FORBIDDEN (14 page)

Ethan didn’t respond. As another howl ripped through the air, Hannah doubled over and began to cough. I put my hand on her back and allowed her to brace herself on me. “Hannah, are you okay?”

She didn’t say anything as she stared at her hand. Her face was frozen in fear. I kept staring into her eyes, waiting on her to respond. “Hannah,” I said as I shook her gently, “What’s wrong?”

“This isn’t normal, is it?”

My mouth dropped when she lifted her hand to show it to the rest of us.

Her hand was painted with her own blood, except it was tinged with green.

Reina was the first to respond. “No, my dear, it’s not.”

FIFTEEN

Everything was a blur. Ethan and I gathered our Calls with the inhuman speed we were capable of, while Reina circled the area to make sure things were clear. It was barely five minutes that Reina was gone, but it felt like forever. Hannah was curled in my arms crying. It was obvious she was trying not to cough. I felt her fight back another round of coughing fits and rubbed her back in response. “Hannah, it’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure out what’s wrong.”

Ethan paced back and forth as he rubbed the back of his head. His mop of hair was unkempt as usual. “How is this possible? We protected them from the Fallen. Nothing’s happened to her. You’ve protected her, haven’t you?”

My body tensed from the accusation laced in Ethan’s voice. “Of course I’ve protected her! That’s my job! Maybe it’d be easier if I wasn’t doubling up when you decide to go flirt with Guardians.”

“Don’t you blame the fact that your Call is infected on me. A Fallen shouldn’t have even gotten close enough to make that an issue.”

I couldn’t believe he’d just said that. How was this possible? “Infected? What happened?”

Reina announced her arrival by halting in front of us and bringing a slight wind behind her from her speed. When she looked into my eyes, it was like she could see my soul. If I had one, that is. “Levi, what’s happened to your Call?”

I didn’t answer right away, since admitting everything that happened in the past twenty-four hours would probably get me killed on the spot. Reina pushed us all inside her home, looking behind her as we entered. She examined Hannah’s hand, where the tainted blood stained in the crevices. Reina nodded grimly. “Her blood is still mostly red; it can be fixed if we work quickly. Get in here and don’t touch anything.”

While the outside had been a quantifiable train wreck, the inside was amazing. The tile in the entryway was white marble. Most of the walls were made of glass, allowing us to look into the other rooms. It was massive; how it all fit into half of a double wide I have no clue. If Hannah hadn’t been coughing against my chest, I might have taken the time to look around more.

Reina continued to prod us along like cattle down the lengthy corridor. We reached what looked like the kitchen area through the glass. She sat us all down around a massive mahogany dinner table that could have sat probably twenty people and handed Hannah a white towel. “Take this, please.”

Hannah nodded and clutched the towel with pleading in her eyes as she watched Reina speed from the room. She turned to me, barely keeping her panic under the surface. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re transitioning,” Ethan said before I could find a gentler way to put it. “Let’s just say this: if we don’t reverse it, your looks won’t be winning you homecoming queen anytime soon.”

I hugged Hannah closer and breathed in her intoxicating scent. “It’s okay, we’ll get it taken care of. Reina said we could fix it.”

Angie pounded the table right next to Ethan, causing him to jump. “Aren’t you capable of any kind of compassion?”

Ethan looked genuinely shocked that Angie would even ask. “No, I’m not. None of the Guards are. No emotions, remember? We don’t feel anything but pain. I come by my jerk tendencies naturally. You, on the other hand, are supposed to be a Kind Soul. I have yet to see that label proven correct.”

She shrugged his jibe off and continued. “Then why is Levi capable of caring?”

“Because he, too, is transitioning,” Reina said after entering without a sound.

This was news to me. “I didn’t think a Fallen affected a Guard. We’re not that different,” I said sadly. Hannah’s shocked eyes and recoil made me amend the comment. “Not that different in pecking order, I mean.”

“That’s correct,” Reina said thoughtfully, “But I believe you’re transitioning up, while Hannah is transitioning down.”

For a split second my heart soared. “I’m becoming a Guardian? How?”

Reina smiled. “Somehow, your Call has managed to start the process. It’s unbelievable, but that’s the only thing I can come up with. Somehow she’s made you feel again. You will transition within the year completely. Show me your wings,” she commanded.

I let go of Hannah only after making sure she could support herself for the moment I’d be gone. “Please don’t look,” I asked her. She nodded and closed her eyes.

After taking off my hoodie, I let the familiar pain rip down my back. Moments later the whooshing sound of my wings announced the pain was over.

“Holy –”

“Don’t curse in here, Ethan,” Reina chided, cutting him off before he could get struck by lightning or something for cursing in front of a Guardian. She walked over to me, running her hands across my wings and bringing them forward so I could see them. “See? You’re transitioning.”

A Guard’s wings were black. No exceptions, no substitutions, nada. Mine, however, had taken on a steely grey color. When I moved, the color changed ever so slightly, giving them an almost iridescent glow.

Ethan was pissed. “Well, hell! If I knew breaking every rule in the rulebook and then falling for a human would get me to become a Guardian, I’d have done it long ago!”

I tried to calm him down. “Ethan, this isn’t something that I chose to happen –”

“No, you did choose to do it. I told you to stay away from the human, but oh no, you just couldn’t do it. Then you go and fall for her and what’s that get you? Not eternal damnation like any other Guard before you, you get to transition up.”

 “Don’t be so jealous of him, Ethan,” Reina said gently as she rubbed Hannah’s back. “He has a much harder decision in front of him than I would ever want to face.”

Ethan and I answered at the same time as Hannah began another coughing fit. “What’s that?”

Reina took the now red and green towel from Hannah and lifted it to our eye level. “As a Guardian, you’re granted one pass. With this, you can help one human. This is for eternity.”

“Easy. I choose Hannah.”

“You say that now. Hannah is all you know. Saving her from transitioning into a Hunter will only give her human status once more. You’ll still have to give her up since you said her time has come.”

I scooped Hannah up and wrapped my wings defensively around her. “I will protect her. It’s not her time to go. I want to save her.”

Reina smiled sadly. “Then I can do that. There will be repercussions for interacting with her, you know that, right?”

“Yes. But save her. I’ll deal with the problems later.”

She nodded, then held her hands out to me. “Please give Hannah to me.”

For some reason, it scared me to hand Hannah over to the pure white woman. Sincerity was something I’d never known before. What if Reina just killed Hannah on the spot? That’s what would be normal for someone like me. How did I know she wouldn’t just let Hannah transition? The life of a Hunter was worse than a Fallen.

Reina’s hands remained outstretched. “Levi, I know trust isn’t something you understand. You will begin to learn it as a Guardian. This is the first chance you have at trusting someone. I give you my word that I will stop the transitioning process and Hannah will remain human. How things end after that is out of my control.”

It seemed like a fair enough vow. I looked down at Hannah. Her pale face was tinged with green, and blood was starting to ooze from her right ear. It was now or never. I swallowed and gave Hannah a kiss on the forehead. “Hannah, Reina is going to make it all okay.”

In response, Hannah let out a cry of pain and curled up in a ball. “It hurts! My stomach! It’s on fire!”

Reina didn’t wait for me to hand Hannah over. She snatched her out of my arms, pulling apart my wings like she had the Jaws of Life. “Levi, I have to do this now! Her body is changing!”

I nodded numbly as Reina ran from the room with Hannah. Ethan and Angie looked like deer caught in headlights. Angie turned her eyes on me. “Do you care about her?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then why aren’t you with her?”

That’s all the encouragement I needed. I sprinted out of the room, following the scent and trail of Hannah’s tainted blood.

It wasn’t hard to find them. I ran up the marble stairs (in a double wide? No way this could be real.) and found them in the second bedroom. The walls weren’t glass, but they were white and almost surgical looking. The room was pristine except for the girl occupying the bed.

Blood was everywhere. Hannah had taken a very visible turn for the worse. She wasn’t even crying out anymore. Instead, she lay limply on top of the once snow white sheets, brown blood pooling around her.

Reina was standing over her, eyes closed, tears streaming down her face.

“Reina, you said you’d help her!”

She didn’t respond, she just lifted her hand to silence me and then continued to look like she was asleep standing up.

It was impossible not to go to Hannah. It was instinctual at this point to protect her. I went over and placed my hand on her chest to look for a pulse. There was nothing.

Warmth wound its way down my cheeks. I wiped it away, only to realize it was tears. Tears? I didn’t know how to shed tears. For over a hundred years there had been no emotions at all. The pain of Hannah’s loss enveloped me.

I cried for the first time since dying.

I tried to cover it up. We weren’t supposed to even be able to cry, especially not over a human. Plus, I was a guy. Guys, no matter what variety, shouldn’t cry. A single tear made it down my face and fell on Hannah’s chest.

Hannah’s eyes opened wide as she sucked in a shocked breath. The blood that pooled around her disappeared as though the sheets had been bleached. She grabbed her throat, touched her face, then looked at Reina. “Am I dead?”

Reina sighed and laughed. “No, Hannah, you’re not dead.”

“You called me Hannah. You hadn’t called me by my name.”

Reina shrugged as she looked at me and winked. “I have a feeling you’ll be around for a while.”

Hannah smiled. “I sure hope so.”

“Hannah, do you mind if I borrow Levi for a moment?”

I squeezed Hannah’s hand in assurance. She smiled at me as she answered. “Sure, no problem,” she kissed my fingers and smiled once more. “I’ll see you in a minute.”

Reina put her hand between my wings and guided me out the door, but not before I took one last look at Hannah. I had never come so close to losing someone I loved more than her, not even my mother.

I would make sure to take care of Hannah better than I did my mother.