What I've Done (26 page)

He glowers at me before taking a step closer and looking suspiciously around the store. The customer Kalia had been finishing up with walks past us, taking more than one glance at each of us before scurrying from the store. Kalia must know what is happening—she stands behind the counter watching us with an unmistakable look of dread frozen on her face.

“What’s the catch?” Johnny asks, deciding Kalia doesn’t look like any kind of threat. “You got cops waiting out back or somethin’?”

I know I should be terrified of this man that most likely is carrying some type of weapon and wouldn’t think twice about doing me harm, but I can’t see past the seething red hatred raging through my veins. My pulse begins to race wildly just having him stand so close to me.

“No,” I say coldly. “Just take your money and leave.”

His smile becomes wider and his crooked teeth seem to be getting longer. He looks more like a sick animal about to attack. “You are such a pretty girl, Lily. You and me could get a lot of money if you decided to work for me, you know.”

The revolting visions of what he is proposing fill my head and I have to shake them out. “That will never happen. You should leave before I change my mind.”

“Change your mind about what?” His tone becomes more threatening. “You think I’m going to just leave you and your little sister as loose ends?”

I am able to close the few dozen feet that are between us in a fraction of a second. He blinks in disbelief when my face looms just inches from his. His unclean stench assaults my nostrils, making me detest him even more.

“You tried to kill my mother and now you’re threatening my little sister? You’re nothing more than a complete dirt bag. I would be doing the world a favor if I were to end your life.”

The words are so foreign to my own ears but feel natural coming from my lips. I have never felt so alive. My new abilities rage through me and I want to curl my fingers around his neck to stop the air from passing through his throat, just as I had done to Gabe. Beads of sweat are forming around Johnny’s forehead, although he tries to keep a brave front.

He laughs nervously and roughly grabs me by my arms. “You’re going to end it? You think I’m afraid of a little girl like you?”

Gabe strolls into the shop with a casual air, but he is grinning with pleasure at what he is seeing. “I wouldn’t be so quick to judge her.”

Johnny jumps in surprise and drops my arm. “What are you doing here?”

There is a tone to his voice alluding to the fact that he knows Gabe. But I discard the thought with the same speed as it had sprung into my mind. There would be no reason for the two of them to have met.

Gabe positions himself behind me and lowers his head to whisper into my ear. “End him, Lily. Show him the consequences for what he did to your mother. You remember the horrible black eye and broken leg he gave her and how she screamed as he pulled her outside by her hair. Make him feel that same pain.”

My stomach lurches as the very memories he speaks of come flooding back to me.

Johnny looks nothing if not flabbergasted when he turns to Gabe. “What are you talking about? You’re the one that told me to come here today and kill her. What is going on?”

All at once I feel a burning constriction in my chest. My eyes jump from Johnny to Gabe. “You told him to come?”

Gabe’s stare meets mine but there is something behind them, coaxing me not to be upset with him. I try to fight off their calming effect, knowing something is not right.

“Lily,” Kalia warns in a low voice.

My shaking hand reaches out toward Johnny, intending to choke the life out of him. His beady eyes widened with fear when he realizes I am about to do as Gabe suggests. He begins yelling as my hands clamp onto his arm, but he cannot break free. My will is stronger than his.

“Lily!” My name resonates from the entrance of the shop, snapping me back into reality.

Eli comes running toward me from the entrance. The sight of him is all it takes for me to know I am about to make a terrible mistake. I step away from Johnny as if he is diseased, but all at once he stops moving. A pained expression of fear is frozen on his face and his entire body is still but standing upright.

I know without having to ask that his condition is due to some kind of an angel thing. Which of the two angles has done this to him, I don’t know. Conflicting emotions rage through me as I look from Gabe to Eli, wondering how this will end.

“Now is your chance, Lily,” Gabe says, his voice barely above a whisper. “This man came to kill your little sister. If you let him go now, he’ll keep coming after you until he has finished the job. It won’t be over until you end him.”

Rose is not here for Johnny to harm but Gabe is right—if I take care of Johnny now he won’t be a threat to us ever again.

Eli stops a few feet away, holding his arm out to me. “Think about what he is telling you to do. You can’t kill someone, Lily. It’s not in your nature. Just because you are part angel doesn’t mean you are unstoppable. You could still spend the rest of your life in prison. What would happen to Rose then?”

“What about free will?” I ask. “Why are you trying to stop me?”

His eyes soothe over me and his words are slow. “I can’t let you do this. It’s not you.”

There is an aching in my heart that makes me want to run to him. But anger sweeps through me and takes over every other emotion. I reel on my heels to confront him.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was going to try to kill Rose? You knew, but you did nothing to warn me! I am starting to believe Gabe, and think everything you told me was just your way of getting me to choose your side. Do you even love me the way you said you did? Or was that just another lie so you could get your way?”

He flinches at my hateful words, pausing long enough to let them roll off his back.

“You know I love you. This whole situation we’re in right now is exactly what I was warning you about. Gabe is influencing you as we speak. Lily, if you kill this man now, you are making your final choice to be in the darkness with him. If you search your heart, you’ll know this isn’t what you want. He isn’t what you want.”

I begin to shake when the rage for Johnny completely takes me over. But the goodness in me continues to fight its way through, knowing it is wrong to hurt him. I can feel the conflicting sides of me struggling with each other, demanding to be heard.

Eli steps closer to me. “I told you I would fall for you, and I meant every word I said.”

The realization of what my heart has been trying to say finally breaks through all the influences Gabe has placed on me. I can almost feel them physically breaking away from me.

I look into Eli’s eyes and remember he had always been the one I want to be with. I fell in love with him the day I first laid eyes on him. Everything since had just been Gabe trying to win me over. My heart has always held on to Eli, no matter what my crazy mind has tried to convince me.

A whimper sounds from somewhere in the room, but it is a second before I realize the noise had come from me. “I love you,” I whisper, reaching out for Eli.

Before I can get to him, however, Gabe grabs my shoulders and roughly pulls me toward him. Eli leaps forward just as Gabe reaches out to wrap one hand around Johnny’s frozen neck, squeezing as hard as his angel abilities will allow. Johnny’s body bursts into what seems like billions of little pieces, shattering as if he is made out of glass. The seemingly bloodless pieces of his body scatter all throughout the shop, some of them falling against my feet. Never in a thousand years would I have dreamed the human body could do anything like that.

A booming, terror-filled scream leaves my lungs and I begin beating at Gabe’s chest.

“Let me go!” I yell at him, flailing my arms to break free.

As I continue to struggle, an intense heat begins shooting from Gabe and he makes some kind of guttural noise. I gasp and step away as I see the whites of his eyes turn black. His body shutters intensely with the heat coming from him.

“Eli!” Kalia screams from behind us in warning.

Eli pulls me close to him in a bear hug and dives to the ground. In the same moment, the actual fire that literally blazes from Gabe’s body now is blazing hot and makes me shield my face. I laugh out loud in a nervous bubble when I find myself thinking now that’s what an angel of darkness should look like.

“I have no intension of letting you leave,” Gabe tells me. The pitch of his voice still the same but the manner in which he speaks making me fear for my life. I clutch tightly to Eli, feeling as if my life depends on him to get out of here alive. A high pitched scream resonates from the entrance of the shop.

I whip around to the direction of the scream to have my whole world come crashing down on me.

Rose and Svetlana.

They stand together, their eyes equally wide in fear. Svetlana is using her body to shield Rose protectively as the blazing creature formerly known to be Gabe jets into their direction.

In this moment I realize Gabe had been right about Rose dying—only it would not be from Johnny’s hands. Looking into Gabe’s now dark eyes, I know he had been intending all along on killing my sister himself. He was counting on my anger to take over so I would fall to the darkness.

“No!” I cry out in desperation.

Suddenly the cold fear racing through me is replaced with a warming calm within seconds. As I scramble to my feet, I know exactly what I have to do. Although I know my father will never return to this world, I also know the extra power and courage I feel at the moment are somehow coming from him.

Eli pulls me back to him with so much force I nearly fall over. “Lily, no!”

His eyes are pleading with me and I can see there is something totally different about him now. He is still as gorgeous as ever, but the light behind his eyes has gone missing. He just seems so uncharacteristically ordinary.

Everything has changed, never to be the same again.

Eli is human.

“This is the future I couldn’t tell you about,” he tells me. “This is the moment I know you will decide to do something reckless, something that will only end your life but not help solve anything. I had to do the only thing I could not to intervene but to alter the future. I’m begging you, Lily, please don’t go to him now! We have forever to be together, but not if you choose to be with him and pass into the dark! We can find another way to save Rose!”

I know Eli is not asking me to choose him over my sister, but I don’t see any other way out. My mouth flies open to let out words that won’t come. He knows exactly what I am going to do. He has seen my future. Of course I want to stay with him and share our lives together as long as possible, but my baby sister’s desperate screams continue behind me and her life is in danger.

“I have to save her,” I finally tell Eli with tears streaming down my cheeks.

Eli shuts his less vivid but still beautiful eyes briefly with a pained look. When he opens them again he leans down and kisses me. The kiss is inflamed with passion and regret as we hold on tight to each other, wishing our love alone would be enough to save us. The usual tingling spark that was always between us is gone but has been replaced by an equally pleasing surge of the love we feel for each other.

Then, all at once, I can feel the urgency in his lips shift into something that feels more like a pained goodbye than anything else. Panic grips my chest when I think I know what he is doing. He withdraws from me with difficulty as I am still holding him tight.

“No one said you’re the one that has to save her,” he whispers breathlessly.

He no longer has the angel abilities to move quickly but he is still strong enough to push me onto my backside, which I do with very little finesse. As I slide across the floor, my head makes contact with the base of a metal clothing rack. All at once the shop turns black, as if someone has flicked a light switch.

* * *

When I wake I am alone in a hospital room. The pain in my skull is so intense I know I will not be able to lift my head to see what is going on.

“Hello?” I call out, grimacing when the pain flares, nearly causing me to black out.

When I remember everything that had happened I begin to call my sister’s name with the fear in my voice rising. I need to find out if she is okay or if Eli was too late in saving her.

Kalia appears at the entrance of the room within seconds and rushes to my side. There are visible bags under her eyes from lack of sleep and her little smile is filled with worry.

“You need to take it easy, Lily. You cracked your head even better this time. The doctor said you have a slight concussion and need to rest. Any more of this and you’re going to end up with serious brain damage.” Her voice is hinting at sarcasm but she is clearly worried about me.

“Where is Rose?” I ask.

Kalia nods with a warmer smile. “She’s okay. She’s home with Svetlana. Gabe didn’t get a chance to hurt her.”

“And Svetlana’s okay?” I ask next, assuming so or she wouldn’t be home with Rose.

“She’s fine. I told her I would watch over you for a while so she could get some sleep. She’s been so worried about you—we all have.”

“Eli?” I choke his name out and my eyes instantly water in fear of the truth.

Kalia looks down as she straightens the blanket around me.

“He saved Rose,” she answers in a flat tone.

I sit up faster than my head can tolerate and can’t seem to find my breath. It feels as if my lungs are made of stone. “Where is he, Kalia? Where’s Eli?”

She gives me this horrible look filled with compassion but won’t say anything. I turn away from her when my face becomes covered in a flood of tears. I knew Eli was planning to sacrifice his life for mine when he had kissed me goodbye. He had fallen for me and then died in human form to save me. I curl my body into a little ball with the silent tears continuing to fall. The pain is so severe, like a blade stuck in my chest, that I am unable to make any noise.

Kalia kisses the back of my head. “He loved you, Lily. He would rather die than see you turn to the darkness to save your sister.”