Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“Christ, boy. Has your hearing gone in your old age?” He drops the pen on top of the folder. “You are being discharged from service. Once you sign that paperwork, you will forfeit your wings. You will no longer be a Guardian Angel.”
“And then I die?”
Rafe’s exasperation magnifies into annoyance. “I mean, sure. Yeah. Eventually, I suppose. You will one day die and proceed to your own afterlife. But not anytime soon, I don’t think.” He considers me with a raised eyebrow. “You were a good Guardian. You should be proud of the work you’ve done.”
I’m so confused, I don’t know where to start. “So, I’m just—relieved of duty?”
“Yup.” Rafe pops the last letter of the word. “Oh. Hold still for a second.”
He waves his hand, and my wings unfold from my back against my will. The force of them knocks some of the bottles against the back shelves loose.
“Whoops.” Rafe waves his hand again.
My wings disappear.
I expected agony when my wings were taken from me. Blood and muscle and sinew and—suffering. Plenty of suffering. An apt punishment for my many failures. I didn’t expect—
Relief.
An aching, delicious relief.
The space between my shoulders is light, the knot that’s settled between the muscle for centuries upon centuries just … gone. I don’t think I realized how heavy my wings had become. I take stock of this new, fragile body, and my heart—
“Christ,” I rasp, my palm over my chest. “What did you do to me?”
Rafe looks unimpressed with my lack of deduction skills. “You are no longer a Guardian Angel, Gabriel. You’re a mortal.”
“I didn’t realize that could happen.”
Rafael snorts, then takes pity on me and raps his knuckles against the bar top. “I forget sometimes how little they tell you in the early days. There’s a long and complicated explanation—complete with the legends of the original archangels—or there’s a simple one. Which would you prefer?”
I’m still having trouble breathing around the feel of my heart, pounding in my chest. How do mortals walk around like this, feeling so much? “I’ll take the simple one, please.”
“Good, ’cause I’m not much of a storyteller.” He opens the folder and points to the first line, a sticky tab arrow next to it indicating where I should sign. “You died protecting others, yes?”
I try to remember, but everything from when I was human is a blurred slash of color. It’s been so long. “I think so.”
Rafe nods. “As such, you were made into a Guardian when you died. You’re put on a path for your own redemption, and you have three chances to fulfill your heart’s greatest desire.” He gives me a condescending look. “Did you pay attention at all during orientation?”
“But what about the scars? What about my failures?”
Rafe drags his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “What failures?”
“The lives I couldn’t save. The mortals that were taken by the Reapers under my watch. I lost them, and then you carved these wounds against my heart. They’re my punishments, right?”
Rafe looks at me like he can’t quite believe how stupid I am.
My heart speeds up in my chest, and I feel like I might throw up. “Right?” I ask again.
He shakes his head slowly. “No, Gabriel. They weren’t wounds made as punishment. They’re—” He drags his hand down his face. “They’re cracks in your heart. You were close each time, but then she drifted away.”
I stare at him. “I don’t understand.”
He frowns. “Let’s try another way. Haven’t you ever wondered about your tattoos?”
I lift my arm and stare at the marks. “They’re from people I’ve helped, right?”
He nods. “Yes. Lives you’ve shaped.”
I drag my thumb along the stupid tomato that Darcy always loved to poke. “I was hoping I’d get a mark for Darcy,” I confess on a mumble, embarrassment a collar around my throat.
I wanted something tangible for me to look at. To touch. A mark on my skin that matched the one on my heart. I twisted myself in front of the mirror every day for the first week she was gone, looking. For a scythe, maybe. Or a flower petal.
Fuck. Even a damn German shepherd.
“Gabriel,” Rafe says, sounding completely, utterly exasperated. Amused. Mildly horrified. “Every mark on your body is for her.”
I shake my head. “I don’t—”
“They’re from lives you’ve shaped on your way to her.
Every person you’ve helped, every soul you’ve protected, it’s so you could get to Darcy.
Twice you made the wrong decision, and it resulted in—those marks are cracks against your heart.
That’s why they haven’t healed. You haven’t caused anyone’s suffering except your own.
That’s what those marks mean.” He stares at me over the length of the bar, aghast. “Shit, man. You had no idea?”
She’s the butterfly, I think dumbly. And the tornado.
“No,” I gasp. “What the fuck? No.”
Rafe reaches for the folder in front of me and flips through the pages until he gets to one close at the end. SOULMATE IDENTIFICATION AND DECLARATION is in bold across the top.
The word soulmate slices through my body, sharper than any sword. It sinks into my belly and carves its way up to that hollow cavern where my heart pounds a furious beat.
I’ve heard others at the department discuss it in whispers, but I’ve always dismissed it as a myth. A fairy tale. A bedtime story for the lost and lonely souls. Something to hold on to for the long stretch of immortality ahead.
Maybe this is another dream. Maybe they want to lure me into a false sense of security before cutting my third strike.
But there’s no mistaking the pound of my heart in my chest. How it speeds up, then slows down. I can feel my new mortal fragility. I’m no longer trapped in the in-between.
Every step I’ve ever taken. Every choice I’ve made.
All of it, for Darcy.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Rafe reaches over and slaps at my shoulder. “There you go.”
“I mean—fuck. Why did—No one said anything? For thousands of years?”
Rafe shrugs. “It’s explained in the handbook.”
“What is?”
“You will serve your duty as Guardian for the purpose of securing your own future. Deviations in this mission will result in your own suffering. That’s what the book says. Clear as day.”
“That’s not—that doesn’t mean anything, Rafe. That’s just a bunch of vague words strung together.”
“You should have felt it, Gabriel.” Rafe picks up my pen and wiggles it in front of my face. “Didn’t you feel it?”
That first night at the bar, when she slid onto her stool, it felt like the whole place tipped sideways. In the alley, when she lifted my hand to her mouth and I felt like I had to kiss her. I had to.
I thought it was her magic. Something similar to my compulsion. Something meant to trick and trap me. But it wasn’t that at all. It was—
A gift. A choice. My very favorite consequence. It was a key fitting into a rusty lock. A sharp click as it turned to the right.
Rafe taps me in the forehead with the pen. “Sign your paperwork,” he says. “I have places I need to be.”
I look dumbly down at the file in front of me, the words swimming on the paper. I sign in the spots I’m meant to, then hand the file over.
Thousands of years. Half an eternity. Distilled down to a single file folder.
It would be depressing if I could muster that particular emotion right now.
“Beautiful,” Rafe says. He pulls another pen out of his pocket—this one from some radio station in Baltimore—and starts to scribble his name next to mine. “This will be processed and you’ll be free to live your mortal life. Thank you for your service to the Office of Guardians.”
“Sure,” I answer faintly.
Rafe smiles at me. “You really did do good work, kid. You should be proud.” He claps me on the shoulder. “It’s time for you to rest now.”
Rafe turns toward the door. I stand behind my bar, an empty glass of scotch in my hand and my heartbeat an unfamiliar thump thump thump in my chest.
“Wait,” I call. “That’s it?”
Rafe doesn’t turn. “That’s it.”
“But—” My hands are shaking so bad I have to put the glass down. “What about Darcy? If everything was for her, then—”
Then why isn’t she here? Why isn’t she mine? What good is declaring a soulmate, if I don’t get to keep her?
“What happens next?” I ask.
Rafe yanks the door open. Light spills in from the sidewalk, flooding the room in bright, shimmering gold.
“Gabriel,” Rafe laughs. “Can’t you feel it?”