To Light and Guard (8 page)

CHAPTER 17

             
The next day, after school, Emma went to her friend’s house to study - whatever that means these days.   I always thought that studying was never a group activity, but then maybe that was what popular kids do these days.  

             
Later that evening, since Emma hadn’t called at all, Mom told me to pick her up at nine p.m. My role today was that of a responsible, older sister, so I did what I was told. I found Emma at her friend’s house, and after much grumbling, I managed to drag her to the car. I had a hard time doing it because she was obviously drunk. I had to help her get in the car and buckled her seatbelt like she was a baby.  She was sixteen going on three.  She
is
such a baby sometimes.

As I drove
home, Emma hiccupped and slouched in her seat. Although there were some cars on the road, there was no traffic, and our house was only ten minutes away.

“Why are you driving soooo sloooow?” she asked
giggling.  “You’re like going zero miles an hour.”

             
“How much alcohol did you have?” I asked, turning left onto the main road. “You are so drunk right now.”

             
“Nah. I only had some punch,” she said.  “I didn’t know it had any alcohol.”

             
I snorted.  “That’s the best excuse you could come up with?” I asked.  “That’s such a load of crap that there’s another load of crap piled on top of it.  You are sooo going to get busted when we get home.” This was the reason Emma didn’t call.  She was too busy getting drunk… on a school night.

             
“Oooooh…you’re so scary.”  She giggled again.

             
“You are so going to feel the heat from Mom and Dad when we get home,” I said.   “They’re going to be really mad when they see you.”  I stopped for a red light. There were no other cars in front of me.

“I don’t believe you
.  They never get
that
mad.  It’s why we picked them in the first place, remember?” she said with a grin.  “Back when we were dead,” she added in a whisper.  “Shhhh.  It’s supposed to be a secret.”

At her words,
I felt goose bumps all over my body.
Remember that we were ever dead?  How was I supposed to react to that?
I stared at her not knowing what to say.

Then, the silence was broken by Emma’s loud laughter.  I gritted my teeth.  I just realized that Emma was more drunk than I first realized. 

“Emma,
what you said was so creepy even for a joke.”  Sometimes, I scare easily, and Emma likes to scare me.  The traffic light turned green, and I stepped on the gas again, keeping our speed at a steady thirty-five miles per hour. 

“
Not my fault you don’t remember.  DRIVE FASTER!” 

             
I snorted.
Right.  Like I was going to listen to a drunk sixteen year-old who still didn’t have her driver’s license.
It was night-time, and I was just being safe.  

              “I don’t want to run over any ghosts,” I joked, trying to scare her as much as she had just scared me.

             
“Ghosts… ooooh… you’re so scary.” Emma giggled, which was abruptly halted by another loud hiccup.

             
“Okay.  Here’s the plan,” I said.  “I’ll go in first, and you go around the back.  I’ll open the back door so you can sneak in.  Go up the stairs quietly while I distract them…”

             
I stopped talking when I saw something in the middle of the street blocking our lane.  I squinted and leaned forward. 
What the hell
? It was a blonde woman in white, her long dress billowing in the wind.  Through the windshield, she looked straight at me with curiosity, her gaze serene. I slammed on the brakes at the same time Luke swooped in front of my car, grabbing the girl.  My tires screeched to a halt. Emma and I jerked a little bit forward, our seatbelts holding us in place.  Emma gasped next to me.  My hands gripped the steering wheel hard. 

             
“Whaaaaaat?” Emma asked.  She was clearly annoyed, and she sat straight in her seat, looking forward.

             
My heart pounded a crazy beat. 
Oh my God. Oh my God
.  I almost ran her over. 
A ghost?  Did I just see a ghost?
I squinted and peered out into the darkness, looking for the lady in white. I bit my lower lip hard.  I was suddenly relieved that I wasn’t driving alone.  Even a drunk little sister was enough to comfort me at a time like this. 

             
“Did you see that?” I asked Emma.

             
“See what?”  Oddly, I felt that we already had this conversation once when we almost got into a car accident a couple of months ago. As I recall, the end result of that conversation was not good.

             
So, I lied… again.  “There was a coyote crossing the road,” I said.

              “Where? Where?  I wanna see?”  Emma said as she leaned forward and looked over the dashboard, looking for my imaginary coyote.  “What did it look like?” she asked.

Since I’ve never really seen a
coyote, I really couldn’t say.  “Maybe it was just a dog,” I said. 
Yeah.  That sounds about right… except that it was so wrong. 

I’
m pretty sure I just saw a ghost.

CHAPTER
18

Fifteen minutes later, we finally made it home in one piece with no ghosts in front of us, behind us, or with us. Thank goodness. Unfortunately for Emma, Mom and Dad were waiting for her when we got back.  My plan to sneak her in didn’t quite work out because Dad opened the front door as I pulled up into the driveway. 

After Emma
was lectured, my parents conveniently followed her all the way up the stairs, and I snuck out the back door.   

I saw
Luke immediately, and I walked towards him.  His wings were retracted and his back was facing me. He was talking to someone - a girl.  I knew she was there, but I couldn’t quite see her completely because Luke was standing in front of her, and he was blocking my view. It was also quite dark. 

             
“Not in a million years for what you did.” I heard Luke say to the girl.

The
girl laughed.  “That is not a no.  So there is still hope for me, after all.” The girl’s voice was light and airy.  Angelic.  She was one of them, then. 

             
They were so caught up with their conversation that they didn’t hear me walking towards them.  I knew they had really good hearing, so it was very annoying.  Who was she, and how was she able to dull my Guardian’s super hearing skills?

My throat started to rumble. 
Grrrr.
  I didn’t let
that
out. What kind of a girl growls, right?  Instead, I cleared my throat as I walked closer to them.  Trust me.  It was much better than a growl or yelling ‘ta-da.’  Luke looked over his shoulder and turned around to face me.  I stopped a good three feet away from him.  I now regretted coming out of the house.  I should have peeked out the window first.

The girl
stepped around Luke to see what caught his attention, and she stood next to him. Even in the dark, I immediately knew she was an angel. I couldn’t quite see her clearly, but I’ll bet that she had purple eyes, too.   She looked so ethereal in her white dress that I can easily imagine a halo sitting on top of her blonde head, and she was very tall.  Luke was several inches over six feet, that’s for sure, but this angel was only a few inches shorter than him… and she was so beautiful. 
Hello, Ms. Universe –
angel version.

I
n my short experience with angels, it seemed that beauty was something they all had in common; whoever said that beauty was in the eyes of the beholder could not have been talking about them. 

However,
she was also the girl I saw earlier - the one I almost ran over - the girl in white.  She looked at me with curiosity.  Her lips had a hint of a smile.  She glanced at Luke, who was also looking at me, and the smile quickly left her face.

“She can see us,” she said to him
, her eyes widening. She was disturbed by me being here, and it looked like she was about to get angry.  Bring… it… on… 

Luke
didn’t say anything, and she looked at me again.  Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and she glared at me. There was no mistaking it.  She gave me
the
look
- the stay-away-from-my-boyfriend-or-I’ll-kick-your-ass look.   I am quite familiar with
the look
.  I have been a recipient of
the look
a few times from a couple of girls in school.  With this blonde, however,
the look
was more intense, more passionate, and probably more honest.   Without saying a word, she was telling me to die.  

She wanted me to stay away from her boyfriend.  I get it… but what if I didn’t want to stay away?  Let’s say I didn’t pick up on her non-verbal cues.  Would she actually go the extra step of hurting me? Or killing me?   The way she was looking at me says that she would do exactly that, and I became very afraid. Unlike the girls in my high school, I had a reason to fear from this girl because I wasn’t ready to die.

I couldn’t stop my sudden disappointment. Somehow, I already thought that Luke was mine, but obviously, they meant something to each other.
I was just about to turn around to retreat back into my home when Luke spoke.

“Adra was just leaving,” he
said. There was a warning in his tone, and his voice was cold.  He was looking at me, but his words were directed to Blondie.
Blondie. 
That’s a good one.  I think from here on out, I shall call her
Blondie…
just in my head, though.  She’s still kind of scary.

“Greetings,” Blondie said, giving me a very fake smile with flashing teeth and everything. In a way, she reminded me of Colin’s ex-girlfriend, Delia, who smiled at me the same exact way.  Maybe she was Delia’s Guardian.

Despite the fakeness of it all, I fell for it
.  I took two steps in her direction. Luke immediately stepped in front of me, blocking me from her.   I went on my tiptoes and peeked over Luke’s right shoulder.  I saw Blondie’s upper lip curl, and she growled.  Like love, fear was also a very difficult emotion to control.  Fear, however, had the ability to make my whole body shake uncontrollably. I moved closer towards Luke out of fear.  He was my Guardian, after all, and despite his obvious relationship with Blondie, he would protect me.  That much I was certain.   

Then
, Blondie came at me, her
claw
slashing and reaching for my face.  (Okay… Maybe I exaggerated a bit when I said she had a ‘claw.’ Maybe she had a perfectly manicured and beautiful hand.  I don’t know… but she was reaching for my face, and it was dark, so ‘claw’ it is.)

Even though she came at me with lightning speed, Luke was faster.  He caught her arm as I stumbled backwards.  Since gravity was always on my side, I fell
, hitting my left palm on a small rock.  Lucky me.  I felt my blood wet my hand, and I quickly wiped it on my shirt.  I wasn’t going to give Blondie the satisfaction of seeing me hurt.  I was strong, and I
will
not cry because of this.  I tried not to wince as I stood up.

Blondie
quickly turned away, and I saw her wings.  Black!   Even in the darkness, I was positive that her wings were black.  I watched her take three quick steps away from us.  With a graceful leap, her black wings snapped open, and she flew, disappearing into the night.

Luke turned around and faced me
. 

“Who was the psycho?
” I asked, trying to sound casual.  “Ex-girlfriend?”  I kind of answered my own question, but whatever. My heart was hurt, and my hand was bleeding. 

“Adra,” he answered, but that wasn’t what I wanted to know.
I already knew what her name was.  I wanted to know who she was… to him.  I raised an eyebrow. 

He winced.  “That was
… a very long time ago,” he said. He sighed as he lifted my left hand, and covered it with his own.  I felt a spark, as my palm glowed under his.  After a few seconds, my palm was healed.  It didn’t even leave a scar.

I knew what he meant.  I
t meant that I was right all along, about her being his psycho ex-girlfriend.  I pulled my hand away and shook it lightly wiggling my fingers.  I wrapped my arms around me.  I am not doing well.  That psycho can totally hurt me, and now, I definitely know the reason why. 

“Why was she in the middle of the street?  Was she trying to kill herself
?”  Her being an immortal and all, there probably wouldn’t have been any damage… well, to her. I knew they were strong.  It would have been like hitting a brick wall.  However, there would have been damage to me and Emma. 

“
Was she trying to kill me?” I asked in an unusually high pitched voice.
 

Luke shook his head. 
“She was only trying to get my attention,” he said. “She does that sometimes.”

“Her wings are black,” I said, but of course, Luke already knew that.  It wasn’t a very good look on her, and it kind of clashed with her whole ethereal look.  Well, that’s just too bad.

“She
is one of them,” Luke said. 

And by ‘them,’ he meant demon.
  (See here. I already knew him so well that I already understood his lingo.)

“She
was an angel years ago,” Luke added.

I was
also really good at reading his facial cues, and Luke was definitely sad about that.  He still cared about her, and this was not okay with me.  I was jealous.  I mean, seriously, how could I compete with the ethereal blonde who happened to have wings?  Although, maybe having black wings were considered ugly to a Guardian.

“What if she comes after me?” I asked.

“Angels and demons - we can live forever, but there is a certain order to things,” Luke explained.  “When an angel takes the life of a human, he becomes a demon.    When a demon takes the life of another human, the demon dies. It’s the balance of the world to keep humans safe from us.  We only get two chances, and then, we die.  Otherwise, we probably would have killed all of the humans a long time ago. Humans would be extinct by now if we were allowed to kill more than twice.”

“That’s not true,” I said.  “I’m sure that angels have our best interests at heart. 
Angels are the good guys.”  I’m sure what I just said was written somewhere - like the Bible or something.

“Unfortunately, humans have more to fear from
angels than demons. Demons are scared of death, just like humans. None of us know what happens to a demon’s spirit when a demon dies.  Some say there is… nothing there for them,” Luke said. “Regardless, I will protect you from Adra.”

I stopped asking questions about
Blondie.  I didn’t want him thinking about her anymore, but I had to know.

“Have there been a lot of girls
in your life?” I asked. 

He shook his head. 
“Paige,” he said as his hands grasped my shoulders. I felt myself spontaneously holding my breath and biting my lower lip. “There was Adra.”

My heart sank.  Those were not the words I wanted to hear, but then I saw it in his eyes.  He was silent, but he wanted to tell me something else.

I waited.  I was hopeful that there was some good news coming my way.  If there was Adra, then why was he looking at me as if he wanted to be with
me?

“And then there was you,” he said softly.

I savored his words. 
And then there was me…
 
That’s right, folks… there was me.

Gently,
Luke pulled me against him as he bent his head down towards me.  He closed his eyes just before I closed mine, and then my angel kissed me.

And his kiss
… it left them all behind.  Every single thought I had was gone, every problem was forgotten. Luke gripped my shoulders tighter, and my arms wrapped around his waist automatically.  Luke’s hands drifted upwards slowly until he was clutching my face as he kissed me.  I think that we might have been floating, and I think there might have been music playing in the background. 

Luke pulled away slowly, and when I opened my eyes, he was staring
down at me.  The expression on his face was thoughtful as if he knew that kissing me was wrong. I already knew it was wrong, especially if a certain female demon was ready to kill me for it, and Adra could be lurking in the dark even now. 

Kissing Luke was not a smart thing for me to do, but then whoever said that I was smart?