammed into the next table a few feet away. I should have known it was too easy to restrain him. And if my aching muscles were any inclination, I was out of shape. Getting to my feet, I came at him from behind and got a good look at how big he really was. He had to be about seven feet.
I jabbed my foot behind his right knee again, he jerked and Jones hand circled around his neck and slammed him to the ground. With a fireball at the ready, I leaned over Zafar—the blue flame next to his cheek—his skin blistering from the flecks of fire.
With Jones sitting on his chest keeping him still with his super strength, I said, “Now let’s see if you’ll cooperate. How did you find us?” He spit in my face, and Jones, still gripping his neck, slammed his head to the ground—knocking him out.
“That bastard!” I said as I wiped my face clean with a random napkin on a table.
“Easy there, princess. Let’s grab whatever these guys have in their pockets and head out. I can hear the sirens getting closer.” I searched the nameless fallen angel by our table and grabbed a set of keys, a phone and a wallet that were in his pockets.
Before we left, Jones turned to me and said, “Light it up.” I took out the lighter in my pocket and lit up one of the place mats and dropped it on the floor. We had never used a lighter so far but this was our first encounter with the fallen and we didn’t want to raise suspicions with the humans if this place burned down with blue flames. We went out the back door as the fire spread and the whole restaurant was an inferno.
I took the set of keys we found and pressed the unlock button on the key fob. At the far corner of the parking lot, a shiny black SUV’s headlights flicked on and off and we headed towards it, getting inside. The few people, who stayed and waited for the police, hadn’t even seen us leave through the back as I saw them panic once they noticed the fire.
We drove to where we left our car at a gas station about a mile down the road—not wanting to be connected to a stolen vehicle—we passed fire trucks and police cars going the opposite direction.
Jones pulled in next to the car and like clockwork, we got out and I began to unhook the license plates and swap them out. Meanwhile Jones checked the SUV for bugs or any GPS device that could track us. This had become a routine for us. Every few days we swapped vehicles so no one could pick up on our trail. So far so good—until today.
I screwed in the last corner of our license plate and walked over to the passenger side. Jones was already sitting in the driver’s seat.
“How the hell did they find us? I could have sworn we lost everyone back in Jersey,” Jones said to himself as he slammed his palms on the steering wheel. “Look through the glove compartments and see what you can find.”
I rummaged through papers as Jones pulled out of the gas station and drove onto the main highway.
“So…have you spoken to my Dad today?” I asked in hopes to hear some good news and a change of subject. Since the night that everything changed—and my mother was killed, I haven’t spoken to my father. Not because I don’t want to but because he doesn’t. He calls Jones on a regular, and from the little he’s told me, Angela and my dad are in hiding as well.
“He called this morning while you were in the shower,” Jones said, shifting in his seat. I could tell this makes him uncomfortable. He’s become the messenger between us and I can only imagine how difficult it can be.
“And…?”
“And nothing has changed. He can’t tell us where they are just like we can’t. But they’re okay,” he said as he let out a sigh.
“I don’t care if she’s okay…I just don’t understand why he won’t talk to me.”
“Max, this is a complicated situation. I think you should wait to make judgment on Angela till we hear her side of the story.”
“Are you kidding me? I was there! How could she not know that for the last five hundred years her father was alive? She stopped me from saving my mom, Jones. What other side of the story is there?” I said as I picked up a map from under my seat.
“If I would have known I’d get this much emotion from you before, I’d brought her up a long—” Jones started to say but I didn’t let him finish.
“Pull over!” I screamed as I stared at the map in my hands.
“What?”
“I found something, pull over!” He swerved onto the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. The desert sand floated around the SUV and clouded the windows.
I held onto a map of the United States with blue dots in different locations. Locations we had travelled to. What caught my attention wasn’t that I realized they’d been following us from the get go—and they color coordinated—but that they found another Nephilim.
“What did you find?” He asked as I stared mindlessly at the only yellow dot on the map.
“Greed.”
“Huh?” Jones snatched the map out of my hands in frustration.
While we’ve been on the run for the past month, we’d also been trying to find another Nephilim. Since the night my mother was killed, we knew things were going to change. And now that my vision and hearing has heightened and I’ve become stronger—much stronger, finding the Nephilim seemed more crucial than ever. We haven’t had much luck since most angels think my kind are either a myth or extinct, but it seems our luck has changed.
My adrenaline from our earlier encounter with the fallen still coursed through me as I stared off into the desert road and thought about that unforgettable night.
The ache in my chest grew tenfold as pin pricks of ice pinched me from my toes and spread throughout my whole body. I shook uncontrollably with my hands fisted at my sides. The ice that pierced my insides; melted into water and it flowed through me like a river. With my eyes still closed, I gasped for air, opening and closing my mouth, chest rising and falling. I tried to speak and ask for help but I couldn’t. The ice water that ran inside of me was so cold it burned. The pain was excruciating, I clawed at my neck and chest, trying to rip myself open to stop the burn.
“Max!” Jones yelled and snapped me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“You checked out, where were you?” I was in my kitchen—where the change happened…where my mom was killed.
“Nowhere, so are we going?” I said, changing the subject.
He looked at me skeptically and I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew I wasn’t telling the truth. He shook his head and decided not to question me. Instead he looked down at the map in his hands and said, “Las Vegas, here we come.”
4
The dry heat of the desert was such a nice change from the humidity of the southeast. And once it got closer to the evening, a nice icy breeze rolled in. I stuck my hand out the window and let the cold hit my skin.
We’d been on the road for eight hours and I was becoming restless; that is until I saw the bright lights of Las Vegas. It was late evening so the sky was a light dusk and the lights shone brilliantly. And while I knew this trip wasn’t for pleasure, I
couldn’t help but get excited about being here. I had always thought I’d come here once I turned twenty one. Guess it was sooner than I thought.
We passed the sign that said, “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas,” and we were on the famous strip within minutes.
According to the map, Greed’s alias is Nikolai, but I had no idea how we were going to find him in all the chaos. Las Vegas is a very big place.
We passed a quickie chapel where an Elvis impersonator stood outside the side walk singing “Viva Las Vegas” and his voice pierced my ear drums. I let out an involuntary scream and covered my ears.
In the far distance I could hear Jones asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t answer. My ears felt like they were bleeding again. The pain was so intense, I had to put my head between my legs and scream as loud as I could to block out the sounds that were coming from everywhere. Someone slammed on their brakes, a girl yelled “shots, shots, shots,” slot machines cashed out coins. Every sound was amplified and I hadn’t known how long I could take anymore. Please not again.
Shutting my eyes, I yelled as loud as I could and didn’t stop until Jones was shaking me awake.
“Max, what happened?!”
The noise diminished and I felt the dried up tears on my face. Slowly, I removed my hands from my ears and waited. What the hell was that?
“I heard everything, it was all so damn loud,” I said and raised my hands to my ears again to check for blood. None. This time, at least.
“What did you hear?” Jones asked with obvious concern and I told him everything. This was not something I could keep from him, not anymore. The pain was excruciating and if there was anything we could do to avoid it from happening again, then I needed it.
He reached into the back seat and pulled his huge Beats headphones out of his bag.
“Here, put these on for a minute. I don’t know why your hearing has gone haywire but I have an idea. I’ll be right back, stay put,” he said as he turned off the car in front of a Walgreens and went outside. I hadn’t even realized we’d parked somewhere.
Greed (Sins of the Fallen Book 2) Page 2