by Curd, Megan
“Hey, if you need anything, you know I’m good for it,” Ethan said as he stood, muscles quivering in his back. He was swaying in the branch next to me outside of Hannah’s house. The way he was standing, he looked like an overgrown bird of prey. Not necessarily the greatest thing for a girl to be able to look out her window and see at eleven at night.
“Bro, get in the shadows. You’re just hanging it all out there for everyone to see.”
Ethan grinned at me. “Maybe everyone wants to see it.”
I rolled my eyes and continued to watch Hannah’s home. Geeze, I felt like such a creeper. Before the Rome trip, this was just the necessary thing to do. Now, after meeting Hannah, it felt weirder, like I should announce my presence. Obviously that wasn’t part of the job description, so creeper it was.
“Anyway,” Ethan said, making me jump, “I’m leaving. Owen called a meeting with me.”
I couldn’t help it, my eyebrows raised on their own. “What’s he want with you?”
“You cut me deep, Levi. You cut me deep. Maybe I’m getting a promotion.”
There was nothing to say to that. Another unusual stab of feeling hit me. This felt like jealousy. I think. “Whatever dude. Good luck.”
Ethan sighed. “You know I’m not going anywhere. None of us are ever going anywhere. We’re just a cruel joke to them.”
With that, he launched himself off the branch. Leaves flew in all directions as he rocketed through the tree.
Silence swallowed me whole. It was just me, the tree, and Hannah’s sweater. Hannah was inside, taking a shower by the sound of it. I closed my eyes and leaned back into the trunk of the tree. Hannah’s scent floated like leaves around me. That sickening vanilla she always wore was starting to grow on me.
What was wrong with me? What was I thinking? I caught myself holding her sweater to my face, inhaling her sweet scent. This could not be good. This internal struggle, this emotion…what was it? Why was it there? I had been the Guard of other humans. There had never been any desire to smell their stink or Guard them any closer than absolutely necessary. What was it about this girl?
I opened my eyes and looked into Hannah’s blue ones. She was looking directly at me. Her eyes were wide with shock, but she didn’t seem scared. There wasn’t much point in fighting it; I knew she could see me. I nodded toward her and repositioned my wings.
It seemed like she was finally grasping the fact that there was a teenager with wings in the tree outside her room. Well, teen in her eyes. I was actually older than anyone else she’d ever met, but I wouldn’t tell her that. I smiled grimly, not sure whether or not this was a good thing that she could see me. I was going to let her lead the way. No reason to interact more than necessary.
As if able to hear my thoughts, she opened the window. Her face was a mask to me. She was hiding her emotions well, and it kind of drove me nuts. There was no introduction, she simply got straight to the point. “Why are you outside my room?”
I chuckled. “That’s the first question that comes to your mind?”
“Well, I was wondering where my sweater had gone, too,” she motioned toward the blue mass in my hands.
I stood up and strode across the thick branch to her window. She leaned out the window, slipping one leg out.
Was she seriously going to try to come out? I panicked a little bit, worried she’d slip or something. I put my hands out for a second, but then withdrew them. No touching humans. I hoped she had good balance if she was going to come out here. “What are you doing?”
She laughed and the sound of it stopped me in my tracks. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m sitting down.”
I watched as she sat down, one leg in the house and the other dangling out of the window. She was wearing gym shorts and a tank top, her usual nighttime attire. I smiled as the moon cast a silvery glow to her blonde hair. She could almost pass as a Guardian.
“So, you never answered me. Why are you outside my room? And why were you in Rome?”
Her blue eyes pierced me with an intensity that I hadn’t experienced with a human. I sat down near the end of the branch, close enough that she could see, but far enough away that we couldn’t touch. There were rules I had to adhere to. I had broken enough already.
“I’m outside your room because that’s my job. That would be the same reason I was in Rome.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Your job is to stalk me?”
“Something like that.”
The silence between us was pronounced. She eyed me carefully. Her eyes rested on my wings. “What are you?”
I laughed. “What do you think I am?”
She shrugged, her innocence and nonchalance endearing her to me even more. “I don’t know, a guy who bought his angel costume a little too early?”
“You can’t seriously believe that these are fake,” I said, rustling my wings to push a gentle wind in her direction.
“They look pretty fake to me.”
“Do you want me to prove they’re not fake?”
Her eyes lit up. “Could you?”
“I could,” I admitted, “But I won’t.”
She pouted and began to pick at her fingernails. “So, you’re a stalker who has an odd obsession with Halloween. Can I please have my sweater back?”
“You aren’t the least bit confused about what happened in the past two days?”
Finally a darkness crossed her eyes. I could see the fear behind her façade. Her voice was less than a whisper. “I was hoping I’d imagined it all. Angie said I did.”
I nodded. It made sense. Ethan wiped Angie’s memories from JFK while she slept on the bus ride home. I had watched, but couldn’t make myself do the same for Hannah. It didn’t seem fair. Now I was second-guessing that decision. “Angie thinks you did,” I admitted, “But you didn’t.”
“So a guy was really sucked into the earth, something seriously went nuts at the airport, and you really have the wings on your back.”
None of it sounded like a question when she rattled it off, so I figured she believed it. I shrugged. “That sums it up.”
“What does that make you? An angel?”
I laughed darkly. “Not exactly.”
“What are you then?”
“I’m your Guard.”
Hannah looked me over once, then met my eyes once again. “Well, you suck.”
I’m pretty sure somewhere I had a smart comment. It just didn’t come out. There was nothing there but shock as she got up, pulled her leg into the room once more, and slammed the window shut.
SEVEN
Ethan ran behind me and yelled curses all the way to Hannah’s school, Shawnee High. “Have you lost your damn mind?!”
Instead of responding to him, I pushed myself harder and created a wider distance between us. It didn’t seem to deter him. Instead, he just yelled louder. “Seriously, have you lost it? Because I can let Owen know, and he’ll give you a new Call just like that. Problem solved before it becomes a bigger issue.”
That stopped me in my tracks. Ethan ran headlong into my back, pushing us both forward fifty feet. “Don’t breathe a word to Owen.”
Ethan raised his hands in mock submission. “Hey, I’m just saying, let’s nip this thing in the bud, you know? Keep it a non-issue. You wouldn’t have to say anything about anything. Just tell Owen you’re tired of being stationed with me.”
“I don’t need reassigned.”
“Then what on earth possessed you to enroll at the school?”
The bell rang about a mile away, signaling the five-minute warning before classes started. I hiked up the empty book bag on my shoulder and winked at him. “Felt like getting an education. I never got to graduate from high school, remember?”
“You didn’t miss anything,” Ethan mumbled.
I took off before he could say any more, but he yelled from behind me. “If you get lice or cooties or whatever from a human, don’t expect me to help you out!”
The bell rang right as I slid into the
seat behind Hannah in English. I heard her audible sigh, but ignored it. If she wanted to ignore me, that’s fine. I was her Guard; she wasn’t supposed to know about me, anyway.
Somewhere in my mind, I knew I was playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse. No matter what, she would die. Pretty much no matter what, I was damned.
No time like the present to play with something that was doomed from the start.
“Today we will discuss what classics you want to read for this quarter’s book report,” the teacher said and raised her hand over the sea of groans. “You can choose your book, but you must make your case for why you believe it is considered a classic.”
Of course every female in the class instantly began to whisper about Romeo and Juliet, while the guys just groaned. I leaned back in my chair, avoiding eye contact with the teacher. She hadn’t pointed me out, which I found odd. Didn’t new students usually get pointed out in an embarrassing manner?
The rest of the period was spent sitting in groups discussing classic books. Hannah purposely avoided all eye contact with me. When the bell rang, she grabbed her stuff and bolted to biology – little did she know I’d be in there, too.
I dropped my bag beside her, which made her jump. “I think I’m going to use On A Pale Horse as my classic book for English. How about you?”
She turned to give me a scornful gaze. “Why are you here?”
“I go to school here.”
“No, you don’t. You never have before. Why are you here?”
“Why does it matter? I’m here. I want to learn.”
“You’re an angel. You’re past high school.”
I smiled. “Never graduated, so no time like the present, right? By the way, I’m not an angel. Didn’t we go over this last night? I’m your Guard.”
Her eyebrows raised, and her mouth puckered to one side. It made me laugh. She shook her head, and I took it as her being annoyed with me laughing at her. “There’s a difference?”
The teacher, Mr. Allen, came in and began to talk. I sat down beside her quickly and wrote my response on a sheet of paper. There is a drastic difference between an angel and a Guard.
She sighed as she took the paper and read. Then what exactly is the difference? Are you the special ops of angels?
I chuckled at her response. No. I’m not in any way, shape, or form an angel. I’m damned.
Her eyes widened as she read the paper. What do you mean, you’re damned?
That I am damned. Easy as that.
She let out a frustrated sigh and scribbled quickly across the paper. So you’re from hell, but you watch over me?
Pretty much.
She crumpled the paper up and stuffed it in her bag. “Well that’s great,” she hissed in a whisper, “I have a demon that’s supposed to take care of me.”
“Hey, I’ve saved your ass twice in the past week. Don’t get picky about where the saving is coming from.”
A hand landed on our lab table. “Anything you want to share with the class, Sir?”
I shook my head. “No, Mr. Allen. I apologize.”
He nodded and walked back to the front of the class.
Hannah pushed her seat away from mine, scraping across the linoleum and making an ungodly loud noise. She blushed a brilliant crimson.
I leaned over to her and whispered, “I’m not contagious, Hannah.”
She sniffed. “I don’t know what I did wrong to land a demon and not a guardian angel.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that.
* * *
The day passed ridiculously slow after that. How did humans deal with this idea of school for eight hours a day, five days a week? It was horrible. By the end I was thinking that humans had it worse off than us Guards. That’s pretty bad.
“So, Levi, how was your first day? Any swirlies?”
Ethan was leaning on the lockers, giving me an antagonizing smirk. I punched him in the shoulder for good measure. “Don’t be jealous I get to hang with the girls.”
His face twitched, but then returned to his usual cocky grin. “I wouldn’t want to be visible to humans all the time. The crowds of swooning girls might get old after a couple of decades.”
I put my books in the locker and slung the bag over my shoulder once more. “I gotta go, Hannah is going home and I have to watch her.”
“You two having a homework date?”
“No date of any kind. She hates me.”
Ethan laughed. “Of course she hates you. You’re kind of a step up from a bottom feeder. Now if she had me as a Guard, that’d be different.”
My temper got the best of me. I slammed Ethan against the lockers, willing he and I to be invisible. “I don’t want to talk about it, joke about it, or discuss it in any manner, okay?”
He shrugged. “It’s whatever, dude. Totally on you.”
I dropped him and he rubbed his neck before he continued. “But lemme say this: you’re in over your head. You’re attached.”
“No, I’m not.”
He laughed darkly. “If you’re gonna be attached, at least admit it. Heck, do something about it. At this point you’re toast anyway. Might as well get some.”
I started after him once more, but he sprinted off and disappeared almost instantly. Dumb idiot. It wasn’t like that. I wished it was like that, really. At least then the attraction would make sense. This was something I couldn’t figure out. Everything in me yearned to touch her, to actually get close, but I knew better. This was insane.
It was ridiculous that I could pinpoint her every move now. I closed my eyes and focused on her scent, her voice, the way her hair fell in a thick sheet around her face when she’d purposely ignored me in Spanish. The effect was immediate.
Hannah was in her friendJ Justin’s car. I’d seen him around. He was too close, too intimate with her for my liking. He was a big dude. Strong. But not as strong as me.
Wait, wait, wait. Why was I comparing myself to this Justin kid? Why did it matter? I internally chastised myself for even caring.
Justin was probably a nice guy. A nice, human guy. Way better for her than me.
Right?
For some reason it bugged me too much. That’s about the time I decided to go visit the two.
I made sure I was invisible. Sure, if Hannah was looking for me, she would have been able to see through the invisibility, but only if she was looking. She wasn’t. There they were in the parking lot, sitting in his Dodge Charger. Nice car. At least, I would have thought so if Hannah hadn’t been in it with him. I sat on the trunk of the car, silently listening in to their conversation.
Justin had his arm around her. “So how about tonight I come by your place and we study together for that Spanish test?”
Hannah gracefully pulled out from under his embrace. My heart skipped a little – or at least it would have, had it been beating and what not. She wasn’t that into him. Good. “I don’t know, Jus, I promised my dad I’d do game night with him and the rest of the family tonight. I blew them off last week.”
Justin laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. It was one that made fun of what Hannah had said. I bristled. “You’re sixteen. Why do you need to play board games like you’re ten still?”
Hannah was defensive. “It’s family time, that’s all. Tonight was Nick’s turn to pick.”
Nick was Hannah’s eight-year-old brother. I’d seen him. He didn’t have a Guard or Guardian yet. Some people received them when they were born, others on their thirteenth birthday. It never really made much sense to me on the timing, but it had to do with their soul category. I’d begun guarding Hannah at thirteen. I heard Hannah’s hand grab the door handle to get out.
“Hannah, come on, don’t go. I’m sorry. I won’t say anything else. Let’s go to the bluffs for a little bit and study before your game night.” Justin’s intentions were clear as day to me, but I didn’t know if Hannah could tell.
I didn’t like his intentions.
It didn’t seem like Hannah did, eithe
r. “No, Jus, I don’t want to.”
Justin grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him when she went to leave. “Hannah, I’m tired of you playing around. If you liked me, you’d go with me.”
It looked like she was trying to pull away, but Justin was too strong. “Then I don’t like you.”
That was it. He yanked her over to him and pulled her into a forced embrace. “Look, Hannah. I know you like me. I’ve heard the other girls talk. Why don’t you just admit it?”
“Because you’re a dick,” I said as I opened his driver side door and yanked him out of the car.
“Who are you?”
I stared him down. “Does it matter? Leave the girl alone. She doesn’t want you. Get over it.”
“No, it doesn’t matter,” he murmured, completely entranced. “I’m over it.”
I smiled and let him go. “Good. Now drive out to the bluffs on your own and study.”
He nodded incoherently. “Study. Bluffs. Yeah.”
When I turned to walk away, Hannah was there, staring up at me. I smiled my Hollywood smile. “You’re welcome.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Really? Looked like you did from my angle. That’s three now. You’re a trouble magnet.”
She was obviously flustered. She ran her hand through her hair, then looked back up at me. “Why do you even care? What does it matter to you if that guy was giving me a hard time? I thought you were just here to save my life or whatever.”
I opened and closed my mouth. She was right. “Good question.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re weird.”
“You’re a spazz. So what?”
She laughed nervously. I could tell she was warring with herself. Before she could walk away, I offered something I knew better than offering. “How are you getting home now that I’ve ruined your plans?”
“You own a car?”
“No. I was just wondering if you wanted to walk home. You’re only a couple blocks away.”
She looked around and swung her arms nervously. “I guess that’d be okay. You’ve got wings, though,” she said as she walked toward me, hand extended. “Why don’t we just –”