Redeeming Angel (13 page)

I pulled out an outfit. With an armful
of clothes and my other hand still clamping the towel, I stood up
and turned around, smacking into Chase. I let out a little shriek.
“You’re never going to stop doing that, are you? Sneaking up on
me?”

One side of his lips tilted up. He
twined a piece of my damp hair around his finger, inhaling the
fresh and sweet scent of my shampoo. “Feel better?”

My heart fluttered at his nearness.
“Much.” I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was eleven in
the morning. “Is my mom home?” I realized I didn’t even know what
day it was.

The strand of hair slipped through his
fingertips, and he brushed it behind my ear. “She is, but she
doesn’t know we’re here. I talked to Devin this
morning.”

Part of me wanted to run into Mom’s
room and climb into her bed. I bit my lip. “How long have I been
sleeping?”

“
It doesn’t matter. You
needed it.”

He was being evasive. What else was
new?

“
You hungry?” he quickly
asked.

Now that I had a moment to think about
food, I was craving grease and cheese. “Actually, I think I could
eat an entire pizza.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I’ll call for delivery and wait for you downstairs.”

As soon as the door closed, I stared
at my room. The silver bedding always reminded me of Chase’s eyes.
There were video games stacked in one corner. Some girls collected
makeup, but I hoarded games. Silence stretched over the room, and
it was killing me. With silence came thoughts, voices, and
memories. I didn’t want to think, but my mind jumped and danced
from thought to thought, bouncing back and forth between who I’d
been and who I was. I wanted to shut it all off.

My stomach dipped.

I was growing to hate the sound of
nothing.

Shaking my head, I blinked back tears
and refocused on the rumpled bed where not long ago Chase and I had
been, wrapped up in nothing but each other. God, I didn’t know
where I’d be without him. He never gave up on me even when I was
horrible and a bitch. Suddenly, standing in the middle of a room
surrounded by all my things, I felt so lost. I knew the person I’d
once been, but I didn’t know who I was now. The only thing I did
know was I could never go back to being that girl. She was gone,
taken from me long before the darkness took me.

And I was okay with it. I accepted
that my life would always be different, but I’d been naive to think
loving Chase would be enough. Maybe it had been…once. I still
wasn’t sure how he’d been able to bring me back. I could only
recall snippets of that night, falling in and out of consciousness.
The memories of when the darkness seized my mind and body were
murky, like swimming through a swamp of muddy and slimy
waters.

Tugging on my clothes, I sat on the
bed, needing a moment to gather myself before I went downstairs,
not that it mattered. My emotions weren’t something I could hide
from Chase. I sat with my hands folded in my lap, staring at the
fibers of carpet on the floor, doing my best not to lose my shit.
The tears were right there, waiting for me to let them loose, but I
was afraid once I started I wouldn’t be able to stop.

Shaking out my damp hair, I stood and
crossed the room, knowing I couldn’t be alone in this room another
second. I needed to see him. The sight of him gave me strength. I’m
sure there was a more technical name for what our bond did to me.
All I knew was when I was with him, he took away a majority of my
fear, uncertainty, and sadness.

Pizza. The smell hit me as I rounded
the corner of the stairs, and a smile began to spread on my lips.
Chase was behind the counter with a half-eaten slice dangling from
his mouth and a plate in one hand. There were three boxes on the
counter, one of them already missing three slices.

“
Did you save me any?” I
asked, scooting up on one of the barstools.

He slid me a can of pop and handed me
a plate. “You said you could eat a whole pizza, so this one’s
yours.”

“
And the other two?” I
teased.

He took a bite. “All mine.”

I opened the box in front of me, and
my belly made a series of noises that sounded like my stomach was
munching on my innards. When it came to pizza, I always ordered the
same weird combination, and Chase knew exactly how I liked it.
Cheese and black olives. His consideration of the small things made
him deserve the best boyfriend award.

With the first bite, my taste buds
exploded in a foodgasm. “God, I missed this,” I mumbled, my mouth
full.

Guilt shadowed behind his eyes, and I
could sense it through our bond. How long would it be before he
stopped blaming himself? I wasn’t the only one who was going need
time to mend the scars left behind.

“
Don’t do that,” I
whispered, placing my hand over his on the counter. “I can’t have
you look at me like that every time one of us makes an offhanded
comment. We both need to move past this…somehow.”

He turned his hand over so ours were
pressed palm to palm, linking our fingers. “I know. It’s just
harder to control my emotions when I’m around you. The time apart
has messed with my abilities. Being in the same room with you makes
my emotions go haywire.”

“
Me too,” I admitted,
stroking the side of his thumb. “What are we going to
do?”

“
We’ll figure it out.
Later.”

In the meantime, I was deathly afraid
the darkness was not really gone, but still residing inside me,
growing little by little until it was able to take me.

There it was—the dark cloud hanging
over my head.

Chase and I had very different coping
methods. He went looking for trouble, the kind that meant whacking
off demon heads. And I wanted to pretend it never happened. Neither
was healthy, but in a situation like ours, I didn’t think there was
a wrong or right way to deal with the kind of trauma we’d
endured.

I would love Dr. Phil to try to
analyze us.

The thought made me smile to
myself.

“
What’s so funny?” he
asked, plucking another piece from the box.

“
I was just thinking that
we would make a great reality show.”

He cocked his head, pondering. “Yeah,
I can definitely see myself on TV.”

Of course he could. Plucking a black
olive from my pizza, I threw it at his head. My aim was dead on,
but Chase had the reflexes of a mongoose. He promptly caught it in
midair with his mouth.

“
Nice toss,” he said,
grinning.

I internally sighed, glad to have
things back on a less serious path, and took another T. rex-sized
bite out of my pizza. Chase lifted his gaze over my head and
smirked. It was the twinkle of mischief in his silvery eyes that
gave me pause.

“
I thought I smelled
pizza,” said someone behind me.

I dropped my food on the plate and
spun around, faster than normal. The sound of her voice made my
heart kick. “Mom!” I leapt from my seat and threw my arms around
her. She smelled and looked like home—the lingering scent of the
perfume she wore religiously, the old worn Minnie Mouse pajamas and
house slippers.

She engulfed me in a hug. “I’m the one
who should be surprised. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I
would have, I don’t know, gone shopping or something.” After
another squeeze, she pulled back, eyes roaming over my face.
Concern replaced her surprise. “Honey, are you crying?” Her gentle
hands framed my face.

I swiped at my eyes, not realizing
tears were spilling down my cheeks, and stared at the floor. “It’s
nothing. I’m just being a sappy girl. Bad time of the
month.”

“
Awkward. And that is my
cue to leave,” Chase announced, his chair scooting across the
floor.

I knew he wanted to give me time with
Mom, but I was afraid. It wasn’t necessarily him leaving that
freaked me out, but being alone with Mom. What if something
happened? What if I hurt her? What if she asked questions I
couldn’t answer? “Chase?”

He stopped in the doorway and arched a
brow. I couldn’t believe how much I missed seeing the silver stud
above his eye. “I’m just going next door to clean up,” he said, but
his eyes said so much more. They assured me everything was going to
be fine, and if I did need him, he would know.

I nodded, and then he
disappeared.

Her hand flew to her heart. “I don’t
know how you ever get used to that.”

“
I don’t.”

She had watched our exchange, sensing
something was up, and placed a hand on each of my shoulders,
studying my face. “What is going on? You’ve lost weight. And what
did you do to your eyes? Does it have anything to do with demons?”
Her ramble of questions was typical Mom.

“
Mom
, there is no need for a full-blown freak out.” Sarcasm. It
was my companion. Anything else would have only triggered her
warning bells.

“
That’s not an
answer.”

“
What was the question?” I
asked, playing ignorant.

“
Angel, I can’t believe
I’ve actually missed your sarcasm, but God help me, I
have.”

“
That makes two of us,” I
muttered.

“
So, are you going to
explain the eyes, or am I going to have to interrogate Chase?” she
pushed.

I swallowed. God no. He
would crack under the
mom
pressure, especially if she offered to make him
dinner. I shrugged, about ready to spew a bunch of lies, but I
couldn’t. She trusted me, and had always been truthful. I owed her
the same.

Could I really tell her I’d killed my
father? Her ex-husband? Not that he’d actually been the same man
we’d once known.

Could I actually say I’d been
possessed by Hell?

There was no way I could tell her I’d
been held captive because I had wanted to unleash demons on Earth.
She would be appalled. I was appalled.

“
This is going to call for
more pizza,” I said soberly. I had no clue what I was going to say
or how detailed I’d be.

She raised a honey-colored brow. “And
wine,” she added.

“
Mom, it’s not even one
o’clock, and if you say it is somewhere, I’m going to my
room.”

“
Glad to see college hasn’t
changed you too much. Except for the eyes,” she said, stretching to
reach the top shelf on the cabinet. After retrieving a stemmed
glass and a half-empty bottle of Muscato, she took a seat on the
stool beside me.

I plucked a black olive. “It wasn’t
school that altered my appearance.”

She pulled a swig from her glass. “I
kind of figured that out on my own. Demons?”

“
When isn’t it?”

Worry jumped into her eyes. “You’re
okay though?”

“
Yeah. Of course. The eyes
are just a byproduct of a hiccup in my bond with Chase. It’s
nothing, really.” Downplaying was apparently the route I was going
to take. Not quite a lie, yet not the whole truth. Worked for
me.

“
Is it
permanent?”

I lifted the still slightly damp hair
off my neck, keeping my eyes averted. “I don’t know, but I think
so.”

She was slow to respond. “Angel, don’t
be afraid to look at me. I’m not going to condemn you. Whatever did
happen, you’re still my daughter. Nothing is ever going to change
that, certainly not the color of your eyes. Anyway, they’re
beautiful, just like you.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That’s just the
wine talking.”

She laughed. “Even so,
doesn’t make it any less true. I’m so glad you’re here. I want to
hear about all the other stuff. School. Living on campus.
Chase
…” She said his name
in a gooey kind of tone. “But first, I have something important to
tell. I was actually going to call you, but this is much
better.”

I groaned, but was secretly
glad she didn’t press for more details. When Mom said
important
, I immediately
thought of her relationship with Devin. There was no denying things
between them were moving in a certain direction. “Okay, now you’re
freaking
me
out,”
I said, glancing at her hands to see if there was a shiny new
diamond.

“
It’s nothing bad. I’ve
just made some big changes.”

I picked at the crust on my plate, my
appetite vanishing. “To your life or the house?”

Nervous energy rolled off her. “Sort
of both.”

“
Just spit it
out.”

Both of her hands spread out on top of
the counter. “I put the house on the market,” she
blurted.

Confusion and trepidation weaved
through my belly. Believe it or not, I’d actually really grown to
love my little hick town. The idea of moving again filled me with
dread. She knew how much the people here meant to me, what Chase
meant to me, and I legitimately thought she was happy with Devin.
What had changed? To make me have to choose between her and Chase
was cruel, especially after everything I’d gone through. “You’re
selling our house? Why?”