Shadow of the Sun (27 page)

Images came flooding back to me—a dream trying to be remembered. A library, a Shadow with compassion . . . the Ladies of Light . . . Soul Stalker. Anger flared and electricity shot through me in hot waves, more violent and dangerous than ever before.

“
Ouch,” Joseph exclaimed. “Andrew, I can’t help her when she uses her ability.”

“
Put something between your skin and hers,” Andrew demanded through his glass cell.

My eyes snapped open. I was finally regaining control of myself. Everything was fuzzy, dizzy, faint. My mind had never been so confused and clear all at the same time. Oxymorons were becoming part of my life.

Ignoring Andrew’s demand, Joseph loomed over my head. “Gabriella? Are you all right?”

“
Why do people keep asking me that?” I said faintly.

There was a nervous chuckle through the glass wall, and I looked over to see that it was cracked down the middle as if someone had been trying to kick through it. Everything was cast in a bluish tint, and yellow lights flashed in my vision.

“
Your grumpy when you first wake up,” Joseph grumbled.

“
What happened?” I asked sleepily.

“
You fell asleep,” Andrew explained. “Your dream must have been wild because you started shooting lightning bolts. It was intense for some time. I tried to call for you—wake you. Even Ehno and Lucia were trying to find some way to reach you. The electricity shut off and lights have been flashing since then—a warning, I suppose. It took Joseph fifteen minutes to finally get the door open.”

My eyes shot to the door where it looked blackened as if it had been on fire. Had I done that? I looked down at my hands to find bruises covering my arms. “What did I do?” I asked quietly.

“
I don’t know.” Joseph looked behind him at the door. “But you blasted that thing open for me.”

“
I did?” I stood up, and my body ached everywhere. Emergency lights lit Joseph’s concerned face. Oddly enough, happy tears descended my face, and Andrew gasped in shock. I didn’t know why, I was too busy reeling in the information from my dream.

“
You were acting out your dream,” Ehno said through the little holes in the glass. “What was it about?”

Joseph pulled me into a tight embrace. Over his shoulder I said, “My parents.”

CHAPTER 20: 2THE CLOCK IS TICKING

They gaped at me. Joseph’s mouth was ajar while Andrew’s eyes burned into mine, the color of melted treasure. His expression was one I couldn’t place. Astonishment? Shock? Disbelief? Ehno and Lucia had their faces practically plastered to the glass walls, their expressions just as unreadable. The emergency lights barely lit the lab, and the flashing yellow lights made the whole scene look surreal and dream-like. But this was reality.

Andrew opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it after a few seconds of silence. That was okay. I was still trying to comprehend everything that happened in my dream. I was a bit faint and sat on a stool at a table, leaning over the countertop for support. As the tears slid down my face, they dropped on the stainless steel lab table before me. If I thought my level of bewilderment was reached, I was incredibly wrong. The two small droplets were like tiny beads of hot gold. I brushed at my face, wiping the tears from my eyes. When I looked down at my fingers, they were wet with golden tears. Gold? Why were they gold? This was a first. I turned back to the angels.

“
Wha—what?” I stuttered.

“
You’re an angel,” Andrew whispered in awe.

“
I’m a . . .” I trailed off. Images of my dream slammed back into my consciousness. Bam, bam, bam. One by one: Abelie, Aiden, the Divine Library, the Ladies of Light, the Soul Stalker, the prophecy . . .

The prophecy!

“
I’m a hybrid,” I realized aloud. I looked over my skin to check for the charcoal color of a Shadow. There were only bruises, most of them already turning a faint yellow. If I had a mirror I would have searched my eyes for the fire blazing behind them.

No, no, no. This was too much. All too much. I couldn’t handle this. I gripped the table for support as the room swayed at a funny angle. Was the table always tilted sideways or was I leaning that way? Each passing second felt weirdly sluggish as the room shifted sideways.

“
She’s going down. Catch her,” shouted Andrew.

Before my body fell into unconsciousness, the ground swirled up toward my face. Then everything was black.

<>

Warm fingers were on my face. “Please wake up,” murmured a soft tenor voice. “Gabriella, please.”

Without opening my eyes, I asked, “Did I faint?”

“
Thank you,” whispered a voice. “Yes, you fainted. How do you feel?”

I blinked, the lights hadn’t returned and Joseph’s face was cast in shadows. “I feel . . . well, I’m not sure if there’s a single word in any language that could describe how I feel.” I couldn’t believe I fainted. How embarrassing.

He let out a breath of relief. “I was worried.”

“
We all were,” barked Andrew.

I sat up, a little too quickly. My head went all swoopy on me. “Is the Sou—Karen here?”

“
No,” several people answered at once.

“
Thank God.” I sighed and leaned against the bottom of the lab table.

Andrew raised his eyebrows at my reaction.

“
Don’t trust her,” I said.

“
I don’t understand,” Lucia replied from the farthest cell to my left. “She’s your Guardian, of course you can trust her.”

Ignoring her, I looked straight at Ehno whose eyebrows had come so close together they almost made one single brow. “I know who gave me the Sight, and now I know why.”

“
Who?” he asked.

“
My mother.”

“
What?” exclaimed Ehno.

“
Your mother?” Andrew bellowed.

Lucia stared at me in complete disbelief. “Angels don’t have children.”

“
Maybe you knew her?” I shrugged. “Abelie?”

My words were met with silence. Knowing silence.

I tried to get to my feet, to move closer to the angels in their darkened cells. Joseph held out a hand to help me up. Once I was standing, I moved toward the glass cells, which reflected the annoying yellow lights.

“
Do you?” I asked. “Know her, I mean.”

“
She’s an Elder,” whispered Lucia.

“
We all knew her,” Andrew finally said. “She was the librarian at the Divine Library.”

There were too many things going through my head, too many aspects of my dream that they needed to know, but all I could do was stare at them. I’d finally found my mother, so to speak.

“
What was she like?” My fingers met the glass of Andrew’s cell. The glass vibrated as electricity shot through me. A small crack formed beneath my fingertips, and a spider-web effect raced through the glass until it touched all four corners. Then the wall crumbled to the ground in tiny little pieces as they scattered in every direction. Instead of jumping back in shock, I stepped over the pile of reflective crystal, glad the barrier was finally gone—and so were the camera’s intrusive eyes because there was no power. Relief rushed me.

Words weren’t necessary. I fell into Andrew’s arms.

“
She’s beautiful, like you,” he said while stroking my hair. “She has the kindest heart of any angel I ever knew. But I’m confused as to why you think you’re a hybrid. Abelie was deeply in love with her angel husband Aiden. If she’s your mother—an impossibility, I might add—then you would be an angel—you are an angel.” His voice lowered to a whisper until it trailed off.

His words surprised me. I didn’t want to pull away, but that was what I did—quickly—jerking my way free. “What? But that doesn’t— In my dream Aiden wasn’t an angel, he was a Shadow.”

From the cell next to Andrew’s, Ehno’s noises of impatience grew louder. “Maybe you could use your powers to let us out, too. I know you can,” said Ehno. “I can see it.”

Andrew nodded at me.

“
Yeah. I suppose I could try, right?” I stepped over the fragments of glass.

Joseph still hadn’t said a word; he just continued to look at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.

Ehno’s expression was clearly excited. I shook my hands before placing them on the glass. The bruises on my arms were gone, and I gasped, startled. At the same time electricity shot through me so fast and violent the glass didn’t just crack and crumble to the ground, it exploded. Joseph dived behind a lab table. Ehno, red eyes wide, smirked. I bit my bottom lip, unsure of what to say. He stepped over the pile of shards before tracing a spot on my arm. I looked down to see small droplets of golden blood escaping a deep gash, a piece of glass sticking out. Speechless, I yanked the glass free and watched as my skin grew back together, leaving the golden droplet on my arm. My heart beat rapidly as I witnessed this. When I was younger I had skinned my knees up, I was in a car accident once, and every time my blood was red, not gold.

What does it all mean? I thought, flabbergasted.

“
It’s true then? You really are an angel,” Ehno breathed in wonder. “You’ll become very powerful.” He nodded at some thought.

I wasn’t sure if that was a statement of goodwill in me or his psychic ability. When I turned around, I almost ran right into Andrew who stared over my head at Ehno. It seemed like they were having a silent conversation.

“
Hurry,” Andrew said to me, then looked back at Ehno. “While the power is out we might be able to break free of this place. Ehno can’t quite see the outcome yet.”

Behind Andrew, Joseph was watching us, his eyes as big as silver dollars. It was now or never; I rushed over to Lucia’s cell and didn’t hesitate as I put my fingers on the glass.

Nothing happened. Ehno and Andrew flanked me.

“
What’s wrong?” Andrew asked.

I stared at our reflections in the glass. They were waiting for me to free her—to break the glass as I did before. This power was still new to me, and I wasn’t quite sure how to control it. I tried to will the electricity to come. Again, nothing. When I thought about it, I realized that the previous two times electricity had exploded from me when I experienced an overwhelming emotion. In my failed attempts I grew frustrated, but that emotion was not strong enough to wield any results. I tried to think about my dream, but nothing happened.

“
There’s no electricity,” I said angrily.

Andrew and Ehno started having another one of their silent conversations, I could tell just by the changing expressions on both of their faces.

“
The clock is ticking,” Andrew stated. I turned around and stared between the two, waiting with much impatience at their silence.

All of a sudden, Ehno’s eyebrows shot up. “That might work.”

I exhaled a deep breath, ready to demand to hear what they were saying to each other in their heads. “What might work?”

Both of their eyes snapped down to me before they looked back at each other knowingly. I opened my mouth to demand more information when Andrew twisted me around and pushed me up against the glass wall. His face descended to mine until he was only an inch away. He took me completely by surprise. My breath came heavily at the feeling of his face being so close to mine. At his body pressing against mine.

What was he doing?

His rich, warm scent swirled between us. He hesitated so close to my lips I thought I was going to explode with anticipation. We stood like that for several long—too long—seconds. His breath filled the space between us, and I licked my lips. His eyes, his face, his body had gone all aggressive and passionate. My breath hitched. Butterflies assaulted my stomach and sent a wave of bliss rushing through my throbbing veins—my veins that were now full of golden blood. You really are an angel, Ehno had said.

I closed my eyes, and Andrew finally closed the distance, his hands on the glass beside my head, trapping me. I didn’t care. His lips were warm and soft against mine as I responded to his mouth. The taste of him was much better than I could have ever imagined. He was like honey. Desire raced in my veins; desire for him, his body, his lips against mine. Each time he moved his mouth away, I brought his lips back with my own. Everything around me melted away—there was only us. He was my angel and would always be my angel. I would refuse to give this up—to give him up.