Truth be told, I didn't fear death.
That is, until I died.
Now, I'm not so sure. What happens to Angels when they die? Is there an after-Afterlife? Is that a thing? I think I wasn't afraid of death as a human simply because I believed in some sort of Afterlife, so I knew I wasn't facing oblivion. But now that I'm an Angel, I don't know what happens to me when I die. Neither does anyone else, really. It's unsettling.
So I'll keep you updated on how I feel about death as I figure that out.
Right now, I'm afraid of Allison making me jump of a cliff again. She said something along the lines of 'think of it as the way baby birds learn how to fly, just on a bigger scale'.
Bullshit.
I didn't particularly like the first time I fell of this cliff, and even then, Grey saved me, so I was cool with it. But now- nope. I can't even get my wings to come out, and she thinks that forcing me to jump off a cliff is going to make them come out? No. That's just stupid. I'm going to fall into that freezing cold water and snap my neck on a rock.
"You've been trying to get your wings out for days, Jo. Obviously what we're doing isn't working. We've gotta try something else," she sat on the sofa next to me while I held my head in my hands. We'd been arguing about this for the last 20 minutes. Allison had been killed by Lucifer in order to lure me out of hiding, and she chose to try to become an Angel after passing on. She had made it through the Hellfire, which is how souls were purified and transformed into either Angelic or Demonic beings, and became one of Heaven's Angels. Unfortunately for me, her first task was to help me figure out how to re-Pledge my soul to Heaven whilst keeping me safe from Hell.
I'd sent Hell into a rage after I'd outwitted Lucifer.
Still proud of myself for that, by the way.
"Throwing me off a cliff is not the answer, Al. When is throwing me off a cliff ever the answer?" I asked exasperatedly. Allison tilted her head to the side teasingly, as if she were thinking of a good reason. I narrowed my eyes at her and she rolled her eyes.
"Come on. A fall can't kill an Angel. And adrenaline is a proven way to force your wings out," she nudged me.
"You're insane. This is it. You've officially gone insane," I mumbled, standing up and pacing back and forth.
"What if I don't even have wings? What if Pledging to Grey left me wingless?" I folded my arms, raising an eyebrow at her. She rolled her eyes at me.
"You have wing scars on your back. You know you have wings. You're just afraid of what they're going to look like," she sat back on the couch, her deep blue eyes watching me knowingly. It was scary how well she knew me.
"That's a reasonable fear," I retorted in frustration. I didn't want them to come out black. If they came out black, that meant I was born a Demon and would have to serve Hell in the Reckoning. It also meant that I hadn't outsmarted Lucifer at all. The gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach had me second guessing whether or not I'd truly succeeded at all.
"You Pledged to Grey. Hell is in an uproar. Heaven wants to help. You know all of this. Otherwise, both Heaven and Hell would know what you'd chosen," she sighed, flicking her golden locks over her shoulder. It was easy for her to say. She had chosen Heaven. There had been no cheating in the pursuing of her soul. She was given a free choice. And now she had pearly white wings.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous.
What I would give for elegant white wings. A symbol of the purity of my soul and the fact that I had chosen good over evil. But I knew it was incredibly unlikely. I'd Pledged to a Fallen. I was either coming out with grey wings or black.
"Can't I just, I don't know, go for a run or something? That's adrenaline too," I shrugged.
"Not enough to trigger your wings. Your wings are supposed to come out when you tell them to, but you don't really want them to come out, so they won't. If you're falling to a dark, icy ocean, you're gonna want them to come out," she smirked. She had a point.
"I don't want to," I scowled.
"Quit being a baby. No one wants to. But you need to learn how to fly and defend yourself. Grey can't help you with your transition, but he wants to help you fly and fight. You need to learn so you're not completely dependent on Grey when we start moving," she explained. Heaven had placed Grey's house under temporary protection while I completed my angelic transition. Once I was transitioned and could defend myself, we had to move from church to church as we would try to find some way to re-Pledge my soul.
I didn't think we'd find a way. If the Ruler and Creator of Heaven didn't know, then how would anything on Earth be able to help? Nonetheless, the Archangels insisted we try. That's where Grey was right now, meeting with them to try to figure out where we were supposed to head first. He'd been gone for days, as the Archangels were incredibly stubborn and refused to meet anywhere other than St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, or Notre Dame in Paris. Rude. I didn't know when he was to return. It kind of made me feel sick to my stomach. I think it was because of this stupid Pledge thing. Gives my soul separation anxiety.
"When are we going to talk about that, by the way? Didn't you want to catch up or something? And I want to know what Grey was like while I was out of it," I chuckled.
"No changing the subject. When you can control your wings, then we will talk, okay?" She smiled. Somehow, becoming angelic had made Allison that much more perfect. It was annoying. It was like looking at the epitome of female perfection every minute for the last three days and it was making me feel self conscious. I know it wasn't her intention, but until I completed my angelic transition, I just looked like a normal human with brighter eyes and scars on her shoulder blades.
Apparently, in order to complete my transition, I had to not only be able to control my wings, but also be able to fly, and be able to fight at a level deemed acceptable by the Archangels, who were monitoring my development. Only then would they do this weird Angel ritual, 'unlocking' the rest of my soul and allowing me to use 100% of it.
I know. It's cult-y. I just hoped it didn't involve like, I don't know, chicken blood or something bizarre like that.
"If I jump off the damn cliff, you'll tell me what Grey was like while I was out of it?" I narrowed my eyes at her. She made an 'X' motion over her heart and nodded.
I can't believe I was agreeing to this.
"Fine. But if I die, you get to tell my boyfriend what you did, and I'm revoking your best friend card," I pointed my finger at her warningly. She held her hands up in surrender with a giggle and I rolled my eyes.
I started heading towards the door, but Allison cleared her throat behind me.
"Do you really want to rip through your favorite hoodie when your wings come out?" She folded her arms and tilted her head to the side. I glanced outside the massive windows in Grey's living room. It was a slurry of rain and flurries outside.
"You're kidding right? It's freezing out there, and you want me to take this off? Forget falling in the water, I'll get hypothermia just standing out there!" I retorted.
"You're gonna rip your sweatshirt and be cranky for the rest of the day. Take it off," Allison shook her head. I furrowed my brows at her and clenched my jaw, but she didn't budge.
"I hate you," I grumbled through gritted teeth as I pulled off my sweatshirt, leaving me in my sports bra and leggings. I was inside and already shivering.
"You love me," she smiled in approval and followed me out the door. As soon as the first snowflake hit my bare skin, I was a shivering mess. I don't know how she expected me to make it out of this with all of my fingers and toes. I was absolutely freezing. By the time we made it to the edge of the cliff, I could hardly feel my hands, let alone my fingers. The grass was still a dark green, the same as it was a few months ago when I'd fallen off of this as a human. The dark, swirling waters below looked the same as well. The waves were a dark grey as they hit the jagged rocks below, turning then into a silvery white mist reaching up towards me.
"Well?" Allison eyed me. She wasn't shivering at all. Angels apparently don't get cold. Something about inner radiance or whatever. Lucifer had explained it to me before I knew he was Lucifer. At that point, he had been Riel to me. Trustworthy, friendly Riel, who would never hurt a fly. Oh how times have changed. Riel was actually Lucifer, and had taken the name of the Angel he had killed that was sent from Heaven to convince me to Pledge for them. Heaven never really had a chance at my soul with Grey and Lucifer recruiting me. Luckily for them, Grey'd taken up protecting my soul from Hell as soon as we began feeling something other than hatred for each other.
I didn't know where I'd be if I hadn't fallen in love with him.
"Are you going to jump or are you just gonna stare at the water?" Allison asked me impatiently. I sighed in irritation. I took one last glance at her, hoping that she'd tell me it was just a joke and we could go back inside, but she never did.
Alright.
Deep breaths, Jordan.
In. And out.
Whatever color your wings are, you're going to be fine. You'll get out of this.
In. And out.
And then I leaned forward off the edge and felt my feet leave the soft earth behind. The icy wind whipped past my face, snowflakes feeling more like jagged ice as they cut into my bare skin. My stomach plummeted as I watched the swirling ebony sea get closer and closer. I didn't want to hit it. I was freezing as it was. That water was probably 40 degrees. I could easily catch hypothermia. I didn't want to lose my toes.
I winced, shutting my eyes tightly and preparing for impact as the waves got ever closer, the ice cold sea spray hitting my face. This was going to hurt.
But just as I thought I was going to hit the waves, my stomach did a flip and the wind slowed slightly.
What?
Did I-
I opened my eyes. I was soaring over dark waves, an endless ocean of grey expanding in front of me.
I'd done it! My wings had come out!
I didn't want to look at them, fearing what I might see, but I instead admired the way they felt. It was refreshing, like stretching your legs out after a hard workout. I could feel the air flowing under and above them, a little breeze hitting skin between each feather. I could feel how well they held me up, how powerful they were. I knew that if I wanted to, I could soar up into the clouds above with a single beat. More than that though, I wanted to wrap them around me, as they were the only part of my body that wasn't freezing.
I leaned to the left slightly, and turned back towards the peninsula. A few of the longer feathers of my wing grazed the waves of the water, but I only felt the resistance, not the cold. I could see Allison on top of the peninsula, her hands held high above her head in excitement. I could hear her cheering me on from here.
Ugh. She was right. Jumping off a cliff did trigger them. And I did kinda like it.
These wings made me feel powerful, like I could do whatever I wanted to, protect whoever I needed to.
Maybe I had needed these all along.
Wait.
I should probably know what they look like.
What if they're black? What if I didn't succeed and my soul was actually Pledged to Hell? What if Lucifer just didn't know yet?
I sucked in a breath and glanced back at them.
And a wave of relief crashed over me.
They were huge, extending about 10 feet out to either side of me, covered in massive feathers that almost seemed to shimmer in the snowfall. And they were grey. Not black. Grey. A slightly lighter grey than Grey's, more like a light heathered grey than his solid, stone grey. I was so relieved.
And slightly proud to be honest.
I'd inherited Fallen wings from him, but they were mine. My soul had made them my own.
They were mine.
And they were powerful.
And they were beautiful.
I beat my wings once and soared up the wall of rock I had just fallen down, stretching them out once I reached the top to slow down and land gently on the soft earth. Allison had little tears in her eyes as they examined my wings.
"Jo, I know you wanted white wings, but these are-" she began.
"They're me," I shrugged with a smile. "And they're not black, and that's all I care about." Allison giggled, nodding.
"Alright, enough of that. Can you try to pull them back in?" She wiped an eye with her finger and motioned to my wings with the other hand.
"You're kidding, right? Of course not, I have no idea how to," I retorted. She sighed and folded her arms.
"How did you keep them in before?" She asked as-a-matter-of-factly.
"By not wanting to see them," I replied without thinking. "Oh," I realized, shutting my eyes in an effort to concentrate.
No more wings, please?
I opened an eye. Nope, still there. I shut it again.
Please go away, I'm done now.
I opened my eye again. Still there. Okay, seriously? This was ridiculous. They're my wings. They need to listen to me. I want to go put my sweatshirt on and get warm again and I can't do that if-
OH.
A chill ran up my spine and it felt like someone punched me in the back, knocking the wind out of me.
When I glanced over my shoulder again, they were gone.
"What did you think of?" Allison chuckled, taking my arm as we walked back to Grey's house.
"My sweatshirt," I replied with a snicker.
HELLO MY LOVELIES.
I hope you enjoyed Chapter 1 of Silver. I really enjoyed writing it. I'm so excited to share the second part of Jordan and Grey's story with you guys. If you thought Grey was exciting- you're in for a real surprise here. It's gonna be a rollercoaster book, y'all, so hold on tight.
Next chapter will be out within the next week.
Happy Holidays to all of you, and I hope this was a decent gift.
I love you all.
Til next chapter :)
-TJ