Into This River I Drown

Rosie and her shotgun aren’t the only ones that show. After she arrives, more

townsfolk start pouring into the store, word of the attempted robbery spreading quickly. Their faces are filled with concern, which quickly turns to anger that such a thing could happen in Roseland. This is such a safe place, they say. Things like that don’t happen here. What the hell is going on?

Sheriff Griggs arrives the same time my mother and Christie do.

“Benji,” my mother gasps as she pushes her way through the crowd, wrapping me in a hug. “Christ, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say, my voice muffled against her shoulder. She pulls away, and as mothers tend to do, checks for herself, not satisfied until she knows I haven’t actually been shot.

She asks what happened just as Griggs walks into the door. He looks around the store wearily before announcing loudly that the store needs to be cleared. Roselandians grumble but comply. They gather out near the one gas pump, whispering excitedly.

I tell the sheriff and one of his deputies the same thing I would have told my mother. The guy had come in, demanding money. I’d attempted to give him everything out of the register, but he wanted more. The bank, I say, picked up the funds from the safe the day before as they do for all the businesses on Poplar Street. The robber had flashed his gun around, and it’d gone off accidentally. We didn’t see where the bullet had gone, but there didn’t appear to be any damage. Maybe it misfired, I say. I didn’t know. But the shot seemed to scare him. He fled.

“That so?” the sheriff says. “Sounds like you got lucky, Benji. You and your friend Cal, here.”

Cal keeps his face blandly schooled and says nothing.

“Very lucky,” the sheriff repeated. “You got a security setup here, don’t you, Benji?”

“Eh, sorry, Sheriff,” a voice says from behind us. Abe walks out of the back office and down the aisle to where we stood. “Just went back to check the tape myself and there seemed to be a malfunction. The tape is completely blank. Didn’t record a darn thing. You should really get that checked, Benji. Hate to think something could happen again and there’d be no evidence of it.”

The real tape is out behind the store smashed to pieces and buried in the trash, but the Sheriff doesn’t need to know that.

Griggs frowns. “Well, isn’t that just something. Awfully convenient that happened. A shame there’s no video to back up what you’re saying.”

My mother scowls. “You sound like you don’t believe him,” she accuses Griggs. “What the hell else would have gone on here, Sheriff? My son was just attacked and you’re making it sound like he had something to do with this!”

Griggs shrugs. “Just asking questions, Lola. You know I have a job to do. If it makes you feel any better, the guy was caught very easily. Apparently someone saw him ditch the gun a few stores down and one of our very own residents made a citizen’s arrest. He’s heading over to the station as we speak.”

The words chill me, but I show nothing on my face because Griggs is watching for any reaction. “That’s good,” I say. “I’m glad he was caught so easy.”

Griggs laughs. “I bet. He’s also shooting off his mouth like you wouldn’t believe!”

“Oh?”

“Yep. Seems to think there was a monster in the store.”

“A monster?” my mother asks, sounding flabbergasted. “What on earth?”

“One of my deputies radioed me on my way here, letting me know that he’d packed the guy into the back of a squad car. Seems he’s shouting to anyone who’ll listen that there was a monster in this store. That the big guy here had grown wings and was going to kill him.” He sounds strangely amused, as if it is the funniest thing he’s heard in a long time. He glances over at Cal. “Well, how about it, big boy? You sprout some wings?”

“That’s ridicul—” I start until the sheriff raises a hand to silence me.

“No, sir,” Cal says quietly. “I don’t have wings.”

“You sure about that?” Griggs asks. “Seems the guy saw something.”

“I think if you’ll take a blood draw, Sheriff,” Abe says coldly, “you’ll find he was high as a kite. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t know what he saw. Seems to me we’ve got a drug problem in Roseland. He’s not the first one I’ve seen lately. I doubt he’ll be the last.”

“That so, old-timer? Well, I may do just that.” He cocks his head at Abe. “And you make sure you call the station if you ever see someone with drug problems. I’ll be sure to take care of that for you. The streets of Roseland are no place for tweakers and burnouts.”

“You do that,” Abe replies flatly.

“You’ve caught the guy, Griggs,” my mother says. “Plenty of people saw him running from here, or so I’m told. That should be enough for you. I’m closing the station and taking Benji home.”

“And what about Cal?” Griggs asks. “Gonna take him home too?”

Cal looks unsure until my mother steps in. “Of course. He’s staying at Little House. I’m going to take care of both these boys, you can count on that.”

The sheriff nods, tipping his hat in our direction. “Well, then, I’ll take my leave.” He looks me up and down, his gaze staying on my feet for a moment, then looks back up at me. He turns to walk out the door. He stops before stepping outside. “Say, Benji,” he says, looking over his shoulder, “you wouldn’t happen to wear a size nine boot, would you?”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

“Funny thing, that. Found some size-nine boot prints outside my back window a few nights ago, like someone had been prowling. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

I laugh, though my stomach is sinking. “Sheriff, I would think between running the store and everything else that I wouldn’t have time to be paying you a visit. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who wears these boots. It’s all they sell at the hardware store.” My heart thuds in my chest.

“Is that all, Sheriff?” my mother asks icily. “Seems to me you have a suspect to go speak to.”

“That I do,” he says with a grin. “I’ll let you know if I have any other questions. And, Benji, watch yourself out there. Seems like you’re attracting all kinds of attention these days.” He winks at us and walks out of the store, the little bell ringing overhead.





“Mom, I’m fine,” I tell her in Big House as she tries to check me over yet again.

“I’m just worn out. I think we’re going to head to Little House to take a nap, okay? I just want to put today behind me and start over again tomorrow.”

She looks like she thinks that’s the most ridiculous idea she’s ever heard, but I’m already standing, motioning to Cal to follow me out the door.

“You’re getting that security system upgraded,” she says, standing to poke me in the chest. “I don’t care how much it costs. You know better than that, Benji.”

I sigh. “I’ll start researching first thing tomorrow, okay? We’ll see what we can get and how soon.”

She narrows her eyes.

“I promise,” I say. “Cross my heart.”

“Hope to die?”

“Stick a thousand needles in your eye,” I say gruffly. “Cal, let’s go.”

He follows but I feel his absence behind me as I reach the door. I turn and see he’s standing in front of my mother. She’s looking up at him, unsure about his presence so close to her. I think about calling out to him, but I wait.

He reaches out and touches her shoulder. “Lola Green,” he says quietly, “I know you are worried. I know sometimes things can seem scary. And maybe sometimes they are scary. But I will tell you this, okay? I will watch Benji. I will protect him. I will keep him safe. This I promise you. I will keep Benji safe. It’s my job.”

My mother gasps quietly, bringing her hand to her mouth, her eyes growing bright. She makes a little strangled noise from behind her hand and shakes her head. “Who are you?” she whispers. “You come out of nowhere and you stay here and you say things like that to me? Who the hell are you, Cal? Why are you here?”

For a moment, I think he’s going to open his mouth and spill everything, and I think about what that would do to her, what that would mean. There would be surprise, I’m sure. Shock. Disbelief. Confusion. And if she believed him? If he did something to prove what he would say is true? There would be anger. Rage. Fury. She would demand answers I’m not ready for. She would ask him, if he was a guardian as he claimed, then where was he the morning Big Eddie died? Where was he then when he was supposed to be protecting the people here?

He would tell her that he couldn’t remember, that pieces were still lost to him. He would tell her that he was like a puzzle that had yet to be made whole. He would tell her how sorry he was, but he just couldn’t remember.

And it would sound like a lie.

Instead, he says, “I am Cal Blue. I am here because I care about your son. I care about all of you, but I care about him more. I am here to protect him, and I will do my duty.”

She trembles, tears welling in her eyes then spilling over onto her cheeks. She sniffs and brushes her face angrily. “Then you better do your job,” she says bitterly. “If something happens to him, I am coming for you. Do you understand me? If anything happens to him, I will hunt you down and make you pay.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” he says, squeezing her shoulder.

She glances at me, her expression unreadable, and then she turns away, leaving the kitchen. I hear her going up the back stairs and wait until her door slams shut. He stares after her for a time before I call his name, my voice rough.

He seems so big when he walks toward me, as if there are parts of him, just under the surface, that add to his mass. For a moment, I think I see the faint outline of wings stretching out behind him, the tips dragging along the floor. A flat disc of metal feels like it’s burning a hole in the jeans pocket I placed it in earlier. My skin feels electrified. My heart pounds. I don’t know what all of these events mean, but it feels like things are changing and I can’t do anything to stop it. I don’t know that I want to even if I could.

He towers so far above me that it seems impossible. His eyes are like pools of oil, liquid in the way they shift. He reaches down and takes my hand in his and carefully pulls me out of Big House and toward home.





He takes me to the bathroom in Little House and turns on the shower, telling

me to strip. I do, trying to decide if I should be shy in front of him. My shirt goes up and over my head. I hesitate when I reach the fly to my jeans, but the earnest expression on his face is not mocking me, nor is it filled with any kind of deep hunger. I take off my boots and flip the buttons on my jeans and drop them to the floor. Something stutters across his eyes then and there’s a quick flash as he looks me up and down just once, and I think I hear a sharp intake of breath, but I can’t be sure over the noise of the shower. He parts the curtain, closing it behind me when I am under the water. I can see him through the plastic as he picks up my clothes and folds them, then puts down the toilet seat lid and sits. Waiting.

The water scalds my skin. The steam is heavy in the room. I feel detached, like I’m above myself, looking down. This moment feels almost like a dream. I lean my forehead against the tile, the water cascading down my back. I close my eyes and I’m tired, suddenly exhausted. My knees feel weak, and I open my eyes, my vision tunneling. I inhale, but I choke on the steam. It’s hard to catch my breath and I just want to lie down. I just want to close my eyes and not think. It’s not a bad thing. I know that desire to want to escape, to not have to worry about the things I no longer have control over. So I let go. The release is almost shocking in its simplicity. I let go of all of my confusion and jumbled thoughts because I just want to float on my back and look up at the sky and go wherever the river will take me. I let go and fall.

But before I fall completely, strong arms wrap around me, holding me tight. A worried voice says my name. Lips brush against mine, and in my secret heart (crossed, hoped for death, a thousand needles stuck in my eye), I know I’m safe as I disappear into the dark.





There is no seventy-seven in this place. There is no river. There are no crosses,

no trucks that crash down embankments. No voices call my name, no shadow figures standing on the roadway above. It smells of earth and there is only peace because all I have is blue.





Consciousness creeps in slowly. I don’t want to wake up, but I feel that I

must. I’m warm, and comfortable. I know I’m in my own bed even before I open my eyes. I crack open my left eye and it’s dark in my room. The sun has set since I passed out in the shower. Moonlight is soft through the window, splaying shadows from the trees onto the floor.

I am alone, and I try to ignore the ache that causes. I’m not too successful. The bedroom door is shut and I hold my breath for a moment, trying to hear anything in Little House, to see if he is somewhere near or if a thread has called to him and he is gone. I don’t hear anything. Little House is quiet. But don’t I feel something there? Isn’t there something, just beyond the door? All I have to do is open the door and he will be mine, because isn’t something there?

There is, and he calls to me. My blood sings, the cells almost boiling. My skin prickles. I feel like I’m vibrating and my teeth chatter. I sit up and put my feet on the floor. I’m wearing only my usual sleep shorts. I try not to think how I got into them. “Things are changing,” I whisper frantically, my voice hoarse.

Things have already changed, is the reply.

I stand and take a step toward the door and it’s—

blue

—easier than I thought it would be, as is every step that follows. The floor is cold against my feet, the air in my room cool against my hot skin. My nipples pebble as I reach the doorknob, and I give myself one last chance to stop this, to stop all of this. I could. I could crawl back into my bed and pull the covers up and over me and hide there until morning, when things would make more sense, when things would be rational and I wouldn’t have to—

I open the door.

Calliel has made his nest on the floor outside my room, a pillow under his head, a blanket covering his waist and legs. He’s still wearing the same white T-shirt from earlier in the day, or so I think. For all I know, he could have any number of white ones. I rake my gaze over the muscles visible in his stomach and chest even below his shirt. They seem to go on for miles, and it’s all I can do to keep from falling down on top of him to find out just how far they go. His neck is strong, the rusty stubble beginning just under his Adam’s apple. The small cleft on his chin. The parted lips, full and pale. Those dark eyes.

He’s awake and looking back at me, his eyes glittering in the dark.

We’re silent, for a time.

Then:

“No threads tonight? No one to go save, Superman?” I say this lightly.

He shakes his head, a twitch to his lips.

“I’m sorry,” I say, unable to think of anything else.

“For what?” he rumbles up at me.

“Falling asleep.” I think I mean to say something else. I don’t know.

“You were tired.”

“Yeah. It’s been a… strange day.”

“These are some strange days,” he agrees, arching his back. He looks like he’s stretching, but his shirt rides up his stomach and I see the red fur there, the hard planes of his hip bone jutting in sharp relief.

I tear my eyes away. “Cal… I—”

“You need your rest.” He looks toward my bed. “Go back to sleep, Benji. We can speak tomorrow. You’ve been through a lot today.”

Disappointment tears through me, and it’s harsh. “Okay,” I say in a small voice. I reach out to shut the door, but then I don’t want to. I don’t want it closed. It’s a barrier between me and the outside world. It’s a barrier between him and me and I don’t want it there anymore. I push it open even further so that it’s against the wall and I glance down at him defiantly before I move back to my bed.

He says nothing.

I climb in and lie on my side, facing the open door. I can make out his faint outline, the red hair on his head and face, the tip of his nose, the part of his lips. I can’t tell if his eyes are open or not. His chest rises and falls, and I wonder about things I’ve never thought before, like if he needs air to live like I do, if he breathes wherever it is he came from. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt his heartbeat. Does he have one? Is there a pulse in his neck, hidden under the red stubble? I want to find it, I think before I can stop myself. I want to find it with my tongue.

Logic sets in then, along with my dismay at having thought such a thing. Angels might breathe, and their hearts might beat, but how can they want someone the way I do? And even if they—

he

—could, why would it be someone like me? I am nothing. I am no one. I am a small-town hick who will always be a small-town hick because I’ll never leave this small town. I will live here and I will die here. I won’t ever be someone he could want. I could never be enough for him.

But I want to be. I’m scared, but I want to try.

When did this happen? When did this start?

“Cal,” I say, my voice stronger than I thought it would be.

He sighs, like his name on my lips is something wonderful to him. He moves until he is lying on his side, facing me. I can see his eyes now, the whites reflecting back at me. My breath catches in my throat. Even in the dark, I can see how he’s not human. There’s something about him that feels far older than I could possibly imagine. Again I think I’m insignificant, nothing more than a fleck of dust flung far in a gust of wind. Before it can overtake me, I push the thought away.

I don’t reach out to people, not anymore. I don’t even let most people come to me. I push them away so I can remain buried in myself, in my own pity.

So I push most all of them away. The ones allowed in are only trusted because they have been here with me since Big Eddie died. They understand my pain even if not its depths. I don’t know how deep their own pain goes, but I know it’s nothing compared to my own. Selfish, yes. I know. I know that through and through. But pain is selfish. Grief is selfish. It demands attention, and the more you focus on it, the more it wants from you.

“Do you want me?” I manage to say.

Please. I can’t do this on my own. Help me.

He’s silent for a moment, continuing to watch me. I want to look away, embarrassed by the need that echoes in my voice, but I can’t seem to break the connection. Something is holding me there, and though I can’t name it, I don’t want it to go away.

“I shouldn’t,” he finally says, and I am ready to shatter into a billion pieces, but I hold my tongue and wait. It feels like I wait forever. “I shouldn’t because it’s not what I was made for. It’s not why I came to be. But yes, Benji. God help me, yes. I don’t want anything more than you. I want nothing less than you.”

I take this for what it is. This is the eighth day since he fell from the sky, since I found him in the crater. Eight days since I found out what he was, since I began to believe there might be something else out there watching over us. Over me. I don’t know if I can believe it all, because I don’t think enough time has passed for my mind to process the monumental implications of Cal’s existence.

But none of that matters now. I sit up on my bed.

“Cal?”

“Yes, Benji?”

“Will you….” Say it, say it, say it. “Will you come here?”

There’s no hesitation on his part. He rises from the floor, shaking the blanket off. He looks even bigger than before. Little House creaks under his weight as he walks toward me. I am aware of each breath, each step. He finally stands above me, and I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of wondering. I’m tired of being alone. I reach up and grab the front of his shirt and pull his lips down to mine.

He grunts in surprise but doesn’t pull away. He’s tentative at first, barely moving. His movements seem shy and unpracticed. It’s only then that I realize he’s probably never done this before, that this is his first anything, and I have to stop myself from groaning. It’s slightly awkward, this kiss; the angle is almost too much, and we’re not quite synced up. But then my tongue touches his lips and he sighs again. His breath goes from him into me, and it tastes like he smells, earthy and strong. There’s a touch of something spicy in there too that I chase after.

He keeps his hands at his sides as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. I let go of his shirt and wrap my arms around his neck as his tongue touches mine for the first time. A shock rolls up through me and he shudders along with me. He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead against mine, panting as we watch each other. We’re so close together that I can see myself reflected back and I want more. All I want is what he can give.

It’s like he hears me, like he knows what I’m thinking. One moment he’s leaning against me and the next he’s all hands and collapsing. He falls against me, pressing me back onto the bed. His mouth is on mine again, and gone is the reticence, the inhibitions. He’s still a novice, but it doesn’t matter. His weight is pressed against me, it’s crushing me, but I don’t want him to move away. He moves his lips from mine and drags his tongue down my neck to the hollow of my throat as I play my fingers over the red stubble on his scalp. His breath is hot against my skin and I’m harder than I’ve ever been. I groan when he grinds into me, his stomach against my hips and dick. He pulls back, a look of shock on his face. He grinds again and I cry out. The smile that follows is not one I’ve seen on him before. It’s wicked and dark, as if he knows what he is doing to me and enjoys the hell out of it.

I want more.

I reach down to pull his shirt up and over his head. It catches on his chin and he snorts in laughter before pulling it off the rest of the way and then dropping it to the floor. He props himself up above me on his hands. I’m about to snarl at him to lay on top of me so I can feel his skin against mine when he looks between us and then back up at me, the shyness returning.

“What is it?” I ask breathlessly, running my eyes over his torso, matted in auburn curls that start on his chest and trail down to his stomach and into the top of his jeans. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve never done this before,” he says, sounding frustrated.

I can’t wait any longer to touch. I reach up and run my fingers through the hair on his chest, rubbing my thumbs along his nipples. The muscle is hard underneath and I explore lower, touching his stomach, his navel. He groans as I roam my hands over him, but my exploration turns into something I never would expect to hear from him: a slight chuff that becomes a giggle. He’s ticklish there, on his sides near his hips, and this realization is something so endearing that I feel like I have the wind knocked out of me.

I reach the start of denim, and I need to be crushed again under his weight so I hook my fingers into his belt loops and pull him back down on top of me. The first thing I notice is the heat of him. Then it’s the hair on his body, soft and delicious against my own hairless torso. He is still chuckling when he kisses me again and his laughter pours from him into me and I can taste it like it’s a palpable thing. I wrap my legs around his waist and press my heels against the back of his legs, pushing him further into me. We rock together, and I don’t know how much longer I can last if we keep going this way. He’s obviously a quick study. He twists his tongue against mine and begins to reciprocate, moving his hands up and down my exposed chest.

“Never done this before?” I gasp as he latches his teeth on my neck. “Could have fooled me.”

His only answer is a low rumble as he kisses my shoulders, my arms, my sides. His tongue slides over my nipples, first the left, and then the right, leaving them wet, the cold air a shock after the warmth of his mouth. He’s going lower, gripping my sides with his big hands, kissing my stomach, swirling his tongue near the top of my shorts. My cock strains against the fabric, pressing up underneath his chin.

“You don’t have to,” I say, arching my back as he reaches under and squeezes my ass. “You don’t—” But he’s already mouthing me through the cotton. I can feel the sharp graze of his teeth, the swipes of his tongue. He pulls the shorts down over my hips and then his mouth is on me, hot and harsh. There’s too much saliva, yes, and his teeth get in the way, but it’s still like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Either he’s doing something so very right, or everyone I’ve been with was doing it wrong. I’m approaching the edge already, and I don’t want to lose control now. I don’t want it to be this way. I need more. I need so much more.

I reach down and push him off me, and the look he gives me would be almost comical if not for the swollen lips, the saliva on his chin. He looks like he is going to protest, but I shake my head at him and he stills.

I pull him back above me, my dick straining against my stomach. I brush my fingers over his chest and stomach and with a practiced twist of my hand, I unbutton his jeans. He’s watching me again, and when I wrap my fingers around his cock, his eyelids flutter gently. I brush my thumb over the slit, rolling my fingers around the head. “I want more,” I tell him as his eyes widen. I pull my hand out of his jeans and spit into it, then reach back down and get him wet. He groans again.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he pants.

I laugh softly. “You’re not that big,” I tell him, even though the weight in my hand suggests otherwise. He’s also uncut, which is something I’ve never experienced before. There seems to be so much more skin than I’m used to and I have to keep from hyperventilating at the thought of angelic circumcisions. There’s so much I don’t know about him, but at the moment, it doesn’t matter.

He’s trying to be serious, even though his eyes keep rolling up in his head. “I can’t hurt you,” he says as I use my feet to push his jeans and boxers down to his knees. “I’m supposed to protect you.” He falls forward and bites gently into my neck again.

“You won’t hurt me,” I say, writhing against him. “You won’t let it happen. Please, Cal. Please.”

He pauses against my neck and I hold my hand still. His muscles tense. His length in my hand is hot and his shoulder is pressed against my mouth. There are those freckles there, the ones I saw the night he fell. I count them with my tongue, first one, then two, and three and so many more. “Please,” I whisper.

He growls, low, and without warning, I’m flipped over onto my stomach and Cal falls against me, pressing his cock against my ass. His tongue is in my ear, his teeth catching the lobe. He rubs his dick in the crack of my ass, and I can feel him leaking against me.

“Do I scare you?” he whispers hotly. “Are you afraid of me?”

“No, no. No, you don’t. I know what you are. You don’t scare me. You don’t. You can’t.” I’m babbling, I know, but I can’t find a way to stop.

“Do you trust me not to hurt you?” he rumbles in my ear, grazing his lips against the shell.

There’s no question, and not just because of what he’s going to do to me. “Yes,” I groan. “Yes.”

“And you know that I am here to protect you?” he says, rutting against me harder.

“Yes, I know! Please!”

“You called me here, and I came for you.”

“I know, oh God, I know!” My own dick is digging into the mattress, the pressure a thing of beauty. But it’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough. I reach up and slide my hand into the drawer, finding an ancient tube of slick. I don’t know how long it’s been in there, or even if the stuff expires, but I don’t care. My fingers brush against a box of old condoms, and I grab one and hold it over my shoulder. “Do you know what this is for?” I ask as he pauses.

“Yes, Benji,” he says, sounding amused and annoyed. “I’m not an idiot.”

I press my right cheek into the pillow. “I know you’re not. Do you need to wear this?” This has to be the weirdest conversation of my life.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

He scowls. “No. I’ve never been with anyone but you. This is my first everything.”

I figured that, but it still annihilates me to hear. “But I’ve been with—” I try, only to have him cover my mouth with his big hand.

“I don’t want to hear about anyone else,” he hisses in my ear. “I don’t want to hear it from your mouth. I don’t want to know. I never did. I never watched because I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t. It hurt my heart. You can’t hurt me now. I don’t need that.”

“Cal….”

“Do you trust me?” he snaps.

“Yes,” I say quietly, because I do.

“Then put that down. You won’t hurt me. I won’t hurt you.”

I drop the rubber back in the drawer and hand him the lube.

He uses his fingers first, and he’s slow and careful, heeding my warnings that it’s been a while. He’s quiet while I tell him what to do, no doubt listening for any sounds of discomfort from me. There is pain, but it’s negligible. There is burning as I’m stretched, but I welcome it. He kisses the base of my spine and adds another finger when I tell him to. He kisses my back again when I start to shake at his intrusion.

It’s enough.

He props me up on my knees when I tell him I’m ready, that it needs to be now. There’s a moment when he pushes himself in when I think it’s going to be too much, I’m not going to be able to take him, and I grit my teeth. But I crash through that ceiling, and when his hips are pressed against my ass, there is no more pain. There is only him rising above me, beginning to move back and forth. He’s grunting, holding me at my shoulders, grazing my neck with his fingers. I cry out at a particularly deep thrust and he leans on top of me, his face in my hair, his breath on my neck, and I’m reminded of the days when I felt that breath alone in Little House. Those days of coming home to nothing but memories like ghosts, drowning in a river I couldn’t see. I can remember those feelings, but even after this short amount of time, it’s like peering at them through a murky haze.

But he’s here now, with me. He wraps his arms around my chest and pulls me back up onto my knees, my back against his sweaty chest, forcing me to sit in his lap. He rolls his hips underneath me, and I turn my face until my lips find his.

As he rises and falls beneath me, one arm around my chest to hold me to him, the other starting to jerk me off, I close my eyes and lean my head back against his shoulder. There in the dark, I see the blue, I feel the blue, and it’s overwhelming and it’s huge and it’s overtaking me. I can’t handle it anymore and spill over onto his hand. He feels this and hears my cries and snaps his hips once then twice, and then there is warmth erupting in me and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. His groan becomes a whine in my ear and I tremble against him.

I can feel it, then. His heartbeat. It’s strong as it pounds inside his chest. This causes my eyes to burn and I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s unexpected. Maybe because it makes him more human. He was alive before, but now I know he’s alive. He takes a deep breath behind me and then lets it out.

As we collapse on the bed, him still lying atop and inside me, pressing his lips against the back of my neck, I have a moment to think that things aren’t changing…. No. It’s not like that at all.

As he wraps a big, gentle hand around my throat, finding my lips again, I realize that everything has already changed completely and I can’t go back to the way things were. Not after this night. Not after knowing what this could be like.

The angel Calliel kisses me again, and I begin to think about the future. About the possibilities that lie ahead. About the fact I no longer seem to be alone, because I know he will choose to stay. We’ll continue as we are now and things will be better than they were. I think these things. I think of these things and more.

But….

Even as he gives a contented sigh in my ear, even as I pull him closer, isn’t there something at the forefront of my mind? Something aside from the postcoital glow, aside from my wishes for the future and my hopes of the present. Things have changed, oh yes. Make no mistake about that. But that’s the funny thing about grief and anger combined; even while buried in newfound happiness, it claws and it whispers. It begs. It howls.

It screams.

It doesn’t let go. And it demands retribution.





cross your heart hope to die

I am surprised, when I finally pull myself out from under Cal to get something to

clean us up with, to find it’s not even ten o’clock at night. It feels like days have gone by, the violence in the store this morning a distant memory. It could be the postf*ck glow, or it could just be everything piled on top of everything else. I don’t know.

I need to talk to Abe tomorrow, though for the life of me, I don’t know what I’m going to tell him. The truth seems like a good place to start, but since I’m not completely sure of the full truth, I don’t want to end up making this worse.

I just need to figure out what to say to him.

But first, I need to figure out what to say to myself.

Always with the damn questions, I can hear Cal growl already.

No. I have to push through it.

I clean myself in the bathroom, a pleasant ache in my ass that I haven’t felt in a

long time. I look at myself in the mirror and try to see if I’ve changed outwardly to match the hurricane on my insides. I can’t tell. I still look like me. I look closer. There’s a small, dark bruise above my clavicle on the right side of my throat. I touch it, and it burns slightly. Cal likes to mark, it seems. There are red marks on my hips that stretch toward my back. His handprints, from digging into my skin, holding me to him as he thrust into me. They are fading already, but each finger is still clearly outlined against my pale flesh.

Changes, even on the outside.

I take a wet cloth out to the bedroom, light from the bathroom spilling out. My mouth goes dry and I almost stumble at the sight. Cal nude, stretched out on my bed, his white skin almost glowing in the dark. He has his arms folded up behind his head, the hair under his arms as dark red as the curls on his chest. His chest and stomach rise slowly with shallow breath. His dick lays spent against a thatch of pubic hair. He has long, hairy legs, muscled and relaxed. For a moment, I wonder if he’s posing and I want to scold him again about vanity, but I can’t seem to make any words come out.

I reach him to find his gaze on me, watching every step I’m taking, my every movement. There’s a low huff of air as I clean him off, the remnants of spunk caught in the red trail on his stomach, the muscles there clenching. I let my gaze trail up his body, and once he’s sure I’m looking at him again, he flexes his arms behind his head. I still my hand on his stomach.

“You like that I’m big,” he says knowingly, his grin all teeth.

“Vanity,” I accuse him weakly. I drop the cloth on the floor and climb onto the bed, suddenly unsure about where to put my hands, where to lie down. This hesitation only lasts a moment as he reaches up and pulls me down on top of him, pressing my face in his throat, his chin against the top of my head. My dick finds this a wonderfully interesting place to be and stirs, but there are other things on my mind.

Cal rubs my back slowly, making lazy circles that cause my skin to tingle. He kisses the stubble on my scalp and rumbles underneath me, a low sound I can feel in his chest.

So many things to say, to ask, and I can’t seem to focus on a single one.

But apparently there’s been something on his mind too, because he’s the first to break. “Benji?”

“Yeah?”

“Why were you at his house?”

I’m confused. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Griggs.”

Oh. That. F*ck. “Why do you think that?” I ask, trying to buy some time. For what, I don’t know. He’s surely felt me tense against him.

He doesn’t sound fooled in the slightest. “Because you lied to the sheriff earlier today. You might have fooled him, but I can tell when you’re lying.”

He’s said this before. “Because you’re an angel?” I ask, unsure if that’s a stupid question or not.

He shakes his head above me. “No. Because I know you, Benji.”

“You say that,” I say slowly. “You say you’ve watched me for I don’t know how long and—”

“Since you arrived here,” Cal interrupts, pressing harder against my back. I almost arch into it.

“What?”

“I’ve watched you since you were born,” he says. “You were mine from the beginning, just like the rest of the people in Roseland. The moment you crossed back into the town after coming home from the hospital, you were mine. That was a good day.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “It was?”

“Yes. I was very happy that day. But you haven’t answered my question. Why were you up at that house?”

“That was the night I was looking for you,” I say guiltily. “Griggs had come by the house and made those stupid threats, and I thought….”

“You thought what?”

Now I do try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me go. In fact, he pulls me back down to him and tightens his grip on my back. I put my face in his neck and inhale his earth scent. “I thought you might have gone up to his house. I thought you might try to send him away.”

“To where?”

“The black.”

Cal tenses beneath me. “So you thought I was going to attack him because of what he said?”

“I didn’t… I don’t know, Cal.” Like I don’t know anything about you. “You were pretty scary when you said that to him.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Do I scare you?” He sounds scared himself.

Does he scare me? If he does, it’s only because of the unknown, which I hate to admit makes up a big part of who he is. I tell myself I wouldn’t have just slept with him if I had feared him, but something inside me disagrees, telling me I probably would have done so regardless. He’s kinetic, dynamic, a moving storm over an open plain. He’s dry lightning, ozone-sharp and devastating. If there is fear there, it’s so wrapped up in everything else I don’t know how to separate it.

But I’ve waited too long to answer and he’s starting to breathe heavier underneath me. I prop myself up so I can look into his eyes. He’s wary, but doesn’t look away. “Should I be scared of you?” I ask him.

He opens his mouth and closes it again almost immediately. He furrows his brow and frowns. “I don’t want you to be,” he says finally. “But maybe you should be. Regardless, you shouldn’t have gone to his house, Benji. He could have hurt you. You need to stay away from him.” This seems like a slip on his part and he winces.

“Why do you say that?” I ask him, refusing to ignore it.

“He’s not a good man, I think.”

“You think? Or you know?”

He looks away and I can’t stop myself from leaning down and brushing my lips against his rough cheek. “I’ve been trying,” he mutters, leaning into my lips.

“Trying what?” I say against his face.

“There’s this… knot… in my head. I’m trying to untangle it, but the more I pull, the tighter it gets. I can remember certain things. I can remember many things. I remember Roseland becoming mine, only seven people here. I remember watching it grow. The buildings. The houses. The people. Many were good. Some were not. But it didn’t matter, because they were mine. I wasn’t made to judge. That is not my job. I was made to assist them, because sometimes, people need a little help. Just a nudge.” He shakes his head. “You think that God is some all-powerful being, and maybe he is. But I don’t understand. If he’s supposed to be, then why is there a need for someone such as me? Why is there need for other guardians? Or why is there need for any angels at all?

“If he really wanted it, nothing bad would ever have to happen. There would be no need for someone such as me. The threads are knotted in my head and chest and I want them to separate, but I don’t know what that would make me. What is God doing? Why do I exist, Benji? Why must I follow these threads? Why do I have control over certain things, but can’t stop others?”

He’s getting worked up, his chest rising rapidly, his heart thumping wildly under my fingers. I try to quiet him down, to tell him it’s all okay, but he shakes his head angrily. “You want to know, don’t you? What happened to Big Eddie? You want to know so bad, don’t you?”

Yes. Yes, I want to know more than anything. I shake my head. “No, Cal, I don’t need to—”

“It’s there, Benji,” he says angrily, knocking his hand against his head sharply. “It’s all in there somewhere. The threads. The pieces. I just can’t find them. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know where to begin. I am not Death. I cannot control it, but I am aware of it. There’s a difference between what I do and the inevitable.”

“Like the Wallaces? The fire?”

A short bark of harsh laughter. “You knew?”

“You smelled like smoke.”

“You were smelling me?” he asks, surprised and pleased.

“Uh… sure. The fire?”

He nods. “Sometimes, Death can be avoided. The thread isn’t completely black, though it’s getting there. It still pulses with life, but time is short. Only when I find a thread of complete black do I know there’s nothing I can do. The Wallace family still had color. Greens and reds and little Emily was this bright pink, so alive. It wasn’t their time.”

“But… my father?”

“I can’t remember,” he says hoarsely. “Benji, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t keep this from you. I promise you I wouldn’t.”

A dark part of me wonders at this, wanting to berate him, poke him further until he cracks. It seems awfully convenient, this dark part says, that of course he wouldn’t remember. An angel fell from the sky and couldn’t remember the people he was supposed to protect? What are the chances of that?

I try to push the doubt away, but it’s latched on and wants to burrow. “What do you remember?”

He closes his eyes with a heavy sigh. “I remember… On High. It’s beautiful, Benji. Beautiful like you wouldn’t believe. It’s warm and bright. It was supposed to have been made by God himself during the seven days of Creation. It’s a lovely place. But it’s also a lonely place. We rarely interact with each other, the guardians. The other angels. Decades could go by without seeing another one. Whenever one of my people traveled away, they would be watched by whoever’s jurisdiction they fell into, and vice versa. If an outsider comes here, I must protect him or her as if they are my own. There was never a need for me to speak with another guardian, so time would pass. I remember being busy. All the time. There was always something to do, some thread to be followed. But since I’ve been down here, it hasn’t been like that. There’ve been times I’ve been called, but not as much as I was used to.

“Your father is in here,” Cal says, pointing to his head and chest. “Tangled in this knot. I don’t know how to pull him out. I can’t remember that day. I can’t remember many of the days that followed. It’s there, somewhere, but I can’t find out how to fix it. I want to fix it so bad, but I’m scared to see it too. I’m scared of what it will show me.”

“Why, Cal?” I ask, not knowing if I want the answer or not.

He reaches up and cups my face, lifting his head to kiss me sweetly. I feel blind against him. “Because,” he says as he pulls away. “Because if I untangle it, I’ll see what really happened. I’ll see why I couldn’t save Big Eddie. I’ll see what I did wrong and why I didn’t do more to try and stop it. I’ll see the truth, and you’ll hate me for it. Out of everything I can remember, it is you I see the most, Benji. The day Big Eddie left is gone. It’s in the black. But after? Oh, the day after and every day that follows, there are pieces I can touch, things I remember and it’s all you. I hurt because you hurt. All I wanted to do was make it all better, to make it all go away, to wrap you up so you wouldn’t hurt anymore. You carried the weight of the world on your shoulders, and I just wanted the burden to be easier for you, to help you carry it so you would realize that you weren’t alone.”

“Stop,” I croak, my eyes burning. “Just… don’t.” I don’t want to hear this. I can’t hear this.

He ignores me, kissing me again. “I broke the rules, I think. I would come partway down, just so I could touch you, just so I could take some of your pain away. But it wasn’t enough. You were sinking further and further into the river, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you drown. So I….”

Like you let my father drown? I think before I can stop myself.

I press my head against his chest. “So you what?” I say, my voice muffled. I’m trying to regain some of my composure, but it’s a losing battle.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “It’s there, in the knot. I remember you calling for me, and not just the night I fell. Even before that, I could hear your aching, because it was too much like my own. I was lonely up there. I was lonely without you and I had to come down. You finally called for me. You screamed for me. I had to come. I… I just don’t remember how.”

“You bastard,” I mutter weakly. “You bastard.”

“I’m sorry, Benji. I don’t know… I don’t know what else there is.”

He looks miserable when I raise my head from his chest. I am angry, yes, but I don’t know if it’s at him. I’m trying to believe him about what he can and can’t remember, but it seems to be too much of a coincidence. The one person who can answer every question I’ve had about that day also happens to be the one person who can’t remember any of it?

“What about Griggs?” I push. “What about him? Or Mayor Walken? Or the smoker? The smoker who—” I stop. The name. What was his—

Memories, rising.

Walken: You seem to forget, Traynor, that you are operating in my town, with my permission, which makes me your boss.

The gunman: All I wanted was a f*cking hit, man! Traynor told me I could get it, that f*cking bastard!

“Traynor,” I whisper. Was it something as simple as that? Drugs? Was that a connection? A hit of what?

“Benji?” Cal asks me, looking worried.

“Do you know a man named Traynor?” I ask. “Do you recognize that name? Is he one of yours?” I hadn’t recognized his name or his voice, so he didn’t seem to be a townie.

Cal closes his eyes, and they move quickly behind his eyelids. “No,” he says after a moment. “I don’t know him. I don’t know that name. He’s not one of mine.”

“But you would have to know him if you saw him, right? If he’s in your jurisdiction?”

Cal shakes his head. “Only if something were to happen to him. Only if I could see his thread.”

I didn’t know where to find Traynor, much less cause something to happen to him so Cal could track him. “Why should I stay away from Griggs, Calliel? What are he and Walken doing? What is going on in this town?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t know.”

I roll off him and he doesn’t try to stop me. I sit up on the side of the bed and put my feet to the floor, my back to Cal. “I think you do,” I say bitterly. “I think some part of you knows and you’re just not telling me. I think you know far more than you’re saying. I believe you when you say it’s tangled up in you, that you haven’t pulled it apart. But I don’t believe you can’t. I think you’re scared and you’re hiding behind it.”

Blue lights begin to flash in the dark.

“That’s not—”

“How did you come here? You said you were the first. You told me you fell because I called you. How did you do it, Calliel?”

“Oh, Benji,” he whispers. The blue lights are brighter.

I stand up and look down at him, scowling. “You said that angels are tested. That all of you are tested. Maybe this is your f*cking test, Cal. Maybe you don’t remember because you’re being tested. Maybe that’s why you exist. Maybe that’s why God needs angels and that’s why you see the threads. Because it’s just some f*cking game to him. His tests are nothing but games. You see patterns. You see designs. But you don’t see what’s right in front of you. You’re being played, Cal. God doesn’t give a damn about you. He doesn’t give a damn about me. It’s all a f*cking game!”

Cal leaps up from the bed, the flashing lights following him and starting to form behind him. “Nothing about this is a game,” he snarls at me, a look of pure fury on his face. I’d be scared by it if I wasn’t so angry. Just an hour ago we were f*cking, I muse darkly. “I am here because of you. I came here because of you. All I want to do is keep you safe! To keep you away from the river!” The accusation in his voice is loud and clear. You did this to me. You brought me here. This is all your fault. You tore me away from the only home I’ve ever known and now you’re pushing me away.

It only succeeds in making me angrier. “Can you say the same thing about my father?” I shout at him. “Where were you when he was drowning? Where were you when he was dying? Did he call for you? Did you promise to protect him too? What about him? Why did you let him die!”

The blue lights explode and the room is suddenly awash in a flash that causes my eyes to burn. Afterimages dance along my vision as I blink, trying to make sense of the darkness falling again in the room. My eyes start to adjust and I see Cal leaning over the opposite side of the bed, curling his hands into the comforter, great blue wings extending from his back, curling against the ceiling, dragging along the floor. Again, they take my breath away. They are surreal. My mind argues with itself, telling me they can’t be real, this is nothing but a nightmare I can’t seem to escape, but I hear them dragging on the floor, and that rustling sound can’t be anything but real. It can’t be anything but here in this room.

Wake up, my father whispers from a fading dream. You gotta wake up, Benji. He’s come down from On High because you called him and you’ve got to wake up. He’s been waiting, yes, but you still brought him here, down to this place. You’ve got to help him. He’s going to act big, he’s going to talk big, but deep down, you two are the same. You must remember this. You are the same.

“You’re right,” the angel Calliel says, standing. His hands are fists at his sides. His voice is something I haven’t heard yet before. Angry. Deep. Cold. His wings shift around him, the deep blue catching the moonlight. “I should have done more. I should have been more. You have every right to be angry. I will try to remember what I did and what was done. You will know as soon as I do.”

The wings begin to fade, as does my anger. Now, I’m just unhappy. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,” I say quietly. “It’s not fair to you. I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, but he won’t look at me. The wings are growing dimmer. “No need to apologize. I am a protector, and I need to do my job. I’ve allowed myself to become distracted. I need to be working more on remembering. On trying to figure out how I came to be here and why. I need to know who allowed it. The reason they did.”

“But… I thought you came here for me,” I say, backtracking, wishing I hadn’t said a goddamn thing. My chest hurts. “Don’t you….”

The wings are gone now. He slides into his jeans and shirt. He moves toward the door. I reach out and grab his arm as he tries to move past me. He towers above me, fully clothed. I’m still naked. I tremble at the heat of him. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” he says gruffly, finally looking at me. He looks sad. He looks like he’s been betrayed. “Away. I need to think. I need to focus. I need to make this right. Some of us have lost our Father too.”

The sting of those words overwhelms me. “Will you be back to watch the sunrise?” I ask quietly.

He looks like he’s about to speak, but doesn’t. He pulls himself from my grasp and I’m still standing there when the front door to Little House opens and then shuts behind him.