Chapter 48
Dakota
Sunlight was slanting through the blinds in Micah’s bedroom at an angle, striping across my face on the pillow.
My whole body was sore, and my whole mind was ashamed.
But I didn’t have time to ruminate on my mistakes.
Micah didn’t say anything to me last night when I showered, though I was sure he’d been suspicious—why wouldn’t he be?
I hate myself. I’ll always be like this.
Wincing with pain, I crawled out of bed and made my way into his bathroom, the heated tiles warm under my bare feet.
The warmth soothed me a bit and I was tempted to sit on the floor, or curl into a ball on my side to feel the heat on my body, but I didn’t.
I peed, brushed my teeth, and tugged on my oversized zip-up, then started silently down the stairs.
Before I reached the kitchen, I could hear movement coming from within it.
Dishes, silverware, the sound of the sink being turned on, footsteps.
Enough sound to make me believe two people were moving around in there.
Nervousness caused my stomach to turn. I envisioned Mason telling Micah what we’d done last night.
What if he’d already told him? What if I was walking into a trap?
I still didn’t know how they knew each other in the first place, and I got the sinking feeling that there was something vital I’d missed.
It was almost impossible to keep my head straight around either of them—let alone both.
Like I was juggling a thousand different fragmented pieces, struggling in vain to keep them all in my hands without dropping any.
I’ve already dropped some.
It was naive of me to think I could keep my head above water on my own. There were too many things for me to worry about, to be afraid of.
Trying to be quiet, I peered around the entrance to the kitchen—and my entire world tilted on its axis. The ground below me disappeared.
Mason and Micah were both standing at the counter facing away from me, both shirtless.
And Micah had the exact same fucking scars as Mason. Carved deep into his shoulders, slanting down towards his spine.
My stomach plummeted all the way to my feet.
I spun on my heel and darted back upstairs, my heart racing so hard I felt lightheaded. Somehow I’d never seen Micah’s bare back before now, and it was making me wonder if he’d done that on purpose. Only taking his shirt off when he could keep me in front of him, like when he’d tied me to his bed.
My mind was spinning, all my thoughts funneling away into sheer panic, unease curling through my nerves like poison. I’m trapped here completely alone, and I have no idea what is wrong with them. They’re so much stronger than me.
I almost tripped over my own feet as I flew around the corner of the bed, dropping to my knees and digging through my bag on the ground.
My fingers trembled as I grabbed my knife and flicked it open.
This was no longer a coincidence. This was a tangible wrongness about them both—something I could see with my eyes.
It was in those scars, and in their blood. I knew there was gold in Mason’s blood. He’d tried to convince me otherwise, but I knew what I saw. Now I would see if Micah had some too.
I pulled my sleeve down over the knife as I shuffled back downstairs, hardly breathing. Surely they’d heard my frantic dash upstairs. Surely they were expecting me to come back any moment. Surely they knew what I’d just seen.
Fingers tightening on my knife, I peered back into the kitchen, expecting the worst. My pulse was in my throat, making it even harder to breathe, pounding too hard, making me shaky.
I felt like I was going to throw up all over the floor.
Both of them were still facing away from me, and whether or not they knew I was standing here was unclear to me. It didn’t matter, though, because I didn’t have time to hesitate.
Lunging forward, I darted across the kitchen and I swung my arm out before I could second guess myself or even consider the consequences of what I was doing.
I slashed the blade over the back of Micah’s arm, gripping the handle as tight as I could so nobody would be able to pull it away from me, so nobody could hide the truth. Both Mason and Micah were staring at me now, both their expressions unreadable. Shaking, I took slow steps backwards.
Too late to go back now.
“Why the fuck did you just cut me?” Micah growled.
I held up the knife between us, the blade glinting with each tremor of my arm. Gold-threaded blood. In plain sight. Something that should’ve been completely, entirely impossible. Nothing felt real, like I’d fallen into an alternate universe, or I was trapped in a twisted nightmare.
I had no clue what the gold meant, but it was there, and no one could deny it.
“What is this?” I asked, still walking backwards.
“How did you know to cut me?” Micah questioned, his gray eyes boring into me.
How did I know?
Fear blinked white in my mind and my chest seized. I didn’t have an excuse for this. My mind was too flustered to come up with a lie. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that Micah might be suspicious and now it was too late to—
“I cut my hand the other day,” Mason interjected. “Opening a box with a knife. She thought she saw gold, but I convinced her otherwise.”
“Explain,” I ordered, trying to swallow down my nausea, gripping my weapon harder, pointing it in his direction. My hand was trembling so bad I was scared I’d drop the knife, and it was my only line of defense. I gritted my teeth.
Mason looked at Micah, then said something too low to hear before slipping out of the kitchen. A minute later, I heard him leave the house. It was just me and Micah now, silence spanning the air between us, a knife in my hand.
“What do you think it is?” he asked. Like Mason. But I wouldn’t let him intimidate me.
“I think it’s gold. In your fucking blood. And you have scars on your back that are huge and unusual—which might’ve been fine had I not just also seen Mason’s huge and unusual scars on his back, identical to yours.”
“Yeah. There’s gold in my blood. There are scars on my back.” He started prowling towards me and I held the knife up higher—pointlessly, because now I wasn’t so sure I could kill him with it—scared out of my fucking mind. “Are you going to do something about it?”
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking do this. I want to go home, but I can’t now. I fucked up.
“Yes. Yes, I’m going to—” My foot caught on the leg of a chair and I stumbled, righting myself in an instant. Micah was too close now. I couldn’t stop my eyes from darting back to the blade, the crimson dripping down over my fingers and my wrist, the gold glimmering unnaturally through it.
“You’re going to what?” His voice was so cold.
“Explain this shit to me, Micah.” I emphasized each word, a million emotions swimming in my blood, wreaking havoc on my thoughts. I was trapped against the table, my free hand gripping the back of a chair.
“I’m an angel.”
“That makes zero sense—”
There was a loud rustling sound, something powerful and terrible, as a black void rose above Micah’s shoulders.
I took a step back, my breath getting caught in my throat, primal fear making me feel like I was about to pass out.
The knife fell out of my hand, clattering to the floor, as hot tears flooded down my cheeks and my mouth dropped open.
My vision dipped and blurred, acid climbing my throat.
Coming out of his back were two black wings, covered in feathers, stretching high above his head and sweeping the ground at the bottom.
“Dakota.”
“Get the fuck away from me!” I shrieked, skittering around the table, my feet slipping on the tile as I sprinted to the back door. I slammed into the wood, fumbling with the lock on the door.
A large, warm hand covered mine, stopping me.
“You can’t leave,” Micah said, low.
I could see darkness in my periphery. Panic wrapped around my neck tighter and tighter.
“Yes I can,” I breathed, horrified.
You aren’t real. None of this is real.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You can’t leave, but I can make it better. I can take care of you.”
“No.” I shook my head, focusing on breathing, focusing on getting enough oxygen to my brain so I wouldn’t lose consciousness.
I couldn’t open my eyes. Micah’s heat was radiating against the back of me, and what had always been comforting was now terrifying.
Was he so warm because of this? I thought of Mason in the ocean, thought of his strength in the car. “No. No. No.”
“Yes.” Micah grabbed my shoulders, gently turning me to face him, but I kept my eyes closed. I could feel him leaning closer to me. “I’ll make it better. You’re mine to protect, to keep safe.”
“I’m not yours,” I choked.
But I was his. Wasn’t I?
A sense of calm enveloped me. This was Micah.
He won’t let me fall. He won’t hurt me.
Fearfully, I cracked my eyes open. I expected my heart rate to increase when I saw his wings…
but it didn’t. My pulse remained steady, like my breathing, like my mind.
All my thoughts drifted away into nothing.
Micah’s eyes were locked onto mine, reaching into my soul and holding me there, comforting me.
“You’re an angel?” I whispered, the word foreign and strange in my mouth. Angel. It shouldn’t have been real, but it somehow was.
He nodded.
“And Mason is too?”
Another nod.
“What does that mean?”
His muscular arms were braced on the door on either side of me, and he hung his head for a moment, shoulders rising and falling steadily with his breath.
I dared a brief glance at the massive wings protruding from his back, the black feathers covering their surface, then I stared back at his face, a small shiver trickling through me.
“It means I’m an angel. I was born in Heaven, and I fell to Earth, and now I’m here.” He didn’t sound happy to be telling me this, for whatever reason. I had no idea how or why I felt so calm, so capable of taking in this information.
More than an angel. A fallen angel.