Reckless Radiance (11 page)

The sound of crunching leaves beneath someone’s shoes perked her ears and she knew the enemy was near. Her three minutes were up and she darted out from behind the tree, clicking on her flashlight and pointing it at the mystery player only to be hit with light at the same time. A groan left her as the bright ray shined in her eyes. It wasn’t sophomore year anymore. She’d lost her edge. Her hands went up in surrender and the light went dim. Squinting to see her captor, she giggled.

“I am very good at this game,” Russell said with a genuine grin.

“Apparently.” She couldn’t hide the laughter in her voice. Her breath caught as she saw him walking toward her through the darkness.

“May I ask you something?” he said.

Valerie knew why he tended to preface his questions with a request. It wasn’t fair for him to ask her things and never give up any answers of his own.

“Sure,” she replied. She wanted to rib him about his wealth of secrets and remind him how unfair it was to her but she didn’t.

“Where were you today? When you came back you had a look on your face. It was—sad and acquiescent but you also seemed appeased. I couldn’t help but wonder what might have made you look that way.”

Valerie felt like she needed a thesaurus to reply. His words were always so carefully thought out. He used language the way a musician used notes to create something so complex yet pleasing to the ears. Funny how the man could communicate so well while not say a whole lot.

A part of her wanted to share the story of Gabriel with him. Maybe he’d understand her better if he knew she’d loved and lost. But another part of her—the part she knew had made her run when Gabe died—told her to hold her cards close to her chest. He wouldn’t want to hear her sob story about the young widow who couldn’t deal. She shut her eyes and breathed deep. God, he smelled divine. Their eyes locked and she saw his furrowed brow, the look of concentration in his deep blue irises. He stepped to her, closing the last bit of distance between them and the urge she had to reach out and touch him was overwhelming.

His head dipped down. “Don’t tell me. You deserve your own secrets,” he whispered.

She’d wanted to kiss him since the bowling alley. She’d wanted to kiss him when she realized he was alive. She’d wanted to kiss him every time he gave her the sweet smile that somehow assured her everything would be all right. She let the other things—the secrets and the past—fly away on the wind and she pushed herself up on her toes. Settling her hand on the back of Russell’s neck, she found his lips with hers.

Her eyes were closed as she enjoyed his soft lips but she noticed brightness against her eyelids. Her heart slowed. Valerie pulled back with the intention of opening her eyes only to hear the click of Russell’s flashlight brightening the space between them. Her eyes slit open to see him through the brilliant beam. His mouth was gaping and his eyes seemed brighter, nearly glowing. She stared in awe. A laugh sounded in the distance and she turned her head in the direction it was coming from.

Russell’s hands moved to her waist and she whipped her head back to look at him. A jolt of electricity seemed to flow through her at his touch and her flashlight fell to the ground. With his hands gentle on her hips and nothing but the darkness around them, she felt a perfect stillness with him. A sigh fell from her lips as she let the familiar, tranquil feeling invade her senses once more as his lips crushed against hers eagerly.

Before she had another second to breathe, Russell picked her up off the ground. Her legs wrapped around him impulsively. Her eyes stayed closed reveling in the feeling of their mouths melding. Their tongues tentatively touched. She felt her back press up against a tree and she let her hands slip into his thick waves of hair. A noise came from him that sent another shiver through her. She didn’t want it to end. She wanted his hands on her and his lips against her skin forever. He wasn’t a stranger any longer. He was hers.

In an instant, her eyes were bombarded with bright light again and as she opened her eyes, Russell set her down in a rush. The light was gone in a split second and he was backing away from her.

Valerie watched as he raised a hand to absently cover his mouth. It was dark but she thought she saw him shudder.

“Wow,” she breathed.

He swallowed thickly and finally met her gaze. “I should not have done that,” he said. Her heart sank and she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.

A beam came from behind them and Valerie turned to see Justin pointing his flashlight at her like a sword. “Gotcha!” he said victoriously.

“We’re already out, Justin. Get a ride home with your friends,” she spat as she started in the direction of the car, pushing past Russell, staring him down.

“Valerie, wait,” he called after her. His voice was getting quieter in her head
.
She willed her mind to forget the feeling of Russell’s body against hers. Instead, her thoughts played it over in a loop as she marched across the dark field.

“Valerie?” She was standing at the car door when she turned to see him as a shadow walking toward her, lit only by the moonlight. It was cool blue against his skin, not the golden luminosity she kept telling herself belonged to him. It sounded ridiculous in her head but then again, everything about him was truly remarkable. She stood and folded her arms across her chest.

“If you hadn’t—if Henry hadn’t … we’d probably be dating in Somerset and I wouldn’t have a clue you were hiding something. We’ve been avoiding saying anything real to each other since you got out of the freaking trunk but it’s clear there’s something between us,” she said, hearing the quiver in her voice. She swallowed her tears before they emerged. “I don’t understand you. What are you waiting for?”

He halted and she watched his head hang low. “I’m sorry,” he said. She almost felt sorry for him but the feeling didn’t last.

“Just drive me home.” She slid into the passenger seat and tossed her keys on the driver’s seat, waiting for him to get in the car. It took him a while to join her. She wanted to look back and see if he was sulking or scolding himself but she refused to show interest. She had to let it go. There was no reason to wait for something from him that wasn’t going to come.

Russell climbed into the car, buckled his seat belt and started the engine in a quick series of smooth motions without saying a word. She shot him a sidelong glance and shifted in her seat. She wished she could’ve denied every bit of evidence that told her they truly cared for each other.

As he sat facing forward not daring to look at her, she took in the strong angle of his jaw, the way his black hair curled at his neck and around his ear.

She let her gaze stay on Russell as he turned down the gravel driveway to her house. When he stopped the car, she watched him lower his eyes and breathe deep. Maybe he was preparing himself to tell her.

He turned to her, his face forlorn carrying a hint of regret.

Her sympathy for him returned and she told herself to leave the poor man alone. He’d been through things, too. “Whatever you have to tell me—whatever you are—it doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. She lifted her hand as she spoke and let it rest gently against his cheek. “It can’t change what I’m starting to feel.”

Russell sighed, shutting his eyes and nuzzling his face closer to her palm. It started slow, the way a light bulb warms up and intensified over the course of a few seconds. Amber light swelled from his cheek in the exact place where her hand rested. It was a dim glow at first then it grew stronger until Valerie was staring at brilliant, golden beams radiating from his face.

Her lips parted and she stared at him wide-eyed. “Russell.” Her voice was barely a breath. His eyes opened and she saw the same glowing blue she thought she imagined in the woods. It was as if he was lit from the inside. She pulled her hand away from his jaw and the car went dark like she’d flipped a switch.

“Come inside and I’ll tell you everything,” he said gravely.

Chapter Eighteen

In her bedroom with the door securely shut, she took a seat and stared at him intently. She’d been wordlessly begging him to tell her since he first locked eyes with her from the trunk of her car. He couldn’t deny her any longer. Not after what she’d so clearly seen. Russell’s head was spinning with what-ifs and the fear of what might come crashing down on him once all was revealed. But it was time. He had to tell her.

“I am not of this world,” he said quietly as he took a seat across from her.

He saw her mouth twitch ever so slightly. “I started gathering that when you rose from the dead. Tell me the rest.”

The rest
, he thought. How much time did she have? He thought about the consequences. Being around her was one thing but telling her the truth was another. His heart wrenched and the feeling he knew all too well burned within him. He owed her the truth. She needed to know what he was.

He drew in a quaking breath. “I am an angel,” Russell said, his eyes shifting away from her. A few seconds passed and she didn’t say a word. He glanced at her sheepishly. He saw the wheels turning in her mind.

A stark laugh escaped her lips and she covered her mouth as it slipped out. She cocked her head to the right and stared at Russell. His face stayed unchanged, not moving or reacting. The waves continued to hit her until eventually she straightened and her face fell.

“An angel,” she said. He knew it wasn’t a query. She just needed to say it out loud.

Russell simply nodded. He kept his distance though all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her but he feared his form would betray him again and he wouldn’t be able to contain the light within himself. She turned her face to him and examined him with a furrowed brow. She seemed to look deep into him and although he saw a mix of emotions on her face, he didn’t see disbelief. She believed him.

***

Russell cleared his throat. “I’m sure you have things you want to ask me,” he said, his words trailing off. He sat in the chair at her vanity and clasped his hands, waiting for her to speak. She’d been asking for days. Now she was dumbfounded.

“I’m not even sure where to start.”

He nodded absently. “It is a lot to take in. I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

Valerie breathed a laugh and shook her head. She was overwhelmed alright. Her thoughts flipped to images of winged beings floating around Heaven and it almost made her giggle. The tall man in black with the smoldering eyes wasn’t the kind of angel in the picture in her bible school books. Questions started to flood her mind and she couldn’t hold them in any longer.

“How long have you been—an angel?”

Russell stared at his black leather shoes. “Since the beginning.”

Valerie’s lips twisted on her face. “The beginning of what?”

Russell met her eyes meaningfully. “The beginning of time. I’ve always been an angel. I’ve existed as long as existence itself.”

Her breath slipped out as a shudder. He gave her a look of anticipation, waiting patiently for her next question.

“Are you from Heaven?”

His head tilted to one side and he seemed to gather his thoughts with a deep sigh. “That might be your word for it. There is a place called the angel’s realm where angels reside. And there is what lies beyond The Gates—where mortals go when they die.”

Valerie thought instantly of Gabriel. She tried to picture this place Russell spoke of but it hurt her heart to think of Gabriel there.

“What about God?” she asked.

“What about him?” Russell replied quickly. Her face fell and she chewed on her lip for a moment until Russell continued. “It’s much like the word Heaven. There is the one I call the Creator but the Creator may go by many other names. What I am can be hard to understand in terms of what you’ve been taught to believe. And that isn’t to say what you have learned isn’t the truth. But I am a fact of the universe, not a book. Angels exist beyond the constraints of religion and belief. We simply
are
and always have been.”

She nodded and stared at him thinking of all the things she’d ever learned in Sunday school. An absent smile formed on her lips when she thought of the beautiful simplicity of his truth.

Her smile faded and she stared across at him. “Can you read my mind?”

“No.”

“Do you have wings? Can you fly?”

Russell’s face broke into a smile and he shook his head. “No.”

She wanted to scold him for laughing but instead she shot out another inquiry. “Do you have any, like, powers?”

He looked her over carefully. “I can choose whether or not I’d like to be seen,” he said, his words drawn out in a languid way. Valerie tilted her head a bit trying to imagine what he’d just said. “Like—become invisible?”

As soon as she said the word he was gone. The chair he’d been sitting in was empty and she was alone in her room. But something was different. It was as though she could still feel his presence. Her voice slipped out as a trembling whisper. “You’re still here.”

It wasn’t a question because she felt it to be true. “Yes,” he said. It was his voice but it sounded a million miles away. The simple word echoed in her ear like it was lost in a tin can. She turned around and was still alone in the room—alone save for his voice. Reaching out to the chair he’d been sitting in, she put her hand through the space where his body had been just moments before. The air was warm but nothing stopped her hand. He was gone.

“And then I can choose to be anywhere I’d like. It’s essentially teleportation,” he said. Valerie nearly jumped out of her skin hearing his voice as clear as day. She whipped around to see him standing in front of her closet door as real as he’d been in the chair.

“Crap!”

“Sorry.”

She sighed as he sat down across from her. “What about the light show? What’s that about?” she asked.

Russell’s mouth twisted as he tried to hide a smile before settling his eyes on her coolly. “To walk among you in human form is a privilege given only to those of us with an earthly job to do. We are meant to stay hidden and only show ourselves to those necessary. But most importantly, we are not to take on the characteristics of a human. A sort of protective mechanism is given to us to ensure our compliance. When we… When
I
feel too deeply or care too much or experience an elevated emotional state… The mechanism fails,” he said. He forced a pained smile and seemed to ruminate over his admission for a moment before finally answering the question in a way Valerie could understand. “The light you see when my emotions overcome me is my halo.”