Not Heaven Without Him

Not Heaven Without Him (23)

Handing the job that Justis gave me is harder than I first took it to be. It’s sad to have to read those files and see all the horrible ways that these people died but I have to.

It’s part of my job.

The girl I go to talk to goes by the name Lillian and was strangled to death by her boyfriend.

I go thinking I can take it, seeing her face and knowing what I know, but when I see her with her eyes so dazed and satiated, I can’t help but think about my first day here and how I felt. Lost, at peace, and confused.

What I remember instantly as I see her eyes, clouded over almost, is that she’s traumatized and that she’s been tranquilized, to use a violentesque word of my past, to not feel the pain. In time, she’ll adjust, but right now all she knows is the calm and completely serene feeling of this place and the underlying message of sadness that escapes you from time long gone.

Or at least that’s how it was for me.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. When she makes eye contact with me and she fails to respond to me in anyway whatsoever, I cannot help but look at her neck, expecting what? I don’t know. Strangle marks? Bruises? Red spots?

Sick of me, yes. I regret it instantly but cannot undo what has been done.

That’s one thing that being here has taught me. You can ignore your actions, your past, but you cannot pretend it never happened. Or can you?

What about Jayden Rex?

But am I really pretending? He was wiped. Taken away. They didn’t want me to know anything about that part of my life so they took it right away. I wasn’t hiding from it.

Sadness overwhelms me as I wrap my arms around Lillian desperately. I want to cry; she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t wrap her arms around me. She doesn’t do anything for a few long moments.

It’s like she doesn’t know how.

It’s like she can’t. What’s wrong with her? Was I this way?

“Lillian,” I say softly as I pull away, still leaving my arms on her shoulders. Slowly, very slowly, her eyes register that that’s her name. Achingly, she nods ever so slight. “Welcome to freedom.”

Her eyes turn cloudy again and her brows push together in confusion. “Never again will you ever feel pain. Sadness. Hurt. And I’m here to make sure it is exactly that way. Walk with me?” I release one of her shoulders to offer her the cloudy pathway but nothing. No response.

I bite the inside of my mouth softly. “How about we sit and talk?” I suggest, letting a partial scene of a fifties dinner absolve around us. Her eyes move slowly to the booth next to us like she’s suspicious of it but she nods in that same tiny way.

I have to sit first for her to move and even then it’s only with me gently pulling her down by her hand.

“How do you feel?” I ask but her cloudy eyes aren’t meeting mine.

I try again. “Do you need anything?”

“Are you an angel?” she asks suddenly in a tired and scratchy voice.

“No,” I laugh softly.  “Why would you think that?”

She frowns a little, like I’ve offended her. “Because you look like one.”

Like she has given me a vital piece to a deadly, pardon me, puzzle, I take that piece of info to heart. Had Justis not said specifically that I looked like a Dominion? Through my prodding of his brain I have also determined that a Dominion appears in the form of which a human pictures an angel. Angels themselves appear more nymph like than angelic, as I recall from my dance with them seemingly so long ago.

I smile carefully, trying to hide my discomfort. “I have no differences from you apart from I came here first. You should feel at ease around me. We’re both blessed to be here.”

Almost without sound she mouths, “blessed,” her face almost contorted in disgust.

“You doubt it?”

“If I’m blessed, I wouldn’t be here without him.”

That, I know, is a very big piece of the puzzle.

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