Defiant Destiny

by Madison Cumbee

  Zev, sensing our silent contention, offered himself. “But I won’t be able to work as much when basketball starts up.”

  “That’s alright,” Azra said. “We’ll deal with it when the time comes.”

  ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂ ♂

  Within a week later, Azra and I were back on regular, amiable terms. We didn’t talk about the night of our argument, but there was an unspoken agreement to never bring up the subject again. Still, I kept thinking about what he’d said. The more I tried to dismiss those thoughts, the greater the force they used the next time they infected my thoughts.

  V-Bomb

  Chapter 11

  Keira

  By the end of October, I was going crazy! I went to Elly for some ranting and ridiculous questions like: Is there something wrong with me? What’s going on? Everything seems perfect, but then… What’s that all about? She didn’t understand my babblings so I had to calm down long enough to explain that Uriel hadn’t kissed me yet. I know this might seem stupid and, like my questions, ridiculous, but I didn’t know what he was waiting for. I mean, come on! I was ready to be put in a padded room already! Bring on the monochromatic surroundings because a white room with people in white jackets would feel like home by now. Over a month and a half had gone by and nothing. I was new to dating and everything, but seriously! I was pretty sure that the third date is the kissing date, and we were way past three. I wanted my kiss!

  Once she understood, Elly did her best to consol me, telling me that if anything was wrong then it was him and that I was totally justified in my desires. She suggested that Uriel could be trying to take it slow out of respect for me.

  I gawked at her. “Take it slow!?!” She didn’t dare answer. “This is snail speed. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking to him- we have to know mostly everything about each other, we talk so much- but I want to do more than talk,” I whined.

  Elly was obviously too absent-minded to do any real comforting. She looked weird. While I had been pacing in her room for the last twenty minutes, Elly had been laying on her bed hardly saying a word and doing nothing but smiling in the goofiest way I had ever seen her look.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I snapped at her.

  She patted the area on her bed that wasn’t covered by a pillow or herself. I sat down, and Elly started chewing on her lip while still grinning like a fool.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t think straight right now. I did something, and I can’t stop thinking about him-it,” she quickly corrected herself. Him?

  She looked so happy. And floating. And weird. I had been complaining about my boy and she was thinking of one of her own. This time, my voice was curious. “What is it?”

  She kept gnawing on her lower lip, not saying anything, so I waited impatiently, and I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering back to Uriel. Finally, Elly exhaled, “I slept with him.” And my attention instantly jerked back to her.

  “Uriel!?! You slept with my boyfriend!?!” I yelled at her.

  She grabbed my wrist to keep me from storming out of her room. Or ripping the place to shreds. I could have done either at that moment. “No! I’m talking about my guy- Michael- the one I told you about.”

  Whew. I slapped my hand over my heart like that would make it go back to its normal speed. “The one you didn’t want to jinx having a relationship with?” I asked.

  “Yes!” She squealed.

  How was I supposed to respond to that? Although Elly was popular with the guys, she had never gone all the way with one. I knew this because she would have told me. And because of how she looked right then. I had never seen her look like that before. I realized she was now gazing at me expectantly. I racked my brain for something to tell her. It was really hard to think of something- I hadn’t expected when I came over to her house that she would drop the V-bomb on me.

  “Umm… were you safe?”

  “Keira!”

  “Well! I don’t know what to say!” I thought a bit longer. “Was he nice to you?”

  Her smile faltered for a second, and she got a strange look on her face but said, “Yeah.”

  “Good.” It still hadn’t sunk in yet. Elly lost her V-card. “Were you ready for it?”

  “I’ve been ready for a while; I just never found the right guy. But once I did, I knew instantly.” Ew. “It was so wonderful.” Eww.

  She got a strange, mesmerized expression on her face. “You’re grossing me out,” I told her. But in all honesty, I was jealous. My friend had found someone who wanted her as much as she wanted him. And I constantly felt like I needed permission to get close to my boyfriend. But Elly was happy, so I needed to be happy for her. I changed my tone to be lighter. “You’re disgusting me into celibacy,” I told her.

  She laughed and my friend sailed back down to earth. “Don’t say that. You just have to wait. Uriel will come around, and then you’ll see. It just…” she trailed off.

  She was so happy. And slowly, I felt her happiness spread to my own feelings. It was contagious. “Do you love him Elly?”

  We locked eyes. “I think so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked away. “Michael says the perfect things at the perfect times. He always seems to understand what I’m going through no matter what. Did you know that he prefers to use my full first name? I usually hate that, but it’s different with him. He makes me feel like I’m special. Like I’m just what he’s been looking for…”

  Elly’s brown curls fell over her shoulder and she pushed them back away from her face. Then I had to ask. “How was it?” I was surprised at how quiet my voice was.

  “Honestly?”

  I nodded.

  “It was great. The actual act was better than I had imagined, but there was this weird feeling afterward.” She shook her head and dismissed it. “I don’t know what it was.”

  I’d never seen this guy who we were talking about, and who apparently made Elly giddy. Was it possible that she had found a Uriel of her own? “Do I get to meet him now?”

  “Yeah, of course,” she replied instantly. And then she added, “But you can’t judge him until you actually get to know him.”

  “Oh, come on. You know that it’s our way to judge books by their covers,” I teased not meaning books at all.

  Elly understood. She laughed and then became serious again. “I mean it. No assumptions.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Then she promised, “We’ll all get together soon.”

  This didn’t happen for another month.

  ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀

  Once the dress for “The Dreaded Event” was picked out- it was the one with pockets that, miraculously, remained undetected- Mother shifted into full throttle. Not a day went by that I wasn’t being measured, asked for a decision on something, or some other awful preparation was being made. I thought it would never end. But there was an upside- with Mother so focused on “The Dreaded Event,” she didn’t seem to notice that I went out a ton more often than my norm. Uriel hadn’t come to my house since our second date. After my parents came back from New York, I met him places and drove myself home. That way, introductions between him and my parents were delayed. I was very proud of myself for letting him be discovered so far.

  Let’s see… basketball still had my stomach in knots half of the time, but I felt like I was improving since Zev practiced with me at least once a week- with the season about to begin, I needed all the help I could get. And Zev always seemed happy to do the job. He’s just really nice that way.

  What else? Mmm… School was school. Junior year is definitely the hardest so far, and I have to admit that my grades are not as high as last year. Oh well.

  Everything’s great now that I have Uriel in my life. It sounds cheesy and overstated, but hey, I call it like I see it. He hasn’t changed my location or my lineage, but he does distract me from them- so I’m happy. It turns out that, other than the physical attraction, we are very compatible in other ways as w
ell. Not only do we have similar taste in books and music, but also in sports and recreations; Uriel uses physical conditioning to work through his problems too. More than one time I’ve gone over to his place when my mother went overboard with her demands, and Uriel took me to a soccer field where he stood by and watched while I attempted to kick the crap out of a ball that he had brought. Or we’d stay at his place and play basketball with Zev. One time, I even played a violent video game with Dagan where it was my mission to kill as many of the game’s characters as possible, and Uriel cheered me on whenever I slaughtered enough of them to get to the next level. He truly is Merry Poppins- practically perfect in every way. Well, other than the not kissing me yet, but he has to soon, right? Elly gave up her V-card, but I couldn’t get one kiss? Not fair... But it’ll happen. It’s all good.

  It. Is. All. Good.

  But a little irritating voice spoke up in the back of my mind- you know, that one that always shows up at the worst time and never has anything nice to say- and it taunted, Keep telling yourself that.

  You Know My Name

  Chapter 12

  Uriel

  After a month of playing with the school band, I was invited to join the jazz band. Josh Jones was very encouraging, and I figured it was a logical advance into the musical clique that was my individual mission so I accepted. When the second quarter began I started getting up and driving to school early so I could practice with the others before regular classes began. Azra drove the guild on those days- not even Odeda can drag Dagan and Zev out of bed before six-thirty.

  Other than the big picture- aka the mission- each of my family takes on an individual mission at each new city we move to. I kept my eyes and ears open for anything askew during the early jazz practices, but I couldn’t seem to notice any way to help the students; everyone appeared to be fine. When I reported this to Azra one night, he replied that there’s always something wrong. No matter how perfect people look on the surface, there’s always something in their lives they need help with. But everyone had the same relation- none of the guild had found anyone within our three months of being in High Point who needed our help. “There’s always someone,” Azra said almost to himself. “Zev,” he asked hopefully, “how’s our charge?”

  We were all sitting at our usual spot in the backyard. Zev had been working at the coffee shop with our charge for about a month. “She’s really nice; I like her.”

  Azra sat bewildered. That wasn’t what he’d been talking about. “What else?”

  “Oh! Okay.” Zev sat up straighter and put on an uncharacteristically stern face. “The charge appears to be extremely powerful. Power seems to radiate off her which surprised me since she is unaware that she is one of us. I sensed a Watcher was close by at approximately oh-nine-hundred hours one Saturday morning, but the Watcher never entered the premises,” Zev said in a fake serious voice. He was making fun of Azra’s need for there to be something for us to do that pertained to the mission. Watching Zev’s martial impersonation darken Azra’s features made me struggle to suppress a smile. Zev went on, “All is quiet on the western front. I feel very fortunate that the charge decided to work less during the week- it would have devastated me to not be able to complete this mission because of any interference that my individual mission- the basketball team- may have caused. Sir!” I was wondering how he managed to keep a straight face, and when Odeda started laughing, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. Dagan, on the other hand, had been cracking up ever since Zev’s first character-changed word.

  On the subject of basketball- the men’s and women’s varsity season was going great. I knew Keira had been worried since the beginning of the year, but she’d had no reason for it. She led her team to victory in all the games they had so far. I went to watch every one that I could, and the only person in the stands that yelled his encouragement louder than me was Zev. We always got too into sports, even when we were simply spectators. But then, after the girls’ game, the varsity guys would follow up, and I kept my commentary down when Keira joined me on the bleachers. She would verbalize her support, but it was nowhere near the volume my brother and I would raise our voices to, so I turned it down some- not that I had to be loud in order for my fellow Nephilim to hear me.

  Keira seemed to appreciate my overall volume control and would smile to herself whenever I realized I had accidentally worked up to shouting and would suddenly go silent for a few minutes. I swear, sometimes she makes me feel like I’m seventeen again- not that I actually remember how I was at that age; hell, I can’t even recall what it was like being seventeen hundred years old- hormone driven, innocent, and, don’t tell anyone, but, nervous. Sometimes all she has to do is look at me and I become more unsettled than I’ve ever been during all of my battles against Watchers combined. I didn’t understand it, but I liked it.

  “Uriel,” Azra turned to me, ignoring Zev’s joke completely, “how’s Keira?”

  I stopped laughing and so did everyone else. That was the last question I would have expected him to ask. Especially since we hadn’t talked about Keira’s and my relationship for a while. What is he- a mind-reader now? How did he know she was in my thoughts just then? “I have no complaints,” I answered.

  Azra seemed to have noticed the sobering affect his question had had on us because a fleeting regretful expression crossed his face. He quickly returned to the leading role he had been exuding a few minutes before. “I only ask to make sure that she doesn’t suspect anything about us.”

  “Oh. No,” I told him and then recalled one comment Keira had made a while back. “The closest she’s come to anything was guessing that I was a vampire.”

  Zev snorted, and I heard him mutter, “Typical.” But he kept smiling, probably because it was Keira who had thought it.

  Azra didn’t share our brother’s good humor. “Why would she suspect that?” he inquired, leaning forward.

  “Once while we were on our way to dinner, I noticed Keira checking the speedometer, and I asked her why. She said she had just been thinking about our first date. Apparently, the speed at which I had driven back was too fast and is now burned into her memory.” I smiled. Not much rattled her, but that drive down the mountain had caught her off guard. “Then, she recollected another time that I had moved abnormally quickly on foot when getting ready for the ride back. And when she adopted a bemused grin, I asked about her thoughts. She admitted to imagining me sleeping while hanging upside down and turning into a bat at will. She reads too many vampire novels.”

  “And what did you say to her theory?” Azra looked worried. He’d been taking things way too seriously lately. Then again, it should be expected; the longer a mission goes on, the less fun he becomes. It’s in his nature.

  “Relax, Azra. It wasn’t a literal theory. Just a joke. She was smiling the whole time.” His palpable dissatisfaction provoked a heavy sigh from me. “I told Keira that I wasn’t a vampire.” Azra gave a small nod of approval. “I told her I wasn’t one, but that I could introduce her to a few.”

  Zev let loose a booming laugh, and Dagan added his own cackling. I even saw Odeda grin.

  Azra, however, was not amused and took my words as truth instead of the sarcasm they had been delivered with. “Uriel, you didn’t!” he scolded.

  “No,” I allowed. “I didn’t. But it would have been funny, wouldn’t it?”

  Crashing Down

  Chapter 13

  Keira

  Elly finally came through on her word. I picked her up one Saturday morning at the beginning of November and drove to the Barnes and Noble on Eastchester. I would have much rather have gone to the one at South Point since it’s two stories tall- a.k.a. heaven- but a trip to Durham would have to wait until we had more time.

  Elly wasn’t all that into books, but she humored me since we had decided to take turns picking the stores we would go to. The plan was to have some girl-time and then meet up with the guys somewhere that was kind of in the middle of everyone. And yes, I said guys.
Elly had decided she wanted to meet Uriel, and so we settled on a double date kind of thing for lunch. I’d get to meet Elly’s guy and she’d get to meet mine; it was a win-win.

  We entered my favorite store of all time, and after we purchased two small coffees, Elly followed me around picking up a book every now and then that she would discard after seeing how many pages it had or the size of the print. “Why don’t you like to read?” I asked her. I knew she was more of the magazine type, but I’d never questioned her preference before.

  She thought for a few minutes. “There’s nothing that really interests me about other people’s lives when I can be living my own.” She gave me a side-long glance. “Why do you like to read books?”

  Thinking of her answer, I replied, “I guess I always found the characters’ in my novels lives and adventures more diverting than my own existence in this town. Reading about vampires and fairies was more fun than doing homework or listening about Mother’s business trips. Books have been my distractions.” Elly had no idea what I was talking about. And how could she? So I explained further, “Not everyone has a school brimming with cute boys and a mom who bakes cookies.”

  She bobbed her head in a way that said she accepted my point. “But now you have a cute boy, or so I’m assuming until I see him for myself in a few hours.”

  “You’re going to have to use a stronger word than cute to describe Uriel when you meet him. And that’s true- now I have a regular interest that makes me happy and isn’t on paper. But I still love to read.”