Children of the Archangels

CHAPTER 19: OUTCAST

Luke was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, which was filled with cursive writing in Latin, when Sirius came into the room. He looked like he had recovered much of his energy at lunch, but still had some red shot eyes to show he was exhausted.

"The man of the hour," Sirius said. "What you did back there was pretty sweet. When did you learn to summon lightning?"

"Today," Luke said. Luke was used to using moves that just came to him in the heat of battle. The first time he had used the undying sear, it was against a demon named Lilith who had taken control over his girlfriend Nellie. The demon tried exchanging Nellie's body for Luke's because his was more powerful.

Now that he apparently was this child of prophecy, he finally realized why Lilith wanted to take control over his body so badly.

"You look just about as beat up as me," Sirius pointed out as he sat on Luke's bed beside him. He placed his hand on Luke's leg. "You really saved the campus back there."

"Yeah, and all I got was scarce applause and awkward silence."

"Don't worry about everyone else, they'll warm up to you. I promise. They all treated me just the same when I arrived. They thought I might be the child of prophecy since I didn't belong to any clearly defined house. But I'm glad you took that off my shoulder."

Luke stood silent as he thought back to what he experienced inside Sirius's mind. Should I bring it up? Luke thought he had violated Sirius's privacy by listening in to his past.

But if he was sleeping with a murderer, he'd like to know. "Do you have any clue why you have such abilities?" Sirius shook his head. "Maybe your parents?"

At the mentioning of his parents, Sirius's head sloped down like snow off a slanted roof. "I grew up with my mother and grandfather. I've never met my father."

Luke saw the conflict in his eyes. The gray background seemed to dance between light and darkness, as if his mind couldn't decide which to pledge allegiance to. "And where did you grow up before coming here, was it always in Vegas? I mean I've heard you just showed up like a couple of months ago."

Sirius got up and walked over to his side of the room where a map of the United States was hung up above his bed. He pointed to a city in Nevada. "Las Vegas," he said. "City of debauchery and sin," he chimed the saying like it was an annoying rule he had to recite as a child.

"Was it tough?" Luke asked. The way Sirius spoke, it just sounded like he was frustrated about his childhood. Especially if he was forced to kill people, Luke thought.

"At times yes, but it was just very demanding. I was raised with one ideology and then I come here and hear something totally different. It's so confusing. But both sides have one thing in common: hatred."

Sirius sat down at the edge of his bed. He had no photos of his mother, grandfather, or anyone for that matter. Luke already had a photo of Nellie and him on his bedside and he had only been here for a day.

Luke took that to say that Sirius's childhood was very complicated. "Sorry if I'm digging too much into your personal life."

Sirius quickly switched on a smile. "Ah don't worry. It's probably best that I don't bore you with my fragmented past. You know—daddy issues."

Luke laughed. "I grew up with the opposite. I had two daddies and that also meant I had daddy issues."

Sirius swept himself back over to Luke's bed. "Two dads? Like they—you know," Sirius clasped his hands together, "and then you came?"

Luke couldn't stop himself from laughing. It was a question he half expected Alpha to ask. "No, I was adopted. They told me that much. But they loved me and treated me well. It was the people around us that didn't."

"Yeah, cause according to most people, being gay is a selfish crime against the natural order of things," Sirius recited with quotation marks.

Luke caught the sarcasm. "That's all I heard. My dads were Catholic too, and they always got damned by their own Church, yet they still stuck around. And putting me through Catholic schools—it was an invitation for bullying. Everyone else thought I was gay just because I had two dads."

Sirius hesitated for a second. "So, you're straight then?"

Luke held up a photo of him and Nellie holding hands while sitting on a bench at his old school campus in front of a fountain. Her signature Twizzlers red hair covered half her face. "We've been dating for a couple of weeks before I came here."

Sirius studied the photo and smiled. He lightly punched Luke in the shoulder. "You didn't tell me you had a beautiful girlfriend. You guys look great together."

"Yeah—I miss her." Luke blurted that last part out, but it was true. He needed her sass to keep him in shape, and to stare into those gray-blue eyes to calm himself down. She would've helped him get through this prophecy business.

"First love?" Sirius asked.

Luke blinked. "How did you know?"

"Just a hunch. I was like that once too." But he offered no further details. He just tapped Luke's leg. "But hey, maybe she can visit during open house."

"Open house?"

"Yeah, once or twice a year SGA allows families to visit their children for a weekend and catch up. They do events and parties and activities. Maybe they'll let your girlfriend come."

Luke's hopes just got a shot of adrenaline. "When's the next one?"

"I gotta check, but I'll find out and let you know. I think it's in another three months or so."

Luke wasn't sure if he could survive another day without her let alone three months, but the chance of seeing her soon was the best news he had received all day.

Sirius got off the bed and yawned. "I think I'm going to take a 12-hour nap."

Luke caught the case of the yawning also and agreed. They shut off the lights and fell asleep.

Only for Luke, his sleep was plagued with nightmares.