WEB OF LIES
*Abigail*
“If I said a prayer, it was because I needed a hero.
If I lost my faith, it was because I lost my belief.
If I made a wish, it was because I lost my hope.
If I daydream, it was to escape my reality.”
Melody Manful
I finally hit rock bottom.
Hearing Gideon say he killed my father was worse than everything that happened to me in the weeks I got to know him. Just when I thought I couldn’t hurt anymore, I did.
“He has been like that since he was five,” Tristan told me while I sat on my bed feeling forlorn.
My bodyguards brought me home from the cemetery, and I couldn’t stop shaking the whole way. Tristan was in my room when I entered. He had refused to leave, explaining to me about being my guardian angel and how he wasn’t supposed to leave, especially not after I made Gideon angry.
I made Gideon angry? I had no comment for that. As a matter of fact, it was good that I was in too much shock to speak because I was sure if I had spoken coherent sentences, nothing nice would have come out. I had made the angel, who Tristan described to be worse than Satan angry, after he told me he wanted to kill me and confessed to murdering my father? Hate really didn’t define what I felt for Gideon. Hate was just a word I was using to try and describe my emotions.
Anger, hatred, and betrayal were the beginning of what I felt. I sat and listened to Tristan going on and on about guardian angels, Lumens, Grands, Guardian Paradise, and places I didn’t believe existed. I couldn’t believe that after everything I had gone through, I ended up back in my room where it all started with that terrible nightmare, but this time I was accompanied by a guardian angel.
Angels? Really? That was what they were?
Angels were supposed to be mythical, loving creatures sent from God to guide mankind—not like Gideon! Tristan, on the other hand, had me convinced. I hated Gideon for telling me who and what he was. I hated him for coming into my life. I hated that I ever knew him. And I felt angry and stupid for the way I allowed myself to feel for him.
“The most evil?” I finally got the courage to speak when Tristan called Gideon the Lucifer of his kind. “At age five?” It was taking me awhile to comprehend what I was hearing.
Gideon was even worse than I thought he was. Of course I saw his angry face, his dead eyes, and the dark wings, but I didn’t expect to hear that he was even more evil than I had imagined.
I was shaking so much I was sure that I was going to collapse. My emotions left me confused, scared, angry, and sad. And Tristan wasn’t helping my fear by telling me all the stories of his world. I did ask him to tell me about Gideon, but I wasn’t expecting to hear stories straight from Heaven, or in Gideon’s case, straight from Hell.
“I know this is a lot to take in.” Tristan sat beside me on the bed and took my hand.
“A lot to take in?” My voice sounded fragile and foreign to my own ears. I had never felt so vulnerable or broken. My whole world seemed like it was moving in circles. “Gideon killed all those people and my father.” When I finally spoke the words, every inch of my body rebelled. All I had to do was open my mouth and scream until my lungs gave out. But I couldn’t, not because I didn’t want to, but because my body was too tired and shaken to even try to open my mouth. My throat felt as though someone was choking me from the inside, and my body ached like someone had scratched me with invisible claws.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. I forced myself to breathe, and then finally my body started to cooperate with my brain, and a little sound escaped my lips.
“And then he left.” Somehow saying that last line seemed to be my problem. I don’t know why I said it, but I hated myself after the words came out of my mouth. I wanted to take them back, but it was too late. The damage was done.
“You told him to go away.”
The fault was mine. I wanted to yell at Tristan and tell him to go away, but I didn’t have the strength.
“Angels aren’t supposed to be like Gideon,” I whispered.
It didn’t matter what I thought of Gideon. He was gone. He was a nightmare. He was someone I was glad to be rid of. Maybe I deserved all the horrible things Gideon had done to me. I was the one who listened to everyone and told myself that my nightmare was nothing. I was the reason why that accident happened.
“I’d like to get some rest now,” I managed to get out. I still had my hand in Tristan’s.
“Of course.”
All I heard was a snap of his fingers, and I was under my covers with my head on my pillow. Tristan kneeled beside the bed and stared sadly at me.
Don’t freak out. I tried to breathe. Don’t freak out. I found a new mantra.
“I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Tristan tried to move, but I took hold of his hand, stopping him. I wanted him to stay with me.
“Lie here with me,” I said, making room on the bed for him. “At least until I fall asleep,” I begged.
Tristan lay beside me and began humming a lullaby. I placed my head on his chest and breathed in.
“You’re going to be all right, I promise,” he murmured. Then he kissed my forehead and put his hands around me hugging me close. I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring or if I would ever recover from my shock, but I knew one thing: guardian angel or not, in Tristan’s arms, I felt safe.