Jariel finished serving another customer before going on his long awaited break. This day had been hell. He didn’t like how Dawn had burst in and woken him up instead of letting him sleep. Heck, he didn’t like anything about this day so far. The customers he served were mostly rude and gave him lousy tips, and he couldn’t be rude back because, as Joe liked to say, “They are the customers and they run the show.” Please. They may be the ones with the money, but that gave them no right to treat the workers the way some of them did. There were some customers that were nice, Jariel had to admit, but even then they never gave really good tips.
Jariel went out back to get some fresh air. The day seemed more gloomy and cold than usual, he noted. He zippered his jacket and pulled it up around his face to shield him from the cold wind that was nipping at his face. It looked as though it was going to rain at any given moment. He stifled a sneeze as the cold wind brutally hit Jariel’s face, and brought his coat up closer to his face. It was official, he hated the cold. He laughed to himself. He was about to go back inside, to get away from this disastrous cold, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Annette clutching on to a piece of paper, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Jariel asked, alarmed.
“Dawn went to go take the trash out, and she-“Annette started to cry harder. “She never came back! I went out to see what was going on, and I found this note.” She handed Jariel the piece of paper, which read:
My dear Jariel,
It seems that the world is being kind to you. Too kind. As you can probably guess, I don’t like it. In fact, I downright hate it. You’re supposed to be suffering, if you remember, which I am pretty sure you do. Being kicked out of Heaven isn’t something you easily forget, I can only imagine the sorrow you feel. Well, this mortal, this scum as you like to call them, has been interfering with my plan. If you haven’t guessed who I am talking about, than you are more of a moron than I took you to be. I want you to suffer. Oh, and you will suffer, believe me. When you find that humans, who may or may not be alive after I get done with her. You’re going to learn that you cannot get a happy ending. There are no happy endings in your book. I’m going to take away your happiness by taking away the source of it, the human.
Be seeing you.
Elise.
Jariel could feel the anger boil up inside of him as he crumpled the note up in his hand. Elise had what she wanted, she was the center of attention now, why would she bother coming to the mortal realm to steal Dawn? He just couldn’t understand it. He started to pace around in a circle, unsure what he was going to do. For the most part, he didn’t even know where Elise had taken Dawn. For all he knew, she could have taken her out of the state. No, Elise was too lazy to go to that much trouble, he second guessed. He had completely forgotten that Annette was there still, and the fact that she had read the letter and was probably wondering what the heck was going on.
“Jariel, what the heck is going on?” Annette asked, her voice filled with the fear that she must have been feeling. “The letter said you were kicked out of Heaven?”
Jariel stopped and let out a deep, aggravated, sigh before looking over at her. “What’s going on is that one of the most powerful angels in Heaven just took Dawn because, for some bizarre reason, she wants to see me suffer. And yes,” he said, before Annette could ask again, “that makes me a fallen angel.”
“You’re insane!” Annette said, looking at Jariel as if he were just that. “Did Dawn know?”
“Yes, she uh,” he laughed, “, walked in when my wings were showing.”
“I still think you’re insane, but at the moment we need to get to the police and get Dawn.” She started to walk off but Jariel grabbed her arm before she could do so. “Hey!”
“We can’t go to the police. The police can’t have anything to do with this.” Jariel whispered. “They don’t know that my kind even exists. They’ll think we’re insane if we go to them saying Dawn was kidnapped by an angel bent on seeing someone suffer.”
“We have to do something though!” Annette protested, ripping her arm out of Jariel’s grasp.
“And we will.” He assured her. “But first of all we need to figure out where she is keeping her.”
“Dude, this is New York City we’re talking about.” Annette said, scoffing. “She could be anywhere.”
Jariel knew that Annette was right, that Dawn could be anywhere right now, but he wasn’t going to dread on that fact. He was going to find Dawn, if it killed him. He knew Elise well enough to try and figure out where she would keep her. The letter also said “Be Seeing You” so she obviously expected Jariel to find her. Now, if that meant finding Dawn dead or alive, Jariel didn’t know, but he really hoped he found her alive.
* * * *
“You bitch!” Elise yelled, kicking Dawn in the stomach again. Dawn groaned in pain, but could do nothing about it. Already her nose was bleeding and there was blood dripping down the side of her face from where Elise hit her head against the wall. She had blacked out a couple of times already, and she prayed that someone would find her soon. She couldn’t scream, as much as she wanted to, because Elise had gagged her. All Dawn could do was watch and endure the pain while she waited and prayed for someone to find her. Elise would go off on rants about how much she hated Jariel, how much she wanted him to pay for what he did, whatever that was. Dawn mostly ignored it though. She was much too concerned about what was going to happen than some bitter, petty, angel’s rants. Mostly, she blamed Dawn for the happiness he was feeling right now, as shown by the bruises and cuts on her.
“It’s your fault, I hope you know that.” Elise said, getting up in Dawn’s face again. “All you had to do was stay out of it. All you had to do was let him suffer. But no, “Elise slapped Dawn, causing Dawn to let out a muffled yelp, “you couldn’t do that, now could you?” she scoffed. “You humans. Why do you have to be so nosey and get all up in other people’s business? Huh? Why don’t you answer me you piece of scum?” She slapped Dawn again, whose face was now tear stained. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I not hit you hard enough?” she hit Dawn again, this time harder, causing Dawn to cry harder. “How about that, huh?” Dawn didn’t know why Elise was even here. She had gotten what she wanted, according to Jariel, why was she bothering her. She tried her best to get the gag out of her mouth while Elise had he back turned on her. Luckily, Elise wasn’t as smart as she acted, and she hadn’t tied the knot that tight. It came off easier than expected.
“It seems to me,” Dawn said, breathing heavily. “That you have a lot of anger issues. But, please, stop acting like a child about them. Stop blaming everything on other people and look in the mirror, sweetie.” By this time Elise, in pure anger, was looking at Dawn, but Dawn continued, not really caring. “Wonder why you’re not the favorite? Maybe because you’re nothing but a bully. And I think it’s pathetic that you need to trick angels out of Heaven just to become the favorite.” Elise started walking closer to her, her arm raised, prepared to strike Dawn, but Dawn continued. “And you’ve already gotten what you’ve wanted! Jariel isn’t the favorite anymore, so why do you have to continue seeing to it that he suffers! It sounds to me like you’re nothing but a coward.”
Elise struck Dawn in the face so hard, that her head snapped to the side. Dawn let out a cry of pain, but she felt so good about herself right now that she didn’t even care. It was the truth, though. Elise was nothing but a pathetic coward. The only way she could become the favorite was when she tricked the other angels out of Heaven. Now she felt threatened by Jariel, because he was happy and in a much better state than the other angels had probably been in, which meant that he could return and get the revenge that he wanted.
That’s when it hit Dawn.
It wasn’t about her at all. Elise could care less about Dawn. What Elise really wanted was Jariel, because she felt threatened by Jariel returning and taking back what was rightfully his. So, Dawn guessed, she was planning on luring Jariel here to finish him off. Dawn eyes grew wide as she took all of it in. It meant that Jariel was in danger and she couldn’t do anything about it. She was trapped here and by now Jariel had probably already received the note and was on his way here, or planning on how to get here. Dawn wished that she could shout, scream, anything, to save Jariel. She didn’t know what she was going to do, she just hoped, she prayed to God, that whatever happened, Jariel wouldn’t be hurt. That Jariel would continue to be safe.