The day I planned to die was the day my angel dropped in from heaven. It may yet come to pass that my death is quick and painful, the way I’ve begged for it. Unfortunately, as long as she walks this earth, I must remain a menace.
Trees close around me like a velvet-lined coffin, black swallowing green. Shadows reduce the world to bark and branches, with a low, throbbing hum of cicadas hollowing out my skull, blunting the unbearable weight of grief.
But even in this darkness, she’s tangled in my ribs. Her pretty fingers clutch my heart, and no amount of gloom can force her out. This obsession has grown so large inside me I can feel it splitting bone.
A twig snaps beneath my shoe, and I stop dead in my tracks. All is silent. Even the insects pause their songs.
Leaves whisper up ahead as branches bend. I move closer, drawn by the hunt. I sense the shift in the air. The new presence. The dread.
There she is. I zero in on the white of her dress piercing through the trees. She takes off running, foliage lashing against her soft flesh. One strap slips down her shoulder.
My eyes follow her, savoring every motion, pretending I could let her go.
It would be my ultimate sacrifice—to let my guardian angel escape this place and live a peaceful, ordinary life untouched by the violence that follows me.
But I’m not built for sainthood. I’d much sooner eat a bullet.
She looks over her shoulder, eyes wide, searching for the monster that’s been chasing her.
I’m right here, angel.
I burst into a sprint, long legs carrying me faster than her head start could get her. Patent leather shoes, absurdly impractical, bite into the dirt. The soft crush of undergrowth announces my presence.
She hears me.
Flashes of her flowy dress billow between tall trunks as I close in. Her staggered breaths come out as sobs. Long, dark hair clings to her face, slick from the thick summer air, whipping as she looks back again.
These woods are mine. I know where to stay hidden, how to dodge fallen limbs.
My heart hammers in my chest. God, this is what it feels like to be alive. The ache in my lungs, the burning need to possess her.
My mother always said someone was watching over me. That I wouldn’t be taken before my time, no matter how hard I tried. She told me I’m destined to lead, to be worshiped. Now fate has dropped salvation right at my feet.
Her pace slows. She catches herself against a tree before stumbling onward. I can almost taste the sweat beading on her skin, sharp with adrenaline and fear.
I could pounce on her here. Claim her innocence in the dirt, down where dead things slowly melt back into the ground. Shatter her into pieces small enough to keep safe.
She doesn’t know what she’s running from. Or the doom she’s running to.
When the tree line breaks, the town below us comes into view, streetlights flickering awake in the dark. She doesn’t stop. Not until the ground disappears in front of her. Her shoes skid, sending pebbles over the edge as her arms fly out for balance.
I close the distance, and as she turns, I’m there. My hand wraps around her pale throat. Her pulse pounds against my palm, exquisitely alive. Mine, in the way all beautiful things are—briefly. Before they’re torn away.
I tighten my hand just to feel her heartbeat spike, my fingers reaching nearly all the way around.
Her lovely fingers grasp my arm, the only lifeline she has as I push her back. She scrambles for footing, shoes carving tracks through the loose dirt until her toes scrape the edge of the bluff. The very place where my mother plummeted to her death only a year ago, chasing peace she never found.
Now I live with that same pull, that longing to vanish.
Our eyes lock, and it feels sacred. Two souls standing on the lip of oblivion.
“Please, Edwin.” Her voice comes out in a frightened squeak. A baby rabbit caught in a snake’s coil.
Gray eyes glimmer with tears, and I can’t look away. They well along her lashes as she fights to hold them back.
I want to keep her. Bury her somewhere evil can’t reach. But my girl deserves to soar.
She ran from purgatory only to be dragged into my hell. Let her fall into heaven where the suffering will end.
Long nails dig into my skin, bringing fresh pain to old wounds. Her fight is exhilarating.
Strangled breaths beg for mercy. She’s endured enough. Our paths crossed because the world is nothing but cruel.
Love is surrender. The drop. The beautiful, terrible fall.
“Can you fly, angel?”
Her eyes widen as I let go of her neck. Disbelief for a moment.
And then—peace.