Heartless (The Heartless Series) (16 page)

"Hey, stop it. Calm down. I don't think you're crazy. I believe you, okay? Whatever it is that's going on in your mind, I believe it's really happening. Okay? Don't be afraid of me. Remember, I can help you." His hands are on each side of my face now. His eyes are staring into mine and for a minute, a brief glorious minute, I believe him. He can help me. I don't know him from Adam, but he can help me. I know he can.

"Were you really with me at the diner or was I just imagining it?" I can't go on until I know the truth. Everything—reality, dreams, present, past, time—ever is getting so jumbled up in my mind that I'm starting not to be able to tell what is real and what isn't. That realization scares me, and my legs feel weak again. I cover it up, though, because I don't want Lucien to know.

He can't know.

It was his time to smile. "I must not be memorable if you don't remember." He winks at me, lightening the mood. This is good.

I slightly want to die from embarrassment. "No, I mean it. Was that you or was I just imagining… You know what? Forget it. Just forget it. It's stupid. It was a dream. Just a dream. Like everything else. Nothing makes any sense."

He's not an angel. He can't be. I just imagined it all. Part of my stupid delusions.

I move his hands from my face and walk away, half-expecting Lucien to follow me. He's been talking to me this entire time, so I just thought that maybe… He doesn't. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I turn around to see what he's doing. He's standing there with his head down. He's biting his bottom lip, and I stare. I don't know him that well, but I've never seen him look like that.

"You want to know the truth? All of it?"

I nod. Except I'm not sure how he can tell me anything. If he isn't an angel, then he's just a teacher's assistant, right?

"I'm so much more than that," he says sadly.

I stare at him. He can read my mind?

"Not exactly. Not all the time. And just words. Not images or anything. I can't get in your dreams. Not like him."

My lip quivers, and I feel the tears stinging my eyes. Scared tears. Terrified actually. "You really are an angel? I really did see you in the diner, and no one else did? You aren't like Hart?"

Lucien doesn't comment on that. Instead he asks, "Why were you in the library looking up Shelley Hailey?"

"I told you."

"You told me a lie. You didn't have a meeting. Try again."

"I…"

He slides his hands in his pockets, leans his back on the wall, and closes his eyes. "It wasn't supposed to be this way, you know? I was never supposed to talk to you. Those were my orders. I was just supposed to watch you."

"I hate this." The words fight to come out. "I hate all of this. Why can't I be normal? Why do I see you and Hart? All of it? Why does it have to be real? Why can't you all just be figments of my imagination?"

"Would that make you feel better?" He stands and walks closer to me. He doesn't look furious, but he does look serious. Very serious. Very scared? "Would it make you feel better to think of Hart as something that only lives in your head?"

"Yes."

"Why? Because that would mean you're crazy. It means you hear voices and see things that aren't real. It means you should at the very least be on medicine. At the most, be locked in a padded room. If Hart isn't real. If he isn't messing with your head. If he isn't toying with you…"

No. No. I can't deal with this. I can't. "I don't understand." And I don't. Not really. Not fully.

"I don't believe you. You've had this feeling for a while. You thought this was happening."

I don't know what to say, so I nod.

"Gracen," Lucien walks up to me. So close he can touch me, but he doesn't. He keeps his hands in his pockets. He's so tall that he has to look down at me. All the joy, excitement, and light in his eyes are gone. I miss it. I miss it so much. "Listen to me and try to make it stick this time. Hart Blackwell is very real. You didn't make him up. He's not some physical manifestation of your physical demons. He's real. He's a real demon. I'm real. I'm a real angel. And you're real."

A real what? A real
abomination
? I turn to walk away, but he grabs my arm and spins me around. Once I'm facing him, his eyes soften, and he lets me go. "I'm not trying to scare you. I'm not. You just need to know the truth before someone else dies."

"I don't have anything to do with that."

"Gracen." The way he stops. The way he just lets the word stay there, hovering between us. I don't like it. The walls start closing in on me, and I need out of there. I need home. I need a lot of things.

I try to get away, but again Lucien's hand is on my arm. "I can't tell you everything. I wish to God I could. Honestly, I don't know everything. Just what I'm told. But what I do know is that you're very special to Hart, and that can't be good for anybody."

"You have a very good point," Hart whispers in my ear, and I turn in the direction. He isn't there. He's hardly ever there.

"He's messing with you." Lucien says, staring over my shoulder. "Don't let him."

"I think I'm too far gone for that." I laugh. It seems to be the thing to do. "Why me?" I sigh. I feel myself giving up. Just giving up and letting the darkness in. Who knows? Maybe it would be for the best. "Why is all of this happening to me?"

"I don't know exactly. Hart does this every so often. He goes after a girl. I send him back to Hell. It's a game he likes to play."

"A game." I'm mad, and my voice shows it. I'm a notch below yelling, and it won't take long for me to just let him have it. "I'm a game! A stupid game. Just the wrong person at the wrong time?"

"No." He rubs his hands over his hair. It isn't long enough to run his fingers through. "No, that's not what I'm saying. The other girls. Yeah. They were all random."

"How long has this been going on?" I can't look at him. I can't think.

"Mid eighteen hundreds. That's as far back as I remember. There have been lots of girls. He likes torturing them. Getting in their minds until they snap. Until they…"

"Until they what?"

His look says it all. "Until they can't take it anymore."

"Not all of them do if that gives you any comfort." Lucien covers too late. "I've saved a lot of them. And I send him to Hell like I do all the demons I fight, but I don't know. He must know people in high places, because he keeps getting out. Quicker and quicker. Except this time. I didn't even know he was out. I thought maybe Lucifer was tired of having him in and out and finally made him stay. I was wrong. He'd been here the whole time. Here with you. Since you were little. The other girls, he got in their minds, sure, but he also wasn't a part of their lives. Physically part of their lives. And he worked fast. It was like he craved the attention from me. I don't know. All I know is that he won some and I won some…"

"And, no matter who won, all the girls suffered."

"Yes."

I don't want to hear anymore. I don't. But I have to keep asking because I have this nagging feeling. A question I need answered. "You said he'd been with me longer than any of the other girls. Why?"

Lucien shakes his head. "Like I said, I don't know exactly. Either he got bored and changed his game, or there's something different about you. Something that isn't like the other girls."

"He's close… but not close enough."
Hart laughs in my ear, and I flinch. I wish he'd stop doing that.

"There's something wrong with me." My words barely come out. I wipe my tears, take a quick breath, and try again. "There's something wrong with me. That's why he stays with me. I can feel it. I know it. I'm not sure what. I'm not sure why. But there's something."

Abomination.

The word rolls around my head like a bowling ball. I know exactly why Hart stays with me, why I'm different. I'm an abomination, even if I have no idea what that means.

If anyone would know, it would be Lucien. I could tell him, ask him. But then what? Would an angel of the Lord truly let something like me just go on about my merry way? Or would he then decide that I wasn't entirely human and try to stop me. I'm pretty sure he'd succeed.

I can't tell him. I can't tell anyone.

"Good girl."

Hart's proud of me. Oh joy.

"I wish I knew. I truly do." He reaches out with his fingers to touch my cheek once more, and I back away. He can't know. He can't.

Why can't he read my mind right now?

"I know you do. I do, too. Thank you for telling me what you've told me. Thank you for watching out for me."

He nods, clearly shaken up by all of this. Why he would even care is beyond me? He says he's been fighting Hart for over a century. Why would he care about me? I'm collateral damage. When Hart is finished with me, he'll just move on to another girl to torture. Lucien will have his chance to send him back to Hell again…

I can't believe I'm even thinking such things.

"Here," he says, pulling a pen from his pocket and taking my hand. "Here's my cell phone number if you ever need to get in contact with me. If he… if Hart… if anybody does anything, and you need me, call."

I watch as he writes on my hand. I can't help but laugh. "A direct line to an angel. Can't I just pray or something?"

He smiles. "This will be quicker. Trust me. Sometimes the circuit boards in Heaven get a little crowded. Then you might not get connected to me. Another angel might pick up, and then where will we be?"

"There are other angels?" I don't know why I find that strange. If there's one angel, then there will be more. Seems logical anyway. I think I'm just trying to make small talk. Nerves. Small talk with an angel—time to mark that off the bucket list.

He laughs, and I remember he can partially read my mind. Or parts I let him see? He sure hasn't seemed to pick up on the whole abomination thing yet. I wonder why, but then I count it as a small blessing. He doesn't comment on my little attempt at mental humor, though.

"Lots of other angels. Angels are sort of like demons."

I suck in a breath and stare at him.

"I don't mean like that. I mean that all angels were human at one time. Just like most demons were humans. Some are pure, like some demons are. But mainly the weaker, and I use that term reluctantly, ones were human."

"So you were human."

"I was."

"Then what happened?" I'm beyond glad to get this conversation away from me, but I need to wrap it up quickly. Time and slick lips and things like that. "You died and decided to fight for God's army?"

I didn't mean for it to sound as mean as it did. I'm just tired and ready to go home. Truthfully, I'm tired of being this weird little thing. I just want to be normal. It's all I ever wanted.

"Something like that." He clicks his pen and puts it back in his pocket.

I turn my hand toward me and read his number. I have the direct line to an angel written on me.

Yeah, totally normal. "What about the other girls?"

He tilts his head sideways. "What other girls?"

"The ones I see in my dreams. I've seen three of them, and they've all ended up dead."

Lucien narrows his eyes. "You see other people in your dreams besides Hart?"

Why do I suddenly wish I'd never told him that? "Um… yeah. Just recently. Just the other night actually. I never saw them before. Just always Hart and me and that room."

"Gracen, I don't know how to tell you this, but…" And he stops talking and shakes his head, averting my eyes. All of which I hate.

"What? What aren't you telling me?"

"It's… it's just. It's complicated. I think I might have an idea, however I'm not completely sure yet."

I have to laugh because I do. It's either laugh, cry, or hit something. Lucien probably doesn't want me to hit him, so that leads to laughing.

"Look, can I come over in the morning to talk?" Lucien asks.

I do a double take. "Over? Like to my house over." Oh Sam would love that. Wherever he is? But I have no doubt in my mind that Sam would be home exactly when Lucien came over and punches would fly. Eyes would be blackened. I don't want to have to clean up the blood. I've seen enough blood.

My hands tremble, and I see the blood on them again. I need it off. Now.

"Or how about you come by my office in the morning?"

"I have to be at work at the library at eight."

"Meet me at 7:30. Maybe I'll have some answers for you. I mean, if you want."

Yeah, I want. It was sort of funny, though. The angel has an office. "Yeah. Okay. I'll be there."

"If you need anything in the meantime—anything—you call me."

"I need your help." I smile.

"Already?"

"Yeah, well, might as well while I have you here. I have one question about Hart, and then I need to be going."

"Shoot."

"Can he kill people?"

Lucien clears his throat and lets out a sigh. "Gracen, Hart can't kill anybody. He's just a demon. Just a spirit. He can move from person to person, sure, but Hart, physically, can't kill anybody. Not himself. Not in his true form."

"What are you saying?" I don't want to know… I don't want to know.

"I'm saying if it's Hart doing this, he needs a body to possess to do it."

For the first time, I see the blood under my fingernails. "I'm going home," I tell Lucien. My body is on autopilot. There are no more tears. No more screams. No more talking. I'm done. I'm over it all.

"Gracen, let me help you." He isn't finished. He hasn't given up.

Good for him.

I don't answer him.

I leave Smith Hall.

I keep right on walking toward my apartment.

I need to check on Sam.

I need my medicine.

I need my pajamas.

I need to wash the blood off.

Chapter Eighteen

I
SHOULD GO TO SLEEP.
I
SHOULD.

It would be the smart thing to do. If I sleep, I'll dream. If I dream, I'll see Hart. Fun times. But I might see another victim. That'll be both good and bad.

Good because I'll see who might, or who
will
, die next. I won't be able to stop it, if the past has been any indication, but I have to try. These girls, they deserve so much more than me. They should've been connected to some hunter of some kind. A person who deals with this kind of thing and can help them. All they have is me. They are crap out of luck.