FALL FROM PARADISE

by Blair, M. Dylan

While he was a man of few words, everyone’s accusatory glances since my collapse from his graces only furthered my hypothesis. While everyone was too busy wondering what I had done to make him clam up even more, I still had to figure out whether his newfound silence had something to do with Adam’s disappearance. Even after all the time we had spent together, he had told me little.

  He kept telling me to trust him. Well, trust only went so far.

  Adam isn’t the man you think he is. Camael’s words echoed in my mind.

  He kept goading me along, biding his time, but he refused to tell me his purpose. I could never really trust someone who kept so many important secrets, and the uneasiness in my stomach made me doubt him even more.

  My things had been packed for hours, just sitting on the edge of my bed, before Rami finally slithered into my chambers.

  “Lord Camael hasss sssummoned you,” he hissed, cowering though I never had understood why. I had never seen anyone other than Na’amah lash out at him, and even then, it wasn’t enough to make him fear any of us.

  Hell, I didn’t know if I even wanted to go home, but Camael wasn’t giving me a choice. He kept repeating that it was for my own good. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I went home or even if there was even still a home to return to.

  He had brought me here under his protection and now he was just tossing me aside.

  A fool to the bitter end, I followed Rami down into the lower quarters in Gehenna, each new hallway rougher and cruder than the last. We were approaching the wildlands at Gehenna’s borders, where all of the craftsmanship had been stripped away and everything reverted to empty, crude tunnels of stone.

  Much like it had been with Adam, I wouldn’t have known that Camael was standing there unless he spoke. With his wings sable and smooth, he could have been a part of the stone, blending in almost like camouflage.

  Rami left as quickly as he had come, leaving us alone in the darkened corridor. It was dark enough that I couldn’t even see the gray eyes peering back at me.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” he said, not even bothering to look in my direction.

  “For a moment there, I wasn’t sure myself.” My footsteps echoed in the stark silence as I walked toward him.

  “I wanted to talk to you before you left for Assiyah.” He held his hand out for me.

  I stood there, my hands wrapped around my waist as I simply waited for something, anything, to tell me that this wasn’t the most insane thing I had done. Instead of reaching for his hand, I slid my arms around his waist and laid my head against his chest, hearing him gasp in the process.

  “Amelia, I—” he inhaled sharply.

  “Don’t, Cam,” I said. “Don’t try and rationalize something for once. Please.”

  The bewilderment on his face proved that he wasn’t used to taking orders, not even from me, but more importantly, he wasn’t used to such tenderness. His entire body froze into the steel he personified.

  I was thankful for my lessons with Na’amah so that I could maintain my own psyche without my thoughts overlapping onto his. I was free to think and act accordingly.

  “No,” he cried softly and pushed me off him, turning around so he didn’t have to face me.

  “Why?” I took a step forward, my hands latching onto his gray shirt.

  “I’m a monster, Amelia. The things I’ve done, the things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done to you.” he gasped as he leaned against the wall, his forehead pressed against the cold stone. “You’d never forgive me if you knew the truth.”

  My mouth fell open; I wasn’t sure what to say. This angel, my kidnapper, sought absolution through my forgiveness.

  He turned around, his gray eyes blazing with a longing I could not deny. “I don’t know why it pains me so much, but everything’s so much clearer when you’re around. I can’t do this without you,” he whispered, and I knew how hard it was for him to get this out.

  I simply stood there and listened. What more could I do? He was telling the truth.

  He turned sideways and slid down the wall, his back pressed against the cold stone. His eyes were dark like a blackened sky in the depths of winter. “I know there’s some things I haven’t told you, but . . .”

  “But what, Cam?

  “As much as it pains me to keep you here, I want to ask that you stay a little longer yet.”

  “Then do.” I pulled my shawl around me tighter, and before Camael could protest, I slid back against the wall myself and sat down beside him.

  “No,” he said bitterly, his eyes moist.

  “Why?” I gawked at him. “Do you really think I hate you? Because I don’t.”

  “I think you should,” he said, not even bothering to look up at me. “And I think, given enough time, you will.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to make of what you’re telling me, Camael.”

  He frowned. “I don’t . . . Never mind. Forget it. Forget I said anything.” He stalked out of the corridor, his black wings filling the narrow chamber in which we stood. “Goodbye, Amelia. Na’amah will see to your safe return.”

  PART THREE - AMELIA

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  At first, being back wasn’t so bad. I kept my mind busy, my hands tied up in different projects. I showed up to my job and salvaged the opportunity Mary had given me.

  I also had to explain over a lengthy meal with Mrs. Henry about where I had been the past few months. Although she doubted my excuse, she seemed far more concerned with the weight I had lost.

  “A wisp of an angel,” she had called me. “Eat, lest Death come take you away.”

  How sad that she was right.

  Eating didn’t come naturally to the other realms. It was nothing more than a means to an end, really. When you were immortal, eating didn’t register as it did when you were human. I had more important things to worry about than food.

  I slipped out of the rental and pulled the door closed, looking up long enough to notice that Mrs. Henry had added a door chime. I pushed my arms through the sleeves of my black hoodie and burrowed my hands into the pockets.

  One of the first purchases I had made upon arriving back to Assiyah was an mp3 player. I went into the closest electronics store and asked the kid behind the counter for the cheapest one. Five minutes later, I was out the door with some Korean piece of junk, but it got the job done. I had been out of the loop for so long that I had purchased whatever music caught my eye.

  I’d have done anything to drown out the noise in my head. I had never been a drinker, but God now I wish I were.

  How easy it all seemed now, looking back.

  Night had already settled into Middleton by the time I headed downtown. Like most coastal towns, downtown encompassed several narrow, brick streets filled with shops and piers swallowed by fishing boats. It was easy enough to navigate and hard to get lost in.

  Across from the small Italian ristorante sat a comfortable looking bench with my name on it, figuratively not literally this time, and I didn't know whether to feel relieved or not.

  I wanted all of this to be a distant nightmare, but I knew better than to hold onto such blind optimism. Now I just wanted to disappear.

  The good news, I didn't have anything to retract from, only myself. And that was enough.

  I felt marked, as if something had crawled under my skin and died. There was a constant itching that made me just want to tear into my flesh.

  I wanted him. There, I said it.

  I wanted him to want me the way I wanted him. Like each tingle, each twitch, each second without him ripped the oxygen from my lungs and arteries. Like my soul was being sucked out and the only way to stop it was being near him.

  This was unlike anything I had ever felt before. I didn’t know what love felt like, but I knew it wasn’t my imagination. A hollow feeling sat at the pit of my stomach, and I leaned between my legs to squall it.

  “New girl?” a familiar male voi
ce called out in my direction.

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. Across the street, with his arms casually slung over two young women, stood Matt.

  “It is you!” he crowed, leaving the women chaperone-less as he juked around a passing bicyclist.

  I waited for him to cross. “Matt, right?”

  “You remembered.” His blue eyes beamed. “I feel so special.”

  I nodded to the blonde and brunette laughing across the way. “So apparently do the two honeys over there.”

  “What?” He turned around. “Oh, they're just friends. Dude, where were you? Everyone thought you were dead. Like some psycho ex-boyfriend came and kidnapped you or something.”

  I snorted before I could stop myself, causing Matt's eyes to widen.

  “Whoa, they're not right, are they?”

  My irritation couldn't curtail itself. “Listen, Matt. You seem like an alright guy, so I'’m going to give you a piece of advice for your own safety. I want you to forget you ever saw me tonight and just go about the rest of your evening as if nothing ever happened.”

  His eyes only widened more. “You’re a spy?” he whispered sharply.

  “What?” Some guys . . . “No, Matt. I’m not a spy. I’m nobody. Nothing.”

  He dropped onto the bench uninvited. “Erin—”

  “Emily.”

  “Emily,” he repeated, not even fazed by his mistake. “Everyone is someone whether they realize it or not. Sometimes it just takes longer to realize it.”

  My stomach clinched. He couldn’t possibly know, could he? And if he did, whose side was he on? He was too nice to be from Hell. If he were from Heaven, then he’d know the price on my head.

  I stood up slowly from the bench, so not to look anymore paranoid or deranged than I already was. “Matt, thanks for the advice, but I’ve got to run.”

  Before another second was wasted, I struck a path. It was stupid to have returned, a mistake, but I was a fast learner. I would be gone in less than an hour, somewhere off the grid where no one could ever find me.

  “Amelia,” Matt called out when I had reached the intersection between Kirsic and Lane.

  “Yeah?” I turned to find his face full of concern, a frown etched into his skin like carved stone.

  “It’s not who we are that defines us but what we do,” he said gently, his blue eyes piercing through me like a knife. “I just want you to know that if you feel like hanging around, we’ll be at Del Mare’s catching a bite.” He pointed across the street through the pocket of his denim jacket.

  I frowned. “Thanks, but . . .”

  Matt smiled. “I'’m not bending your arm, Amelia. I have no intention of making you do something you don’t want to. I just thought it might be nice to have a full stomach before you try taking off again.”

  That pain in my insides came back. I suddenly had one hand on the dagger at my hip, ready to draw it if he made one more wrong move. “Who are you?” I demanded.

  He opened his jacket wide. No weapons. “You already know who I am, Amelia.”

  “No, I don’t know who you are,” I hissed, “otherwise I would not be asking.” I steadied myself into a comfortable stance for both throwing and out-maneuvering as I pulled out the dagger with my hand backward on the hilt. It was easy enough to flip it around the other way, a trick Mammon had shown me when he had given me the blade. After a little bit of practice, it felt like my companion for years. “That’s three times you’ve used my name when five minutes ago you couldn’t even remember it,” I said, ready if he tried to attack.

  If Araboth wanted me dead, they were going to have to do better than Matt.

  “Come have a bite,” he said, already walking back toward the restaurant.

  I stood there, unmoving, waiting for the sands of time it seemed.

  “Listen, Amelia.” He looked back at me one final time before reaching for the stained glass door. “God helps those who help themselves, right?”

  My dumbfounded look said all I needed to say. My ever-increasing dislike of this plane only increased as I stood there in the middle of the cobblestone walk.

  At least in Hell you knew where everyone stood. Here, I just had to wait for the roll of the dice and hope I got lucky. Unfortunately for me, luck had never been my thing, so I leaned back and screamed at Heaven with everything I had instead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  By about the fourth string of obscenities, people began filing out of the restaurant and nearby stores that were still open this late. By about the seventh, I had ripped off my hoodie and thrown it to the ground. My shrill, one-sided psychosis echoed from every point on the boardwalk.

  I was done.

  Done.

  I didn’t care who it was, or what they were: angel, demon, good, bad, god, or devil. I was fucking done.

  If the Seraphim wanted me so badly, they could take me right here, right now. I was finished paying for something I had never done. I didn't know what had happened to make Camael leave the Seraphim, but I was beginning to see it didn’t matter. Apparently, Araboth shot first and asked questions second. But when you had millennia to clean up your mess, their sense of damage control was completely lacking.

  How could Raphael let this happen? I thought he was a good guy. How did angels even kill others of their kind? I had already seen what torture looked like, and I could say that I most certainly wanted to avoid it a second time.

  I felt broken. How much more before there was nothing left to me?

  Without warning, the wind was suddenly knocked from my chest, and I realized Matt’s body collided with mine. My kicking and screaming meant little as he scooped me up one-handed and flung me over his shoulder, apologizing to the passersby for the disruption.

  His politeness served as his folly when I reached back for my dagger with the intention of stabbing him in the shoulder.

  “If you're looking for your knife, it’s not there.” He nodded at the women accompanying him to open the door.

  We had made it through the door when the patron of the restaurant noticed me beating and clawing at Matt's back. “Any trouble tonight, Mateo, and I’m going to have to ask you to take it elsewhere.”

  “Capisco, Signore Salvatore. No trouble.” He nodded to the blonde who slid a chair over to the middle of the room, dropping me into the seat as he pinned my wrists to the frame. “Amelia, I need you to listen. It’s important. I’m not going to hurt you, but if you insist on struggling or start to run, I will tie you up. Do you understand?”

  I ran my tongue over my lower lip, contemplating how far I’d get if I made a run for it.

  “Not very.” He scowled at me. “I’m not playing around so it would be nice if you’d have some respect and faith in people once in a while. Now listen, Ame—”

  He didn't even have time to finish his thought; my forehead found his nose, slammed in a desperate attempt to kill him. Instead, I burst something inside his septum, causing him to scream his own set of obscenities.

  The blood pooling from his nostrils gave me the time I needed to juke around him and back toward the door where the brunette waited. I didn’t even have a chance to fight her; I was being dragged backward by my new ponytail.

  It didn’t matter though; I had a fireball waiting for him by the time we were inches apart. I slammed the swirling orb straight into his solar plexus, knocking him back to the end of the bar area.

  “Goddammit, Amelia!” he said, digging himself out of a line of chairs and stools that had been knocked over in his wake. “You’re so damn lost that you can’t tell a friend from an enemy.”

  “Good,” I snapped.

  “You know this isn’t the way this was supposed to work.” This time he kept his distance, his hands raised as if there were a gun at his back.

  “Now answer me, or I’ll hit you again. Who are you?” I demanded, drawing another orb into the center of my palm, strengthening it as Mammon had taught me. With the sphere shifting from red-orange to orange-yello
w, it wouldn't be long until it reached white, and anything it touched at that temperature would disintegrate as if it had never existed in the first place.

  “Since apparently you’re too stubborn to get this any other way.” Matt suddenly started to unbutton his Oxford.

  “Wh—what are you doing?” I stuttered. If that’s what a friend was, he was awfully presumptuous.

  “Making you believe that I won’t hurt you.” He was already at the third button.

  “No more games, Mateo,” I barked. “Tell me what this is about, and leave your clothes on to do it.”

  “Okay, okay. Jeez, you’re no fun.” He sighed and dropped his hands to his side. “I knew you were gonna be a pain in the ass, but this is ridiculous.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Laughing at the sour look I gave him, he pulled Oxford over his head and threw the blue pinstripe to the ground at his feet. The white wife-beater clung to his narrow frame, revealing his lean upper-body. He turned around slowly, leaving me to stare at his backside and see his wings unveil for myself. Neither black nor white, his wings were like the plumes of a hawk, all brown and cream, with specks of black and red thrown in.

  “That proves nothing other than that you’re an immortal.” I stepped back, switching my lead foot so I didn’t have to lower my guard. “Everyone has wings. It doesn’t mean I can trust you.”

  “True, but that’s not the point.” He brushed his hair back, rubbing his face with his hands. “I wasn’t sent here to hurt you, Amelia. I was sent here to help. So just stop while you’ve got the ability to do so.”

  “Listen, whoever you are,” I said. “I don’t need help. So unless you’re here to kill me, leave me in peace. I’ve had enough supernatural bullshit to last a lifetime and then some.”

  Matt simply stared at me.

  “I suggest you move before I move you myself,” I finally told the brunette, brushing my bangs from my eyes. It was hard to be intimidating when you couldn’t see.

  The girl grinned widely. “You’ve got balls saying that to someone you don’t even know.”