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~No matter how many breaths you took, you still couldn't breathe. ~No matter how many nights that you lied wide a wake to the sound of the poison rain. ~No many how many deaths I die I will never forget. ~No many how many lies I will never regret. ~
~Tell me would you kill to save a life?
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David ushered me into the office with a hand on my back and locked it behind him.
“Have a seat before you have a heart-attack.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew him? Knew about him?” I immediately asked. I turned to face him and he was directly behind me, looking down at me with his large brown eyes. “How long were you going to pretend nothing was going on? I—“
“Faith,” he interrupted loudly. He put his hands up and motioned for me to calm down. “Please just have a seat and I’ll explain,” he said firmly.
“No!” I burst out. “No I won’t sit down! Tell me everything you know about me, about him about--about—“
I started to feel light head again.
David took a step forward and grabbed onto my shoulders when I was about to fall. I jerked my head up to his tall frame and suddenly felt vulnerable under his piercing gaze. My eyes traveled to his tattoo, then to his shaggy blonde hair, and then his eyes again, his hair, back to his tall frame, back down to his toes, and then—
I started to hyperventilate.
Was he Death?
“You’re…oh..my…”
He shook me. “Faith, stay calm, calm,” he said slowly, and rubbed small circles on the sides of my neck. My eye lids lowered a bit and I felt my muscles relax in my shoulders and my legs. David took a deep breath and I did the same.
I was moved towards the couch and before I knew it I was on the opposite side of David. It was weird to be looking at him from straight on but I tried not to show how uncomfortable I was.
David took a sip from the water-bottle on the coffee table and crossed his ankle over his leg, leaning back casually as if I didn’t just have a major panic attack. “W-what are you? Who are you?”
He lifted chocolate eyes up to me unexpectedly and a small shiver sent down my spine. “Well I’m not what you think I am, that’s for sure,” he answered smoothly and lazily slung his arms around the back of the couch. His eyes then grazed over my face for a moment before he broke an uncomfortable silence. “I’m not Death, Sweetheart. I’m a friend. So you can let that breath out you’ve been holding.”
I breathed out a heap load of carbon dioxide and then inhaled a mountain full of sweet freezing cold-David’s-office oxygen. I was good. I was fine, this was absolutely normal. I was talking to someone who confirmed my psychotic beliefs that I knew the Grim Reaper.
“What do you mean by friend?” I asked carefully and tried to shut down the tremble that was rippling through my body.
“Fine acquaintance,” he fixed with a heated glare. “I’m a Light Angel.”
“A what Angel? Are you good or bad because….” I motioned around me. “I’m getting the hell out of here if you’re the bad kind.”
David smirked and flashed his sparkling white teeth. “I’m the best kind.”
“So you're bad?” is what I automatically said in a bit of a softer,more sultry voice. I didn’t mean to say it so huskily and instantly flushed to a brilliant red when David made a face.
“Why did you say it like that? You like bad boys, Faith?”
My face was on fire now and so I turned around to take a deep breath. Curse you blood in my cheeks, curse you!
“Why am I here?” I muffled into my hands and slowly turned back around.
David frowned for a moment and thought about what to say. “You need protection and I was called down to earth to do just that.”
I shook my head slowly, unable to process what he just said. “Are you a Guardian Angel then?”
He brushed back his hair. “Yes,” he said then as if I could handle any other hundred pound waits he then added, “Your Guardian Angel to be specific.”
“My Gaurdian Angel?”
He nodded.
It took all of my energy not to bark out a fat, “HA!” He was an Angel? If David Star was an Angel, two plus two was five. It just didn't make any sense.
At the sound of David obnoxiously gargling some of the water bottle that was on the coffee table I decided to bombard him with more questions. “How old are you?”
“Older than dirt.”
That was when we got into an intense staring contest. Something was always off about David Star and I just couldn’t pin-point it. The tattoo, the side-eyed looks, and the Clifford the Big Red Dog height he had going on….the…
My eyes darted to underneath his desk. “What do you keep under there? A knife? A sword?” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for an answer.
A scythe…
David’s eyes lit up in confusion. “What? Oh…” He then got up with a small smile and went around his desk in slow strides. He sighed and disappeared under the wooden surface, returning with what looked like a silver letter opener. “Anything else you want to question me with?”
“Yeah,” I said and got up to my feet. “Are you lying?”
“Why would I lie?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly and walked closer to the desk. “You know what? I do know. Gaurdian Angel my ass. Where have you been the last—oh I don’t know, eighteen years? I fell off my bike twice when I was ten and cracked open my skull when I was thirteen. I almost got in a bad car accident just last year. Where were you then, Angel boy? Because right now you seem more like the type that was stalking around for people to kill and taking souls like the psycho you probably are.”
The words just spilled out of my mouth.
But it made so much sense.
David shook his head and leaned onto his desk with all of his weight. I heard it creak a little at he did so but was too distracted by his glare to even notice. “I wasn’t assigned you until recently. Nobody realized of your…particular situation until a few years ago.” I staged the car accident with Devin to get you to me.”
My mouth formed an ‘O’. “This is all crazy,” I said and eyed the door. What if David was just psycho and was making this all up? What if I was dreaming? I non-challantly pinched myself to find that I indeed was awake.
“I want proof,” I choked out. “I want proof and I want it now.”
He drifted his eyes from the spot in the window where he was day-dreaming. “I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you anything pretty much. All I’m allowed to tell you is that I’m your Guardian Angel and you’re stuck with me until whenever I’m re-assigned.”
Now I was starting to panic. “You can’t tell me anything? I’m stuck with you?”
He shifted with agitation. “I believe I just said that…once again.”
What was that pounding that was in my ears? My heart? Why was I so scared all of the sudden of the man standing in front of me?
“You saw the clown,” I found myself saying.
He scrubbed his jaw and nodded. “Yes.”
“Was it…him?”
“No.”
I stopped breathing. “Then who was it?”
David shook his head and lowered his eyes. “A Demon,” he said softly.
“A Demon,” I said in both shock and dryness. “And why would a Demon want with me?”
“I… can’t tell you that.”
I closed my eyes for only a moment before I leaned forward and put my hands over my face. “This isn’t happening.”
"It very much is."
“Death told me he had a tattoo.” My fingertips brushed my fingers where I had seen the lines that crawled up Death’s skin after one of the first times he had visited me. “He told me he had them across his face too.” I looked across at David and touched the spot of my face where his branchy tattoo lay on his skin. “You have a tattoo on your face like he would.”
“He has them everywhere not just on his face.” David held the back of his hands up and then rolled up his sleeves to show me his skin was clear of any marks. “Clear and clear you won’t find any more tattoos on this body. I’m not Death,” he said slowly, his eyes on me. I shook my head
“Prove it. Prove you’re not him.”
“How am I supposed to prove that? I don’t have a scythe or freaky tattoos or crazy eyes.”
“Do you have a mirror?”
“Why?”
I shook my head. “Nevermind…it’s just something someone told me.” I uncrossed my legs and pulled them up onto the couch. “I have another question.”
“I probably can’t answer it.”
“I don’t care,” I shot with an intense look. “I want to know if you ever drugged me. If you were the reason I became…delusional. I was seeing things—I—the workers here looked different. Like I was finally seeing what they looked like—“
“Why would I drug you?” he questioned and tapped the side of the leather couch as I took my time with my answer.
I felt a bead of sweat drip down my back.
“I asked you because I know Death would do something like that. I thought about it a few times…”I looked up to see David still looking right at me. “I mean…your names even sound similar--”
“I’m not saying this again.” His voice began to rise as he became furious. He leaned forward on his knees and held his forehead in his hands before he scrubbed his face and sat back up. “I never was, never could be, and never wanted to be Death. He’s a stupid son-of-a bitch and if I saw him ever again—“ He stopped and closed his eyes. He dipped his head down and I saw the muscles in his jaw clench.
He would what?
I brushed a fly-away from my bun and took another deep breath. It was a relief it really was to know that David was the good guy. Maybe he could help me in the long run. I had to know more about the man in front of me. “Is your name David? Or…is it something else? Is this what you look like?” I managed to ask. My voice sounded crackly, like I was about to cry. I couldn’t put a pinpoint on my emotions though I was so much in shock.
He didn’t respond, just scratched a line down his jaw as he watched me.
I shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
“Your tattoo…is it—I mean it’s not exactly a common tattoo. I’ve never seen anything like it…does it mean something—“
“Well you see, one day I frolicked across the world in need of an ugly-ass tattoo and finally after a long journeu and a seven year-long decision I decided ‘Hey, I’m going to get a tattoo right on my face just so Faith Williams stares at it all the time like it’s a tumor and traces it in the air with her finger when she thinks I’m not looking’,” he spat out and then gave me a tight grin.
Harsh.
“I never said I didn’t like it—“
He put his hand up, silencing me. “I went to a tattoo parlor when I was drunk and apparently told guy there I wanted a swirly tattoo on the side of my face. I was stupid and I regret it every day. Keep reminding me of it and let’s see where this letter opener goes,” he said with yet another lip-tight grin.
I flushed with anger. “You know David, you’re not exactly Angelic. I would demote you to water boy if I was your boss. Which is God, right?” My eyes wondered to the dark sky outside as if a beam of light would spark from the clouds and the all-holy sounds of the choir would begin.
He stood up and walked around his desk. “How predictable of you, humans always thing we’re all nice and preppy with sparkly halos and togas. Togas make me itch, glitter makes me gag, and some of us get annoyed with our little human we have to protect.”
I frowned. I’ll give you little human. “And where does Devin fit into all of this? Everyone else in the building?”
David waved his hand around and walked towards his closet in the corner of the office in long strides. “He’s a retired Angel,” he started. “There are a few other Guardians here. Mostly its brain-washed employees. Devin is my boss. I consider him my father because I have known him for so long and he showed me the ropes when I was just starting at Guarding. I never had a Father.”
“What do you mean brainwashed?” I questioned out loud. “I—“
I suddenly felt a small ping in my stomach. I pressed down on it with my fingers and automatically glanced out the window. I put my hands on my knees and tried to ignore the feeling that was consuming me.
The small ping turned into a searing pain and I duoubled over with a wail of pain. There was only one reason I would have a feeling so severe in that spot. Only one reason I would become more heated and uncomfortable than usual.
He had to be near.
I turned to David and my mouth opened to spek. Let’s just say it closed shut pretty darn quickly at a new passing thought.
David had his back to me but I could see just from his back muscles how muscular he really was. His shoulders were wide and his torso was layered with lean muscle. Across his shoulder blades were thick scars that if at the right angle I knew I wouldn’t have seen. They were in a sharp ‘V’ and made me twitch with an invisible pain in my own back at the thought of getting cut that deep. He turned over his shoulder and frowned before facing me completely.
He also had a scar over his eyebrow that I noticed the first day we met.
“What?”
I bit my lip to stop from saying something I would regret later. “Nothing.”
David gave me a long look before flicking invisible lint from his naked chest.
Oh God help me.
My eyes lowered to the view I had been oblivious to.
He was ripped alright.
Big time.
His abdominals looked like they were carved from Michelangelo’s precise eye; ironically you could say the famous statue David the sculptor created. David Stars abs were ridged and indented in his lightly tanned skin like permanent marker, like the statue. It was the abs you got from doing sit-ups for two hours straight—no scratch that, it was the abs you got from holding yourself up in a crunch position dangling from the high roof of the Empire State building for five days straight, flexing your abdominals until they screamed out for help….
Alright, I exaggerated once again.
In sum, David Star had some scrumptious, mouthwatering, eye-licking abs that were so perfect, they could pass for a superior photoshopped version of Rob Patterson’s abs in the second movie in the Twilight movie saga, New Moon.
I heard a zipper and snapped out of my thoughts to see David buttoning up his new black pants, laughing to himself. “Would you like some popcorn? You seem to be enjoying the show,” he said in almost a bitter tone. His brown eyes lifted to mine and he shook his head at me.
We both knew what I had been doing for the last thirty seconds…comparing his abs to sparkly vampires and Michelangelo’s David.
However, his tone was getting on my last nerve.
“What the hell is your damn problem?” I snarled. “You’re always so nasty to me! I’m calling the Angel committee of old people or whatever you have and complaining bit time. I don’t want you as my Guardian. You suck.”
He laughed, turned and shrugged on a dress shirt. “You got me in trouble this morning with Devin.”
“Go take a soar across the city and tell someone who cares! Devin is the only person in this building that doesn’t give me dirty looks. I’d rather have him as a Gaurdian Angel. He’s Angelic.”
“I have a feeling your jokes will revolve around me being an Angel now. I don’t appreciate it.”
“They will. Get over it,” I replied quickly after. David turned his back on me again. Through his white dress shirt I could still see the shadow of the arcane ‘V’ scars.
His back stiffened and he abruptly whirled around, catching my gaze.
“What are you looking at?” he asked and his lip quirked upwards a little in victory. “It’s perfectly normal to be attracted to me. We’re bonded.”
My eye twitched a little at that statement. Bonded. That sounded so permanent, so set in stone. I tried not to look too taken aback by that comment and fiddled with my nails. “I was just looking at your scars,” I told him honestly. “Can you tell me about them?”
David was silent, an action he was starting to do more often.
He leaned against the wall with one hand and held his head down a little. “Those would be where my wings are.”
His wings? How where they his wings when all I saw were faint scars?
“How?”
“Not everything is what it seems. My wings are there you just can’t see them,” he said softly and slid on a pair of dress shoes.
“Is there a reason why I can’t see them?” I asked inquisitively.
His eyes locked on mine. “Because I don’t want you to, that’s why. Anyways, showing you my wings is equivalent to showing you my—what are you doing?”
I stopped tapping my head and felt the temperature of the room suddenly spike up.
“David...is it hot in here?” I sputtered. My attention was completely on my stomach which started to act up. I pressed on it and felt a shock of pain.
My heart started to thud in panic. Was I having a pancreatic episode?
I heard a shuffle and jumped a little when I saw that David had moved noticeably close to me, his shirt halfway buttoned.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he continued to step towards me.
“Absolutely nothing,” he said as he returned to his taste of buttoning his shirt. He wasn’t up to nothing.
“Stay back,” I warned and took a step back.
He jerked his hand towards himself in an open gesture. “Come here.”
“No.” My leg hit the couch and I quickly hid behind it. David took a long stride in front of the couch and faced me.
He raised an eyebrow. “Come here.”
Come here? What does he think I’m a Poodle!
“No,” I said slowly. “You’re not laying one finger on this.” I motioned down my body as if I was up for display and then waggled a finger at David. “No matter what kind of seagull or ‘Godly’ creature you are. I’m not dumb. I watch television. You’re going to wipe my mind or light me on fire.”
David seemed to ignore me and took a step around the couch. I shifted so that we were evenly separated. “You’re in pain and I know why,” he said simply. His tone was surprisingly sweet when he added, “Death has a physical hold on you. I can help you block him.”
I snorted and took a step back. Yeah right! My bologne has a first name, it's D-A-V-I-D and it's full of utter crap!
“You can trust me.” It was only a flash, but in his eyes I could see he wasn’t in fact telling the truth. It was as if his eyes were clouded over, something I hadn’t noticed before. He noticed my intense stare and narrowed his eyes until they resembled a snake, before I could make any conclusions he put a hand to his ear and winced as if he was listening to blaringly loud music.
I stood still, trying to comprehend how someone—something could just disappear like that without any wind or noise. He completely disappeared from the spot in front of me without a trace.
I turned in a slow circle where I stood, confirming the idea that David Star had indeed disappeared into thin air like the Clown had, a clown which was apparently a Demon. But what David failed to tell me was why the Demon had tried to lure me across the street.
Was the Demon envious of Death’s version of a Clown?
Did the Demon work for Death?
This would take some time to get use to. As well as all the ‘D’ words and names I had suddenly stuck my head.
I heard a ring.
My eyes darted to David’s phone and I let out a shaky breath. I walked around David’s desk and sat down in his large chair. It felt like a Tempurpedic mattress it was so soft. I hadn’t sat in it in a while and suddenly I could care less how long David stayed out of his own office.
I heard a robotic movement to my left, a switch in position of the security camera I had forgotten about in the office. I glanced at the device and stared it down with a dark look. If I had found the video tapes in the camera I would have found out about David sooner. Maybe I would have trusted him by then.
The phone rang again and I placed my hand on it.
Was I allowed to answer his phone?
Nope.
I picked it up and put it to my ear without a greeting. “I did it. He's dead. Twelve O’ clock PM, D. No sooner, no later.,” a raspy voice spoke almost immediately into the phone. It wasn’t Devin’s smooth voice or anyone I had met at the office. The voice was cold, so cold it sent chills down my back and blocked the passage way to my lungs.
He's dead? Who's dead?
A killer. On the phone with me. Right then.
A breath of air escaped my lips.
“Who is this?" the man asked after a long pause.
I stiffened, trying to think up a response. No. My voice was too high pitched. In panic, I banged the phone against the table a few times and held it to my ear.
They didn’t hang up like I thought they would.
I slammed the phone onto the receiver and bit my lip. “Shiiiiit,” I dragged out and side-eyed the surveillance camera to my left.
Every normal person had a surveillance camera in their room and a tattoo on their face. David was different. I could trust him; I just didn’t know it yet.
Then why did I try to open the first drawer of his desk which was locked? The second?
Curiosity you could say.
I got up from the office chair and sauntered around the room until I found what I was looking for. The letter-opener. I carried it behind my back to the desk, avoiding the cameras and leaned casually onto the desk as if I was going to take a nap.
I fiddled with the lock using the letter-opener, more frantically then I intended.
No dice.
I put the letter-opener between my legs and patted down the area under the desk. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? My fingers crawled like hungry spiders across the bottom of the desk until I felt something.
A button.
A button? Under his desk? David Star? Was this some sort of 007 movie? Was he planning to take over the world? Would this blow up a building? A plane? Me?
Would it do absolutely nothing?
My ocean eyes drifted to the door of the office then to the cameras. He would find out I did it. Then what?
It was worth it….
No it wasn’t!
“Don’t do it,” I told myself.
He’ll find out, the voice inside told me. You don’t know him well enough. This is his privacy, his office.
If he’s really my Guardian Angel then his privacy is my privacy, I argued with the voice.
This was torture. It was a button for Christ’s sake!
It was then I wished I never even gotten out of bed. I could have been safe right now, under the covers and eating cheese doodles on the couch. I could have visited my parents, or watched a movie. A day off.
My path went another direction. I took that taxi with the man that didn’t speak English, got stuck in the carnival march, David found me, I got in his car, saw the clown, David drove me to the office. David’s an Angel! David’s my Boss. David’s David.
Did I know who I was?
I wasn’t that lucky.
My fingers were sweating, my pulse seemed to beat from the finger that rested on the small button discretely hidden under the large desk I had a glimpse of everyday for two and a half months straight.
The button.
My finger.
It wanted to press it. I wanted to press it.
It could reveal something to me. Finally.
I had to know!
The suspense would kill me for sure.
I closed my eyes tight. On the count of three.
One…
Two…
No!
I couldn’t press the button! No, no, no! What had I become? Invading someone’s privacy? Going through their drawers? An Angel’s privacy? That had to be some sort of sin. I was so going to hell just for thinking about doing this!
But lying was a sin. And David had done a whole lot of that as far as I could tell.
“I’m David Star and I’m completely human.”
Maybe he didn’t say it exactly like that; still, he had kept silent. It frightening the more I thought about it, the fact that a person I had seen every single day for work was not the person I thought he was after all. He knew about Death. I’m sure he knew everything Death had done to me. He must have seen it in my eyes, my emotions, and my personality change.
And David did nothing to help me.
Oh no, not a finger was raised but his middle one, ruining me almost worse than Death could ever do.
I cared about David …he doesn’t care about me. I have feelings for him…finds someone else to care about. I talk to him…he looks the other way. I ask for a favor…he laughed in my face.
What was a small press of a button compared to all of that?
It was time to even out the scale; a nice spit in his damn face.
It was just a button after all…