fifty-two
Once Nathaniel begins his descent, I let my grip on him loosen.
I wonder what I will ask first. Whether I’ll confront him for his betrayal, or if I’ll simply break into a million pieces the moment my feet hit the ground.
When we land on a street halfway back towards the city, Nathaniel tightens his hold on me, as if he is expecting me to make a run for it. I pull away, but he doesn’t let go. I move my hands to brace his shoulders.
“Let me down, Nathaniel.”
He looks down at me with heavy lids, the sorrow in his eyes shining through the silver. Or perhaps it’s pity.
I take a few steps away from him, wanting to put as much distance between us as possible. Nathaniel stands still as a statue behind me, watching and waiting for me to unleash onto him.
I take a deep breath, my back still turned to him and my eyes shut.
“Was it worth it?”
The words come out as a sob.
Nathaniel says nothing, but I hear him let out a sharp breath.
I turn around and open my eyes, tears welling within them. My heart squeezes when our eyes meet.
Worlds, he looks so different. Like he did back in the station. A stranger, a murderer, a monster.
“Amara —”
He says my name like a plea.
“No, please, tell me – was it worth it?”
I take a step back as he steps forward. “Leading me to him with not a single hint as to what I was going to find. Letting me feel hope and guilt and grief. Listening as I opened up to you about my relationship, about my biggest fears, about things I’ve never told anybody, just so that you could – what, make sure you got me here? Make sure I came with you?”
I stop to take a deep breath. “Was. It. Worth. It?”
“You are the only thing that is going to stop the war. The only chance we have against Lilith. The only way we can stop her from raising the Darklands to Earth.”
The archangel’s voice is loud and firm, as if he hopes it’ll make me back down. I only stand taller.
“And that makes all of this okay?”
I break eye contact, turning and beginning to walk away. I manage to take about five steps before Nathaniel’s hand grasps my upper arm tightly. I turn my head towards him, my eyes narrow and my voice spiteful. “Let go of me,”
I spit, and struggle against his hold.
Nathaniel looks at me with pity in his eyes. “You know I can’t do that.”
His voice is soft and gentle, filled with regret.
I take another deep breath, but it only leads to more tears. “Why?”
I whisper, knowing that if I speak any louder, my heartbreak will come out in full force.
He frowns and runs his free hand through his hair. “Because you are too important.”
I shake my head and try to pull away again, but then I freeze, turning to face him slowly. “What is it that you think I am, archangel?”
He lifts his chin. “You know.”
My lips curl. “Say it.”
He waits until we lock gazes to speak. The silver in his eyes is dull. It’s the same look he gave me last night as we bonded over shared secrets, the same look he gave me as we danced at the estate. He looks at me like every single word he says is the basis of all of his beliefs.
“You are the daughter of the archangels Raphael and Athena.”
“And you are ridiculous,”
I scoff. The absurdity of it is too much to handle.
“The prophesied saviour of the worlds,”
he continues.
A humourless laugh escapes me. “I’m human, Nathaniel. You know that I am!”
He loosens his grip enough that I manage to pull away from him and start walking.
“I can show it to you.”
His voice is low, stopping me in my tracks.
“What?”
I snap, but don’t turn to face him.
Footsteps sound behind me. “When we met in the station, I tried to look into your mind. All I saw were shadows clouding your thoughts… and your first memory. You as a newborn, looking up at your mother and father.”
He stands behind me, so close that I can feel the warmth radiating off him.
“Your mother and father, Raphael and Athena. I saw her long golden hair and his chestnut. I saw her striking golden eyes and his brown. They shed tears as they said their goodbyes to you. As they left you at that agency.”
His breath tickles the back of my neck, and it sends a shiver down my spine.
It can’t be true. It can’t be. I… I would know. I’m human. I’m not an angel. I am a girl who grew up with nothing and no one. A girl who wanted more than anything for someone to love her, to miss her when she was gone. I’m not special. I’m more ordinary than anyone would ever know.
I turn to face him again. There’s still a part of me that wants to walk away, but there’s something else inside me that screams at me to stay and listen. “Why would I believe a word you say? All you’ve done is lie to me since the moment we met.”
His gaze softens and his lips part as if he’s about to say something, then they close and he shakes his head softly. “Because, despite the fact that I have lied to you, you can feel it. You can feel that I’m telling the truth. With each day you and I have been near, your light has sparked. I’ve seen it. My light didn’t heal you in that tunnel – yours healed me. You felt it, Amara. That wasn’t my power you were channelling through the sword. It was your own.”
My light? No. I wielded his sword and it gave me power. It healed me.
The small voice in my head reminds me that my blade pierced the archangel’s skin. My blade made Jeremiah bleed. It questions me, asks why my weapons would hurt an angel if I weren’t an angel myself.
“I’m not your saviour.”
I speak not just to the archangel, but to the part of myself that’s starting to believe him.
He takes a step closer. “Amara, you have to trust me.”
“Trust you? After you lied to me this entire time? You sent Jeremy to lie and deceive me for years, to pretend that he loved me, to get me to show him all the intimate parts of myself, to trust him! It was you who ordered that!”
The words come out in an angry rush. “You knew this whole time that he was an angel, and that he had joined Cain’s side. Yet you let me hopelessly search for him, hoping to find the man I loved, knowing that he wasn’t even real! And you want me to trust you?”
I take an angry step towards him, my chest rising and falling with my shallow breaths. I want to hurt him, punch him, kick him, scream at him. I want him to feel the pain that thrums through my veins. I want him to feel this betrayal.
“I was trying to protect you!”
Nathaniel raises his voice now, surprising me. “If I had told you the truth about Jeremiah when I found you, if I had told you who you really were, you would never have trusted me!”
He grips my chin with one hand. “You would never have travelled with me, and Cain would’ve found you. You would either be dead, or you’d be brainwashed by Lilith into killing millions.” His voice is loud and commanding, as if he expects it to make me submit. It only amplifies my anger.
I stand up taller to show that I’m not scared by his display of power. “So instead, to gain my trust, you lied to me?”
I shake my head, thoughts racing. “So that’s why you saved my life time and time again?”
Despite his hatred for me, for what I mean for his own fate, he saved me because he thought he had to. Because he thinks I’m the answer to all of this. Because he thinks that I’m who he’s chained to for eternity.
Nathaniel’s sigh is filled with exasperation. “Amar—”
“Maybe I should run off to their side. Cain never lied to me – in fact, he tried to tell me the truth.”
I try to look as if I’m actually thinking it over, intending to hurt him as he has me, but the words just come out broken.
Nathaniel shakes his head and grabs my shoulders. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Amara.”
I pull away from his touch before the warmth that comes with it can calm me. “I don’t know anything! I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know who to trust. How do I know that anyone in my life is real? How do I know that a single thought I have is my own?”
Another sob escapes me. “I don’t know who I am.”
He looks down at me, his eyelids heavy. His voice shakes when he speaks. “You are the angel born of Raphael and Athena. The saviour of our worlds.”
“Oh, for worlds’ sake, give it a rest,”
I protest breathlessly.
“Amara, listen to me,”
Nathaniel pleads, reaching out for me again.
I avoid his touch. “No. Get away from me.”
“Amara…”
My name falls from his lips in a short breath.
“Get away —”
His lips are on mine before I can protest.
I stay still for a moment, not knowing how to react. The logical part of me says to kick him in the crotch, to push him off me, to drive my blade through his skin yet again. Though logic seems to slip away as his tongue slips into my mouth and runs along my upper lip.
In an instant I forget it all. I forget the betrayal and the deceit. His lips taste like honey, feel like fireworks, and my entire world melts around me.
My hands lock around his neck and one of his cups my cheek as the other tangles itself in my hair. I open my mouth slightly as an invitation, letting his tongue slide in deeper. His kiss is hungry, passionate. Demanding yet tender.
My entire body rocks and I tremble in his arms. Then my mind is drawn away, and as we break apart, a memory is implanted into it.
I open my eyes to see four staring back at me. One pair a striking gold, the other a chestnut brown.
“My beautiful girl.”
The woman’s voice is like music to my ears, yet it is laced with sadness. I want to urge her to speak more, but I’m not in control of my body.
“Our beautiful girl.”
The man looks to her, his dark eyes filled with nothing but love. He kisses her cheek softly before looking back down at me.
The woman’s eyes fill with tears and she blinks them away. I see movement in my peripheral vision, something falling graciously… A feather. White dusted with gold. I follow it to its source.
Two large wings stretch out behind the woman. She’s an angel. An archangel.
This can’t be my memory.
The man reaches for me and strokes my cheek lovingly, his expression a mixture of heartbreak and pride.
“You will live a glorious life, little angel.”
The woman’s words sing in my ears and I want to reach out to her, but yet again, my body doesn’t respond.
“You will be safe.”
The man’s voice is low and husky, his wings gold speckled with white. “We will always love you.”
She smiles and a tear rolls down her cheek. “Our little angel, Amara.”
Amara?
Mum? Dad? I ask, but no words come out. Mum! Dad! I shout in my mind as the memory begins to fade away, darkness overtaking it.
I grasp at it for as long as I can until I’m pulled back into the present.
Nathaniel’s lips are back on mine, but the kiss is softer now. Tears roll down my face. My breath hitches and my hands shake.
He doesn’t let go, and neither do I. As our kiss slows, so does time. I drop my hands from his shoulders where I’ve been balancing myself. My arms fall to my sides as his tongue slides over mine.
As I’m pulled back to reality, the feelings of anger and betrayal return.
It’s not real.
He lied to me.
He’s not my ally.
He’s not my companion.
He can’t be trusted.
I need to get away from him. I need to find Xavier. The one person I can trust.
I want to pull away in that instant, but my body stays close to his.
The sound of a gunshot rings through my ears. I break the kiss, but I don’t jump, nor do I prepare myself to fight.
Nathaniel’s eyes lock with mine as he takes a single step backward. He looks at me with pain, disappointment, betrayal. The archangel shifts his gaze downwards, his hands dropping from my face to touch the golden mark on his abdomen.
The gun is warm in my hand, but it feels foreign, as if someone else fired it.
The archangel looks up to me again and his brows pull together tightly, his mouth gaping open, golden blood dripping from his lips.
My breaths are short as I step back. He doesn’t protest; he doesn’t fight. He just watches me.
His hand clutches his wound. It doesn’t heal. I look away. I did that. To an archangel.
“A human cannot harm an archangel.”
I thought his words would bring me comfort, yet I have made him bleed again.
If I really am who he says I am, am I capable of killing an archangel?
He drops to his knees. I toss the gun to the side and tear my gaze away from him. Part of me screams to help him; the other tells me that he is the enemy. That this is my job.
I turn away from him now, readying myself to leave this all behind.
“Amara —”
I hear the jagged word escape his mouth. It’s weak. He is weak.
What if Cain finds him like this? What if he finishes the job?
I shake the thought away. I can’t bring myself to face him, and I can’t let myself feel guilt. Not after everything he’s done. Not when the stain of possession still lingers in my mind.
I ignore his plea and quicken into a jog. The last sound I hear is his body falling to the ground.