Chapter TWELVE
My shift ended and I drove home through the dark. The air felt still and cold as I parked the GTO in the driveway and walked up to the front door. The door creaked as I opened it, startling me in the dead quiet of the evening.
And then I saw Alex, sprawled out on the living room floor. His t-shirt was shredded to pieces around him, his wings spread out around him. He clutched at his bare chest, his eyes wide and staring up at the ceiling.
“Alex!” I screamed as I dropped my things and fell to his side. “Alex!”
“Jessica,” he barely managed to breathe. He took a gasping breath. He squeezed my hand so tightly it actually hurt.
I stared horrified at his body. It seemed to quiver, to shake and re-solidify. “Alex, stay with me!”
Reaching for a place inside of me, to a place that was dead and gone, a place that was more angel than human, I made a plea. If you can hear me Cole, don’t you dare let them take him from me.
“Don’t you dare,” I hissed aloud through clenched teeth. Alex was too out of it to even realize I said anything. Lifting my eyes, I said a little louder “Don’t you dare take him. I will not let you take him from me again!”
Shifting my body, I straddled Alex’s chest with my legs, careful not to put any pressure on his already struggling to breathe chest. Placing my hands on the sides of his face, I forced his eyes to meet mine.
“Alex,” I said clearly and calmly. “You promised me that you wouldn’t let them take you before the wedding. We’re only days away. Don’t you dare break your promise to me.”
“I’m…” he struggled as his eyes started to lose focus. “I’m… trying.”
“Try harder,” I said, hating how my words were sounding. “I need you Alex. You are all that I have. I cannot lose you. I am going to figure this out. I will get you out of this. I just need a little more time.”
Alex met my eyes again, his own looking confused. His breath caught in his throat and he suddenly made a choking sound. Alex’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.
“Alex!” I screamed. “Don’t do this! Don’t let them take you!”
His body started to quake all the more.
It was then that I noticed how his skin looked just the tiniest bit tighter on his body. His veins seemed to stand out just a fraction more.
I swore under my breath.
“Hang on just a few minutes longer, Alex,” I said in a panicked voice. Gripping one of his hands tightly in mine, I lay next to him on the ground.
It was the hardest thing I had ever had to do, to force my body to relax. I concentrated on making my heart slow, on making my thoughts clear and relax.
I closed my eyes and pictured the afterlife. The stone cylinder, the council’s chairs, the stairway that surrounded.
It didn’t take long for everything to blur and feel hazy.
When I opened my eyes I was there.
Not just in the Limbo blackness I had spoken to Cole in.
This was the afterlife I had visited every night, the afterlife Jeremiah had accidently taken me back to.
I was seated on the spiral staircase, alone. Just slightly below me, across the cylinder, the council talked hurriedly, in angry voices.
“We agreed to give more time,” a woman with blue eyes said defensively. “A few months is not more time.”
“A few months is plenty of time,” a black-eyed man hissed. “It is more than he should have been granted.”
“It was very generous,” a white-bearded, blue-eyed man said, his expression downfallen.
I wanted to shout to Cole who sat with the rest of them, to somehow get his attention. But what would happen if the full council knew I was here, an undead, non-proxy?
Cole, I thought with everything I had. Cole, I’m here.
And as simple as that, Cole’s eyes shifted to the walls. In just a fraction of a moment his eyes found mine.
Please, I mouthed, shaking my head. Not yet.
Cole held my eyes for a moment longer, his expression looking as if he were debating how to resolve this.
“Enough!” he bellowed, snapping his attention back to the council. “More time was granted. A week or two longer will not hurt anything. We all know what his fate will be anyway.”
Jeremiah glared at Cole. “Soft,” he hissed quietly with a cold stare.
Coiling his arm, Cole landed a hard blow to the side of the other angels head, knocking him from his seat. An angry cry ripped from Jeremiah’s chest as he simply gave a powerful beat of his wings, hovering in the air before his seat.
“Calm yourself, my brother,” the leader of the exalted said, his eyes narrowing. “As you’ve said, another week cannot hurt anything. We will reevaluate then as to what the boy’s fate shall be.”
Cole’s eyes glanced up at me again, giving me the smallest of nods.
I felt my insides relax just slightly. I nodded back to Cole. Taking a hard swallow, I looked down into the depths below me, and silently jumped.
A gasp escaped my throat as my eyes slid open, seeing the darkened ceiling above me. Half a second later, Alex sat upright, a terrifying sounding gasp coming out of his own lips. His eyes searched around him, confused.
“What happened?” he asked his voice sounding frantic. His expression still confused he climbed to his feet, pulling me to mine.
“You were… having a hard time,” I struggled to come up with an answer.
“Why were you on the floor with me?” he asked, his eyes looking doubtful.
“I’d been holding your hand, telling you to hold on, and I fell asleep.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
He looked at me for a long moment, evaluating what I had said. His expression finally softened and he closed the gap between us, pulling me into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my neck. “It’s getting almost impossible to fight it off.”
“I know,” I said quietly, my mind reeling. “You’ll make it to the wedding though.”
It took a moment, but Alex finally nodded in agreement. He then took a deep breath and started toward the kitchen. “I need to cook something. What sounds good tonight? I’m assuming you aren’t tired after your nap.”
“How about Thai?” I suggested. I wasn’t hungry in the least. But Thai was the first thing Alex had ever cooked for me.
Truthfully I did want to sleep. I needed to talk to Cole again.
“My specialty,” Alex smiled as he started digging through cupboards. Less keen eyes would have missed the shaken way Alex moved, anyone else wouldn’t have smelled the fear that was clouding about him. Alex was terrified.
I gave him a smile back and took a seat at the bar to watch the man who would be my husband in a few days make me dinner at midnight.