Enigma (37 page)

CHAPTER 19

When I woke up, I was in my bed and it was daylight outside. Sitting up, I felt my face, which still felt sore, but nothing was swollen. I tried to stand up, but that was not a good decision, as my legs went right out from under me like wet noodles. Responding to the loud thud, Avan entered the room, picking me up off the floor and placing me back into bed without saying a word.

“Okay, I know you’re mad and I’m not exactly your favorite person right now, but can you kind of give me a ballpark of how mad you are? Say, like, between one and ten?”

“Mattie, you did exactly what I told you not to do. They could have taken you and I never would have seen you again. Not to mention you never let me know you needed us like you promised to!”

“So that’s like a three right?” I asked, hoping he would crack a smile, but it did not happen.

“This is really serious, Mattie! I could have lost you!”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I knew better, I did, but I just wanted to believe Lena was not bad. I wanted to believe she actually cared and was not part of them. If you could have seen her when she apologized—”

“I would have if you hadn’t shut me out! I could have seen and prevented many things that happened! Mattie, you are extraordinary, but you were not raised as an angel. You are new at this, and I was created specifically to protect you and be by your side. I guess you really cannot comprehend what that means. That means you are my job!” Avan shouted, startling me as this was the first time I ever heard him raise his voice.

“Oh, so that’s what this is to you? A job? You conned me into an Angel’s Promise so your job would be easier?”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Avan added with a sigh.

“Sounds like that’s exactly what you meant to me! So what is this some Black Ops assignment and you did whatever you possibly could to make me think you actually loved me so that I would just stay right beside you and make your
job
a piece of cake?” I asked, trying to fight back the tears.

“No, Mattie, I am in love with you! You have to believe that! It isn’t just a job; I just can’t go through eternity without you! You cannot imagine what it felt like to know it could have ended that way. Then I saw you lying there covered in blood, beaten so badly that you were barely recognizable. I did not know if he had gotten what he wanted from you or not. I have never wanted to kill someone or something before, but I did, Mattie! I wanted to kill Ian! I did not know a heavenly angel could even have the desire to kill, but I did because I knew he had harmed you! I cannot handle the thought of anyone coming near you that could hurt you.

“Mattie, he hurt you bad! I have never seen anyone hurt that bad! I am so in love with you and when you hurt, I hurt. I’m sorry. I just feel like I failed because he was able to get to you. I should have followed you from the beginning, but I didn’t want to make you lose trust in me. Sometimes when you love someone you have to protect, your emotions get in the way of what you are supposed to be doing. You worry about the other person trusting you and being happy,” Avan explained.

“Really?” I questioned.

“Yes, really!” Avan assured me.

“So I’m not just a project that you are in charge of?”

“Absolutely not, and for what it’s worth, I wasn’t mad at you. I was worried about losing you,” Avan said as he kissed me on the forehead.

It took another week before I could get out of bed by myself, and even then, I was still sore. I felt as if I had dropped from the top of the Eiffel Tower and hit every piece of metal on the way down before splatting on the cement, becoming nothing more than a puddle of sticky stuff that passersby stepped in and had to wipe from the soles of their shoes. In addition, I still had black eyes that shadowed the tops of my cheekbones. Avan had been wonderful enough to have Lorenzo come by to cook every meal for me, so at least I got some tasty food out of the deal.

I asked Avan to make sure the rest of my heroes came by when they got done at Spirits this evening since I felt better physically. Mentally I was a mess; I felt like I owed everyone a personal apology for putting them in a bad situation. I knew all of this was my fault as usual, and they came through as they had promised they would from the day I met them. I could not help but feel that something was still missing, though. Then it dawned on me that I was rubbing my wrist. My bracelet was gone.

Thinking back over the course of the past week and a half, I realized I had not had it on when I woke up. My charm bracelet had not been on my wrist since the night at the hotel when Ian ripped it from my wrist and threw it. It must have been left it in the floor in room 1306 or in the pile of rubble that was left of it. I had passed out before I had known we left, and it was not exactly the first thought on my mind when I was bleeding profusely. Unfortunately, now my bracelet was gone forever. My ring was still on my finger, so I knew Avan had not taken my jewelry off while I slept. It saddened me to think I lost something that important, even though I knew it was not my fault. At that point I could do nothing. I was going to have to learn how to communicate more effectively in other ways.

It was nearly six when Bradley and Declan walked through my front door. I had a hard time even making eye contact with them, even though they both gave me a hug as soon as they came in. I felt such overwhelming guilt and embarrassment for the recent events that they had to save me. It was difficult to start a conversation with them. I knew I had to break the ice somehow; after all, these two had become more like brothers to me, so I had to think of something!

“So how was work?” I asked, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt.

“Same old stuff, different day. You know how it goes,” Bradley answered.

“No new interesting recipes yet?” I asked. Declan shook his head.

“Let’s just get this out on the table,” Bradley started. “You’re like our little sister because Avan is one of our brothers. We don’t want to lose you, and when you go against the better judgment in a situation, it is dangerous.”

“Not only that, Mattie, when you left you told us you would let us know if you felt the least bit threatened. We showed up after Avan’s ring started glowing. We followed the signal yours gave off like a magnetic force and found you taking the worst beating any of us had ever seen with our own eyes. That is a big deal considering we have dealt a few out ourselves to people who deserved it,” Declan said with a tone that made me feel like a little girl being scolded by her older brother for running out into the street when a car was coming.

“I know, and I can’t say I’m sorry enough. I know I screwed up, okay? Please forgive me. I just want things to be normal again,” I pleaded with my best puppy face.

“We forgive you, Mattie, but you need to realize what the repercussions of this could have been! What’s worse is that you know what they want and yet you walk around like you aren’t in danger,” Bradley said, looking at the fireplace as Alex and Trev came in the front door, joining our conversation.

“To put it bluntly, Mattie, they want you for breeding purposes only. They only want to keep you alive enough to give birth. All they see you as is a tool, the way a dog breeder looks at the female dogs that produce the litters that bring in money for them. All you are to them is an incubator!” Trev stated.

“The worst thing about being their incubator is that Ian and who knows who else would abuse you repeatedly forever to create their new league of dark angels, Mattie. I don’t know if you really see how long forever is. We use words like infinity, eternally, and all kinds of others, but until you have been around for a couple of hundred years and feel how slow time can be there is no way you can comprehend it. My point is, forever is a long time to be abused and bred over and over,” Alex added.

“You’re right. I don’t know what forever feels like, but what I do know firsthand is that after experiencing what I did and feeling the hurt it left me with because of what it did to all of you, that is something I never want to feel again. I cannot change what has already happened; all I can do is prevent it from ever happening again in the future, and I think I know how to do that now. I know it starts with listening to all of you instead of trusting my faulty human instincts that want to believe everyone is innately good. Being raised as a human and sheltered away from the fact that any of this even existed had a large effect on my reasoning. I don’t mean to mess things up; I just don’t know how to stop,” I told them softly.

“You just have to trust what we say. I know you feel like Allen’s disappearance was your fault, but it wasn’t. He played a part in all of this just as the rest of us do. Protecting you is an honor, not a job. Allen was handpicked by your dad to keep you safe and work undercover to stay informed of what the other side was doing. Without Allen, things would have gone downhill a long time ago. He has given everything he knows, to do what your dad asked him to, and he did it because he cares, not because he had to. You have to trust that we are going to find him as soon as we can. Time to you is different due to not knowing how long eternity really is. I know it seems like we have just put Allen on the back burner, but we have not. He will let us know where he is and what to do when the timing is right. This is not a detective show; you can’t just go chasing leads. As you saw, it only complicated things. Just trust us,” Bradley said as he hugged me.

Immersed in the conversation, I never noticed that Dorian had come in and leaned up against the wall. Looking up to see his face, I could see anger written across his face as the tears in his eyes threatened to escape if he blinked too many times. It was the same look Avan had on his face the first morning he saw me when I woke up after the ordeal as he had to come pick me up off the floor, finding that I had no muscle strength to hold me up yet. It looked like he was more upset with me than the other four, who had been proving their point repetitiously to engrain it in my mind that I could be gone forever if I gave Damron’s crew the chance to get me alone again.

“The bottom line is this, Matalyn: your parents may not be here anymore, but you still have a family that cares about you, and you couldn’t ignore the fact more if you tried. It is true what they have been trying to tell you—Avan’s our brother. Therefore, you have become family too. We take care of our family no matter what kind of situation they are in. The problem is that you don’t see it the same way, and it’s kind of insulting. You can’t realize that the people who love you are the ones you choose to hurt the worst with your thoughtless actions. If anyone in this room could die, they would do it for you without a second thought crossing their mind, but you want to run off and be a superhero, trying to take down the world when you, the super angel, is the one who is the most danger. Wake up, Matalyn. Stop thinking this is all going to go away, because it isn’t going to,” Dorian said hastily, wiping his eyes, which caused a tear to roll down my cheek.

“Dorian, that’s enough. She knows she should have listened to us. She also knows she is loved and has a family who would do anything for her. There’s no need to rub a mistake in her face.” Avan’s voice echoed from the back of the hallway as he entered the apartment.

“Good job, Avan. Make excuses so we can keep cleaning up messes! You aren’t the only one affected by all this, and you pretend everything is fine! I’m not just gonna do the group hug thing and get over it as if nothing happened! Everything as we know it could have been changed if we hadn’t gotten there right when we did! She could have been taken and tortured for all eternity! Am I the only one who sees this?” Dorian hissed at Avan as he stormed down the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

“Who peed in his Wheaties?” Trev asked lightly in attempts to add comic relief.

“You know Dorian, Mr. Drama King. It must be time for his period again!” Declan shot back with a laugh.

“Yeah, he does PMS really badly! Mattie, do have any Midol?” Alex joined in.

“We might need the entire bottle, and some tampons if you have any,” Trev taunted.

“Don’t forget sweet and salty foods. Dude! Maybe he’s pregnant. Most pregnant women get moody, right? Maybe we should put together a care basket with some chocolate, pretzels, Kotex, tampons, Midol, a box of tissues, a chick flick, and a pregnancy test and leave it in his car,” Bradley added as he fell over laughing on the couch.

“Okay, women are not that bad! Geez, you guys make it sound like we turn into grotesque, monstrous, bawl bags that sit around getting fat on junk food and crying to the movies on the
Women’s Network
all day for one week out of every month! And if you must know, I can’t be of any service. I don’t have to deal with any of that junk because I am an angel, remember?” I retorted.

“TMI, Mattie! Did you have to go there?” Alex pretended to gag.

“Hey, you guys started this conversation!” I said, hitting Alex with a pillow from the couch.

“All right, enough of that! Is everybody cool here?” asked Avan. Trev, Declan, Alex, and Bradley nodded their heads.

“But if you ever do anything like that again, I swear I will find a way to kill you!” Alex stated as he grabbed my ankle and pulled me in the floor.