Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (13 page)

I strolled along the qui
et
street
.
Before I realized where I was headed
,
I looked up to see I had stopped in front of Gabriel’s house
.
I gla
nc
ed down at my watch; it was eight-thirty
a
.
m
.
Cami probably wasn’t up yet, but maybe Gabriel was
.
If today was the day for confrontation then why not start here
.
Before I could chicken out, I strode up the steps to Gabriel’s front
door and rung the doorbell
.
I wait
ed for what seemed like forever and
after some
time I rang the bell again
.
No one answered
.
I stepped back onto the sidewalk and looked up at the second story windows
.
I couldn’t see any movement or lights on
.
I pee
ked around the side of the house into the side ya
rd, trying to see into the back
yard
.
No
t quite sure what had taken
over
me
, I ventured into the side yard and rounded the house into the back
.
It was your typical backyard, nothing special or sinister about it
.
There were several large oak trees and a small garden of rose bushes along the back of the house
.
I began to wa
nder further
into the backyard
.
I was aware I was trespassing and lookin
g more than a little
stalkerish
, but after the information he had shared with me la
st night turn
about seemed like fair play
.
If I got caught I could always say that I was just cutting through on my way to the park
.
As I
reached the far back of the yard I noticed a hammock hanging between two large elm trees
.
Someone was laying in it, reading
.
My heart skipped as my fight
or flight reflexes
kicked in
.
I felt heat creep into my face as I realized what a freak I looked like lurking in some guy’s backyard
, the sa
me guy I had called a freak just the night before
.
I squinted my eyes
,
trying to see if the person in the hammock was Gabriel or
his f
ather
.
Did Gabriel have siblings
?
God, I didn’t even know
.
I took a deep breath and just walked over to the hammock
.
As I got closer, to my great relief, I realized it was Gabriel
.

I waited till I was a few feet away and I uttered
an awkward
, “Hey.
”
What if he was mad at me about last night
?
What if he didn’t want to see me
ever again
?
I waited sheepishly as he lowered his book and glanced in my direction
.

“Oh,
h
ey,
”
he replied
.

“Listen, I’m sorry about last night
.
I really over
reacted.
”
I hadn’t realized I was going to apologize until the words were already out of my mouth
.
I continued on, trusting my impulses more than my brain at
t
he moment
.
“I thought about what you said, and I’m curious
.
I’m not saying I completely believe you, but I’m interested
,
” I finished in a rush
.
As I spoke the words I beca
me conscious that they were true
.
I was intrigued by what he had told me, and even more curious after my dream last night
.

             
He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the hammock in order to face me
.
I noticed, to my relief, as he put his book down he was reading Tolkien’s
The Hobbit
.

             
“I
’m
glad to see you
.
I wasn’t sure w
h
ere we stood after last night,” he replied calmly
.

I exhaled loudly
.
“I didn’t really mean to intrude on you like this
.
I was on my way to Cami’s house when I just found myself in front of your house
.
I knocked and no one answered the front door.”

“So y
ou thought you would snoop around in my
backyard,” he said with a slow
smile
.

“I wasn’t snooping!” I snapped
.
I could feel my face burning and knew I was red with embarrassment.

He let out an abrupt laugh, startling me
.
“It
’
s fine
,
I’m only teasing you
.
I have to ask though, what changed your mind
?
Last night you made it very clear that you thought I was crazy.”

I didn’t wa
nt to get into the issue of my m
other
.
Surely sharing her delusional
rants would
n’t
help make me seem sane
.
“I had a really weird dream last night
.
You were in it, but you weren’t you, and you had these huge shadow wings, and Alex was there, only he seemed like he wasn’t himself either, he seemed dangerous.
”
I snapped my mouth shut
,
abruptly realizing that I had been prattling on like a fool.

He turned the full force of those ice, gray eyes on me and I felt like I was trapped in his gaze
.
I couldn’t have moved from his sight if I had wanted to
.
“
What did Alex say?
”

“Nothing, he was just there and he was surrounded by this really i
ntense
blazing light
.
When he looked at me he bared his teeth, like he was growling
.
It was weird, he didn’t really do anything to me, but I felt scared and threatened.”

Gabriel stood and took me by the hand
.
“
Come inside, so we can talk
.
I want to try to
explain some
thing
s better, but first we need to be someplace we can talk without being over heard.
”

I glanced
around over my shoulder
.
I didn’t see anyone around, but I wasn’t going to argue
, especially when he was holding my hand in his
.
What was wrong with me
?
One minute I’m convinced that this guy is crazy and I need
to get away, and the next
he touches me or looks at me and I want to go running into his arms
.
Maybe this is what the health teacher at school would call a dysfunctional relationship
.

He led me up his back deck
and
in through the backdoor
.
I blinked hard several times
,
attempting to get
my eyes to adjust to the dimly
lit kitchen
.
He dropped my hand and walked over to an island in the middle of the kitchen
.
He removed t
wo mugs out of the ca
binet and poured
us
some
coffee
.
He grabbed the
sugar bowl out of a different cabinet and walked over to get cream out of the refrigerator
.
As he busied himself, I glanced around the kitchen
.
The house was similar to most of the two-story homes in our small town, but
all the appliances looked new
.
Actually
,
the entire kitchen seemed to have been recently updated
.
The cabinets were a deep mahogany color, and the counters appeared to be
a glistening
black granite
.
Gabriel came bac
k over to the island where I
sat on one of the tall stools
and
placed the coffee mug in front of me
.
He had added two spoons full of sugar and a splash of milk to my mug
.

“How did you know I drank coffee
?
And exactly how I like it?
”
I asked
,
more than a little taken back at his knowledge
.

“
Who doesn’t like coffee
?
And who doesn’t enjoy cream and sugar?
”
he replied with a smirk
.

“You know
,
answering a question with a question
is not really an answer at all,
”
I said as I took a long, amazing sip from the coffee mug
.

             
“We have more
important things to talk about.” A
ll humor
vanished
from his face
.
“I know what I said last night freaked you out, but I want you to know that it really is the truth
.
I also wanted to talk to you about Alex.”

             
I sat and stared across the kitchen island at him, not sure what to say
.
So
instead
I took another long sip of coffee and nodded my head
.
I wa
sn’t completely convinced about
what he told me last night, but I was curious
.

             
“Alex is different
.
He’s part of this just like we
are
; o
nly he’s not here to help
.
He’s here to destroy
.
I know it sounds crazy, but you have to feel it
,
too
.
He feels off, doesn’t he?”

             
I thought about it, and realized he was right
.
I did have a bad feeling about Alex and not just because he was stealing my best friend from me, no there was
definitely
more to it than that
.
“I feel something’s off with him
,
too.
”

             
“
H
ave you ever heard of Judgment D
ay?” he asked.

             
“Sure, i
t’s the day that people believe God will come to earth and decide who is good and who is evil
.
The evil will be cast into hell and God will return to h
eaven with the good,” I tried to sound nonchalant although him returning to the topic of religion did set me on edge
.

             
“There are many different beliefs and versions of Judgment Day
.
What you’re talking about is more commonly called the Rapture
.
Most Christians today believe that there are events that lead up to the final Judgment
.
In the Book of Revelations there are four horsemen who precede the last Judgment
.
The first of those horsemen rides on a white horse and is called Conquest
.
He is also often referred to as the
Antichrist.
”
Gabriel paused and glanced in my direction
.

             
“I don’t know the who
le story, but I have certainly heard of the Antichrist before
,” I admitted
.

             
I watched Gabriel’s handsome face frown in expectation
“Well, I believe Alex
Chase
is th
e Antichrist,
”
h
e blurted
,
while clearly bracing
for my r
eaction.
His hands tighten
ed
around his coffee
mug as he waited for my reply.
Once I got over the
initial
shock of his statement all I could think about was what my mother had said the night before
.
She had yelled that the first seal was broken and the white horse was here
.
I felt a chill climb my spine
.