Falling From Grace (76 page)

He fed that fire by brushing my cheek and my chin with feather soft kisses, torturous and wondrous, until finally, he reached my lips, and the world became one large, blazing sun.
 
With a strength I did not know I possessed, I wrapped my arms around his neck, winding my fingers in his hair, locking them there, trying to keep his mouth pressed against mine.

His intent, I knew, was to heal my wounds but I didn’t care.
 
I didn’t care about anything except the way he felt holding me, the way my heart now beat loud enough and strong enough to drown out the silence that was left behind by his lack of one, the way I knew that he felt everything I was feeling.
 
I knew that I’d do anything, even break every single bone in my body over and over again just to keep his lips on mine, just to have him stay with me.

He pulled back from me, frowning at that thought.
 
“Grace, don’t.
 
I cannot stay.
 
I will already have to answer for what happened here with Sam.
 
I have to bring him back with me.
 
I just wanted
—
I need to make sure that you are safe, that you are well.”

When he began to expand his wings and loosen his hold on me, the day’s revelations, the truths I had learned today all crashed in on me, and I remembered what Sam had said he was

“Robert, I have too many questions for you to leave me now.
 
You have to-”

He pulled my arms from his neck as easily as if he were pulling a stray thread off of his shirt, separating us.
 
“I cannot answer your questions right now, as much as I want to
—
and yes, Grace, I do want to.
 
What Sam did will anger many of the others who would seek to blame someone other than him for what happened, and I have to try and fix this.
 
I have to fix this for us.”

He walked swiftly to where the small, white form lay and lifted him with ease.
 
The contrast between the white, withered shell and the dark, strong angel was startling.
 
With his wings pulled back like a cape, the black clothing blending in with his dark hair and white gold eyes, I knew then that there was no mistaking it
—
Sam’s words had been true.

“You really are Death,” I breathed before letting the darkness swallow me whole.

I awoke in my bedroom, the covers pulled over me.
 
My window was sealed shut.
 
I looked at the clock on the dresser; it was nearly two in the morning.
 
I sat up on the bed and pulled the covers down.
 
I saw that I was still wearing the same tattered and blood stained clothes..
 

“Robert?” I whispered, but I knew that he wasn’t there.
 
Would I have wanted him to be?
 
Knowing now what he was, what his calling was?
 
He wasn’t just someone’s guardian angel, a healer or…or a dark one
—
an angel of death.
 
He was Death itself, darkness incarnate.
 
And death had touched my life too deeply once before to take my mother from me.
 
How could I let that into my life now?
 
How could I love
that
?

I stood up and walked over to the window.
 
I lifted it, letting the chilled air come through.
 
The sky that had refused to give up a single star earlier was now filled with what looked like every single star that ever existed.
 
Their bright light was brilliant and beautiful, filling up the sky in a stunning white glow that rivaled the full moon and penetrated the dingy yellow that floated from the street lamps.

Yes.
 
Stars were beautiful, and brilliant, and glorious.
 
But they were also hot, and deadly, and all consuming.
 
Everything that was beautiful had a cost.
 
Even the poor stars couldn’t just simply be beautiful in our sky.

I shivered as I felt the chill creep in a bit more, but I was hesitant to close the window.
 
The sky could have been falling and I knew that I would still feel compelled to keep the window open.
 
I folded my hands together and searched the sky for something, anything that would signal to me that someone was up there, listening.
 
The brightest star that I could see became my focal point and I tried to remember the silly little rhyme that my mother would say.

I believe it went ‘star light, star bright’.

I whipped around, the source of the voice in my head was sitting on my bed like he normally did, as though nothing had happened and he had been there the whole time.

“How did you get in here?” I mouthed, my voice lost in my surprise.
 
He reached for me, but I pulled away.
 
“Don’t touch me,” I rasped, and turned away quickly, not wanting to have to look at his face and see his reaction to my rejection.

Grace, you don’t have to be afraid of me.
 
I won’t hurt you.

I knew that was true.
 
He wouldn’t hurt me.
 
But that didn’t change the fact that what he was already had.
 
“You’re…”
 
The words were lost.
 
I couldn’t say it.

I knew he was standing behind me only by the tickle of his breath against my hair.
 
He placed his hands on my shoulders and I jumped at the electricity that flowed between us at the contact, my body betraying what my mind was screaming out loud.
 
I’m Robert, the person who loves you and has endured far too much time away from you to keep me sane.
 
I have not changed who I am, Grace.

“I know,” I whispered, because he was right.
 
He had not changed who he was because he had always been
what
he was.
 
He just hadn’t known it.
 
And that was who I fell in love with.
 
I buried my face in my hands, the betrayal of my own heart racking my body with sobs.

Why are you crying, Grace?
 
What has changed between us?

I looked up into his face and saw the hurt there, saw that I was the cause of his pain.
 
I couldn’t accept that I, of all people was causing Death pain
—
I turned away.
 
He reached out his hand and caught my chin, bringing my face back towards his.
 
Grace, please.
 
I love you, and I need you to talk to me.
 
Don’t pull away again.
 
Not from me.

“Don’t you see?
 
You’re…
Death
.
 
You’re the reason why people die.
 
You’re the reason my mom is dead.
 
And I’m in love with you, and I hate it.
 
I hate it, and I can’t do anything about it because I know that I can’t live without you in my life.
 
Don’t you see how that’s a betrayal to my mom?” I bawled softly, my tears unstoppable rivers, my face hot with revulsion and anger.
 
“Don’t you see how much I hate myself?”

Robert pulled me against his chest and took a deep breath, letting it out in a long, desolate sigh.
 
I feel your shame, and your hurt.
 
I feel how even now you’re fighting with the mixed emotions within you.
 
But mostly, I feel that my life has no meaning without you in it, Grace.

I laughed in spite of myself.
 
“How can you speak of the meaning of life when you take it?”

I don’t take life, Grace.
 
At least, I wouldn’t.
 
It isn’t up to me who lives or dies.
 
It is only up to me who gets a second chance or not.

I pulled my head away from his chest, and looked up at him.
 
“What do you mean?
 
Sam told me-”

I know what Sam told you, but he also told you that he’s a very good liar, and that’s the only thing that Sam said that was one hundred percent true.
 
Sam
was
an angel of death.
 
A dark one--one of many.
 
But there are also good ones, Grace.
 
Both groups carry off the souls who were destined for their eternal afterlives, whether that would be in Heaven or elsewhere.

I’m the middle ground.
 
I’m the one who decides who gets a second chance at Heaven, or who has earned himself a one way ticket to Hell.
 
Sometimes I’m given the ability to grant them a second chance at life itself, as was given to me.
 
The situations are all different, and all warrant their own decisions.
 
The divine nature of my call allows me to do so within the reaches of their minds for a great deal of them.
 
But, there are moments when I have to be there physically.
 
With a great majority of them, though, it is not my decision as to when they die.
 
That is up to God.

And the one thing that you should remember most of all, Grace, is that the whole time, I am fighting the gift within me that demands I heal them.
 
I told you that I thought of my ability as a penance for my birth, and I was right, only now instead of not being able to heal some people, I’m not allowed to heal any of them.

“But you healed me,” I murmured.

He nodded and smiled sadly.
 
Yes, but you’re a part of me now.

I shook my head and tried to pull myself away from him, planting my hands on his chest and pushing against him.
 
I might as well have been pushing against a mountain.
 
“You’re still the reason why my mom died.
 
I don’t think I can get over something like that.”

Robert gripped my shoulders again and forced me to stop squirming.
 
Grace, I did not kill your mother.
 
I was born to be Death, but that isn’t who I am.
 
I am fulfilling a duty to your kind as well as mine, but I did not take your mother from you.
 
You have to see with reason here.
 
I have yet to take a single soul.
 
I have been reluctant to do so; it goes against everything that I am.
 
Do you not see how difficult this is for me?
 

I shook my head because I couldn’t
—
not yet anyway.
 
He let go of me then, his arms dropping to his sides in defeat.
 
I cannot change who I am, Grace.
 
I can only tell you that I do not look forward to the taking of human life, and most importantly, I am not responsible for your mother’s death.

“I don’t even remember what happened, if she even said goodbye,” I whimpered.
 
“I don’t remember anything about that night, Robert.
 
Don’t you see?
 
Lark said that you learned everything, shared everything, and now you know what happened to my mother because what you are
—
what
Death
is
—
took her from me.
 
And
I
still don’t know.”

Robert raised his hands to my face, holding me softly and looking at me with his eyes, two pools of unmoving silver.
 
Grace, I would tell you if I could.

“I know.
 
You would if you could, but you can’t, so you won’t.
 
I’ve heard it time and time again, Robert.
 
I’ve heard it enough times to know that we’ll never be on equal footing.
 
You’ll always have your secrets, and I’ll always be an open book.
 
You might be the middle ground between light and dark, good and evil, but there isn’t any middle ground for us.”
 
I pulled my face out of his hands; he didn’t protest.
 

I walked away from him to stand near the dresser, seeing his reflection in the mirror and trying not to focus on how beautiful he was, but rather on the slow coldness that was spreading through me like an infection.
 
“And you lied, Robert.
 
The fact that you’ve seen my mother’s final moments, and you won’t tell me about them
is
the very definition of you taking my mother away from me.
 
You’re taking her away from me now just as much as she was taken from me all those years ago.”

I saw the way his face changed, how hard it became, the way his jaw set stubbornly.
 
His eyes turned cold and stony, his eyebrows drew closer together, the space between them pinched with frustration and anger.
 
I watched as his reflection disappeared from behind me, reappearing in front of me and blocking my view of the mirror in a split second.

He grabbed my arms and placed them around his neck.
 
He slowly picked me up, walked over to the window, and leaned out of it, lifting one leg to stand on the sill.
 
We started floating upwards, and I saw the branch-like limbs start to sprout from his back.
 
They brushed against my fingers and I flinched at the strange smoothness of the bare skin.
 
In one breath, his wings were fully formed, and we were gliding through the night sky.