Fallen Angel

Chapter 4

I was nervous, although not overly worried about the new move. It was a huge change. From what I'd been told, there would be many walls, different colored rooms, and lots of pieces of furniture that I get to see for the first time. It would be like stepping into one of those educational books. Lucifer had said everything should be normal.

Our normal was different from their normal. Their normal didn't mean confined to one space. Normal normal was being able to move freely from room to room, and to step outside whenever you wanted. Except if it was storming.

I hated the way our first storm shook the military base. The soldiers seemed fine with it, but I was unsure of the thunder and the constant pounding on the roof.

After the storm stopped, we loaded up onto a truck. I folded my wings carefully before I ducked inside. I hoped the ride wasn't overly bumpy, or else I could get knocked around. I'd hate for my wings to get crushed, I always got uncomfortable cramps after that happened.

Lucifer boarded right after me. I don't know what I would have done without him over the past week. He was almost a constant in my life now when everything else was changing day by day.

The third of us stepped on afterward. He seemed to almost sneer with his eyes at the cramped transport, not that I could blame him.

He had been named Michael, something he begrudgingly accepted. The few conversations that we had were short and sweet, with Michael not really wanting to talk. He seemed to be the most stubborn and borderline ungrateful. He was wary around all of the soldiers, and anyone besides Lucifer or I that tried to talk to him.

I could understand where he was coming from, but I didn't hold the same grudges.

The back of the truck closed behind us, and there was only a dim light overhead.

We were on our way to a new home. Hopefully a permanent one, but probably a temporary one. Our patron was someone's rich uncle or aunt from this military chain, who had been following our case and had otherwise classified Intel.

That's how he heard about our situation and offered for us to stay there. Supposedly he had a little vacation cottage just on the edge of his property, and over a day or two, they had made sure that it was safe for us to stay. It was supposed to be large enough that we could all live there comfortably.

It was supposed to have a room for each of us, plus an extra and a living space. We would all be right next to each other, and we'd be able to come and go as we pleased. It was supposed to be decorated cutely, and I was as excited about the change as I was about where we were going.

The soldiers were all nice, but everything was plain and we weren't allowed to explore outside. That and they still had their operations going on, so there were a lot of restricted areas.

I was the most nervous about meeting our patron.

What if he decided he didn't like us? How would we fend for ourselves if he decided to cut us off? There is so much that I didn't know about this society, even from reading. For example, the so-called legal loopholes that we had to go through now without proper identification. We would be helped, but it would still be a hassle.

I knew that our press release was going to be through our patron, as were the agreements, and the revenue from that would more than cover our stay at his place as well as an allowance for each of us. I didn't really know what to do with money, but I was excited just to actually buy something.

In a way, it was almost like another prison, except this time the restrictions were for our own safety. We weren't allowed to leave without guards or escorts, but they were not the rules of our patron. Lucifer agreed to the rules after the general suggested them. People of their kind reacting in fear was a recurring theme in their history, and the general explained that awful things could happen. It put a damper on my emotions, but I refused to let it drag me down.