Lapidary

I opened my eyes and instantly lifted a hand to shield them from the light. Pain shot through my wrist, and I looked at the stitches, covering the brutal cut.

“You’re awake!”

I recognized that voice. Ace turned from the window, where he had been staring outside, and came to my bedside. I dropped my hand because he was blocking the sun now. I looked at my other wrist, which was also covered in stitches.

“Where am I?” I managed to say.

“Westview General Hospital,” Ace said. “I brought you here, after I found you bathing in your own blood.”

“You found me…” I repeated.

“Two days ago,” he said. “You’ve been asleep for two days.”

I closed my eyes, hoping to drown out his voice. I had tried to kill myself and failed. Wow, I truly was a useless human for not even being able to end my own life.

“Natka,” he growled. “Wake the fuck up.”

“Go choke on a feather,” I snapped.

The next moment, he hit a button on the remote lying on the bedside cabinet, and the bed instantly sprang up, forcing me into a sitting position. My eyes were open now so that Ace could see the anger there.

“You selfish bitch,” Ace said. “Do you think he would have wanted this? Do you think Ryker would have wanted you to kill yourself?”

“Ryker’s not here anymore!” I screamed, but my voice broke, and my eyes filled with tears.

Ace’s expression softened slightly, but he didn’t back down. “You are going to live with your family.”

“I don’t need someone to keep an eye on me,” I argued.

He eyed my stitches. “It will be good for you to be surrounded by loved ones. Besides, I told your parents I’ll escort you personally.”

“You had no right—”

“I had every right,” he said.

If only I had more strength so that I could get up and smack him. Stupid fucking bird. He obviously didn’t know that I didn’t speak to my family anymore, and he obviously didn’t know why.

“Just fuck off,” I managed to say.

He straightened. “I’ll be back, and when I am, we are going on a road trip.”

I flipped him off as he left.

***

I remained in the hospital for a week, and Ace didn’t return. I suspected that he wanted to give me my space, but also because he was scared he’d throttle me if he saw me again.

You selfish bitch. Maybe I was selfish, but I hadn’t cared. All I cared about was making the pain stop.

A nurse watched me 24/7, and I wondered if Ace had put me on suicide watch. I refused to acknowledge her. She applied a salve with magical healing properties to my wrist. Seven days later, the stitches had dissolved, the wounds had healed, but the scars remained. They were two big, ugly things that ran down my wrists, a constant reminder of my selfishness. Of giving up.

Ace arrived at the hospital with a bag full of clothes. He waited for me to take a shower and freshen up. I didn’t bother with makeup or blow-drying my hair. I got dressed in the long, black velvet pants and the green polo-neck, long-sleeved shirt that he had brought me, in addition to a long, furry coat and gloves.

These weren’t my clothes, and I wondered where he got them, until I saw the price tags. He had gone shopping for me. Guilt consumed my heart.

I wasn’t cold but pulled on the gloves so that they covered my ugly scars. If Ace had come to take me to Vesea, where the climate was tropical, then why had he bought me winter clothes? I exited the bathroom with my coat hung over my arm and met Ace by the hospital doors.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I told you, a road trip,” he said.

“I want to stop by my place first,” I said.

“You don’t have a place anymore,” he informed me.

“What?”

“You didn’t pay rent.” He must have noticed my panicked expression because he added, “Don’t worry. I picked up your stuff.”

We reached his sports car which was filled with everything I owned. My clothes were in the trunk, along with a wooden box. I didn’t need to open it to know that the golden coins, all 120 of them, were there. Ace would never steal. I got into the front seat and found a box filled with donuts. Two cups of take-away coffee stood in the cupholder. I looked at Ace and realized I did not deserve to have him as a friend.

You selfish bitch.

My chest tightened, and it took me a moment to figure out that he had spoken. “Excuse me?” I asked softly.

“I said, ‘Can you pass me a donut’?”

He started the car, and I handed him a chocolate-coated donut. I took one bite of a vanilla one, and although it was delicious, I didn’t feel like eating. I returned it to the box, aware that Ace was watching me out of the corner of his eye.

“Don’t you like it?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

A bag filled with pills, my pills, rested by my feet. I’d never told Ace about my schizophrenia and assumed he now knew. That, or he thought I was a drug addict. Maybe I was both.

I reached for my coffee and found it lukewarm. I still didn’t want to go to my family, but I didn’t have much fight left in me. Ace must have understood that I didn’t have enough energy to hold a conversation, so he turned up the radio.

I watched the road signs while trying to figure out where we were going. Vesea was a city in the north of the Elvin Kingdom. It was north from New Peace, yet, we were going west toward the Infernal Peaks, which served as the border between the Elvin Kingdom and the Angel Empire.

I fell asleep in the car, with my head resting on my jacket against the window, and I woke when the car started to shake. We were driving up the mountain.

“Did you sleep well?” Ace asked.

I looked out of the window, saw how high we were, and quickly straightened. The gravel road was narrow, and as far as I could tell, ours was the only car. The Infernal Peaks were mostly home to angels who flew there instead of driving. My stomach turned, and I pictured the car tumbling off the side of the mountain.

“Are you feeling sick?” Ace asked.

I became aware that I was gripping the sides of my seat. “Are we almost there?”

“Yes,” he said.

I closed my eyes, and as we passed low-hanging cliffs, the whispering in my mind resumed. I couldn’t hear what Ace was saying because the voices were too loud. I only opened my eyes when the whispering had ceased, when we had reached the top of the mountain. From the top to the east, lay New Peace, a small dot in the distance. To the west was the angels’ lands.

“Why are we here?” I asked Ace.

“You’re moving to Vesea,” he reminded me. Oh yeah, a city filled with half-daimons, capable of possessing humans. Capable of possessing me.

Half-daimons were the offspring of full demons and something else – like humans or elves. They were rarely strong enough to possess another magical being but found it easy to possess humans. To be protected from possession, a human needed an archangel’s feather – something that archangels didn’t give away easily. My family had each gotten a feather when my dad moved to Vesea to build Shark Bay Prison. I had stayed away from daimon areas and used to be under Ryker’s protection. But now, Ace was right, if I moved to Vesea, I would need extra protection. But how would I convince an archangel to give me one of his white feathers?

And, did I truly need it? My parents had told me, only a few years ago, that I wasn’t biologically theirs but that they had found me, in the arms of an angel, during The Shaking. Maybe he was my father – maybe I was a wingless angel, or a half-angel. But angels’ powers were growing weaker in Testatha; maybe that was why I didn’t have wings or any magical abilities. Maybe my human side was too dominant, leaving me vulnerable to possession.

Either way, no one knew this secret of mine because I was too ashamed to say that I might be an angel – when most of them were cruel and oppressed humans.