FORBIDDEN (27 page)

Ethan laughed derisively. “You know everything about us, but you don’t know where we’re going?”

“Well I don’t know her specific address, now do I?” Without another word, Clay took Hannah by the hand and looked her in the eyes. “Do you trust your Guard?”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed as she came to my defense. “You mean my
Guardian
?”

Clay waved the correction off. “Whatever. Do you trust him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust his friend?”

There wasn’t even a split second between the question and the answer. “I feel like he wants me to, and sometimes I feel like I should, but no, I don’t.”

I didn’t look at Ethan, who was standing behind Clay, but I felt bad for him for once in my life. Clay nodded. “Then I’m coming. You need two people you can trust. Let’s go.”

Hannah held up her hand. “What says I should trust you, Clay? I just met you and you were in there talking to the Fallen like you’re old friends. That isn’t allowed, is it?”

I snuck a glance at Ethan, and his smug grin told me that he was at least mollified that Hannah wasn’t going to trust Clay off the bat, either. Clay’s face fell for the briefest of moments, but he pulled himself back together quickly. “Good interacts with evil more often than you’d think. It’s the decisions and effort to choose the better path that makes a person good. Without being offered the decisions, how could we know what is good and evil?”

That was a good point. I could tell Hannah was fishing for a response, but Clay continued. “Furthermore, what do you think makes you a pure soul? Are you a completely pure person? Have you never done anything wrong in your entire life?”

Hannah blushed. “Well, no – ”

“Exactly,” Clay confirmed, “No one is perfect. We can only hope to live a life that will leave our descendants proud. Choose the good. Trust your instincts. Now, do you trust me?”

Even after the lecture she’d received, she still held her ground. “I don’t know you. My instincts say you’re okay, but I’ve been through enough to hold out judgment, if you don’t mind,” she motioned toward Ethan, and he walked over. She nodded at him. “I’m going to try to trust him, and Clay, you’re more than welcome to come. I need
three
people I trust.”

Ethan smiled. I was impressed. Hannah was starting to seem like she really could be a pure soul.

When we arrived back at the Gordon’s home that night, Hannah spent a little bit of time with her family while Clay and I tried to figure out what our next move was. Ethan refused to be around Clay, so he stayed and watched over Hannah while we were gone. It worked out well; there was no way I wanted to leave Hannah unattended, even for a short time.

For a while we walked silently, but I couldn’t handle it after about twenty minutes. “Okay, so I need to know what’s going on.”

Clay sighed as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “How did you find me?”

I didn’t really want to get into that story, but it seemed as though it was the only way to get the facts from him. “Your son told me before –”

“– Before he bit Angie, am I correct?”

It was a relief to know I didn’t have to revisit the mess. The audible exhale I let out made Clay laugh. “Oh, I heard about the mess you’ve gotten yourself in. I just want to hear it from you. What about this girl has you breaking every rule you’ve followed so strictly for over a hundred years?”

“That’s the same question I’ve asked myself a million times,” I admitted. “I don’t know. She’s different. I couldn’t stay away from her. Then, when she touched me, it wasn’t the horrible pain everyone warned me about. It was incredible. It’s like she brought back the feeling in me.”

He smiled and patted me on the back. “That’s because she’s a pure soul. She has the ability to give the feeling back. She doesn’t know it, but she’s actually quite rare. More rare than just being a pure soul even.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can feel more than pain, can’t you? You’re transitioning, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When did that start?”

I thought back and gasped when it hit me. “It was when she’d begged for me to be okay.”

He grinned and pointed a long finger toward me in affirmation. “Exactly. Do you think she might have gotten an answer to her request?”

It kind of creeped me out in a way to know there was more to her than met the eye. Sure, I knew from the beginning she wasn’t a run of the mill human. How many had I guarded? More than enough to know the pull she had on me was different. No matter what, though, I knew I needed her. I needed to protect her. “She caused me to transition?”

“You are correct. Now do you see why the Fallen want her dead? She’s even more than a pure soul. Those come from time to time. Very, very few have the ability to take from the Fallen’s ranks. Granted, not many Guard or Fallen have the desire to be good. You’re a rarity yourself. Hannah finding you, or you finding Hannah – however you want to put it – isn’t by chance. Now Ethan, on the other hand, he worries me.”

“Why?”

Clay sighed. “He seems only a step away from my son, or a step away from you. It changes so often. His mood depicts his desires.”

I stopped walking. “What do you mean?”

“He just has many similarities to you and Owen, that’s all.”

That bothered me. “I’m like Owen?”

Clay chuckled darkly. “More than you know, but again, like I told Angie, it’s our decisions that ultimately shape us. Owen chose the dark. You’ve chosen the light. No matter the similarities, you’re on the right side of things. Ethan just has to make his decision. Sooner, rather than later, I fear.”

He didn’t seem in the mood to elaborate, so I didn’t push it. There were other things bothering me as well, so I figured those could get tackled if Clay was willing. “What about Angie? Is she doomed? I have to figure out how to explain all of this to Hannah.”

“Angie is, for lack of a better explanation, at the mercy of her own desires. Does she want to be the kind soul she’s meant to be, or will she succumb to the desires she has now that she’s a Hunter? That’s up to her,” Clay said, sadness etching into his voice. “Again, all of the events taking place come down to the decisions being made.”

I nodded solemnly. “It sounds like you’ve been down this road.”

“Owen was a kind soul.”

That threw me. Owen, a kind soul? That couldn’t be true. Kind souls didn’t end up as Hunters. Well, except for Angie. Maybe something like that happened to Owen. Immediately I felt awful for him. “What the heck happened?”

“The very thing that could happen to Angie. He gave in to the desires. Angie would be the first that I know of to overcome. I would strongly suggest you not let her near Hannah, or any other human that you care about.”

I stopped abruptly. “I don’t care about any other humans.”

Clay turned after he noticed I’d stopped. A grin played around the corner of his lips, and the look of an understanding father was alight in his eyes. “Oh, really? What about Hannah’s family? Would you not be upset if something happened to them? You’re upset about Angie. You’re transitioning. You feel. You empathize. You aren’t able to tuck those things away anymore. You even feel for Ethan. I’ve seen the frustration and sympathy in your face.”

There was no denying it. I decided to just figure out the plan of action. “So what do we do?”

“Keep Hannah and her family safe. Owen will come for her. Angie will come for her. The Fallen will do as ordered. None of them will rest until she’s dead. How can they? She’s turning the tide. Can you not feel it?”

I stood still for a moment, trying to feel a change in the wind or something tangible. It probably looked as dumb as I felt doing it. Finally, I shrugged. “Not really, no.”

Clay chuckled. “You will. We should get back. By the way, be careful with Reina.”

“She’s the craziest girl I have ever met in my life. I don’t get her.”

“She’s a woman. Don’t expect anything less,” laughed Clay. “Just be on your guard. I haven’t figured out what her role is in all of this.”

“She’s in charge of overseeing my transition. What are you doing in this, anyway? Don’t you have a Call somewhere?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done my time in that arena. Now I’m more of an overseer of the Guardians. I know what goes on, step in when needed, but mostly I watch from a distance. Your case is most curious to me, and I want to see how it plays out.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. I wished I knew myself how it would play out, too. He laughed at my discomfort and patted me on the back before he continued on. We emerged from the small wooded area beside Hannah’s house and Clay’s massive, silvery wings appeared. He leapt into the air and into the bough of the tree where I first spoke to Hannah. I followed behind, hoping my wings would someday look like his.

Clay and I crawled through Hannah’s open window to find Ethan sitting on the edge of her bed with my hoodie. He threw it to me as I walked over. “You’re shirtless more than anyone I’ve ever met, including myself. Leave some things to the imagination. You’re better off that way, bro,” he smiled as I put the hoodie back on. “Notice the modification that Hannah worked on while you were gone?”

I stopped putting the hoodie on mid-stride, took it off and looked it over. On the back were two slits where my wings would fit. I smiled. I’d have to thank her for that. Clay laughed and clapped Ethan on the back. “Now you need something like that, too.”

Ethan looked confused by Clay’s congeniality, but didn’t have a biting comment. He smiled reluctantly and waved toward the door. “Hannah’s asleep on the couch downstairs. The parentals are asleep, and brother is in his room playing the xBox. Things are pretty quiet. No funny business, for once.”

“Good,” said Clay. He looked at Ethan. “Care to take a walk?”

Ethan’s mouth gaped open, his eyes surprisingly wide for Clay being a Guardian. Why was it that he could look at him without being in pain? “Uh, sure?”

“Keep the home front under control,” said Clay with a wink as they slid back out the window. “We won’t be gone for long.”

With them gone, I was left to my thoughts. So Hannah was the reason behind the transition. Could she help Ethan transition, too? Or was the reason partly because I was different, like Clay said? And why had we met? Clay seemed to think it wasn’t by chance. These feelings, the sensations I felt when I was with Hannah, the desire I felt to protect her, it was all overwhelming. I didn’t realize I was moving down the stairs until I ended up kneeling beside where Hannah was asleep.

It was the first time she’d seemed peaceful since this entire fiasco began. I felt so bad for everything I’d put her through. Was it right of me to keep her past her time? It seemed so unfair to let her go at the time. She was just starting life. She didn’t deserve to be done already. Now, though, it seemed like things were spiraling out of control. Would she ever have a normal life now? Would she always have to look over her shoulder?

She shivered in her sleep. I went over to the chest by the fireplace and grabbed a blanket from inside. She turned when I placed it over her, but the shivering stopped. There was no way to know how long I stood there, mesmerized by her peacefulness. She needed to have that while awake, too.

“Guardians aren’t supposed to cry.”

Her voice made me jump. I whirled around to see Angie’s crimson eyes. She was shaking, as though she was trying to restrain herself. I stood between her and Hannah. “Angie, why are you here?”

Angie’s wild eyes darted all over the place. Her entire body shook. She balled her hands into fists as she rocked back and forth. “I don’t know what I’ve done. I need her. I need you. This isn’t what I want. Help me, please.”