FALL FROM PARADISE

by Blair, M. Dylan

  “Wh— what?” My brain froze. I didn’t know whether to touch the blade or leave it alone. I had nothing to use as a tourniquet, only the clothes on my back.

  “Amelia, you need to listen to me,” he said calmly as his steel-gray eyes focused on me.

  He was so calm for having stabbed me. Why did he stab me?

  I reached out to touch the blade, with every nerve ending in my hands burning like electric fire.

  “This blade is made of sterling silver. It weakens you. It keeps you from channeling your angelic cells. That process is what grants you your wings and your abilities. Your blood is what cancels out the silver, or steel.”

  I don’t understand. Shit, it hurts. “What?”

  “Even more fundamental than magic is the ability to fly. Entire wars have been fought without ever having touched the ground.”

  I shook my head to steady my focus. I knew being stabbed was bad, but this was ridiculous. Things were already starting to blur.

  “If you were any other angel, this would immobilize you completely, but because of who you are this, in fact, draws out your ability. In the warehouse, you only lasted a few moments before they came out. This time, it’s been almost a minute. What we would hope is control is actually fear.”

  He was so near. I couldn’t help but stare at the way his body pulsated next to mine. I could smell the sweat on his skin, a surprisingly sweet scent. He was so strong, his muscles sinewy.

  He was attractive.

  For a moment, I thought I heard him snort.

  “I want you to concentrate, Amelia. Focus.” His grip tightened on my biceps, his hands wide and strong as he stayed a half foot away. “At first, it’s all fight or flight, quite literally in fact. Pain is the fastest way to unveil them when you’re new. They protect you.”

  He twisted the blade farther into my abdomen, and all of my thoughts bee-lined for the scorching pain in my stomach which overtook every part of me.

  “Focus, Amelia,” he repeated. “Come on. I’d rather not have to throw you off a cliff.”

  Was he serious? I wanted to scream but found silence my only option. It was getting harder to breathe, as if I were drowning without ever having been underwater. My lungs struggled to expand. And I was less susceptible than the others were? Holy shit.

  “Focus, Amelia,” he repeated, my mantra.

  “I can’t do this,” I rasped, my hand yanking his off the blade as it dragged the silver along with it. “T—There has to be another way.”

  “There is,” he said simply, “but it’s far worse than this.”

  “I’ll do it. This isn’t working.” I turned to him, letting the blood-smeared blade clang to the floor.

  “What if you’re wrong?” he asked.

  “What if?”

  “Pain is a part of life, Amelia,” he said. “Immortals aren’t spared from its wrath. We’ve only mastered it. If I do this to you, you have to promise me that this is what you want.”

  I squinted at him suspiciously as I pressed my hand to my wound. God, it hurts like shit. Who stabs people as a training exercise? “Why?”

  He sighed and rubbed his brow, dismissing his wings as if they were never there in the first place. “Because it’s going to hurt a lot. A lot worse than the knife, by far. I did this once, but it wasn’t by choice.”

  What was he talking about? By choice? We obviously didn’t have time to waste. “Just do it.”

  “You’re sure?” He raised a brow at me, his face stern as stone.

  I bit my lip and watched the way his neck muscles tensed. “Yeah.”

  He slipped over to a small, dark chest buried on a corner table and pulled on the pair of leather gloves that sat in front of it. He looked back at me, and for a moment, a deep frown crossed his beautiful face as he flicked the latch on the chest open and pulled out a long, glistening, silver chain. The links clinked against one another, their music almost like wind chimes as he dragged the chains from their confines.

  “Do you want to sit or stand?” he asked as he approached me, holding the silver away from his body.

  “I’ll stand,” I answered apprehensively. “Why the leather? Why not some other material, like rubber?”

  “Because it’s not an electric current, Amelia. It’s poison,” he said as he motioned for me to stand still as he brought the glistening silver chains closer.

  “These are the same ones you used before, aren’t they?” My voice was quiet. Beautiful as they were, they were just as horrific this time around.

  “They are.”

  “Is this what you did to Adam?” I reached out to touch the chain, only for Camael to jolt backwards as my fingers hovered just above the links.

  “No, Amelia.” He shook his head and swallowed sharply enough that I could see it.

  “Then what?”

  He raised an eyebrow at me, the chains still dangling between us. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because if I’m going to do this, I’d like to know,” I snapped.

  “It doesn’t matter, Amelia,” he sighed.

  “It does, Camael!”

  “Really?” He lowered the chains halfway to the ground, kicking them away from his boot. “Why?”

  “Because if I’m going to turn into that same deformity, all for the sake of your war, I would like to know that.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Then tell me,” I said, shoving my bloody finger into his chest. “What did you do to him that was so horrible he was barely human anymore?”

  “Amelia . . .”

  I could tell I was getting on his nerves. Hell, he was getting on mine. I was already sacrificing my life for a cause I didn’t believe in. What more could anyone ask of me? I had a right to know what we were really fighting for, what we were really running from, and most importantly of all, what we were capable of.

  If what Mammon said was true, that evil was just perception, then I wanted to be justified in my actions. I still had a conscience, even if God chose to deny me.

  “Tell me.”

  “Is it going to make a difference?” he asked. “Are you going to go racing back to him like nothing ever happened? You chose this. You agreed of your own free will. Remember that, Amelia.”

  “You bent my hand,” I snapped, glaring him dead in his ice-cold eyes. “And I’m not going anywhere, not until I see things through.”

  He straightened his shoulders, his correct posture making him seem even more foreboding. “And what things would that be?”

  But I wouldn’t say anything, and he couldn’t make me. He had no right to demand an answer when he would not do the same for me. And he knew it. His scowl only lengthened as we waited in silence for several minutes.

  Two could play this game, if he wanted. I sighed and crossed my arms, dropping contently to the floor as I closed my eyes and waited. It only took another thirty seconds before I heard him growl and start cussing.

  “Fine. Have it your way. We injected pure silver into his veins.”

  “You what?” I jumped up, all of the blood rushing out of my face just in time to find his jaw rigid and his own face pale.

  “Don’t make me say it again,” he told me.

  I nodded, feeling a sharp pain run up my abdomen, my hand instinctively pressing against the wound again. “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “You’re not angry?” He eyed my wound as I lifted my ruined tank top enough to see where he had stabbed me. The wound had already stopped bleeding.

  “Of course I am.” My gaze shot up at him. “I thought you said that silver weakens us.”

  “It does, but also like I said, you have a partial resistance,” he said simply as he moved over next to me, his hand poised just above mine. “May I?”

  I nodded, turning my head so that he wouldn’t see the redness spreading across my face. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I am. I just want the truth.”

  He shook his head and laughed as he gathered the material in his hands and raised it over the
cut flesh. “I don’t understand you sometimes.”

  “Excuse me?” My brow furrowed. “You don’t know me well enough to make that statement.”

  “I know you better than you think.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged, letting the shirt fall gently back over me.

  “Are you stalking me?” I took a step back. “Is that how you were able to track me in Assiyah?”

  He snorted softly. “Something like that.”

  “Why do you do that?” I hissed. Frustrated, I stepped back into his face and once again shoved my hands into his chest. “Why are you so damn fucking guarded?”

  “I could say the same thing about you.” His hands lashed out and snatched me. His iron grip clutched my wrists between our chests tightly enough that it made my palms throb. A few more seconds, and I started to lose circulation as his grip tightened even more, forcing me to look back at him.

  “Let go!” I hissed, trying to yank free.

  “Not until you start being honest with yourself,” he said.

  “I said, let go!” I struggled harder against him, and the realization suddenly dawned on me that our bodies pressed against one another.

  “What are you so afraid of?” His grip tightened even more, only making my anxiety increase. His hands shook me hard, forcing me to meet his gaze head on.

  “I’m not afraid,” I cried.

  “You are,” he said calmly. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be trying to get away from me now.”

  The sudden urge to get away from him nearly knocked me over. “Please, just let me go.”

  “I don’t understand. I’ve detained you before, but this is different.” He licked his lower lip, his eyes wide as he studied me. “You’re afraid of being this close to me? Why? What is it about me that you find so rancorous?”

  My voice lurched in my throat, unable to say anything. I was like a deer caught in a snare.

  “Tell me the truth, and I’ll let you go.”

  His insistence only made me plead more. “Camael. Please.”

  “What is it?” he asked. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re not making a lot of sense.”

  “I don’t—” I only struggled harder, ending up with my back pressed to his chest. His face was so close I nearly gasped when I realized it.

  “Amelia, I—” His throat flexed anxiously.

  His lips suddenly hovered above mine, his breath burning like fire against my cheek. And then my body began to do the unthinkable; my hand slid around the curve of his jaw and pulled his face to mine, melding our lips into one.

  “No . . .” he breathed and pushed me away, releasing me entirely. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “What?” I choked, almost bursting into tears, my emotions so torn I could hardly breathe.

  “I didn’t bring you here to be some trifle attachment,” he answered. “I brought you here to fight. You’re a soldier, not a whore.”

  My face stung like I’d been slapped, his words piercing even sharper than the silver. “I don’t understand.”

  He steeled his jaw; his gray eyes cold as he stepped away from me. “What’s there to understand?”

  “You.”

  “We’re your colleagues, not your friends,” he explained. “We’re not here to be understood by some little girl; we’re here to win a war.”

  And just like that, just as easily as the hands of a clock ticked away, I felt a whole, new part of me die. Nothing more than another sword in his ranks, I was a fool to think I was any different. “Then I’m ready.”

  “Alright, but try to stay still,” he said as he bent down to collect the chains once again and began to drape them over my shoulders and collarbone. “Do you want something to bite down on?”

  For being someone so malevolent, he could be strangely kind at times. Like two sides of a coin spun by the wind. I would take full advantage of his kindness lest I never get the chance to. This cavern was large enough that my screams would echo for miles. The least attention we could attract the better. “Yes,” I said weakly, though not because of the pain.

  I waited for him to turn his back. Once he was completely distracted, I’d make my move. The lake was less than ten feet away. I’d be up to my shoulders before he could even turn around.

  The answer was simple. If only death triggered my wings, then these chains and I were going to take it to the next level.

  I was going to drown myself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Amelia, wake up,” a frantic, male voice pleaded beside me. “Dammit, Amelia. Wake up.”

  Camael was right; I wasn’t dead. Light flooded my pupils as I struggled to sit up, causing me to blink awkwardly as I focused on my company.

  “Are you alright?” asked a female voice from behind me.

  “Who’s there?” I lurched forward onto my knees, making the large white blurs slowly focus into objects. “Where am I?”

  “It’s David,” said the man as two pairs of hands helped pull me to my feet.

  “David?”

  “And Danielle,” he finished.

  “Danielle?” I’m in Araboth?

  “Yes,” Dani answered coolly. “You are, but just how did you get here?”

  The two of them stood masked on either side of me, my arms slung over their shoulders as we moved to a wrought iron bench across the narrow hallway. Unlike the previous parts of Araboth I’d had the luxury of seeing, this hallway was sheer marble and all white. A domed ceiling held a crystal chandelier large enough that it could easily kill a hundred men should it fall.

  “I—I don’t know.” I looked around slowly. “I was just in Sheol. If I’m in Araboth, where’s Adam?” I jumped up, my legs folded from my efforts to walk before I was ready.

  I half-wondered if this was more of that continuum displacement, as everyone was so keen on calling it. I just wanted to stand.

  “Adam?” David repeated.

  I nodded, latching onto him. “Where is he? Is he alright?”

  “Don’t worry about that now.” Danielle grabbed my shoulder, forcing me to look at her. “You have to leave.”

  “What?” I balked. “I just got here.”

  “Yes,” she answered, “and now you have to leave.”

  “Why?” I said, looking between the two of them. “What’s going on? Why won’t you tell me where Adam is?”

  Dani stared at me for what felt like forever, her green eyes piercing as I waited for an answer. It was that same feeling that I’d had earlier, that terrible sense of foreboding.

  “Is he still alive?” I finally managed to ask. She could tell me that much. He could tell me that much. I just needed to hear someone say it.

  “We don’t know, Amelia,” Dani said. “They’ve gone missing.”

  “Missing?” The lump in my throat sunk a little farther toward my stomach. How often did angels go missing? And if they did, was Camael responsible?

  “Him and Raphael.” Dani nodded. “They’ve been missing for weeks now. We’ve got to send you back.”

  Much like the last time I’d been here, I was being shoved toward the closest exit as we walked single file.

  “Danielle, what is going on?” I stopped and turned to face her. Lines had crept over her young face, worry wrought in every inch of her skin.

  “There’s a war coming, Amelia,” she answered, releasing my arm as David leaned against the wall with both eyes peeled toward the end of the hallway.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Then you have to stop it.”

  “Stop it?” I barked. “How am I supposed to stop something I know nothing about?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, but whatever this is, the entire realm is in chaos over it. If you care anything for Adam, find out what the other side knows.”

  My eyes widened. “You think Camael had something to do with their disappearances?”

  “Maybe . . . I don’t know,” she answered, her frown only deepenin
g. “There’s a lot of discontent amongst the upper Spheres. If something doesn’t happen soon, the entire world is going to be at odds.”

  I lowered my head and sighed, leaning back against the wall myself.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” David added, “but we aren’t working with a lot of options. The alternative is far worse.”

  My throat felt dry. “There’s an alternative?”

  “Yeah,” David said. “If it turns out that this war is not coming from your side, then the only alternative is that it’s coming from ours. A notion I think none of us would care to entertain for very long.”

  “Why can’t you guys scout Gehenna for yourselves?” I asked.

  Danielle rolled her eyes and sighed. “Because we can’t go into Gehenna like you can. Last time, we were sent there to retrieve you and Adam. Even if we could, we don’t know our way around, and we’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “More importantly,” David said, “we have to find out what we can here. This is important, Amelia.”

  I sank back down against the ground. “You guys have the wrong person. I’m no spy. I’ve only been training with Mammon for a few months now. I’m nothing compared to you guys.”

  “You’re here, Amelia.” Danielle stared me down.

  “Yeah, so?” I shrugged.

  “That means something, you fool,” she snapped. “It means you’re not a prisoner there. It means you can come and go where you please, when you please. And if your months of training have given you any sort of demonic powers, then you’re in a lot better position than either of us should we get caught.”

  “I can’t spy on Camael,” I said softly, more to myself than the two angels standing in front of me.

  Danielle stared at me questionably. “What do you mean, you can’t spy on Camael?”

  “Things are different. I don’t thi—”

  “Two months ago, you were foaming at the mouth to kill him. Now you’re too domesticated to do anything?” Her voice grew harsher, her suspicion clouding her tone.

  But I couldn’t really blame her; I didn’t even trust myself.

  “Whose side are you on, Amelia?” she demanded.

  Even through the mask, I could feel the anger pouring like venom. I refused to fear a woman who was supposed to help me. In each of our encounters, she continually tried me, as if she were determined to oppose me no matter what.