The Unknown // Colby Brock

~~ Chapter Nineteen ~~

"Care to elaborate?"

"He put my lover in heaven's prison a century ago for speaking back to him once. Not even the devil does that, not for that long."

"It's heaven's prison, how bad can it be?" Mike scoffed.

The angel gave him an annoyed look before pulling his sleeve halfway up his arm revealing multiple scars that looked like lashes.

"I spent less than a day there and this is what happened to me. They aren't just on my arm."

My mouth opened and closed again. In so many movies, I had seen heaven or a place that was supposed to be good turn out to have an underlying secret that made them a hell of a lot closer to the opposite. Yet I never expected that to be the real heaven.

"However God decides to punish people in heaven is up to him. I don't care about that. I won't be stupid enough to attempt to replace God until I absolutely have no choice. You're going on a suicide mission."

"Not if we have the devil's-"

"Answer is no. Get lost in purgatory."

The angel's jaw clenched as he took a step back. I was partly proud of the devil for doing the right thing and sending them away, but not for the right reasons. He wanted to remove God from the throne and he only declined because he knew he wouldn't win yet. If he could, then he would. Of course he would.

The angels reluctantly, angrily, began their little march out of the room, but not before glaring at everyone inside of it - including me, which earned them each a nice glare of my own. Before I knew it, the door was being closed behind them.

Surprisingly, however, I wasn't the first one to move: Xepher was. She started almost running down the stairs looking a little frazzled. I followed her but stopped on the bottom step rather than running to everyone like she had. She stopped next to Griffin, of course.

"Are we really going to pass up the opportunity to get rid of God?" Elton asked slowly, staring at the devil, who didn't respond for a moment.

"We can't beat him."

"Why? We've come close before and we grow stronger every single day," Mike pointed out. "Besides, an angel wouldn't disagree with God unless they really did disagree with him. Unless they were rogue or fallen."

"I don't trust them," I said, shaking my head. Mike gave me a sharp look but I ignored him. "There was something off."

"I agree." Jake nodded.

"They stood in the prefect place to ambush us and that leader didn't like that Xepher and I were up there out of reach."

"Do you think they would have ambushed us?" Devyn asked lightly with a frightened look on her face. I didn't want to believe that someone would be so brave but I also couldn't accept that they were good guys. Or... bad guys, since that's what we were.

"Cassie and Devyn, I want you two to do some spying. It'd be helpful to figure out who they are."

They both nodded and gave their boyfriends short hugs before walking away to go upstairs. I didn't pay much attention after they passed me.

"Should we warn Sam?" Tara questioned as she glanced at Jake, who was on his way over. He wrapped an arm around her waist comfortingly and pulled her in close to him, which made me automatically turn my head. I didn't want to see couples. Not while my head was still all over the place.

"No."

"You're not even gonna tell your own mother?" I questioned without thinking.

The devil looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't tell if he was telling me to shut up, thinking, or just plain staring at me. Either way, when he looked away, his eyes were on his own lap.