Change of Heart (NaNoWriMo 2011)

Chapter 21

Jariel finished serving another customer before going on his long awaited break. This day had been hell. He didn’t like how Dawn had burst in and woken him up instead of letting him sleep. Heck, he didn’t like anything about this day so far. The customers he served were mostly rude and gave him lousy tips, and he couldn’t be rude back because, as Joe liked to say, “They are the customers and they run the show.” Please. They may be the ones with the money, but that gave them no right to treat the workers the way some of them did. There were some customers that were nice, Jariel had to admit, but even then they never gave really good tips.

            Jariel went out back to get some fresh air. The day seemed more gloomy and cold than usual, he noted. He zippered his jacket and pulled it up around his face to shield him from the cold wind that was nipping at his face. It looked as though it was going to rain at any given moment. He stifled a sneeze as the cold wind brutally hit Jariel’s face, and brought his coat up closer to his face. It was official, he hated the cold. He laughed to himself. He was about to go back inside, to get away from this disastrous cold, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Annette clutching on to a piece of paper, tears streaming down her cheeks.

            “What’s wrong?” Jariel asked, alarmed.

            “Dawn went to go take the trash out, and she-“Annette started to cry harder. “She never came back! I went out to see what was going on, and I found this note.” She handed Jariel the piece of paper, which read:

My dear Jariel,

It seems that the world is being kind to you. Too kind. As you can probably guess, I don’t like it. In fact, I downright hate it. You’re supposed to be suffering, if you remember, which I am pretty sure you do. Being kicked out of Heaven isn’t something you easily forget, I can only imagine the sorrow you feel. Well, this mortal, this scum as you like to call them, has been interfering with my plan. If you haven’t guessed who I am talking about, than you are more of a moron than I took you to be.  I want you to suffer. Oh, and you will suffer, believe me. When you find that humans, who may or may not be alive after I get done with her. You’re going to learn that you cannot get a happy ending. There are no happy endings in your book.  I’m going to take away your happiness by taking away the source of it, the human.

                                                                                 Be seeing you.

                                                                                 Elise.

Jariel could feel the anger boil up inside of him as he crumpled the note up in his hand. Elise had what she wanted, she was the center of attention now, why would she bother coming to the mortal realm to steal Dawn? He just couldn’t understand it. He started to pace around in a circle, unsure what he was going to do. For the most part, he didn’t even know where Elise had taken Dawn. For all he knew, she could have taken her out of the state. No, Elise was too lazy to go to that much trouble, he second guessed.  He had completely forgotten that Annette was there still, and the fact that she had read the letter and was probably wondering what the heck was going on.

            “Jariel, what the heck is going on?” Annette asked, her voice filled with the fear that she must have been feeling. “The letter said you were kicked out of Heaven?”

            Jariel stopped and let out a deep, aggravated, sigh before looking over at her. “What’s going on is that one of the most powerful angels in Heaven just took Dawn because, for some bizarre reason, she wants to see me suffer. And yes,” he said, before Annette could ask again, “that makes me a fallen angel.”