Chapter 10
Lazarus~
The doctor in me wanted to dismiss all of Bodhi’s claims, the man in me had wanted to chase after Lissa, and the rest of me was confused as fuck.
I’d always been pragmatic, and I had always dealt with disorders that could be proven by tests, observations, and experience, but this was something completely out of my norm, and I could admit that logic was barely hanging on by a thread here.
Which was why I was standing in front of this goddamn door.
I knocked once, and when I heard an amused voice give me permission to enter, I grabbed the doorknob, opening it carefully out of habit.
While the patients here really didn’t have the right to privacy, we liked to let them believe that they did for calming reasons.
Everyone needed a safe space, and we did our best to provide that here.
As soon as I entered the room, I unwisely shut the door, making myself at home in the corner while Bodhi looked relaxed on the bed.
Since there was no evidence of him being dangerous yet, he had a few luxuries that the patients on the third floor didn’t possess, but they weren’t much.
Still, one of those luxuries was a chair nestled in the corner of the room, and so I took a seat without invitation.
“From the beginning of time, they’ve always been a lot stronger than men,” he remarked absently.
“They’re vital to everything that will ever exist, and they don’t even know it.
They are needed in a way that they’ll never understand, and the power that they possess is unlike anything that any man will ever be able to hold in his hand. ”
“You’re talking about women,” I surmised.
“Aside from the obvious that they give life and keep the human race alive, their connection to God is one that dates back to Eve,” he went on.
“Meaning?”
“It is said that Eve betrayed both God and Adam when she entered the Garden of Eden, yes?” I nodded because who didn’t know that story. “And as a vengeful God, He exiled them, leaving them to struggle in lieu of all the promises that God had been willing to grant them.”
“What’s your point?” I asked, his riddles irritating me more and more.
“Have you ever wondered why God didn’t just kill Eve or take her from Adam, leaving him to wander the earth alone again? Why did He let Adam keep her?”
“Truth be told, I’ve never thought about it,” I admitted.
“Before Eve, Adam hadn’t known what it’d felt like to feel truly alone,” he explained.
“Wanting His first child to have more than what’d been promised, God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’, and that’s what he did.
However, once Adam had experienced Eve, can you imagine what it would have done to him had God taken her away from him completely?
Even in His punishments, God recognizes what can happen when things go too far. ”
“What’s that have to do with Lissa?” I asked, because it was her that we were talking about, and we both knew it.
“She speaks like she’s not powerful, but she is,” he answered. “She’s more powerful than she could ever fathom, but out of the two of you, you’re the only one who knows it.”
“How can you be so sure what it is that I know? Or don’t know for that matter?”
Bodhi sat up on the bed, his arms resting on his thighs, his brown eyes swirling mystically again.
“Because I know what you were feeling when you first touched her,” he said, sounding serious enough to make me almost believe him.
“When you first met, she’d been just another colleague, no one special.
Despite how attractive you’d found her, crossing that line hadn’t even occurred to you because your professionalism meant everything to you at the time. ”
How in the fuck did he know so much?
“However, as the signs all began to finally show themselves, you were put in her path again, only this time, in a different capacity,” he went on.
“Everything had been aligned perfectly to ensure that the match would happen, and when you finally got her back to that hotel room and first touched her, it shook the heavens, Lazarus. It shook the heavens, and I know for a fact that you felt it all the way to your bones, and that was just from one touch. You and Elisheva experienced something that only a few people in the eons of history have ever experienced, and you know it.”
“After all that work, then how could you guys just let me fuck it up?” I snapped, suddenly feeling like something significant had been kept from me all these months. “Why didn’t you make her forgive me? Why did you keep her from me?”
Bodhi cocked his head, a smirk playing on his lips.
“Because you have free will, Lazarus. Because you have free will, and God will not allow us to take that from you. No matter the situation, the free will that has been bestowed upon you will never be undone, which is why Elisheva has to come into this voluntarily.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I asked. “What happens if she doesn’t buy into all this?”
“Then Hell will be unleashed, and you will have only yourselves to thank for that,” he answered. “Free will and all.”
“Meaning?” I snapped, frustrated with his riddles.
“Are you not familiar with Hell?” he questioned, his head cocking to the side. “Perhaps, you should brush up on the teachings of The Bible, Lazarus.”
I shook my head, trying to clear my mind of his cryptic ramblings. “Hell is not a tangible thing that you experience in human form,” I said. “Same as Heaven. They’re not real places of substance until you die, and that’s when your soul is assigned its home based on your worth.”
Bodhi’s eyes began swirling again, and I really wished that they’d stop. It was unnerving as fuck, and every time that it happened, it got harder and harder not to believe that he was Ramiel, and as a man with my academic background, I realized how crazy I was beginning to sound.
“That is where you are wrong,” he replied evenly, eyeing me like I was a bug under a microscope. “Hell is already here, Lazarus. It’s always been here, and the same could be said for Heaven.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t consider drug addiction a form of Hell?
” he asked. “You don’t consider human trafficking a form of Hell?
You don’t consider child abuse a form of Hell?
How about cancer? How about poverty? How about neglect?
Rape? Starvation? Homelessness?” Bodhi straightened, and it was clear that I was out of my depth here.
“Because I guarantee you that every person that has ever had to experience any of those tragedies believed that they were in Hell.”
Giving him that point, I said, “But you also mentioned that Heaven was here, too.”
“Heaven is a purity that you can experience with the birth of a child, caring for an animal, giving to your neighbor...things like that,” he replied, caring enough not to be a dick about it.
“Good and evil have always walked the earth, Lazarus. Only we’re getting to a point where evil is winning, and God will stand back for only so long before He’s forced to step in to save you all. ”
“Why doesn’t he just let us suffer the repercussions of our choices?”
“Because you are still His children, and like most parents, He’s not just going to let you destroy yourselves if He can help it,” he answered simply.
“And Lissa?”
“Elisheva is your last hope.”
“Why?” I bit out, needing to understand why she’d been singled out. “Why her?”
“Because Elisheva doesn’t just believe blindly,” he replied mercifully, having to know that I was beyond confused.
“Everyone else, they believe because they’ve been raised to believe.
They believe because they feel like they need to believe in something more.
They believe because they need faith to get them through the hard times.
People believe for all kinds of reasons that are endless. ”
“And Lissa?”
“Elisheva doesn’t just believe because she’d been raised to believe.
She has spent her entire life trying to understand where it all comes from and what it all means,” he said.
“She doesn’t just accept that God exists, she seeks answers to why He exists.
Her mind is opened in a way that we’d been able to reach her when she’d been just a child, and it’s her that Hell wants to possess. ”
“Meaning that they’re coming for her,” I surmised.
Bodhi nodded. “Elisheva is powerful enough to have a direct line to God, and they know it. They’ve always known it.”
“Why come for her now?” I asked. “Why not come for her when she’d been a vulnerable child?”
That smirk of his was back. “They did. However, you were there to stop them.”
I shook my head again. “This isn’t real.”
“This is as real as it gets, Lazarus,” he assured me. “And if you do not convince Elisheva to accept what is her fate, then you will lose her forever.”
“How do I do that?”
Taking pity on me again, he said, “You show her what the both of you can be together.”
Yeah, that didn’t help.