Authors: Melody Manful
But, of course, I didn’t go to the bus stop or home to help my mother with her furniture. I went straight to the Underworld to visit D. I wanted to see her because she was the only friend I had. I wanted to ask her if she knew of an angel disease I didn’t know of, because I was certain I was sick.
“
D, open this stupid gate or I’m breaking it down!” I shouted as I retracted my wings.
Every time I wanted to visit D, I had to wait behind the monstrous gate for her to open it. The Underworld was the darkest place I knew. Its huge, iron black gate extended high into the dark sky. Behind the gate lay an envelope of darkness out of which voices of unfortunate souls could be heard.
The Underworld wasn’t my favorite place, but I didn’t dislike it. The sad cries and screaming were like sweet melodies to my ears. I liked listening to the cries of lost souls asking for help in a place where help never came.
“
D, I swear if you—”
“
Relax, Gideon. I could hear you all the way from Earth!” D appeared beside me. “What’s the problem?”
“
Remember the human girl that I wanted to kill?” I asked. I didn’t know why I said
wanted
to kill, because I still wanted to kill her. Didn’t I?
“
Tristan’s human? Is she dead? Did you come here so we could celebrate?”
“
No, she’s not dead!” I shouted angrily. “She’s still alive and—”
“
Alive?” she asked, sounding surprised. “Don’t you have a three-day policy or something?”
Worst friend ever, pointing out my failures when all I wanted was help.
I glared. “Don’t you think I know this already?”
“
Why are you so worked up? Can’t you just kill her now or later? What’s the problem?”
“
The problem is that I can’t kill her!” I shouted. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, and the air around me was too dense, suffocating me. Was I having a meltdown? “Whenever I try to hurt her, I feel…I feel
something
.”
“
Feel something? What the hell does that mean?”
“
I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I wanted…I want to kiss her,” I said, and D broke into laughter.
“
Wait. You’re serious?” she asked. She stopped laughing after seeing that I wasn’t joking. “Well, go kiss her and then kill her. Problem solved.”
“
But I can’t…it’s Friday tomorrow.” What the hell was wrong with me? So what if it was Friday tomorrow?
“
And it’s Thursday today. Your point?”
D didn’t understand the length of the problem.
“
Fine. Don’t kill her tomorrow. How about the day after or the next?” she proposed.
“
She’s supposed to get a new book this Saturday. We have to read to the children on Monday, so I can’t kill her.”
“
The children? A book?” D stared at me, a look of confusion marring her features. “What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t kill her tomorrow because it’s Friday, and you can’t kill her this weekend because of a book?”
When she put it like that, it did sound like a really stupid, pathetic excuse. I wanted to kill Abigail—well, maybe not as much as I did before—but what if I killed her and…and I…
Gideon, back away from that thought
.
D stepped closer to me. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me that you are f—”
D didn’t finish her sentence because I grabbed her by the neck, and she choked on her words. “Don’t you dare say that out loud,” I whispered through clenched teeth. I released her.
“
We have a problem,” D said when I let go of her. “Come on, let’s go hit you on the head with something and return you to normal.”
Now that was the friend I was looking for. I was actually thinking of doing the same thing. “I vote for a car,” I said as D took my hand, and we disappeared into the darkness.
DARK KNIGHT
*Abigail*
“
If I were yesterday, I’d laugh at those who wish for a do-over.
If I were today, I’d laugh at those who didn’t make it this far,
but if I were tomorrow, I’d laugh because I’d know
the best is yet to come.”
Melody Manful
T
he next day at school, Gideon was waiting by the gate when I arrived. He waved me over, and I joined him. We walked to class together.
This time, I sat with him at the back of the room and we talked about the children at the library.
“
Come on. I’ll buy you lunch,” Gideon said when the lunch bell rung.
He took my hand and led me down the hall. I didn’t protest because I was kind of used to him doing so lately. When we went to the library yesterday, he had grabbed my hand, saying that we needed to make the children believe our
boyfriend and girlfriend
story.
Reality check: This boy wasn’t the Gideon from my nightmare.
Gideon still had my hand in his when we turned a corner and walked into the cafeteria. I felt his warmth rushing through me like electricity, striking and then lingering long enough to leave me breathless. Then it faded before the strong surge returned.
“
You eat that human stuff, right?” I stopped walking when Gideon asked this. “I mean
food
.” I smiled at his add-on, because it made him sound normal and not crazy.
There were moments when Gideon made me feel alive, and then there were moments when he said things that turned me back into the crazy girl who freaked out when I learned his name in class. Since I was getting used to his weird comments and no longer freaked out around him, I just wanted to escape with him to the cafeteria and forget the whole world.
“
Sure.” I wasn’t hungry, but I didn’t want to say no when he offered to buy me lunch.
He led me into the cafeteria to where my friends were sitting. I took a seat next to Tristan, and Gideon sat on the other side of me. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to feel the way I did, but I was a teenage girl, sitting between two incredibly hot guys who left me breathless. I was pretty sure I was allowed to feel breathless.
Gideon left to grab the food. As soon as he walked away, Sarah stared at me with her
I-want-all-the-details
look.
Moments later, Gideon returned with a tray of food, which he placed in front of me. Smiling up at him, I took the juice from the tray and started to take a sip, but the moment I did, someone shouted from behind us. Half the people in the cafeteria looked toward the voice.
“
Yes, I’d love to!” Behind us knelt a guy, giving a girl a bouquet of flowers.
“
That’s so sweet,” Sarah swooned.
“
What just happened?” Gideon asked.
“
The school’s thirtieth anniversary is next Friday, and he just asked her to go with him to the dance the school is throwing,” Danny explained. “You guys will be going, right?”
“
Do we have to?” Gideon asked.
“
No,” Jake answered, “but I’m going to be taking Doreen,”
“
Dude, the girl has a restraining order on you,” Sarah said, and we all laughed. “She wouldn’t go with you if you were the last guy on the planet.”
Jake took a bite of his sandwich, ignoring our laughter. “Who are you going with, Danny? Asked Lois Lane yet?”
“
I’ll ask someone, and she will say yes.”
“
You forgot the fork, Gideon,” Tristan said as he looked at the salad sitting on my tray.
Gideon shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
He leaned toward me and said, “You have something behind your ear.” Then he pretended to pull a fork out. Everyone at the table gasped in surprise when his hand actually revealed a fork.
“
Wow, Houdini,” Jake exclaimed, “where did that come from?”
“
Here you go,” Gideon said as he held the fork out to me with a flourish.
“
So, Great Bikini, are you—” Danny started.
“
It’s
Houdini
, genius,” Jake corrected Danny. “Bikini—where do you come up with this stuff?”
While we laughed, Caleb, the captain of the football team and a handsome charmer, walked over to our table. A few of his teammates stood behind him.
When Caleb called Sarah’s name, we turned around to see him go down on one knee. He and a few of his teammates were dressed in suits, and they all held flowers. Sarah gasped when she saw them. Caleb asked her if she would do him the honor of being his date to the dance. She screamed, “YES!”
Then, one by one, his teammates handed her the flowers, and some people in the cafeteria clapped.
“
I can’t believe even
you
have a date,” Jake said, frowning.
Sarah said to me, “I so wish you would go.”
For some reason, I felt sad that no one was going to do something that nice and special for me.
Tristan sounded surprised when he asked, “You’re not going?”
“
No one ever asks me to these things. The last time someone did, my bodyguards ended up interrogating him and scared him away.” They laughed.
“
I’m sure someone will ask you,” Sarah said. She was always hopeful. “If not, you can share my date.”
“
Thank you, but I just ordered a new book.” I had convinced myself that I didn’t care about going to the dance. I would be fine staying home. After all, my father had promised to visit.
“
Well, I think that even though you’re not going, you deserve to have a rose.” My heart leaped with joy when Gideon said this.
With a wave of Gideon’s hands, a beautiful red rose appeared.
“
Dude!” Jake shouted, while both Sarah’s mouth and mine fell open. “That is amazing. Teach me that so that I can do it for Doreen.”
Gideon faced me.
“
A rose for a rose,” he said as he handed me the rose.
And without as much as a breath, I did it—I allowed myself to fall.
LA BELLA E LA BESTIA
*Gideon*
“
It is better to be feared than loved,
if you cannot be both.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
“
I
t seems as if your fake friendship with Abigail is working,” Tristan said a few moments after Abigail walked out of the classroom with her friends. “Are you going to ask her to the dance?” I looked around the empty classroom.
“
Oh,” I said. “You’re talking to me.”
“
Yes. Are you planning on asking her to the dance so you can keep pretending to be her friend?” Why was he talking to me?
“
You give me the creeps, you know that?” Everything about Tristan made me nauseous.
“
I figured.” He walked over to where I sat, smiling as if he’d just won the lottery. “So?”
“
Why would I ask that stupid human girl to a useless human event?” I asked, quite annoyed. I spend some earthly time with him, and all of a sudden we were friends? “You know that the only reason I’m entertaining her is so that I can—”
“
Abigail!” Tristan blurted, and I turned to the door just in time to see Abigail run out into the hall.
“
Abby.” I couldn’t explain what came over me, but I ran out the door after her. “Abby, wait!” I shouted. “Stop!” With a little magic, I caught up with her. “Stop,” I said again, taking her hand and stopping her in the middle of the hallway.
“
Why? So you can call me stupid and…” She tried to hold back her tears. “I came to ask you if you wanted to go to the dance with me, but now I know your answer.” She freed herself from my grasp.
I hated hearing the pain in her voice, hated the way I felt seeing her sad. Really? Now? Couldn’t she have asked me sooner? Wait, wasn’t I the one who was supposed to ask her? Was this a human trick or something? Was this one of those female things? Was I having a female problem now?
“
I didn’t…I wasn’t…” I didn’t know what to say, and seeing anger and sadness in Abby’s beautiful eyes was…I just used the word
beautiful
—again. I was seriously sick! “Tristan is just so annoying, and…” My voice trailed off. Why was I stressing myself over this?
“
Joke’s on me, huh? This past week has been…I thought there was…” Tears streamed down her cheeks now. “Forget it.” She wiped at her tears and then turned around and walked away from me.
I made Abigail cry. I should be happy, but all I felt was—what was it that I was feeling? I didn’t know because it was a new feeling.