Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (14 page)

“Listen, I’m no fan of Alex’s, but what in the world would make you think he was the Antichrist?” I was still more than a little skeptical, but for some reason I wasn’t running out his front door and never looking back.

“The dream you had last night, it was rea
l
, or rather it was really me.
”
H
e paused and looked in my direction
. M
y face must have held som
e hint that made him keep going.
“I truly was cast from heaven
.
I have been searching for you, and I am now mortal
.
Although I still have some
powers
, like
persuasion,
premonition
,
and obviously I can dream walk.
”

“So you can just walk into my dream and talk to me
?
Does the term invasion of privacy mean anything to you
?
What if you walked in on something personal?
”

It was his turn to blush, and just when I thought he couldn’t get any
more handsome th
e crimson flush gracing his chee
ks made him both more real and more beautiful all at once
.
“The thought had not occurred to me,” he stated simply
.

I momentarily thought of continuing to tease him, but then thought it better to shift gears and get back to the more important matter at hand
.
“So you’re telling
me
you use
d
to be an angel and now your mortal?
”

“Frustratingly enough
,
yes.
I don’t age but I can die
.
I lived millennia with
out these cumbersome emotions you mortals are always walking around with, and now I find myself perpetually trapped in a teenager’s body. The emotions are enough to drive me crazy, but the hormones are ridiculous,” he finished in a huff
.

And there it was, and it struck a little to
o
close to home
.
Wasn’t I just a few moments ago blaming my raging hormones for the way
I felt about Gabriel? A
nd now here he was admitting to how annoying they were
.
I felt like a fool, he had lived for thousands of years of course he wasn’t actually attra
cted to me, some plain teenage
girl from New Jersey
.
He was simply trapped in a mortal
body, with
a destiny that intertwined with mine
.
I felt ridiculous for even entertaini
ng the thought that an angel might
actual
ly
have been attracted to me, as if
under any other circumstance tha
n him being condemned to earth would he feel anything for me
.

What I said was, “Huh, yeah, pesky hormones.
”

He
level
ed
his gaze at me and I felt like he looked directly into my brain and read every thought
I
had just
had
.
I broke eye
contact and looked away
.
H
e began to say something and I i
nterrupted, “So what has Alex done that makes you think he’s the Antichrist?
”
I felt ridiculous saying it out loud
.
It was like I could accept the thought of the idea in my brain, but when I heard the words leave my mouth I realized how crazy they sounded
.

“Well
,
he hasn’t really done much yet,” he said rather sheepishly, “but I have a feeling about him.
”

I got up and moved to the coffee pot to refill my mug
.
“A feeling isn’t really enough proof to convince
me of
anything
.
If you’re going to accuse someone of being the Antichrist, you need some actual proof.
”
I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous the words sounded coming out of my mouth
.

“The problem with identifying the Antichrist is that the person who is actually the Antichrist will appear to be uniting people, a good leader, and out for
the
good of the people, but once he has achieved uniting everyone he will lead them into chaos, destruction, and civil war.
”

“Okay, so I understand why you suspect Alex
.
He’s clearly a captivating speaker and people like to follow him, but couldn’t that just mean he’s popular and has a promising political career in his
future
?’  I asked
,
still skeptical.

“In any other high school, in any other town, yes, but we are different
.
For some reason unknown to us, this is where the last days are meant to be fought out, and for even more unknown reasons you
have been chosen to be the pawn
of heaven to help defeat hell.
”
He paused and turned the full force of his ice, gray eyes on me
.
“I
wish this were
different
.
I wish we were normal high school student
s, and my biggest concern were
if you wanted to go to prom with me or not.
”

I stood staring into his beautiful face, and as crazy as what he was saying sounded, I believed him
.
There were a million reasons why I should walk away from him and never look back, but staring into his eyes I could tell that he truly believed everything he was saying
.
Maybe my judgment was off, maybe years of listening to my mother’s ramblings had mad
e
me crazy myself, or maybe Cami’s absence in my life had left a hole that I was desperately trying to fill
.
Whatever the reason, I believed him and I made the deci
sion right then to hear him
out
.
As I silently considered my decision, he walked around the end of the kitchen island
.
He
stood in front of me
,
gently grasped my shoulders
and looked
deeply
into my eyes
.

“I need you to believe me,” he begged
.
“You’re different from others your age, you have always felt different
.
Haven’t you always wondered why? You aren’t one of the happy, mindless adolescent pod people, all shuffling to be just like one another
.
You’ve always been unique, and this is why
.
You have a greater purpose tha
n prom queen; you’re meant to help me save humanity.
”
He slow
ly leaned towards me and
brushed his lips ever so slightly against mine
.
I felt the breath catch in my throat and I felt my heart thud against my chest
.
He had caught me by complete surprise
.
He pulled back slowly and again looked into my eye
s.
“I know
I shouldn’t have done that
, but I’m
drawn to you
.
I can’t help myself. A
fter all
,
I’m only human
,
”
h
e said with his slow, smug smile
.

I felt myself blush, and then laughed
.
“Bet you’ve been saving that line for a millennia,”
I whispered in a breathy voice
.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, so I continued to look down towards my shoes
.

“Or two,” he replied teasingly
,
step
ping
closer to me
.
I could actually feel the heat radiating off his body he was so cl
ose, but he didn’t kiss me
.
Instead he reach
ed
out and touched my necklace
.

“Where did you get this?” he asked
.

“I told you before that my aunt gave it to me,
”
I said
,
looking
up and finally meeting his eyes
.

“I had a dream the other night, about this very necklace
.
Only in the dream it wasn’t you who wore it
.
In my dream a young
French girl wore this
necklace around her neck under what loo
ked like chainmail
.
I knew who she was because I remember her
.
S
he was yelling to thousands o
f soldiers around her in French
.
Do you know who that girl was?
”
he asked
.
I couldn’t speak
,
so
I only shook my head
.
“It was Joan of Arc
.
W
hen she was convicted
of heresy, she was burned at the stake, but there were two priests present at her execution
.
They were supposed to make sure nothing of hers survived, not even her bones
.
She was burned to dust and then her ashes were scattered in a river, but one of the priests felt the power of this necklace and saved it from the executioner’s eyes
.
The legend of its existence
h
as been greatly debate
d
throughout time, and many people think it is merely an urban legend, but her
e
it is around your neck.”

“Wait, you’re telling me th
at my necklace is an old French
religious
relic that use
d
to belong to Joan of Arc
?
” I couldn’t contain my shock.

“I wouldn’t have believed it either, but like I said after my dream I saw you wear
ing your necklace the next day
.
It makes sense if you think about it
.
Joan claimed that the necklace was a gift from the ang
el
Michael
to help protect
her
.
She had received visions from the ang
el
and he had given her instructions on how to free France from foreign rule.
”

“So this necklace use
d
to be
long to a girl who thought angel
s were talking to her, and then she was burned at the stake
?
Sounds like the
necklace wasn’t much protection,
” I retorted.

“It
ha
s been my experience that religious relics only protect a person from the evils
of h
ell, unfortunately they have no effect on the evils in humanity
,” he replied
.

“Well, that doesn’t explain how I came to have it
.
How in the world would my a
unt get her hands
o
n a necklace that was hundreds of years old?”

“That’s a question to ask you
r aunt.
I have no idea, but I do know that whe
n we are meant to be places,
meet people, or own objects they always seem to appear in our path
.
I think that more powerful forces may have been at work
in getting
you that necklace.”

“It
’
s weird that you’re telling me this
.
Just last night my m
other told me to wear this necklace because it’s
my
protection.
”

“You’ll find that your m
other
is a lot more knowledgeable tha
n you give her credit for,” he finished
.

I went back over to the kitchen island and picked up my coffee cup
.
I walked
over to the sink,
dumped my cold coffee down the drain
,
and rinsed the cup out
.
I turned and looked back at Gabriel
.
Everything he was telling me was certifiable, but there was a piece of me deep in my gut that believed him
.
It wasn’t just that he was incredibly handsome and I felt drawn to him, no this feeling was deep in my gut, like a sixth sense
.
Maybe I was going crazy, but I believed him
.
I glanced over at the clock
and saw that it was ten-thirty
.
I should get over to Cami’s if I wanted to talk to her
.
“I have to go,” I blurted.
“
I was planning on going over to Cami’s and talking to her
.
I wanted to
figure out what was going on with her, maybe I could get my friend back.”