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DEATH BRINGER NOVEL

CHAPTER FIVE

By ConfessionsPublished 4 years ago 7 min read
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Chapter Five

She awoke at the hospital, bandaged and connected to various monitors and an IV. Looking around the room though, she couldn’t see him anywhere. Had he abandoned her again? Was he a figment of her imagination like they had claimed?

As Grace’s head pounded, only made worse by the blinding fluorescent lights in the hospital, she tried to put all of the pieces together.

She was twelve when her mother had died and he had been there, he had cradled her in his arms and held her whilst she cried. As a child she didn’t realise what adults would do to her for claiming she had seen an angel and she had told them about how he had been with her during those terrifying moments.

Her foster parents had shared concerned glances and carted her off to a psychiatrist. Her memory was fuzzy as she tried to recall details about the man they took her to. The only thing that really stood out to her was his betrayal. He spent a long time gaining her trust and then he turned what he knew against her.

She told him that she had seen the angel before her mother’s death, that not only had she seen him in the hospital one night when she was ten but also multiple times in the two years following. She told him that sometimes she’d glimpse him outside of her school or in the shade of the trees by her caravan.

She told him how safe that angel had made her feel. He watched over her and protected her.

The doctor gave her foster parents his diagnosis, told them that she was having visual and auditory hallucinations and they hospitalised her.

What made things worse was that the angel disappeared after her Mom died. Had it been the tablets they were feeding her? Was she really just sick? Was last night just another episode because she hadn’t been force fed her pills?

She was pondering this when he appeared. He simply “stepped” into existence in the corner of her room. Startling her so much she almost screamed.

--------------------------------------------

Azriel had stood vigil the entire time Grace was in the hospital. Cloaked in darkness and shadow he watched as they stitched her wrists and gave her a blood transfusion. He listened to the nurses talk about how someone had just “dropped her off” in the ER. He listened to them talk about the kind of person that would do such a thing.

Ignoring it all, what he really listened for was danger. If they tried to hurt her, if they tried to imprison her again, his wrath would end them. He would end their entire world if necessary. He’d do it one person at a time.

Azriel didn’t know how she’d ended up in that place, didn’t know why. Did she really intend to die or did she hope he would be sent to her? The image of her lying there flashed through his mind.

Fury lit his entire being on fire, he was so angry.

He inhaled and exhaled, concentrating on matching his breath with hers. There was no enemy to fight, he told himself, she was safe.

Hours passed as he watched, listened and waited.

When she opened her eyes, any of his remaining rage was reduced to embers in his veins. He watched for any signs of sadness or despair, for any indication she might need anything. She seemed to assess the room.

She was so thin, her collar bones jutted above the thin hospital gown. Her eyes were sunken into her head, their honey colour faded and dim. Over her right brow and eyelid was a painful looking purple bruise. Azriel hoped for the sake of the person that had given her it, that he did not find out who they were.

He went to her, only realising when pure terror shone on her face, that he had dropped his shadows.

“I’m sorry,” he held his hands up, showing her that he was not intending to harm her. “I forget sometimes…” he trailed off.

She blinked at him, concentration scrunching her forehead. After several of the longest moments of Azriel’s immortal life, she spoke.

“You’re real?” it was a question, whispered to him as if she feared the response. He wasn’t sure how to answer, what to say to her. Maybe the blow that had caused the black eye had done more damage than he thought.

He opened and closed his mouth, trying to form some kind of sentence.

When words still failed him he covered the space between them, and lifted his hand towards her forehead. If she had a temperature, she may have an infection, that could make humans delirious couldn’t it?

They were so damned fragile.

She flinched. Actually flinched away from him, as if she expected to be struck. He dropped his hand immediately. Trying not to feel the twinge of hurt in his chest. Trying not to take it personally that she thought he would ever hurt her.

“Do you..” he paused, not sure how to word his question. “You have a black eye, did you hit your head?” his voice was soft, laced with concern. She still scowled at him, like he was a complex puzzle she was trying to figure out.

“It’s fine,” her words were clipped, she still watched him so carefully, like he still might hurt her.

She looked around herself then, at the bed, at the wires, at the IV. She began disconnecting herself from things.

“What’re you..?” Azriel began questioning her but she cut him a glance that seemed to say stupid question and carried on. He closed his mouth. It wasn’t until she got to the IV in her arm that she paused, eyes settling on the paper dispenser on the wall.

“Could you pass me some tissue paper, please?” she asked, quietly. She seemed to monitor his every movement, seemed to freeze as she watched him grab some paper and hand it to her. Doing so seemed to trigger something in her and for just a second, her eyes softened.

The expression on her face turned icy a heartbeat later but she didn’t say anything else. Not as she carefully pulled the needle out of her arm, dropping it on the mint coloured blankets of her bed, and held the tissue over the tiny wound.

She got to her feet. Azriel readied himself, prepared to catch her if she wobbled or fainted. Instead she looked down at the too-thin hospital gown.

“I need… clothes,” she said looking up at him, it took him a moment to realise what she was asking. Nodding Azriel disappeared into darkness again, returning a moment later with hospital scrubs he’d stolen from a locker room.

He handed them to her and a beat passed before she gave him a pointed look. He cleared his throat and turned around, cursing himself for not realising that he needed to turn sooner. He balled his hands at his side, fighting the urge to ring them together.

He listened to the shuffling and the flutter of fabric as she changed.

“I’m ready to go,” she walked towards the door. He pulled at the darkness again and trailed her closely through the hospital.

Her hand seemed to tremble slightly as she reached for the door to outside, she waited one breath and then two before clicking it open. The warmth of the summer day rushed in and she inhaled deeply.

Her feet were still bare as she placed them on the pavement outside. She took several slow steps, the slight breeze playing in her still matted hair.

He appeared in the shadow of the building and she turned to him.

“Thank you, for.... For your help” she chose the words carefully. Then she began to walk away.

Azriel didn’t want to let her go again, not after everything, not after finding her again. Panic rose in his chest at the thought, at the image of her lying on that floor.

He came dangerously close to being under the full, illuminating rays of the sunlight, dangerously close to being visible to everyone as he reached for her.

“Wait,” he hadn’t meant it to sound as pleading as it did. She paused. “Do you even have anywhere to go?”

When she looked at him, he could read the answer on her face. No. She was all alone in the world, just like him.

LOOK OUT FOR CHAPTER SIX! THANK YOU FOR READING!

fantasy
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Confessions

Nothing but the truth.

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