Broken Wings (An Angel Eyes Novel)

13

Brielle

The sun’s low in the sky now. It’s cut a yellow boulevard across the lake. So beautiful, so clear. I can imagine stepping out onto it. I can imagine walking on water.

But when my toes touch the rippling current, my feet sink into mud.

“Let’s walk,” Jake says.

I’ve still got my ratty jean shorts on over my suit, and the smell of sunblock is everywhere. Jake’s chest is golden in the evening sun, his hair ruffled and loose. It’s like a vacation being with him like this.

“You’re staring at me,” he says.

I’d blush, but we’re so far past that. “I am.”

“That could make a lesser man feel uncomfortable.”

I laugh. “But not you?”

“Definitely not me. Please stare away. In fact”—he stops and steps in front of me—“let me return the favor.”

An impromptu stare-off. Awesome. I am so not going to lose.

Jake keeps his gaze on me, but he moves it from my eyes to my lips and then to the hair tucked behind my ear. It isn’t until he bites his lip and waggles his eyebrows that I realize just how hard he’s flirting, how hard he’s trying to win. A laugh bubbles in my stomach, but I shut it down and set to examining his face further. Not at all an unpleasant task.

Sweat curls the hair around his face. Some of it catches in his sideburns, in the scruff he’s not shaven. Other strands tangle in his long black lashes—lashes that send shadows spilling across his cheekbones. His lips are wet, that lower one still stuck between his teeth. I let my eyes trail to the hollow at his throat. And that’s when he grabs my shoulders and pulls me to him. That’s when his lips crush mine. Electrified little bugs crawl from my bare toes to the crown of my head. I close my eyes and press closer, the luckiest girl on the planet.

It’s a solid minute before I realize my mistake.

“I win,” Jake says, his lips still touching mine.

My eyes snap open. Triumph gleams back at me from his.

“Cheater.”

My feet are still in the lake, the moon joining the sun overhead, a dock materializing out of the water in the distance. We head toward it, three hundred and thirteen steps without talking. I like that we can do that. I like that we don’t have to fill every silence. But the farther we walk, the heavier the silence seems to be.

“It bothers you that I know when you’re scared, doesn’t it? Bothers you that I can see your fear.”

The dock is before us now and Jake steps onto it, pulling me up after him. “It’s not that I didn’t know you could see it, Elle. I just thought . . . I thought I was managing it better than I am, I guess.”

“You mean hiding it.”

We’re at the end of the dock now, the water sloshing gently against the wooden beams below. Crickets fill the air, but Jake is quiet.

“I wish you wouldn’t. Hide them, I mean. Your fears are the only ones I feel remotely equipped to handle.”

“See, that concerns me.”

“What?”

Jake drops to the dock and I sit with him, our feet dangling over.

“The other day you were talking about fear being everywhere and I just . . . I realized how little I’ve done to help you. To prepare you.”

“Jake . . .”

“You can do more than handle fear, Elle. You can destroy it.”

I almost laugh. Sitting here in my bathing suit, perched next to the water like a cattail, I couldn’t feel less like a warrior. But Jake continues.

“Think about the warehouse. Think about the child, Ali.”

His change of subject takes me by surprise.

“I think about her all the time,” I say. Of all the children locked away in Damien’s warehouse, she’s the one I find myself wondering about the most. Her name is a ghostly reminder of my Ali, my friend, killed by the same man who took her hostage. Something inside me warms at the thought of her, free and mending somewhere.

But when we first met the child, there was no guarantee. She was terrified, shaking, her dirty face smeared with fear. And then Jake spoke hope. He promised her a way out, and the fear dissolved, evaporating into the heat and light of the Celestial.

“It takes a word. A touch. A prayer. You were created to be a light. So be that to the scared and broken. Be that, and watch what happens to fear.”

Starlight appears in the water below. I watch as, one light at a time, the darkness of the glassy lake reflects the beauty overhead. “It’s overwhelming sometimes.”

“I know,” he says, staring at his own hands. “I feel like such a hypocrite telling you what to do with your gift.”

He’s been skittish with the healing in his hands. In the seven months since the warehouse, he’s not used it once.

“Does it scare you?” I ask. “Healing?”

“It’s not the act of healing that scares me. It’s the consequences. A demon thought he could corrupt the gift, and it almost got you killed.”

“Technically, it did get me killed.”

I’m joking, of course, making light of a memory that terrifies both of us, but I’ve underestimated Jake’s tone.

“Put the halo on,” he says.

“Now?” I glance around, but we’re alone.

“Yes,” Jake says, removing the halo from my wrist. “I want to show you something.”

As always, the halo shifts and remolds, melting and transforming into the crown that was given to Canaan as a reward for his loyalty. The liquid gold sheen catches the stars tonight and throws their light back at us brighter than they appear above.

When the change is complete, I place the halo on my head and watch as shards of white light pierce the hazel of Jake’s eyes. The lake follows, and the sky, the moon a vibrant ball of blue and yellow against the orange expanse. I see the Celestial.

And I see fear.

Black and thick, it sits on Jake’s shoulders. My heart aches at the sight. It’s heavier than anything I’ve seen on him.

“You see it, then?”

I nod, my insides knotted.

“You’re afraid. Very afraid. But why?”

“Destroy it,” he says.

My inadequacies curdle in my stomach, but it’s Jake, and I’d do anything to take this burden from him. Even carry it myself. I reach out a hand, sliding it across his shoulder and into the fear. The malevolent substance leaps at the heat of my body, climbing onto my hand. It twists and turns, inching up my arm. Cold. So very, very cold.

“Now pray,” he says.

But my hand trembles and my mind slows. “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .”

So Jake prays in my place. Words of faith. Words of fire. He speaks promises from Scripture. That God won’t leave us or forsake us. That He’s conquered fear and we, His children, aren’t subject to its bondage. He prays the words I can’t find, brave words. I watch, riveted as the light, the celestial air around us, sparks like the striking of a match. Sizzling stars assault the black sludge on Jake’s shoulders, setting it ablaze. My eyes water at the stink of burning rubber, but I watch until every last clot of fear turns to smoke.

His words did that.

His faith set fear on fire.

“That’s . . . that’s new.”

Jake sits taller now, the weight of terror lifted. “I haven’t been trying to hide my fears, Elle. I’ve been trying to destroy them before they attack both of us. We’ve spent this last seven months getting to know one another, but I haven’t done enough to teach you how to fight. I haven’t done enough to show you that the fear you see—every fear you see—can be destroyed. I’m sorry about that.”

“I . . . I forgive you?”

“Good.” He laughs. “Thank you.”

“So it’s prayer, then. Prayer is how I fight.”

“And Scripture. Scripture is like acid to fear if it’s wielded correctly. But I can’t always see the fear, Elle. Not like you can. It’s far too easy for me to forget the burden it must be to you.”

“It’s not a burden if . . . I don’t see the fear if I’m not wearing the halo like this.”

“But you will. It’s your gift, Elle. One day you’ll see it all the time. You won’t be able to close your eyes to it, and you have to know how to fight.”

Jake’s eyes are on mine, the purity of love’s greatest expression gently caressing my face. But it’s not long before the tiniest drop of fear blossoms in his chest. Canaan told me once that the tragedy of fear isn’t that it can be used as a weapon by the Fallen, but that humans hold it inside their very being and can unleash it upon themselves unwittingly. Even now it worms its way to his shoulders where it multiplies, settling once again like armor he need not wear.

It seems something’s captured Jake’s heart. Something that keeps the fear tucked deep inside.

“What is it, Jake? What has you so afraid?”

His smile is a sad one. “Back so soon.”

“It’s not just my dad, is it?”

His mouth opens. It’s soft, there’s an answer there, but with the frenzy of wings, we’re pulled from the ground and airborne before he can say a thing.