The memory is still fresh in my mind. It haunts my every dream, my every thought, my every movement, and every fiber of my being. Who knows how long it has been since then but it still scares the living daylights out of me. I can hardly look anyone in the eye these days, with fear of them seeing right through me. They know I’m different than them, and I am. My mother raised me to be in the perfect group of a mixture of people, but I have yet to talk to any other of my peers. I try and dodge any attention that is drawn to me and duck into the nearest crowd to me. I am a new student in a high school. My father was killed a few months before my mother and I moved here and things haven’t been the best. Today is the second month of me being in this school, I’ve forced myself to keep track so I can count down until I am out of here. People pay me none of their attention and don’t try and speak with me on any occasion.
I walk through the large plague of people, dodging elbows and swinging book bags as people run toward their friends, and toward my first class, World History II. I take my seat in the far back corner of the room three minutes before the bell rings. Eventually everyone files into the room and finds their seats. The class starts with the plump, round, bald teacher with spectacles greeting the class and introducing our new chapter, Start of Wars.
“Do any of you know what some of the reasons a war begins within or between a country and countries?” he asks looking over his glasses as he observes the class. A hand rises in the front and it belongs to a small skinny girl with a ponytail.
“Lack of land?” she says and grins at the teacher. Teachers pet, I think and roll my eyes. There isn’t anything I hate more than a teacher’s pet. Well, maybe death and being here in general. Actually I hate most things. My father used to tell me that hate is something that makes us stronger. No, pain is what makes us stronger, in my eyes. Pain breaks you down to your core, takes everything inside of you not to give up, and then slowly brings everything back together in a way. The pain from losing my father is now only a dull ache in the pit of my stomach that turns into something that feels more like acid burning through me, when something reminds me of him. At the moment, as I think about him, I nearly bring myself to tears.
I sniff and continue to think. What else was it he used to tell me? Friends are only temporary, so don’t waste your precious time trying to impress them, yes that was one of the things, but not the one I’m searching for. I rack my brain in search for it but I can’t find it.
The dull thud now pulsates with the beat of my heart. My throat is tight and dry and I swallow and try to release some of the tension. It doesn’t help. The class around me seems to be staring at me and the teacher taps his foot patiently. I clear my throat and shake my head.
“What?” I ask and the class erupts into a fit of laughter. I can feel my cheeks heat up immediately and the teacher clears his throat and brings the class back under control.
“What do you think is the reason for war?” he asks and stares at me with wide, dark eyes.
“Uh… Lack of food, land, people, supplies? What else could be the reason other than ignorant people who just want to cause trouble?” I reply and the class falls silent around me. The teacher leans his back against his desk and stares at the wall across from him.
“Define what you mean by, ‘ignorant people who just want to cause trouble’,” he says finally and his eyes slowly find my face.
“Ignorant people who run countries. Leaders, presidents, government legislators, that’s what I mean. They put the wrong people in charge,” I say and lean back in my seat. He pulls his eyebrows together and frowns.
“And what would you do if you were in charge of an entire country?” he asks and stares at me.
“I don’t know, because I will never be in charge of one. This isn’t supposed to be a debate between a student and teacher, it’s supposed to be a class discussion involving all the students’ not just one,” I state and roll my eyes. I want the attention of the class off of me and back on the teacher, but he continues to push the subject.
“Where did you say you moved from?” he asks and raises his eyebrows again, his eyelashes touch the tops of his eye socks as he stares at me, perplexed.
“I’d rather not say. This isn’t some kind interrogation and I would appreciate it if you minded your own business and went on with your lecture, like you’re supposed to,” I snap and I can feel my hands begin to tingle, like they do when I’m angry and on the verge of snapping. He chuckles but lets the subject fall.
“War is started for many reasons...” he starts his lecture up again and I once again zone out. What a nosy old bag. Now what was I thinking about again? Oh yeah, my dad. I try and stop the silent slide show in my brain but fail. Random images and clips of memories involving my father flash before my eyes, like they do sometimes. I sometimes have a sort of flashback of things that shouldn’t have happened; I guess that's part of my curse.
The loud blare of the school bell rings through my skull and makes the broken images fade into reality. Everyone rushes out of the class, anxious to get out of the stuffy, humid room and I follow pursuit. Someone jabs an elbow into my ribs as they push me out of the way as they run from another person and makes me drop my backpack. People kick it around the crowded hall, some on purpose others by accident. My books and papers fly all around the hallway and I spend at least two minutes trying to catch my spinning backpack. When I do, the one minute bell rings and I groan. The hall empties and I am left to pick up my scattered papers and books.
A foot stands on a paper in front of me and my eyes follow the length of their body. Their legs are long and taunt; I can tell by the way their jeans hug the skin. They wear a tight shirt that clings to their torso and their arms are strong, for they are crossed across their chest. It isn’t a “they” anymore but a “he”. His brown hair is short and hidden under the rim of a beanie and frames his face perfectly. His eyes are a dark, dark color that I can’t quite tell from the angle I am at. His face holds a deep smirk. His looks are deadly and his eyes hold a dangerous glint.
“You should be in class, shouldn’t you?” he asks, his voice sharp as nails but smooth as silk. I stare at his face for a few seconds longer, too long now. He raises a thick eyebrow and his smirk deepens further. I dart my eyes back to the paper stuck under his shoe and attempt to pull it from under it, but his shoe has too much traction on the paper. I grunt and fall back on my butt.
“Come on, man, cut me a break,” I mutter and stand to my feet. He is quite a bit taller than me and I have to look up to be able to see his face.
“Why newbie? What’s the problem? This whole no friend thing drivin’ you nuts yet? Ready to give up on your failing adventure to get through high school alone?” he asks with a shrug and I frown. How does he know I have no friends or that I’m trying to make it through high school alone? I’m about to ask him a question but the late bell rings. My eyes widen and I kneel before him and yank the paper out from underneath him, causing him to stumble back and hit his back to the wall with a huff. His eyes are wide as he stares at me then I see an unreadable emotion cross his dark eyes and he gives me a grin.
“What’s your name?” he asks me as I pack my things into my bag.
“Ambry,” I state and begin to walk quickly toward my next class.
“Wait.” He grabs my shoulder and a static runs down my spine and causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up on end. “I’m Uriah. I’ll be seeing you around, Ambry,” he says and his presence leaves me. I can hear the squeak of his shoes, then nothing but my pounding heart in my ears. I hurry down the deserted hallway and dart into my next class. I take my seat, unnoticed, and I puff out my cheeks as I let out the breath I’ve been holding in since his hand brushed the bare skin of the back of my neck, and run my hands over my hair. It was him, I know it. Nobody can affect me in that way, it is spiritually impossible. He is the one I was sent here to protect.
↨↨↨↨↨↨↨↨↨

I am sitting alone on the grass hill around the football field. My encounter with the boy named Uriah was nearly two weeks ago. Since then, we’ve been talking in the hallways on and off. He seems like an extremely nice boy. I take a bite of my apple and sigh. I am almost too paranoid to get to the core of it. Today would be like any other day, but then I feel a presence behind me. I can feel their gaze on me before I hear their footsteps. I figure that it is someone walking past me to get to the football field in front of me, but their footsteps stop behind me. I slowly turn my body to face them, and I am met by a pair of dark pits for eyes. I take in a sharp intake of breath and if I’m not mistaken, he gasps.
“U-Uriah?” I murmur and his eyes seem to darken slightly. His teeth snag on his bottom lip and he shifts his weight from foot to foot nervously.
“Uh… Hey Ambry… Is anyone sitting here?” he asks quietly and I shake my head.
“No one sits with me at lunch,” I say with a shrug and I watch him as he lowers his long body next to me on the grass. We sit silently for quite a while, me nibbling on parts of my long forgotten apple and he rolling his bottom lip between his teeth.
“You don’t have to sit with me, you know. You can go and hang out with your friends,” I mutter and start to pull out grass with my free hand. He stares at me, stunned, but it had to be said. His presence is distracting me.
“Do you not want me to be sitting with you? I mean, if I’m making you uncomfortable I can call my other friends over and sit with us so we don’t have to sit in this awkward silence anymore,” he offers and I stiffen; great more people to deal with. I shrug.
“Whatever would make it more comfortable for you,” I say and he grins. He turns and whistles through his teeth at a large group of boys leaning against the wall of the school. All their heads turn toward us and they begin to walk in our direction, some being as intimidating as Uriah. The group reaches us and surrounds us, some sit a little ways down in the grass at the ends of our feet and others stand above or in front of us.
“So Uriah, who’s your friend?” The boy with the dark clothing and bright eyes asks. He eyes me almost hungrily and I inch my way closer to Uriah, him being close helps make me feel safe from the other boys gaze.
“Don’t look at her that way, Gage. And guys, this is Ambry,” he says and glares at Gage. All of the boys’ gazes are on me and I can feel my cheeks heat up almost immediately.
“Hey, aren’t you the girl who got mad at Mr. Simons?” asks the boy closest to my feet and I shrug.
“Yeah, he was being a nosy old bag and wouldn’t mind his own business,” I growl and look away from the group.
“Dude, that’s awesome! I’m Kasey by the way. You can call me Kase for short if you’d like,” he says and gives me a friendly smile. His hair is a little bit longer than Uriah’s and it stands up all over on top of his head. I nod and return it. Uriah bumps his shoulder into mine and points to the boys next to Kasey.
“That’s Johnny, Max, Rob, Jorden, Mitchel, Norman, and Toby,” he says and bounces his finger over the tops of the boys heads. He seems a lot nicer than when he met me in the empty hall. Max, Jorden, and Toby wave while Norman, Mitchel, Rob, and Johnny nod their heads. Uriah leans closer to me, so close we’re practically breathing the same air.
“And that’s Gage and Rich. They aren’t the best people for you to be near so don’t go near them if I’m not with you, and if they bother you when you’re alone, tell me and I’ll take care of it,” he breathes into my ear and goose bumps rise on my skin. I shiver when he pulls away and he stares at me with his dark eyes. I still can’t tell the color of them because of how the sun sits just behind his head and draws all sunlight from his eyes. His eyes move all around, from my eyes to my lips then down to my exposed arms and he frowns.
“Are you cold?” he asks and pulls his jacket from his strong arms, not waiting for me to reply. I try and deny that I am, but now my body is trembling. He slips it over my shoulders and it hangs heavy around my body.
“You aren’t very talkative, are ya’ mouse?” Rich asks from behind me. He’s moved closer now so he is standing over me and Uriah.
“She doesn’t like talking to people, Rich. Now leave her alone,” Uriah snarls warningly at the other boy and I shiver again. The tone in his voice and the emotions burning in Uriah’s dark eyes frightens me almost to my core. Rich glares at Uriah but doesn’t say anything else.
I can hear a voice screaming through my mind in a frantic attempt to warn me away from Rich, but I can’t move. Uriah isn’t supposed to be protecting me; I’m supposed to be protecting him from people like Rich!
I can still feel Rich’s burning gaze on me when the bell calls us back into the school. I strip myself of Uriah’s jacket and hold it out to him as we near the main doors. I toss my half-eaten apple into a trashcan and I can hear the other boys mumbling back and forth to each other, probably because of me.
“So you think we can be friends?” Kase asks me as he bumps his shoulder into mine and I shrug. I don’t really want to be friends with any of these boys, except Uriah, but I guess if I’m going to be protecting him, I have to become acquainted with the other boys.
“I don’t see why not,” I lie, and my tongue burns and my throat becomes inflamed. It becomes worse the farther I drag out a lie. He gives me a loopy grin and skips in front of us. The other boys have reached the front doors by now.
“I guess you won’t be sitting alone at lunch anymore, huh?” Uriah asks as we walk through the front doors and into the crowded and busy school.
“Guess not,” I grumble and shrug. The school is hot and humid as we squeeze through the crowd in the hallways. People stop to talk to each other and large clusters of people block some parts of the hall. Many people call Uriah’s name as we walk and he smiles and greets them, but he never leaves my side. I wonder if he can feel the pull that I can. It’s like I can’t let him leave. The one minute bell rings and we stand outside of my class.
“What’s your class?” I ask him and he raises his eyebrows, like it should be obvious.
“This one?” he says but it’s stated as more of a question. I furrow my eyebrows together as I try and remember ever seeing him in this class, but I can’t. As he leads me inside I notice that Kasey and Gage sit kidney corner from each other on the edge of the classroom. This is the only class I have where we can pick where we sit. Any time before I would sit alone in the back of the room, but now I sit in front of Uriah, behind Kasey, and to the right of Gage. The chatter in the room continues five minutes after the bell rings; one of the last conversations to die out is mine, Uriah’s, and Kasey’s. Gage sits silently next to me, and when the class ceases all of their conversations he leans over to me.
“I never noticed you were in this class, little cat,” he whispers. His breath is too minty for my taste. I make a small sour face, and by the way a smile tugs at the corners of Gage’s lips, he saw it. He doesn’t seem to be like Rich, maybe I can convert him from the way he is now to how he should be. Class begins and after a small lecture from the teacher, she hands out a worksheet and tells us we can work in a group if we’d like. Gage turns his desk so it blocks me in mine. Kasey turns his desk completely around and Uriah brings his onto my other side. I am trapped by these boys. Uriah gives me a cheeky grin then slips my paper from under my arm. I am practically finished with it.
“Dang, Ambry! I’m not even done with the first problem, and here you are almost done with the whole thing,” Uriah says and looks up at me a couple of times as he copies my answers onto his paper.
“She’s a smart little cat,” Gage says and leans across his desk and places his hand on my shoulder. I glare at him and shrug his heavy, hot hand off of me.
“Don’t touch me, Gage,” I snarl and he chuckles. He reaches in front of me to take my paper from Uriah and his arm brushes my chest. I can see an evil glint in his ivory eyes and I know he meant to do it. Maybe Rich’s influence on him is stronger than I thought.
“She’s feisty too,” he says to Uriah and begins to copy my work onto his paper as well.
“Uh… Yeah my paper isn’t open to the public,” I say and pull it from his hands. He glares at me as I hand the paper to Kase so he can copy it.
“So I can’t use it but you let these two?” he growls and lowers his head toward the surface of his desk. He looks like an animal ready to pounce on its prey. I shrug and hold my ground.
“I like them,” I state and slide into my desk more and cross my feet between Kasey’s legs. He gives me a small smile with pink cheeks then continues to copy.
“What are you saying?” he asks and gives me a challenging glare. I am about to answer him when Uriah kicks my leg under my desk. I look over at him, but his eyes aren’t on me, they’re on the teacher. She is talking to a tall, balding man in a suit. Their eyes look toward to me at the same time and I begin to feel self-conscious. I shrink farther into my desk and a chill runs through me.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Kase asks as he leans forward in his desk to whisper to us. Uriah shrugs, but I don’t provide them with anything. I know why he’s here; I just didn’t think it’d be this soon. The man nods to the teacher and leaves the room. She looks flustered and nervous. I just found Uriah and they're already getting ready to strike on me.
“Am, are you okay?” Uriah asks me and touches my shoulder. I take a deep breath and nod, but I’m not. They’ve caught onto me too soon. I can feel Gage’s bright eyes on me, and when I look toward him, I see a small amount of sympathy in his soulless eyes. Kasey finishes with my paper and hands it back to me, and I finish the last two problems with hardly any trouble at all. Uriah watches me from the corner of his eye as he draws on his paper, and I can’t tell what exactly he’s drawing, but the movements of his hand and his eyes mesmerize me.
“The bell's about to ring, Riah. Might not want to the devil up there to see what you’re drawing,” Kasey says and I begin to wonder if what he’s drawing is something bad. I almost laugh at the how Kase calls the teacher a devil, but they have no idea what a devil is. I can feel the presence of a couple of them in the school, but it isn’t my job to go out looking for them.
Uriah continues to draw until the bell rings. We stand and I tuck my paper into my bag and try and leave the classroom alone, but Kasey and Uriah catch up to me and begin to chat about how easy the test in their next class is going to be. I listen but I don’t comment on anything they're saying. We all separate to go to our next classes, and they leave me alone to walk around the halls.
I am about to enter my classroom when someone runs their hand down the length of my hair. A disgusting feeling creeps up from the dark place in my stomach and covers my entire body and I turn to slap their hand away but they grab onto my hand with their clammy, cold ones. I gasp when I see who it is, it’s Rich. I pull my hand out of his slimy grasp and dart into my class. I can hear him cackling outside of the room, and I know that for now I am safe.
The day goes by almost too fast. I don’t see Kasey, Uriah, or any of the other boys until I am leaving the school to go out to my car. I catch Uriah looking at me from the window of an old yellow school bus and smile at him. Norman and Toby sit in the seat in front of him and wave to me. I grin at them and slide into the driver’s seat of my car. The drive to my house is silent, other than the quiet bass of a song playing through the speakers.
When I arrive home my mother isn’t there; who knows where she is. I heat up some leftover Chinese food from the night before and take it to my room. I have no homework or cable so I sit on my small cluttered four poster bed and imagine scenarios of if things were different. If my father hadn’t overdosed on those pills and he was still here, what he’d think of the things I am thinking about. He never knew the real reason why I was sent back here, but I know he was always curious, he just never asked. He wouldn’t approve of the things running through my head, but they aren’t as bad as they usually are. I’m not thinking about my father, or death.
My mind reels around in circles and I can’t help some of the scenarios in my mind. The one that runs around in my mind multiple times in a second is Uriah kissing me. I just barely met him and yet he is all I can think of. In the image, we are sitting down at lunch. He turns to me and gives me a heart stopping grin. His dark eyes are the color of the night sky and they twinkle.
“Would you like to come over after school and hang out or something?” he asks and I giggle like a little school girl then nod. After school we meet and go out to Uriah’s bus and sit down in the seat behind Norman and Toby. They smile at us and give Uriah a knowing grin. The bus ride doesn’t last long and we get to Uriah’s house only 20 minutes after school. We go into his front room, even though I don’t know what it actually looks like I can imagine it almost perfectly. We sit down on his couch and he turns to me and grins again. He places his warm hand on the nape of my neck and pulls me to his lips. That’s where the image stops and I can feel my cheeks heating up the more I think about it.
“What is wrong with you?” a voice snaps and I close my eyes and sigh.
“You know, you show up at the most inconvenient times,” I say and rub my hands over my eyes. His laugh is familiar and makes my heart ache.
“Yeah, yeah I know. But that’s what I’m supposed to do remember?” he asks and I uncover my eyes to glare at him. His blond hair swirls over his ears and down the nape of his neck. His eyes are bright and his clothes are completely white.
“Shouldn’t you be with Lanna?” I ask and he shrugs.
“Nah, I don’t want to hang around her anymore. She’s super boring and it sucks cause she can’t see me like Uriah can see you,” he explains as he tousles his blond hair and I frown. He isn’t supposed to leave the side of his Target. He should be by her side twenty-four-seven.
“Orion, you shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous,” I tell him and he rolls his bright eyes at me.
“Why aren’t you with Uriah? See? You aren’t by his side all the time either,” he points out and I cross my arms over my chest, knocking my cold food onto the sheet.
“Orion, I’m a physical walker. You’re not, so you need to be with her all the time. Who knows what could happen to her when you’re not with her. The Boss’ll be super mad and you know what happens when Boss gets mad,” I say and he groans.
“Yeah, yeah I know what happens when Boss gets pissed. This won’t be the first time he’d be mad at me,” he says and from where I sit I can see him shiver.
“So why take the chances?” I ask him and he shrugs.
“It gets lonely, Ambry. You have no idea how sad it is when you see your Target with another Mortal. It isn’t fair that you get to interact with your Target and I can’t,” he says and flails his arms above his head. His hands hit my spinning ceiling fan, but nothing happens. His hands morph around the blades like some kind of mist through the headlights of a car. I almost forgot that he can’t get hurt in this world, but I can.
“Orion, you really shouldn’t be here,” I say and he once again rolls his eyes.
“It isn’t like he’s going to care. I’m not breaking sacred laws,” he states and my blood runs cold.
“He may not care, but I do. Now go back to Lanna before I call one of the Officers,” I say and a frown dips onto his lips.
“You’d do that to me?” he asks, hurt laced in his voice. I sigh.
“Yes. I know what happens when a Walker leaves their Target for too long. Remember? I know this stuff first hand,” I say and his eyes go wide.
“Oh my lord Am, I forgot what happened to you in your past life! I’m so sorry, I’ll leave you now,” he says and his body begins to dissipate into the air around him.
“Come see me again okay, Rion?” I ask and he nods, then his body disappears completely into the air, and I am once again left to my thoughts. They begin to devour my entire existence within minutes. My mother doesn’t arrive home until past midnight and I pretend to be asleep when she comes in to check on me. I can hear her sigh before she closes the door and walks down the hallway and into her own room.
  Too many things run around in my mind, and before I know it, my alarm is going off. I groan and roll off my small bed. I quickly straighten my long hair and leave the bathroom with only a sweater and jeans on. I don’t make an effort to get ready this morning; I just don’t have it in me. I lug myself into our small kitchen and whip a breakfast consisting of a piece of toast with peanut butter and jelly on it. I rush out of my house and out to my car. My mother isn’t awake yet so I don’t get involved in anything that would slow me down. I'd be arriving at school almost an hour early but I don’t mind; I can avoid anyone and get to my first class without being stopped. Hopefully none of the boys will be arriving this early and I won’t run into Uriah, Gage, and Kasey until around lunchtime. But I’m never that lucky.

  I take a deep breath and open my door stepping into the foggy, cool morning. The school is empty on the outside, and only two other cars fill other parking spots. Yawning, I step onto the curb and walk to the side door of the school. I grab a hold of the cool metal of the handle to the door and tug on it, it’s still locked. I tap on the window, trying to catch the attention of a wandering teacher or student, but the school halls are empty. I puff air into my cheeks and turn my back to the door. Another car pulls into the parking lot and stops in the parking space next to mine. The person exits the car and my hands go numb. A familiar head of  amber hair covered by a beanie turns around as he slams the door to his car, I can see the green of his eyes from where I stand.
“Oh, hey little cat! What’re you doing here so early?” Gage asks and walks up to me. My throat is tight and I can’t get any words out. “You okay? You catchin’ something?” He places the back of his hand to my cheek. The cool of the air has clung to his large hand, and a chill runs down my spine.
“N-no! I-I’m fine…” I stammer and step away from him. He bites his bottom lip then releases it to give me a charming smile.
“Well I’m glad, little cat,” he says and squeezes my shoulder as he walks by.
“Those doors are locked. And please stop calling me little cat. You make it seem like I’m small…” I grumble and he chuckles and pulls a key from his lanyard and puts it into the keyhole.
“Special access. Can I call you cat then?” he asks as he turns the key in the lock and pushes the door open. He motions me into the warm building and pulls the door shut behind us. I’ve never been inside a school when it was this empty.
“Uh… Yeah sure… Why are you here so early and why do you need special access into a school?” I mumble and follow him as he walks down the hallway.
“Well for starters, I have to. I help with the daycare and teach in the preschool after school, so I have to come in early to prepare for the kids,” he tells me as we round another corner. The classrooms on either side of the hallway are dark, with locked doors. I smile a little as I think of him teaching kids the alphabet. We walk alongside one another listening to only the sound of our footsteps.
"Why're you here so early, cat?" He asks me in attempt to lift the uncomfortable silence that has fallen over us. 
"Didn't want to really hang around the house this morning," I tell him and he nods.
“I understand that. I spend as little time around my house as possible too,” he admits and I look over at him. His lips turn down slightly as he stares straight ahead of us. His life at home must be really hard if it affects him this much just thinking about it.
“That’s why you help with the daycare, right?” I ask and he looks over at me with a grim smile.
“Yeah, you could say that.” We stop in front of the Teen Living room and he shoves the door open with his shoulder. I follow him into the room and the door slides shut behind us, and we’re left in the dark. I jump when my hip hits the corner of a desk and try to focus my eyes in the deepening darkness.
“Gage?” I ask into the darkness and receive only the slight scuffle of pages to some book I kick with my foot. I stumble and feel weightless as I fall toward the floor, but I never meet it. Gage’s warm arms wrap around me tightly, holding me only inches from the cold tile.
“Easy now, cat,” he cooes and I stare up at his dark outline. Are those… Horns? He sets me onto my feet and his shadow morphs into the others as he walks toward the door. Fluorescent lights above my head flick on and the room fills with colors. Gage’s hair sticks up in all different directions, with no beanie it looks ridiculous.
“Where’d my beanie end up?” he asks as he pats his fluffy head. I stare down at my fingers, fabric of a gray material weaving between them. “How’d you end up with it?” He takes the beanie from my hand, his fingers brushing my palm and my heart begins to race with uneasiness. He looks over at me and I once again see that small demonic glint in his green eyes. He lunges toward me and I let out a squeal as I hold my hands out to protect my body. His hands fumble with my head; is he trying to strangle me? Am I going to die? He steps away from me with a triumphant grin and I raise my eyes to look at what’s covering my head. His beanie. Damn him.
“You look good in my beanie, cat,” he says with a wink. My heart skips a little and I look away from him when I feel my cheeks turning crimson. “Now that's a lovely color.” He reaches forward and places his warm hand on my cheek and leans down to look me in the eyes. He leans forward and touches his nose to mine. My heart rate picks up further and he moves his lips closer. I close my eyes and ready myself. Something warm, sticky, and moist touches my cheek and his body heat leaves me. I open my eyes and he laughs.
“Tasty cheek, cat!” he laughs and I scowl at him. I wipe his spit from my cheek and glare at him.     
“You’re a jerk,” I mumble and walk passed him. He laughs a little and touches my shoulder as I sit on top of a desk. The room is covered in bright colors and has a big rainbow on the pin board opposite of where I’m sitting. Gage walks over to the teachers desk and pulls open a drawer, throwing a wrapped piece of candy at me that I catch in my palm. He takes one and pops it into his mouth and lets out a sigh. I reach for my bag on the floor, only to realize that I left it out in my car.
“Crap… Gage I’ll be right back, okay?” I tell him and hop down from the desk. He watches me as I move toward the door.
“Where’re you goin’?” he asks and taps the white board with the marker he has in his hand.
“To my car for my bag that I forgot,” I say. He shrugs his shoulder and turns to write something on the board. I walk out of the room, closing the door behind me. I walk throughout the twists and turns of halls that I’ve come to memorize these past couple of months.
“Oi! You shouldn’t be here this early!” a familiar voice calls through the hallway I’m in, in an echoing voice.
“You shouldn’t be here at all,” I call back and continue to walk without turning around. My footsteps copy one another, bouncing off the walls like they’re large, brick trampolines.
“You shouldn’t be here, Ambry!” The voice sends a blanket of goosebumps across my skin and I squeeze my eyes closed.
“You shouldn’t be here at all,” I call back again in a quivering voice. Rounding another corner I run into the familiar grey-green eyes that send my mind reeling in directions it shouldn’t.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says again, his eyes storming in my mind.
“You shouldn’t…” my voice trails off and I stare at his figure. He’s changed over the years. Gotten taller, stronger, slimmer; but his eyes have stayed the same, patronizing and deadly ever. His name, what is it?
“Come again?” he asks and cups his hand around his ear, mocking me. “Unable to find your voice after so long?” He cackles loudly and throws his hands into the air. I was right, his personality is the same it was all of those years ago, but his name, what is it?
"Why are… You here? You shouldn't..." I can't find my voice. Where has it gone? I need it to come back.
"You stutter a lot now, don'tcha kid?" His voice is booming and his laughter makes anger stir somewhere deep within me.
"You… Should leave," I finally get out and he places a hand over his heart in mock hurt.
"Is this such a way to greet an old friend?" he asks, squeezing at his shirt.
"We were never friends," I snap. There it is! My voice has found its way back around. He cackles again and hops backward down the hallway.
"You really are delusional now aren'tcha kid?" He hollers, spinning in a circle his arms outstretched from his sides as if he's a helicopter. I clench my hands at my sides. I can't let him anger me, not here. I open my mouth to snap at him, but he perks his head to attention and grins.
"Humans are such a nuisance sometimes." Then he's gone. Completely vanished, as if he were never here in the first place. Humans are such a nuisance? What did he mean? His name... What is his name? It's completely escaped my mind.
"Hello?" A voice calls from the next hall over and I shutter. His name, his name, his name. Where's it gone? Those ashy eyes... I know those eyes. I place my hands to the side of my head; it’s pounding.
"Ambry?" No, run away. Run, I plea with myself over and over again, but my legs won't move. That black head of hair, strewn around on his head like he went through a wind tunnel. That figure, tall, slim, strong; I know that build. His name, his name. I know his name. I've met him before, but I can't remember where.
“Ambry?” My knees buckle and I fall onto them, ears ringing. The footsteps that come from someone behind me can’t be heard over the screaming voice in my head. That name! That name! Ambry, we know that name! Those eyes! Those eyes! We know those eyes! That build! That build! We know this person! We know them! Their name! Their name! Repeat. Over and over again. That name, that name.
"Ambry!" I can hardly hear his voice. He grips my shoulder tightly with his large hand and shakes me back and forth, and I fall back into him. I close my eyes and the nightmare slowly fades away.
“Lucifer…” A voice whispers and a million of memories slam into my head. Just as I remember his name, it gets swept away with the breeze of darkness. 

I slowly open my eyes. Where am I? I’m laying on a bed in a room I don’t recognize. The door to the room is closed and a sink, toilet, and mirror sits against the wall across from me. I sit up from the bed, my head pounding and the wax paper on the bed crunching under me as I do so, and a jacket falls from around my body. I pick it up and stare at it, turning it around to read the back, then turn it inside out. Troi is marked in large orange letters on the bottom of the jacket. A baseball letter men's jacket? Who do I know that's on the baseball team?
I stand up from the bed and shrug the jacket onto my shoulders. As I pull open the door I am met with the daily chatter of the school. I walk down the hallway and into the front office and smile at the secretary.
“Are you feeling any better, Miss Russ?” she asks and I smile at her.
“I am, thank you for letting me rest.” I hold up the jacket for her to see. “Do you know whose this is?” I ask her and she tells me to turn it around for her to see the back.
“Oh yes, Mr. Troi brought you in here this morning when he found you in the hallway,” she tells me and I raise my eyebrows.
“Who’s that?” I ask and she laughs.
“Jorden Troi! He’s on the baseball team. Isn’t he a friend of yours? He’s come in to check on you three times already,” she exclaims with a grin. Jorden is on the baseball team? I would have never guessed.
“Jorden is really on the baseball team?” I ask her and shrug the jacket back over my shoulders so it hangs heavy down past my waist. The secretary smiles at me and nods.
“Oh, yes. I’ve known him since he was a young boy, and he’s always been really good at baseball!” She seems really proud of him and I smile. The door behind me opens and the secretary greets the person behind me with a charming smile.
“Are you feeling any better?” a voice asks from behind me and I turn around.
“Oh… Yes I am. Thank you for bringing me in here this morning,” I say and push the jacket off of my arms and hold it out to him. He holds his hands up a little, rejecting my offer.
“It’s cold out there, also schools almost out. So just go ahead and wear it and give it back to me on Monday” he tells me and I raise my eyebrows.
“School’s almost out?” I ask and he nods his head.
“Yeah, just give it back to me on Monday.”
“Why not take it now if it’s cold outside?” I ask and he laughs.
“You don’t have a jacket. Also, I’ve got another jacket in my bag,” he admits and I shrug the jacket back onto my shoulders. He’s so much taller than me. His hair isn’t long and is cut close to his head. His jacket hangs heavy around my body and stops passed my waist. His smile is straight and white and gleams in the light above our heads.
“You two are a couple, aren’t you?” the secretary asks and we laugh.
“No, just a pair of new friends,” he says and pushes his hand into the hair on the back of his head, cheeks pink. The bell rings with a loud squeal and the hallway fills with students in seconds.
"Gage has been completely insane all day, freaking out because you weren't in class or at lunch," he tells me as we walk out of the office. I turn to wave at the secretary who returns it with a giant grin.
"Did you tell him that I was in here?" I ask and he looks over at me.
"Hell no. He doesn't need to know. Let the bastard suffer," he growls and clenches his fists. I raise my eyebrows and cross my arms.
"Why would you say something like that about your friend?" I ask and he laughs.
"He isn't my friend. Never has been, never will be," he states and leans against a pillar in the commons. People flee passed us toward the doors.
"Then why do you hang out with him?" I press and he rolls his eyes.
"Uriah hangs out with him so I can't really leave. Plus, Kasey seems to like him a bit so I can tolerate him, but never confuse us as friends," he says and taps the side of his head with his finger.
"That's a little harsh."
"It doesn't affect me. He deserves it," he grumbles and I shake my head.
"No one deserves that," I say and he rolls his eyes again. That must be a habit for him, he's done it a dozen times since we've started talking. I roll my eyes in return and turn my back to him and begin to walk away from him.
“Oi, wait up!” he hollers after me and jogs to catch up. I stop and turn toward him sharply.
“Take your jacket!” I shout and throw it at him. He raises his eyebrows at me and I glare at him.
“Hey, you’re not supposed-" He stops his objections when my glare narrows and he can feel the heat of it. He sighs and throws the jacket over one of his shoulders, then turns and disappears into a small crowd of people without another word and I internally groan. Drama, drama, drama!
I turn my back to the way he disappeared to and walk for the doors. I push them open, but stop when I remember that I need to find Gage. Didn’t he tell me this morning that he teaches in the preschool after school? That’s the only lead I have at the moment, so I turn and fight the urge to turn around and go home. I walk down the same hallway as this morning and stop in front of the Teen Living room. Is he still here? I grab the doorknob, turning it slowly, and push it open with my right shoulder. The room is filled with a dozen or so small children, all crowded around a chair in the middle of the room. Sitting in it is Gage, who’s holding a large story book in front of him for the children to see the illustrations. He looks up at the sound of the door opening and a grin splits his cheeks.
“‘My, Mr. Bear! What a lovely home you have!’ said Lily as she sat on a chair. Mr. Bear smiled with big, large teeth and handed her a bowl of porridge,” Gage reads from the small sentences at the bottom of the pages and creates gestures with his hands. I smile slightly and take one of the small chairs from a stack next to the door. His eyes trail from the book in his lap to the children when he makes obscene gestures to go along with the characters. He finishes the book in a few minutes and walks over to me when he instructs the children to draw a picture of their favorite storybook characters.
“Hey! Where’ve you been all day, Cat?” he asks and smiles over at me. I shrug my shoulders and he raises an eyebrow.
“In the nurse's office. I passed out in the hallway this morning,” I tell him and his breath catches in his throat.
“What?! Why did I not know this? Jorden said you went home!” he says and throws a hand into the air. A little blond girl in a pink dress looks over and grins, tapping the little boy next to her. He turns around to look at us and giggles, his brown hair spiked high on his head. It looks an awful lot like Uriah's hair color.
“Yeah… Well I’ve been here all day… Just not here." I gesture to the room in front of me and he shakes his head. The little boy gets up and walks over to us, holding his paper to his chest, his shirt is buttoned wrong.
“Big brother Gage…” he whispers and hands the paper to Gage. “I don’t know how to draw it…” Gage reaches down to his level and draws something with his finger.
“Like this.” He draws a couple of circles but the little boy shakes his head.
“No, big brother Gage, I want to draw a pretty girl like her.” He points to me and my cheeks heat up. Gage looks at me from the corner of his eyes and smiles.
“Come here and I’ll show you,” he says, getting up and walking over to the table with the little girl. She looks up and grins when they walk over, then goes back to her drawing. Gage leans down to talk into the boy's ear and I lean back in my seat, folding my arms behind my head. The room is slightly cool, but not cool enough for a jacket. When I look up, Gage is unbuttoning and re-buttoning the little boys shirt. He finishes and comes and rejoins me on our chairs.
“That little boy…” I begin and Gage nods.
“Yeah, that’s Uriah’s little brother. His name's Jasper,” he says and smiles over at the back of the little boy. I wasn’t aware Uriah had a little brother.
“They look a lot alike. How long have you known Jasper?” I ask and Gage shrugs.
“I’ve known Uriah since we were five. In fact, I was there the day his mom went into labor with Jasper,” he says with a light laugh as he recalls the memory. I smile a little, but a feeling of unease sinks into my stomach.
“Big brother Gage!” the boy calls and runs over to us, his drawing held over his head.
“Yes, Jasper?” he asks and leans down to his level.
“Isn’t she pretty?” he asks and Gage nods.
“She’s almost as pretty as the real girl.” He grins at me and the boy giggles at my dark cheeks. The picture is of a girl with a purple dress and long blond hair. She has pink cheeks and she’s standing on the branch of a tree.
“There’s no way I could draw that!” Jasper gasps as Gage leans down and whispers something to him. He laughs.
“Yeah you can! Just do it!” he orders and Jasper rolls his big brown eyes at us before walking off.
“You’re stupid,” I grumble as the little boy returns to his seat. Gage looks over at me with eyebrows raised, his grey beanie hiding most of his hair. How does he get away with wearing that all the time?
“Why’s that?” he asks and I shake my head.
“Giving him an idea to draw that...” I shake my head again and he laughs.
“I didn’t give him an idea to draw that! It was Jorden’s little sister!” he says and points to the girl in the pink dress. Wow, small world.
“Jorden’s got a little sister too, huh…” I wonder aloud and he nods.
“Small world, huh? I’ve only got to know her because of the class, though. I guess you haven’t gotten to know anyone quite yet, have you?” he asks and I nod.
“No, I haven’t. Do you have any younger siblings?” I ask and he looks down at his hands that are in his lap.
“Yes…” he hesitates and I put all of my pegs onto the floor and lean forward onto my elbows.
“What’s wrong?” I press and the tip of his nose turns pink.
“That’s… A story for a time when we aren’t surrounded by small children,” he says with a small smile. I nod slowly and after ten more minutes parents begin arriving to pick up their children. I stand up and add my chair to the stack of others and walk over to Jasper. He looks up when I come near and gives a big grin.
“Hello!” he squeals and tosses his lunch box into the air. It lands next to him and he frowns.
“Hey, Jasper!” I greet and kneel down in front of him.
“Gage thinks you’re a pretty girl,” he says loudly with a large grin. Gage, who is talking to a parent, turns around and his cheeks turn pink as he realizes what he had just heard. He turns back quickly to continue his conversation with the man.
“No he doesn’t, silly!” I object, but I know that it is useless to argue with a child.
“He does! When he came over to our house yesterday, you were all him and big brother talked about!” he shouts and a couple of people turn to stare. I smile nervously at them and turn back to Jasper and place my hands on his small shoulders.
“Wait… What else did they say?” I ask and he laughs.
“So, now you’re interested! They just both kept arguing who gets you, but I think you and big brother Gage will end up together,” he says with a giggle and my heart skips a beat. Boy, if only I knew how right he was. He grins at me and a tall woman walks up behind me.
"Jasper, it's time to go home," she says and he groans.
"But mama! I wanna stay with Ambry!" he whines and she looks at me suspiciously.
"And who exactly are you?" she asks me and I smile nervously.
"Um..." I start but Jasper clutches my leg.
"Mama, this is Ambry! Big brother Gage's girly friend!" He shouts and I cringe. She eyes me for a second before a grin splits her cheeks.
"You're the girl Uriah and Gage were arguing about last night?" she asks me and I shrug.
"I guess so," I mumble and she slaps my shoulder.
"You'll have to come over soon! It'll drive my son and his best friend nuts!" she laughs and I smile. Someone comes up behind me and pushes something over my hair. I turn and smile at Gage. He grins at me and wraps an arm around my shoulders before turning to Uriah's mother.
"Hello mama Kiril! This is-" she cuts him off with a sharp giggle.
"Ambry. I know. This is the girl you and Uriah were-" He laughs nervously and nods to Uriah's mother.
"It was nice seeing you, mama Kiril," he says and pulls me away from her and Jasper. I can hear Jasper groan from behind me and I chuckle.
"Oh, come now, Gage! You gettin’ all shy around me now?" I ask and he narrows his big green eyes down at me.
"No, she's just trying to embarrass me, cat," he says and pulls me to a stop as he leans down to pick a bag up off the floor. The room is empty other than us now, and is fairly clean.
"And I can see that it's working," I say and his cheeks turn pink. If that's all it takes to embarrass him, I would have done it earlier. He's so cute when he's embarrassed. I scowl at the thought. Uriah needs to be the only thing on my mind right now.
"No... It hasn't," he lies and I roll my eyes. He takes his spot next to me again and once again his arm finds its way around me. His arm feels strangely comforting, and warm, but the ever lingering feeling of unease still floats above us. We leave the room and as the door slides closed behind us, Gage lets out a laugh. I turn toward him and he puts his head down as he continues to laugh.
"What's your problem?" I ask and he shakes his head at the floor. His amber hair is down and touches the tops of his eye sockets.
"Y-you still look amazing i-in my b-beanie!" he gets out between his little fit. I forgot he put it on my head. I lift my hand up to pull it off my head, but he grabs my hand, twisting his fingers behind mine, and shakes his head.
"Don't you dare," he warns and his green eyes narrow slightly, challenging me.
"What're you gonna do if I do?" I challenge and his fingers tighten around mine. He leans closer to my face and my cheeks heat up.
"I might just have..." His nose touches mine and my eyes flutter. "To kiss you," he whispers and my stomach tightens. He smiles a little against my lips as they brush mine, but he pulls back with a wink. My eyes narrow as I realize that I’ve once again been tricked by him.
“Don’t be so rude,” I say and sashae my hips. He follows my movements as I leave under his arm and spin down the hallway. I’m not to sure what exactly I’m doing, but I’ve got his attention, and that’s all that matters.
“What are you doing Ambry..." He gulps and I internally grin. This is exactly what I want to happen. I want him to get all flustered and nervous.
“Hey!” I slap his hands away as he grabs my hips. He grins and his green eyes shine in the fluorescent lights above our heads. Wow, I’ve never noticed the flecks of gray in them.
“I’ve got a great idea,” he states and touches my sides as he moves closer. My heart picks up again and it makes its way up into my throat as he looks down at me. “Let’s go on a date.” His eyes search mine and smiles when he finds no resistance in them.
“On a… Date?” I ask and he smiles.
“Yes, a date. Meet me at the park down 800 South; unless you want me to pick you up from your house?” he suggests and my heart sinks.
“No way. When do you want to meet?” I ask and he shrugs and steps forward more. I step back as well, as if we’re dancing.
“Let's say… Tomorrow at noon,” he says and I nod. I turn so I am once again at his side and we walk toward the side doors we came in this morning. A couple of classrooms doors are still open, but empty of any people. Strange, I think and shrug my shoulders. They must be getting something or having a meeting. As we leave the warm building a chill runs down my spine, as if someone’s staring at me. I turn my head to look across the parking lot, but there’s nobody.
“See you tomorrow?” Gage asks me as he opens my door for me. I roll my eyes as I plop down in the drivers seat.
“Nope. I won’t be here,” I joke and his eyebrows dip down toward his eyes.
“Why not?” he asks and I laugh.
“It’s Saturday, dummy,” I say and he lets out a deep breath.
“We’ll still be seeing each other, remember?” he states and my heart drops. He grins down at me before he leans down and touches his lips to my cheek, then he slams closed my door without another word. I put my car into reverse and wave to him as I drive passed his car. This is such a weird feeling. This pull I have toward him; it’s as if I can’t stay away from him.  He’s so intoxicating to me, like a drug, and I can’t stand it. He shouldn’t be able to affect me in this way. Orion would be so disappointed in me.
I pull into my driveway and groan when I notice my mother is home. I walk through the front door and she’s sitting on the couch with a bottle of water in her hand. She looks up when I walk in and sighs.
“Ambry, sit down. We need to talk,” she says and I place my backpack down beside the door, then walk over to the couch and sit down next to her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask and she shakes her head.
“Nothing, I just want to talk to you about life. We never talk anymore,” she says and I nod. She’s got a point there. We haven’t had a proper conversation with one another since my father’s funeral.
“What do you want to know?” I ask her and she smiles.
“Got any crushes? Maybe a boyfriend?” she questions and my cheeks go pink.
“Well… I have a date with a friend tomorrow,” I say nervously and she grins.
“Are you serious?! We need to go shopping then!” she exclaims and I roll my eyes.
“Mom, no way. It’s just a little get together at the park.” She frowns and scratches her chin with the cap of the water bottle.
“At least let me do your hair and makeup? We never do any girly things together anymore,” she says and I sigh. I can’t reject her, she was my best friend when dad wasn’t around.
“Fine,” I groan and she grins and shoots up from her spot before disappearing into her room. She’s so weird. What exactly have I gotten myself into?


I smile nervously at my reflection and my mom grins from behind my head as she places a tendril of hair into my bun. She steps back to admire her work. She’s been working on my hair, outfit, and makeup since nine o’clock this morning. She looks down at the watch on her wrist and smiles.
“It’s almost time to go meet your date! I’m going to take you to meet him!” she exclaims and shakes her hands in the air. She’s more excited about this date than I am. She takes my arm and makes me spin in a circle so she can see her masterpiece. The knee length dress she finally decided on this morning twirls around my legs. It has two large, pink flowers on white fabric, with a tan belt around my waist. The shin high boots squeak against my wooden floor as I spin on my heels. My bangs slide into my eyes and I flick them back when I finally finish spinning. My mother smiles at me and nods.
“You’re ready. Let’s go,” she says and pulls me out of my room. I snatch a handbag off my bed and follow my mother out to the car. Why am I allowing her to take me to my date with Gage? I sit down in the passenger seat and my mom starts the car.
“The parks down 800 South, mom,” I tell her as she turns the wrong way.
“You could’ve told me earlier, Ambry!” she shouts as she turns the car around. She drives the opposite way down the road and stays quiet until we pull into the parking lot of the park.
“You nervous?” she asks and I nod my head, looking out the window as I do so.
“He isn’t here…” I mumble and she rolls her eyes when I look over at her.
“Give him time. He’s a man, silly. Also, we’re ten minutes early,” she says with a laugh. I shake my head and turn my head to look out the window again, and there he is sitting against a tree. I smile and my heart picks up.
“There he is, mom. What do I do?” I ask and she leans across my lap to look outside. She grins when she sits straight up and squeezes my shoulder.
“Go to him!” she exclaims and pushes my shoulder. I slowly open my door and step onto the pavement. I close the door behind me and my mom speeds away, causing Gage to look up in alarm. His eyes light up when he sees me and a grin slides across his cheeks.
“Hey there!” he greets and stands up. He jogs over to me, a bag swinging in his hands.
“What’s in that?” I ask as he hugs me around my waist. He holds the bag up for me to see and smiles.
“Lunch!” he says and puts an arm around my shoulder as he pulls me along. We sit down on the grass under the tree he was under before. He pulls open the bag and hands me a wrapped sandwich.
“Uriah said you liked turkey sandwiches…” he says nervously and I laugh.
“Yes, I do! You must have put a lot of effort into this,” I point out and he shrugs. His brown leather jacket slides up as he does so and his checkered blue and white shirt is halfway buttoned up. His denim pants have a tear on the right knee and his boots shine in the sun. He looks down at his legs and smiles.
“Okay… Maybe I was a little nervous for this date…” he admits quietly and let's out a nervous laugh.
“I was too,” I admit and he smiles at my dress.
“I never thought I’d see you in a dress, cat,” he says as he bites into his sandwich.
“I honestly never thought you would either,” I mumble and he swallows. He gives me a big, cheeky grin and I bite into my sandwich. A clump of mayo slips from the corner of my mouth and Gage chuckles. I wipe it away with the back of my hand and sigh.
“This is really nice, Gage. I’ve never done something like this with a friend. You’re like a brother to me,” I say and his eyes turn ivy in the shade. He leans forward, grabs my arms, and presses his lips to mine, hard, almost possessive like. When he pulls back his viney gaze looks almost black in the shadiness of the trees. My cheeks turn pink as I raise my hand to cover my lips.
“I am nothing like a brother, cat,” he snarls and raises his eyebrows warningly. I nod quickly and scoot back against the tree.
“I didn’t scare you, did I?” he asks and I stay immobile. He shakes his head gently and his bangs fall from under his black beanie and into his flakey eyes. He flicks them back and his gaze meets mine.
“Did you just…” I start and a grin slips across his lips.
“I did.” His eyes glint with a sliver of mischief and he nods.
“Why?”
“To prove that I am not a brother,” he states and my heart sinks. My lips tingle under my fingertips. What do I do? How do I react to this? My hands shake as I grasp them together, then I stand up. His eyes follow me as I move and he turns his head to watch me walk.
“Are we going somewhere?” he asks and I shake my head.
“Only I am. I need to think about some things for a few minutes,” I say and he smiles.
“Okay, just don’t be too long. I don’t want you to get lonley,” he shouts after my retreating figure, and when I know I’m out of sight of him, behind some trees, I punch my fist against one, the bark cracking in protest under my firm grip and scream between my teeth.
“No… No… No!” I slam my fists against the bark of the tree with every word; the wood biting into the sides of my hands, causing them to prickle with pain.
“Why, why, why, why, why! This isn’t fair! I don’t understand what I need to do!” I seethe between my teeth and squeeze my eyes closed as tears threaten to spill over.
“I can’t handle this! Orion! I need your help!” I whimper to myself and I can feel someone’s gaze on my back, but I ignore it. Orion, I beg. Please, guide me.
I open my eyes after another moment of weakness and shake my head. My bangs fall into my eyes, and I leave them there this time. I know what I have to do. I walk back around the tree, and three trees away stands Gage. His head is down and eyes are closed, as if he’s listening to something intently. One of his eyes peels open as I come near and the ghost of the smile touches his lips. He stands up straighter and eyes me more carefully.
“Have you been crying?” he asks and I grab him by the collar, pulling his face down to mine. His leafy eyes flutter closed and I smile smugly. I feather my lips against his and step back from him. It takes him a second to realize that I’ve stepped away and we aren’t kissing at all. He reopens his eyes again and narrows them at me. A rumble of thunder shakes the world a few miles away and a flash of lightning strikes the Earth a few seconds later. I wasn’t aware we would be getting a storm today, or I would have brought an umbrella. I shiver a little and smile up at Gage.
“What is it?” he asks me and I shake my head.
“Didn't you hear that thunder?” I ask and he grabs my waist. A breeze sweeps across my bare legs and goosebumps feather across my arms.
“I didn’t know it was going to storm today,” he says nonchalantly and looks toward the darkening sky as it crawls slowly toward us.
“Me neither,” I admit and he smiles down at me.
“Well, since you didn’t bring a jacket, wanna walk to my place? Or go get some ice cream?” he asks and I shrug. Go to Gage’s house? That may be a bad idea.
“Let’s go get some ice cream.” He nods and shrugs off his jacket. He drapes it across my shoulders and I roll my eyes. How many boys’ jackets am I going to steal this year? His arm falls from around my shoulder and we walk side by side down the sidewalk. His hand brushes mine a couple of times before he finally laces his fingers with mine; just as we walk passed Jorden. He eyes our hands then his bright eyes narrow at Gage.
“What’s this? Cheating on Uriah, are we?” His voice stops us and I can feel my fingertips tingle. If he isn’t careful, he’s going to get hit.
“I would never cheat on my husband. We’re just enjoying the lovely company of one another, searching for a s*** to give,” Gage says, raising one of his shoulders and I lift my other hand to cover my giggle as Jorden’s cheeks darken with anger.
“I wasn’t-” He cuts himself off with a growl. “I really hate you, Gage,” he snaps and his usual grin splits his dimpled cheeks.
“Do you now? Well, whatever shall I do?” he replies with a challenging smirk and Jorden runs a hand through his short hair in frustration. With one last glare, Jorden turns and storms passed us, shoving his shoulder into Gage’s as he walks. Gage stumbles slightly then regains his footing, gripping my hand tighter, almost to the point of pain, but I allow him to do it.
“You alright?” I ask and he looks over at me, his cheeks forming his incredible grin.
“Don’t think I can handle myself against that guy?” he asks and I roll my eyes. Judging by the slight height difference, sports preferences, moods, and muscle sizes, I know Gage wouldn’t do to good.
“No, actually, I don’t. That’s why I was so worried when I saw him. He got really mad at me yesterday at school when I brought you up,” I mumble and his fingers twitch.
“Why were you talking about me?” he asks and my heart skips a beat.
“Uh… I don’t really remember.” His hand moves up and down slightly as he laughs. He stops to pull a door open with his free hand and holds it open for me to walk through. I smile with flushed cheeks as we walk into the heated building, warm air sweeping my skirt up slightly. The counter in front of us is lined with freezers holding dozens of different flavors of ice cream.
“Welcome to Icey’s Ice Cream Parlor. How may I help you?” an older woman behind the counter greets and Gage steps forward.
“I’d like a double scoop of today’s special please,” he says and the woman smiles at him.
“Cone or cup?”
“Cone, please,” he says and she turns around to pick up a large waffle cone off the table behind her. She disappears behind the freezers and reemerges with colorful ice cream stacked high in the cone.
“And for you, Hun?” she directs the question toward me and I shrug.
“A single scoop of… Chocolate chip mint ice cream in a cone, please.” She smiles at me and she leaves again only to return a minute later with my ice cream. I thank her and Gage hands her a ten dollar bill, telling her to keep the change. She thanks him and tells us to sit anywhere in the little, colorful shop. We sit down in a booth and Gage licks some ice cream sliding down the side of his cone onto his fingers.
“What kind is that?” I ask in attempt to cover the silence of the shop.
“Rainbow something, I think,” he says and pushes it toward me. “Want some?” I lean forward and take a bite of the ice cream. It has a slight fruity taste to it and causes my jaw to ache.
“It’s okay, but mine is so much better,” I say sitting back in my chair and he grins.
"Lemme be the judge of that." He leans forward, taking my hand in his as he does so, and licks the side of my ice cream. He sits back and smacks his lips a couple of times. "I think yours may be a little better, but only because you're eating it," he says with a wink and he bites into his cone. My cheeks tint pink and I put my ice cream in front of my face to stop him from seeing, then a light flashes across the sky and I turn my eyes outside. The rain has began, pouring down in buckets onto the road. Across the street, on the opposite sidewalk, stands a familiar boy. His molten gaze burns through the glass as he stares at me, and his black hair hangs down into his eyes.
“Lucifer…?” I whisper and my hand begins to shake.
“Hmm? Did you say something?” Gage asks and I peel my eyes away from his gaze and look over at Gage.
“Huh? Oh uh… No I was about to sneeze,” I lie and he hums slightly and my throat begins to burn. I take a bite of my ice cream in attempt to quench the burning sensation but it doesn’t help. Gage looks outside into the rain and his leafy gaze narrows.
“I figured…” he mumbles and I look into the rain. It’s become so thick that I can hardly make out the cars on the street.
“What?” I ask and he looks over at me and smiles again.
“Just talking to myself, that’s all,” he says and I raise my eyebrows. Did he see that boy too? Does he know that boy?
“That boy…” I begin and he shakes his head.
“I didn’t see anyone. You should probably call your mom to come get you. I don’t want you walking home in the rain.” I raise my eyebrows again and he sighs.
“I’ve got to go, so call your mom, okay? I’ll see you on Monday, cat,” He says and stands. My eyes follow him as he drops his half eaten ice cream into the garbage can and walks out the door without turning around again. My phone feels heavy in my hand as I pull it out of my bag. I dial the familiar number and let it ring as I stand up and toss my melted ice cream into the garbage can, pulling the warm leather jacket tighter around me. The lady behind the counter smiles humbly at me and I return it.
“Hello? Ambry, what’s wrong?” my mom's voice coming from the phone startles me and I hold it closer to my ear as I turn away from the woman and return to the booth.
“Nothing, Gage just left and I was wondering if you could come pick me up,” I say and I can hear her let out a sigh of relief.
“Of course, where are you?” Her voice sounds muffled through the speakers of my phone.
“At a little ice cream shop in town called… Um…” I look around the shop, but can’t find the name of it.
“Icey’s Ice Cream Parlor, dear,” the woman says and I smile at her.
“Icey’s Ice Cream Parlor,” I repeat and my mom hums.
“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute,” she says and hangs up the phone. I slump into the booth with a sigh and my eyes wander outside. The rain has let up slightly and I can see across the street again, and there just across the street from me stands Gage and Lucifer, talking to each other. Gage’s hair is down from the rain, matching almost exactly with Lucifer’s, their looks being almost identical to one another's. They can’t be twins, right? My phone buzzes in my hand and I look down at it. On the screen flashes a message from an unknown number.
So… They’re watching over you now?
Who is this?
You know me. You have for a very long time.
I look up from my phone to make sure I’m not being watched. I can feel someone's eyes on me, but I can’t see anyone. My phone vibrates again and I look down at the screen.
You’ve grown up well.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up and my ears start to tingle. They can see me? I stand up quickly, grab my purse, and run into the rain. My heart beats a mile a second and almost immediately my body becomes soaked with rain water.
“Um… Is everything alright?” a voice startles me as it comes over the rain. I turn around quickly to face Kasey. His multi colored eyes light up with the color of rain. “Oh, hey Am!” His smile brightens and he holds the umbrella he’s carrying over my head. Behind him, I see a familiar head of short brown hair, standing far behind us under an overhanging part of a shop's roof, out of the cold rain. His back is against the stores window and his arms are crossed over his chest, watching us closely.
“Am?” he asks and shakes his hand in front of my eyes. I shake my head and blink my eyes. His bright eyes search mine for anything out of the ordinary. When he finds nothing he sighs.
“Yeah, fine.” I look over my shoulder, but he’s gone. A car horn honks behind me and I jump. We both turn around and my mom pulls up to the curb.
“That your mom?” he asks and I nod.
“Yup. I’ll see you Monday, okay?” He nods and waves as I dart back into the rain and yank open the car door, sliding inside as I do so. I wave to Kasey as we drive away and he waves in return. 
“Who was that?” she asks through the patterning of the rain on the windshield and I look over at her.
“Kasey. Haven’t I told you about him before?” I ask and she shakes her head at the road in front of us.
“Do you know… Who his Guardian-”
“You know you can’t ask about that mom,” I cut her off and she rolls her eyes.
“Just tell me. Is his a Physical Walker or a Guardian?” she questions and I sigh and shake my head.
“I think it may be one like me, but I haven’t concluded anything yet,” I say and she nods.
"Who's jacket?" she questions and I look down.
"Oh, it's Gage's. I forgot to give it back to him," I state and she hums.
“Have you seen dad yet?” She asks out of nowhere and I look over at her. Her question is quiet, like she’s scared that we’ll be heard.
“I have.” I nod my head and she smiles.
“And Orion?” she asks and I grin.
“He was here Thursday night grumbling about my Target being able to see me,” I tell her and she laughs and shakes her head. Orion and I were friends long before the 'incident' nearly 44 years ago, so my mother knows him quite well.
“You’ve found yours?” she asks after a moment of laughter.
“I have.” I nod my head and she turns her head to me and grins.
“Who is it? Boy or girl? Cute or ugly? Friendly or jerky? Do they have any siblings? Are their parents broken up?” Her questions seem to ramble on forever. By the time she stops babbling, I’ve lost most of her questions and I step out of the car. We had arrived somewhere around the question game. The pavement is still dark grey with water and the air still holds the scent of rain. I inhale deeply and smile, remembering times I used to have.
“You never answered my question,” my mom says as she closes the front door behind me and takes off her wet jacket and shoes.
“Which one?” I joke and she gives me a fake scowl.
“The ones about your Target!” she says and throws her wet hands into the air. I smile and she follows me into the living room and plops down on the couch next to me, leaning forward so she’s sitting on the edge of her seat and stares at me. “Well?” I sigh.
“Uriah is my target. He’s a boy.” She gives me a look that says ‘well duh’ and I smile. “He’s very pretty, he’s very friendly, he has a little brother named Jasper who is in preschool, and I haven’t met his parents yet,” I tell her and she nods her head at everything I say. She sits silently as she processes everything I’ve said.
“So when did you meet him?” she asks as she stares at the blank space on the wall.
“Umm… Last month,” I answer somewhat unsure. How long ago did we meet? Everything since then has become one whole blur, other than the day I was introduced to Gage and since that day.
“Everything alright?” she asks and I shrug my shoulders. “You can tell me anything, Am. You know that.”
“Isn’t it impossible for a Physical Walker to fall in love with another Mortal that isn’t their Target?” I whisper quietly and her breath hitches in her throat. She already knows too much, so why not tell her this too?
“Ambry… What exactly are you implying?” she asks quietly and scoots closer to me so I don’t have to talk loudly.
“I think I have feelings for someone who isn’t my Target, mom. I have none of the feelings I should have for my Target. Everything is wrong, is something wrong with me?” I ask frantically and my mom sighs and places her hand on my knee.
“Nothing is wrong with you, sweety. You’re just going through some weird emotions-” I cut her off.
“No mom! I’m serious! It’s like he’s my Physical Walker! He has the exact same static that draws me to him like mine draws Uriah to me!” I’m shouting now and on my feet. Why am I getting so worked up about this. Calm down, I beg, but I can’t.
“You would never understand! Your Physical Walker died!” I yell, but the look on her face says that I’ve said something wrong. I stop talking and cover my mouth. Tears have welled up in my mom's eyes and she shakes her head before standing up and going to her room, slamming the door closed behind her. I walk to my bedroom, close my door, and slam my face into my pillow. We had finally gotten our relationship back to normal, and now it’s back to square one. A small crackle sound comes from my door, but I don’t lift my head up. I'm not in the mood to see him.
“I figured you were crying,” says his deep voice and I sob.
“I-I don’t know why I said it!” My voice is muffled by the pillow. His footsteps leave the door and stop next to the bed. He tangles his fingers into my long hair and sighs.
“I know why,” he mumbles quietly under his breath, but I still hear him. I put my head up and look at him, pulling my hair as I do so, and I narrow my eyes at his shiny blond head.
“What?” I snap and he shakes his head and smiles at me.
“Nothing. You’re much too pretty to be crying like this.” He picks up my chin so I have to look into his ocean-like gaze. He wipes at my eyes with the sleeve of his white sweater.
“Orion,” I demand as I shew his hand away from my face. “Quit it!” It isn’t a command but a plea as he begins to squeeze my cheeks together.
“There we go! Now there’s that beautiful smile of yours. That’ll keep him going for an eternity.” As he speaks his voice drops to just a little below a whisper as he gets to the end of his sentence. Keep who going?
“Who?” I ask and he smiles again.
“No one, silly. You’re hearing things, I swear!” He laughs off the question and I crease my eyebrows. I should be able to feel the atmosphere from him if he were to be lying, but I can’t sense anything. The waves flowing from his body are the same as always; happy, jittery, and a little mysterious; a dull blue pulsates all around his body.
“Why’re you here?” I ask as I sit up on the edge of my bed and wipe my tears away with the back of my hand. My dress has pulled up to the tops of my thighs and the jacket has fallen off my shoulders. I completely forgot I was wearing his jacket.
“Is it too much to want to see your face?” he asks as he sits down next to me on the bed.
“You’ve already been here once this week,” I remind him and he nods his head at my wall.
“I know I have. I just had a feeling that you needed me a lot more than Lanna right now. Plus, Tammy is there,” he tells me and I nod my head. Some Guardians, depending on their age and how many Target’s they’ve protected, get a spiritual pet. It reflects them and what they would do, so it’s pretty much their spirit animal. Orion’s just happens to be black panther named Tammy. She’s quite terrifying when it comes to protecting her Target or her master. He just got her last week if I remember right.
“How is it having a Shini?” I ask and he smiles.
“Well, it’s different, I’ll give you that.” He smiles at me and runs his hand through his thick hair. It hasn’t grown since the 'incident'.
“Don’t you wish your hair would grow?” I ask and his smile falls.
“Yeah, I do." He casts his eyes down and sighs. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
“Um…” I try to change to subject, but it’s too late, it’s already been brought up. I can feel his atmosphere change almost immediately from his happy one, to one I never want to feel again, an inky black mist wafts up from his fingertips, turning the room behind him almost completely dark. 
“Heh, it really has been a while since I’ve had anything on me grow, huh?” he asks and his eyes dilate. Oh no.
“Uh… Rion,” I say, but the situation has gone down the drain in the blink of an eye.
“It’s been almost 24 years, and I’m still stuck in the body of a fourteen year old boy!” I move off the bed so he can have his space. The waves coming from his body make me want to vomit, he shouldn’t contain this emotion.
“Do you have any idea how it feels?! Oh yeah, you don’t! You were favored by him and got another chance to walk the Earth. It isn’t my fault I got cancer and died! I should get another chance at life too! You use your chance so absentmindedly and you don’t realize what a mess you’re making out of it! Skanking around with all those guys when you should be paying more attention to your Target! That’s what you were sent back here for, or do you not remember? You weren’t allowed another shot to just screw it up again!” He’s so angry that he’s found a way to his feet. He’s hurrying toward me, arms outstretched from his body in attempt to strangle me. I think for a second that I’ll be safe, that he can’t hurt me, but I’m wrong. His hands clench around my throat and begins to jerk my head back and forth violently, cutting off my air supply and crushing my windpipe.
“R-Rion!” I gasp and claw at his hands, but they won’t budge. His nails dig into the side of my neck and I try to scream. It only comes out as sort of a gurgle.
“Ri-Rion, p-plea-se.” The edges of my vision begin to blur and my head becomes light. The pain in my throat isn’t as strong anymore, it’s numbing alarmingly quickly.
“R-Rio-” I don’t have enough energy to speak anymore. His eyes have glazed over and the blue in them can’t be seen under his wide pupils. His lips are stretched across his teeth in a devilish grin. Someone, anyone, please. Help me.

It’s dark, and I don’t know what’s happening. I can hear things happening around me, my throat aches, my head is throbbing, and my body feels heavy. Things sound like they’re falling around me, like there’s a struggle going on just outside of the darkness. Slowly, light fills the world with blurry images. Things are whizzing past me with a streak of color and my ears absorb jumbles of words.
“Ambry… I’m going to… You’re a…” With my vision still blurry and my hearing strained, I sit up slowly. The tussling continues for a few more seconds, then the sound of electricity slices through the air.
“Ambry!” Their voice is slightly faint and their figure is a blur of dark colors.
“Can you hear me?”
“What… Just… Happened…” The question comes out raspy and hoarse, it doesn’t sound like me at all.
“Oh my God… I’m so glad I got here in time,” they whisper under a sigh and slowly the colors come together into a figure.
“G-Gage…?” There’s no mistaking those eyes, it has to be him. He lifts his head up a little more and smiles at me.
“Didn’t expect to see me again, did you?” His voice is soft and light hearted, and deeper than the voice I'm used to. 
“Where… Why… What?” I stammer and grasp my throat. It’s sore and from what I can tell, it’s red and beginning to bruise.
“I honestly didn’t think he’d snap like that,” he mumbles and shakes his soft head of hair.
“I’ve never seen him lash out like that… What…” I trail off when my eyes meet his. He’s hiding something from me, isn’t he? “Gage… What’s going on?” I ask and he clenches his hands into fists.
“It was actually because you’ve been near me so much,” he murmurs and a chill runs down my spine.
“What do you mean?” I ask warily and his eyes dart to my door. I can hear it too, the footsteps rapidly approaching us.
“Don’t speak a word about this to anyone. Stay away from him for now as well.” With that he crouches onto his knees and my eyes shoot to the door as it flies open.
“What’s going on in here?! Ambry, are you okay?!” my mom shouts and pulls me to my feet. “Why is your neck so red?! Why’s the room such a mess?! What happened?!” She shakes me gently and I look behind me to give Gage a questioning look, but when I turn around, the only thing left behind me is my tipped over night stand.
“Where?” I ask myself quietly and look back into my mother’s frantic eyes.
“Who was it?” she asks and shakes my shoulders again.
“O- I mean… No one, I just tripped.” Why am I lying so much lately?
“I heard voices and yelling!”
“I was yelling at the book I was reading,” I answer and her eyes soften.
“Oh, honey. Try to be more quiet okay? I’m trying to get a hold of work.” She holds up her cell phone and wiggles it in the air before turning and closing my door. I slump back onto my floor and hold my head. What just happened?! I was so scared. I thought for sure I would have died, that Orion would have killed me, but he didn’t. He was stopped by Gage. Gage… I stand to my feet quickly and hurry to my window. It’s closed tight, keeping the cold air out. How did he get in and out of here so quickly without coming through the door or window? How is that even possible? Wait…
“It isn’t,” I whisper and turn around quickly. There is no possible way that he could have gotten in here. The window was locked, my door was closed, he couldn’t have gotten in here. Unless… I turn in a soft, slow circle, taking in the disastrous room. He couldn’t have… Could he? I sigh and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands.
“It’s been a really, really long day… I should get some rest.” I look at my alarm clock on my floor, it reads 4:15. It’s only another half hour before the sun goes down. Hopefully I’ll get a little bit more sleep than I’ve been getting the passed couple of nights.
But the thing is, is that I haven’t been sleeping because I’ve had the gnawing feeling of someone watching me; but not just someone, something. I can feel it staring at me as I try to find the release of sleep. It keeps me wide awake, and I can’t find it no matter how hard I look. There isn’t anything that is near enough to me to keep me that awake. My bedroom is on the second level of our two story house, and there is no roof below my room. Nothing can look directly at me from outside, and at night my door is closed up tight and squeaks when it opens, so I would know if someone was in my room.
I crouch down and grab my nightstand and put it upright on my carpet. After several minutes, I plop face down on my bed and sigh. What do I do? What just happened?
“Calm down, Ambry,” I whisper and take a deep breath. “Start small.” Okay. I had just gotten home and had an argument with my mother. I made her angry and she went into her room so I did the same. When I began to cry, Orion showed up and began to comfort me. I said something that made him angry. He tried to kill me. He almost succeeded. Gage saved me. It was impossible for him to have gotten in here.
§§§§§§§§
“Hey, Am. Everything alright?” Kasey asks from behind me and I groan with my head still against my desk.
“I’m so tired,” I whine through a yawn and he laughs, patting my head with his palm. My turtle neck slides down my neck and I reach my hand up quickly to pull it back up to my chin, to hide the dark ring of fingerprints all across my throat. He walks to the front of the room and takes his seat as our World History teacher turns around from writing something on the whiteboard.
“Let’s get started. Please, open your notebooks to an empty page and begin writing me an essay on the start of wars,” he says glancing over his glasses to stare at the class. I lean down in my seat sluggishly for my backpack and grab out my blue binder. When I set it on my desk a piece of paper folded up neatly falls out of it. I roll my eyes and stuff it back into the pocket of my binder. I don’t have time to deal with these strange teen novel mysteries. I twist my pencil around my fingers, then turn it so I can nibble on the eraser. What really starts a war? Well, wars that I’ve seen were started because a spiritual bond had been broken, but we are talking about Mortal wars, not spiritual wars. I hum slightly under my breath, then sigh.
Wars, wars, wars… What starts a war in the Mortal world? It’s been so long since I’ve seen Mortal’s go to war. The last war that I experienced was the end of the Vietnam war, but I was very young. By the time I was old enough to fully understand the real concept of what had happened, it was over, and before the ‘incident’, Desert Storm had just began. I allow the tip of my pencil touch the paper and it glides across it, and I quickly zone out, allowing my pencil to write as it pleases.
“Pst…” The hissing of my neighbor pulls me from my trance and I look over at his worried face.
“Yes?” I ask and he sighs in relief.
“You just kinda… Zoned out there for a while. I’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, five minutes,” he whispers to me as he leans closer so we won’t be heard by the teacher.
“Yeah, sorry. What did you need?” I answer and he smiles slightly.
“I was just gonna ask you how you started your essay.” His eyes glance at my paper and my eyes follow.
“Umm… I haven’t really started it…” I trail off as my eyes follow the lines and zigzags of the scribbled words I wrote down. He sighs then nods.
“Okay, thanks anyways, though.” He turns back to his paper and I look back down at my desk. Somewhere along in my trance, I wrote an almost full description of a war between a Fallen Angel and a Physical Walker. I’ve never heard of such a thing, I don’t even think something like that has ever even happened. The bell rings loudly and dismisses us for third period. I close my binder and tuck it under my arm and sling my bag across my shoulder as I follow the crowd of my fellow students out the door. Kasey catches the strap of my bag as I turn to walk down the hallway.
“Care if I walk with you?” he asks and I shrug.
“Won’t you be late for class?” I retort and he shakes his head with a smile, his hair flopping every which way as he does so.
“This is my teacher aid period, so it doesn’t really matter if I’m late. Mrs. Sherry would let me get away with murder if I wanted to.” He laughs softly and I smile.
“Then I don’t really mind,” I say and he follows me toward my English class.
“Do you get out early for lunch today?” he asks over the chatter of the hallways and I nod.
“As I always do. What about you?” I ask him and he chuckles, throwing his blond head back to look at the ceiling. I didn’t really think it was really all that funny of a question.
“I could go to lunch before lunch even starts, man.” His bright smile seems to out do the old florescent lights of the hallway that the building designers thought could represent the sun for students as they lock them in here for nine hours five days a week. I wonder who his angel is? It can’t be a Physical Walker, that’s for sure.
“Engrish, eh?” he asks and I nod as we turn to walk down the English hallway.
“Yup! My favorite subject of the day, actually,” I tell him and he sticks out his tongue as he scowls.
“Eww, that’s nasty.” He points at his tongue and I laugh, my backpack swinging against my hip as I do so. This feeling is great, I don’t know why I ever thought I could get away with no friends. I love my new friends, even if I’m just getting to know them.
“But isn’t Mrs. Sherry an English teacher?” He raises his hand and shakes his head.
“Shhh, no. Don’t say that. That isn’t something we need to discuss at the moment,” he says and I roll my eyes as he presses his palm to my mouth. I scowl and slap it away and he cackles, throwing a little skip in his step as he walks beside me.
“But this is something we need to discuss,” I say and he shakes his head.
“No, no, no. Get to class, young lady, or you’ll be late.” He pushes my shoulder and I laugh and flail my legs as he shoves me into my classroom.
“Later, Kase!” I shout over the bell and he waves over his shoulder at me. I laugh lightly and turn around toward my class. There aren’t many people in this college English class, so it’s really just used as a study hall by the students who have this class.
“Hey!” my friend Brad says and pats the fluffy seat on the side of the room that is next to him. I walk over to him and flop down on the bean bag and sigh.
“I really needed this,” I mumble and he laughs.
“I know, huh! How was your weekend? A rumor's been floating around the school that someone saw you and Gage Ruse on a date,” he says and my eyes widen as I look over at him in alarm.
“Really?” I squeek and he laughs, covering his eyes with his hand.
“No! I saw you two, dummy! You should have seen your face!” I sigh in relief and reach across the bean bags to smack him in the shoulder.
"Where'd you see us?" I ask as I lean back in my bean bag again. He smiles over at me and lays his head back on his shoulders.
“The park just before it started raining. It looked like you were crying against a tree or something. There was also another kid there. He had a hood on so I couldn’t see his face, but he was standing right behind you when you were standing under the tree by yourself,” he says and I turn to look at his relaxed figure.
“Another person? We were alone,” I say and sit up straighter when he sits up. He stares at an empty desk in front of us and I tilt my head to the side as I analyze his rigid posture.
“No you weren’t. Gage noticed him, I could tell. He was grinning the entire time when the kid reached out and touched you.” He turns his face toward me, his muddy eyes reflecting his worry.
“No one was there, Brad. No one was even near us. Plus, nobody with a hood on tried to touch me from behind. Your eyes must have  been playing tricks on you.” I try to laugh it off, but this really seems to be bothering him.
“I’m certain someone else was there. He touched you, and when you turned around, he disappeared. Just like he was never there to begin with,” he says, his worry evident in his voice now.
“Brad…” I try to dismiss the feeling of unease that has settled in my stomach, but it’s stuck to the edges of my throat like peanut butter.
“And when you guys went into the ice cream parlor, he was there waiting. He was sitting in the booth in the back corner of the shop, grinning from under his hood. I saw him, Ambry. I’m not crazy enough to imagine something like that,” he says and I sigh. Maybe he isn’t lying. What if he’s telling the truth and I’ve gotten myself into even more trouble than I’m already in?
“Listen, Brad. I’m not saying you’re crazy. All I’m saying is if you’re seeing someone following me, you need to come up and tell me when it happens, not in English class,” I say and his eyebrows unknot slightly. Just calm down, little Mortal. This isn’t something you need to be involving yourself with. He lets out a deep breath, then leans back into his bean bag again.
“You’re right on that one. I should have brought it up when I noticed him at the park.” I let out a small sigh of relief and my eyes scan the practically empty room, making sure that we aren’t being listened to. If Gage and myself were being followed by someone in a hood, it’s a large possibility that it was an Officer. If they find out that I wasn’t with my Target in my available time, they’ll replace me with someone else and make me a Guardian.
“But seriously, though. You’re going after Gage?” he asks me and I shrug my shoulders.
“I’m not going after anyone,” I answer him and I can see him roll his eyes.
“Well, anyways, I wish you luck with that. My older sister tried going after him, but he wasn’t interested in her or any other girl. It seems that he’s found some interest in you though,”  he says with eyebrows raised and I flip my bangs out of my eyes.
“Maybe-”
“Maybe?” He cuts me off with a scoff. “After only two weeks of knowing each other, you’ve got him wrapped around your finger! He’d probably kill for you. You’re the only thing I hear him and Uriah talk about in astronomy,” he mumbles and shakes his light hair side to side on his head. He is quite attractive, if I had eyes for Mortals. Isn’t Gage Mortal, though? My inner self asks and I internally nod. She’s got a better point in this than I do.  
“You have astronomy with Uriah?” I ask in attempt to ward off the ever being presence of Gage.
“So you’re after lover boy too, huh? Well, I also wish you luck with that. He’s got so many girls’ eyes on him,” he says then pauses to pick at his finger nail. “There’s no way they’ll let you through to even get a glimpse of him.”
“Well the thing is… Is that we’ve been friends for a month or so now…” He looks up from his worn down nailbeds.
“You’re friends with him? How’d you manage to do that?” he asks and I shrug again. There’s no way I could tell him the real reason we became friends.
“I just… Ran into him coming to this class-”
“Are you talking about that day you showed up like, ten minutes late for class? What were you two doing? Playing bump-bump where no one could see you?” he asks and suggestively raises one of his eyebrows at me. I roll my eyes at him and he grins at me.
“No you idiot! I told you that I lost my backpack in the hallway and I lost almost everything, remember? Yeah, that’s the day I met him,” I say and he leans forward and puts his elbows onto his knees and leans into them.
“I recall this, but you never said it was Uriah!” he shouts and throws his hands into the air, hitting himself in the chin as he does so. His cheeks turn pink as he rubs his chin with his palm. I laugh and shake my head.
“You’re so stupid sometimes, you know that?” I point at his chin with my finger and he glares at me.
“You’re the one who’s falling for Gage,” he snaps and sticks out his tongue.
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask and he rolls his muddy eyes at me again.
“Duh! He will hurt you, and god knows how much that’ll mess you up.” He crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. My throat tightens and I turn my eyes away from him. Why is his words hurting me so much?
“Look, Am. I just don’t want you to get hurt, and especially not by him. I’d hate to have to kill a guy as mysterious as him. He’s probably a demon and will come back and possess me or something.” He mumbles the last part quietly and I can feel my bottom lip twitch.
“Stop talking, Brad. You’re getting annoying,” I snap and I cover my mouth as soon as the words escape, but it’s too late. His lips turn down and he raises a hand.
“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry. I’ll shut up now.” He closes one of his eyes and shakes his head. I feel so bad, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to apologize.

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

“Another date?” I hiss at Gage and he nods his head quickly, a grin sliding smoothly across his dimpled cheeks. We’re standing against the wall on the side of the gym. One of Gage’s hands is laid on my hip and the other is on the side of my head, almost pinning me to the wall.
"Yes another date," he says and smiles down at me. His green eyes bore into mine and I can feel that feeling of unease settle into my stomach again. It never seems to go away when he’s around.
“Well… The last one we had kind of-”
“I know, it sucked, you don’t need to remind me. This one will be different, I promise. Kasey and Uriah will be coming too,” he says and my eyes widen. He c***s his head slightly to the side, his beanie flopping to the other side of his amber head. I’ve never seen him without it, even during school he’s got it on his head.
“Umm… Well… I’m pretty busy for the next couple of weeks…” I trail off when I look down at the ground, his figure casting a shadow across my face.
“You shouldn’t lie, Cat. Your face gets really red when you do,” he says and grips my chin with his fingers, forcing me to look up at him. “And these beautiful eyes of yours turn almost silver.” His eyes entrap me like his arms do when he wraps his arms around my waist.
“Where are we going?” The words form and pull themselves from my mouth on their own. He smiles down at me and my heart skips in my chest.
“We’re going to an amusement park. We’ll pick you up tomorrow at your house.” I shake my head hard and he raises an eyebrow at me.
“No?” he asks and I nod my head, pushing my palm against his chest in attempt to get him to back up. It does nothing.
“My mom will be home…” I trail off when he grasps my chin in his fingers again.
“Well, I am planning on meeting her before I take you out on another date, you are aware of this aren’t you?” My fingers go cold as he grasps them with his other hand, holding my hand up to his stubble covered face. I shake my head and he smiles, nodding against the back of my hand. Sighing in defeat I finally nod and a gut-wrenching grin slips across his lips, before he presses them to the palm of my hand in a gentle gesture that leaves my head floating and my heart in the pit of my stomach.
“Great! I’ll be there in the morning to pick you up, early.” He drops my hand back to my side and steps away from me, making my body feel weak and cold. My hand begins to lift itself into the air, toward where he is standing, his head turned toward someone that had said his name, but I stop it and force it back to my side before he can realize how weak he leaves me. When he glances over at me, I pretend to busy myself with strands of my hair that have fallen out of my ponytail. A small smile slips across his cheeks before he turns around to greet Kasey and Uriah, who are walking toward us.
“So? Have you decided to come with us, Am?” Uriah asks me and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me away from the safety and security of the wall. I can feel Gage’s heavy gaze on the side of my face when I look up to meet Uriah’s eyes.
“Yeah, I’m planning on going,” I reply and a grin slides across his face. His hand on my shoulder tightens before he releases me and I slump back against the wall again, waiting for them to leave so Gage and I can be alone. And almost to the answer to the prayer I didn’t mean to send, the boys wave goodbye and leave us standing alone, out of sight of the world. Gage gives me a smile that makes me think that he could hear the prayer as well, it’s a knowing smile that makes my palms sweat and my throat burn. I cast my eyes down to prevent him from reading me any further, to keep him from seeing the guilt that I know is evident in my eyes, and he takes my hand again, kissing my knuckles gently.
“What’s wrong, Cat?” he asks, the knowing twinkle of a secret peeking through under his long lashes. I refuse to meet his gaze.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I mumble and his chuckle vibrates the back of my hand. Without looking up I know he’s watching me. Waiting for me to meet his poisonous gaze so he can tell what I’m feeling, but I won’t meet his eyes. I can’t bring myself to do it. When I feel his soft lips against mine, my stomach jumps and the feeling of unease threatens to throw bile into my throat. Against my own will, I lean into the kiss and wrap my arms around his shoulders. His hair tickles my fingertips as they find their ways into it, tangling themselves unwillingly under his beanie. His tongue touches my lip and that’s when I decide enough is enough, and pull away from him, my body pulling me back into his arms even though I don’t want it to. He smiles down at me, but his eyes hold something else in them, something that his lips can’t say. A small glimmer, a flake of a secret, something that he shouldn’t possess, because I’ve seen the same glimmer in Orion’s eyes, I saw that flake in my father’s eyes. He told me that secret, then popped the cap on the pill bottle and ate every single one of my mom’s sleeping pills, and his eyes closed as he slept the eternal sleep that our kind shouldn’t face.
His eyes shimmy in the fleeting light of the day as the sun dips behind a dark pair of rain clouds, and his eyes follow mine as they move toward the sky to watch a flash of lightning dance across the dark canvas that stares down at us. A soft crackle follows it, and I know that Orion is somewhere near, watching us. My eyes scan the surrounding area as raindrops begin to free fall  down from the sky, but I can’t find him. The only person I spot is a boy under the old apple tree, his hood pulled over his eyes, but I can feel him watching us. My cheeks go cold as an unwanted feeling of dread fills my stomach. I can’t feel Gage’s heavy hand on my waist, or hear his voice as he says my name, the only thing I can register in my dismayed state is the sting of my body, it pulsates through my chest, into my arms, and down through my legs. My body shakes, but it’s not on its own. It’s because Gage is shaking too, just as much or even more than I myself am.
When I look up, his eyes have turned a color I’ve never seen before, a color that words cannot describe. His hand has tightened around my hip and the other has found its way up toward my throat, slowly climbing under the collar of my sweatshirt. When I try to lift my hand up to stop it, I can’t move them. I’m completely frozen to the wall. His eyes look down at me, and they’re not his at all. A thick, metallic silver has settled over his usual bright green, they glimmer with the strongest twinkle of want and need that it makes me want to be sick. His hand slips into my shirt and I try once again to push him off of me, but I am immobile, frozen. My arms tingle, and when I look down, I notice another hand is laid on it, holding on so tightly that I can feel my arm begin to bruise.
“G-Gage, please stop!” I attempt to shout, but it comes out a little less than a whisper, barely audible, but he hears it and his movements stop almost immediately.  The heavy grasp of the stranger’s hand dissipates with the breeze that chills my cheeks, and Gage rips his hand back to himself, gasping with eyes wide as he realizes what he was trying to do.
“I- I…” he tries to say but it’s as if the words are caught on the edges of his throat like peanut butter. He closes his lips and without another word, he turns and hurries into the rain, disappearing almost immediately, being swallowed almost completely by the rain. His body is nothing but a dark outline in the show in front of me.
“I’m sorry…” The words float through the melody of the rain around me and leaves me shaking through the heavy jacket that’s draped around my shoulders that wasn’t there to begin with. I clutch the ends of it and hold it closer to me, inhaling Gage’s scent that surrounds me like a heavy haze that blurs my vision and makes my head spin. How can he affect me so negatively and yet make my body react so strangely?
 

Once inside the safety of my car, I start the engine with one swift movement, pull it out of park, and peel out of my parking space, nearly hitting one of the janitors that I knew was there even before I saw him. Once out on the main road and away from the school grounds, soaring across the wet pavement, and toward a destination that is unknown to myself, I sigh loudly and run my fingers through my knotted hair, tossing the jacket into the passenger seat that's now occupied by Orion's tired and worn down body.
"What do you want," I snarl and he flinches farther into the pink seat covers. His usually pure white outfit is covered in something that seems to be dark dirt, but I’m not too sure. He shakes his head softly, his fluffy hair being replaced by the hood of his dark sweatshirt.
“Where’d you get those clothes…” I trail off when I meet his hazy eyes as I come to a stop at a red light. His eyelashes are stuck together by dry tears and the blue has turned ocean-like, bright and swaying in the glimmering raindrops on the windshield.
“Where are your holy clothes?” I ask and he just shakes his head and tears his eyes away from mine. When I reach over to touch his hand, mine lies softly on top of his warm ones, almost as if he’s actually there. I jerk my arm back and return my eyes to the road, me being the only other person out at the moment on the quiet rural roads that lead back to my house. I shouldn’t be able to touch him in this world, even if I’m a holy being, I can’t touch him myself. He has to touch me, directly and he has to mean it or I can’t feel it. I’m perplexed at the moment, so deep in thought that I don’t register that a hooded boy has stepped into the road in front of me, but when my car hits him his eyes meet mine as my car goes right through him. I stomp hard on the brakes and I skid to a hard stop, my car rotating in almost a full circle. I take a deep breath and throw open my door, stepping into the heavy rain. It’s so thick that I almost lose my own car in the storm. I glance around me, spinning in a circle to see clearly, but nothing helps. There’s too much rain to see anything.
“My, little doll. It’s been a while,” a voice whispers over the rain and my heart freezes, standing still for at least three beats before picking back up at an abnormal rate. That voice, I’d know it anywhere. I’ve heard it whispering to me through crowds, saying things I couldn’t make out, but now it’s like he’s standing right beside me. I step back toward my car, and when I bump into something, I turn to pull open the door, but it isn’t a car, and it isn’t raining anymore. The sun shines down on me in heavy rays, and the field I stand in engulfs me in the deep scent of roses.
“Do you remember this place?” asks the voice, and I turn sharply in the direction it comes from. He sits against the stump of an old tree, one of his eyes are closed while the other watches me. His lips curl into a familiar smile, and my throat tightens on its own.
“Kallon…? W-why… You… How?” Is all I can push through my throat. His right eye twitches, before he closes it to sigh.
“I’ve missed seeing your face, Ambry,” he says and stands up, both of his eyes still closed. I shake my head, and even though his eyes are closed, I know that he can still see me. He smiles and opens his eyes, suddenly standing right in front of me. I gasp and he pushes my shoulders hard and I fall back onto something soft and fluffy. I place my hand down, and I know that I’m laying on a bed. His hands are placed on either side of my head, and his one violet eye stares down at me. The blue of his left eye stings my heart with memories that I shouldn’t have, memories of what happened in my past life. He’s the reason I died, he’s the reason I am like I am now.
“I’ve missed looking down at your helpless body,” he whispers, a seductive smile sliding smoothly across his lips. This smile used to make me weak at the knees, make my cheeks turn the darkest shade of red, and it still seems to have this effect on me. Everywhere he touches is on fire, my fingers claw at the soft bed sheet below me. His teeth nip at my neck, and at one point he begins to suck on my throat, marking me with his sign, something that will ward any threat away from his property. He pulls back and smiles down at me.
“Now he won’t be getting any closer to you,” he whispers and stands up from the bed. “Close your eyes, Ambry.” His voice is in my ear, and my eyes close on their own, following his instructions as he says them. He steps away from me, and with a soft sigh, the world around me turns cold, and when I open my eyes, I’m sitting in my car, my head laid against the steering wheel. I’m parked outside a house I don’t recognize, and the rain still falls in buckets across my windshield. I look around my car in confusion, a bruise catching my attention in my rearview mirror. Someone taps gently on my window, and when I turn to it, a figure stands as a dark outline in the rain.
“Is everything alright in there?” calls a voice over the rain and I crack the window slightly.
“Yes, everything is fine,” I say back, and the person steps toward the car.
“Are you sure?” Their face is close enough to the window for me to see almost completely. Their dark hair sits lopsided on their head, and the smirk that crosses their lips makes the hair on my arms stand up on end.
“Oh, it’s you Mouse,” Rich says and leans his arms against my car. My eyes go wide and I’m half tempted to roll up the window and drive away, but for some reason I don’t.
“How’s Gage? I haven’t seen him since he met you.” He raises his eyebrows as he waits for my answer. The rain still falls heavy, and Rich seems almost soaked to the bone, but it doesn’t effect him.
“Uh… H-He’s good,” I mumble and my hands find their way back to the steering wheel. Why am I here?
“That’s good. Say, Mouse? Wanna come inside?” he asks and gestures back toward the house. I press my lips hard together then shake my head.
“I-I’m actually just going to meet Uriah…” I trail off and bite my lip as my throat begins to burn again. Dammit! Just let me leave!
“You know, you’re atmospheres changes to a dark green when you lie,” he says and leans closer to the window. My fingers go cold and I turn toward him quickly in alarm.
“W-what?” I whisper and he grins.
“Without Gage with you, it’ll make it so much easier for me to get this damn job done and kill you.” His hand has found its way into my car and it’s reaching for me. I back farther into my car, and reach for window crank to stop his arm from reaching me. He smirks when the window gets to his arm and withdraws it, rubbing his hands together as he backs away from my car.
“Guess I’ll be seeing you soon then, Mouse,” he says over the rain before turning and disappearing into the shower. I turn the key in the ignition and drive away as quickly as I can, my breath trickling out through my parted lips.
“Good Christ, what is going on?” I whisper and my fingertips turn black as I lose feeling in them. “Dammit… Sorry, sorry. It won’t happen again,” I say to my steering wheel and the feeling comes back almost immediately. It doesn’t take long for me to find my way back to the highway, nor does it take me long to find the school as well. Glancing down at my radio, I realize how late it really is. 4:45. I left the school just before noon. What happened in that time is something that runs on repeat through my throbbing head. I just need to get home, then I can try to sort everything out there.

Once I arrive home, I stow myself away in my room. I hold my phone tightly in my hand as I contemplate who I should tell. I click the name that has most recently been added and hold it to my ear, listening to it ring.


“Hello?” asks his voice and the hairs on my arms stand up.


“I saw him today. He was there and he touched me. The boy I’ve been telling you about, he’s here, and he’s following me, Gage,” I whisper. I lay back onto my bed, nearly taken over by emotion.


“I’ll be over in a few minutes, okay?” he asks, and without waiting for me to reply, he hangs up. I slap my hand against my mattress, it bouncing up and down slightly. Why, out of all people, did I call him? Maybe I should’ve just left at where it was, and not have told anyone. I close my eyes and sigh.


“Damnit!” I seeth through my teeth and slap my palms to my eyes.”Why did you have to make me so emotional and weak?” I feel a soft hand lay on my shoulder as I sob.


“It’s okay, sweetie. Everything is going to be okay come soon,” whispers the familiar voice and I refuse to open my eyes. He comes every so often and comforts me when I feel weak and useless, but right now I don’t need him.


“Dad…” I whisper. He hums softly in response. “Daddy… Mom needs you so much more than I do right now… She’s your Target, not me. I’m just like you, remember?” I open my eyes and my dad stands lightly as a blurry figure.
“But...” he whispers and I raise my hand, threatening him with my finger. He sighs before leaning down and kissing the top of my hair. And then, the room goes silent.
“Ambry?” my mother calls from downstairs. I attempt to ignore her as I place my pillow over my head. “Ambry, a boy is here for you!” Her voice is slightly muffled by the pillow. I don’t need her to tell me that he’s here, I can already sense his presence. The electricity that I am supposed to be able to feel with Uriah fills the tight quarters of my room, resulting in the hairs on my arms standing on end.
“She’s just upstairs, I guess. Her room is the last one on the left.” Great, now she’s sending him up to see me. I can hear his footsteps, even from under the pillow. They’re much different from my mother’s, more heavy and quick.


“Ambry?” he asks through the door, tapping his fingernail gently against it. I pull the pillow off of my head and throw it at the door, attempting to ward him away. For some reason, he makes me too emotional, too irrational and unable to think for myself. “Ambry, I’m coming in.” He pushes the door open, and it squeals in protest. His heavy footsteps stop next to my bed, but I refuse to look up at him. He’s seen me so weak already, that’s all I need is to let him see me this weak. He places a heavy hand on my head, and his weight makes the bed slope down as he sits next to me.


“Hey,” he softly coos, tucking his fingers under my chin and forcing my eyes to meet his. My heart leaps when our eyes meet, leaving my mouth dry and tongue tripping over the words I attempt to force out.


“I-I... I was just so scared,” I whisper as a sob slips passed my lips. He lifts me up to lay my head on his shoulder, allowing me to cry into his shirt. It smells so acidically delicious.
“It’s okay, cat. I’m here for you, like I’ve always been,” he whispers, the last part disappearing into a haze of unconsciousness that falls over me. In my slumber, I can see Gage, and another boy. They’re standing in a field, talking lowly to each other.
“We have to kill her, and soon. We can’t drag this out any longer,” the boy in the hood hisses and Gage’s face falls.
“I know we have to, Lucifer. But why? We’ve already taken care of her Target, and she forced me to leave her behind. Why not just let her die in the war that...” He stops when their eyes simultaneously land on me. The hooded boy’s lips curl into a fiendish smile, and a chill runs up my spine.
“Why not just kill her now?” With that, in the blink of an eye, they’re both standing in front of me. Gage holds a long scythe, studded with dark purple diamonds that glint in the light as he holds it over his head, and lining the diamonds are tightly packed together sapphires. The blade is a dark silver, stained at the handle with crimson. A scream escapes my lips, and I jolt awake. I pant softly as I grip the moist sheet tightly. I am alone in my room, tears trailing gently down my sweaty cheeks.
“Hey,” coos a voice from the corner of my room. The constant electricity finds its way back into my body as his voice settles on the tips of my ears. He’s sitting in the shadows of my room, his green eyes almost glowing in the little light that the evening leaves us. His beanie sits in his lap, the light grey being a light contrast of the eerie darkness. He gives me a light smile and sighs.
“Are you okay now?” he asks gently, standing up from the chair that I wasn’t aware was in my room. He pulls the beanie back onto his head as he comes closer, hiding his hair underneath it. I meekly nod, pulling the blanket back up to my chin as he comes near the bed. He senses the unease that fills the air and he stops in his tracks, sighing again.
“Should I go?” he asks and I can’t help but shaking my head. He bites his lip gently before leaning toward my bed side lamp, flicking it on and filling the room with a soft, warm glow. He gestures toward the edge of the bed, silently asking for permission to sit down, and when I nod and scoot over to give him room, he chuckles and lays down under the covers next to me.
“Won’t your family worry?” I ask quietly, sliding even further to the other side of the bed. Even being in this proximity, the electricity is almost overwhelming, sizzling under my skin and coursing through my veins like acid. He chuckles.
“Of course they won’t. Why would they worry about someone they don’t even care about?” he mumbles, snaking his arm around my waist as he rolls over, pulling me close to his chest. His heat radiates off his body, making my forehead dot with beads of sweat. When he speaks, it’s a low rumble against my cheek. I comply to his hold, wrapping my arms around him and snuggling into his dark shirt. His hardy scent fills my nose. It’s a deep smell, taking over my senses and blurring my vision.
“Don’t ever leave me behind, Ambry,” he whispers as he drifts off to sleep. My heart jumps at his words, and when I look up at him, he looks like an angel, almost like me... Mortals do not hold the capability to look almost angel like. With me saying angel like, I don’t mean we have wings or god like features, we’re just better built than Mortal’s are, and don’t possess the ability to have acne or the ability to put on unneeded weight by eating too much Mortal food.
Even in his sleep, Gage holds me tightly, almost afraid to let me go. My mother opens the door quietly, and I pretend to be asleep. I can see her softly smile as she enters the room, flicking off my bedside lamp. She leans down and kisses the top of my head, whispering something before leaving and closing the door behind her.
“Be careful with what you’re doing, baby. You need to be more careful. I love you.” I press my lips into a thin line as I allow what she said to sink in. I know that she knows what I am, and that I am to protect a certain someone, and that I am to only do as my orders say. Gage’s arms tighten further as I attempt to roll onto my other side, and he groans into my tangle of hair.
“Don’t leave,” he grumbles gruffly, tightening his arms even further. His biceps stick out from under his tight shirt, his fingers tangling around my t-shirt. He pulls it up slightly and slides his fingers under it, desperate for skin to skin contact. My body begins to burn from his touch, and his breathing is deeper than normal. His beanie lays in between us, and I turn around in his hold to look up at him.
In the darkness, I can only make out mainly his dark outline as he lays next to me. He looks peaceful, in his sleep it takes off several years and the soft smile he has is relaxing. His hair is dismayed, laid across his forehead and curls pop out of place. I almost mistake some of the curls for horns, horns that only the unholy are able to possess. Those banished from heaven can only possess them, leaving me confused and slightly discomforted at the mistaking of his Mortal standings.
What if he was actually unholy? I attempt to shake the thought from my mind, but it only jumbles the thoughts even further, preventing me from completely drifting to sleep. I attempt to toss and turn, but Gage’s protective hold around me prevents me from moving at all. After several hours of restless thinking, the birds outside begin to sing. I roll in Gage’s hold and begin to poke at his cheek to wake him. He groans, scowling in his sleep.
“Stop,” he grumbles, his voice deeper than usual. I continue my light assault on his face, prodding at his nose, pinching his cheeks, running my fingers along his plump lips, tickling his eyelashes with my fingertips, tracing his stone hard features carefully, attempting to memorize everything I can for no reason in particular. Eventually, though, he finally begins to stir from his slumber. He groans again before cracking open his eyes, glaring down at me with his viny gaze. A chill runs down my spine and I can feel my cheeks turning red under his heavy gaze.
“What?” he grumbles, snuggling his nose into the crook of my neck. “Stop it.” I continue to poke at his head until I feel a sharp prick in my neck.
“Ow!” I wail, swatting his head from the crook of my neck. He chuckles, lifting his eyes up to meet my gaze. His green eyes bore deeply into mine and chuckles darkly at me. His eyes drift away from mine, glancing down at the bruise that’s hidden under the hem of my t-shirt. He reaches for it, tracing the almost visible teeth marks. His eyes darken as he takes in the mark, and then he jerks it back to his body when the mark begins to sting slightly.
“I-I need to go,” he says, quickly standing up from the bed and slipping his beanie back over his head. He glances back at me, meeting my confused gaze before pulling open the door and leaving without another word. A few seconds later, the front door closes and the room quickly loses its previous heat.

I holler to my mother as I leave the house, closing the door behind me before she can answer. I slide into my car, hastily turning it on and pulling out of the driveway. I clear my throat, whispering.
“Hey, Rion? Where can I find Kallon?” He may not be sitting next to me, but I know that he can still hear me through the spirit bond that all Guardians have, Physical Walker’s or not. I wait patiently, then I hear his voice.
“He should be anywhere near you. I’d stop somewhere out of sight of the Mortals and try calling to him,” he says, his voice slightly muffled through the link.
“Okay, thank you, Rion,” I say, closing off the link before he can question why I want to talk to the Fallen Angel. I do as he recommended, pulling up into a small parking lot outside of town. I bite my lip gently before exiting the car and walking away, locking it as I walk behind one of the old buildings.
Nobody comes outside of town very often, and when they do, they never stop around here; so they would never know about the small creek that’s about half a mile from the road. I find it easily, being here as often as I am. I settle onto a stump that’s hidden by some surrounding trees, and sigh.
“Kallon?” I ask aloud. I wait for a moment before saying it again. After my third attempt to call him, I hear twigs nearby begin to snap and I sense another’s presence. He emerges from the trees, hair laid sloppily on his head and different colored eyes landing on me. He gives me a soft smile and walks toward me, stopping and sitting a few feet away.
“What’s up?” he asks, but I can see an unreadable emotion flash in his eyes. I play with part of my fraying jeans and purse my lips. Why did I call him here?
“Um... What is this?” I ask, pulling my hoodies collar away from my neck to show him the bright bruise. His eyes flash and a small smile slides across his lips.
“It’s to keep them away,” he says, meeting my eyes as I allow the collar to return to its place against my throat.
“Keep who away?” I ask and a knowing smile licks at the corners of his lips.
“It’s called The Mark of the Holy,” he answers, avoiding my question only to raise more.
“What does it do?” I ask, the name sounding only vaguely familiar to me. He sighs and leans back onto his hands to stare up through the branches at the sky.
“It wards those that are unholy away from the one bearing the mark.” I cock my head to the side and narrow my eyes.
“Kallon, you’re unholy. How could you have possessed the power to put this mark on me if it could affect you negatively too?” I ask and his eyes return themselves to me, narrowing at me as he attempts to read my aura.
“As a Fallen Angel, Ambry, I possess the power of both an angel and a devil. With this power, I am able to place one mark, this mark, on one desired person. It took away most of the energy that I’d been saving up over the years, but it was worth it if it meant protecting you. With that mark, those of unholy beings cannot touch you, warding them away.” My heart begins to thump as he stands up and moves toward me. He stops next to me and leans down, kissing my forehead gently. The mark begins to slightly burn at the contact, and he flinches back with a hiss. He chuckles and moves away from me slowly, watching me with dark, hooded eyes. His violet eye, the one that replaced the one he lost in his first life, gives him the ability to see into one’s mind, making him able to read their thoughts and watch their memories like a movie. I can feel him inside my mind now, watching the many memories and thoughts that swim around in my mind.
“It will keep them away, Ambry, and they will try to get it off of you. It will hurt them if they touch you without expecting it, but it will regrettably not hurt them if you touch them. I’ve made it strong enough that not just any simple power can take it off. This also means goodbye, Ambry,” he says, casting his eyes down to the grass below his feet. I clamber onto mine, stumbling over my own words.
“W-what? If you’re protecting me, doesn’t that mean that you can stay near me?” I ask, eyes beginning to blur with tears. He may have been the reason for my death in my previous life, but I still love him. He sighs.
“When a Fallen Angel loses the last of their power, there is no point for the being to be alive anymore. That mark took everything I’ve been saving up, and they’ll come hunting me down soon too. There’s no point in running from your fate, and mine just happens to be dying,” he mumbles, moving even farther away as I come closer.
“With that mark, they can’t hurt you, and even after their plan goes into action, they won’t be able to kill you. You were worth dying for.” He finally looks up, his eyes being now dull and almost lifeless. He gives me a soft smile before moving into the trees, throwing his hand in a wave over his shoulder.
“I told you Ambry, we were never meant to be together in life. I love you.” He’s gone after that, his presence leaving me alone in the small wooded area. His words swim around in my mind as I make my way back to my car and step into it, starting the engine and almost unknowingly driving back into town. I glance down at the radio and read the time. 8:30. I reach into my pocket and withdraw my phone, pulling into a parking spot before clicking on my mom’s name and holding the device to my ear.
“Amby? Where did you go?” her voice asks and I mentally cringe at the worried tone in her voice.
“Hey, mom. Sorry I left so suddenly, I had to go to the store real quick. I’m not feeling well, so I’m just going to come home instead of going to school, is that okay?” I ask and my throat begins to burn. It’s dulled now, since over the past few days I’ve been lying to often, I barely even notice it anymore; I’ve become almost used to the pain. The thought scares me.
“That’s fine sweetie. I won’t be home when you get back, they called me into work last minute, so you’ll be home alone for a little while,” she’s saying, and I almost miss it amidst my other thoughts. My mother works as a chairwoman for a local, and may I say very well off, business company. It’s rather rare that she gets called into work, so something must have gone wrong.
“That’s okay, I’m just planning on sleeping most of the day.” She replies and we soon say our goodbyes, and I push my phone back into my pocket and begin to drive again, this time with the destination of home in mind.

“Mr. Creed, could you send Ambry Hansen to the office, please?” asks the voice over the intercom of the classroom. The silent class jumps at the sudden voice, and my teacher looks up from his book, almost dazed.

“Will she be returning?” he asks, sleepily rubbing at his eyes from under his glasses. He’s the youngest student teacher that we have in the school, and still acts fairly young. Our teacher, Mr. Russ, decided to leave it all up to his student teacher today and took the day off, but we don’t mind much. He gave us a quiz to take the entire period and left us to it. We didn’t mind when it came to taking tests with Creed, it was a lot easier than taking one when Mr. Russ was around, he’s much too strict when it comes to reading after the quiz.

“Yes, she should be. Please send her down as soon as possible,” she says before setting the phone back onto the receiver and leaving the classroom in an awkward silence, all eyes being trained on me. Creed’s bright eyes land on me before he flicks his head toward the door, indicating that I leave silently without disturbing his class. I nod, standing up from my desk and smiling over at Kasey as I leave. Creed isn’t his last name, he prefers us call him by his first name in order for us not to get him confused with Mr. Russ; their last names are the same.

As I walk down the hallway, my mind begins to wander. Creed joined this school somewhere near a month ago, just before the last time I spoke to Kallon and Orion. He just kind of popped in out of nowhere, I don’t even think Mr. Russ knew that he was going to be getting a student teacher. It was a surprise to all of us, getting a new student teacher in our history class of all things.
I round a corner and continue my mental evaluation of him. I’ve never even heard of the college that he came from, hell, even Google hasn’t heard of it. He looks a little too young to already be out of college, even if he had started early. He’s much too mild tempered and laid back to want to become a history teacher. Even Kasey thought it was strange. We heard that a student teacher was coming in from NYU sometime this year, but we had heard that it was a girl and she was going to be going into the English department.

Creed’s name even sounds off. When I asked one of the school counselors about him, they just shrugged off my question like he didn’t even exist. According to Kasey and Brad, the same had happened to them. So, who exactly is our student teacher?

I push open the door to the main office and take a nervous seat next to another girl. She’s a little Sophomore, I can tell from her aura, the way she twists a bracelet nervously around her wrist, and glistening resiments of tears in the corners of her eyes. She must have been caught either trying to cheat on a test or attempting to skip class in the upstairs bathrooms. I’ve ran into her a few times up there as I attempted to get away from either Rich or Gage in the early days.

“Ambry Hansen?” a man asks as he peeks his head around the corner. I stand up and nod.

“That’s me,” I mumble and the man gestures me into the hallway.

“The man that needs to talk to you wants to talk to you in private,” he says and stops in front of a door, pointing at the door in a silent way to tell me to go into the room. I do as he says and walk into the room. A tall man in a suit sits with his back to the door and my heart leaps into my mouth as he turns around to look at me when the door closes behind me. His dark eyes meet mine and my stomach stinks as I take in his familiar, cool smile.

“Hello, Ambry. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? When was the last time we saw one another, in Academy, right?” he asks and his smile softens. His light brown hair is long, curling around his ears and down passed his shoulders. He has it pushed back from his forehead and he smirks at me. My fingers begin to tingle as he gestures toward the chair across from him. I take it and sigh, running my fingers through my hair.

“What do you want, Rustyn?” I grumble and he grins.

“Well, I’m the Officer of your district,” he says and I can feel my eyes widen at his words. Rustyn, an Officer? He barely passed the easy classes in Academy.

“What does that have to do with me?” I ask and he cocks his head to the side.

“It means that I’m in charge of keeping you on track with your Target. The Boss is rather worried about his angels being out with all of the Fallen Angels that have accumulated to the area,” he says and I raise my eyebrows. So, the rumors are true about all of the Fallen Angels. I had heard it a few times through the Spirit Link, but I had just assumed that it was simply rumor, but apparently it isn’t.

“So, what do I need to do about it?” I grumble and his eyes flash with a hint of hurt at my curt, rude tone. For some reason, I’ve been almost angry with other angels that are near me. He’s an Officer, a higher up compared to me, and I still can’t find any respect for him.

“Well, for starters, watch your tone with me. I’m an Officer, and I demand respect from you. I’ve worked very hard to be where I’m at, unlike you,” he says and I can feel my fingertips begin to tingle at his incompetent words. How dare he say that I haven’t worked for my position as a Physical Walker.
“Then, after that, I want you to watch your back, Ambry. If you don’t, there’s a possibility that either you or your Target could be killed.” My vision begins to blur with fury as he stands and walks toward me, taking my chin in his fingertips and forcing me to meet his dark gaze. His eyes are as dark as they’ve always been; they’re almost pitch black, indents in his god-like face. He is a walking example of what an angel should look like, sculpted like a Greek soldier, his high cheekbones and piercing smile is what any Mortal would dub perfect, but I know better. He is far from being perfect, hell I’ve met God.
He isn’t what everyone makes him out to be either. His bright eyes, soft, caring smile, and chiseled features are what the true definition of perfect looks like. He’s taller than any Mortal could ever be, and he doesn’t have a beard. Since he holds the title of a God, he also doesn’t age. He looks to be, in Mortal ages, around 30, and more wise than any Mortal could imagine. He cares dearly for all of his Pawns, and watches us carefully to make sure we won’t be harmed.
“Maybe I could talk to Boss and get you into the position of an Officer too. How would you like being my partner?” he asks and I clench my fists as he moves closer. “I hope you know that that Mortal can’t satisfy you like I can.” His tone is seductive as he places a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose. He moves back carefully before searching my eyes with his dark ones, looking for an agreement to his statement.
He’s right when he says Uriah or Gage can’t satisfy me when it comes to the end. It’s impossible for them to, only an angel, or ex-angel at that, can satisfy another in the end. Us angels have the perfect match that completes us as a being, and my other half just happens to be the angel standing in front of me. In Academy, we are given our match as an assignment, and it means for the entirety until we are sent either on jobs or back to live again, and Rustyn is and always will be my eternal match.
“Rustyn, when my assignment is done, we can go back to what we were in the beginning, but right now we both have a job to do. Please, just wait until I’m done with being a Physical Walker,” I whisper as I press a quick, light kiss to his cheek as I pass him and leave the room. I can feel his heavy gaze on my back as I leave, but I attempt to ignore it as I hurry back to the classroom where I will be met by many questions from Kasey.

“I’m dying of boredom,” Uriah groans from the grass next to me, and I roll my eyes at him. It’s been a little more than two weeks since my sudden encounter with Rustyn, and even if I can’t see him, I know he’s watching me.
“It really isn’t that bad,” I mumble and he looks over at me in surprise. He’s wearing a flat billed hat that’s flipped backwards on his head, and his soft head of hair stands high in the air.
“How in the hell are you not bored?” Kasey croons, poking his head around Uriah. Norman and Toby sit just a little ways down from them, poking their heads in sync around the other boys to watch me with eyebrows raised. I’ve recently learned that they’re twins, almost identical at that. Their Guardian’s are two girls that I had the same Angel Anatomy class with back in Academy.
“I’m just not,” I say, shrugging my shoulders as I nervously look up at the sky. All of the auras of the boys around me mix together in a thick, oil colored rainbow that swims close to the ground. The four of them missed their bus, resulting in them sticking around with me, watching the football team practice in the heat of the day. Uriah sighs heavily before laying back on the grass.
“Man, it’s starting to get hot, huh?” he observes and I nod, craning my neck back to watch an eagle fly high overhead. I can feel Uriah’s eyes on me, I know because of how the electricity around us, even though weaker than the electricity with Gage, tightens around us, like a type of invisible bond that neither of us can see, but can both feel.
Soon, Uriah’s mother arrives, greets me excitedly, insisting that I come over for dinner some night just to drive her son and his best friend crazy, then drives off toward where I assume his, Norman’s, and Toby’s houses are. Kasey stands silently next to me, waving after the retreating car, before gripping my arm almost to the point of pain, and dragging me to the side of the school that is out of sight of anyone and he pushes me to the wall, towering over me as he stares down at me with his big blue eyes. I gulp as my heart finds its way into my stomach, and fiddle with my fingers, refusing to look up at him.
“Look at me, Ambry,” he says gruffly, insisting that I break sacred law and kiss him. I refuse to do so, and he sighs.
“Ambry, look at me before I do something I might regret.” Against my better judgement, I do as he says, and automatically regret it. His bright eyes aren’t bright anymore, but almost completely black, and I quickly realize that Kasey was sitting in the back of Uriah’s car as they drove away, waving goodbye to me as they left. I gasp as he leans even closer to me, laughing gently into the crook of my neck.
“You really think eternal matches can stay away from one another, even during their jobs?” he asks, nibbling gently on my neck, just above the Mark of the Holy. He notices it, and gently runs his fingers across the bruise.
“Do you remember when we learned about a mark that a Fallen Angel can put on a desired being?” he asks, pulling his finger back to gently bite his fingertips, a habit he’s had for as long as I’ve known him. He does it when he’s either nervous or thinking too seriously.
“What class did we learn that in?” I ask and he releases his finger to run it along the bruise again.
“History of Everything,” he mumbles, concentrating on the almost visible teeth marks on the bruise. It doesn’t sizzle when he touches me, meaning that he must be either completely pure, or he’s a Mortal. When I don’t reply, his dark eyes meet mine and a flash of unease crosses his gaze.
“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” he asks, and I look down at the ground. He already knows the answer, so why does he continue to question me? “Who was it?” His tone is cold, and his touch turns icy as his hand glides down my arms and he grips my hands tightly, pinning them above my head. There’s no way I could tell him it was the Fallen Angel that killed me in my passed life. His cold gaze entraps me, and his eyes search mine for the answers. I don’t have to tell him for him to know who it was.
“I thought that that bastard was already dead. That was the deal Boss and I made before you were sent here!” he hisses, his fingers digging into my wrists. I cringe at the sudden pressure and let out a whimper.
“Rusty, you’re hurting me,” I cry out, and his hold loosens. He steps back, letting my arms return to my side. I reach my hand up and cover the mark, attempting to hide it from the sting of his gaze.
“Look, Am. I only want you to be safe, and if Kallon is still around and alive, me nor anyone else is going to be able to protect you,” he mumbles, looking down as if too scared to look me in the eye. If he means what he says, then Kallon should have been killed before I was sent here to protect Uriah.
“Rusty.” He cringes at the nickname and sighs.
“Ambry, rumor has it that all of the Fallen Angels that are coming to this area are because they are planning on doing something to our Physical Walkers. We don’t want that to happen, and the Boss believes that the only way to prevent it is to kill them all,” he says, breaking his contact with the floor to glance up at me before returning his eyes to the ground as he speaks. My fingers go cold as I allow the information to sink in. There’s something that the Fallen Angels are planning against us. There’s a possibility that we could go to war with them.
Even unheard of, wars between the holy and the unholy are possible. In History of Everything, a class that taught us about the history of Mortals as well as angels, the teacher told us a legend of a war between the holy and unholy.
“Even legends have an origin, Ambry. And if this legend is true, that means that it’s either been predicted, or has happened before. I just want you to be safe,” he says, running his fingers down my cheek. It’s a gesture that calms him, but only make my nerves run wilder. This isn’t his usual gesture, there’s more thought placed into this action. Without warning, he steps away and sighs.
“I’ve got some things to sort out. I’ll see you later.” He turns and hurries away, leaving me to lean against the wall behind me and sigh. Everything is going wrong. There is no way Rusty became an Officer before I did, Kallon’s power wasn’t strong enough to place this mark on my skin, and Gage hasn’t been around for almost three days. Either they’re all plotting something, or I’m just imagining things.

“Creed,” Orion mumbles from my bed as he flips through a spirit book. His eyes scan over the page and he purses his lips as he thinks.

“What?” I ask as I glance over my shoulder at him from my seat against my desk. His bright eyes glance up to meet mine before he shrugs.

“‘From the Middle East comes a terrifying tale of a being believed to be long extinct, but is now beginning to return to our world. 'Aklat al hulm, translating to Dream Eaters in English, have been urban legend and myth since the beginning of the Middle Eastern language. This creature comes in the form of a Mortal, blending in easily and gaining the trust of the Mortal’s it comes in contact with. Before long, the Dream Eater will do one of three things in order to feed: take the souls of a Mortal by looking directly into their eyes, sneak into small children’s rooms at night to steal away their dreams, or hide in very citizen dense areas and absorb any emotions that come from the Mortal’s around it.

These creatures have been long believed to be myths. Upon further analysis, it has been discovered that Dream Eaters come from all civilizations spanning hundreds of years apart! Ranging anywhere from the Romans to the Icelandic, Dream Eaters have been clawing their ways through history one Mortal story at a time.
Now, you’re probably wondering what these strange, almost unheard of, creatures have to do with our kind, the angels. Many cases of both Dream Eaters and Fallen Angels have began to pop up all around the upstate New York area, ranging anywhere from angels seeing them stalking their Target’s, to Target’s straight up being attacked by them.
The Boss and higher ups are working frantically to contain the problem, but many sightings are all cumulating from one town in upstate New York; it’s a small town called Cooperstown,’ hey, isn’t that where we are?” Orion cuts off his reading to ask. I carefully nod and gesture for him to continue.
“‘Dream Eaters may not sound too scary to our kind, but the things that they can do to us are terrifying. It ranges anywhere from them completely sucking your life force and spirit force away with a swift kiss, to killing you dead with one glance.
A way to tell a Dream Eater apart from a Mortal comes as the following: their eyes are abnormally bright, their aura is slightly brighter than a Mortals, they look much too trustworthy, they are very open and honest, and their left eye is always darker than the other, resulting in any contacts nearly failing.
If you are to spot a Dream Eater, please contact an Officer near you immediately.’ Dude, that’s kind of scary, don’t you think?” he asks and I nod stailey. Of course that’s where we are.
“That sounds terrifying,” I mumble. “Wait, you said Creed, right? What does that name have to do with the article?” He raises his eyes to look at me and shrugs again, returning his eyes to the open magazine in his lap.
“It just says the name, followed by a sketched drawing of a man with wanted in big letters at the bottom of it,” he says, turning the page for me to see. He’s right, Creed’s name is in big letters, wanted under a sketch of a man. My heart jumps as my eyes scan the picture, taking in his bright blue eyes, trusting features, twisted smile.
Orion has returned, and randomly at that. He left all of a sudden after he attacked me, and Gage saved me. If it were up to me, he wouldn’t be here, and I very much wish that he would leave again. I fear him more that I ever have, and it scares me to know that he can now hurt me in this world as well.
“Huh, never seen him. Why don’t you go back to Lanna? Pretty sure she needs you more than I do right now,” I grumble, and turn in my chair to rest my head against my desk. He chuckles, but my only answer is a zap, then silence.

“The sun!” Norman cries, shading his eyes from the hot ball of gas millions of miles away. I roll my eyes and crane my neck to look up at the towering amusement rides around us.
“This place is massive,” I grumble, scratching nervously at the back of my neck. Uriah chuckles and wraps his arm around my shoulders, leaning into me.

“What, you scared of a little old amusement park?” he taunts and I scowl, swatting at his hand that limply hangs over my shoulder.

“Little? What’s so little about this place?” He chuckles again and leans even closer, gently kissing my cheek. Electricity zaps through me and I jump slightly, my body covering in goosebumps.

“You’re one of the only little things here,” he teases and I look down as we follow after the other two boys. Norman and Toby both have identical skips in their steps.

“That one!” Toby cries, hopping up and down, pointing at the huge roller coaster in front of us.

“No way,” I say, shaking my head and stopping. Uriah stops beside me and laughs.

“You aren’t scared of a silly old ride, are you?” he asks and I nod, staring up at the towering track above us.

“I’m not riding that.” He sighs and Toby pouts. Norman hops over, clapping his hands together like an excited child.

“How about you stay right here? Gage said he’d meet us right here, so how about you wait for him here, and we’ll ride that?” he asks and my eyes widen. His aura is a swimming bright blue, licking toward his brother’s that looks almost violet, a color that represents jealousy.

“I thought he wasn’t coming,” I grumble and the twins cock their heads to the side at the same time.

“Well, this was his idea,” they say in unison and I groan.

“Fine.” Uriah’s hand touches mine gently, causing me to look up into his worried brown eyes. I give him a smile and he sighs, leaning forward and gently touching his lips to my cheek and turning toward the twins.

“Fine, you children. Let’s go,” he says and the boys cheer before running for the line. I sit down on a bench under a tree and stare up at the coaster that the boys are waiting to board. What a bunch of lunatics.

“You aren’t going to ride?” someone asks, a rock rolling toward me and bouncing off of my foot. I look up at the sound of his voice and my heart skips a beat. Gage stands near the line the boys are in, his beanie pushed away from his eyes and his hair shifting slightly as he looks at me.
He gives me a grin and walks over to me, taking the other half of the bench and sighing. He’s sitting so close that his pinkie is touching mine. The mark on my neck begins to ache slightly and I reach my hand up, rubbing at it. The pain ceases almost immediately.

“Would’ve thought you’d jump at the opportunity to ride that... Death machine,” he grumbles and grimaces as one of the trains blasts over the crowd waiting to board.
“No way.” He chuckles and I glare at him. His aura still remains invisible to me, and that’s when I realize how strange that really is. Since I am a Guardian, I should be able to see all beings auras, unless they are unholy, then they do not possess one, but that is unlikely. Maybe his Guardian is just hiding it away from me for some unknown reason.

“Those things are terrifying. I don’t understand how they can enjoy it,” he mumbles, scratching at his chin. It’s almost 70 degrees outside, even being fall it is still warm, but Gage still refuses to take off his beanie. Maybe if I am able to coax him onto a fast ride, he will be forced to take it off again. I have a theory I would like to test.
“What about that one?” I ask, pointing toward the ferris wheel. His eyes follow mine to the huge wheel, slowly turning above our heads, watching as the ones at the top spins.

“Those are spinning,” he murmurs and I nod, smiling at him.

“It isn’t a terribly fast ride,” I say and he shakes his head.

“I’m not really about that whole rides thing.” I roll my eyes and bump my shoulder against his.

“Then why come?” I ask and he shrugs.
“Came to enjoy time with my friends,” he mumbles, and I glance down at his hands as he twists them in his lap. The tips of his fingers look slightly black, as if they’re bruised. I take them from his lap and hold them up to the sun to see them better.

“What’d you do?” I ask and he pulls them back to him, slipping them into the pocket of his sweatshirt.

“I slammed them in a door.” His cheeks turn slightly red as he looks toward the ferris wheel. “Fine, let’s ride it.” My eyes follow his as I look up at the towering wheel. It’s one of the tallest rides in the park.

“We can’t just leave the others. Let’s wait for them to get off,” I say and he shrugs.

“If we do that, then they’ll want to come.” I shake my head and glance back at the roller coaster in front of us.

“It isn’t fast enough to catch their attention,” I mumble and he laughs. We sit for a few more minutes in silence, watching excited children scamper past, dragging their parents behind them to the next ride or game. The boys emerge not long after. Uriah’s hair is wild from the wind of his ride, and the twins are chattering happily.

“Gage!” Norman calls, jogging over and plopping down in his lap. He groans as Toby joins his brother on his lap.

“You missed it! It was awesome!” Toby croons, leaning back so he and his brother are pressed close Gage’s chest.

“Ambry wants to ride that one,” Gage gasps, raising a mockingly shaking hand toward the ferris wheel. “B-But since I’m being crushed, I won’t be able to ride it with her!” He shoves the twins to the ground and Norman lands on top of his brother with a groan.
“I’m not riding that, no way in hell,” Toby grumbles, wiping off his jeans as he stands up next to his brother. “Way too high.” I roll my eyes and, as I expected, Gage slings his arm over my shoulders, grinning at the other boys.

“Then we’ll ride that. And you guys can ride one of those freaky rides,” he says, pointing to one of the many roller coasters ahead of us. Uriah shakes his head.

“That isn’t fair,” he says, glaring at Gage.
“Look, Riah. You guys like to ride the big and scary rides. Me and Gage like the more tame ones. So we’ll meet you guys right here when we get off, okay?” I ask and his dark eyes find mine, staring at me.
“How about a scarehouse after? We could go through together. I think that would be fun,” he says glancing at Gage before looking back at me, his aura a flaring red. I shrug.

“I’m up for that,” I mumble, glancing over at Gage and the twins. Gage's arm is still draped over my shoulders. Their eyes are on a girl who is trotting toward us.

“Uriah!” she calls and his head snaps up at her. She latches herself to him and begins to cheer.

“Oh, Carly. Hi,” he says, stumbling back and wrapping his arms around her. My eyes snap away from them and at the empty part of the bench beside me. Gage’s fingers slip themselves over mine, and when I look up at him, he gives me a soft smile. The sudden touch surprises me, but it was almost too predictable that he would do it.

“So, what about a scarehouse did I hear?” she asks, setting herself back onto the ground and looking down at me. Her eyes dart up and down my body, hesitating on mine and Gage’s linked fingers before looking back up at Uriah.
“We were going to go through one later,” he mumbles, looking down at his feet. She claps her hands together and giggles.

“I love scare houses! I’m going through with you, Riah,” she says and he glances at me before shaking his head.
“Me and Ambry are going to go through together.” She glares at me and I clamber to my feet.

“N-No it’s okay,” I stammer.

“Me and her will go through, you two go together,” Gage says, slinging his arm over my shoulders and smiling, as expected, and I almost chuckle at the thought. He's so predictable sometimes.
“But we’re going for the ferris wheel. Meet back here once the rides are over.” With that, he turns and pulls me after him. I can feel Uriah’s eyes on me, and when I glance back, he is watching us leave with turned down, frowning lips.

“Sorry,” he mumbles and I look up at him. His beanie is pushed far back on his head, almost falling off, and I pull us to a stop. He looks down at me as I reach up and take the edges of the hat. His eyes dart to my fingers as I pull it down and slip my fingers through his soft hair.

“Sorry for what?” I ask, staring up at him, smiling. He looks down and takes my hand, leading me into the short line for the ferris wheel.

“I can’t stand seeing you look at him like that,” he mumbles, flashing the stamp on his hand at the attendant and stepping into the gondola, gesturing for me to follow. I show the attendant mine and carefully step onto the swinging seats. The ride begins to slowly spin once the attendant has stepped into the booth and I watch as we slowly rise higher and higher into the sky.

“Looking at who what way?” I ask, looking over at him. I reach forward slowly and grab the wheel in the middle, slowly turning it so the gondola begins to spin. His eyes snap up to mine and his hands dart forward, taking the other side of the wheel and pulling it to a stop. He shakes his head and sighs.

“For some reason I get so damn jealous when I see you looking at him like you’re a kicked little puppy and you’re watching someone take away the only thing you love. It just-” he groans and lifts his hands from the wheel, running them over his face. I carefully move from my side of the gondola to his, sitting beside him and placing my hand on his knee.
“Are you okay?” I ask and he moves his fingers slightly to look at me. His eyes are impossibly green and I can see him grimace under his fingers. He lets his hands fall back into his lap and he looks over at me.

“I’ve never been the jealous type before, but I sure as hell am now and it freaks me out.” He takes my hand and sighs again, letting it drop as the mark on my neck begins to tingle. He eyes it for a few seconds before turning away.

“I can’t just stop talking to him,” I mumble and Gage nods, staring out into the hazy fall afternoon.

“I don’t want you to either. It’s just... I get so frustrated when it comes to you, and that scares me.”
He reaches over and twists our fingers together again, his eyes finding mine. The mark on my neck begins to burn to the point of pain as he leans forward and catches my lips with his. He seems to grimace against my lips, but doesn't pull away. Soon, the pain in my neck fades and I wrap my arms around his shoulders. He smirks against my lips, his arms snaking around my waist and pulling me closer. I pull back after a few seconds, breathless.

“He thought,” he whispers and grins at me, leaning forward and kissing me again. The ride pulls to a stop and the attendant pulls open the door for us to step out. I thank him and trot after Gage as he walks to one of the benches and flops down.

“What did you mean by ‘he thought’?” I ask, sitting beside him. He glances over at me, smiling.

“It was nothing, just talking to myself, that’s all,” he says, leaning over and pressing his lips to mine. They linger there for a few seconds before he pulls away, leaning back and staring forward with a deepening smirk. My eyes follow his and my breath catches in my throat when they land on Uriah and the twins, walking toward us. Uriah’s eyes are trained on Gage and I, his lips forming an o as he stares at us in disbelief as he comes to a stop.

“Oh shit,” Gage mumbles with a chuckle. “I think he saw us.”

I stand up in a hurry, meeting the excited twins with nothing but the brushing of our shoulders.
“R-Riah!” I say and his eyes land on me, narrowing as he stares me down.
“I’m going with Carly for the rest of the day. Have fun.” He turns and begins to walk away. I catch his wrist and he whips around to face me again.
“Go with Gage, since you seem to like him so much,” he spits and walks away. I stand there for a few seconds before sniffling and turning back to the other boys, running my hands through my hair.
“What’s next?” I ask, my eyes narrowing at Gage’s smirk.
“We should be asking a different question. What’s up with Riah?” Toby asks, tilting his head in curiousity. I shake my head and let out a chuckle, attempting to get him to believe the lie I’m about to tell him.
“It’s nothing, just said he’d rather spend time with Carly instead of us,” I mumble, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Norman’s eyes narrow after the retreating boy before they once again find me. His lips turn up into a sly grin and his eyes shift to his brother, who has come to stand beside me.
“Well, there’s a ride we were all supposed to ride before we left. Let’s go to it now, so we can rub it in his face later,” Norman offers, his eyes landing on me again and raising his eyebrows. I sigh and run my hand over my hair before shrugging.
“Gage?” Toby turns toward the boy who still remains on the bench, his long legs crossed over each other and arms crossed over his chest.
“I’ll ride anything as long as she does,” he says, nodding toward me and smirking. I give him a shrug and the twins glance at one another before nodding. Norman takes up my side, taking my arm and pulling me behind him. Toby does the same with Gage, pulling him off the bench and skipping farther into the park. I roll my eyes but soon realize where they are planning on taking us. I dig my heels into the ground and pull Norman to a stop.
“No way in hell,” I growl, glaring at the boy who still possessively grips my arm. He grins at me.
“Oh come on, it’ll be fun!” he says and I shake my head.
“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t like riding roller coasters?” I snap and he rolls his eyes.
“Come on, just one roller coaster and we’ll stop asking you,” Toby says, coming to stand beside us. Gage’s eyes are twinkling at me as he grins.
“Promise?” I ask and he nods.
“Pinky promise,” he says, offering me his pinky. I take it in mine and take in a deep breath as they drag me toward the line for the monstrous ride in front of us.

“I have four seats open in the front car,” one of the workers says, eyeing me and the boys. Toby cheers, raising his hand so he can see us.
“We’ve got four, we’ll take the spot!” he calls and the worker nods, motioning us through the line and onto the loading platform. Norman and Toby hop into the very front seats, and Gage and I take the seats behind them. The lap bar slowly lowers onto me and I squirm, reaching over and gripping Gage’s hand tightly in my now sweating palm.
“Easy now, cat. Don’t go breaking my hand today, alright?” he jokes, his eyes twinkling with excitement. My body quickly relaxes until the automated speech comes on, indicating the ride is getting ready to start.
“Welcome to the Cosmic Runner. Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times. Do not raise your arms over your heads at anytime, and please refrain from using any cellular devices while on the ride. Thank you, and enjoy your ride.” My arms tense as the car jerks forward. I once again grip Gage’s hand tightly, squeezing my eyes closed as we leave the loading platform and begin to climb the hill.
“Woo!” Norman cheers as the sun begins to tingle my sweating skin.
“We are going to die!” I scream as I feel the car slow down. I peel my eyes open at the wrong time, taking in the amazing view around us, as well as the gigantic drop that is just ahead of us; I quickly realize that we are actually higher than the ferris wheel right now. I let out another scream as the car tilts on the track, so we’re facing the ground head on.
“Here we go!” Gage croaks, his fingers tightening around my own as the last car comes over the top of the hill, before releasing us in a freefall toward the ground.
Toby had read from the sign out front while we were waiting that the drop was 90 degrees, topped out at almost 70 miles per hour, and the entirety of the ride lasted about one minute and thirty seconds, but it feels like the ride has been going on for ages, and that’s saying something.
“Oh my god that was awesome!” the twins squeal in unison once we’ve got off the ride. My legs feel like jello, my hair a wild mess on top of my head.
“We almost died!” I hiss, punching Toby’s shoulder as he skips beside me. He rubs at it with pouted lips.
“That hurt! Come on, you had to have had a little bit of fun,” he says and I roll my eyes.
“Not one bit, Toby. Not one bit.” Gage laughs from beside me, ruffling his hair with his fingertips.
“Where’s your hat?” Norman asks, stealing the words from my lips. Gage shrugs, his grin never falling.
“Must’ve lost it. That’s what I get for wearing it on a roller coaster. The sign warns you, after all,” he says, laughing.
“Well shit dude, I’ve never seen you without it. Gotta say, I like this look more than the one with the beanie,” Toby says, giving the other boy a wink. I shake my head, banishing some of the unease that I still feel when being so near to Gage.
“Should we go ask to get it back?” I ask and he shakes his head, still smiling. That smile must be covering another emotion, he’s wearing it like a mask.
“No, it’s alright. It’s a little too hot for a beanie anyways.” I roll my eyes and pat my pockets, in search of my wallet. When Gage notices this, he takes my hand away from my jeans and presses his lips to my knuckles.
“You don’t need to worry about getting me a hat, cat. I can bear without a beanie for a while.” He gives me another unnerving smile and lets my hand drop back down to my side. My fingertips slap my thigh and goosebumps prickle at my skin.
“What next?” Norman asks, bouncing on his toes with anxiousness.
“I heard they have a pretty bomb zoo,” Gage says, giving me another smile. Honestly, until now, I hadn’t realized how much taller than me he actually is, he holds at least six inches over my head, having to angle down his head slightly to meet my eyes. When we kiss, his bends down slightly, or I have to stand on my toes.
“Alright, zoo it is then,” Toby says, watching Gage and I with an almost sour glare. I almost visibly purse my lips at this, but stop myself when I realize how strange I would look.
When I glance in front of us, after Gage has tangled our fingers together, I notice that Orion is sitting on a bench, watching us from under the rims of a pair of dark sunglasses. My eyes narrow him and I allow the Spirit Com inside my head to open so I can speak to him.
Why are you here? I continue to stare at him as we pass, Gage’s eyes lingering on the empty bench in which Orion sits, invisible to Mortals eyes. He raises his eyebrows at me, his lips twitching as he bites into a churro.
I’m simply just observing. I roll my eyes.
Go back to Lanna. He chuckles through the link.
Where is your Target? His voice is taunting. My fingers twitch in Gage’s hold and he looks down at me.
“What is it?” he asks and I blink, shaking my head quickly.
“N-Nothing,” I stammer, giving him a nervous smile. Why are you with a Fallen Angel instead? My shoulders go rigid and I slowly look over my shoulder. He’s no longer sitting on the bench, and his presence quickly leaves my mind.
“Ambry? Are you listening?” Gage asks, his hand tugging gently on mine. I shake my head, looking up at him and his bright green eyes search mine.
“No, sorry I was thinking. What were you saying?” I stammer and he gives me a soft smile before pointing toward a fork in our path.
“It goes carnivores, omnivores, and birds and reptiles. What one do you want to go look at first?” he asks, his voice gentle and slightly teasing. I sigh.
“Well, I really like birds and slimy things,” I offer and I watch as Norman and Toby simultaneously grimace.
“Then we’ll go for the carnivores. I can’t stand creepy things like snakes and stuff.” I laugh, shaking my head as I watch the twins’ heads bob toward the lions, their strides identically skipping as they move.
“I wish I knew back then that if I even mentioned something with scales, it’d send those two running for the hills,” Gage murmurs, laughing. I snicker as he tugs me along behind him.

“So I have a question,” I say as we stop to peer through the glass at a sleeping anaconda. He glances wearily toward me, all the previous humor gone from his face.
“Depending on what that question is, I may have an answer.” He offers me a smile that doesn’t reach his now dark eyes. This catches me off guard, and I stand motionless for a few seconds as he drops my hand and walks toward the next case. He looks at me from the corner of his eyes as he leans closer to the glass.
“U-Um,” I stammer, hurrying over to join him. He watches intently as the scorpion inside turns toward us, staring directly at me. I shiver.
“W-Why don’t you like heights?” I ask and he glances at me before moving to the next enclosure.
“Well that isn’t a very thought out question,” he murmurs, leaning back as the snake inside lunges forward, its fangs colliding with the glass separating us from it. I crease my eyebrows as he snickers, walking to the next.
Inside is a small sleeping lizard. When Gage stops in front of its enclosure, its eyes open and it leaps toward the glass, clawing desperately at it. He softly shakes his head.
“Well I’m sorry,” I grumble. He turns his head to give me a straight toothed, unnerving smile. “But seriously.” I tug on the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes snap down to my face and I almost visibly quiver. Without his beanie, his hair slips down his forehead to blot out parts of his dark eyes. Some tendrils curl away from them, while others twist out toward me.
“Many religions believe that our fears and phobias were the death of us in past lives,” he murmurs, leaning a hair closer. A jolt of electricity runs down my back, and I suddenly realize how much I fear him.
He hasn’t given me any reason to fear him, hasn’t done anything to strike this feeling into my heart, and yet for some reason, I still have this stinging urge to get away from him. This unease and unnerving feeling I have toward him is in fact that of the fear that I have for him.
I carefully step away from him, my hip meeting the guard rail. The reptiles inside of the cages begin to move toward the glass, staring at me with the same unnerving, black eyes as the boy before me.
“I fear three things, Ambry.” He steps slightly closer and I press my hip tighter into the railing blocking the animals from me. “One, heights.” He holds up his index finger. “Two, shadows and the dark.” He comes even closer, bending at the waist so his eyes are level with mine.
“And third is something I’ve only recently come to fear,” he whispers, his breath hot against my lips. A chill causes goosebumps to slither across my skin as his dark- more black now- eyes narrow at me.
“I fear those that the light has blessed so heavily, like yourself.” His eyes remain on mine as he leans over slightly, setting his hand over my tightly wrapped fingers on the railing.
“W-What?” I whisper, my voice betraying me by revealing how scared I actually am. His eyes narrow ever so slightly and a wicked grin slips across his soft lips. He takes a single step closer, bending his head toward my shoulder as he breaths into my hair.
“I know everything, Ambry. I know what you are.”