Angel Star (18 page)

And that was me.

My shaking was nearly uncontrollable, but the picture I held of Garreth in my head was enough to keep me from losing all control. I prayed the thunder wouldn’t wake my mother. I prayed that God would forgive me; this was going against all I had learned while growing up, but this was the only way. I knew very little about the octagram, just what Garreth had told me that day in the chapel, the day I found out he was my Guardian. I stared at the beautiful little star, wondering how such an uncomplicated symbol could be such a powerful gateway between two very distinct worlds.

If an angel could cross into my human world, then couldn’t a human cross into the angels’ world? Through the same portal? As I thought of Garreth, Hadrian’s words interrupted and echoed inside me.

Heaven would be nothing more than a dream compared to the world you and I could create
…

Wasn’t this a new world already? That angels and humans could know of each other and coexist? Garreth told me that heaven started in our minds, that as long as I believed and was happy, it existed.

Well, I do. It exists. Garreth still exists and no one, especially Hadrian, was going to take that away from me.

I took the dagger, its shining blade reflecting the lightning through the glass of my window, shining my reflection back to me as I held it in front of me. My eyes were wild with fear but behind the uncertainty was hope and that hope was more powerful than anything.

The little voice inside my head was telling me to trust that hope, though it wouldn’t stop my heart from wrenching the way it did when I thought of Garreth trying to touch my subconscious from another plane.

My room felt cold, and in my head I heard the mimicking laughter of black wings.

Time was running out.

I pulled the blade toward my chest in one quick thrust and felt it slice into my skin with ease, giving me the oddest sensations of warmth and cold. I was no doubt delirious by this point, and for the moment the sharp steel awakened me. At the same instant the smooth slice hit me, the sky opened and I heard rain falling, each drop soaring its way down to its death below, their pelting kisses to the earth amplified in my ears.

My senses began to sift through the numb fog that was filling me. Scared, I reached out in front of me. I heard a strange voice that seemed to be my own whisper, “Please, help me,” as the curtains slid limply through my fingers then pooled around me. I felt tingly and tired and before me a mirage of two faces appeared, though I knew they weren’t really there.

One had eyes so black they made me shiver, and the other was the incredible aqua blue of a boy I met once in a courtyard at school. The rest faded away as I plunged into darkness.

W
aking up in death was not what I expected.

I waited for the pain, but strangely it didn’t come. I peeked, first with my left eye and then my right, sure it would hit me at any moment. Slowly, both eyes opened and I stared down at myself, grimacing in expectancy for what was still absent.

My shirt held no stripes of crimson evidence. Nothing.

No blood.

No wound.

The only tangible proof the portal had worked was that I was still breathing and the bittersweet taste of urgency hung heavily in the air, reminding me of unspeakable sadness.

All around me I sensed a longing for the untouchable, a yearning for what had been left behind, and also for what might lie ahead, an unknown that was just within my reach.

Garreth.

I suppose I expected to open my eyes to some surreal world, if it was safe to expect anything at all. Perhaps some foreign, otherworldly terrain, a mystical realm, but this was surprisingly earthlike, even though Garreth explained that heaven is more than just a place. It starts with a peaceful state of mind, but my subconscious clearly expected something else.

Wasn’t Garreth supposed to be waiting for me the moment I opened my eyes here? What about Hadrian? Was he somewhere nearby, watching me as he always does?

But I was alone in this sort of purgatory that looked both so familiar and foreign to me. It was my street but there were no people, no houses.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

If Garreth was my heaven and if I was so close to finding him…

Please, let this be true.

If Garreth could link his heart to mine and manage to control my fears to calm me, then…

Oh, God, will this work?

I had to try. He needed
me
now and if I’ve been given any sort of—I didn’t know what to call it…angelic prepowers?—then I might be able to mesh my heart with his. I could keep him alive. It
had
to work.

Each day Garreth spent on earth put him at risk. His light was dimming and mine was…changing…like an electrical current transferred from one outlet to another. Garreth knew the consequences. He knew he could become earthbound but it didn’t stop him from making himself known to me. It didn’t stop him from warning me about Hadrian. He was willing to take that risk because…because he loved me.

I had to keep moving.

I had to find him.

He had risked all for me and now I owed it to him to do the same.

It was faint at first, but I was sure I hadn’t imagined it, a second heartbeat slightly out of rhythm with my own. As I concentrated only on that one sound it became a little stronger each second. Tears stung my eyes as it pounded away in my ears and then I felt it in my chest, like a confused palpitation.

I couldn’t believe I was doing it. I sucked in a large breath of excitement but then forced myself to slow down.

Take little breaths. Small breaths.

He was here! I closed my eyes and took a deeper breath this time. I thought of what he meant when he said he would find me but this was different, this was remarkable. I was doing this on my own.

A beautiful scent floated across my face, bringing stinging tears once again. I wanted to catch it and hold in my chest forever. It was
his
scent. That warm, safe, spicy scent that rolled off his skin like magic whenever I was close to him; that heady incense that was his alone, that permeated from the warm light he held within him.

Then, without warning, another scent flashed across my face like a cold wind, bringing with it pine and damp. Instantly, I knew where he was. My nostrils filled with the smell of molten wax while I felt the heat of a thousand candles on my skin and cold stone beneath my feet. Then I felt dizzy, as if something spiraled high above me, spinning, flying, sending the air in waves down upon my face. His breath broke out of sequence with mine. Something was happening, something was coming from above. I knew my way to the woods but I wasn’t sure I could get there fast enough.

I looked down at my feet to find the dagger lying there and I slowly picked it up and examined it. The blade was clean. Panic washed over me. Would they find me at home? What if they buried me? I let out a deep sigh.

What’s done is done.

Very carefully, I wrapped the blade in the fabric at the bottom of my shirt and tucked the dagger into the front pocket of my jeans. I forced my legs into a run. Back home, in
my
time, the world was covered in the darkness of the night’s storm; yet here, in a place of such uncertainty, it was quite the opposite. The blue reminded me of the safe haven I so desperately needed to find again, pushing me forward to find him.

The importance of my task hovered in the air. The more I breathed it, the more I wanted him; and the more he felt farther and farther away

D
esperation settled into the very marrow of my bones and steered me on a course over which I no longer had control. My feet knew the way to the woods but getting there seemed to take forever. The entire time, my thoughts were tormented by images of what Garreth might be enduring, and my trying to hold fast to the thin traces of him within me.

I had heard that your life passes before your eyes when you die. And although I wasn’t truly dead, I still saw all I held close and dear, like a movie unfolding before my eyes. I saw my mother applying the last bit of hairspray and then walking slowly to my closed door, her hand hesitantly resting midair before knocking.

“Let me sleep.”
I willed with all my might, picturing my words floating to her on an unseen wind. To my relief, her hand dropped to her side and she walked away.

I brought the photo of me and my father to the very edges of my mind, hearing twinkling baby laughter from long ago as he bounced me on his knee. I saw the crease in the second picture flatten and run smooth, as though newly printed from the long-discarded Polaroid it had come from—and I knew I was being given full reign to clean the slate.

Suddenly, I was thrown to the ground by some unseen force and my hand sprung to my forehead. I felt a warm stickiness but my fingers showed nothing. I wanted to scream out as waves of pain squelched my visions of home. A warmth trickled within me, as if coming to life, and I knew I was feeling Garreth. I knew he was being hurt.

I forced myself to my feet but my legs ached horribly from running. I urged myself on, and before long I arrived at the mouth of the forest. The narrow trail beckoned me and I followed it. Jutting brambles and thorns that were now overgrown in wild anticipation of my arrival caught at my jeans, as if they purposely arched themselves outward to keep me back, making my plight all the more sweet in the end.

My chest heaved. I was openly crying now, on the border of hysterics, fearing I couldn’t reach him fast enough. I felt so incredibly alone.

From out of nowhere, the stone chapel took shape in the haze I had been trudging through, rising high like an old castle. This wasn’t the simple chapel I had visited before and I realized that what stood in the woods back home was only a scrap of the splendor it used to be. The rubble was revived in this green spotlight, still very much alive within this otherworld.

The smell of hot wax was strong, filling the air with perfumed heat as I quietly made my way across a courtyard to an open hall lined with high, arched passages. I spied a wooden door that spilled a golden glow through its cracks and seams, warm and inviting. I felt the dancing light from behind it breathe and pulse, begging me to enter.

It reminded me of the concrete fortress a few nights ago where nameless, faceless teenagers entered in droves, music pounding, lights splitting the dark, splattering their beams on the walls and out the door onto the waiting line, like an enticing siren. But my mind quickly cleared, and only a caressing wind could be heard, running its fingers through the overgrown thick of green around me.

I opened the door.

A scream that was half sob wrenched itself loose from my lips. “Garreth!”

Through the arched doorway, in the middle of a large stone vestibule, stood my beloved Guardian, still and beautiful. His skin was paler than ever, his wings hanging crumpled behind his back. As I quickly crossed the uneven stone floor, I noted that his arms were gathered limply at his wrists, bound by a thick leather strap.

“Garreth,” I whispered. “Oh, what has he done to you?”

My hand trembled as I reached up to touch the side of his face that a few hours ago had been covered in blood. His skin was ice cold but it didn’t deter me from clinging to him. I was so incredibly relieved that I had found him and he was still alive. I wrapped my arms around his chest and pressed my face into him.

“I need to tell you something I didn’t fully understand until now. All this time, I’ve wanted something I wasn’t ready for. The dream every girl wants, but I failed to realize what it really means to have that dream and to hold on to it.” I looked up at his beautiful, pale face and with absolute certainty released the words that had been hiding inside me. “Garreth, I love you.”

But he looked right through me, his blue eyes reflecting eerie milky white in the candles’ glow.

“Can you hear me, Garreth?” I dropped my arms to my sides, completely baffled. I had listened to my heart and finally said the words. But there was no response from him at all.

He stood as still as a statue, seeing nothing, feeling nothing.

I looked around to discover we were not alone. Scores of other angels stood in rows the entire length of the chamber.

The corrupted.

Some were male, some female, others exquisitely androgynous. I hadn’t noticed them until now, I had been so intent on finding Garreth. Had I seen the silent group of Guardians upon entering, I still would have had no trouble singling out my Guardian, for he was more beautiful to me than all the others combined.

They were all dressed in hues of white; transparent eggshell, bone, and snow, wings silenced behind their backs with chains. Velvety feathers, all varying shades, littered the stone floor, bringing immediately to mind struggle and defeat. I had seen what happens to a person once their Guardian has been taken from them. I knew of the change in personality, in character, how without a Guardian to breathe choice and decision into their souls they instead became lost.

But seeing a Guardian after a separation was more than I could bear.

Each angel stood still and unseeing. They seemed excruciatingly empty—ripped from their responsibilities. They were mere shells now.

Panic stirred inside as I wondered where Hadrian could be. Where was the one who silenced these remarkable beings into submission?

As though hearing my thoughts aloud, the shadows in the corners stirred to life, sending the all-too-familiar scent of fear across the room to me.

“Garreth!” I pleaded in an urgent whisper.

I pulled at his cold hands but they wouldn’t yield. I threw my arms around his neck but my efforts fell short. All I could think of was his warm scent, that thin thread of a lifeline that had reeled me in to this place, connecting us again; but, it was nowhere to be found and I was confounded that the trail should suddenly run cold when it should be at its strongest.

I stood on my tiptoes, looking into his eyes that were lifeless now. He was here, I was here. How could this possibly be so wrong? I kissed his face over and over. Was I too late, then? Was there any chance of breaking this awful trance he was in? Then, to my horror, I realized he appeared just as vacant as the others.