FORBIDDEN

by Curd, Megan

  That was a good point. I could tell Hannah was fishing for a response, but Clay continued. “Furthermore, what do you think makes you a pure soul? Are you a completely pure person? Have you never done anything wrong in your entire life?”

  Hannah blushed. “Well, no – ”

  “Exactly,” Clay confirmed, “No one is perfect. We can only hope to live a life that will leave our descendants proud. Choose the good. Trust your instincts. Now, do you trust me?”

  Even after the lecture she’d received, she still held her ground. “I don’t know you. My instincts say you’re okay, but I’ve been through enough to hold out judgment, if you don’t mind,” she motioned toward Ethan, and he walked over. She nodded at him. “I’m going to try to trust him, and Clay, you’re more than welcome to come. I need three people I trust.”

  Ethan smiled. I was impressed. Hannah was starting to seem like she really could be a pure soul.

  When we arrived back at the Gordon’s home that night, Hannah spent a little bit of time with her family while Clay and I tried to figure out what our next move was. Ethan refused to be around Clay, so he stayed and watched over Hannah while we were gone. It worked out well; there was no way I wanted to leave Hannah unattended, even for a short time.

  For a while we walked silently, but I couldn’t handle it after about twenty minutes. “Okay, so I need to know what’s going on.”

  Clay sighed as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “How did you find me?”

  I didn’t really want to get into that story, but it seemed as though it was the only way to get the facts from him. “Your son told me before –”

  “– Before he bit Angie, am I correct?”

  It was a relief to know I didn’t have to revisit the mess. The audible exhale I let out made Clay laugh. “Oh, I heard about the mess you’ve gotten yourself in. I just want to hear it from you. What about this girl has you breaking every rule you’ve followed so strictly for over a hundred years?”

  “That’s the same question I’ve asked myself a million times,” I admitted. “I don’t know. She’s different. I couldn’t stay away from her. Then, when she touched me, it wasn’t the horrible pain everyone warned me about. It was incredible. It’s like she brought back the feeling in me.”

  He smiled and patted me on the back. “That’s because she’s a pure soul. She has the ability to give the feeling back. She doesn’t know it, but she’s actually quite rare. More rare than just being a pure soul even.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can feel more than pain, can’t you? You’re transitioning, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When did that start?”

  I thought back and gasped when it hit me. “It was when she’d begged for me to be okay.”

  He grinned and pointed a long finger toward me in affirmation. “Exactly. Do you think she might have gotten an answer to her request?”

  It kind of creeped me out in a way to know there was more to her than met the eye. Sure, I knew from the beginning she wasn’t a run of the mill human. How many had I guarded? More than enough to know the pull she had on me was different. No matter what, though, I knew I needed her. I needed to protect her. “She caused me to transition?”

  “You are correct. Now do you see why the Fallen want her dead? She’s even more than a pure soul. Those come from time to time. Very, very few have the ability to take from the Fallen’s ranks. Granted, not many Guard or Fallen have the desire to be good. You’re a rarity yourself. Hannah finding you, or you finding Hannah – however you want to put it – isn’t by chance. Now Ethan, on the other hand, he worries me.”

  “Why?”

  Clay sighed. “He seems only a step away from my son, or a step away from you. It changes so often. His mood depicts his desires.”

  I stopped walking. “What do you mean?”

  “He just has many similarities to you and Owen, that’s all.”

  That bothered me. “I’m like Owen?”

  Clay chuckled darkly. “More than you know, but again, like I told Angie, it’s our decisions that ultimately shape us. Owen chose the dark. You’ve chosen the light. No matter the similarities, you’re on the right side of things. Ethan just has to make his decision. Sooner, rather than later, I fear.”

  He didn’t seem in the mood to elaborate, so I didn’t push it. There were other things bothering me as well, so I figured those could get tackled if Clay was willing. “What about Angie? Is she doomed? I have to figure out how to explain all of this to Hannah.”

  “Angie is, for lack of a better explanation, at the mercy of her own desires. Does she want to be the kind soul she’s meant to be, or will she succumb to the desires she has now that she’s a Hunter? That’s up to her,” Clay said, sadness etching into his voice. “Again, all of the events taking place come down to the decisions being made.”

  I nodded solemnly. “It sounds like you’ve been down this road.”

  “Owen was a kind soul.”

  That threw me. Owen, a kind soul? That couldn’t be true. Kind souls didn’t end up as Hunters. Well, except for Angie. Maybe something like that happened to Owen. Immediately I felt awful for him. “What the heck happened?”

  “The very thing that could happen to Angie. He gave in to the desires. Angie would be the first that I know of to overcome. I would strongly suggest you not let her near Hannah, or any other human that you care about.”

  I stopped abruptly. “I don’t care about any other humans.”

  Clay turned after he noticed I’d stopped. A grin played around the corner of his lips, and the look of an understanding father was alight in his eyes. “Oh, really? What about Hannah’s family? Would you not be upset if something happened to them? You’re upset about Angie. You’re transitioning. You feel. You empathize. You aren’t able to tuck those things away anymore. You even feel for Ethan. I’ve seen the frustration and sympathy in your face.”

  There was no denying it. I decided to just figure out the plan of action. “So what do we do?”

  “Keep Hannah and her family safe. Owen will come for her. Angie will come for her. The Fallen will do as ordered. None of them will rest until she’s dead. How can they? She’s turning the tide. Can you not feel it?”

  I stood still for a moment, trying to feel a change in the wind or something tangible. It probably looked as dumb as I felt doing it. Finally, I shrugged. “Not really, no.”

  Clay chuckled. “You will. We should get back. By the way, be careful with Reina.”

  “She’s the craziest girl I have ever met in my life. I don’t get her.”

  “She’s a woman. Don’t expect anything less,” laughed Clay. “Just be on your guard. I haven’t figured out what her role is in all of this.”

  “She’s in charge of overseeing my transition. What are you doing in this, anyway? Don’t you have a Call somewhere?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve done my time in that arena. Now I’m more of an overseer of the Guardians. I know what goes on, step in when needed, but mostly I watch from a distance. Your case is most curious to me, and I want to see how it plays out.”

  There wasn’t much to say to that. I wished I knew myself how it would play out, too. He laughed at my discomfort and patted me on the back before he continued on. We emerged from the small wooded area beside Hannah’s house and Clay’s massive, silvery wings appeared. He leapt into the air and into the bough of the tree where I first spoke to Hannah. I followed behind, hoping my wings would someday look like his.

  Clay and I crawled through Hannah’s open window to find Ethan sitting on the edge of her bed with my hoodie. He threw it to me as I walked over. “You’re shirtless more than anyone I’ve ever met, including myself. Leave some things to the imagination. You’re better off that way, bro,” he smiled as I put the hoodie back on. “Notice the modification that Hannah worked on while you were gone?”

  I stopped putting the hoodie on mid-stride, took it off and looked it over. On t
he back were two slits where my wings would fit. I smiled. I’d have to thank her for that. Clay laughed and clapped Ethan on the back. “Now you need something like that, too.”

  Ethan looked confused by Clay’s congeniality, but didn’t have a biting comment. He smiled reluctantly and waved toward the door. “Hannah’s asleep on the couch downstairs. The parentals are asleep, and brother is in his room playing the xBox. Things are pretty quiet. No funny business, for once.”

  “Good,” said Clay. He looked at Ethan. “Care to take a walk?”

  Ethan’s mouth gaped open, his eyes surprisingly wide for Clay being a Guardian. Why was it that he could look at him without being in pain? “Uh, sure?”

  “Keep the home front under control,” said Clay with a wink as they slid back out the window. “We won’t be gone for long.”

  With them gone, I was left to my thoughts. So Hannah was the reason behind the transition. Could she help Ethan transition, too? Or was the reason partly because I was different, like Clay said? And why had we met? Clay seemed to think it wasn’t by chance. These feelings, the sensations I felt when I was with Hannah, the desire I felt to protect her, it was all overwhelming. I didn’t realize I was moving down the stairs until I ended up kneeling beside where Hannah was asleep.

  It was the first time she’d seemed peaceful since this entire fiasco began. I felt so bad for everything I’d put her through. Was it right of me to keep her past her time? It seemed so unfair to let her go at the time. She was just starting life. She didn’t deserve to be done already. Now, though, it seemed like things were spiraling out of control. Would she ever have a normal life now? Would she always have to look over her shoulder?

  She shivered in her sleep. I went over to the chest by the fireplace and grabbed a blanket from inside. She turned when I placed it over her, but the shivering stopped. There was no way to know how long I stood there, mesmerized by her peacefulness. She needed to have that while awake, too.

  “Guardians aren’t supposed to cry.”

  Her voice made me jump. I whirled around to see Angie’s crimson eyes. She was shaking, as though she was trying to restrain herself. I stood between her and Hannah. “Angie, why are you here?”

  Angie’s wild eyes darted all over the place. Her entire body shook. She balled her hands into fists as she rocked back and forth. “I don’t know what I’ve done. I need her. I need you. This isn’t what I want. Help me, please.”

  “What did you do?”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her skin seemed to shimmer; she was somewhere between being human and being a Hunter. The steely blue hue that Owen had taken on last time I saw him glinted on Angie’s skin as the moonlight hit her, but she didn’t seem dangerous. Was that even possible? Things were so out of control, it was hard to tell. I didn’t lower my guard. She sniffled. “I don’t remember everything. There are gaps in my memory. I don’t know where I was for five hours today. There was blood on my clothes, so I stole some from a store. I’m scared of what I’m becoming, Levi. What am I supposed to do?”

  Part of me wanted to feel bad, but I just didn’t know if I could trust her. “You need to go, Angie. You’re not human anymore.”

  She looked down at her hands and seemed repulsed by herself. “You think I don’t know that?! You have no idea what this feels like. Then there are times I don’t feel at all. I don’t know how to fix this.”

  I sighed. I could understand the not feeling. It was scary at first. “It’s not so bad, not feeling. I was that way for over a hundred years. You get used to it.”

  She stomped her foot and sent a ripple through the floorboards from her strength. She noticed my alarm, though, and pulled herself together once more with a deep breath. “I don’t want to get used to it.”

  There wasn’t anything I could do right now, even if I wanted to help her. With Clay and Ethan gone, there was no one to watch Hannah and her family. I sighed. “Listen. Tonight at midnight I’ll meet you at the school on the roof. Can you make it?”

  There was a moment of silence, but she nodded. “I can do that. Will you help me?”

  “If you are genuine, yes. I don’t trust you, and you need to leave here now. If you want help, you need to stay away from Hannah.”

  “I need her.”

  “Not right now, you don’t. Get out of here before Clay and Ethan come back. Meet me at midnight if you’re serious.”

  She was there for a split second, but then the next there was a whoosh and the front door opened and closed. She was quick. Possibly quicker than me. She was dangerous, and I’d just made a deal with the devil in a sense. This was not going to end well.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Clay and Ethan returned a few hours later and sat in the tree outside Hannah’s bedroom. I’d carried Hannah into her room and put her in bed, then sat at the edge, just thinking over everything that had happened. There was time to kill before meeting Angie in a few hours. The past few days buzzed in my head like a swarm of angry bees. So much had changed in such a short period of time.

  Owen was a Hunter. He’d changed Angie into a Hunter. Hannah was more than just a pure soul, but what all that meant was still up in the air. She’d caused me to transition. Clay said she could do that for others, too.

  Then the thought struck me. What if she could do that for Ethan? What needed to be done? Just touch him? If so, that wouldn’t be too hard to orchestrate. I’d have to ask Clay when I had a chance.

  Around eleven thirty I stuck my head out the window to find Clay and Ethan. They were sitting in the tree outside, talking in low voices. I cleared my throat to get their attention. “I have somewhere I need to go, can you two watch the house for a bit?”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but Clay nodded without asking any questions. “Sure, go ahead. Will you be long?”

  “No, just an hour or so.”

  Clay clapped Ethan on the back. “Looks like you and I have to be on top of things for a bit.”

  Ethan never took his eyes off me, and I knew he was probably wondering what was going on. He nodded at me and unfurled his wings. “I’ll take the roof, Clay. You stay here.”

  As I climbed out the window and went to take off, Clay reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “You can’t save everyone, Levi. Just remember that.”

  His words caught me off guard. He didn’t say anything more, and I didn’t offer any words in return. It was probably best to just avoid giving too much information away. This still felt like a really stupid idea on my part. I took off in silence, hoping to arrive at the school before Angie.

  I sat atop the school’s roof for less than ten minutes before I heard Angie’s cautious footsteps behind me. I turned slowly, trying to keep her calm. There was no way to telling what she was capable of. She held her hands up in submission, her mouth turned downward in a frown. “I’m not here to hurt you, Levi.”

  “I know that,” I said, hoping it sounded much better than I was feeling. God, feelings. Such a blessing and a curse. I walked toward her. “What did you want me to help you with?”

  “Staying human,” she whispered. Her lips quivered, and I saw tears glistening in her eyes as she continued. “I don’t want to lose myself, Levi.”

  It was hard to be optimistic. I rubbed the back of my neck. Tonight I was tired. That was a first in a long time. I sighed as I told her the words she didn’t want to hear. “There’s not much I can do about that.”

  “You’re still human.”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I hadn’t felt anything but pain for over one hundred years before last week.”

  “But you’re feeling now,” argued Angie, her voice rising. “I need to feel. All there is now is blood and hunting and death. That’s not me. This doesn’t make sense. I don’t even understand why the urges I feel are there. I don’t want to do this.”

  An icy feeling doused my insides. “Have you killed someone, Angie?”

  “No, not yet. Owen wants me to.”

  “Who does he
want you to kill?”

  Angie’s head dropped. “Hannah.”

  So there it was. Of course I knew it before she’d even answered, but there was something unnerving about hearing Hannah’s best friend admit she was struggling not to murder her. I held back the shiver that ran down my spine. “I don’t know how to help you, Ang. I’m not a Hunter, I’m a Guard. We don’t run in the same circles.”

  “But you feel! Just help me feel. Maybe then I can control the feelings that Owen is trying to tell me are just part of life now.”

  I sighed. Maybe since I was transitioning, I could help her after all. I extended my hand tentatively. Angie took it. “Can you feel that?”

  “No. Well I mean I know I’m holding your hand, but there’s no feeling attached to it like there should be.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Come with me.”

  I jumped off the roof and Angie followed. We ran away from Londonderry, ran away from the small town where the horrors had begun. A little while later we saw the bright lights of Columbus illuminating the sky, even at this late hour. Part of me questioned my sanity. “Stay close to me, Angie.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, as to block out the cold. “I smell them.”

  “Smell who?”

  “Souls. Good ones, bad ones, it doesn’t matter. I want them. Levi, this place has too many souls. Why did you bring me here?”

  I took a breath. “You want to feel, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to be human, right?”

  Angie huffed in frustration. “I’ve already told you that!”

  “Then you need to be able to deny feeding on these humans’ souls. Deny the urge to kill them. It’s against what you’re designed to do. It might make you realize if you’ll be able to feel or not.”

  She stood still, eyeing me in shock. “You want me to get close to a human and not kill them?”

  My mouth felt dry as I confirmed her fears. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m capable of!”