The Elite (Editting)

Chapter 15: Family Photos

          "Athena? But she seemed so nice and caring," I asked Gabriel. We sat on a corner of his bed as we talked.

          "Yeah, Athena. She's horrible, nothing at all like she seems," Gabriel said. "She messed up, badly. When I was younger, before you named me, Athena tried to kill me."

          "She did what? Why?"

          "I don't know. She tried everything imaginable: drowning, poisoning, hanging, she even tried to smother me once. I told Zeus about it and he wouldn't believe me 'Athena is a good goddess, she wouldn't, couldn’t hurt a fly'. He didn't believe me, no one did."

          "That's horrible Gabriel."

          "That's why the first chance I saw, I tried to get away from her. When you were thinking about making your imaginary friend, I practically threw myself into your sub-conscience. When the gods needed someone to come to Earth to get you and take you back to Olympus, I jumped on the opportunity. I'd been on countless other missions to rescue other people but none like you, Donatella, you're special. We're special, there's something about us....I don't know what it is, but it’s like magic."

          Gabriel was a lot closer to me now than he was when we started talking. I decided to ask him about it, "Why are you so close Gabriel?"

          "I don't know either. I was talking and the next thing I know, we're almost touching," Gabriel answered.

          "There's definitely something about us, it's magnetic," I answered.

I looked over at Gabriel and noticed his full, Cupid's-bow lips. Before I could change my mind, I leaned over and kissed his lips gently. He kissed me back, tangling his fingers in my hair and bringing my face closer to his. I placed my hands on Gabriel's shoulders and moved them slowly upward. As my hands touched Gabriel's neck, I saw pictures in my mind's eye.

                   I chose to focus on the first picture. It drew my attention in a way that the other pictures didn’t, the initial depiction looked like the portrait of a family. There was a beautiful woman with chestnut brown hair and vibrant green eyes standing over a sleeping child, a boy. The woman took a pillow from the child's bed, placed it over his face and pressed down on it. Suddenly the child's bright brown eyes flew open and seemed to look dead at me. The child struggled and fought against the woman and eventually succumbed to suffocation.

                   "That'll show them," the woman spoke. Her voice was coarse and rough sounding, like nails scraping on a chalkboard. Satisfied with her work, the woman turned and left the room, leaving the dead child in bed with a pillow on his face.

          I was so wrapped up in the memory; I didn't even notice that Gabriel had pushed away from me. "What did you see?" he asked.

          "I saw......I saw someone die," I said quietly.

          Gabriel scooted closer to me on the bed. "Donatella, what did you see?" I told Gabriel what I saw in the vision. As soon as I was done, I broke down and started crying.

          "Donatella, its okay, the child is alive and well," Gabriel reassured me. He rubbed my back in soothing motions.

          I continued to cry to Gabriel about the vision, "How do you know Gabriel? How do you know the child is alright?"

          "Because I am the child you saw. You saw Athena try to suffocate me, but you didn't get to see the ending," Gabriel said. He lifted my face up to his and wiped tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. "Don't cry, belle, I hate it when you cry," Gabriel brought my face to his and kissed the tears as they fell from my eyes. After fifteen minutes in Gabriel's arms, I began to fall asleep. He pulled back the blankets on his bed and tucked me in. "Sleep peacefully, Donatella." I felt Gabriel press his lips to my forehead in a goodnight kiss before I drifted fully into sleep.