Once Upon an Angel (To Light and Guard Book 2.5)

by Piper Hannah

I pulled Paige’s body out from the water and laid her on the concrete. She was dead… but I wasn’t happy. It was confusing to feel this way. This is what I wanted, and yet, nothing felt right. I didn’t feel the satisfaction I thought I would feel. I actually felt worse now than I did a few moments ago as I watched swimming.

  What I just did was wrong. Luke and Kyrie would probably hate me even more for this.

  I knelt next to her lifeless body, staring and waiting for something to happen. Maybe she wasn’t truly dead? Perhaps she was just pretending like before.

  I leaned in, my right ear coming very close to the tip of her nose. She wasn’t breathing, and I couldn’t hear the beats of her heart. I reached into her chest, my fingers passing cleanly through her flesh and bones without tearing her skin, without making a cut. I touched her heart, and I wrapped it in my hand. It was soft, but it was still. Unmoving. And dead. Paige was definitely dead… because this is how humans worked. Once the heart stops beating, the entire body fails, and the soul goes away. They didn’t heal as angels and demons healed.

  I slowly let go of her heart, and I pulled my hand gently away from her body, passing through her skin. My hand, however, was covered in her blood, and I trembled. I watched a tiny drop of her blood drip on the concrete. It splattered. Then, I heard someone scream.

  It was a piercing shriek, similar to what an animal would make. Startled, I spun as I stood up very quickly, and my black wings flared.

  It was Paige’s mother, and she was staring at me with wide agonized eyes as she continued to scream. She could see me, then. That was surprising because I was invisible to most humans.

  I took a step in an attempt to fly, but I couldn’t move. My body felt paralyzed, and I felt trapped. Confused, I looked at Paige’s mother. When I saw her eyes - the darkness that was within - that was when I realized what I was dealing with. She was a witch. A very powerful one, it seemed.

  She stopped screaming, but she started panting as if she couldn’t control her breaths. Then, she raised both of her hands in the air, her palms facing up. Tears sprouted from her eyes. Her eyes narrowed as she stared me down, her anger quickly replacing her tears. Helplessly, I struggled with the invisible bonds that held me.

  The witch closed both of her hands into tight fists. She started humming a hard and angry tune; there was a tremor in her voice.

  I felt something tight wrap around my chest. Involuntarily, my body rose from the ground and I floated away from Paige's body I tried to struggle, but I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe. I felt a tightening on my chest, as if someone was squeezing my heart. I made a gurgling sound, and the pain frightened me.

  My body drifted on top of the water and hovered in the center of the pool. The water beneath me started swirling, slowly at first, then, it gained speed. I felt dread, because the water now looked like a portal, and I didn’t know what was on the other side.

  A tall, brown-haired man ran out of the house, his face shocked. When he saw Paige’s wet body on the ground, his face turned into torment. This man - this human - was Paige’s father... and Kyrie’s. I could see the resemblance clearly, and he was also the archangel I encountered in Hell. It was Michael. How he ended up as their father, I would never know.

  The man immediately went to Paige’s dead body. He placed his hands on her chest and pushed down several times. Then, he tilted her head up and tried breathing air into her body. He was trying to bring her back to life. I had seen humans do this before. Entranced, I almost forgot the pain in my chest as I wondered if his attempt at saving her life would work.

  Michael kept pumping Paige’s chest, trying to bring her back to life for several more minutes as the witch hummed and kept me suspended on top of the pool. The water beneath me swirled faster now, and it licked at my bare feet.

  “She’s not breathing. She’s not breathing. She’s not breathing,” Michael said repeatedly, his voice filled with desperation and fear.

  The witch’s head turned towards him, and I felt her magic waver. It was all I needed. I pulled my arms up and my arms were freed from her spell. I twisted to the right and spun, flaring my wings at the same time, breaking the magic she had on my legs. In one swoop, I was standing behind the witch with her head between my hands. I twisted her head, and I heard it snap. Stunned, I let her head go, and I watched her broken body collapse on the floor.

  I grimaced when I realized what I had just done. Killing one human meant that my wings would turn black, but killing two would send me back to Hell. This was not what I had planned. I didn’t want to go back there. I clutched my hair, gripping it tight, and pulled hard. It wouldn’t be long now until I disappeared from the Earth once again.

  Paige’s father stood up very quickly. His eyes were wide with disbelief as he stared at the dead witch on the ground.

  Michael transformed right in front of me, turning back into an angel. Within seconds, he became larger, his hair grew longer, and his wings sliced through his shirt as they appeared and unfurled from his back.

  With a deafening roar, he reached for me very quickly. Grabbing my throat with both hands, his momentum threw us both into the pool. We hit the water with a loud splash. Our combined weight brought us down, and my wings scraped the bottom of the pool.

  I tried to subdue the fear inside of me. My mind reasoned that it didn’t matter what he wanted to do to me with me now. I only had seconds left before my body would be transported back to Hell. I already felt myself disappearing, my body disintegrating into the water and turning me into nothing. Because that was what I was.

  Nothing.

  No one cared about what happens to me.

  No one will care when I am gone.

  Because I am nothing.

  The archangels hands were still tightly coiled around my neck. I wondered if he intended to kill me. I tried to pull his hands away, but his strength was much greater than mine.

  There was so much anger inside of him that his entire body was shaking from it, and the water that surrounded us vibrated with his anger.

  I looked into his eyes and was awed by its color; his purple eyes turned so dark that it was almost black. Then, the black started seeping through the white in his eyes. This was strange. I should have stayed away from his family because there was something to fear from this particular angel.

  I struggled against him, trying to break free. For a second, I forgot where I was, and I inhaled some water, choking on it.

  “Demon…” the archangel spoke, his voice was deep, and it trembled within the water. “I banish you from the Earth... for all eternity.”

  Anger. Pain. Hate.

  His voice was filled with his emotions, and I knew where they stemmed from.

  His loss.

  Because I killed his family.

  His daughter.

  His wife.

  I did this to him. It was all me. I was the cause of his pain, and now, he was suffering because of me. For so long, it seemed, all I thought of was my revenge. Before I killed Paige, even as I prayed, I never thought about the consequences her death would bring her family. That was my error.

  I looked at Michael, and I saw the same hate I had felt inside of me for so long; it was reflected in his eyes.

  “I apologize,” I said to the archangel, and I meant it. I was deeply sorry for causing him this anger, this pain.

  Michael didn’t react to my apology. It was as if he didn’t even hear my words, or he simply didn’t care. To him, I was just another demon.

  Michael’s grip on my throat became tighter as he squeezed. Despite the urge to pull them away, I lifted both of my hands from his wrists. I reached for his face, but it passed right through him.

  Then, just as I had predicted, I disappeared, my body fading from this earth. My one last thought being was that an archangel had just cursed me, and maybe there was something far worse than being in Hell.

  CHAPTER 10

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