In the Shadow of Angels: The Guardian Series 1 (7 page)

I was beginning to question her sobriety, maybe even her sanity.

“I love you, Char, I really do. But I can’t let you win. He was meant for me.” Emily seemed suddenly calm and focused. A tingle of fear spread in the pit of my stomach, cold vines lacing up, tangled in my gut.

Emily had always won, always gotten whatever she had wanted. I had envied how she had somehow gotten the extra DNA that made her more beautiful, more desirable to everyone around us. I had been jealous at first that even Henri had wanted her over me. But, in her eyes, I had been the one to receive the admiration.

Her version of our childhood seemed distorted. She had betrayed me out of jealousy. I had always swallowed my pride and fell back as she got all the attention. It sickened me that my sister couldn’t stand that I was the focus of Henri’s desire. Of anyone’s. Instead of easing my pain, she let me believe that Henri had hurt me. She was right. I was naive. I couldn’t see my twin for what she was.

How had I missed this person? How had I grown up giving her every benefit of the doubt, protecting her from herself and everyone around her? I had stood there while she had developed into a stranger. Maybe I had seen her cruelty and callousness but ignored it. She was my other half; we were an exact match. But something in her was wrong. I saw it then.

“I never meant for you to get hurt,” I told her.

Emily turned to look at me. Her face was blank. One hand left the steering wheel and tugged at her seat belt, then went to the small angel charm around her neck.

“I’m sorry, Char.”

Someone said that time slows down during traumatic events. Like the powers that be push a button, imprinting your brain with each image, burning them forever in your memory. It wasn’t like that at all. What happened next didn’t playout in slow motion. I didn’t see each detail frame by frame. It was a blur of motion, an infusion of sounds and smells. The lasting impression of horrific betrayal.

Emily yanked the wheel of our father’s small vintage car, forcing it off the road. My head slammed into the side door, my vision blurring as the wheels caught, and the car spun out of control. There were slick sounds of the tires failing to grip the wet grass. I watched her hands on the wheel, how she gripped it tight, struggling to regain control. I saw the line of trees stretched out in front of us. Felt the sickening twist in my stomach; the sudden truth we were going to crash.     There was barely time for it all to register. There was only the violent force of the driver’s side making full impact. The sound of it hitting the tall, spindly pines and leafy laurel oaks. Only pain, my body twisting, jerking sideways and bones snapping. Screeching sounds of bending metal. The loud popping sounds as Emily’s head hit the glass, the glistening shards flew around her, a shattered halo, flying out and cutting my face and my arms.

The point that sits most acutely in my memory was the quiet. It wasn’t the pain, or the gasps of air as I tried to breathe around the blood that filled my mouth. It wasn’t the small hissing sounds or metal creaking as the car settled, but the stillness, as if every creature that had witnessed, sat mute at the horror.

My vision was blurred. Pain seared my skull, but I could still make out her face. Emily’s body mangled and twisted in the metal door. Tree limbs reached inward, catching pieces of her hair in their sticky fingers. And the blood. There was so much of it. It oozed from around her beautiful face, dripping on the soft yellow waves, flowing into her fire highlights. Her eyes were open, and her mouth formed a small circle. She looked like she was going to tell me something, something so important, something that I needed to know. I screamed for her to tell me. I begged for her to stay with me. Horrible sounds, tearing through the black night. But she left. I watched her go.

Years later, I read that the brain is the last to die. That it takes something like five minutes before our minds finally catch up and let go of this life we struggle to hold on to. Five minutes, even after we’ve released our last breath, we still cling to it. Even if it was done by our own hands. What they failed to mention is, the person that is left behind in the silence, sees as death takes them by the hand and the lights fade.

Maybe the angels in heaven wept. I know for sure that the devil must have smiled when death’s face appeared, his hand outstretched, reaching to take her with him. His shadow passed over her, the thick stench of sorrow and fear. I watched as Emily took death’s hand and turned away from this life. The last light faded, and she surrendered herself to him.

In those last five minutes, did she know I screamed for her? Did she walk away and look back, and feel remorse for what she had done? I wondered too, did she walk with the devil in those moments, or did god let her in his door? I didn’t know. I never will, at least not until death comes to claim me.

Darkness followed and silence. Stark, deafening silence. I couldn’t move. My body was twisted and broken. My hands couldn’t reach for her. Deep in the pit of my being, I could feel her absence. My sister, the other half of me, was gone.

It remains unclear what happened after that. There were loud sounds and flashes of voices and faces. Metal was tearing, and pain was searing through my body. Dampness seeped through the back of my shirt. The stars shone, crystalline dots, glistening around the edges. The cool night air grabbed at me, forcing me to stay awake.

I was no longer in the car but laying on the ground and could feel hard, rough hands wiping my face. Reassuring whispers comforting me. There was a charred scent, like melting metal and something else. Something, almost sweet. I had wondered if it was death that I had smelled that night. Cold fingers brushed my lips, and I choked on the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. Steel gray eyes looked at me, centering my world as calm settled, a thick blanket of warmth and peace. There was no pain anymore. I knew I was dying.

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When I woke, a week had passed. My eyes fluttered open, panic taking hold. Machines beeped, becoming louder and more frantic as my heart raced. A nurse came rushing in, seeing my eyes open; she smiled and called for someone. More nurses came in checking the machines and talked in smooth, calm voices.

The first few days after I woke were spent in and out of darkness. Nurses and my father’s face appearing, before falling back into a dark sleep full of screams and nightmares. Emily’s mangled body always reaching for me, her hands trying to grasp me. In my dreams, her body would be burned, Emily’s half of our angels, charred, blackened by fire, the small arm melted into her skin.

I had lost mine in the accident. Part of me was glad. I couldn’t bare having to see my angel’s outstretched arm, waiting for her other half, the only piece that would make her whole. Waiting forever for her sister’s embrace. One that would never come.

My injuries had been severe. I had several broken ribs. My collarbone had snapped, almost severing an artery, and I’d endured severe head trauma. Doctors told me I had been put into an induced coma as they waited for the swelling to go down. It was amazing I was even alive. By all rights, I should have died that night.

Daddy, choking on the words, had tried to tell me about Emily. But I shook my head, unable to bear hearing the pain cracking in his voice. My heart was in a thousand pieces.

The doctor informed me I would be able to go home in a week if not sooner. They said it was a miracle. I was healing so rapidly, everyone was astounded. Nurses were whispering that I had angels watching me. Like heavenly hands had reached down to mend the broken bones, and stitch my torn flesh. It stirred everyone up so, Daddy, against the advice of the doctors, moved me to another smaller, hospital.

It was there, in the small modern medical facility, that I made a full recovery a mere two and a half weeks after the accident. There were endless blood tests, x-rays, and questions. I was monitored closely by my doctor and few nurses. The staff there didn't say much when I had been found walking with a cane to the bathroom, the sling supporting my arm cast aside, desperate for a shower. None of the nurses whispered in hushed tones eyeing me suspiciously. If anything, my rapid recovery was nothing new to them. No one seemed amazed when only three weeks after a devastating car accident, I walked out, completely healed. My body, holding no evidence of the accident other than the faint scar over my collar bone where they had to operate. I swear it was for appearance’s sake they asked that I go to physical therapy and consult with the hospital’s therapist.

During my stay in the hospital, I refused to speak Emily’s name. The television was never on, the newspapers lay untouched. Fear of seeing her name or hearing it spoken was more than I could handle. The memories of that night flooded my dreams, remembering each sound and smell, leaving my unable to speak for days. My father tried to talk to me, but his pain filled the room and forced the air from my lungs.

Finally, the day before my release, I worked up the courage to read the paper. There was a brief article mentioning the death of the daughter of a prominent scientist. Doctor Stephan Duval was to receive an award for his work and the article recounted the night of the accident.

Twin sisters, who after a night of celebrating their twenty-fifth birthday were found off Route 335, the car still smoldering after it had burst into flames. The accident, it read, had been caused by a deer jumping in front of the vehicle, sending it out of control and crashing into the tree line. One twin managed to crawl to safety before the car was engulfed in fire, leaving one trapped inside. The police guessed a combination of alcohol and speed played a part in the deadly crash.

I had reread the article several times, trying to understand the words. How had they gotten it so wrong? There was never a deer. There was only Emily. I had been trapped, unable to move, the seat belt jammed and un-giving. The searing pain when I tried to free myself. The cool hands running over my face, and the bright stars as I was placed on cold, wet grass.

Dr. Gregory had tried several times to talk to me, asking what I remembered from the accident. He said it was such a tragedy, how Emily had died.

“I don't remember anything,” I lied. I told him nothing of my desperate screams for Emily, of seeing her lifeless body twisted and broken in the vehicle.

To this day I say nothing of the hard hand’s soothing me, of the gray eyes and the calm I felt in them. Nothing of the soft fingers delicately stroking my lips. I never speak of Emily’s cruel words and the mad light in her eye as she jerked the car toward the trees. I keep silent, never telling anyone that my twin had tried to kill me.

Chapter
Nine

After my roadside meltdown, Henri follows me back to the SUV, and we continue to drive the rest of the way to the airstrip in silence. There is nothing to say. He knows that Emily died on the small stretch of road near our childhood home. He knows I ran away, trying to forget. A person could guess at the demons within me. It is obvious I still battle them. What he doesn’t know are the secrets I covet. No one knows of the black places that lay hidden.

I fled five years ago, in hopes to escape Emily, to escape Daddy’s grief. He will never know what his daughter had done. My home was destroyed; my childhood memories warped. But I ran in vain. She follows me wherever I go. Her face stares back at me every morning, her eyes, my eyes, reminding me of my silence. She had waged a battle against me, one I never knew I was supposed to fight. My twin had hated me. Enough to drive off the road in a last desperate attempt to win the boy that left us. I can’t comprehend her actions. I doubt I ever will.

As I stand next to Henri, I think of the boy that started a chain reaction, a series of events that played out in the dark corners of my twin’s mind. I can’t help but think of her accusations. I have spent a good portion of the last five years replaying that night, picking apart my childhood, trying to find the evidence that proved what she said was true. I unpack the boxes her memories are stored in and reexamine every detail. Most of the time, it hurts too bad, so I leave it be. But as hard as I try, I can’t see it. Only the bleak places and empty spaces our mother left.

As a boy, Henri had always treated Emily and I equally. He loved us, but at some point it began to change. I can’t look back and pinpoint the exact moment. But, it was long before he first took me to the mill. Before his soft kiss. Emily must have been devastated. Even with her betrayal, even after her attempt on my life, I couldn’t hate her. I had spent so many years prior trying to despise my sister; only to fail. Maybe if I had tried to understand, my sister would be alive today. My memories of her wouldn’t be stained red.

Somehow I have come to stand with the man that haunted my life, ruined my sister, and not to mention, stole my mother. I am about to board a plane that will take me to the very woman that has wrecked my mind, leaving me with so many issues I don’t even know where to begin to heal myself. I am to travel to see her so she could share secrets I never knew existed, only so she can leave me again. This time forever. 

I look at Henri. His hair shines bright in the sun, the long shadows of the afternoon playing over his face. He had turned Emily away. His inability to love her the way she wanted had destroyed her. I wonder if maybe I was no different; he destroyed parts of me as well, yet I stand, the victor of Emily’s silent war.

Dr. Gregory told me that survivor’s guilt was common after what I have experienced. There is guilt. But, it’s not just pain over being the only person to walk away from the charred ruins of that night. That is not what turns a single glass of wine into an entire bottle. What haunts me, what makes Emily plague my dreams, is the relief I felt when I knew I was to live.

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The French mountain air is exactly as I imagined it would be. Crisp, light, and earthy. We arrived in an airport in a cluster of villages in the foothills of the low lying mountains. The flight, just as Henri promised, had been long and tedious. I had finally fallen asleep but woke up when Henri announced we were to land soon.

In the distance are the silhouette of hills and spindly trees as the landscape changes and we drive toward the south. My brain is raw and jumbled. My nerves are on edge, and I sit upright in the car as we drove away from the towns and further east. Henri says that the chateau sits in a small village in the Southern Rhone Valley.

I have no concept of time, but it feels late or early depending on perspective. The longer we drive away from the lights of the cities, the darker it becomes. The night sky holds so many stars, more than I have ever seen in the sky over the plantation. It is as if France has gathered them all and shines them brighter than any other part of the world.

When we landed, we were quickly escorted to a car by the same man that apparently flew with us from Florida. I can’t help but wonder where he was on the flight. He is tall and has a shiny bald head. His skin is dark, his eyes pale, a strange almost colorless blue. He wears a dark blue suit that is contoured to his lean, athletic frame perfectly.

“Who is the guy?” I whisper. Henri and I sit in the back of the car, the tall man in the driver's seat. A glass partition separates us, but I am worried he can still hear me.

“That is Lance” Henri whispers back, like we are conspiring. “He works security for Ashur.”

“Like a bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?” I ask. Talk about overkill. Not that I am not used to bodyguards. Daddy was an over-paranoid, over-protective parent. We had security on us at all times. When I asked Daddy why we had bodyguards, he told me that Emily and I were his angels, and he couldn’t ever let anything happen to us. Finally, when I was older, he confessed that an old colleague of his had made terrible threats against us. He was cautious to the extreme.

“Yes, Char, seriously.”

“Why do you need a bodyguard?”

“My research has brought about some unwanted attention.”

Can he be more vague?

“Do you mean your disease gene research?” I don’t think I could sound less educated on the subject.

“Once you talk to Abigail, you will understand.”

“Your DNA research?”
How in the hell can Abigail explain what Henri’s, been doing?

“I have discovered something. Let’s just say there is a group of people that would benefit from this discovery and will do anything to get their hands on it.”

“When you say, ‘do anything,' what exactly does that mean?”

“These people are dangerous, Char. I’m not taking any chances with you,” Henri says. “I’ve waited this long to have you in my life again. I’m not going to let anyone take you away. Get used to seeing Lance, he’s going to be around, a lot.”

Henri has waited a long time for me. The fact that I am obsessing over his statement more than the bodyguard he has assigned me tells me that my brain is probably not functioning at its best.

“We are going to stay the evening in a small village between the airport and the chateau, at Aydin’s villa. I don’t want to travel too far with you at night, even with Lance. You won’t be entirely safe until we reach home.”

“Who?” I ask, purposely ignoring his remark about me not being safe.

“Aydin,” he says, like I should know who this is.

Finally, we arrive in a small town, with narrow streets and stucco-covered houses. I wish it were daylight so I can see better. The car jostles us over the old cobblestone roads as we make our way through the sleepy town. We drive up to a large building that butts up to the street. I pictured a decent-sized home when Henri called it a villa, but this is huge. Lance leads us into the massive foyer, where a plump woman is standing.

“Bonne soirée, Henri.” The woman smiles widely at Henri and nods her head toward me. “Suivez-Moi Mme Charlotte.” She turns and gestures for me to follow up the massive stairway. We walk down a quiet hall, our shoes clicking on the stone floor, to a thick wooden door.

In the center of the room, is a giant bed. Delicate rails hold gauzy material, framing the headboard. Everything is a rich dark wood or white, even the soft woven rugs that cover the floor. The room is warm and lit with pale yellow light of the table lamp.

My suitcase has appeared, along with my camera bag. I dig until I find my college t-shirt. The bed looks welcoming though I doubt sleep will come. My body is tired, but my mind is spinning with questions. There is no choice but to resign myself to the fact that I have to wait for answers. Henri wouldn’t budge. I tried to pry answers from him on the plane to no avail. I am left to wait full of questions until I see Abigail.

Had she seen it? Couldn’t a mother see what was deep inside her child? Emily had twisted her world to fit her version of our life. Surely our mother had seen it. If so, why would she leave me with the one person who posed the greatest threat?