Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (11 page)

“What do you want to talk about?
”
I asked, proud that my voice didn’t betray how nervous I felt
.

             
He
t
oo
k a de
ep
breath and straighten
ed
his spin
e
.
T
ension radiat
ed
of
f
his body
.
I had a terrible
,
sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and my hands were starting to sweat
.
I wish he would just say whatever it was he had to
say;
the suspense was about to kill me
.

“Michelle, do you know who you’re named after?” he asked
.

             
What a strange question
…
did I know who I was named after
?
Why would he ask me that
?
“I don’t think I’m named after anyone,” I stammered
.

“Your parents were told you would be a boy by the doctors in the hospital
.
They had planned for you to be a boy, and your name was suppose
d
to be Michael.
”

I sat and stared at him
.
What do you say to such a bizarre comment
?
What made it even more bizarre was the fact that it was true
.
My parents had always joked about how I was suppose
d
to be a boy, and when I was born I shocked everyone
,
including the doctors
.
I had spent the first three months of my life in purely blue clothing, and Cami had always teased that the early gender confusion had permanently scared my fashion sense
.
My first impulse was to run
away from the strange boy with the strangely accurate facts, but
I decided to get as much information out of the crazy person si
tting in front of me as I could
before I screamed and ran away
.
After all
,
the more information I could tell the cops the better, right
?

“Aside from the fact that you know that and you shouldn’t, why do you care that I was supposed to be named Michael?
”

“No
w
your name is the female version of Michael,” he replied
in a
matter of fact
tone
.

“No one in my family is named Michael, so why would that matter
?
I still don’t think I’m named after anyone,”
I retorted
.
“Why is this important to you
?
How do you know any of this?
”

“I’m sorry, I know I’m not making any sense, but I don’t know
how to go about explaining this.
”

“Explaining what?
”
I was starting to lose my patience
.

“D
o you know the significance of my name
?” he asked.

“What is with your obsession with names? No! I don’t know who you’re named after
.
How would I know that?” I was starting to regret disappearing into the darkness with him, but I bet if I screamed someone would hear me
.
Then again
,
maybe not
.

He
let out a lo
ud sigh.
“Michelle,
Gabriel was
…
is an archangel and t
raditionally he is considered the
angel of revelation.”

I had no idea what to say to that
.
Lots of kids are named after biblical referenc
es, what was his point? “Okay, w
hy do you want me to know this?”
My heart was pounding against my chest like a caged bird
.
How had he known something about me that only my family and Cami were privy too
?

“Michelle, I want you to let me try to explain this
.
Let me finish before you decide anything
.
Can you promise me you’ll hear me out?” he asked
.
It was to dark for me to rea
lly see his eyes, but his voice
had a note of pleading to it
.

“What are you trying to tell me?
”
I was fighting to stay seated next to him
.
I really wanted to jump up an
d bolt back into the well-lit parking lot
.

“
Chell
, just promise me, okay?”

“Fine, I promise I’ll hear you out, but I just want you
to know your freaking me out more than a
little bit,” I conceded
.

“I don’t mean to ‘freak you out’
, but I have to tell you what
I’m
about to say is going to sound a little crazy.
”
He paused and again I could feel him preparing himself to dive into whatever he was trying to say
.
“Gabriel traditionally is the angel who communicates messages from God to people who have been selected to complete a mission or
task
.
In Christianity Gabriel
is the angel who appears to Mary to tell her she is pregnant with Jesus
.
In Islam Gabriel is the Archangel responsible for revealing the
Qur'an
to Muhammad and inducing him to read it
.
Gabriel was like a text message from God
himself
.
”
He smirked at his own reference and appeared pleased with the analogy
.
I was way t
o
o freaked out to find his little joke amusing, and he must have sensed it
.
“
Anyway
…
y
ou’re named after the Archangel Michael
.
Do you have any idea what he was responsible for
?”

I couldn’t find my voice t
o
answer, so I
just shook my head back and forth
.

“
Michael is depicted
in
various ways in different religions, but he is always a defender of humanity
.
In Islam he is the Archangel of
mercy who is responsible for bringing rain and thunder to earth
.
In Christianity he is the angel who defeats Lucifer
and sends the fallen angel to h
ell.
”
He paused and again seemed to
be organizing his thoughts
.
“You
were named for
a
specific reason
.
You
were marked at birth to fulfill
a
ce
rtain role
.
My role is to guide you and relay information to you, and your role is to defend humanity.”

There was a long
,
empty silence that stretched on between us, and for
a while
I was expecting him to announce he was only kidding
.
When it became clear that he was waiting for me to respond I blurted, “You think you’re actually
t
he angel Gabriel
?
”

“
I know this seems crazy
.
I understand how this must sound, but trust me you
’
r
e not the only one I’ve spoken t
o who has had this reaction.
”

Why couldn’t I meet a nice, normal boy
?
Was I a crazy magnet
?
First my m
other and now this guy, seriously
?
“
Okay
…
s
o you th
ink you’re an angel from heaven?
”
I was talking slowly, enunciating all my words, like you talk to someone standing on the ledge of a building threatening to jump
.
I had heard of guys thinking they were
God’s gift but never an angel, and just like that my patience broke
.
“
You have g
ot to be kidding me with this, a
nd what, I’m an instrument
for Michael
?
He’s going to work through me
?
Besides it being completely crazy, don’t you think I would know if some angel was working through me?
”

“No,” he replied with a calmness that startled me
.
“I’m here to tell you what you have to do, but until it comes time for you to defeat the evil that is threatening all of us
,
Michael isn’t with you. “

“I should have listened to my instincts
.
The weird tattoo, reading
The Bible,
and no
w this! No normal teenage boy doe
s all these things
.
It would figure that
I would like you, I’m defective
.
I can’t even go to a football game on a Friday night with a boy
.
No
,
that would be too normal for me
.
I would have to choose a boy who thinks he’s a messenger for he
aven!
”
I was well on my way to
a total melt down
.

“So you feel it
,
too?
”
he asked with such candor that he stopped me mid-rant
.

“Feel what?” I asked.

“The draw, i
t
’
s like I can’
t
stay away
from you.”

“Really
?
I mean, I guess, yeah I like being around you
,
too
.
”
Wow that was eloquent
.

“I think that’s part of it
.
We have to be near each other for our destinies to be fulfilled
.
If we weren’t together
, we wouldn’t succeed
,” he explained.

“Wow, that’s the c
raziest thing I’ve ever heard
…
since the l
ast time you opened your mouth. A
nd if you knew my mother you’d know just how crazy that is
.
I’m outta here.
”
I stood up and began storming off towards the parking lot
.
I had had enough
.
No way was I going to sit
there
and listen to his crazy
shit
.
If I wanted crazy, I would go home
.

“Yo
ur m
other sees your destiny
.
Sh
e knows the truth
.
Haven’t you ever wondered what she sees?
”
he shouted after me.
“I’m the one who told her about your destiny!”

I expected him to follow me, to try to convince me he wasn’t crazy, but when I
got
to the parking lot and glanced back I could just make out his outline standing by the soccer field watching me leave
.

Chapter
6

Daniel 8; 16: “And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of
Ulai
, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.”

             
All the way home all I could think about was that it figured, a boy who seemed interested in me would turn out to be a total nut
.
I should have seen this
coming,
all the signs pointed to him being totally weird
.
As I walked onto my block and my house started coming into view, I began thinking about
what he had shouted at me
.
“Your
m
other knows the truth.
”
He didn’t even know my m
other, as far as I knew they had never met
.

Then I began thinking about what Dad had said
.
About Mom seeing things trying to get me, but not just thin
gs
,
angels and demons.
Dad said her
hallucinations
made her believe these things wer
e trying to use me or hurt me
.
How would Gabriel know about that
?
I didn’t even know that her hallucinations were of angels and demons until Dad had s
aid something earlier tonight
.
The only logical explanation was that he was some kind of crazed stalker who had done his research, looked through her medical records somehow or whatever
.
All I knew for sure is that when
a crazed
stalker is your most logical explanation you
’
r
e
in some deep shit
.
I h
ate
d
to bust his bubble, but I wa
s hardly worth all the effort. O
f course
,
didn’t cults and kidnappers target social outcasts
?
Still seemed like a lot of research for just little
ole
me
.