Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Letting myself slip under was a bit like willing myself into death. I suppose for me it really was. It was as close to death as I could ever come. I willed my heart to slow, to almost stopping. I focused on my blood slowing, on my organs slowing down. I focused my brain on not being active anymore.
And then I was in the world of the dead.
I appeared on the staircase, in a shadowed area, facing the wall opposite of the stone council chairs. As soon as I arrived, everything inside of me felt like it was being shredded to pieces. Everything within me shifted, faded away, wanted to transform, needed to be dead, to be changed. But it couldn't settle on whether it was human or angel.
Because I wasn't quite either.
There was no one around me when I arrived, but as I looked down at the catwalk below me, I understood why. A man led a figure out onto the catwalk. As far as I could tell it was a woman. Her head was covered in the white bag mine had always been, her body sheathed in the same white robes, her hands bound in front of her body. I could see her hands shaking even from my lofty position. The man whom I could only assume was Cormack's replacement turned and walked back into the stone tunnel.
And I then heard the rustle of wings. Voices talked quietly, and one by one, the council members landed in their appointed chairs.
I watched them from the shadows as they started the trial. They were all so beautiful. There were three exalted women, each with a face that would make a normal man sell his soul just for a few hours with her. The exalted men were equally beautiful, their faces and bodies flawless.
The unfair thing was that the condemned were just as beautiful. They were just as perfect looking, just as breathtakingly flawless. The two women looked like goddesses, and the three men, including Cole and Jeremiah, were just as incredible.
"You're actions must be made know," the leader of the exalted said, his voice ever sad as he looked at the faceless woman before him.
My barely beating heart hammered in my chest as I heard the mass rush of wings. Numberless angels ascended from the fiery depths and swooped down from the blue skies above. And suddenly I was surrounded by blue and black-eyed alike. I pressed my back against the cylinder, trying to hide the fact that I myself did not have a pair of wings.
A few eyes turned to me, but they did not linger before they moved onto their fellow comrades in exaltation or damnation. I may as well have been one of them. That, or they simply didn’t care that I was there. But I seriously doubted that.
The air came in and out of my lungs in gasping breaths as my eyes turned back to the woman on trial. Black spots formed on the edge of my vision. Everything inside of me hurt. It felt like my organs kept being burned away and then re-growing in my ribcage.
The deeds of this woman's life started to be read and I felt real panic.
I didn't have endless time to do this. I couldn't waste my time being terrified and hiding in the corner so to speak.
"Excuse me," I said hoarsely to the woman next to me. She didn't even turn her head in my direction. "Excuse me," I said again, raising my voice just slightly. She turned her brilliant blue eyes on me. I sighed a little breath of relief. "I am looking for someone. I wondered if you could help me?"
She gave me a confused look for a moment, and I worried for a second that she might not answer me at all. "Are you alright, child?" she asked, her face concerned looking. "You don't look well."
"I'm... I'm fine," I stuttered. "I'm looking for Rose Roberts. Do you know where I could find her?"
As soon as I said her name, my eyes were drawn to a place on the staircase about fifteen yards away. As I saw the red haired woman, her eyes instantly locked with mine.
"Looks like you don't need my help anymore," the first woman said, her eyes still concerned looking. I shook my head once. Slowly, I started making my way toward the red-haired woman, being careful to keep along the wall and my back pressed against the stone.
No other angels seemed to notice our odd behavior as I approached her. Their eyes were firmly locked on the woman on trial. As I came to her side neither of us said anything for a long time, we simply stared at each other.
"You're her," she finally said quietly. “The proxy.”
I could only nod.
"I am so thankful," she said, her head shaking just slightly. "I’ve see the trials, how terrifying they are. I didn’t have to endure that, because of you. And I am so sorry. It wasn’t fair."
I stared back into her beautiful blue eyes, trying hard to swallow the hard lump in my throat. "No, it isn’t."
She continued to look at me for a long moment, and it was a bit before I realized I needed to say something. "I need your help."
Knowing my time was running out, I rushed through an explanation. Everything that was happening to Alex, everything we had been through. All the struggles we were going through to be together.
When I finished, she stared at me with sympathy in her eyes, but there was something else there that I couldn't place.
"I know what he did, honey," she said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "We all know what he did. Never before has one made a plea like that and be allowed to return. What he did for you was incredible. But..." she trailed off.
"But what?" I said, slightly too demanding sounding. I felt the panic surge in my blood again, everything inside of me feeling so completely wrong.
"But things are changing around here. The council. Things must change to remain fair. Some of us have talked. We know your Alex doesn't have long left up there. He is a good man. Good men like that don't come along very often."
She paused for a long moment, staring back into my eyes. I tried yet again to swallow that hard lump.
"What are you saying?" my voice came out as barely more than a whisper. "That... that you want him... as a council member?"
"That's exactly what I am saying," she said, looking around to check that no eyes were watching us.
"But..." I stumbled over my words. "But he has to stay with me. He can't leave me."
"But when it’s time for someone to go, it is their time."
"No!" I practically shouted, taking a quick step away from the woman. "No, that's the point. It wasn't his time. The leader of the condemned, he killed Alex! It wasn't Alex's time to go. It wasn't fair."
"Nothing in life is really fair," Rose said, her eyes sympathetic again. "I had just given birth to my third child, a little girl, when I found out I had breast cancer. I only had eight months to be her mother. Only eight months to fit in a lifetime of mothering to my children."
I stared back at this woman, my mouth hanging open, knowing there was more I needed to say but unable to make my brain work to recognize what it needed to do.
"If you ask me to not accept him, I will do it, for what you did for me," Rose said quietly, again glancing around to make certain no one was listening. "But it is a wonderful thing, what we want for him. He would be an incredible leader."
"Thank you," I managed to whisper, my entire body starting to vibrate with the pain that was growing in my body.
Just then those with the black eyes sprang from their seats and leapt at the newly branded woman. I glanced back at Rose, trying to manage an appreciative smile.
And in the midst of the chaos, I leapt into the depths below.
A gasp ripped from my throat as I sat straight up in the pillowey white bed. Alex jumped in surprise, his form barely visible through the nearly non-existent light.
Air continued to come in and out in gasps. My lungs felt like they weren't there. It felt like my stomach wasn't there. It felt like my heart had filled my entire chest cavity, pulsing, throbbing, pounding painful blood through my shifting system.
"Jessica?" Alex said through the dark. A moment later the light flipped on. Spots formed on the edges of my vision as I met Alex's terrified, wide eyes. "Jessica!"
I barely felt it as Alex placed his hands on the sides of my face. Forcing my eyes to focus on his, I tried to even my breathing. But it felt like I couldn't find my lungs.
"Jessica? What happened? What's wrong?" The fear and panic were so obvious in his eyes.
I continued to gasp, clutching my chest. No longer able to keep myself sitting up, I collapsed back onto the bed.
"Jessica!" Alex screamed, panicked. "What do I do?!"
I reached a hand out, frantically searching for his. Finding his forearm, I clung to it like my life depended on it. Alex leaned over me, gripping my other forearm, and looked into my eyes.
"Focus on me," he said, trying with everything he had to calm his voice. "Focus on me, Jessica. You will stay with me. You will not be pulled back into that place. You don’t belong there. You will stay with me. You are my wife and I will not let them take you from me."
"You're..." I gasped again, feeling something inside of me starting to solidify again. But every part of me wanted to go back. "You're wife."
"Yes," he said, his eyes burning as he looked into mine. With every passing moment, my breaths came easier and smoother. "You are my wife, and you promised to stay with me. Just like I promised you."
I nodded, letting go of one of his arms, and rubbed at my chest, never breaking eye contact with him.
It was then that I noticed the small black vein that bulged around Alex’s left eye. Lifting my free hand, I touched it lightly.
Alex placed his hand over mine, holding my palm against his cheek. I saw his lower lip quiver, saw the pain in his eyes. Had he been capable, there would have been tears.
"Is this going to happen every time you go back?" he asked in a quivering whisper.
I bit my lower lip for a moment, to stop my own trembling. Slowly I nodded. "I think so."
Alex squeezed his eyes closed, the pain and fear rolling off of him. His entire frame trembled slightly.
"I won't let them take you," I breathed, my whole body shaking as well.
Alex took a sniffling breath, and then let it out in an unsteady whoosh. "I'm so scared, Jessica."
Wrapping my arms around Alex shoulders, I pulled him into me. I wanted to tell him not to be scared. But I knew he had every reason to be. So I just held him instead until the sun came up in the east.
X
The next four days came and went in waves of panic, urgency, pain, and despair.
I continued to return to the world of the dead. I went in every chance I could force my body to sleep, sometimes multiple times a day, with a list of names. I no longer hid in the corner, fearing being caught. I ran. I sprinted through the concourses of angels, searching frantically for the faces I somehow always knew. And I explained in desperation what I needed from them. What I wanted and tried to demand from them.
But I continued to get the same answers. The exalted wanted Alex as one of their new leaders. The condemned simply wanted to punish him out of jealousy for being allowed more time to return. Our plan was backfiring. In a major way.
I sat up from the bed with a gasp, clutching my chest in pain. My lungs were like soggy sponges. My vision blurred as I tried to focus on Alex's face before me, tried to find the details in his features. And slowly they did. Each new black vein around his eyes.
"Jessica," I faintly heard Alex say through the painful haze that was my entire existence. "Jessica."
Slowly my lungs became detectable and my body stopped pulsing and shifting. My eyes met a bed with a handful of feathers atop it.
"Alex," I breathed, picking up one of the perfectly white feathers. My eyes started filling with moisture as I met his. That was when I noticed his hands shaking.
"It's coming, Jessica," he said in an unsteady voice. "I..." he faltered. "I don't think I can fight this much longer."
I shifted on the bed, kneeling in front of him. I took his forearms in my hands, placing my face just an inch from his. "You can do it, just for a little bit longer. We just need a little more time."
Alex met my eyes, something all too close to despair radiating in his own. "Just a little more time," he repeated.
But I think we both knew that was a lie.
It was going to take more than time to save Alex.