Michael: The Mark (Airel Saga Book Four)

Chapter IX (part 2)

Arlington, Oregon—Present Day

MICHAEL LAY IN BED staring at the ceiling, the sun piercing through the gap in the curtains, making everything plain and drab. It was nearly a quarter to 8 a.m., but he wasn't mindful of the time. He was riding in the painful place of existence where time didn't matter, where everything was meaningless.

He drew his arms up and rubbed the scar on his chest. It throbbed and ached and itched deeply. It was getting worse. He needed help. "But there's no one," he said to the empty room. Not his dad, Stanley Alexander, who had been a selfish traitor from day one, leaving him an emotionally bastardized freak, all alone. Not Kreios, who had cursed him with unnatural bizarre demonic patchwork. Not even Airel. She didn't get it.

Would she ever?

He wanted to be rid of the connection with the Brotherhood forever. He wanted to move on, be done with it, be left in peace. But life wasn't turning out to be so simple. It was enormously complex and paradoxical.

Life would just be an endless sprint and they would run like animals, fighting to stay alive. There had to be a way to end it, to cut off completely from his past and start over with Airel. To love her, and that alone. That would be more than enough to satisfy him. His greatest fear, though, was that he had made too many decisions already, that those decisions had taken him too far down a path from which there was no return. Certain things, indeed, could not be undone.

There would be hell to pay, quite literally, for what he had done to the Brotherhood. In that sense he was in good company, for that was where Kreios had ended up too. He couldn't pick a more powerful ally than that. Too bad the angel of El hated him. Michael chuckled bitterly at the absurdity of the idea; they would never be allies. It was impossible. Kreios was, truth be told, probably just saving him for last. Oh, he would have great fun with Michael. It made sense; it's what he would have done were he in the same shoes.

He coughed and held his chest. There was the unmistakable iron taste of blood in his mouth. But it was time to go. Maybe he could sleep on the plane.

***

WE HAD ALL AGREED to meet in the lobby at 8 a.m.

Ellie and I sat by the doughnuts sipping black coffee. I could murder for my coconut latte. "Bleagh," I said, scraping my tongue along the roof of my mouth like a dog eating peanut butter.

Ellie laughed, her spiky blue mane quivering in the rake of early morning light. "What's the matter? Don't like drinking off the bottom of the trough?"

"No," I said. "I miss my Moxie."

She smiled, bemused. "I've gotta take you to Europe some time. There's this little shop in Rome that makes espresso that would kill you Americans with a single drop. And don't get me started on Turkish coffee. Cor."

I just shook my head and smirked. Ellie was a pretty fascinating person, I had to admit it. Why was I so reluctant to let my guard down with people? Probably because they sometimes turn out to be made of newspapers and photographs and other things that are not nice. And then they try to kill you. I guess that's why. I rolled my eyes at myself. Lighten up, girlie. I smiled at that.

"Hey, Els," I said, shortening her name in an attempt to bridge whatever gap I had engineered between us. "Can I say something?"

"Sho," she said in her peculiar Aussie-ish Brit-like accent. "Fire away."

"Well," I began, feeling awkward. "I just want you to know that I've been ... um ... a real jerkhead to you at certain points ... um, recently. And I'm sorry for that."

She laughed easy.

"I really am. And I'd like to tell you thanks for all your help. With, um ... everything. With Michael. I haven't appreciated you like I should."