Destine (The Watcher's Trilogy) (21 page)

The noise
jolted me back to reality and as my fellow cla
ssmates departed the classroom
I struggled to cl
ear the cobwebs out of my brain.
I managed to gather my books and stand
.
It was amazing how
an innocent touch prompted
such a great longing
.
I turned and looked
dir
ectly up into Gabriel’s face w
h
ile his calm, cool smirk gazed
back at me
.
He had felt how I had reacted to him, and he was pleased with himself
.
In a moment like this it was hard to imag
in
e him as a centuries old fallen angel because the look on his face was all seventeen-year-old boy
.
Still smiling
,
he grabbed my hand and began to lead me out of the classroom
.
In that moment I had nothing to say, no questions, no worries, I simply enjoyed the feel of his hand in mine
.
We walked in content silence till we
reached the girl’s locker room;
I had to go in and prepare for whatever
corporal
pu
nishment Mrs. Still
had prepared for us today
.

We paused in front of the locker room door and I was about to thank him for walking me to class, when h
e
lean
ed
into me
.
My breath immediately caught in my throat and the words I was about to say evaporated into nothing more than a gasp that escaped my lips
.
He quickly pressed his lips to mine in a tender but chaste kiss and then turn
ed on his hee
ls and walked back the way we had come
. I was left
leaning against the wall outside the girl’s locker room watch
ing Gabriel gracefully retreat.
I
wondered
for the second time today what
the deal
was
?
Were former angels suppose
d
to behave this way
?

Suddenly the girl’s locker room
door exploded open as Mrs. Still
came out to clear the hallway
.
Unfortunately, I was standing against the wall in the exact spot were the door connected with the wall
,
and before I could move I was nailed square in the forehead
.
Right before I blacked out from the impact I had a moment to think, “
Please
don’t let him look back,” and then I slid to the floor in total darkness
.

I awoke with a gasp
.
Apparently
, I hadn’t been breathing when I was knocked out
.
I looked up to see Mrs. Still
, the nurse, and a very nervous looking freshman staring down into my face
.

“Are you al
l
right?
” squeaked the nervous girl, who for the life of me I couldn’t remember her name
.

I struggled to sit up and everyone stood to give me some room to move
.
“Yup, just peachy,” I replied dryly
.

“Do you want us to call your m
other?” asked the nurse
.

Oh God, call my mother? W
ay to make an embarrassing situation even worse
.
“No thanks, Mrs.
Folks
.
I’m okay.
”

“Well, let
’
s at least get so
me ice on that bump,” Mrs. Still
commanded in her usual gruff voice
.
I gingerly reached up
,
and to my embarrassment
,
there was a large knot on the top right side of my forehead
.
I let out
a groan as Mrs. Still
yanked me to my feet
.
There was a precarious moment when a wave of dizziness washed over me and I thought I was going to blackout again, but Mrs.
Folks
grabbed my other arm to steady me and I was fine
.
I spent the rest of the
45-minute
long gym period in the
nurse’s
office
lying
on a cot, icing my forehead
.
Not my first choice for getting out of gym, but it was the silver lining to getting nailed in the head with a solid wood door
.

To my great relief
,
when the bell rang signaling the end of gym, the knot on my head had shrunk considerably
.
Now instead of an egg protruding off of my forehead, it was little more than a slightly raised red splotch
.
The nurse let me leave for last period as long as I promised to ice my head
as soon as I got home
.
Of course I agreed and then escaped out into the huddled masses of the hallway
.
As I left D-wing and entered the main lobby I all but ran directly into Gabriel
.

He smirked at me and handed me a slip of paper
.
“Thought you could use this.
”

I looked down at the
slip;
it was an early dismissal notice with m
y name
filled out on top
.
“Thanks, but how did you get this?
”

“Come on, I have some angel mojo left
,
don’t I
?
Besides
,
you’ll only be
missing study hall no big deal.
”
H
e studied my face and I could have sworn he glanced up at the red bump on my forehead
.

“So I guess you saw, h
uh?
”
I asked sheepishly
.

“Let’
s
just say I was worried you had cracked the door
.
Modern co
nstruction wasn’t meant to with
stand such force.
”

“Ha
h
a
, a simple yes would have sufficed
.
I’m fine by the way,” I
replied, scowling
at him
.

“I know, I checked on you while you were in the nurses office
.
You didn’t even notice me
.
Besides
,
what do you think these early dismissal slips are for
?
You’ve had a rough day.”

“Yeah no kidding,” I snorted
,
“and it
’
s only Monday.
”

And with that we walked out the front doors and into the afternoon sunlight
.
I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I didn’t really care
.
Any place but here sounded good right about now
.

Chapter
11

Matthew 24:4 “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in
My
name…”

The sun felt good on my face a
s
we walked out of t
he main entrance to the school
.
“What are we go
ing to do with our afternoon
?” I asked curiously.

“The first thing we’re going to do is take you to my house, so we can ice that head.
”

“Won’t your d
ad notice you
’
r
e
home, and then we’ll get in trouble?
”

“No,” was all that
he provided
as an
answer
.

We walked around the side of the school and back t
hrough the school parking lot
, making
sure to avoid the few students who were gathered outside the back exit grabbing a last minute smoke before class
.
I’ll never understand the people who actively make the choice to smoke
.
It
seems so stupid, looking
tons
of scientific and medical s
tudies in the face and going, “Y
eah I know it
’
s
bad, but look how cool I look.
”

“Free will
,
Michelle
.
They have free will,
”
Gabriel’s words cut into my mental rant like a knife
.

“Did you just read my mind?” I asked in astonishment
.

Gabriel laughed, a deep boisterous noise
.
“No, of course not
.
But I can read your face, and it was clear what you were thinking.
”

I smiled at him and quickened my pace in order to meet his stride
.
“I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I’m that easy to read, or a character flaw.
”

“It’s a Michelle
thing, which makes me like it. Y
ou can’t hide anything.
”

As I m
et his stride
,
he reached out and grabbed my hand
.
The current that always seemed to come from his touch began to gradually buzz and warm my skin
.
It was a strange sensation, but one that I had come to associate with him and so I like
d
it
.
The sensation felt somehow comforting
.
We walked that way, hand-in-hand, back to his house without saying a word
.
Although the walk wasn’t far, only a few blocks,
it was one of those perfect moments
.
The sun was warm and shining, the weather had
a
crispness to it that only fall can bring, and I was holding the hand of a guy that I was pretty sure I was falling in love with
.
If I
ignored the fact that he claimed
to
be a fallen angel, and that I was
heaven’s instrument to saving the world from total destruction, it was an almost perfect moment
.

When we arrived at his house we went straight to the kitchen
.
I pulled a stool up to the island, as Gabriel put a pot of coffee on
.
“I lasted hundreds of years without coffee, and now it seems that I can’t go more than eight hours without a cup,” he smirked at
me, his amazingly clear eyes pee
king up at me through his disheveled mop of curly black hair
.

I couldn’t help but laugh at his sheepish expression
.
“We all have our vices, even former angels
,
I guess.
”
And just like that I snapped myself out of my happy little delusion
.
I was not just some girl cutting school with her boyfriend
.
I was sitting across the counter from a former angel, a former angel that I had had a pretty serious make-out session with earlier that day
.
I decided it was time to lay it all on the table
.
I had to understand what was going on, and not just with the end of the world but with this Gabriel and I
thing.
I took a deep breath and mentally told myself to just do it, like yanking o
f
f a band-aid
.
“So
, speaking of vices
…
a
re we going to discuss what happened in the ladies’ room at school today?
”

Gabriel arched his eyebrow at m
e.
“I thought we already had.
”

“You know what I’m talking about, Gabriel
.
Not Scarlett
…
us.
”

He
t
oo
k a deep breath
and slowly nod
ded
his head
.
He looked up at me with a look of confusion on his face
.
“Michelle, I owe you an explanation and
probably
an apology
.
I lost control earlier, I don’t know what came over me.
”