by Yvi Valentin
I looked behind us to see Pestilence following at somewhat of a distance. I noticed as he walked down the street, he touched people and they instantly became sick. He had a handkerchief in his hand as he touched each person and it clicked.
“Guys, it’s his handkerchief!” I said excitedly.
“How do you figure?” Jen asked.
“He’s had it in his hand every time he gave someone the disease,” I explained. “I bet if someone tried to grab it he would freak out.”
“Who’s going to test out her theory?” Brian joked.
“I will if the rest of you are too scared,” I teased.
“Alright, I’ll do it.” Andy didn’t seem too happy about it but I didn’t blame him. He walked over to Pestilence and I heard him ask, “Hey, do you have a tissue I can use?”
“No,” Pestilence answered. He sounded worse than he looked.
Andy reached for the handkerchief. “But you have one in your hand.”
“No! Don’t you dare touch it!” he yelled while clutching the handkerchief close to his body.
“Okay, relax! It’s not like that thing has magical powers.” He walked back towards us. “You were right.”
“How are we going to get it away from him?” I asked.
“We’ll have to see if he ever lets go of that thing and take whatever opportunity we can to get it away from him,” Andy answered.
“So we get to follow Pestilence…great,” I said unenthusiastically.
“Do you think it will be alright to touch the handkerchief with our bare hands?” Jen asked.
“I wouldn’t risk it,” Brian replied. “We should probably get some gloves and something to put it in for when we take the handkerchief away.”
“I guess it’s time to start following the horseman,” Andy said with a sigh.
We let the horseman walk past us. I knew I was on his radar from the moment he saw me heal the woman in the diner and I was scared of what might happen. I tried to calm myself down as we followed Pestilence.
We watched the horseman walk down countless streets, making random people sick as he passed them by. I stopped to heal each one while Brian and Jen kept following Pestilence. Andy felt the need to stay by my side every second, which was fine but I hoped he wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about me. We needed to focus on our mission.
“Someone should go get the gloves and container,” I mentioned.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to separate,” Andy hesitated.
“We have to if we’re going to get that disgusting hankie,” I answered. “I’m not going to touch it with my bare hands, are you?”
“Aimee, you should keep following Pestilence and I know Andy’s going to want to stay with you so that leaves Jen and I to get the gloves and container,” Brian said.
“Alright, keep your phones close, call us so we can meet up again,” Andy ordered.
“Okay,” Jen said. “Be safe.”
“You too,” I replied.
We went our separate ways. I worried about something going wrong during our time apart. We all knew we were more vulnerable when we separated. I had a feeling Pestilence knew we were following him which meant something bad for us.
I was running low on energy from all of the healing I had done and needed to recharge. I knew it wasn’t going to be possible with sleep because we couldn’t afford to lose track of Pestilence. I stopped for a moment while Andy kept an eye on the horseman. I tried to relax and take in more energy to get me through what I had to do.
Once I was recharged we had to do some running to catch up with the horseman. We went back to following him and watching closely for any moment he would let his guard down. It was incredibly boring but we knew it was extremely important, the fate of the world depended on it.
“Do you think he’ll ever let go of that thing?” I asked.
“He has to eventually, it’s only a matter of time,” Andy answered.
“What do you think happens when he lets go of his death grip on it?”
“Maybe he keeps it in a safe or has other people guard it for him.”
“I guess we have to keep watching to find out.”
“Yeah…are you as bored as I am?” Andy looked like he was about to fall asleep.
“Yeah, this is horrible. Do you need to recharge at all?”
“No I’m fine. I can’t believe you’ve been able to heal everyone so far.”
“I know. I didn’t think it was possible…do you think he’ll notice?”
“He might notice eventually.”
“What do you think he’ll do when he finds out?”
“Realistically…he’ll probably try to kill you.” I knew Andy didn’t want to say it.
“That’s comforting,” I replied sarcastically.
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t notice until after we’re gone.”
“By the time we’re gone we’ll have the handkerchief and he’ll be trying to kill us anyway.” Panic made its way back to the foreground of my emotions.
Andy gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’ll be fine. Once we get that snot rag we’ll keep it safe. We’ll keep you safe. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
“I know,” I sighed. “It’s just a lot to deal with.”
“We’ll get through this.”
My phone rang and it was Jen on the other end.
“We got the gloves and container,” Jen said. “Where are you guys?”
“It looks like we’re circling back to the diner we first saw him in,” I replied.
“Great, we’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
Andy and I followed Pestilence into the same diner we were in earlier that day. We sat down a few tables away from him, hoping we would get a chance to eat and relax for a moment. We watched the horseman order something and figured it was alright for us to get something to eat. Moments after we ordered, I noticed the horseman had put his handkerchief down on the table. Andy stood up about to head towards the table.
“What are you doing? You can’t just grab that thing, we don’t know what will happen,” I said trying not to attract attention.
“This might be our only chance to get it,” Andy replied. “I have to do it.”
He walked over to the table and snatched the handkerchief. Andy got two steps away before he was hit with whatever disease Pestilence was spreading around. The horseman started closing in on him as he fell to the ground. Telekinetically, I got the handkerchief away from Andy and the horseman and made sure I didn’t touch it. If I got sick, there was no hope for anyone to get better. Moments later Jen and Brian walked in with the gloves and container.
“Get the container out,” I called to them. The handkerchief was hovering above my hand. As long as I kept focusing, I would be alright. I rushed over to Brian who held the container open as I dropped it in. “You guys need to get out of here now.”
“Where will we go?” Jen asked.
“Go back to the hotel and get everything ready to leave,” I said in a panic. “I have to go help Andy. We’ll call you when we’re moving to find a place to meet.”
“Alright be careful Aims,” Brian replied as they headed out the door.
I saw Pestilence rush out of the diner as I ran to help Andy. I kept an eye on the door in case he decided to come back as I healed Andy. It seemed to take longer than it should have to nurse him back to health, but maybe I was too impatient. Eventually the disease was gone but he still looked very weak.
“What happened?” Andy asked.
“You touched the handkerchief and got sick,” I answered.
“I remember that part. Did he take it back?”
“No, Jen and Brian have it. They went back to the hotel to get ready to leave.”
“Where’d Pestilence go?”
“I don’t know. My guess is that he left to follow Brian and Jen.”
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“We should leave.”
“I have to call Jen to see where we should meet.” I pulled out my phone as we walked out of the diner and called Jen. “Hey Jen, Andy and I are leaving the diner now. Where are you guys?”
“We just finished packing everything up. We’re on the way to the airport,” Jen answered.
“Alright, we’ll meet you there. Have you had any problems so far?’
“No, so far everything has gone smoothly.”
“Great, keep an eye out for anything. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”
“Brian and I will buy plane tickets for the next flight out of here.”
“Okay, just be careful.”
“You too, Aims.”
I hung up the phone and walked towards the nearest bench to sit down with Andy. I was really worried about him. He looked horrible and I didn’t know why my healing hadn’t worked. I thought maybe it had something to do with my low energy level. I took a moment to take in more energy before I went back to healing him. It took a few minutes, but my efforts paid off and Andy was finally fully back to normal.
“Thanks,” Andy said and he sprang up off the bench.
“No problem,” I smiled. “Let’s get to the airport. We’re on the next flight out of here.”
“Then we should probably fly.”
“How are we going to do that without being seen?”
“We might have to risk it; we don’t have any other choice.”
I looked around to find somewhere we could go for privacy. I saw an alleyway next to a building down the street. “Let’s go over there.” I led Andy towards the alley and we took off for the airport. It wasn’t long before we landed outside. A few people stared in horror as they saw us appear.
“Where do you think Brian and Jen are?” Andy asked.
“Somewhere inside,” I answered. “I feel their energies. They’re not far.”
We ran inside and looked around for Brian and Jen. There were so many people around that I had to rely on following their energies. It was like an invisible rope linked us to one another. It wasn’t long before we ran into them.
“It’s about time,” Brian said.
“Yeah I know. What time is our flight?” Andy asked.
“It’s in two hours,” Jen answered.
“We should start towards the gate,” I suggested.
“Where’s the snot rag?” Andy asked.
“It’s in my bag,” Jen replied.
“Once we get back we’re going to have to find someplace safe to keep it,” Andy recommended.
“Yeah, but where?” I asked. “If we keep it in our house, we’ll be sitting ducks but if we keep it too far away, it could get stolen without us knowing.”
“I don’t know, let’s worry about it when we get there,” Brian said.
We made it to the gate when I was hit with a bad feeling. I looked around to see if there was anything suspicious going on, but couldn’t find anything. Andy must have known what I was thinking because he stared at me with a concerned expression.
“Aimee, what is it?” Andy asked.
“I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling,” I answered as I looked all over the terminal.
“Aimee!” I heard my name being called from behind me.
“Oh no,” I whined.
“Is that who I think it is?” Andy asked.
“It’s Evan,” I answered.
“Are you serious!? What are we going to do?” Jen asked.
“What can we do? We can’t miss our flight and he’s probably going to be on it,” Brian pointed out.
“Aimee, how are you?” Evan asked as he sat next to me.
“I’m alright,” I said suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been looking for you.” It was kind of scary hearing how pleasant those words came out.
“Okay…well…you found me…now what?”
“I want to work with you guys.” Evan seemed serious but that wasn’t enough for me to trust him.
“You want to ditch the devil…to help us?” Andy asked.
“Well he thinks I’m here to spy for him. It was the only way I could get him to let me go,” Evan clarified.
My mind was racing as we boarded the plane. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. Maybe he was partially telling the truth. Maybe he told us he was sent to spy on us to throw us off and get us to trust him enough to fill him in on what we were up to. He was going to have to prove himself. We couldn’t be too quick to trust him otherwise everything could backfire. Though, I did have a feeling before that he didn’t really want to work for Lucifer, I wasn’t sure if it was just an act.
Andy, Brian, Jen and I spent the entire flight wondering what we were going to do about Evan. We knew we couldn’t say anything and risk him hearing us and I wasn’t sure talking telepathically was a good idea. He would have been able to tell that he was being shut out and I didn’t know what he was capable of.
I couldn’t help but think this whole thing was just one of Lucifer’s plans to get me back. I figured he was going to try even harder to get me to do whatever he needed from me so I couldn’t put anything past him. I could imagine Lucifer freaking out over how much time he had left to get me to do whatever he was trying to force me into.
The flight seemed to take so much longer than it should have, but maybe it was because I felt uncomfortable knowing Evan was around and I had no clue what sort of game he was playing. We eventually landed in New York and realized we ran out of time to figure out what we were going to do about Evan. None of us trusted him enough to let him anywhere near where we lived.
The panic set in as we made our way towards baggage claim. It got even worse as we each got our bags. I could see the fear on Brian and Jen’s faces but oddly enough, Andy looked so calm. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was up to.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,” Andy said softly as he wrapped his arms around me.
“What’s the plan?” I asked as I turned around to face him.
“It’s a surprise, just trust me,” he answered.
“Do you guys mind if I stay with you?” Evan asked. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Evan, why are you really here?” Brian asked angrily. It was the question on all of our minds. We knew he was going to tell us some BS story but still wondered what he would say. We all stared at him in anticipation.
“Well, after all the problems I’ve caused, I decided to start reversing the damage and do some good. I couldn’t let Lucifer know I want to start working against him so I told him I would track you down and do some spying.” Evan sounded convincing, but none of us wanted to believe him.
“What made you realize this?” I asked.
“When you were staying with us…remember the talk we had after you tried to escape.”
“You mean the whole “deal with the devil” conversation? Yeah I remember.”
“Well it really got me thinking about what I’ve been doing and I decided to start doing something good for a change.” Evan seemed genuinely remorseful and it tugged at my heartstrings. Maybe that’s what he wanted.
“We don’t exactly trust you after everything you’ve put us through,” Andy snapped.
“I don’t expect you guys to trust me, but I’d like to be given a chance. Please, just let me prove to you I’ve changed.” I was surprised by Evan’s behavior. It didn’t make any sense.
“Alright, we’ll give you a chance but one mistake and you’re done,” Andy warned.
“Thanks, I won’t let you guys down.” We were all taken by surprise at how grateful Evan seemed.
“Let’s get out of here,” Brian said.
“Alright, come on Evan,” Andy sighed. He didn’t sound too thrilled about it. I didn’t blame him; it was obvious we were all uncomfortable with the situation.
Andy rented a car and took us to the mystery place we would be staying while we were with Evan. I wondered what Andy had planned but
I trusted him with my life and wasn’t worried. It was Evan I was worried about.
“So where do you guys live?” Evan asked.
“Manhattan,” Andy answered.
“Nice, do you like living here?” I wasn’t expecting Evan to ask so many questions.
“It’s great,” I answered quickly.
We made it to the apartment and I was amazed Andy managed to pull this off. I shouldn’t have been because he always managed to surprise me. I walked into the apartment and noticed that it looked like it had been lived in. I wondered how Andy got everything set up in such a short amount of time. I made note to ask him later.
“Wow, this is a nice place,” Evan said.
“Thanks,” Andy replied. “Make yourself at home.” He shuddered as those words passed his lips and so did I. It was going to take some getting used to.
“So what were you guys doing in Minnesota?” Evan asked. None of us were prepared for that question.
“Assignment,” Andy answered.
“It’s classified,” Brian added.
“I get it, you don’t trust me.” Evan sounded hurt but I wasn’t going to feel bad about it.
“You’ve never given us any reason to trust you Evan,” I snapped.
“Okay…I’ll try not to ask too many questions.” Evan looked down in disappointment which once again tugged at my heartstrings.
“We’ll let you know when we have something for you to do,” Andy said.
“Can you tell us what exactly Lucifer expects from you?” Jen asked.
“He wants me to tell him your plans to stop him from bringing on the apocalypse.” We were all shocked at his willingness to tell us. I figured it was part of his plan to earn our trust.
“You mean he doesn’t want you to kidnap me again?” I asked. It was my guess that if he was sent to kidnap me, he would have tried already. Lucifer was in a hurry to get things done.
Evan sighed. “He wants me to convince you to help him…willingly.”
“I hope you told him it’s never going to happen,” Andy said.
“I told him I didn’t think I was going to be able to convince you,” Evan answered.
“Then why exactly are you here?” I asked, raising my voice. “You keep giving us different answers and then wonder why none of us trust you!”
“Because I want to be close to you Aimee!” Evan yelled. “You made it clear you would never want anything to do with me as long as I worked for your father!”