Soul Corrupted (13 page)

Noah

My life is one long, fucking
lie. First my parents ignore me. Was I a mistake? Or just not as good as Grace?
Then there was Emily, who treated me so nicely until Grace was gone and then
her real feelings came through loud and clear. But I thought it finally didn’t
matter anymore. Keira made me feel something I’ve never felt before: important.

I must’ve been pretty desperate to believe a Demon.

I shove my hands farther into my jacket and keep
walking, fighting against the bite of cold raindrops and bitter wind, yet one
more thing trying to control me by pushing me the way it wants me to go.

“Just the guy I’m looking for.” Hale’s voice brings me
back to reality and I realize I’ve walked to the park. No one else is here. Who
would be in weather like this?

“Guess you got lucky,” I say, in no mood to talk. “I
thought I told you I was done with you guys.”

Hale glances around, manipulating his tongue piercing
with his teeth. “See, that’s not cool, bro,” he says finally. “I need at least
one more bag so I have time to find another dealer.”

I laugh into the roar of the rain. Even the ducks have
retreated. “Have you been wandering the neighborhood waiting to find me? That’s
pathetic.” I remember what Keira said about using the anger, which only makes the
feeling worse because I can’t seem to stop thinking about her.

I move to walk by him, but he shoves me in the chest.
I’m not expecting it, so I stumble and nearly fall in the mud.

“Rethink that, Noah.” He pulls his switchblade and
glances around once again to make sure we’re alone.

I focus all the rage still burning inside of me and
I’m surprised how easily it latches on to the nearest target. I don’t care.
There’s no secret that Hale’s yet another person who’s been using me since I
got to high school. He surrounds himself with big, tough guys and clever guys—guys
that have what he’s lacking—but he treats us like shit. Using us for
drugs or homework or whatever he needs.

“No,” I say and pull back my shoulders. I’m sick of
being pushed around. I’m sick of being used.

“You think you’re tough shit now just because you got
laid by a hooker?” he asks, moving closer, flashing his knife to make up for
his lack of muscle.

Keira again. Pain seizes my chest, but I focus on the
fury instead. “You wish she’d pay attention to you. But you’re just a
drug-addicted loser. Let me show you how weak and pathetic you are.”

He swings at me, but I sidestep it easily, expecting
it this time. Each insult I spit his way throws him a little more off and
builds my confidence. It feels…
good
to hurt someone else for a change.

“Go home,” I say. “Lift some weights. Maybe you’ll
find a girl willing to have sex with you without being drugged.”

His face tightens into a ball of hate, and I feel
alive. He’s losing it, which means I’m finally in control.

He lunges again, and this time I kick the knife out
his hand. It lands a few feet away in a patch of crab grass.

“Damn it, Noah!” he screams, “Stop being a prick and
get me some drugs. What, my money’s not enough for you? I’ll up it.”

Lightening strikes and Lucifer appears behind Hale, at
a distance. But I can see his face. He’s smirking. The damned asshole has the
gall to smirk when he’s been using me to get to my sister all along. Well, I’ll
wipe that smirk from his face when he realizes what I’m really capable of.

“Fuck off,” I say, shoving Hale down into the mud. He
reaches for the knife and I kick it far out of reach, laughing. It feels good
to laugh at someone else for a change. To watch someone else be stepped on.

Hale rolls onto his back like prey giving in to the
stronger animal. “Y-y-you’ve never hit someone in your life. You don’t have the
balls.”

My vision goes red and I freeze as still as a statue.
“Shut up.” My voice comes out even and cold.

He works his way to his feet, growing more confident
as he does. He thinks he’s bested me, but he doesn’t know what’s happening
inside of me. He doesn’t feel the hatred boiling and building like lava.

“You’re a nobody, Noah. Just the guy people use, but
there’s always someone else. Someone better.” He turns to walk away.

I let my wrath feed me as I grab for his shoulder and
all I see is a merry-go-round of faces. Grace, disappointed; Emily, disgusted; my
father, ambivalent. I attack each one, punching harder and wilder with each new
image. Lucifer, Kevin, Hale.

“Shut up,” I say, over and over to each one of the faces.
A growl rumbles low from my chest as I strike blindly, connecting again and again
with flesh. Hands swipe at my face in a feeble attempt to stop me. But I’m not
stopping. I’m not letting it go.

I work my hands down Hale’s neck—my mother’s
neck, Lucifer’s neck, Grace’s neck—where I squeeze with all my might. The
contradiction of the soft skin and the crunch of the hard bones blend together and
become a sensation of enormous power.

The hands stop grasping at me and the world comes into
focus. Hale is on the ground, his face mashed into pulp, one eye bulging open
but blank. I straddle him, fingers still locked around his neck, and when I
lift my hands his head flops back like there’s nothing left inside to hold it
up.

The feeling of immense power dissipates and I’m left
with a sense of calm like I’ve never felt before. I rock back on my heels, releasing
him. “Hale?”

“He’s dead.” Lucifer stands behind me, one hand on my
shoulder. “I do believe you actually pulverized his spine. Quite impressive for
a human, Noah.”

I stare at the body, expecting guilt, horror, disgust
with myself—but I can’t find any remorse inside of me. It isn’t just
Hale—it’s all of the people who kept me down my entire life, finally
beaten. I turn away. I don’t want anything to do with them anymore.

I follow Lucifer’s gaze as he looks up. The rain’s
stopped, and so has the wind. But the sky’s turned a weird shade of purple that
makes me think of Hale’s bruised face. Above us, a couple of big, black birds
begin to circle, joined by more and more.

“What the—”

Lucifer laughs. “Oh, Michael,” he says. “Victory is
finally mine.”

“That’s not my name,” I say. I’m irritated—despite
the catharsis that came with killing Hale, the rage is still there, just etched
deeper, like a tattoo, and I’m itching to release it somehow.

Lucifer ignores me, still talking to the air. “You
ignored The One because you were too busy worrying about our dear, little Angel
to see it happening.” He kneels next to me.

“Nice work. Go home, Noah. I’ll clean up over here.
You should get some rest—we’ve got a world to take over.”

Josh

“You can’t kill Ms. Alvarez,”
I repeat for the tenth time in the past hour. We’re both sick of me saying it.

“Why not?” Lucy asks. Again. “She sucks. No one would
miss her. Today I asked if she had any family and you know what she said? ‘The
Lord is my family, Lucinda.’ I hate it when she calls me that. And really?
The
Lord
? As if. She’s covered in shadows. All she wants to do is teach me
about mass murders and stuff.”

I swallow my words. I can’t argue with that. Ms. A is
a murderer. But even though I know Lucy can’t technically kill Alvarez since
she’s already dead, it wouldn’t be helping my cause if she tried.

Unless—would it?

No—I can’t. It’s insane. I’m insane. This has to
be the worst idea any Angel has ever had. I’d be banished from Heaven for sure
for even entertaining the idea of letting Lucy go through with it, right?

Lucy cocks her head, her hair falling over her good
eye while the weird one watches me. Either it’s getting less creepy or I’m
getting used to it because it doesn’t make me shudder anymore. I consider her.
She has to have some good in her, I just have to get to it. Wake it up so she
doesn’t commit murder and lock in her status as the Antichrist.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.

“I’m thinking about what you said. Tell me more. Why
do you want to kill her? I mean, besides the obnoxious thing and the shadows.
Why kill? Why not scare her off, or fire her, or slash her tires or something?”
I sit on the purple chair and push off the ground, rolling toward the bed so I
can get as close to her as possible. I want her to think this through.

It’s easy to tell by her smile that she’s glad I’m
taking her seriously. “Because it’s what I want. More than anything. I
fantasize about it, Josh.” She says the last in a whisper and I can see the
blush boiling beneath her shield of hair.

“It’s okay, Lucy,” I say. “You can’t help what you
think, it’s what you do that matters.” Shit, I hope I’m not making that up. I’m
so out of my league here.

She nods and takes a breath. “It feels good to talk
about it. I can’t tell anyone else. They’d lock me up or something. I get
excited when I study those spells. All those possibilities, things only a few
people in this world can do. People like me.” She wriggles on the bed, clearly
still uncomfortable admitting this out loud. I’m in agreement. I wish I could
be anywhere but here talking about this.

She bites on her cuticle, glancing at the laptop open
on her desk. “I have powers, Josh. I’ve tested other small spells in this book
and they work.”

I clamp down on my initial urge to argue and follow
her gaze to the screen where a black-and-red website is set on a page called
“virgin sacrifice.” I shudder. I know there are Demons and Angels in the world,
so why not magic and spells?

“Okay, well, I guess magic is cool,” I say, focusing
on Lucy. “I mean, everyone imagines how great it would be to have powers.” It
is
cool to have powers. I remember what it felt like when Lucifer first gave them to
me. “But you could do lots of stuff with them. Think of all the good you could
do.”

She snorts. “Good is no fun. Then you run around
‘helping’ people and you end up doing everything for everybody else like a
pushover and you don’t get to enjoy it. Doing what
you
want no matter
what others think, that’s the key. People have to fear you if you want real
power.”

Her gray eye swivels and bounces in its socket while
she grins like a madwoman. I resist the impulse to back away. Maybe it’s best
Grace isn’t here. I wouldn’t want her to see this. “So you think no one’s going
to care about you hurting Alvarez? It will get you thrown in jail.”

“I want to see if it’s what I’m meant to do. I can’t
think about anything else lately. I’m not worried about jail. If I do get
caught, I’ll be so powerful they won’t be able to hold me. Everything I’ve read
says that if I do the killing spell, it’ll act as a sacrifice that will awaken
all the power within me.”

 “But you can’t take it back.” Now I’m getting to
what I really want to say. “What if you get the power you want out of it, but
then you feel sick about what you did? Because I can tell you that I will never
make up for the bad thing I did. I’m tortured by it every day.” Even as an
Angel.

Maybe I don’t deserve Grace’s love when I’m the one who
hurt her so badly not just once, but twice, as Grace herself reminded me. I
took away her choice. I made her fall because I withheld the truth.

“I get what you’re saying,” Lucy says carefully. “I’m
not a complete monster.”

Yes!

“But I don’t care about lives that are awful anyway.
The person you hurt was someone you loved. That’s what you said, right?”

“Yes…”

“Well that’s different. See? I’m not killing my
sister. Not that I love her all that much, but she is my sister.”

Not all that much
is still love.
I’ll take it. So far so good.

“I sincerely doubt I’ll feel that bad.” She pats my
hand like she’s soothing me.

She may not think she will, but I’m banking on her
remorse to come through like it did with her dad. It has to. And no harm no
foul, right? Worst-case scenario: she pisses off Alvarez by trying to kill her.
Best? She gives up on this whole hurting other people thing.

I’m letting a twelve-year-old attempt murder. I must
be insane.

Grace

My heart is shattered, and there’s
no gluing it back together. I’m once again near the gates, even though the only
place in the world I want to be right now is in Josh’s arms. But I couldn’t
stand it if I went to him and found him in someone else’s embrace, and I’m
certain that’s exactly where he is.

Crying should help. It should bring me some kind of relief,
but it doesn’t. I wonder if I can physically run out of tears. I picture myself
in Heaven for all of eternity, crying, Shona introducing me to souls as the ever-weeping
Angel.

I sink down as low as possible into the swell of mist,
wishing I could dissipate along with it, flow away to a place where I didn’t
have to think. Because when I do think, I keep coming back to the same three
people: Josh, Noah, and Kobe. Poor, sweet Kobe, who died because of me.

A new burst of sobs jerk out of me and I fall all the
way to the spongy ground, determined to disappear.

“Grace?” Mr. Griffith’s deep voice surrounds me and
threatens to lift some of the weight of the past few days.

I lie still, trying to blend in with the clouds and
mill of lost souls and greeters. But I don’t expect it to actually work and it
doesn’t. In a moment, his hands are on my arms, pulling me up to my feet.

“Grace. I’ve been looking for you.”

 “Can’t it wait?” I try.

He does a double take, which I’ve never seen him do
before. “I’m afraid we need to talk about what happened.”

“Oh.” I try to turn off the faucet that’s broken open
in my eyes and nose, but give up as Mr. Griffith leads me through the glittering
passage of night to his office where the same little café waits with two
steaming cups of coffee.

I sit, but only because I don’t have the strength to
keep standing.

“You’ve had a long day.” Mr. Griffith leans over the table,
giving me his full attention.

I snort and examine my hands. I keep expecting to see
Kobe’s blood on them even though it all disappeared when I reentered Heaven.

My head crashes forward onto the table and I’m vaguely
aware of the coffee splashing but not actually spilling as I cry some more.

Mr. Griffith sets his hand on my head. It clears some
of the weight, but I’m still a wreck.

“Kobe is safe,” Mr. Griffith offers the words
tenderly.

“He’s dead,” I challenge, lifting my head to look at
him.

“Yes,” Mr. Griffith’s dark eyes reflect my sadness.
“That cannot be changed. But he is here, safe and cared for, and that is
because of you, Grace. You saved him.”

“Saved him?” I spit as I say it. “I
killed
him!”

“No. The gunman is the one who killed him. Sadly, Kobe
wasn’t his first victim. But apparently he will be his last, again thanks to
you.”

I remember ordering the shooter to give himself and
his gang up to police. “I wanted to kill him,” I say—another challenge
for Mr. Griffith’s misplaced faith in me. He should kick me out. It doesn’t
feel like Heaven up here anyway—not without Josh to kiss away my tears.

“Of course. But you didn’t. It’s only natural to be
angry.” Mr. Griffith settles back in the chair with his signature, comforting smile,
which I suddenly find infuriating.

Then I register his words. “Kobe’s here?” I ask. “So I
can talk to him? I have to apologize.”

“He’s with his greeter right now, but yes, he is here.
You may spend as much time as you like with him. He’s quite the boy—so
conflicted, yet he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself for your safety.”

I sniffle, my tears finally drying. “Why did you send
me there?” I ask. “You said it would lift my spirits.” I’m getting angry again.
My stomach flips, making me feel like I’m on a roller coaster.

“Did it?” he asks.

I shuffle around in my seat, trying to get
comfortable. “It did. Until he died.” Here come the tears again.

“That was out of our control. And before you argue, no,
you couldn’t have saved him. It was going to happen whether you were there or
not.”

“So you
knew
? How? Why? Why didn’t you stop it
if you knew?” My head is too full to contemplate the questions I’m asking. “No.
Don’t answer that. Just…why send me?”

“Because he needed you to be his Guardian Angel,
Grace. It was a desperate situation, and you know that. You found him because
the darkness inside of him labeled him as a potential future Antichrist.” He
leans in again and a sparrow lands on the table by his arm, picking at a
biscotti. “If you hadn’t been there for him, he may have ended up elsewhere for
all eternity.”

I nod, staring at the bird. I wish I could be happy
with just the cookies and coffee, but I’m an Angel in Heaven and I still can’t
give Kobe back his life, or make Keira go away, or get Josh to love me. “I hate
that you let him die. I know you’re not supposed to mess with humans. But if
you know a person is going to die… I can’t do that again. I’m not cut out for
this. Ms. A picked me to be Cam’s Guardian Angel because she knew I’d fail, Mr.
Griffith. Why prolong the mistake?”

“Grace, you’re a Guardian Angel because you’re meant
to be.”

“So if I’m meant to do this, then it doesn’t matter
that I broke your favorite rule?” My stomach twists harder and I conjure myself
some ginger ale.

“You’re talking about your choice to defy my
instruction and visit your family?”

“Just Noah.” My heart breaks again when I say his
name. “I suppose you knew about him and the Demon, then? What’s the point of
any of this? Why wouldn’t you let me intervene sooner? I could’ve done
something, I could’ve—”

“No.” Mr. Griffith slams a hand on the table and the
bird flies away with a cry. “You couldn’t have. It wasn’t a Demon who changed
Noah, Grace.”

I doubt that. It seems Keira is my own personal
tormentor.

“Noah is a good person. He’s hurt. I didn’t know how
he felt about me. If I’d thought he was jealous, I would’ve included him more.
But he doesn’t realize that he’s hurting because I’m gone.”

“When people die, they aren’t allowed back for a
reason. Think about what life would be like if it was filled with the ghosts of
the dead. No one would live for the time they have. They’d be too focused on
the afterlife.”

I swallow back the thickness in my throat. “Noah’s
just one person. Why can’t I have a chance when it’s this important?”

“Because it wouldn’t matter what you say or do. With
Kobe, it mattered. With family? The connection is too complicated. To Kobe, you
were a kind person, which is exactly what he needed. To Noah, you’re a ghost he
already has complex feelings about. You are having a hard time believing the
truth, because he is your family. But you need to listen to me, Grace. Noah
makes his own choices. I know you don’t want to hear it, but he’s on a bad
path. It’s hard to tell you this, but you’ve made things worse.”

“Worse? Me?
But Keira isn’t a problem
? If I’m
so poisonous to my family then why didn’t you just say that?” He seems to think
I’m some kind of porcelain doll, primed to shatter if I hear the truth.

Mr. Griffith stands and the wind picks up on the
perfect little street. “I have said it. Several times, several different ways,
including just now, and you still won’t believe me.”

I deflate. “What now?” I ask, wanting to go to my room
and take a long, hot shower.

“Now? You deal with the repercussions of your choice
to defy instruction.”

I twirl the ends of my hair and try to hold back more tears.
Did he decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth? “Are you throwing me from Heaven?”
I ask.

“This is your first offense. Break another rule and I
will have no other recourse. Now, you are forbidden from seeing your family
anymore, Grace. That is the consequence and you knew that when you made the
decision.”

“You can’t take them from me! I’ll go back anyway!” I
stand to meet him, but I’m nowhere near his height.

“You won’t be going down to Earth for a bit. I’m
taking you off Antichrist duty for now as well.” Mr. Griffith’s voice softens
again.

I look at him, shocked. A bit? So it’s not permanent?
I’ll visit them as soon as he lets me go back—rules be damned.

I clear my throat. “So I don’t have to work with Josh
anymore? I don’t have to deal with situations like Kobe’s anymore?” It’s what I
wanted, but I can’t imagine not having met Kobe. And now I have no excuse to
see Josh. Ever.

Mr. Griffith sits again and takes a bite of a cookie.
“You can take the time you should have had before to get accustomed to your afterlife.
Get to know some of the other souls and Angels.” Mr. Griffith stands, but as I
rise, he catches my shoulder. “But Grace, don’t give up on Josh yet. Not if you
want to be with him.”

I still can’t completely stop crying. Maybe I did give
up too fast. Maybe it was too hard to let go of the hurt from all Josh did. I
know one thing, though—I can’t picture surviving another day, much less
an eternity, without him, especially if I don’t have my family.

“It’s for the best, Grace,” Mr. Griffith’s voice swims
in my head as exhaustion sets in from everything I’ve been through today.

“I need to get some rest now,” I say, knees wobbling.

Without another word, I exit the café and take the
passage back to my room. Josh’s silly mismatched couch greets me. I’ve made my
new room a carbon copy of the one we shared. It wouldn’t feel like home without
the couch. He doesn’t have to know.

I sink back into the soft leather and conjure myself a
cotton throw and a pillow before snuggling up with Tommy Two. My head pounds
and my stomach is only questionably better. I should go find Kobe. I should let
him beat me up or whatever he feels like doing to me. I owe him that. But Mr.
Griffith said he was with his greeter. And, if I’m honest with myself, I feel
like too much of a coward. What if he does blame me? I can’t argue against that.

I have no one left, I realize. No one but Shona, and I
can’t imagine facing her disappointment when I tell her what I’ve done. I don’t
even have the illusion of family anymore.

Snuggling farther into the cushions, I wish the
seashell from my grave were with me and it appears in my palm, smooth and
delicate.

Noah had to be lying. He wouldn’t have bothered to put
this near my grave if he didn’t miss me. I hold the reminder close to my heart
as I allow myself to drift off into jagged dreams.