Chapter 19
I’m surrounded by a clean, shining, perfect utopia of a city.
Glass buildings gleam with sunlight, reflecting mountains across the bay.
A crisp, chill wind carries the smell of salt towards me, dancing with the calls and cries of seagulls.
Beneath the shrill sounds, there’s the faint murmur of a city in motion—people going about their daily lives.
The idling of a car, distant conversations, children laughing, a dog barking…
I glance across the street, finding a fluffy white cloud of a hound, overjoyed to chase a squirrel up a tree at the expense of its exasperated owner. It brings a smile to my face.
Too bad it’s not real.
The lucid awareness hits me like a sinking, heavy weight.
I’m living in the Abyss now. Not here, not in this utopia. No, this is a dream—the first dream I’ve had since everything changed.
But to be absolutely certain, I try to count my fingers, just like Dusk told me to do on that first night we met. Surely enough, it doesn’t work. The numbers jumble together—
The pavement beneath my feet shudders in a wholly unnatural way. Crashing sounds, quickly followed by screaming, come from inside the nearest building.
I draw my eyes up in paralyzed terror, finding the structures shaking in a violent earthquake. The fact I’m in a dream isn’t at all comforting. Not when my dreams are prophetic. This could all happen—it will happen, unless I can somehow find a way to stop it.
And where are the Elohim? Why aren’t they here to help these terrified people? I hear children crying! Innocent children! They can’t wait for the heavenly saviors.
I have to go find the kids myself. I have to save them.
Before I can move, however, the road near me starts to collapse into itself.
First, a car is lost to the sinkhole, but it keeps growing, gaping open like the maw of a massive beast. Another car falls victim to it. Pedestrians are sucked in. I even see the fucking dog slide over the edge, its panicked yelp ripping my heart to shreds.
The nearest high-rise building, already shaking and tossing debris, begins to collapse into the chaos.
Its foundation slips into the sinkhole first. Screams of terror rise, louder and more panicked, mixing with the breaking of a thousand panes of glass.
Glinting with a brilliant light, the shards of glass rain down, down into the chasm.
The rest of the building soon comes tumbling down behind it, tossing out both concrete and terrified humans alike.
Still, I can’t move from where I’m standing. I physically cannot. I’m forced to watch it all, the death and destruction, like a spectator at a gladiator fight. The damage seems to spread outward from where I stand, leaving me free from harm. It’s almost as if I’m the one causing it.
But then, finally, I hear the unmistakable, growing roar of countless wings. The angels! They’ve come to help, just in time—
No.
Gold-speckled locusts explode out of the chasm, shooting high into the air like a volcano’s plumes. Their dark cloud multiplies by the second, covering the sky in the largest, most massive swarm to ever exist.
My heart sinks.
I try to pull my eyes away from it, but I can’t. I can’t move, can’t even expel the bile that rises in my throat, despite the pain of its acidic burn. All I can do is wait under the darkening sky, my breath held in anticipation.
They’ve spent centuries training, all for this one day, and they have not come to kill. No, they bring a fate worse than death.
Torture.
All at once, they begin to descend upon the crumbling city with a ferocious appetite.
I watch, helpless, as they crash into the remaining glass building, dragging out flailing humans moments later. Others swoop down to the streets, latching on to fleeing humans with ruthless efficiency.
On the nearest sidewalk, one man swings a crowbar at a fast-approaching locust—only to have it swatted away, the metal object colliding with the wall with enough force to break some of its concrete.
He’s cornered, backed against the wall, utter terror saturating his face in the heartbeat he has face-to-face with his assailant.
And then the locust curves its rear stinger around, shoving it into the man’s gut.
The soft flesh breaks with zero resistance.
He screams and flails in agony, but the locust locks all four of its upper limbs onto him, rendering him immobile.
For a few long seconds, it keeps its stinger shoved inside the man, pulsating, as if pumping something into him—and then rips it back out, releasing the man and bolting into the sky without a second glance.
The man crumbles to the ground, clutching his abdomen as blood oozes from the wound, screaming in agony. I keep my gaze closely fixed on him, waiting to see if he will die.
He doesn’t.
Within moments, his wound stops bleeding, as if whatever the locust injected in him is causing the wound to clot unnaturally quickly.
It can’t be out of kindness. The locusts’ torture is supposed to last for five months—not ten seconds.
If their venom does cause wounds to heal, it must be for sinister reasons.
The man’s screaming dies into a pained sob, his body shaking on the ground in a fetal position. Desolate, scared, alone, and abused.
And the same thing is happening to everyone else, everywhere I look.
Other than myself, I don’t see a single person being spared. Even if I could move, I don’t know what I could do to help them. I have nothing to offer them. Maybe I never will. I’m the one who is supposed to unleash these locusts, after all.
This is my fault.
I wake up covered in cold sweat.
For a moment, the complete darkness of the night terrifies me, sending my heart skittering. I can hardly see my surroundings, and there’s little of my paraphernalia I used to ground myself with after the nightmares. Light. I need light. I need to see—
My bedroom door creaks open.
I’m half-expecting to see a vengeful locust standing in the doorway. But—no—there’s a shadow of distinctive bat-wings.
What? How? Does Abaddon have locusts spying on me in my sleep? Or was I somehow loud enough to have alerted the hotel staff?
The door creaks shut, but the sound of footsteps echoes across my room.
I blink my blurry eyes and sit straight up, remembering too late how paper-thin my shirt is, and the fact that I’m not wearing pants under my blanket. Thank God that half of me is covered, at least. I should really start sleeping in pants.
“It’s okay,” he croons, slightly more gravelly than usual. “You’re okay.”
An uncanny breeze parts my window curtains, spilling artificial moonlight into the room. Instinctively, I go to pull the sheets up to my chest, but I freeze at the sight of him.
He’s barely fucking dressed.
As if he just rolled out of bed, he’s wearing only a pair of loose-fitting trousers, leaving his marble chest to catch the ethereal white glow of the night. His silver hair is untied, disheveled, and falling loosely around his head.
We both look at each other like we’ve just seen a ghost.
Every stiff, slow step he takes toward me is painfully deliberate. His eyebrows hang low, his lips taut, and his focus is so narrowly affixed on me that the rest of the world doesn’t even seem to exist anymore.
No matter how obviously I’m staring at his exposed skin, I can’t bring myself to look away. Every contour of his muscled body sings to me of power, power, power. Such strength, wrapped in such a beautiful body, makes my body ache in a way I never expected. Not with him, at least.
Is this what Dusk meant by the ‘innate attraction humans have to angels’? Or is Abaddon, shirtless and unguarded in the middle of the night, really just that goddamn attractive?
He stops at the foot of my bed. His pale eyes, usually so piercing and disturbing, look at me with a faint tenderness in them.
Fuck.
I swallow the lump in my throat, trying to find my voice, but I don’t have the slightest idea of what to say. I should probably ask why he’s in my room. Maybe even interrogate him about his locusts. Either of those would be smart, wise things to do.
He clasps his hands behind him, standing preternaturally still. “I felt your distress. It was... alarming.”
My eyes widen. Maybe he was closer to me than I thought he was. “You did?”
He gives a brief, curt nod.
“—Were you spying on me?”
“Spying?” The way he tilts his head slightly to the side, looking at me inquisitively, makes my cheeks heat. “No. I was not even trying to reach you. Perhaps you interfered with our pathways in your sleep.”
“Right,” I agree, diverting my eyes.
Of course he wasn’t spying on me! After how he darted off the cliff today and avoided me for the rest of the evening, he probably doesn’t even want to think about me, let alone come to a distress call—one that I’m unintentionally giving him in my sleep. Foolish, stupid…
I clear my throat, finding a wall to stare at. “Sorry about that. It was just a nightmare, that’s all. False alarm.”
He doesn’t say anything. But he also doesn’t dismiss himself. He just stands there, still as a statue. God, does he even breathe? Or blink? What is wrong with him? What is wrong with me for being attracted to him?
“What was the nightmare about?”
I blink a few times, trying to make sure I heard him correctly. “The nightmare?”
“Yes, Kae. The nightmare. The Messenger mentioned your nightmares have been prophetic before. What did you see?”
“I…” I’ll have to remember to give Dusk an earful for telling my secrets. For now, though, maybe I can play this to my advantage. “I saw the locusts fly out of a chasm. They… poisoned… people. Humans. And I had to watch.”
I don’t know why I expect to get anything out of him from that confession, but surprisingly enough, I do. He sits on the foot of my bed, slowly and hesitantly, as if he’s afraid he’ll break the thing. With his face pulled tight, he appears vaguely sympathetic. “You were afraid?”
“I’m not sure, really.” I take a breath to steady myself.
I have such a sinking, ominous feeling inside me that I might be doing something wrong here.
I feel like I’m betraying my own kind. It was my species they were attacking.
My species that I couldn’t save. It felt universal, not targeted.
If I was afraid, it was for them, not myself.
“I think I felt bad for the people more than anything. They didn’t seem to deserve it. ”
Abaddon readjusts his hands in his lap. I can’t tell if it’s just an awkward movement or if he could be nervous about something. “Your human heart is merciful.”
“Thanks…?” Per usual, I can’t tell if he means that as a compliment or an insult.
He shakes his head in answer. “Judgment Day will not be.”
A moment of silence passes. The dream flashes through my mind again, sending a chill up my spine. Those screaming, suffering humans—
“But you would do well to hang onto that mercy.”
“Oh?”
He nods. “I suppose that’s why a human was given the keys to the Abyss.”
“You’re…” I stare at him, taken aback. “You’re full of surprises, Abaddon.”
His gaze slips down to the strap of my shirt, pausing on my chest. Embarrassment flares inside me as I suddenly remember how my shirt outlines the full shape of my breasts, the peaks still hardened from the chill I felt moments ago.
But when his eyes come back to my face, I can feel the heat in them.
Or maybe that’s just my violently burning cheeks.
“As are you, Kae,” he replies lowly. An uncanny flood of complex, strong emotions barrels through me, all at once. Loneliness, longing, and… lust.
His emotions.
For me.
Like a shot of alcohol, the realization warms my system, settling low inside me.
The foreign emotions are gone in a heartbeat, as if the slip was completely unintentional, but its damage is done. If the darkness swimming in his heated gaze wasn’t an indication enough, then that deluge was nothing less than pure confirmation.
My breath shudders out of me.
Damn these painfully attractive angels and their intimacy issues!
The world is coming to an end. If I’m going down with it, I’d like to go down fucking and fighting. Namely fucking. I’m half inclined to see if I can tempt him to join me under the sheets, since we’re already so poorly dressed—
Abaddon jumps up, nostrils flared, eyes widened.
He seems to have realized his mistake.
“Rest,” he commands with flat authoritativeness. “I’ll arrive at the training yard at high noon tomorrow. Have your physical conditioning for the day done by then.”
Before I have time to say anything, he turns and storms out of the room.
Left bewildered and full of conflicting emotions, I collapse onto my back, blinking up at the ceiling. For a moment, I consider calling him back, but common sense stops me.
Even if he feels that way about me, it doesn’t mean he’d be willing to act on any of it.
Maybe if I got on my knees and begged, he’d be willing to satiate my womanly needs.
Which… could potentially be worth it. Maybe, though, he wouldn’t need quite so much desperation to be convinced.
What if I had simply asked him to crawl into bed with me?
What would it be like to trace my hands across his abs, his chest, his broad shoulders? To bite his neck like I so desperately wanted to do today? Would he be gentle, or would he bite me back? Throw me around like a ragdoll?
Without allowing myself to dare think about what I’m doing, I slip my hand into the waistband of my shorts, desperate to relieve myself of this tension.
Every wicked fantasy about him floods into my mind, and I let myself get off to it.