Sister Helena’s tone was apologetic as she spoke. “Unfortunately, I am unable to tell you that. All of our donations are private. But….” Her mouth upturned in a half smile as she flipped to the front of the book then pointed to letters printed on the inside of the cover. “There is a name written here that I believe to be the original owner’s.”
“Things like this are sometimes passed down through generations,” Chase said fingering the bold calligraphy. The skin between his brows wrinkled together as if he were considering something deeply. “Sister, what do biblical texts say about prophets?”
Sister Helena sat for a long moment. The intensely focused look in her glassed over gaze told us she was sifting through a wealth, perhaps volumes, of knowledge. “Hundreds of references concerning prophecy can be found throughout biblical and non-biblical texts. But the bible itself in the second book of Peter, verse one, line twenty one, says
no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
“And do you believe that to be true?” He asked her. “That the Most High creates prophets of men?”
Sister Helena answered with unwavering conviction. “Yes, young man, I do. The foretellings of only a handful of prophets are mentioned in the Bible, but dozens more are made reference too. The same is true for the Torah and the Qur’an as well as most religious texts of many other religions. If I believe in the words of the Bible then that also means I believe that prophets were made of men in the days it references. It only seems logical to me that the same is still true. There are many who claim to be modern day prophets. Most of them are probably cons, but I do believe there are a small few who may be the real thing.”
“Thank you for your time Sister Helena. May we borrow this to look at it more?”
She looked more than a little aghast at the thought of one of her precious books leaving her library. A refusal formed on her lips.
“I promise we will return it.” Chase lathered on the charm thick with a high wattage smile.
“Of course.” Sister Helena’s bashful smile peeled years away from her face making her appear a decade younger. “Keep it as long as you need. You have the address here. You can send it back by mail. Just make sure you package it securely.”
******
I watched mile after mile pass by as I stared unblinkingly out the car’s window. The leather bound diary sat open in my lap. I didn’t need to look at the words my fingers mindlessly passed back and forth over. They’d been stuck in my head since reading each wretched line at the convent.
“Alex? Are you okay?” Chase asked.
I blinked back tears and continued staring out the window. Too afraid of what might break free if I looked at him.
“Alex?” his voice grew more insistent for an answer.
“I’m…fine,” I forced myself to say. I knew my logic was silly but it was better than saying I was okay. I couldn’t force that particular word past my lips because I was not. I was everything but okay.
The never-ending stretch of trees stopped blurring pass me.
“Alex, look at me,” Chase said once he’d put the car in park.
His voice was so tender, so compassionate, so
supportive
that something inside of me cracked. When he laid a palm flat against my turned cheek and forced me to look at him, that something broke wide open. The tears I’d managed to hold back sprang forth flowing freely down my face. The rough pad of his thumb rubbed against my cheekbones as he wiped one tear after another away. “
What is it Alex?” His voice sounded as strangled as I felt. It tugged at the thread already quickly unraveling inside of me.
I opened my mouth to repeat the same words I’d just spoken. To tell him again that I was fine. Instead, everything I was trying to hold in, everything I was grappling with rushed out. “It’s all my fault!” Once the initial admission spilled forth the rest just kept flowing. “My parents, the twins,
you.
It is all my fault. I’m the reason. I killed them and I almost killed you.” I finally looked down at the ugly words on the page. I flung the opened book into Chase’s lap. “It’s all there. Those words are about me. The choices I’ve made, the actions I’ve taken, the choices that were made on my behalf and the consequences of it all. The first seal was when my dad turned his back on The Society and his duty to avoid the fate
The Archangel
told him awaited me. The second was my parents’ deaths. I
begged
them to take me camping. I’d never been before and I wanted to go so badly. I watched my parents be ripped a part and I’ve always wondered why I didn’t end up like them too. Now I am sure I know why. The third seal was the twins’ deaths. They were my partners, my
friends
. They didn’t deserve what happened to them. They suffered because of my naiveness. Because of a choice that I made. And the fourth…I’m pretty sure the fourth has already happened too. I don’t know exactly what I did to cause it, but that line about together the four will give freedom to those imprisoned… makes me think of what we overheard the Brethren say in the club. I am single handedly responsible for literally unleashing hell on Earth. M-,
He,
tried to warn my father. Bennet and my dad were stupid for keeping his visit a secret from the rest of the Society. They shouldn’t have tried to protect me. They should have told the rest of the members of the prophecy and let the chips fall where they may. Some of the members no doubt would have sought out my death. Perhaps, hell ideally, they would have even succeeded. My parents would still be alive, Deacon and Danielle would still be alive, and you…” I stared at him grinding my teeth against the words that made my blood turn to ice in my veins. “You would live too. Because if you stay in my life, like I know you will insist on doing after this little revelation because you are bullheaded and stubborn as all hell, you
will
end up just like them. I will be your demise like I was the death of them.
From love will come death,
” I laughed humorlessly as I spat the words. “Those five little words sum up the story of my life perfectly. The people I love have a habit of dying. You asked me to promise to give us a shot, to see where we might end up. Are you certain of that? Because I can tell you right now where we will end up— you will die because of me. I will kill you. Hell, you already almost did once. You laid bleeding to death in an alley because I
stabbed
you. The next blow won’t be delivered by my hand but it will be final and delivered by my actions, my choices.
Choice. Free will. Action. Inaction. Consequence.
That’s the refrain the prophecy kept repeating no matter the words’ owner.
You will die!”
I screamed the last three words, completely inundated by the rising tide of hysteria I’d become powerless to hold back.
Chase’s strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me against him. The pad of his thumb brushed the crease of one eyelid and then the other, whisking away moisture collecting around them.
“Yes, I am still certain of that.” As he spoke his voice held steady and sure. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. Do you know what part I can’t get out of my goddamn mind? The part that has been repeating on an endless, terrifying loop since I read it? It’s the part that says that
you
are going to die. Death will claim the life preserved. The life of one will save the whole. I can’t get those fucking two sentences out of my head. I don’t give a shit what the prophecy says or what The Archangel told Bennett and your father or what is
supposed
to happen. You. Will. Not. Die. I won’t let you. You promised me that you will give us a chance and I am promising you that I will stick around for that to happen.” He grinned at me trying to lighten the thick mood. “You said yourself that I’m bullheaded and stubborn as all hell. Trust me, Alex. I won’t let you or myself die.”
I believed that he wholeheartedly believed the words he said. I wanted so badly to trust in them too. He’d spoken with such conviction that I almost did. But I knew better. My mom and dad and Deacon and Danielle had taught me better. I couldn’t respond with the words he wanted to hear so I said nothing. I wriggled out of his hold and went back to staring out the window.
“Alex.” My name came out strained, sounding pained.
I didn’t turn my head. “We should get going. We need to get back to Atlanta and let Bennett have a look at the prophecy. He didn’t mention any seals being broken to me so I’m guessing you were right and The Archangel only told him the part about me making a choice and then dying. Charissa also needs to see it. I don’t understand the part about the fourth seal breaking also creating a gilded cage around those who are free or the part about the breaking of the fifth seal to free them. Maybe she will be able to clarify what is meant.”
I heard him let out a heavy breath beside me then sigh. I heard the noise of the car being put in drive and then the tires moving over the gravel on the side of the road. I watched tree after tree blur by as he drove.
I only spoke again as we neared the city limits to insist that he take me home. Chase insisted that it was for the best if I continued to stay at his apartment. He tried to placate me by offering to take the couch again. I held firm in my request. When he attempted to play the Whitney card again I informed him that my roommate would be in Miami Beach until the following weekend. It was Spring Break for us and a trip to the beach was her family’s yearly ritual. He countered by offering to stay at my place, but I told him I did not want him to.
I needed to be alone. I needed to curl up in a ball in my own bed in the sanctity and privacy of my own apartment. I was holding myself together by a thin thread pulled tauter and tauter during the drive back. It would snap soon and when it did I wanted to be alone.
Chase reluctantly dropped me off at my apartment. As he walked away from the door, everything about him from the tense set of his shoulders to his stiff gait to his hands curled tightly into fists at his sides, said he did not want to leave. But I think something within him recognized that my desire to be alone could not be swayed. I knew he didn’t want to leave just like I knew he forced his feet to carry him toward the elevator and away from my door.
As I watched his retreating form a part of me screeched out for me to call him back. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when I felt the string snapping. I turned away, closed the door and sank against it. I never made it to my bed. I spent the night in a ball on the floor beside my door.
Monday I woke up to bloodshot eyes made puffy from crying too hard for too long. I dragged myself to the bathroom then buried myself beneath my comforter. The fact that food didn’t immediately cross my mind spoke to my mental state. Ordinarily, it was the first thing I thought of after waking up.
When the gnawing pain of hunger finally hit, I still didn’t move. The ache in my stomach was minor to the one I felt in my soul and that one wouldn’t allow me to do anything but wallow in darkness and sink deeper into my bottomless pit of despair.
I was on Spring Break so I didn’t have classes and Bennett always relieved me of duties during the week preceding and the week after the anniversary of my parents’ deaths. The anniversary of their deaths made my grief fresh and my head always came unscrewed a little.
But this, this was different and something more. It wasn’t the normal grief that never goes away after losing someone close. I was drowning in self-hatred and guilt. My parents didn’t simply die,
I had caused them to die.
Just like I was the cause of Deacon and Danielle’s deaths too and I’d almost been the cause of Chase’s.
An image of his body sprawled out with a gaping hole in his chest hauntingly clouded my vision. Except he wasn’t dying, he was dead. Blood collected around him as it cooled. His eyes were open but void of their spark. They didn’t look like sapphires anymore. They were empty, bottomless twin pits of nothingness.
I didn’t have the power of prophecy. Nephilim were blessed with many abilities but foresight was not one of them. And yet I knew, on a visceral level I couldn’t begin to explain that what I saw wasn’t a guilt-induced figment of my imagination or a manifestation of my deepest fears. It was real. It would come to pass. I would be the agent of Chase’s death too.
As if on cue my phone rang. The tune told me it was Chase. I’d given him a unique ringtone after he’d caught me by surprise at my grandparents’ house. I didn’t answer it then or the six additional times it rang throughout the day.
Finally the hunger pains in my stomach became so visceral that I was forced to do something besides drown in my own shit storm. I saw a text message from Chase when I reached for my phone to order a pizza.
You promised.
The two words made something twist in my chest. Shaky fingers hovered over his name on the phone’s screen. I saw the dull, diluted blue his eyes would shift to as the life left him and called for a pizza instead.
He called just as many times the next day and only half as many times on Wednesday. On Thursday there were no calls at all. Halfway through the day I heard knocking at my door. It might have been him, it might not have. I didn’t uncurl from my ball under the sheets to find out.
On Friday there were no phone calls, texts, or knocks. By the end of the day I didn’t feel nearly as relieved as I should have. In fact, I felt heavier not lighter and the painful feeling in my chest felt keener than it had the day before. It was starting to physically hurt. The crushing weight bearing down on it grew as the days went on. By Saturday morning I woke up feeling like I couldn’t breathe. I lay with my eyes closed gulping down rapidly inhaled breaths of air.