Unnatural Souls (6 page)

Then I realized that I wasn’t actually
scared of him. Not deep down. He had saved my life, after all,
because that demon was going to kill me if Michael hadn’t stepped
in. And now he was extending a hand to me.

A simple gesture to offer support. And
despite the fact that I didn’t know him, I found that I wanted to
reach out to him.

When I looked from his hand to his
eyes, I saw compassion there. He wasn’t looking at me like I was a
freak. He didn’t seem frightened of me. Concerned, yes, but not
scared. Not like I would have expected. He just looked like he
wanted to help me. I could see sadness that mirrored my own, and it
was that look that made me reach out to him in the end.

I hesitantly placed my hand on top of
his, and flinched when I felt something pulse through me. It was a
strange sensation, like I was being shocked for a moment—but
without any pain. I swear my heart skipped. The feeling rocked my
entire body from head to toe … but lasted only a fraction of a
second. When it passed, his hand and my hand—the connection between
the two—had started to take on a blue glow.

The same glow his sword had worn a
moment before.

“
Just breathe,” he
said.

I hadn’t realized I had stopped, and
took a deep breath. Above us, I sensed the debris losing momentum,
the sound of the howling wind growing quieter with each moment.
Another pulse shot through me … and a calmness that echoed down to
my very core followed that.

Suddenly my frustration drifted away,
replaced by the warmth of whatever Michael was doing. For the first
time since the accident, I felt … at peace.

ONE BY
ONE
, the objects fell to the ground around
us. And for a moment I didn’t care. I didn’t focus on the tree limb
that almost landed on me, or the large rock that could have killed
us both. I held on tight—almost desperately—to that sense of
tranquility. I wanted more than anything to keep that sensation.
For nine months I had cried myself to sleep as I silently endured
the craziness that had become my world. I’d feared exposure and the
judgment of my friends and family. I’d spent months feeling lost
and alone in my life—one that had effectively stopped the day I
died, regardless of the fact that I’d kept on living. I’d pulled
away from everyone I loved, to protect them. And I’d never told
Ash, the one person I always confided in before, about what was
going on … because I didn’t want to hurt him.

Now, for the first time in nine
months, I wasn’t waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. I
was just me … and I was happy.

The second he released my hand, the
calmness disappeared. Michael had been passing that serenity from
himself to me, I realized. The peace had come from his touch, and
when he took his hand away, it was like falling into ice water. I
didn’t know how he did it, if it was the gift of an angel—that
warmth and happiness—but I needed it back.

And I felt myself starting to panic
without it.

Terror spiked in me, and I kept my
eyes and ears open, thinking the craznado would form again at any
second. I wanted to snatch his hand back in mine and never let go …
but the intensity in his gaze as he stared at me drew me up short.
It was that look, an expression that said he wasn’t one to be
messed with, that had sparked the fear when I first saw him. And
even though he had saved me from the demon, calmed the craznado,
and shared his warmth, that look terrified me.

I still didn’t
really
know, I realized,
if he was my friend.

So I kept my hands to myself and took
a few breaths, trying to cling to the sensation of happiness his
touch had given me. And once my heart began to slow, I could feel
that calmness again. It hadn’t gone away; it had only dimmed. I
could still sense the serenity and love from his touch deep inside
myself, if I delved down far enough, and the fear slowly
disappeared.

“
How did you do that?” I
asked, looking up at him in awe. His powers, the pulse that went
through me, had stopped the craznado. But how had he done it? How
did he know it would work? Could he teach me how to control it?
Could I live a normal life? Hope sprang up in my heart.

“
You
did it,” he told me with a laugh. “I helped you let go of the
fear, the anxiety, but stopping the telekinesis of those objects
was all you,” he continued, still smiling. “Our powers are
controlled by our emotions. I just helped you calm your
mind.”

I
had done it?
I
had controlled the power and made the craznado go away? No, I
told myself. It was him and his blue glowing light that shone as we
touched hands. All I had done was panic when I saw him, then get
angry—effectively making it all worse. The exact opposite of
stopping it. I narrowed my eyes, starting to grow frustrated
again.

I didn’t understand why he would say
that I was responsible for something he’d clearly done himself. Why
would he lie about it?

He must have seen the
disbelief in my expression because he quickly continued, the smile
melting off his face. “I helped show you the light,” he said
seriously. “You took it and let it calm you. When you
relaxed,
you
stopped the objects. You were scared, and that’s
understandable. You were attacked by a demon. Once you let go of
your fear, however, you were able to control your
ability.”

I scoffed at that. It was
just so stupid. No way could it be that easy. “I’ve been trying to
control my abilities,” I spat, furious, “for
nine
months
. You touch my hand, it illuminates with blue light, and
suddenly you’re saying I can control it
now
?”

Of course, that would be
fan-freaking-tastic, and a small voice in my head told me to shut
up and figure out how to do it. The bigger voice was still really
mad, though, and I continued to scowl at this so-called
angel.

“
Not yet. Angelic powers
are difficult,” Michael replied, his tone soft, but his eyes still
hard as a rock. “Most don’t have to learn to control them alone
like you have, but you will get the hang of them. As I said,
they’re deeply rooted in our emotions. Which is why we must always
remain calm.”

Wait, what? Had he just insinuated
what I thought he had?

“
I’m not an angel,” I
laughed. That’s right—I flat out laughed in his face.

“
Not a full angel,” he
said. And he cocked his head to the side, like he didn’t understand
how I was having such a problem with what he clearly thought was a
simple concept.

As if I should have been on board with
this right from the start.

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly
where he could stick that idea, but nothing came out. All the witty
retorts stuck as my brain tried to process what he appeared to
believe as truth. It couldn’t be true, though. I definitely would
have noticed giant angel wings popping out of my back. And yet he
was talking about ‘us’ like I was part of some group that included
him.

I wasn’t a freaking angel. I was just
a freak. He was light and I was dark. We weren’t the same; we were
polar opposites.

Though if I
was
an angel and I got
screwed out of the awesome wings, I was going to be
pissed.

“
You’re serious?” I asked
with a bitter laugh. “I’m an angel? Even partly?”

“
You are different,” he
agreed with a solemn look.

Well, he was going to have to do
better than that if he expected me to believe him. I raised an
eyebrow and waited, and after a moment, he continued.

“
You aren’t technically
one of us. You were meant to be before it happened...”

I was meant to be an angel? How was I
robbed of that one? Before what had happened? What kept me from
becoming an angel? What had left me here on Earth like
this?

“
What do you mean? What
happened to me?” I asked, knowing this was it. This was the answer
I was looking for. Why I had my powers, and what had caused the
situation. Perhaps a way to control them, and—dare I hope—a way to
save my brother. Maybe I could fix my life and go back to being
normal—or at least pretending to be. Everything could end happily
for us after all.

“
Your brother,” Michael
replied, sounding disgusted.

“
Excuse me?” I didn’t like
the way he said that, and could feel the blood rushing to my face,
my protectiveness over Ash kicking into hyper drive. Who was this
guy to talk about him that way? He didn’t know Ash. He had no idea
what Ash meant to me.

I crossed my arms in front
of my chest and backed up a foot.
That’s
it, get cranky with the angel who has all the answers because he
offended you with his tone,
that pesky
voice in my head said sharply.

I didn’t listen.

“
He made a deal to save
your life,” he explained.

“
You were already dead.
Your fate was sealed, and yet somehow the demon was able to call
your soul back to your body. He tore you from Heaven, though it
shouldn’t have been possible. That’s why you have your powers—your
soul was in Heaven. You were about to become an angel. Then the
demon locked your soul back into your human body. Your powers went
back to Earth with you, but humans aren’t meant to have Heaven’s
powers. It will be harder for you to learn to use them.”

It made sense. I mean it sounded
completely insane, but it fit. And for that reason, my mind told me
to shut the hell up and pay attention.

“
Ash doomed you to a life
of misery and solitude,” Michael replied harshly.

And
that
was the truth. Blunt and rudely
put, but I couldn’t deny it. Ash had saved me to bring me back to
this hell on Earth, and now it turned out I could have been living
peacefully as an angel. Like I was meant to. Still, he did it
because he wanted to help me. He didn’t know what it would do—what
it
had
done—to
me.

Michael clearly did, though, and at
that, I felt my anger start to build again. He’d known, and he’d
left me alone for nine months. To what? To question my sanity and
slowly lose my mind? Why hadn’t he come forward earlier? Why hadn’t
he helped me?

“
He did it out of love,” I
argued back. “And he didn’t know what he was doing. But you
apparently did, and yet left me here for months to think I was
going crazy. How is
that
for angelic? If the demon hadn’t attacked me, how
long would you have let me continue on like this? Why did you even
bother saving my life if you didn’t care enough to help me
sooner?”

Michael seemed confused, but then
understanding appeared to dawn on him and his expression shifted
from disgust to concern.

“
Grace,” he replied,
sounding hurt. “If I had known, I would not have left you here. We
knew a spirit had escaped, but that was all. We had no idea how.
The only reason I was able to track you down now was because of the
demons hunting you—demons that I was hunting myself. I grew
interested when they showed more attention to a human than they
should have. They’ve been on you for a few days now.”

“
Demons have been …
tracking
me?” I suddenly
forgot how to breathe again. Did that mean they knew where I lived?
Where I went to school? Why were they tracking me?

“
Why are demons after me?”
I asked in a high-pitched voice. As much as my powers sucked, they
hadn’t really put anyone in any actual danger up to that point. But
demons—this was much worse than powers that I couldn’t control. I’d
thought my life was a mess before … but finding out that demons
were hunting me was, well, worse.

Maybe Ash should have just let me
die.

“
I don’t know,” he said,
shaking his head. “I promise you, though, that I will find out.”
His eyes, which I’d feared before because of their hard edges, now
swore pain to any who stood in his way. And suddenly they gave me
comfort. This was not a man who would fail on a promise, and I
nodded slowly, accepting that he would find out.