My Soul to Take (Soul Keepers (Young Adult paranormal romance)) (20 page)

“Do you feel that when we touch, or is it just me?”

“
Definitely not just you. Why do you think I can’t keep my hands off of you?” I take his hand in mine and give it a squeeze. He kisses my fingers and lets out a sigh.

A man comes over and serves us a warm spinach salad with bacon and goat cheese among other things. It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Next comes a cream of mushroom bisque with a smoky bacon topping. I like where this is going with the whole ode to bacon theme. Bacon wrapped scallops are followed by the lightest carbonara I’ve ever tasted.

This was delicious but if he brings me a dessert with bacon in it may all make a reappearance. Another young man wearing a crisp white shirt and black slacks takes away each dish and cleans the table between courses. Elijah adjust himself so that he’s not in their way, but doesn’t thank them or acknowledge the workers in any way. Dessert appears in a tiny white ramekin, crème Brule with one spoon. I take the spoon and feed Elijah the first bite. He returns the gesture and we sappily feed each other the custard like a love-sick new couple. This is the freaking life.

We are both quite as we return to the main headquarters. Elijah and I walk through the hall to get Sam and then go home. Our elaborate lie is in place to keep Sam in the dark about everything. Our future hangs dimly above us as we return to our rightful paths on earth. The halls are empty and the place seems quite.

“
Wait here a moment I need to go check in with Nehemiah and make sure everything is still in order.” I sit on a glass-less window ledge and wait but I get bored after five minutes and wander down the hall.

A door cracked open catches my interest so I peek inside.
It’s one of the recovery rooms and laying on the bed is a barely recognizable Jesson. His face is bruised and cut like someone beat him to a pulp. I slowly make my way in.

“
Jesson, who did this to you?”  He opens his eyes and smiles at me through swollen lips and then winces in pain.

“
Brennen, all that matters is your safe.” His eyes drift closed slowly. Oh my gosh, he is in this horrible condition because of me. They must have tortured him after finding me missing. I sit on his bed and take his hand.

“
I’m so sorry Jesson.” His eyes flutter back open.

“
Don’t be sorry Bren, because of you I get to be back in grace.” I smile warmly back down at him as he grips my hand.

“
Can I ask you something?” He nods.

“
Was it you who took me that night?”

“
What, no I would never have brought you to them. I thought you knew. You need to be careful. I know they want you to marry him and all, but Sam is too dangerous.” His eyes struggle to stay open, one is almost swollen shut anyway.

“
Wait, I don’t understand? Who took me Jesson?”

“
Sam,” he says as he finally passes out for good. What? Sam? Effing unbelievable. The angels must know he did it. Freaking Nehemiah didn’t say anything because he knew I wouldn’t play along with their little plan if I knew the truth. I sneak back into the hall and resume my seat in the window. I know Elijah doesn’t know, if he did, he would have let Sam die in that fire or strangled him in his sleep if he hadn’t.  Sam probably doesn’t even know, since he seems to remember nothing about the night he attacked me.

Elijah finds me after a few minutes and we continue down the hall to Sam’s room.  Will is already there. He picks Sam up with no more effort than lifting a sleeping child in his arms.
I’m fuming with anger but hopefully hiding it from the world. I can’t believe they would keep this a secret. Now it really explains the guilty look on Nehemiah’s face when he returned me from the cell. I make up my mind to tell Elijah when we’re alone again. He needs to know what kind of beings he is working for.

The four of us go into the transport room which is oddly, completely empty.
“Alright remember, we will be in your car and Sam will remember having dinner with you. When you pull into his driveway, you’ll see the damaged stable and the first responders. You’ll say exactly what we talked about.” Elijah feeds me the lies that Nehemiah ordered him to.

We step onto a larger platform. This one must be for holding more people at once. I feel like
I’m in some glorified sci-fi movie. Elijah takes my hand and a second later I’m in my car on the side of the road with Sam sleeping beside me. Elijah and Will must be flying over us. I’d rather at least one of them be in the car with me. I feel like Pi on the lifeboat with his starving wild tiger. I set the car in motion and by the time I reach the speed limit, Sam is awake. He smiles sweetly up at me and I can’t bring myself to lie to those molten brown eyes. He doesn’t deserve to be fed any more bullshit in his life.

“
Well good morning sunshine!” I smile back at him as we zoom down the two lane highway towards his ranch. We have about ten minutes until we get there.

“
Sorry I must have dozed off.”

I stare straight ahead
, and make the decision that the lies end here. The In-Between can kiss my lily white ass!

“
No Sam, you didn’t doze off. Listen to me, don’t say anything until I finish speaking.”
If I hold any power over Sam, please let it work now.

“This is going to sound crazy, but I swore I’d never lie to you. You were dead. We just got back from a place near heaven where guardian angels live. Elijah is really my guardian angel. You were possessed again and set the stable on fire. The demon tried to kill you. He succeeded actually. Elijah brought you to the angels so they could heal you.”

Elijah pops in the back seat after hearing his name. I continue anyway.
Sam’s brows are peaked to the heavens and his eyes are cavernous. I pray that I’m not doing irrevocable damage to his psyche.  

“
It turns out my birth mother is a real angel, making me half angel, half human. They found out that your soul is marked. Which means, a demon can possess you whenever they want to take your skin out for a joy ride.”
“Brennen stop, what are you doing?” Elijah yells from the back seat.

“
Your soul is marked because your mother made a deal with the devil. She was unable to have children, she let them have the soul of her first born if she could have a big family. Then the evil monstrosities gave her cancer, so she couldn’t even live long enough to see their full lives.

She was fully aware of what that meant for you and
I’m so sorry to have to tell you this way. But they wanted me to lie to you. I think you need to know the truth. You just got your own guardian angel because you have a very important destiny to fill. You are going to discover the cure for cancer one day. The angels have a way to see the future. They think that you will only succeed if you and I are together. But I can’t be with you Sam.”

“
Brennen, no,” Elijah pleads.

“
I’m doing everything I can as I promised you I would,” I say turning to Elijah. My words melt him and he’s effectively silenced. Sam looks in the empty back seat wondering who I’m talking to.

“
You will always have a special place in my heart because you were the first person I ever fell in love with. But I will always be afraid that you could hurt me, not you, but a demon that takes over your body. You see I’ve a special destiny too, and if I die, so will billions. So the demons have it out for me too.” I hang everything out on the line, except I won’t tell him that he’s already condemned to hell. No one needs to have that hanging over their heads.

Tear
s are pouring down his face. He either obeyed my words or was just kind enough to listen, but he didn’t speak throughout my speech. I turn around and see Elijah glaring at me from the back seat. Oh boy, I’m hot shit now. Let hell fire reign down from the heavens, I’m done playing by their rules.  

“
Sam, I will be here for you, as your friend,” I say pulling over so he can process my words.

Will pops into the back seat.
“What’d I miss?” he booms out, the bass of his voice causes my ribs to vibrate. Impeccable timing as usual. Sam watches me stare into the empty back seat.

“
Will, meet Sam.” I turn to Sam. “This is the guy that nearly strangled the life out of you before, he’s now your guardian angel, so good luck with that.” Sam nearly chokes as the two angels appear out of thin air in the back seat.

“
Holy shit!” Sam spits out. Both of the Keepers frown.

“
Yeah, they don’t like biblical blasphemies too much.”

“
Nice to meet you,” Will rumbles out and extends his hand to Sam. Sam reluctantly shakes it. “Sorry about the choking and the punching, but that demon was a little bitch who didn’t want to come out nicely.” We all turn to Will, shocked at his use of a curse word.

Will and Elijah return to their invisible state.
“They’re still there aren’t they?”

“
Never leave your side.”

“
But you can see them?”

“
Yeah I think it’s my angel blood. On my birthday I got a letter from my dad which also contained a letter from my real mother explaining who I was. That is what had me so sad and confused the night of my party.”

“
And that’s when Elijah showed up?” I take a deep breath to prepare for another long explanation.

“
Sort of, when I left the party Will and I got attacked. They almost killed him too, but he managed to get us both to Amorous, the world between Heaven and Earth, where the angels live. I was there for a week recovering, just like you had to do. Time is different there, so I was only gone a couple of hours here. Elijah and I found each other just when I was leaving to come home.”

“
Well, that explains a lot actually. So this Will fella, he will make sure I don’t hurt my family or anyone else?”
I nod and wipe a tear from Sam’s face.  He stares out the passenger window again. I know he has a circuit-breaking amount of information to process so I’m quite while he thinks about it all.

“
Her last words to me when she died were, “I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” I thought she was apologizing for dying. But now I see it was for condemning me.”  I rest a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. “I hurt someone, back in Texas. That is why we moved here. So I could have a fresh start.” Sam’s gaze looks far away as he stares out the windshield.

“I was at a party and I had a few drinks and then I blacked out. The next day, I didn’t remember how I got home, but the police were at our front door. They arrested me when they saw my bloody knuckles. They said I beat some freshman black and blue, tied him up in the woods with his own belt and left him there all night. A bird watcher found him early in the morning. He lived, but it freaked me and my dad out. I don’t think he believed me when I said I didn’t remember doing it. Then when he found me in my truck, all messed up, he knew it happened again. That’s why he didn’t call the cops.”

“
Well look, I know this all sounds bad, but with Will here, you should be able to live your life without having to worry too much.”  

“
The night your house caught on fire, I had another black out Brennen. I could have set your house on fire. When Elijah told me what I almost did to you, I knew there was something in me that could put you in danger, that’s why I stayed away.” 

N
ow is probably not a good time to mention that he kidnapped me and dragged me to Hell’s holding bin, especially not with Elijah in such close proximity.

“
Sam listen to me. It’s not you doing these things. You are the kindest person I’ve ever met. Your heart is so big and so loving that I know you are nothing but good inside and out. You would never hurt me Sam. You would never hurt anyone. You are good.” I hope my gift reaffirms this fact to Sam’s perception of himself.

I don’t want him to hate his mother or himself.

“Don’t look at this as a curse. If you do, if you let them have your life without a fight then they win. But if you fulfill your destiny and save millions then your life will be its own redemption.” He nods his head in agreement. Elijah and Will do the same and actually fist bump in the back seat. I roll my eyes at the pair.

I’m
sure Nehemiah is flipping out right about now. I may be in a lot of trouble, but for this one moment everything has fallen into place in my world.

I put the car and drive and kick up the gravel as I take off down the black road again. We are pulling in his driveway two minutes later.
“The horses made it all safely out.” His eyes grow wide as he sees the charred remains. His mouth hangs open in horror.

“
Yeah the stables are equipped with a state of the art system that opens the stall doors automatically in the event of a fire.” Red and blue lights spin brightly in the darkness as we pull up to the barn.

“
The story is, we went to dinner and this must have happened while we were gone.” He doesn’t have to feign the look of shock, it’s written all over his face. Sam and I walk toward the fireman, the same one that took my statement at my house. He does a double take when he recognizes me. I realize that it looks like more than a huge coincidence that I was at the scene of two fires.