Angel Fire (31 page)

Seb shook his head. “No, he was a coward. And I think I probably looked very determined. Like I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.” Faint amusement crossed his face, remembering.

“Would you have hurt him?”

The amusement faded. As his eyes met mine, I knew Seb wasn’t going to lie to me – that he never would. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I would have done anything to get out of there. And I hated humans, back then. For what they did to each other – for what they had done to me.”

My eyes went to a small scar on his arm, just where the sleeve of his T-shirt ended: a deep, dimpled hole, white against his tanned skin. About the size and shape of a cigarette burn. My heart chilled. Oh god, had they done that to him there?

Seb noticed me looking, and glanced down at the scar himself. “No – this was from my mother’s boyfriend, when I was small.” He shrugged; fingered the scar lightly. “My mother didn’t have very good taste in men.”

There was no real bitterness to his tone, though I sensed how much he hated the boyfriend. Fleetingly, I wondered about his angel father, but now didn’t seem the time to ask. I swallowed. “Seb...” I couldn’t finish the sentence; there were no words.

He saw my face and instant regret came over his, that he had upset me. He reached out and put his hand over mine, gripping it gently. “
Querida
, it’s all right,” he said. “No one has hurt me in years.”

I hated it that anyone had ever hurt him at all. I squeezed his hand back and then drew away, wishing my traitor pulse hadn’t skipped at his touch. “Hey, you’re supposed to be my brother,” I said, trying to joke. “Brothers don’t hold their sisters’ hands or call them
querida.
”

Seb smiled, his hazel eyes starting to dance. “Yes, they do,” he said. “This happens all the time.”

“Well, I guess things are different in Mexico then,” I said. “Because in America, no way. And I’m an American.”

“But you’re in Mexico now,” he pointed out.

“Right. And you’re saying that here, boys hold hands with their sisters and call them
sweetheart.
”

“Oh, yes. We’re very friendly, we Mexicans.”

I laughed then; I couldn’t help it. Seb grinned. I could sense his pleasure to see me smiling again, and something stirred deep inside me, a feeling I didn’t really want to analyze. I just knew I was very glad that Seb was in my life now. Aside from anything else, it felt wonderful to have a friend again – apart from Alex, I’d felt like such an outcast these last few weeks.

“So what about your angel?” I asked.

A few soft-looking brown curls were hanging over Seb’s forehead; he shoved them back impatiently. “After I escaped the
reformatorio,
I went back on the streets. And for three or four months...” He shook his head. “I wasn’t a person you’d want to know. I hated humans; I wanted to hurt them. All I wanted was to be pure angel, so nothing could hurt me. I got into fights all the time – I almost dared people to look at me wrong, so I could jump them. I smashed windows, I burned cars, I stole...” He fell silent, his eyes troubled. “Not a good time,” he finished finally.

And all I could think was...before he went to get
improved
at that place, the worst he’d ever done was pick pockets.

“Anyway, my angel didn’t like this,” said Seb. “Before, I never really felt him inside me. He was always just me. There when I needed him, but me.”

“Yes!” I burst out. “Yes – that’s exactly what it was like at first.”

Seb nodded. “But then my angel saw I was going to die young if I kept on the way I was. So he was always—” He frowned in thought; reached over and pushed lightly at my arm a few times. “Like this, inside of me, day and night.”

“Nudging,” I said. “
Yes.
Yes, me too!” I was sitting straight up now; it felt like electricity was coursing through the room. “But Seb, what does that
mean
? Does it mean they’re separate from us? That they’re
not
us?”

He was shaking his head before I’d finished speaking. “No, they’re us. Definitely us. I think it’s like...sometimes you have two thoughts at the same time, you know? You might be thinking, I should do this thing, and at the same time you’re thinking, I’m hungry, or I don’t like this person – deep down, but both at the same time, do you see what I mean?”

I understood exactly. “So sometimes our angels have their own thoughts? Or they don’t agree with us about something, but they’re still just a part of us – like having mixed feelings about something?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Seb. “That’s how it is for me.” He was sitting with one knee up, his arms draped loosely around it.

I told him about my angel breaking free during target practice, and he looked like he was trying not to laugh – though in a friendly way that made my tension ease. “I think your angel must want you to notice her very badly,” he said mildly. “What’s she nudging you about?”

I tried to think. “I don’t know. This started a few weeks ago, when I felt this sort of...rush of energy.” I told Seb what had happened – about the river inside me that had trickled to nothing; how I hadn’t found anything when I’d gone searching. It was such a relief to finally be talking to someone about all of this that the words tripped over themselves.

Seb listened carefully, his eyebrows drawing together. “I don’t know what that was,” he said once I’d finished. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“Oh.” I looked down at the yellow sofa cushion. The disappointment wasn’t easy to bear. I’d been hoping he’d say,
Oh, that. Yes, that happens all the time.

“But
querida
” – he caught himself with a grin – “Willow, whatever it was, your angel feels different about it than you. You need to listen to her, that’s all.”

I let out a breath. “She’s felt so separate from me lately,” I admitted. “Scary. I’ve thought...I don’t know
what
I thought. I guess that whatever it was had...set her off, somehow, so that she can’t be trusted now.”

I could see that not trusting his angel had never even occurred to Seb. “She’s part of you,” he said simply. “She’d never do anything to hurt you. She might feel separate and nudge at you sometimes when you don’t listen to her – but hurt you? No. Never.”

He made it sound like my angel was pure intuition, or a conscience or something – which actually made a lot more sense than whatever ominous ideas I’d been freaking myself out over. The relief was so overwhelming I almost went limp – but I still had no idea what my angel wanted me to listen to her about. With a flash of guilt, I knew that I hadn’t given her much of a chance to explain. The second she’d seemed separate from me, I’d just shoved her away and built a wall around her. No wonder she’d felt restless.

“Give me a minute,” I said to Seb.

I closed my eyes and went deep within myself, reaching tentatively for my angel. She was there in a burst of light, like sunshine on crystal – my own face gazing back at me, wings glimmering. We gazed at each other. The only movement was the soft shifting of her hair, as if a slight breeze was blowing.

I’m sorry,
I thought, mentally stretching my hand out to her.
Can you tell me what’s wrong?

We touched, and my muscles relaxed as the oneness between us rushed back – our thoughts swirling together, merging again. Forgiveness, understanding. But she’d been so, so frustrated; so desperate to get me to listen to her. The dark power of the energy stream I’d felt had alarmed her greatly. And now she had a feeling something was wrong. She didn’t know what; she’d looked, found nothing – but it was a constant worry she couldn’t get rid of.

Frowning, I carefully searched my mind again, exploring every corner. There was nothing there that shouldn’t be – genuinely, truly, nothing.
I really think it’s okay,
I said to her.

She didn’t respond; I could feel she wasn’t convinced.

Leaving her for the moment, I explained to Seb what had happened. “I don’t know what to think,” I finished. “She seems really positive, but I just can’t feel it.”

Seb’s expression turned thoughtful. “No, I don’t know either.” Sitting up cross-legged, he held his hands out to me. “Yes? Maybe I can sense something.”

I hesitated, looking at his hands.

“I’ll be very brotherly,” he assured me. His eyes were teasing, but they were also concerned – I knew how much he wanted to help.

“All right,” I said finally.

Moving my cushion closer to him, I put my hands in his. Again there was that jolt of energy, of like touching like. His hands were warm and firm, and so reassuring as they held mine, as if just his touch could make things better. I closed my eyes, keenly aware of our two auras mingling again too, and wishing I could shut all this out. Especially the part about how good it felt – how right. I shoved the thought away almost before it formed, hating myself for even having it.

Seb’s hands tightened in mine; I could sense his concentration. I tried to just drift, and not think about much at all. I kept getting snippets from him anyway, such as the fact that he’d given up smoking recently – his unconscious desire for a cigarette was coming through loud and clear. Some of what I picked up made me smile, like the stories he made up when anyone asked about his past. I didn’t think he’d ever given a straight answer in his life. An opera-singing mother who took her piano with her everywhere?

And yet with me, he’d been so unhesitatingly honest.

Finally Seb let go of me, and I opened my eyes again. We were still sitting close together, our faces only a foot or so apart, and I saw that his eyes had flecks of pure gold in the green. I moved hastily back, scooting my cushion several inches away.

Seb pretended not to have noticed. “I can tell how worried your angel has been,” he said, leaning back on one hand. “I didn’t feel anything wrong though. Something’s been bothering her, yes, but I can’t see what.”

I could sense my angel’s puzzlement as she checked again for herself and found that what Seb had said was true: she couldn’t feel what had been bothering her any more either – it was as if it had simply vanished. Or maybe it had never been there in the first place. She hesitated for a long moment within me, her wings gently stirring. I could still feel her confusion, though it was fading now to relief. Maybe she’d been mistaken, she thought at last. Because everything seemed all right now – really all right.

She was nowhere near as relieved as I was. Oh, thank god, things might actually go back to normal for me now – or at least as “normal” as being a half-angel could ever be. “It’s okay,” I said to Seb. “She thinks maybe it’s all right now. Thank you – thank you so, so much.”

His eyes were warm. “I didn’t do anything. But that’s good. If she’s happy, there’s no problem.”

I crossed my legs, pulling them up to my chest. “So I wonder what the energy was that I felt? It was so strong – it just came out of nowhere. It’s not something that’s ever happened to you?”

“No, never. Maybe it was just – ah, I can’t think of the word.” Seb tapped his brow and said something in Spanish, looking frustrated.

I smiled slightly, watching him. “Do you want me to go get Alex to translate?”

At the suggestion of bringing my boyfriend down here, Seb gave me a comically incredulous look from under his hand – like,
Are you kidding?
“No, we can’t take Alex away when he’s teaching the others,” he said in a voice so serious that I almost believed him for a second. “It would be very selfish of us. I’d feel so guilty.”

“Oh. Well, we wouldn’t want that.”

“No. The guilt, it would keep me awake at night.” Seb straightened up. “The word I’m trying to think of – it’s like when something happens only once, then never again. If it happens, you’re so surprised. You know? What’s the word?”

“A fluke?”

“
Sí!
” His smile was like sunshine bursting through the clouds. “Maybe it was just a fluke. Just a strange thing that happened. Or, I don’t know – maybe it was a
girl
half-angel thing.”

Somehow “a girl half-angel thing” made me think of Alex’s migraines, and the other worry of these last few days. My hands clenched in my lap. I cleared my throat. “Listen, what about...what about hurting other people?” I asked. The words didn’t want to come out. “Us, I mean.”

Seb’s eyebrows came together. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Do we...” I took a deep breath. “Do we cause angel burn to people when we touch them?”

Surprise spread over his face. “You mean hurt them, like the angels do? No, I don’t think so. I’ve touched a lot of people – holding their hand, giving them readings – and I think I’d have seen.”

“I know, I’ve given a lot of readings too,” I said. “But what I’ve been worried about is whether it might be different for us. The angels only have to touch someone’s aura for a few seconds, but maybe with us it’s a matter of how close we get to someone physically. I mean...close like when you’re in a relationship.” My face was a forest fire. I hoped he got what I meant, because I really didn’t want to be any more explicit.

“Oh.” Seb rubbed the back of his neck. Yes, he’d gotten it. “No, I’ve never noticed that.”

Suddenly I knew he’d had a lot more opportunities to notice it than I had, and I felt my face blaze even hotter. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to pry—”

He dropped his hand. “You’re not prying,” he said, though he still looked a little embarrassed. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I tried to push my own embarrassment aside and think where to start with all this. Or how to even word it. “Well – did you ever notice any of your girlfriends getting sick? Or damaged, like from the angels?”

“No, never,” he said firmly. “I would never have touched any girl in my life if I’d thought I was hurting her.”

“And have there...been a lot?”

He grimaced, scraping a hand through his hair. “Not
that
many, but – well, more than I like to tell you,” he admitted. I could sense he wished the answer was different. “Not for a long time, though,” he added.

“Why not?” The words came out without thinking. Seb was so good-looking – it was hard to imagine he couldn’t have any girl he wanted.