Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (27 page)

“He’s effectively made us prisoners within the schools walls
.
He knows if the staff
are
afraid of being eliminated they will follow his every decree and statement.
”

“And I’ve got the feeling this is only the beginning,” Gabriel sighed
.
“The black horse is the horse of famine, but famine can come in m
any other ways tha
n just hunger
.
”

I was biting my thumbnail.
“Great, and instead of a student he’s only the most important man in the school
.
How did this happen
?
Principal Black has been principal for like two decades
.
Why is he
all evil
now? “

“
Alex got to him somehow
.
Maybe he promised him power, no one is untouchable Michelle
.
Evil can get to us all.
”

“Well I have no idea what to do about this
, so when in doubt I guess we go to class.”

“Sounds like the only reasonable thing to do,” Gabriel replied with a smirk
.
God I loved that smirk
.
With that we made our way to anatomy class, with Gabriel’s name scrolled
next to mine on my pass, and our
fingers crossed that Mr.
Edder
wouldn’t send us to the office for being late with or without a pass
.

As I sat in anatomy class I mused to myself about the situation I found myself in
.
Okay, I had defeated the red horseman, gold star for me, but I was planning on the next horseman to be a new person, someone I had never met
.
The fact that it was a well-established person in the community and the principal of my school created a few challenges
.
For example, no
one
seemed to miss Scarlett, I was betting that Principal Black was going to be missed
.
Not to mention how cliché, the principal of my high school is evil
.
Name one high school student who doesn’t think that
.
I had no idea how Gabriel and I were going to handle this situation
.
My total la
ck of ideas meant only one thing
, we had to wait and see
.
Maybe he would slip up, show some kind of weakness
.
Maybe since he was over fifty and out of shape he would just have a heart attack and I wouldn’t have to do anything
.
Can minions of h
ell die from heart attacks
?
Probab
ly not until h
ell is done using them as their evil pawn.

Principal Black’s decrees this morning had created an atmosphere of doom throughout the school
.
Now
,
an atmosphere of doom in the
midst
of the apocalypse is not that surprising, the fact that this atmosphere was the result of no more Friday night football games was
.
Here they were facing the end of times, and the unaware idiots that were m
y
peers were mourning the absence of extra curricular activities
.
Forgive me for not sharing
in
their woes
.
What did have me alarmed was the behavior of the teachers
.
I don’t know what was said at this morning’s staff meeting, but they all looked afraid for their lives
,
not just their jobs
.
Even Mr.
Edder
, who I considered an excellent teacher, reminded me of a startled rabbit in the front yard
.
His eyes looked a little t
o
o big for his face, and he was moving like he was ready to make a break for it at any minute
.
Yup, Principal Black had defi
nitely
scared his staff into submission
.

The day went on in the same somber tone it had started
.
I couldn’t remember the last time scho
ol had been so solemn;
no one laughed, no one smiled,
and
no
one
talked above a whisper
.
It was as
if someone had died, well some
one had died last night, but none of my classmates seemed to notice Scarlett’s absence
.
They were all to
o
busy mo
u
rning the death of the school mascot the Shady Lane Devil, and whispering about what they were all going to do on Friday night now that there was no football
.
I silently wondered how the jocks and the cheerleaders would now
find one another;
stripped of their uniforms they were just like everyone else
.
How could they judge the lesser of us without their helmets and pom-poms
?
But the social hierarchy of high school was the least of my problems
.

I found myself seated in my usual seat at lunch without really remembering anything about my day
.
It was as if the entire student body was on autopilot
.
Gabriel slid into the seat across from me,
but
neither of us touched ou
r
lunches
.
We
just
sat silently
,
staring at our lunch trays
.
It
was as if the emotions of the school were bearing down on our shoulders, and we couldn’t move past this somber mood even if neither of us cared about them cutting extra curricular activities
.
I finally remembered that I had something to tell Gabriel
.
I started with
my run-
in with Alex on the sidewalk this morning
.
As I recounted the story, I scanned the cafeteria looking for its star
.
He was nowhere to be found, the seat next to Cami was empty
.
He was probably off plotting world
destruction in his evil hideout;
didn’t all villains have hideouts
?
I finished the story and Gabriel looked like he was going to punch
something, so before he could l
ose his temper I launched into my dream last night
.
I had purposely saved this story for last because I considered it good news
.
I recounted all the informati
on the voice had bestowed on me;
the Powers, the Ophanim, the voice calling me a Defender, and finally it referring to Gabriel as a Watcher
.
As I dropped that last bit of knowledge, I closely gauged his reaction
.

His head shot up from where he had been staring at his lunch tray. “What?” he stammered
.

I stared into his eyes of ice and very calmly stated, “You heard me.”

“This doesn’t make any sense Michelle, there has
n’t been a Watcher for over 1200 years.
”

“That’s what the voice said, it said that never in history had a Watcher and a Defender been linked, and that’s why they were so interested in us.”

“God forbade angels from interacting with man, he revoked the abilities of the Watchers
.
They no longer appear to mortals, they have no free will
.
They have become invisible protectors
.
They certainly don’t
have the ability to interact with humanity that I have
.
No Michelle, you must have mis
understood
.
I was cast from heaven.
”

I leveled my gaze so I was staring into his eyes and reached across the lunch table to grab his hand
.
He tried to look away, but I squeezed his hand
.
“It
’
s my turn to quote
T
he Bible
to you for a change
.
The Lord works in mysterious ways
,
Gabriel
.
Isn’t it possible that God sent you here for a reason
?
That this unique situation called for one
of
his most loyal servants to be reassigned, maybe you weren’t cast out but given a different role.
”

“A Watcher
?
I d
on’t know
.
The interaction between the sons of God and the daughters of man is strictly frowned upon
.
We aren’t
supposed
to interact with humanity in that way.
”

“I think it
’
s safe to say that this is a unique case
.
Has the apocalypse ever happened before?”

It was his turn to level his gaze at me
.
He sighed.
“You know it hasn’t, Michelle.”

“All I’m saying is that unique times call for unique situations
.
I know how I feel about you, and you’ve told me you feel the same way
.
I think if what’s between us had been against the plan, one of these forces would have intervened or at least mentioned it.
”

“A Watcher, huh
?
So I haven’t fallen from grace after all?
”

“Seems like you haven’t fallen, just been reassigned,” I teased.

“Well it
’
s certainly a promotion in the ranks,” he laughed
.
“
I would rather be here with you
than anywhere else without you.”

I smiled up at him; he sure knew the right things to say
.
I was glad that this piece of the puzzle had made him feel better
.
More t
han defeating Principal Black or stopping Alex,
or saving humanity, what I wanted was to make him happy
.
Maybe my priorities where out of whack, but for the
first time in my life there was s
omeone who really saw me for me, someone who I wanted to be with for as long as our destinies would allow
.
The bell ringing shrilly cut into my thoughts, and I was thrust back to the present
.
We gathered our
trays, and made our way to class hand in hand
.
I felt like with Gabriel by my side I could do anything, nothing was impossible
.

We slid
into our seats in British Literature and I could tell right away that Mr. Brown had not taken Principal Black’s news the same way the rest of the faculty had
.
He wasn’t sca
red
,
in fact he looked pissed
.
He
passed out Xeroxed copies of a reading
.
We were in the middle of Macbeth, but apparently the situation had called for a change in literature choices
.
Leave it
to Mr. Brown to not let a teachable moment pass him by, one of the many reasons he was my favorite teacher
.
The copy was entitled
A Modest Proposal
by Jonathan Swift
.
The reading was written by an English man in response to the problem of the Irish famine, and it was written in my second language, sar
casm
.
Mr. Brown called it satire
, but whatever you called it this Jona
than Swift spoke my language
.

Th
e writer was p
r
o
posing that the English start eating
Irish children
.
This was his suggestion to find a fair, cheap, and easy method for converting the starving children of Ireland into sound useful members of the Commonwealth of England
.
Swift used hard economic reasoning as well as a self-righteous moral stance to argue his solution
.
I don’t think I had ever been more impressed with Mr. Brown
;
he was mocking Principal Black
.
He viewed Principal Black’s budget cuts and threats as ridiculous as the proposal to eat the starving children of Ireland
.
Swift ended his essay by stating that his proposal would do more to solve the problems of Ireland than any other measure proposed by the British Commonwealth
.
I almost laughed out loud
whe
n we finished reading the essay.
I wish
ed
Principal Black was hear to listen to this essay, but then again he probably wouldn’t g
et the satire and he’d be serving
freshman in the cafeteria next week
.