Death and the Girl Next Door

MESSENGER

I could not hide my puzzlement. Jared had changed history, had broken one of his laws, for himself? “You act like you’ve done something bad.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, the full outline of his mouth thinning in disappointment, “you couldn’t possibly. It’s wonderful, the place you would have gone. You cannot imagine how wonderful. And I took that away from you. I have risked everything.” He peeked at me. “I have risked your very soul.”

Though I could hardly agree, I had to ask, “Then why?”

“Because if you had died, I would never have seen you again. You would have gone to Heaven, a place I have not been for a very long time.”

My heart stilled in my chest. I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. A supernatural being changed history just to see me. Me.

Wait, he’d been to Heaven?

The tense hostility held barely in check by Cameron broke free. He picked up his rifle. “I’d say that’s reason enough to send you back.”

Prepared for such a reaction, Brooklyn struggled to pull a pistol from her coat pocket. Finally wresting it free, she aimed it at him. “We anticipated something idiotic like this from you.”

Cameron turned to her in surprise—a surprise that, unfortunately, didn’t last long.

I knew she’d brought the gun. My best friend had guts. No one could argue with that.

She scowled at Cameron. “First you wanted to kill him because he was going to take her. Now you want to kill him because he didn’t. Bipolar much?”

When he stepped closer, Glitch and I flanked her on either side, a warning glare in our eyes. Probably looking more comical than intimidating, I curled my hands into fists. On our best day, the three of us together might actually be able to bruise him, but what choice did we have? We had to stop him. Or get horribly maimed trying.

Cameron raised his brows at Glitch. “I’m impressed,” he said, taunting him with a smirk, “considering what you know about me.”

I knew it. Something did happen between Cameron and Glitch. Neither of them had been the same when they came back from that camping trip our second-grade year. Curiosity burned inside me, but it would have to wait. We had bigger fish to fry, as my grandmother would say.

Glitch lifted a shoulder. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, I hear you have problems sleeping at night.”

“No more than you.”

“And that whole bed-wetting thing? Tragic.”

I had no idea Cameron could be so cruel, but Glitch didn’t waver. He stood unbending in the face of someone who could cause serious damage on his worst day.

“Look,” Glitch said, squaring his shoulders, “are we gonna do this or what? I don’t have all night.”

I was so proud of him. A little worried, but proud.

Cameron raised his hands in mock surrender. “I certainly wouldn’t want to upset the Three Musketeers. Or was it the Three Blind Mice?”

Brooklyn’s jaw dropped. “You were there?”

He shrugged, feigning indifference.

“You’re a jackass.”

Cameron’s eyes glittered and he stepped closer to Brooklyn. She raised the gun farther, her hand shaking. But Glitch and I were right by her side, Glitch with his bravado and me with my fists. If she got clobbered, we all got clobbered.

“I’ve been called worse,” he said at last, gifting Brooke with a mixture of interest and empathy.

For the first time, I got a good look at him. He resembled Jared to a tee, scraped up, bruised, swollen. I shook my head. No way would I ever understand boys.

“Okay,” Glitch said impatiently, “I get you, Jared. Well, not really, but as much as humanly possible at this point. But I don’t get you.” His resentment toward Cameron was obvious. “Why are you so strong? How can you fight like that? It’s not any more human than Jared, or Azrael, or whatever his name is.”

Cameron’s attention shifted to Glitch but he didn’t respond. He retreated to his desk and parked himself upon it, rifle still in hand. And our lungs could work again, for the moment.

Jared finally answered for him. “He is of Jophiel.”

“He is of what?” Glitch asked.

“Jophiel, the messenger. Cameron is Nephilim. He is only part human, placed upon the earth to protect the prophet.”

“What prophet?” Glitch asked.

But Cameron interrupted him, his anger simmering as though he could scorch Jared from where he stood. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“On the contrary, when we realized a female descendent of Arabeth was to be born,” he continued, ignoring the vehemence in Cameron’s voice, “we … disregarded the laws of our father. We sent a messenger to the believer Hannah Noel.”

Cameron shot to his feet, stabbing Jared with a blistering hatred, and I realized whose name Jared had just spoken. His mother’s. Hannah Noel Lusk was Cameron’s mother.

“But her time came before she could instruct Cameron of Jophiel in his duties. And his earthly father refused the teachings of the believers.”

“How dare you even say her name,” Cameron said, livid with rage.

Brooklyn raised the gun again and Cameron shot her a look of utter contempt.

“So, who’s the prophet?” Glitch repeated, but I was too busy making connections in my head to worry about that.

I sucked in a soft whisp of air when Jared’s meaning hit me. “Messengers? You mean like angels? Are you guys angels?”

Jared’s brows drew together. “Cameron of Jophiel is Nephilim. But, yes, I am a messenger. I am Seraphim.”

How did I not pick up on that in my vision? An angel? An actual angelic being? Here in Riley’s Switch, New Mexico? The realization knocked the breath out of me.

Cameron turned away with an angry smirk, refusing to listen. But I noticed he didn’t argue. Did he know what he was? Had he always known?

I had so many questions, I could barely decide on which one to ask first. Turning back to Jared, I decided to ask the one that was causing me the most discomfort at that particular moment. “You said you weren’t supposed to be here, that you don’t want to be,” I began, the statement causing a sharp pang in my chest. “Are you in trouble? Because of me?”

Jared took a moment to consider my question. His jaw tightened in reluctance before he said, “I lied.”

“You lied?” I asked, confused. “You didn’t break a law?”

The corners of his mouth threatened to turn up. “No, I most definitely broke a law.”

I wondered what he must think of me. Of all humans. I suddenly felt minuscule, like my small life in my small town meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Which kind of sucked.

“Wait,” Brooklyn said, turning to me in bewilderment. “Lorelei’s the prophet.”

“Finally,” Glitch said. “Wait, what?”

She blinked up at Jared. “Am I right? Is she the prophet Cameron was sent to protect?”

His head tilted knowingly. “She is.”

“What? No,” I said, rejecting the idea outright. “That’s … that’s not possible.”

While I stood shaking my head in disbelief, Glitch’s jaw dropped to the floor and Brooklyn laughed.

“Yes!” she said with an exuberance I found unsettling. “Oh, my god, that totally rocks!”

I could see her mind working a mile a minute, but she was wrong. They were all wrong.