We traveled for hours. When we left Gabriel's windowless warehouse, a full moon was disappearing in the sky, fighting for its final hour with the rising sun. Eventually, the sun took over, and the need for sleep crept into the car. It wasn't a requirement for me, so I fought it. But when daylight overpowered the clouds, and people rushed the streets for the lunch orders, Priscilla gave in.
Laid out in the backseat, Priscilla had placed one of Gabriel's sweaters under her head like a pillow. I would've offered my lap, but she didn't want to be a burden, and I knew it. So, I sat beside her and looked out the window, focusing on my thoughts, the same that swirled around my head for hours. What else was I supposed to do?
"What you can do, is stop sulking." Gabriel leaned back in his driver's seat as he looked at me through his rearview mirror.
I scowled at his reflection but looked back at the window. He'd stopped the car beside a gas station, the only lively place I'd seen since he left the city. "I wish you'd stop doing that," I said.
"Kind of hard when you're crying in your head, and it's all I hear in here," he sniffed and waved his hand at the air. "It's like a fucking buzzing fly."
A buzzing fly. I snorted. If only he knew what it was like to be so confused, so out of place, and a stranger to my own life. I felt like an outsider in my existence. Gabriel knew who I was and knew details that could affect me. Priscilla, a soul I believed couldn't exist again, knew all about me and our past and dreamed of me.
So much news that was a benefit to my life, and yet... yesterday, I ran to the place that wished I was dead.
"Fly," Gabriel hissed, looking at me through the mirror again, "just ask some questions, and I'll say what I can. We'll be riding for a while, so you might as well get it out."
I bit my lip. If he was offering, I should take the opportunity, right?
"Fine." I adjusted myself in my seat but tried not to disturb Priscilla. I purposely lowered my voice. "What's this plan you've got going on, and did you make it with Gluttony?
Pursing his nips, he nodded, almost approvingly. I chose the right questions to start with, I suppose.
"Yes, I made this with Gluttony." He glanced at me as his car changed lanes on the expressway. "We met at a bar when you and Priscilla were doing your..." he shrugged and turned back in his seat to look at her, "thing. Broke every rule in both realms."
"I know we did," I licked my bottom lip, "but what does that have to do with Glutt and this plan."
He raised his brows as he glanced at me, then focused on the road. "We had similar thoughts," he said. "My realms, my Gods, created pure souls, for what? To help maintain a balance, right?" He drummed his fingers over the steering wheel. "But your realm and your Lords kill each of the ones we put on Earth. It's a waste of life."
I pinched my brows together. "So you both think killing pure souls is stupid?"
"Don't you?" He glanced at me through the mirror. "You fell in love with one and tried your hardest to make sure she lived. And for what? She died anyway, right? That was inevitable. But, we thought," he cocked a brow and bit her bottom lip, "if the two of you connected, the force y'all had could destroy the invisible wall between the two worlds."
My chest tightened. Gluttony wouldn't have done that to me, would he? "You're using us?" I hissed.
"You're alive, aren't you?" I blinked. "You're alive, and so is she; what else do you want?"
"If it were up to me, we'd have normal lives." I leaned back against the car seat and looked out the window. "I don't understand how this happened. I saw her die, and if she was given to darkness—"
"She wasn't." Gabriel cleared her throat. "She died, but I retrieved her soul before anyone else could take it. Gluttony covered and lied for it all."
My gaze snapped in his direction. "You were there?"
"Mhm." He nodded, waiting at the toll line. "I saw you try to see her. Gluttony told you no. I saw that you loved her, so I knew it'd work in our favor one day."
"One day?" I clenched my jaw. I suffered for over one hundred years. Priscilla's soul was taken as a tool, and for what? So, an angel and demon could rebel against the realms? "This doesn't sound like Gluttony," I whispered.
"You don't know him as well as you think," Gabriel muttered as he passed the toll and sped down the expressway. Then he glanced at me through the mirror. "But that isn't my story to tell."
***
When we reached the town where Gabriel had his safe house, the moon found its place in this sky again, and Priscilla had woken from her late sleep. She tried to rub the redness and sweater winkles from her face, but at that moment, it was pointless. Still, she looked cute.
Pulling up to a sidewalk, Gabriel took us far into a neighborhood six hours away from the city. The streets were quiet, blanketed by the lights every few feet along the sidewalk. He parked his car in the driveway of a house, and when he approached the side door, the automatic lights came on. But in the sudden brightness, I was able to glance inside. And saw... nothing.
Curtains, yes, but there were more shadows than furniture.
Passing my hand over the shirt he'd given me, I glanced at him while he pressed a key into the door. "Um," I cleared my throat, "is this house yours?"
"No," he said, pushing the door open. "Why?"
"Because there are people here," I whispered, gesturing to the people sitting in their living room in the house next door. "And I think they'd know who their neighbors are."
With the door wide open, Gabriel turned and grinned at me as Priscilla, yawning, walked up the single step to look inside the house. She ruffled the sides of her curls as she stretched. Gabriel, shaking his head, flipped the house keys in his hands. "You don't go into cities much, do you."
"What?" I bit my lip, cocking a brow. "I live in cities. They're the best places to hide. But this," I motioned at the neighborhood, "isn't the city anymore."
He pushed his tongue into his cheek as Priscilla stepped inside. "City adjacent, these small towns think they're the city anyway."
Priscilla's came back around. With her head tilted to one side as she held the door frame, her hair over her shoulders. She smiled big, brows lifted as if she waited for my answer to Gabriel's question.
I cleared my throat again. "So you're saying the neighbors won't pay attention?"
"Exactly." Gabriel used one of the keys to point at me before hitting the door, making noises no one would react to. "They don't care. Now, unless I came here and started making noise, screaming, disturbing their peace, then maybe they'd have an issue with me." He turned around, walking backward into the darkness. "As far as they know, I'm a ghost here."
"An angel." Priscilla glanced at him before following close behind. "Don't sell yourself short."
I wasn't going to be the sitting duck outside by myself. Listening to their footsteps fade inside the house. I glanced at the homes just to make sure what he said was right. When an older woman in the house on the left looked out her window, at me, I lowered my head. I quickly walked inside before she realized what she saw; a random man in the house that should be empty.
I closed the door once I stepped inside. There was a kitchen to my left, bare except for bottles of water on the counter. The fridge had to be empty, too. When I looked to my right, at the living room with a single couch and nothing else, I bit the insides of my cheek. While Priscilla grabbed one of the pillows, hugging it tightly as if nothing bothered her, I looked at Gabriel. Standing by the window, he glanced outside. I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder.
He looked back at me. "Need something?"
"Yeah." I lifted my chin. "More Answers. You said you can find Gluttony and bring him to the safe house—"
"Yeah, you're in it." He pointed at the floor. "This is the house. And I gave you a ton of answers. What more do you want?"
I blinked. "The rest of it," I gritted my teeth. "And besides, this house is empty."
"It's not." He pointed at the couch, where Priscilla waved, then at the kitchen. "Don't know if you need water, but there's some."
"There's also a room upstairs." Priscilla pointed at the ceiling. "It's cozy in case we're stuck here for another day or so."
Pursing my lips, I blinked at her until Gabriel laughed. "Look," he said, "it's empty because that's how I found it. I'd rather it be this way than it being loud and bright and attracting attention, you know? So, if you two just sit tight, I can go do what I gotta do."
Gabriel flipped the house keys in his hands once more before he pushed them into the back pocket of his jeans. Then he turned back toward the door. I reached out and grabbed him before he could open it. "Let me help," I said.
He pressed his lips up to his nose. "You want to go back out there knowing they want you dead? Do you got a death wish?"
I bit the insides of my cheek. I knew everyone was out to get me. To fail an assignment with the same soul, twice—Pride wanted my head, and I knew it. He then would be able to present it to Him and Her and announce how he was always right; I wasn't fit to be Envy, nor was I meant to be a Sin.
"Gluttony is my brother," I said.
"Oh, for real?" He cocked a brow. "I didn't know that could be a thing. I thought he was something else..."
"No, no," I moved back and pushed my hands into my hair, "we're close and always were, even when we weren't."
"Either you were," Gabriel pointed one way, then the other, "or you weren't."
"Gabriel, stop that...." Priscilla hissed as she jumped up from the couch. With her hands on her hips, she looked at him, shook her head, then slowly ascended the stairs. She glanced back at us once before disappearing upstairs.
Watching her leave, I ground my teeth. I didn't want to get into the last ninety years. In the beginning, after I left the Seven, Gluttony visited me and made sure I was well. He did that regularly until the check-ins became few and far between. And then they stopped altogether.
"You said you were a part of my escape, didn't you?" I glared at him.
Moving closer to the door, he shrugged. "I didn't outright say it, but yes."
"Then all I ask is that you help him escape, too." I bit my tongue. "I left him when I shouldn't have."
Actions always repeat themselves, don't they? A never-ending circle of mistakes, and pain, repeated by different souls at different times.
"Look," Gabriel flipped his key once more, "I talk a lot, but my intentions are good. Know I will look for him, and I will be back."
***
There weren't any chairs, so I sat on the floor beside the door after Gabriel left. I thought if I stayed closer to the windows and the street, I could hear Gabriel on his way back and feel Gluttony when he returned. Until then, I felt nothing but the silent pressure in the air, pressing down on my lungs like stressful boulders. With my head in my hands, palms pushing against my eyes, I sighed.
Footsteps echoed on the staircase. Priscilla's voice followed. "Talking is good for the soul, you know."
I sighed again, not looking up.
"It's okay, I know, I know." I heard her shuffle over to the couch. A pillow hit the floor. Cursing quietly under her breath, she moved again. The couch cushion squeaked as if she dropped down on it to sit. "It's probably gotten annoying listening to me try and pull the good out of every moment."
No, that wasn't annoying. It was one of the qualities I loved about her. What was annoying was my situation, my actions, and the consequences of my behavior. All things I'd done to myself.
Sliding my hands away from my face, I peered at her from the top of my fingertips. She'd returned to the couch with her back on one end, her feet on the other. She gripped a pillow to her chest; the other was on the floor. I thought she'd grabbed it. Guess not.
She pulled at the corners of the pillow. "It's just something my mom would do, so I keep it up, too."
Her mother? Was her entire family pure? No, her father had to be the same monster. If everything repeated itself, then she'd have a kind mother and asshole father, with his actions putting her in dangerous situations...was that what happened?
I bit my bottom lip, setting my chin on my hands. "Where's she now?" I asked.
"Dead." Priscilla looked at me. "Something happened, and she was killed when I was ten."
My brows shot up. Killed? Was my guess right? "The... same year you met Gabriel?"
Dropping her head against the pillow, with her cheek pressed against the top, she looked at me and nodded. "He just swooped in. A guardian angel," she said. "I didn't have someone to watch over me anymore, and the city planned on placing me in the system since it was my dad's fault—"
My brows shot up higher. Shit. I was right?
"—He said I couldn't be out in the world alone. It wasn't safe." She laughed after saying that. "I was a kid, but it wasn't like I was oblivious. I'd seen it all in my house, so when Gabriel said that, I complained. 'Nowhere in the world is safe!' I said, and he said, 'What I'm saving you from isn't in this world.' It was one of those..." She puffed out her cheeks. "Talk about striking up the curiosity in a kid."
Curiosity? She definitely had mine. "So that's when you started learning about your souls, angels and demons, and... us."
She grinned, nodding. "You're paying attention. Good."
I snorted through my nose. She kept the lightness in the air. There wasn't a reason for the talk to be heavy or sad; the situation was unavoidable. It was nice to see she made the best of everything... and her soul hadn't changed.
"I know my soul is important," her voice dropped, just above a whisper, "not because it's pure, but because of their whole plan and us," she pointed at me, "I know has a lot to do with it."
Her hand reached out, wiggling in the air. She wanted to hold my hand. How could I say no? Pushing myself up, I walked over to the couch, gently passing my hand over her fingers. She smiled as she touched me. "Everything is making sense today." She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "Don't you think?"
I couldn't lie. It was out in the open now. It was in the air, carried in words. With her net to me again, I felt it more than ever. That was something I couldn't ignore. I knew she felt it, too; the way she looked at me, what happened in her apartment. Could it be the part of her soul that loved me before gravitating to me like an old anxious lover? I nodded instead of speaking.
Her fingers pushed until hers linked with mine, then she lifted our hands between us. "My soul almost destroyed the Seven Deadly Sins." She looked into my eyes. "And you're the Sin who almost made that happen."
That wasn't my intention when I rebelled against my assignment and took Priscilla as mine. My goal had been freedom, to chance to experience mortal life. The Deadly Seven had been my family, and, at the time, I didn't hate them. I loved them all. They were a part of me.
Now, I couldn't say the same...
As thoughts passed through my head, my mouth dried. I tried to lick my lips, but nothing happened. Like the Sahara, and I needed water. Gabriel must have known this would happen and had water bottles nearby, just in case. I stood to grab one.
"No, wait!" Priscilla followed after me. "I wasn't saying all of it like it was bad. It happened, and we inadvertently did it together."
We. She was invested in what happened in the past. How could I take that from her? The investment was what I wanted. My issue was... could it be what she wanted? Or was she attached to the idea of what could be? Reaching for the closest water bottle and chugged it.
She pointed at me with both hands. "I feel this and have for years. I just didn't understand what we had until I looked at you."
I pressed the bottle against the counter until it flattened. Taking a deep breath, I slowly looked at Priscilla. I wasn't sure if it was my eyes, the look on my face, or my posture, but she stopped talking. She moved back an inch, brows knitted together, hand on her chest. She took a deep and slow breath, filling her lungs before releasing. Her fingers twirled around a few strands of hair, twirling it round, round, and round.
I straightened and rolled my shoulders back in an attempt to relax. Priscilla slowly shook her head. "Your eyes are beautiful, do you know that?" she whispered.
Actions repeat themselves, Octavio. Do you want to put her through this again?
Leaning against the counter, I turned my gaze to the floor. I wouldn't have her look into my eyes like that. It wouldn't be good for both of us. "They were trying to kill me back then, too," I said, folding my arms over my chest. "We ran until we couldn't."
"We?" She sucked in a breath.
I couldn't look at her. If I looked into her eyes, with her so close, in a space with just us, I wouldn't be able to control my heart. I didn't want the past to repeat itself. If it did, she'd die. Again. I wanted Priscilla to live a good long life.
"Priscilla, can we just..." I motioned to the couch, "sit in the living room and wait for Gabriel to come back?"
Despite the distance I put between us, she came closer. She placed a hand on my chest, and instantly, my body reacted. This wasn't like when we'd touch throughout the night; the hand holding, the bumping into each other, the small gesture of kindness. Her fingers pressed into my skin with what I wanted to believe was curiosity, but her breath told me something different. The way her blood rushed through her veins, pulsating throughout her body...
I reached for her hand and held it, half thinking of pushing it away, but I couldn't. I'd never push her away. "I think we need to sit," I said quietly.
"Do you feel something in the air?" she whispered. "Or is it just me?"
My eyes snapped to hers, and instantly, I fell. Their brightness took me in, swaddling me in their warmth. I let the golden aura of her soul caress my arms and my skin, and wanted nothing more than to feel her body closer to mine.
"What?" I bit my lip. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm just..." she bit her lip, "if we sit, will you tell me or show me?"
I blinked, inching back slightly. Sometimes she talked in circles, and if this was a normal conversation, I'd bite. But now, with everything going on, I needed more direct answers than anything else. "Show you what?"
"That you loved me."
"Priscilla, I—" I couldn't move away. She stood in front of me, chest pressed against mine. Her mouth hung open as she waited for me to agree with her requests. This wasn't alcohol induced. This was real.
She was real.