Redemption (Stand-Alone, Spin-Off to Reaper Series), page 19
“I should have gotten Gabriel to swipe me some clothes before he left,” Eve muttered as she limped along, shivering in the cold. Her fingers and her toes were going numb, and she could feel tiny bumps on her forearms. Her entire face and the back of her neck were ice cold and she wished she still had her long hair to at least shield her neck from the icy breeze.
Finally, Eve saw a street up ahead. The path she was following had led her straight to it, and she could see a small group of people walking along, talking and laughing loudly. Peering at them from the darkness of the park, trying to ignore the chattering of her teeth, Eve could see the group comprised of three men, all dressed in warm coats.
“Hey!” Eve called out to them, un-hugging herself momentarily to wave her arm, before quickly wrapping her arms around her chest again. “Hey! Wait!”
The men heard her cries and began looking around, trying to determine which direction her voice was coming from. One of the men spotted Eve approaching them from the park and nudged the arm of the man beside him, pointing at Eve.
“You all right, there?” he called.
“Jeez, you gotta be freezing to death!” another man said in amazement, walking towards Eve and unzipping his coat.
“Yeah, you have no idea,” Eve replied, smiling at the men as she stepped into the light of a street lamp.
As Eve’s face appeared under the soft glow of the lamp, the man who was approaching her and unzipping his coat suddenly stopped in his tracks. He and his friends all stared at Eve with strange looks on their faces, expressions that suddenly made Eve wary of them. She stopped walking towards them and stood under the lamp, shivering.
“So, uh,” Eve began nervously. “Anyone want to loan me a jacket?”
One of the men, a man with thick arms that bulged under his parka, and his hair shaved into a military-style crew cut, stepped forward until only a few feet stood between he and Eve. He was staring at her suspiciously, his eyes narrowed as he stared at her face.
“You look familiar,” he said, sounding accusatory.
Eve thought back on the highly televised press conference that she had spoken at, until it had been bombed, only for the attack to be blamed on her. If these guys had seen her face, then they were not likely to want to help her.
“Oh, well, I just have one of those faces,” Eve replied, offering a tentative smile.
The crew cut shook his head. “No. No, I’ve definitely seen you before.”
“Robbie, it’s that girl,” one of his friends whispered. “The one on TV.”
“The Angel?” the one named Robbie repeated. “I thought her hair was different.”
“It’s just cut short,” the other friend pointed out. “Look! Bright red. I’d remember that face anywhere.”
“Guys, guys,” Eve said, smiling in an attempt to diffuse the situation before it could escalate. “Look, I’m not an Angel. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I just need some help, is all.”
Robbie shook his head. “No, you’re that Angel. The one who killed those reporters.”
“What?” Eve asked, her voice going suddenly higher. “No! I didn’t kill anyone! Look, guys, I’m not an Angel. I just need some help.”
“Oh yeah?” Robbie asked dubiously.
Eve glanced at his two friends as they began to spread out, fanning to her left and right. They were now both standing on either side of her, looking at her with a combination of anger and an expression similar to that which Gabriel often had before a fight.
“You killed a lot of people a few weeks back,” Robbie growled. He and his friends no longer looked as friendly as they did only moments ago. Robbie was glaring at Eve like he was an angry dog she had kicked.
“You don’t want to do this,” Eve warned. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“I think you are,” Robbie growled. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll let some Angel scum run free in my home city. You’re about to see what happens when you screw with humans.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Eve saw a fist fly at the side of her face. Numb from the cold, she failed to react in time and almost fell over from the impact of knuckles against her jaw. The force of the punch having spun her around, she found herself facing the second man, who swung a fist up into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
“You’re nothing,” one of the men hissed at Eve as she held her stomach, gasping for air.
“Yeah, I thought Angels were supposed to be all badass and everything,” Robbie sneered. “What a laugh.”
Eve finally caught her breath back and glared up at Robbie while she was still doubled over. Despite the situation, she grinned at him.
“You wanna see something really funny?” she asked sweetly, but a definite hint of anger and danger hiding behind her innocent tone.
In a flash, Eve rose from her bent position and drove her knee forward, directly between the legs of the man who had punched her in the stomach. When her knee drove home, the man cried out in pain and immediately dropped to his knees, grabbing his crotch.
Eve turned and became nothing but a flurry of fists and feet. With the adrenaline coursing through her, she seemed to no longer feel the cold, and her combat training had kicked into full gear.
After he had taken several blows to the body and face, Robbie’s brain finally realized he was being attacked and he tried to defend himself, but when he swung a fist at Eve, she easily ducked under it and drove a powerful uppercut with her elbow into Robbie’s chin, the force of the blow snapping his head backwards and splitting his jaw open. Before Robbie had even hit the ground, Eve had turned and struck a high kick right into the last man’s throat, causing his eyes to bulge as his air supply was choked off from the impact. Before he could struggle to breathe too long, though, Eve struck him several more times with some well placed strikes and then swept his legs out from under him, the man already unconscious before he hit the ground.
“Bitch!” Eve heard someone roar. She turned to see the man she had kneed in the crotch, recovered enough to charge at her. As he lunged at her, though, Eve ducked and used his own momentum to flip him over, the man’s cry of rage suddenly becoming one of surprise as he found himself upside down in midair. When he hit the ground, Eve grabbed him roughly by his hair and popped him three times in the face, his nose breaking and blood pouring down over his mouth.
With the man down for the count, Eve rose to her feet and turned to see Robbie back on his feet, snarling at her like an enraged animal.
“Angel bitch,” he hissed.
Eve took a step towards him, but caught a glimpse of something steely in his hand reflecting the light of the lamp. The sight of it made Eve hesitate just long enough to not be within arm’s reach when Robbie attacked.
He slashed out at her with a switchblade that he must have had on him. Eve leaned backwards, dodging the attack, feeling the air of the passing blade in her face. She prepared to fend off another attack, but paused when she saw a shadow sneaking up behind Robbie.
“You’ll get yours, you little b-” Robbie suddenly stopped in mid sentence as the shadow struck him in the back of the head. His eyes became unfocused and he dropped to the ground, knocked cold.
Sighing with relief, Eve looked from Robbie’s unconscious body to the shadow that had come to her assistance. As the shadow stepped into the light, Eve first noticed that the tool the shadow had used to knock Robbie unconscious with was a guitar. The second thing Eve noticed was the teenage girl holding it like a bat.
The girl looked shocked by what she had just done, staring down at Robbie with wide eyes. The girl was Indian, with big bright brown eyes, which probably would have looked far more appealing if they weren’t currently terrified. She was dressed warmly in a purple coat, a scarf, and a pair of black fingerless gloves, her fingernails painted blue. Her skinny jeans were a washed-out gray, and her boots were tall, reaching halfway up her shins, with silver pointed studs around the ankles. Eve saw that the girl had numerous piercings in her ears, as well as a stud piercing in the side of her nose. The girl had dark hair, which was hanging down past her shoulders, with streaks of bright blue.
“You okay?” the girl asked Eve, panting from the exhilaration and fear of what she had just done.
Eve nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”
The girl nodded, then looked down at Eve’s hands. “Whoa,” she said, lowering her guitar. “Your hands!”
Eve looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were all red and swollen, some having even split open from the force of the punches she had been throwing. Eve stared at them in surprise. She had been in many fights before, but she had never showed any sign of injury for long. The sight of her own bruised and bloodied hands reminded her again of the fact that her days of being an Angel were gone. She had better start getting used to being human.
“Brrrr!” Eve suddenly shivered. With the adrenaline wearing off, the cold struck back hard. Eve threw her arms around herself and almost fell to her knees as her legs started shaking uncontrollably.
The girl quickly set down her guitar and unbuttoned her coat. “Here,” she said. “Put this on.”
The girl slid out of her coat, revealing a black sweater underneath. She handed over the coat and Eve slid her arms into the sleeves, already feeling the warmth over her icy cold skin. She tried to do up the buttons, but her fingers were too numb and she fumbled uselessly at them.
“Let me,” the girl said. Eve stood still and let the girl do up the buttons for her, feeling only slightly childish, even though the girl looked to be roughly the same age as she. In appearance, anyway.
“Thank you,” Eve said when the girl stepped back. She shoved her hands into the coat pockets and almost sighed with relief at the warmth. Her legs and feet were still exposed to the cold, but now that her upper body was warm, it almost didn’t matter.
“Come on,” the girl said, grabbing up her guitar and tugging on Eve’s arm. “Before these guys wake up.”
The pair of them hurried away on to the street. Eve wasn’t sure if she should stay with this strange girl, but felt bad at the thought of running off with her coat, so kept pace beside her as they walked quickly down the street.
“You took down those guys like they were nothing!” the girl said excitedly. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
Eve cast around her mind for a response, but decided to answer with a half-truth. “Um, my brother taught me. He’s a soldier.”
“Cool,” the girl said. Then narrowing her eyes, she asked, “You’re not some mental hospital escapee, are you? I mean, the hospital robe and everything…”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Eve quickly said. “I was in a hospital, kind of, but I didn’t want to be. So I ran.”
“Cool,” the girl said again. “I’m Alexandra, by the way, but people call me Lexi.”
“I’m Eve,” Eve replied without thinking, cringing as she realized she should have given a fake name. What if this girl figured out who she was?
Lexi, however, didn’t react at all. If she suspected anything of Eve, she didn’t show it.
“Thanks for backing me up back there,” Eve said appreciatively.
“No problem,” Lexi replied, smiling sideways at Eve. “Girls gotta stick together, right? What’d they want, anyway?”
Eve shrugged, feigning ignorance. “Who knows?”
“Maybe they were jealous of your unique fashion sense,” Lexi smirked. “Paper dresses are so in right now.”
Eve couldn’t help but laugh.
“So where do you live?” Lexi asked. “I can maybe walk you home, make sure no other goons jump you.”
“Um…” Eve hesitated. “Well… I kind of… Well…”
“You don’t have anywhere to stay?” Lexi asked, her shock bringing her to a stop. “What about your parents? Your brother?”
Eve felt her shoulders slump at the thought of her father and how sad and worried he had looked when she said she couldn’t go with him and Gabriel.
“I’m by myself now,” Eve said quietly.
Lexi gawked at Eve in shock for a moment longer, then just began shaking her head firmly. “No you’re not. You’ve got me, now. Come on, you can stay at my place, it’s not far. I’m sure my dad won’t mind.”
“I don’t want to intrude,” Eve said quickly.
“Don’t be stupid,” Lexi said, pointing in Eve’s face. “You’re staying with me and that’s it. How else are you going to make up for me breaking my guitar over that guy’s skull for you?”
Lexi turned her acoustic guitar in her hands to show Eve the break in the back. Eve immediately felt a wave of guilt wash over her.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry,” Eve blurted apologetically.
Lexi just laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got an old one I can use for a while. I was planning on buying a new one, anyway. Now hurry up, we gotta get you out of the cold before your toes fall off! I only live a couple of blocks away, let’s go.”
Eve felt overcome with gratitude for this girl Lexi. She was a complete stranger to her, but Lexi was going far out of her way to help Eve, even going so far as to break her guitar saving her from a man with a knife. And yet, a part of Eve’s mind was nagging at her. Could Lexi really be trusted? Eve remembered what her father had said about Belial and Demons. That they had no true form, but could take on the shape of whatever suited their needs. Could that mean that Belial was disguising himself as Lexi? Pretending to come to her rescue when he was really trying to trick her again? To take her back to Javan’s tower and lock her up again? To be experimented on, tested, prodded and poked for the remainder of her human life? Eve had to be sure.
“So, what were you doing out by the park so late?” Eve asked casually.
“I’m out here a lot,” Lexi replied. “I busk at the subway station most evenings. You’d be surprised how willing people are to separate with their cash once the sun goes down, and the later the better. Normally it’s the night crowd and bar hoppers that are feeling pretty charitable. Especially when they see a poor Indian girl with a hand-me-down guitar.”
“If you make more money when it’s late,” Eve began, “why did you leave already? It’s not even nine, right?”
Lexi frowned, seemingly confused. “I don’t know why I left,” she admitted. “It was busy, loads of people, I actually made a good haul. I just, I dunno. It sounds weird.”
“Weirder than a girl in a paper dress running through the streets of Toronto?” Eve asked sarcastically, arching an eyebrow at Lexi.
Laughing, Lexi said, “Alright, I guess it’s not so weird, then.”
“So why’d you leave?”
“Don’t you laugh at me,” Lexi warned. “But I kind of just… had a feeling that I should leave.”
“A feeling?” Eve repeated.
“Yeah,” Lexi admitted, sounding confused by her own admission. “A feeling. Like, I had a stack of cash, and I was totally on my game with my set, but something was telling me I needed to go, you know? Like it was really important that I stop pushing my luck with the money and just… leave. So, I packed up, pocketed the money, and walked out. That’s about when I saw those ass-hats smacking you around. My dad’s gonna make a big deal over that swollen cheek you got going on, by the way. Just a head’s up on that.”
Eve turned her head and looked at Lexi, just as Lexi turned to grin at her. Looking at Lexi’s eyes, Eve suddenly remembered something. No matter who Belial was pretending to be, he always had his blue eyes. Isaiah, Jack, Ian, Lilith, all with blue eyes. Lexi, however, did not have blue eyes. They were hazel. And, now that Eve looked closer, she saw small flecks of green in them. Just like Peyton had in her blue eyes.
“What?” Lexi asked, touching her face. “Is something on my face?”
“Huh?” Eve grunted, snapping herself out of her train of thought. “No, no, I just… Well, I’m lucky you showed up when you did. You saved me.”
Lexi snorted. “Yeah, right. If I saved anyone, it was those guys. You tore them apart. Girl power for the win, though, right?”
Eve laughed. “Yeah. Definitely.”
Walking side by side with Lexi, Eve felt she could relax now, for two reasons. The first was as simple as the green flecks in Lexi’s eyes. Most of the time when a human had flecks of green in their eyes, just like Peyton Paradisa and Lexi, it meant that that human was a descendant of an Archangel. Which, if true, meant there was no possible way Lexi was Belial in disguise.
Secondly, Lexi’s story of having a sudden “feeling” that she should stop busking and go home? That proved without a doubt to Eve that Lexi could be trusted.
Thanks for the guardian Angel, Father, Eve thought gratefully.
19
THE FATHER
L
exi warily poked her head through her apartment door, looking around carefully as she flipped on the light.
“Dad?” she called out. “Hello?”
She and Eve waited in silence, which was also the only response they got. Lexi grinned over her shoulder at Eve and pushed the door all the way open, stepping inside.
“He’s not home yet,” Lexi said, basically sighing with relief. “That’ll give us some time to clean you up a bit.”
“So, what does your father do?” Eve asked, wondering what would keep a father away from his daughter so late.
“Oh, he’s one of those crime scene people, like CSI,” Lexi said casually.
“Like a cop?” Eve asked, suddenly nervous. A police officer would ask a lot of questions, not to mention the fact that because Belial and Javan had let Eve take the blame for the bombing, her picture was probably pinned up in every police station in the country.
“Yeah,” Lexi nodded, not noticing Eve’s sudden apprehension. “We’re lucky he’s been working late the last couple of weeks. Your bruises are one thing, but it’d be really tough explaining your hospital gown to him. I’m gonna need more details on that later, by the way.”
“Sure,” Eve said, walking tentatively into Lexi’s home, closing the door behind her.
