Chapter 36 Malachi
Chapter thirty-six
Malachi
I shouldn’t be standing outside Avery’s parents’ home, that much I’m aware of. In the hundreds of years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never once followed one of our jobs after they’ve left Elysian Pines.
We get a sense from our angelic grace that allows us to check in with them energetically, to make sure what we’ve shown them hasn’t harmed them in a way that requires intervention, but that’s never happened.
The people we help in the way we helped Greer will always make a choice—to keep going toward the future Sam had shown them or to build a new one.
But damn me to hell, I couldn’t allow Greer to walk away and chance never seeing her again. Even with the hope that lingered inside me that she’d return, I needed to follow her.
From the moment she crossed over the town borders, I felt like a mess inside.
Remi is not much better—he’d been sitting in front of the fire at the inn, staring into the flames, when I snuck off.
Sam had disappeared to The Last Page, claiming he needed to be alone for a bit.
With the two of them occupied, I followed her.
The sound of Greer’s laughter draws my attention back to her.
She’s sitting next to her dad and Avery on the couch in the living room, looking at an old photo album.
I’ve been tempted to watch from inside, to be closer to her, but instead, I’ve chosen to remain outside and look through the window.
Nobody can see me unless I want them to, a nifty Nephilim trick, much like when I took Greer to the past.
I think again about going inside, but if I allow myself to be closer to her, I may never go back home. I’d appoint myself to watch over her forever, never leaving her side like some pathetic Nephilim puppy.
“You are a pathetic Nephilim puppy.”
My head turns from the window to a grinning Remi, who somehow looks more handsome than usual despite the bit of sadness in his eyes that reflects mine.
“I wondered if you would show up. I’m surprised it took you so long.”
He takes my hand in his, gripping it tightly. “Had you told me you were playing guardian angel, I would have come with you.”
We both look inside at Greer. “I had to follow her.”
Remi brings my hand up to his lips, laying a kiss on my knuckles. “I understand.”
Greer’s laugh floats to us, and I smile again.
“Looks like things are going well,” Remi adds.
I lace my fingers with his as I show him all that I’ve seen while I’ve played “guardian angel,” as he put it. More like a stalker.
I replay Greer’s conversation with Holly, her walk with Avery on the sidewalk, her parents’ stunned faces when she stepped inside, and the quiet talk that followed, ending in tears and hugs.
They didn’t talk long, but there was an understanding between the three of them, a choice to mend what was broken because love mattered more and they’re family.
Lastly, she took a moment to call Tim and apologize before assuring him he still had a job and a bonus coming that she’d make sure he’d get.
I’d love to say everything is solved from Greer’s actions over the last few hours, but that’s not how life works.
She’ll have to remain dedicated to mending her relationships, and she has yet to speak with her boss about going to Holly’s before Christmas.
But I have no doubts she will, that she’ll continue to grow and mend—not only with those she loves but also within herself.
“She looks happy,” Remi says wistfully.
“She is,” I say. “You know that better than I do, her aura…”
“…is beautiful,” he finishes for me. “No more gray.”
I may not be able to see it as brightly as Remi and Sam can, but I can’t deny it’s the brightest aura I’ve ever seen.
There’s also the coloring of it, flawless layers of black around her body that bleeds into my blue with a hint of pink from love and joy that finishes with a radiating golden glow that matches Remi’s.
She’s the poster woman for a Bible-worthy, full-body angel halo.
“Remi,” I murmur.
“Hmm?”
“Her aura, the fact that she was able to see hers and ours—it’s got to mean what we think, right? That she belongs with us somehow? Or am I foolish for thinking that?”
He shakes his head. “You know I don’t think that because then I’m foolish, too.”
I hold his hand tighter and exhale a shuddering breath. Greer accepts a drink from Josh, an action that makes me smile, before watching him give one to Avery then kiss her forehead.
“I’ve been trying to have hope, but I can’t deny I’m having doubts, Remi. A lot of this doesn’t make sense. If she belongs with us, how can she forget us? That’s a cruel and sick joke.”
“From what you’ve shown me, she hasn’t forgotten us yet.”
“You know better than any of us that it takes time to fade,” I remind him, and my heart squeezes at the thought.
When I heard Greer speak to Avery about meeting “friends” at an inn, I almost got my hopes up until I thought logically about it.
After our jobs leave our borders, it’s not as if they cross the town line and can’t remember where they are or what happened to them.
Their memories seamlessly blend and fade until it’s like a whisper of something they can’t place—an old memory they can’t grasp.
Remi uses his palm on my cheek to turn my head, so I meet his gaze. “You’re the last being I ever expected to lose hope so quickly.”
I swallow hard. “I’ve been trying not to, but what if Sam was right all along, and we were idiots to get involved with her?
I know we had to let her go so she could change her future, but what if she does forget and we never see her again?
” I tilt my head toward Greer, who’s smiling widely inside. “If this is all we get?”
Remi cups both of my cheeks in his hands. His woodsy pine scent fills my nose as he rests his forehead to mine. “We may not know what the future holds, Malachi, but if you’ve given up hope, I’ll have hope for the both of us.”
I breathe him in and squeeze my eyes shut.
He continues. “I believe there’s a reason Greer came to us, why her aura carries pieces of all of ours now, why the town brought her to us and made us feel the way we do when we’re around her. Our little Scrooge even managed to break through Sam’s walls and capture his stubborn heart.”
I pull back slightly so I can see his green eyes again. “But our broody boy claims we’re not in her future, despite not being able to see ours. Wouldn’t he see something—a clue, at least, that she comes back to us?”
“I don’t claim to know everything where Greer is concerned, but you had hope before, Kai; you’ve had hope this entire time. Listen to that, and trust in it. Trust in me.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just a feeling, a knowing. I believe that Greer has always been fated to find us. I can’t explain it, but it’s what my grace keeps going back to, why she fits so perfectly with the three of us unlike any other being ever has.”
I mull over Remi’s words, the flickers of hope reigniting and traveling through the pain I feel in my chest and the voice of doubt that nags at me. “But if she does forget and never returns?”
“Then we have each other. We will always have each other.”
I lean in and kiss Remi, feeling his love for me not only through his kiss but our bond as well. He pulls away and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“We should head back, allow Greer to have her time with her family. Sam shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
The back of my neck prickles, and I turn with Remi as Sam emerges from the shadows.
His black aura throbs faintly around him, a living darkness as he stalks toward us across the stark white snow, nearly silent.
With his sharp cheekbones and shadowed features, he looks like death and rebirth come to life. My heart flutters faster at the sight.
“Sam,” Remi greets. “How long have you been here?”
For the first time ever, I swear Sam’s harsh features turn sheepish. It’s odd, to say the least, but also endearing.
“I’ve been following Kai since he left.”
Well, fuck. Apparently, I was distracted. I should have felt his energy near me. “You have?”
“I knew you would follow her. I tried to stay away, but I felt the pull to follow her, too.”
The three of us stand in a semicircle as we look in on Greer now speaking with her mom in hushed tones before they hug, the image warming my soul.
“Did you hear us speaking just now?” I ask Sam.
“I did, and I agree with everything Remi said.”
“You do?” Remi asks, blinking.
“Yes, I do.”
My mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water before I can gather my words. “What changed?”
His gaze shifts to Greer, and we follow it.
“I don’t know if anything changed,” he says. “Like the both of you, I knew from the beginning that Greer was different, and that’s why it bothered me so much. After hundreds of years of the same, why were we drawn to her like we’ve never been drawn to a human before?
“I tried to deny that I was, that we all were. I did so out of fear of the future and my lingering hurts from the past. But Greer accepted us, all of us, the dark and the light. I’m sick of denying that I could be wrong, that she’s ours. That she was meant to find us.”
More hope lights inside me like dry brush in a wildfire. “Does that mean you’ve seen her new future, that she’ll continue to remember and return to us?”
Sam turns to me, and I know the answer from the darkness of his eyes before he says it. “I haven’t seen it.”
My brow furrows, and sadness creeps into my aura.
“Kai.” Sam touches my chin softly. “Weren’t you the one who told me to stop living in the future and be more like the two of you?”
A smile plays at the corners of my lips despite myself. “What can I say? I’m a smart Nephilim.”
“You are.” He rubs his thumb over my beard. “You asked me to let you have hope, but I need to thank you both for giving hope to me. I haven’t felt that in a long time.”
I take Sam’s hand so the three of us are connected. The air around us pulls tight with an energy I’ve never felt before, like we’re on the precipice of something big. Bigger than us, even.
We look at Greer, who’s now alone and standing in front of the Christmas tree.
She lifts her hand, and in it is an ornament, but not just any ornament—it’s the one from her past. She rubs her finger over the picture of her and Cooper in the plastic bulb.
I use my grace to see the now past moment I missed between her and her mom that must have been the reason for their hug.
Her mom had gone back to their home to get the ornament she’d kept in a box. When she returned with it, Greer was surprised to see it, but it was confirmation that her mom had never thrown it away. She’d kept it all these years, a gift from her daughter that she cherished.
My mind clears of the past, and I watch Present Greer place the ornament on Avery’s tree next to a similar one Avery made all those years ago, a picture of the two of them in their snowsuits inside.
Greer smiles at it warmly before her gaze catches another ornament. A look that I can only describe as recognition and confusion lights her features. She lifts the ornament, and I see it’s a glass angel, much like the one hanging as decor in the inn.
My lips part as I suck in some air, and a brief zing of fear zips through me thinking that she has forgotten about us. But then she smiles and stares out the window, her eyes warm as if she’s thinking of us.
My heart stops beating, and for a brief second, I think she sees us, but that would be impossible. Then Avery calls her name, and she blinks several times before she turns to meet her friend. They exit, leaving the living area empty now as they go to another room.
“Let’s go home,” Remi says after another moment.
“I don’t want to leave her,” I admit.
“I know. None of us do, but this is her time to heal and be with her family. We need to hold on tightly to our hope now and have faith that Elysian Pines will let her return when the time is right. It sent her to us—let’s have trust in its magic to bring her back.”
I stare at the spot where Greer was just standing then to the tree where the ornament was—key word being was. She took the small glass angel with her.
I grip both of my lovers’ hands, happiness and renewed hope pulsing through my aura. “Okay, let’s go home.”
Sam and Remiel both squeeze my hand, and just like that, we disappear into the night, ready to wait for our reformed Scrooge.