Fall From Grace (27 page)

The second his hands loosened on my neck to take himself out of his pants, I grabbed the first thing I could grab, which was a snow globe on the dresser that was next to us.  With all my strength, I slammed in against the side of his head. The cracking sound was almost sickening, but it honestly made me feel powerful.

Blake’s body flew against the wall and I smashed the globe at him again.  He only looked stunned, but he leaned heavily against the wall with a confused look crossing over his face.

“You forget, I have nothing to lose.  I’ve been sentenced to hell, just like you!” I ran for the door and fumbled with the lock.

Blake grabbed his arms out for me stumbling towards the door.

I opened it hard and thrashed it against his body.  I bolted down the hallway and screamed for Gabriel.  The house was empty, even Shane had gone.  Shane.

I’ll never forget the look on his beautiful face when I walked away with Blake.  What I just did was unforgivable. He would never forgive Grace, and he shouldn’t.  If I lived through this night, I would tell him.  Tell him everything; because what secrets should I hide anymore?  Why had I kept these secrets? Was it because people would think I was crazy?  Or, because I didn’t want everyone to know how truly cruel the world was?  I screamed for Gabriel again, but Blake was right.  No one answered me.

I thrust open the front door to the cold muteness of the snow; the angels continued their pillow fight.  “Gabriel!  Don’t do this to me!  Gabriel!”  Silence answered, heavy and smothering.

I searched for a place to hide. There was nothing but snow as far as I could see.  I held my breath and plunged my body into the cold wet snow.  I waded in the thigh high drifts and made it to what I would have guessed about twenty feet from the front porch, when I heard Blake cursing from the porch behind me.

My clothes became icy and stung my skin, burning my flesh every time I moved.  But, I wouldn’t stop.  Ever.

I could hear Blake as he grunted through the snow after me.  I pushed ahead, beyond freezing, with exhaustion had already set in.  The more I moved, the more my mind fogged and my body staggered.  My entire body numbed.

I dragged my body further, but it was too much time out in the cold snow, the end of my vision blurred and the world spun around me.  I couldn’t give up, I couldn’t let Blake have her.

I didn’t know how fit Blake’s body was, but mine was trying to shut down. It screamed against the cold and begged my soul to give up.

I stumbled again when a shattering pain jarred my body and spiraled through my head.  Something jerked my body violently, causing agony to surge through my veins.  The faint hum of a snowmobile gave me the smallest bit of hope.

I blinked at the falling flakes of ice as they blanketed my face and eyes.  I tried to move my body, but their seemed to be an excessive weight pressing down around me.  That’s when my eyes focused on him.  Blake.

He had pinned my arms underneath me, straddled my body and crouched over me.  His mouth was a mere inch from mine.  I stared into his ancient cold remorseless eyes.

He slowly lifted his left hand to my face, exposing the long sharp blade of a knife.  I could hear myself moan in panic.  The sound made his lips turn up in a smile.

“Go ahead and kill me,” I whispered.

He lifted the knife from in front of my eyes and slid it slowly down my torso to my waist.  I was so numb from the ice and snow that I couldn’t even feel if he had cut me yet.

“I didn’t really want to kill you, Selah, I wanted to love you.  Wanted you to be mine and take over the heavens. Think about it, because I won’t stop until you’re mine.  Until everything is mine.”

He placed his lips on mine as he pierced the knife into my skin.

I tried to speak, I tried to scream, but his mouth stifled any noise I could have made.

He pressed the knife through my side as if I was warm butter and leaned away to assess his work.

Calmness covered my body, as I floated away from the pain and stared into his eyes.

“Never.  Never will I be anything but his,” I whispered.

The world unfocused and everything became darker.  After the heaviness of Blake on my body lessened, I could hear only the voices of angels, and the warmth of someone’s arms.

I could hear someone yell for 911.  Background noises of screams and curses melted into the blowing winds.  But louder than anything, I could hear a whispered voice near my ear; warm and pure.  “Don’t be scared...heaven is breathtaking.”

I tried to move my lips to smile, but I could no longer feel my body.  I’d never get to see heaven, but at least I got to feel it once in a kiss.

Chapter 16

A moment after the world went black; I was suddenly standing in an old Victorian style coffee shop.  The walls were pale green and decorated with antique framed etchings. Thick bitter smells of coffee and cinnamon drifted through the air.

Gabriel sat at a table in the middle of the empty room.  He cradled a large cup in both his elegant hands and leaned his head over the steam that eerily rose from it.  His eyes were closed as he blew gently over the dark surface of the caramel colored liquid.

I gingerly walked towards the dark wooden table and sat in the empty chair opposite him.

His broad shoulders rose slightly as he inhaled the aroma and slowly sipped a tiny bit through pursed lips.

Before me, out of nowhere, appeared a large mug covered with frothy white whipped cream; strands of sweet caramel crisscrossed the top.  I cupped my hands around it and shivered at the warmth. Even though I wasn’t in the snow any longer, I could still remember the iciness in my bones.

I lifted the heavy mug to my lips and tasted the creamy sweetness.  Across from me, Gabriel opened his eyes. We stared at each other through the rising steam of our coffees without speaking.

Coming somewhere from out of the dark silence, hummed a low hissing sound and the all too familiar beeps of a life support machine.  The faint sounds surrounded us and set a morbid mood against the beauty of the lovely soft Victorian style ambience.

I looked down to notice my fists were clenched tightly around my coffee mug.  This was different. Much different from any other time I’d died.  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or are you still playing your cruel games with my soul?”

Gabriel’s face was expressionless as always.  His features were more angelic than I’d ever seen, his skin was pure ivory and his eyes were the reflection of heaven itself.  His form hummed with an invisible current that made me yearn to touch him.  I clenched my cup tighter and focused my eyes on the dark wood of the table; the dark patterns of the knots of wood twisting and turning in their stillness.

His eyelids lowered and he tilted his head nodding to the side of us.

I glanced over to where his eyes had directed me.  There, through a now transparent floor, was the image of a stark hospital room; Grace lay on the bed attached to machines and tubs.  Just like before.

I felt my shoulders slump when I saw Shane and Lea occupying the seats in Grace’s room.  They seemed to be in a heated discussion. As always, Shane was raking his hands through his hair.  Even out of Grace’s body, I felt a tingly heat rise to my cheeks when I saw him.  He was beautiful, perfect.  I tried to swallow, but the emotion got caught in my throat and tears rolled out of my eyes.

“I hate you, Gabriel.  I hate all of you,” I whispered through my tears.  I could no longer hold back.  “Humans have more goodness in them then angels.  You have such emptiness in you.”  I slammed the chair against the table and walked to the transparent part of the floor, brazenly sitting and hanging my feet over the side of the abyss.  I would no longer go by anyone’s rules but mine.

I could hear his beautiful raspy voice.  It echoed through the foggy opening and traveled right to the core of whatever was left of me.

“I pushed her, I pushed her too far.  I practically pushed her right to Blake,” he murmured.

“No.  Shane, trust me.  She didn’t sleep with him.  You don’t understand,” Lea’s tears manipulated her words.

Shane leaned his forehead in his hands, “I told her I was in love with her.”

Lea looked up at him, shocked.

He slid his hands through his dark hair and gazed at the ceiling exactly where I sat.  I couldn’t catch my breath as his eyes slide over mine, wishing he could see me.

“What?” Lea gasped.

“I messed up.  I thought she felt it too, I didn’t know she was really into her ex-boyfriend.  I messed up and we fought. I pushed her away and now she’s here, I wasn’t there to protect her.”

“Ex-boyfriend?

Shane wiped at his eyes.  “Yeah, that’s what she said in the Jeep when we were stuck in the snow.  She didn’t want anyone but him.”  He laughed roughly, “My fucking luck, the only time I let myself feel something for someone and there’s no chance, and now she’s got fucking machines breathing for her.”

“Do you think she’ll make it, Shane?  Do you think...”

He stood up abruptly.  “No.  Life isn’t made of miracles, roses and cotton fucking candy, Lea.  She’s in a coma. That sick bastard knew exactly where to cut her to make her bleed to death, to weaken her entire body before we could get her to a hospital.  Think about what she felt!  Think about what she suffered the whole time.  How many times did they have to revive her? Even the doctor said to pray for a miracle in the same sentence he said how long we should wait before stopping the machines breathing life into her! There’s no such thing as miracles.  Life doesn’t work that way, there’s no beauty in it, there’s no hope.”

He walked over to the bed that Grace’s body laid on and sat next to her.  He leaned forward and brushed a dark lock of hair off her face.

Lea walked to the other side, took Grace’s hand, and held up her wrist.  “Hope.  It’s what’s tattooed on her wrist.”

“Love on this one,” Shane sighed.

“Faith is on the back of her neck,” Lea whispered. “Do you believe in heaven, Shane?”

His features changed from angry to agony.  It twisted my soul into knots.

“She’ll go right to heaven, Lea, and I bet it’s the most beautiful place ever created.  She’ll sing and all the angels will turn their heads to listen.”

Lea’s tears fell faster, and her body started shaking with sobs. “No, she won’t.  She doesn’t ever get to go to heaven!”

My essence vibrated, shimmers of heat washed through me.  Oh my God, she was going to tell Shane!

Shane brushed a finger over Grace’s check and I could swear I felt the heat on mine.

“She was a good person, Lea.  She’ll go to heaven.”

“No, Shane.  You don’t get it!”  Through her tears, Lea rambled the almost incoherent explanation.  “She was there, before Noah and the Ark and the flood.  Her soul was there when the angels fell in love with the humans.  They called them the Watchers, The Grigori.  They made a pact together to marry the human women, to teach them to see clearly, there were like two hundred of them.  They became fallen angels and when they married the women, they gave birth to the Nephilim, and they were all punished. She was the only one who never had a child. That’s her so called ex-boyfriend, Shane. She’s been looking for an angel for...”

“Stop,” Shane whispered.  He didn’t look at Lea, but her mouth clamped shut, astonished that she said everything she did.  Her hands clasped her mouth and she sobbed even harder.

Shane slid up to Grace’s face and cupped her chin. “That’s fucking impossible! Grace!  Wake up!”  He shook her body.

Lea pulled him away, “What the hell are you doing!  Get off her. You’re going to kill her faster!”

He bolted up, looking suspiciously at the ceiling, hands covering his mouth; he dropped to his knees.  “Gabriel,” he whispered.

My mind reeled. He was calling for Gabriel?  He knew Gabriel? I tried to jump down through the hole to him, but the ceiling of the hospital room, even though transparent was solid.  I stomped on the invisible floor, suspended somewhere between heaven and hell.

I watched Shane run through the hallways of the hospital yelling for Gabriel.

Through my tears, I set my focus on Gabriel, as he remained stoic, drinking his still steaming coffee.  I ran to the table and pushing it with every ounce of strength I had, propelled it into the air.  Coffee and cream flew through the air, but Gabriel stayed unaffected.

I stood in front of him and dropped my eyes to his level.  “Shane?  Gabriel, it was Shane?”

The edge of his stupid lips curled up the slightest bit, as if he was laughing at me inside.  “Not really the most intricate plot twist, Grace, you should have seen it coming.”

I pushed him. Of course, he didn’t move, but I pushed him again anyway.  “Go to him, Gabriel!”  I grabbed at his shirt and balled the material into my fists.  “You are going to go to him. Then you are going to come back here and tell me what I need to do to be with him again!  Put me back in that body!”

His gaze stayed steady on mine.

“Don’t tell me that was my one chance.  Tell me the truth.  For once in your existence, do what’s right, and tell me what’s going on!”  I kneeled down in front of him.

Gabriel gasped my face and pulled me forward, placing his closed lips on mine.  He kissed me and held me there. Calmness rolled over my spirit in slow circling waves, my eyelids closed.