All Amity Allows (Fall for You Book 2) (6 page)

Amity stepped into the void he’d left behind, lifting her hands to still the wayward plant before it could take the fateful fall.

Instead of punishing any more of his office equipment, Drew turned his hands onto himself. He brushed hasty trails through his hair twice before fisting his fingers as deep as possible in the short brown mess and yanking hard.

“Idiot!” he cried as he spun and kicked at the wall.

It had been a long time since Amity had been in such close confines with someone going through such agony. The feeling of his emotions battering at her body made her take a backward step to press against the wall farthest from him. It was as if each negative feeling wanted to climb beneath her skin and strip away everything but the bare, bitter truth that resided within her. The feeling was a big part of the reason why she hadn’t allowed herself to be alone in such close quarters with a single human for such a long time. Better to spend time in large spaces, teeming with humanity. There, the multitude of individual emotions clashed together to become a background cacophony of feelings. In those places, nothing could permeate further than skin deep.

Once, long ago, she’d have been ready and willing to play counsellor to Drew’s heartbreak, slowly coaxing him from pain to pragmatic acceptance. That was before it all went wrong though. Now that she was so out of practice, it was all she could do to even stay in the room with the negativity rolling off him in attacking waves. It was an all too familiar reminder of her very last case. The assignment that had shattered the final grip she had on her sanity and which had sent her packing her bags before rushing off without notice on vacation as far from her brothers’ influence as she could possibly get.

Years ago, humans had been relatively carefree and easy to understand. They’d loved and lived without the bitter twisted core that she now believed resided within each and every one of them. She couldn’t exactly pinpoint the moment the change happened, or when she’d first noticed it, but she felt certain it had sprung up around the same time all of the new rules and religious dogma arrived. It had been enough to drive the desire she had once felt to help mankind with gentle, prompting, methods completely out of her system. Since then, humankind had marched ever onward into the future and the bitter edge only seemed to grow. Phones replaced physical contact, email replaced phones, and then a whole new phone took over once again. The more electronically connected humans became, the less they emotionally connected with one another, and the more they lied to themselves.

To protect her heart, and her grace, from further injury, she wanted to just yell at Drew to stop already—to just give up the anger and move on and be one step closer to acceptance. Eventually, he’d realize that everything happened for a reason and that even though it might not seem like it at that particular moment, the break-up was for the best. The relationship, and its end, would help him discover life lessons that he might have missed otherwise. Both he and Becca would be better off apart. At least, that was what Amity needed to force him to believe.

Amity looked down at her hands, debating whether to hit him with a concentrated dose of the truth; a small zap of her energy, something to push him past his anger and drive him that much closer to acceptance. It was poised in the tips of her fingers as soon as the thought crossed her mind. All it would take was for her to brush her hand against his skin and then she’d be able to dig around for the truth and reveal it for him. It would be like a sledgehammer to his brain, a harsh shot of reality, and it would hurt at first. But that was her style these days—wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. It was easier than dealing with the messy fallout of actual human emotions and it largely removed the complication of free will. True, it left a mark on the soul—a scar that would never fully heal, and that could cause the receiver to be constantly open to the bitter truth. It could also force the receiver to cope with the truth a little quicker than some people could handle. Given the nature of free will, that could result in unpredictable outcomes. She’d misjudged it the last time, and she didn’t want to do that ever again.

Still, she reasoned, it was quicker and easier than any other option. Her obligation to her brother would be met and she could be gone again before nightfall. She wouldn’t have to deal with another moment of the agony of being stuck in close confines with so many negative emotions.

When Drew dropped into the small office chair and then slumped forward to bang his head against the desk repeatedly, Amity stepped closer and lightly grazed the pads of her fingertips against the back of his neck. She didn’t even dare to breathe as she touched him, unwilling to give him any reason to suspect that there was anything unusual going on.

Michael had stressed that it was imperative that Drew didn’t suspect otherworldly involvement. He couldn’t learn about the existence of angels or cupid. That Becca knew the reality was bad enough; the last thing Heaven needed was half a town running around with that sort of knowledge. Even without her brother’s warning though, Amity knew it was a bad idea to reveal her true nature to humans. Without fail, humans shown her grace either desired to do her kind harm for some perceived wrong or fell to their knees in blind worship of things which Amity herself didn’t even believe in anymore.

Despite her care, Amity’s soft touch had an immediate effect on Drew. He dropped his forehead against the desk once more before leaving it in place. Then a silent sob shook his chest and a shooting pain echoed back up Amity’s arm.

“No.” The word was a barely uttered breath, but it had torn past her lips without her consent. It was more than just his human emotions that had caused her to back away with one hand cradled in the other. She’d brushed against an image. She’d seen two faces from her own past, faces of those she’d failed. She never thought she’d see either of them again. It was a truth she’d thought was long buried. The name of the cupid, Evan, rang in her mind. She had to stop herself from crying out again. There was no way it could be back to haunt her now . . . could it?

The force of the reverse energy flow had been almost enough to unseat her grace from her human shell. The shockwave disarmed her and she stepped away from him before she could unearth and expose the truths she’d planned to show him. She’d ripped into his heart—into his very soul—and left him open to the raw, bitter truth. She couldn’t leave him the way he was, but with her hands still burning, there was no way she was going to touch him again so soon.

She stumbled away from the doctor until her back smacked into the wall with an almost-but-not-quite-silent thump. If Drew had heard it, he showed no indication. For the first time in a long time, Amity was forced to examine her choices, her mistakes. She had to reconcile the result of the emotions she’d brought to the surface in those she’d tried to help with her original goals. The buzz of Drew’s emotions within her was like a mirror held up in front of all of her flaws and faults. She didn’t like it, not one little bit. She turned and fled, teleporting herself as she walked so that by her second step, she was back at her car.

I need to get away from here, she thought as she jumped behind the wheel before deciding it would be quicker and easier to forgo the vehicle altogether.

Chapter Five

A quiet knock
on his office door snapped Drew out of his thoughts. He was almost relieved for the distraction that pulled him away from a wave of sorrow and rage, which had simultaneously infected him, rendering him motionless. He pushed himself upright, rubbing blindly at the spot where his forehead had rested against the desk—certain there would be a telltale red mark branded across his skin from the weight of being pressed against the hard surface.

He cleared his throat to dislodge the lump that had sprung up when the unexpected influx of emotions had struck him. Then he swiped at his eyes, ensuring there were no telltale tears within. Not that he could have possibly been
crying
over Becca of course.

“Come—” he cut himself off when his voice issued in a high squeak. He cleared his throat once more. “Come in,” he said more firmly.

Pushing the door open tentatively, and leading with two Styrofoam cups that were sure to contain fresh, hot coffee, was Cathy. Becca’s best friend, but also a nurse at the hospital. Drew wasn’t sure which role she was filling on this particular visit.

She seemed to take the fact that he didn’t immediately demand that she leave the room as a positive sign and she smiled, kicked the door closed, and moved to his desk before placing one of the cups on his desk.

“I thought you could do with a coffee,” she said needlessly. It was clear she felt obligated to fill the yawning silence that otherwise occupied the space.

He could see there was a deeper motive to her action, one that seemed to be dancing just on the tip of her tongue, but to her credit, she didn’t come out and ask. Although the fact that she didn’t just blurt it out, as she normally would, set Drew on edge anyway.

“What do you want?” he asked, resigning himself to the fact that there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Dealing with Cathy would be a hell of a lot easier than having to face Becca—maybe he could get some of the answers he needed without having to suck up his pride completely. The last thing he wanted to do was fall to his knees and beg Becca to love him again, which was exactly what he was seconds from doing every time he saw her.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Cathy said, sitting on the corner of his desk and taking a sip from her own cup.

He barked out a hard laugh. “Oh, I’m just fan-fucking-tastic. How do you think I’m doing?”

She chuckled in response, but looked contrite. “Yeah, there were probably better ways I could have worded that, huh?”

He snorted as he nodded. “You think?”

Cathy shifted into the seat across from him and cast a level stare at him over the top of her coffee. “Look, I know I’m Becca’s friend, and I know you probably don’t want to talk to me about all this just because of that fact alone, but if you ever need an ear, mine is free. I like to think I’m your friend too.”

He flinched, reminded by her harsh appraisal of his appearance to Becca over lunch.

“Am I really that pathetic?” he asked.

“It’s not that.”

At her words, he lifted a questioning eyebrow, hoping to silently remind her that he’d heard her conversation with Becca.

“Okay, it’s not
only
that. I’ve seen the way you look at Becca, Drew. I know the way you felt about her in middle school. I also know that none of this can be easy for you.”

His jaw ticked with the pressure he was exerting on it. A throbbing ache built in his temple with the blood pulsating through him. He made a mental note to have his blood pressure checked at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Not as easy as it is on her, that’s for sure,” he said.

He hadn’t intended to give the words a voice, but they’d slipped out anyway, as if glad to be freed. He’d been keeping them pent up for almost eighteen hours, ever since he’d been dumped. Eighteen hours and Becca was already strolling around looking like a love-struck schoolgirl. The sound of his teeth grinding even harder at the thought filled the silence that his words had left in their wake.

“That’s . . . that’s not really fair,” Cathy said with hesitant caution.

He started to wonder whether he’d made a mistake not throwing her out right away. She spoke again before he had the chance to act on his regret though.

“I’m not going to defend what she did. But I don’t think she ever intended to hurt you. She really does care about you, you know.”

“She sure has a damn funny way of showing it.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it less true.”

“Just not the same way she cares for
him
though.” Drew was surprised by the bitterness in his voice.

Cathy shrugged. “No. I guess not.”

“I should have done more,” Drew admitted, more to himself than to Cathy. “I knew that asshole was trying to get into her pants and I didn’t do enough to be sure he never got the chance.”

After his tongue had started moving, it didn’t seem to want to stop. It was acting independently of his brain and spilling secrets he hadn’t wanted to admit to anyone—let alone Becca’s best friend.

“What could you have done? Banned her from seeing him?” Cathy snorted. “That would have gone down like a lead balloon. The thing is I honestly don’t think either Evan or Becca understood their feelings for each other until they suddenly did, if you know what I mean?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t care to know. He was sick of hearing Becca’s name, and he was doubly sick of hearing that other fucker’s. “I’m sorry if I don’t exactly find that knowledge comforting.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t be.”

“Thank you for stopping by, Cathy.” He hoped his tone conveyed the finality that he intended it to have. He didn’t want to spend the next few hours locked in a conversation which could only lead back to his ex over and over again. It wasn’t helping his resolve to not break down over something as stupid as a break-up. True, it was his first time on the receiving end of one, but he’d initiated enough of them to know that they weren’t always driven by hard feelings and cruel intentions. The fact it was Becca—the woman he’d set as the bar to measure all other potential relationships against—who’d been the first to break his heart was as agonizing as it was fitting.

Thankfully, Cathy took the thinly veiled hint in his words and stood to leave.

“Anytime.” She started for the door but then stopped, and turned back toward him. After a brief pause, she rounded his desk and placed her fingers on his arm.

When he met her gaze, he saw a sadness that said she understood how he felt—at least a little.

“I meant what I said, Drew. I think of you as a friend. I did in middle school and I still have since you came home. If you ever need an ear to bend, I’ll be here.” She turned to leave again, but stopped once more. “Or you can talk to Gary if you’d prefer to keep it amongst the men.”

She smiled warmly at him and he could see why her husband had snapped her up. There was a level of innate understanding buried within her and she seemed to get men in a way most women never could. He was also relieved that she hadn’t mentioned Becca’s name once more.

“Thank you,” he said again, meaning it a little more this time.

Amity hadn’t
returned to Drew or to the hospital at all since she’d rediscovered the ache of human emotions and the guilt of her mistakes. Instead, she’d retreated to the top of Mount McKinley thousands of miles away. While the air in Flint had been only just starting to cool toward winter, the season had well and truly claimed the mountaintop. Even though she didn’t need protection from the cold, she’d wrapped herself in a number of layers topped with a Donna Karan jacket. Fashion was her fallback, a way to give herself something to focus on outside of emotions.

Her hands were free from coverings though. Instead of being nestled in warm gloves, they were plunged deep into the surrounding snow. She'd already held them there long enough for a human to have lost most of the feeling in their fingertips, possibly even long enough for a severe case of frostbite to have settled in, but she didn’t care. She didn't have to worry about trivial things like blood flow and oxygen. Her human body did whatever her grace instructed, regardless of what happened around her.

Despite the cold of the snow wrapped around her fingers, the skin of her palm burned as though it was still pressed against Drew’s neck. Her anger and hurt over what she believed constituted a massive betrayal by her brothers—by Michael in particular—burned through her in a white-hot burst.

She heard a flutter behind her, but didn’t even bother to turn to greet her visitor. She already knew exactly who it was, and had no doubt he was ready to launch into some lecture about her behavior and how it served her right. How she’d deserved the surprise she’d just received.

“What are you doing here, Michael?” she asked, not feeling any need or desire to make him feel welcome.

His feet crunched over the fresh snow as he made his way to her. When he reached her, he knelt at her side before resting his hand on her shoulder. “I came to make sure you were okay.”

Even though his touch eased the burden of the burning of her palms, she pulled away from him. He didn’t deserve the peace of mind that came from helping her. “Okay? No, I am not okay. I am so far away from
okay
I don’t know if I will ever be okay again. You set me up!”

He looked at the snow between them. “That was . . . regrettable.”

“No, the plagues of Egypt were regrettable. What you did was a dick move.”

“I was only doing my duty. This is your chance for penance, which you’ve wanted for a long time.”

“Fuck penance.” At the harsh tone of Amity’s voice, Michael winced away as though he’d been struck.

“Amitiel—Amity,” he corrected himself at the narrowing of her eyes. “Of all the angels who walk the Earth, you should know most of all that the path to the truth brings penance. You want this, even as you rally against it.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“Would you have accepted the task if I had?”

She sighed as his words hit their intended mark. No. She wouldn’t have taken the assignment if she’d known all of the players. As soon as she’d learned the truth, she would have fled to the other side of the world and hoped it would all resolve itself without her involvement. She tipped her head forward, using her curtain of hair to shield her from the world—and from Michael in particular.

“I could have prepared myself for it,” she whispered, even though she knew there was no truth in the words. There was no preparation for the discovery that the one person you were assigned to help was only hurt as a result of your past failures.

Michael sat onto the snow, twisting his hips so he was more in front of her than beside. He brushed her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “No, you couldn’t have. I know you probably will disagree with my next statement, but this is for the best. By helping Drew find acceptance, you will see that what happened back then was not solely your responsibility.”

She looked into Michael’s eyes and saw galaxies swirling around in the warm amber depths. As much as she struggled with the big brother mantle he took onto himself, it was moments like this one where it was evident why he did. Even though the first of the angels were brought into existence in the same nanosecond, Michael’s burdens in the intervening years made him infinitely older than her or any of her other brothers. After all, he held the literal balance of the whole universe resting within his grace.

She felt like a mewling child staring into an infinite abyss as she met the depths of his gaze. It was no wonder that many humans who had seen the sight went crazy. Others were luckier. Even though everyone met Michael in the end, when his grace would pluck their soul from their body and prepare them for judgment, most were spared the sight of a face-to-face appearance.

She swallowed down her fear as she wondered exactly how many judgments and cases Michael had weighed and decided during the course of their conversation. How many souls he’d gathered? How many had moved onward and upward, and how many had been sent back to Earth to do Heaven’s bidding? She cast her eyes away from his, unwilling to meet the oblivion in the depths any longer. She wasn’t afraid of the infinity they held as much as the judgment she saw within them.

It wasn’t enough to stop her from asking the question which had frightened her the most since she’d seen the truth though. “What if it
was
my fault though? What if all of her suffering was because of me?”

Michael reached for her arm again, allowing his compassion to flow through his touch. Instead of fighting him off once more, Amity allowed him to comfort her. With the contact, he shared everything that happened after she’d left that fateful day so long ago and the rest of the story about the cupid—the parts he’d hidden before.

She clenched her eyes as tight as she could while images of her last case assaulted her mind. It was no wonder she’d been instructed to stay away from the cupid. From Evan. The name brought his face into her mind. Both of their faces. Evan and Rose: young lovers torn apart by greed.

Once, long ago, Heaven had a plan for the two of them. A cupid had been assigned to their case when they were still in school. The problem was that Rose’s father had planned another outcome for both his daughters. He wasn’t at all satisfied with the punk from the wrong side of the tracks wooing Rose. No, he’d wanted to use her as a commodity to advance his own selfish needs. Ultimately it had cost his daughter her life.