Inception (The Reaping Chronicles, 1) (50 page)

“What do you mean? How can He not know?” Gabrielle sat next to Lucas. She looked at his face. He seemed so peaceful. She couldn’t imagine anything bad was going on beneath his skin—behind his eyes.

“His blood isn’t completely human. It’s part Divine. That’s why he wasn’t killed and why his transformation to a Qalal appears to be only partial.”

“Of course.” Gabrielle stood and walked to the window, raising the blinds. “A Qalal can’t kill an angel or turn them. I hadn’t thought about that.”

Emma spoke, and Gabrielle could hear the hope in her voice when she did. “Then he’ll be okay?”

“Emma,” Amaziah began, “he’s still mostly human. Just
how
human he remains—we can’t calculate. Yahuwah did not create whatever it is that Lucas will become … which is why even He isn’t sure what Lucas is now. As hard as it’s going to be, we have to wait and see.”

“How long?” The desperation was heavy in Emma’s voice.

Gabrielle closed her eyes to fight back her own tears. She’d messed things up so badly. She should never have chosen to live among humans. This was all her fault, and she couldn’t change any of it.

“We don’t know that either. His body will change, but because of the circumstances, the changes will be very different and may take longer than what’s normal in these cases. Or it may be more brief in its duration. Patience—”

“Amaziah, if you say patience is a virtue, I’ll do anything I can to make you regret it.” Gabrielle didn’t turn to look at her friend, but she felt bad as soon as the words escaped her lips. He was so good to her, and all he was trying to do was comfort everyone the best he could.

She felt his energy draw closer to her until she knew he was right behind her.

“I’m sorry, Amaziah. I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, Gabrielle.” She felt his hands on her shoulders, and she couldn’t hold her tears back anymore.

She turned and buried her face in his shoulder, crying harder than she ever had before. The tears weren’t only for Lucas or their love being in peril but also for her shame. She’d fallen so far. Not like Javan. Not like the thousands of others cast from Heaven, but she’d fallen in her own way. She was so far from what she’d intended that she wasn’t sure where she was going anymore or if Heaven would lend a hand to help her redeem this mammoth mess she created.

She just wanted to cry. To not be strong for herself or anyone else. To feel all her pain, all her shame, all her fears—feel it, and somehow come out the other side with the answers to the problems she faced.

So that’s what she did. She cried into the shoulder of the angel who’d been there through it all and still held his arms out to her. She wasn’t sure how long she wept, but when she let go of Amaziah, the only person left in the room other than Lucas, who still lay just as he did when she put him in bed, was Emma. She had pulled a chair from the front room and was sitting in it, staring at Lucas.

Gabrielle looked into the face that was her friend’s. He smiled warmly at her, and she hugged him tightly. “What would I do without you?”

She felt him chuckle quietly.

“Let’s not find out.” He held her a little longer, and then he made her look at him. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Gabrielle. This isn’t your fault.”

“But it is. If I’d stayed and kept watch over him like I was supposed to, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“But it would.”

Gabrielle looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“Your vision. The attack on Lucas was going to happen. There were things done by Lucas or the twins, maybe even you, that changed the
how
of it, but the result was the same.”

“So no matter what I would have done, Lucas was going to be attacked.” Gabrielle paused for a moment to let that fact sink in. “Then what was the point of Yahuwah putting me in his life to protect him?”

“Lucas’s real need for protection and guidance is just beginning.”

“The choice he has to make,” she murmured. The battle for Lucas’s soul, for the existence of every living thing, had begun tonight. And it was her job to help him make the right decision. Maybe, she was the only one who could.

As she watched his resting body, struck by how frail and precious human life truly was, she prayed his love for her, their love for each other, would be enough. If it wasn’t, hope for every living thing was lost.

Chapter Seventy-nine

Gabrielle ~ Awakenings

Two days passed before Lucas began to move, and even then, he didn’t wake.

Gabrielle stayed with him continually, pausing time when she needed to work. No one could predict how Lucas was going to act when he woke, and she didn’t want to take the chance of someone getting hurt.

While she watched him, he still seemed like her Lucas. His face and body appeared the same. His infrequent breathing and heartbeat had remained unchanged. So far, the only difference she noted was that his skin seemed smoother. She thought it was her imagination, but his lips appeared more red, too.

Emma had held it together after her initial meltdown. Since then, she’d devoted herself to tending to Lucas and Gabrielle. The two of them spent many hours talking, sometimes even laughing, because of something Emma told Gabrielle about Lucas as a child. If she felt animosity toward Gabrielle for what had happened to Lucas, she was doing a good job of hiding it. It might have something to do with the long conversation Emma had with Amaziah after he comforted Gabrielle two nights earlier. She never asked Emma what they’d talked about, but when she returned from the conversation, she seemed to be more focused and smiled at her as if she understood something.

Gabrielle walked to the window. Outside the light was growing dim as the sun relinquished its hold on the day, turning control over to the moon and shadows. It had been a sunny day, and now the stars were beginning to speckle the cloudless sky. She’d been standing there for some time when she suddenly felt an energy right behind her. She spun quickly and found herself staring into Lucas’s eyes.

Only they were different.

They were still blue, but more brilliant, and had taken on violet strands that constantly mingled with the blue. They were mesmerizing.

She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she felt the need to be cautious. His expression and body language were unreadable, and more than his eyes were different; he’d been able to move out of the bed and across the room without a sound. Even a full Qalal couldn’t move quietly enough for Gabrielle not to hear them coming. His stealth unnerved her.

“Lucas … how are you feeling?” Gabrielle didn’t move, but she readied herself in case she had to switch forms. Lucas looked at her with the same lack of expression. After several moments, Gabrielle reached out to touch his face.

He stopped her hand with a movement that was so fast she barely saw it. She continued to look in his eyes. Something was clearly wrong, and it wasn’t just that he was something that had never existed. It was in his eyes, something she felt was directed at her. After a few more seconds, Lucas let go of her hand, turned around, and began to make his way down the hall.

“Leave, Gabrielle.” It was his voice but silkier, deeper, like he’d grown from a teenager into a man in the two days that had passed.

“Why? Lucas, wait!” Gabrielle manifested in front of him. They were in the hall that led to the rest of the house, facing each other. Lucas didn’t stop moving. When he reached her, he just moved her to the side without making eye contact.

Why is he treating me this way?

She expected he might be different, but she got better treatment from Qalal she’d never met, much less one that was still part human or at least part angel—someone she loved and she thought loved her, too.

Lucas stopped at the kitchen sink and bent over to drink straight from the tap like it was a water fountain. Gabrielle waited for him to finish, knowing water wouldn’t quench his thirst. When he did, he fluidly moved the three steps to the refrigerator and opened it, taking out a can of soda. He popped the tab and tilted his head back to drink, then tossed the empty can into the sink.

“I told you to leave,” he said, bitterness spiking his tone.

“I asked you why.” Gabrielle wasn’t going to just leave even if that really was what he wanted. There was too much he needed to know and too much she still didn’t know about him and his condition. He was going to have to deal with her whether he liked it or not.

“After what you did, I don’t think I owe you an explanation. What happened? Did Javan let you down again?” Lucas shut the door to the fridge and turned his exquisite, pooling eyes on her. “Did you decide you still wanted to
play
with the human?”

“Lucas, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Javan won’t ever have the opportunity to let me down again. I told you I could never be with him again after his betrayal. Why are we discussing him, anyway?”

Lucas smirked, then let out a sarcastic laugh that sent a chill through Gabrielle. There was definitely a more malicious side to Lucas, now.

“Were you the one who had the life sucked out of you, Gabrielle? You’re not
really
going to act like you didn’t betray
me
with Javan the other night, are you? Are you going to deny you pretended to be on the brink of death, helping Javan sucker me into getting him that book by saying it was the only way he would release you?”

“The Book of Barabbadon?”

“Yes. The fucking Book of Barabbadon.”

Lucas started toward Gabrielle aggressively. She transformed before he reached her, stopping him temporarily, but then he closed the rest of the distance in two more quick steps.

He didn’t touch her. Just glared.

“What was worse,” he continued, “you stood and watched as that
bitch
made a snack out of me.” Lucas narrowed his eyes. “You
smiled
. Are you going to try and deny that, too? Or were you hoping, since she didn’t kill me, I would somehow forget?”

Gabrielle felt like she was going to break into pieces. She manifested her human form again.

“I deny all of that, Lucas.”

He sneered and turned. She turned him back, and he shoved her hand off his arm.

“Lucas, what you
think
you saw wasn’t real. It wasn’t
me.
”

“What? Are you going to tell me he had you under a spell or something?”

“It
wasn’t
me!”

How was she going to convince Lucas it wasn’t her he saw? She frantically searched her mind to try and figure out a way to make him believe her. Whatever happened to him, whatever he thought he saw
her
doing, was embedded in his mind. And she didn’t know what to do about it.

She couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through—thinking she was doing those things to him or that she stood by and watched him being killed with a smile on her face. How was she ever going to get him to see the truth when he saw it with his own eyes? Gabrielle didn’t think she was going to be able to get through to him, but she had to try to help him work through what had happened.

“Do you remember the attack?”

“It’s a little hard to forget something like that.” Lucas’s tone seemed to have softened but only a little. He turned to face her, then took a seat at the table. Gabrielle sat across from him. He didn’t look at her as he continued. “Even if I didn’t remember, I heard enough about what happened from you, Amaziah, and Gran to put it together.”

“I didn’t realize you could hear us. I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would’ve made everyone talk about it somewhere else.”

“It’s not a problem. Besides, I think you would’ve had to go a couple of blocks away—
at least.
My improved hearing is annoying, but I’m starting to figure out how to tune in to only what I want to hear. At least, I think I am.”

Gabrielle raised a brow and wondered what other abilities he now had.
‘Lucas, can you hear me?’

She waited several seconds and tried again.

‘Lucas, can you hear me?’

Lucas turned his head toward her slowly. She heard his voice, but not with her ears.

‘Are you kidding me? Am I hearing your thoughts?’

Gabrielle smiled. Whatever he held locked away in his angelic DNA had apparently been awakened.

‘Not my thoughts, exactly. Just the communication I want you to hear. It’s selective, for not only what I want to be transmitted to someone else, but also who I want to hear that information.’

‘Wow—can I do the same thing?’

‘You already are. You just have to learn how to perfect it.’

“Cool,” Lucas said aloud and smiled. Gabrielle smiled at his reaction. But she couldn’t help noticing how white his teeth were. There was definitely some Qalal in him.

“How do you feel, Lucas?”

Gabrielle was surprised by how quickly he seemed to calm down after being in almost a rage a few minutes ago.

“I feel kinda great, actually. I thought I’d feel all empty and emotionless. You know—
dead.
Instead, all my emotions seem to be enhanced. Like with you I feel angrier than I ever have in my life. So much so, I can feel it twisting inside me. Like it’s got a life of its own. I’m having a really hard time not physically throwing you out right now, to be honest. The only reason I haven’t is
because
I’ve heard you all talking over the last couple of days.” Lucas studied her for a moment. “Maybe there’s some truth to what you’re claiming. I have to find out what really happened. If it wasn’t you, then you aren’t the one I need to go after—Javan is … and whoever impersonated you. And Mara …” he said, then seemed to go somewhere deep within his thoughts.

While he was far away in his mind, she thought she saw black playing around the edges of his eyes. A grave tone accompanied his next words.

“I’ll go after them …
all
of them. I’ll make them pay.”