Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (32 page)

“Michelle
,
we don’t have much of
a
choice, she has to stay here.”

“Here
? Are you out of your mind
?
She can’t stay here! We have no food, no water, no blankets, we can’t make her stay here.”

Gabriel reached out and la
id a han
d on either one of my shoulders.
“I don’t think we have a choice
.
If we bring her to her house, Alex will definitely find
her;
we can’t take her to your ho
use or
mine
.
This is about the safest place we’ve got.
”

I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right
.
What else could we do
?
I took a deep breath and let it out
s
lowly
.
“Fine, you
’
r
e
right,” I relented
.
“But we need to get supplies
.
I’m not making her stay her
e
like this
.
I can go to my house and gather some blankets, water,
and food
.
And then we need to talk about what we are going to do
.
We can’t hide here forever.
”

Gabriel simply shook his head in agreement
.
“I’ll stay here and watch over her.
”

I glanced in Cami’s
direction;
her haunting eyes drove a stabbing pain
directly
into my heart
.
“Will she ever see again?
”
I quietly asked Gabriel
.

“I can’t say for sure, but it doesn’t look good,” he replied shaking his head
.

“What happened to her?”
I asked more to myself then to anyone in particular
.

“The sight of a true angel is more than any mortal can handle,” he replied
.

I
arched an eyebrow questioningly.
“I saw Michael, and I didn’t go blind.”

“Michael is an Archangel.
W
e
,
or he rather
,
are meant to be seen by people
.
True angels, like The Powers that visited your dream, human eyes can’t stand the sight of them
.
Cami’s lucky she only went blind.”

I shook my head thinking back to the bright, white room in which The Powers had spoken to me
.
I had only heard
a voice
and no one or nothing had ever
appeared
to me
.
“Lucky,
huh
?” I laughed to myself, “T
ell her that.
”
I looked over at Cami,
propped
up against the wall
.
I had wanted to save her, and although she was back to herself it was almost more than I could take to see her hurting and wounded
.

I crossed the room and crouched down
i
n front
of her.
“Cami, I have to go
.
I’m going to get supplies and come back
.
I’ll grab blankets, water, m
a
ybe even some
Doritos,” I teased
,
trying to make her feel better
.

She didn
’t laugh, didn’t even smile.
“Okay, hurry back
.
I want you here,” she whispered
.

“It
’
s okay, I’m leaving Gabriel here with you, he’ll protect you.” I glanced over at Gabriel and he was back to his stance of being propped up aga
inst the wall, arms crossed.
H
e gave me a sharp nod as
if
to say he understood
.
I turned back and kissed Cami on the forehead
.
“I promise I’ll be back.” A
nd with that I turned and left the house
.

I could have taken the car, but I didn’t want to risk Alex spotting it and following me back, so instead I walked
.
It wasn’t really all that far, maybe ten miles or so back to town
.
We had arrived at Cami’s in the early morning and so
,
although it felt like the day had been dragging on forever
,
it was still only early afternoon
.
As I walked back to town, staying off the sidewalk
and out of sight
,
my thoughts wa
ndered
.
I probably wasn’t walking as fast as I could, but my mind had distracted my focus
.
We had saved Cami today, but how would I protect her in the long run
?
How could I protect anyone in the long run
?
I still felt like I needed protecting
myself
.
As I turned the corner onto my street,
my thoughts were interrupted
.
I saw the flashin
g red and blue lights first and
it wasn’t long till I
heard
the sirens.

Chapter 17

Psalm 112: 1-9 “This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all
.
The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there madness in their hearts while they live, and afterwards they join the dead.”

I had been walking in an almost dazed state, buried deep within my own thoughts, but the sight of the flashing lights in front of my house snapped me back to reality
.
My
messenger
bag slid from my shoulder and hit the sidewalk
.
I didn’t bother to pick it up, I had one thought and one thought only, get home
.
I took off at a dead sprint towards my house
.
I pushed my legs as fast as they would go, I felt the muscles burning and my lungs screaming for m
o
re air, but I paid it no mind
;
I pushed harder, faster
.

As I got closer
I was able to make out
the ambula
nce parked on the front lawn,
empty with the back doors left open
.
There were two cop cars parked on the street, but no one strung crime scene tape in front of the house, and the cops were nowhere in sight
.
I took these as good signs, or at least that’s what my irrational brain told me
.
It can’t be that bad, there are only two cops
.
It can’t be that bad, no one is in the ambulance being rushed away
.
It can’t be that bad, they haven’t blocked the street
.
I couldn’t have been more wrong
.

I ran up the front steps, throwing open the storm door with an
earth
shaking bang
.
Once through the front door I stopped dead in my tracks
.
I couldn’t process the sight before my eyes
.
I c
ouldn’t get my brain to understand
what it was seeing
.
My m
other sat on the couch
with a police officer on either side
.
The entire front of her was covered in blo
od, but she sat there between t
w
o
cops, instead of
being hauled off in an ambulance
.
My eyes scanned the room and it was then that I realized why my mother wasn’t be
ing rushed away to the hospital;
it wasn’t her blood
.
I could see
,
from where I stood in the doorway,
a lump covered by a white sheet spread out along the
linoleum floor and
what I assumed was blood
had begun to stain the sheet a disturbing shade of crimson
.

Upon
bursting through the door
the cops stood, leaving my dazed mother
sitting on the couch
.
One of the
cop
s
hurriedly approached me
, and immediately attempted to corral me back out the door to the front porch, but my feet were firmly planted and he wasn’
t willing to use force to mov
e me, at least not yet
.

I prepared for a confrontation.
“Wha
t the hell is going on in here?
What happened?
”
I had meant to sound fierce but my voice
cracked at the end
of the
sentence
.

The cop
,
who had blocked my entrance into the living room, placed his hand on my arm
.
“Miss,
we need to speak with you, please step outside.
”
It wasn’t a request, although he made it sound like one
.
He had successfully blocked the doorway, and I could just glimpse the sheet covering the lump lying on the kitchen floor
.
The other officer had remained with my mother, where
she had not moved from the couch
.

The cop took another step towards me, and this time I took a step b
ack and allowed him to get
me
out
onto
the front porch
.
As I steppe
d back outside
, I let the cool October air rush into my lungs
.
I was hot, my f
ace flushed, and I was confused.
I couldn’t wrap my brain
around the scene in the house
.
What had my m
other done
?
Where was my f
ather
?
Why had no one called him yet?

The cop walked over and I saw in the glint of
the
dimming light that his
nameplate
read Michaels
.
I glanced up with a sudden shocked suspicion, and took a better look at the man who stood in front of me
.
He was tall, probably six and a half feet
.
He had blond
e
hair the color of hay and blue eyes the color of summer skies, I could tell that he was muscled but in a lean way underneath his uniform
.
All that was missing from before were the large white wings and armor
.
He must have seen the re
cognition snap into my eyes.
“I’m
glad to see you recognize me
.
I was afraid you’d gone into shock,” he stated calmly
.

“What are you doing here
?
What has happened?
”
I know the sight of an angel should have been comforting, but now I was sur
e this was more than one of my m
other’s episodes, this had something to do with the battle between heaven and hell that I found myself in the middle of
.
I could handle my m
other, I had been handling her for the past five years, but if Michael was here there was more to this
.

“I need you to sit,” he demanded
,
pointing to the old, white wicker rocking
chair that was on
the porch
.
I shot him a skeptical look, but resentfully sat down
.
I just wanted
answers;
I didn’t have the
luxury
of being stubborn
.
“You’ve had quite an eventful day
.
I’m not
supposed
to be here, this is a risk I didn’t want to take Michelle.”

“Well then
,
how about you quit
beating around the bush
and spit out an ex
planation as to why you’re here. T
hen you can disappear again and leave me to clean up whatever mess this is this time.
”

He sho
ok his head and pursed his lips.
“Your actions this morning were rash, and not the best move you could have made given the situation you
’
r
e
in.
”