Our Future

When I finally did wake up I was startled by my mother and Grace being meters away. I was no longer in the large box but my wings were still spread and so were Gabriel’s. His were brown with a reddish tint. He was standing in front of me as if protecting me, Jasper was beside him, and his gray wings spread as well. Gabriel and Jasper both had their guns in hand but they weren’t pointing them anywhere but the floor.

“What are you?” screamed my mother. “You’re not Nathan and Gabriel. Where are our children? What did you do to them?” she asks harshly.

She wanted this to all be a dream. She had wanted normal children. Not these freaks with wings. She’d be so happy when she found out Sam wasn’t the same way.

“It is us!” Gabriel screams in return.

He’s obviously angry. He’s probably thinking my mother accepts neither side of me. Angel or gay. She wanted a normal, human, straight son and she got the opposite because she didn’t know what her parents were. And that was because they decided to leave her ignorant, thinking she wouldn’t fall in love and have children with another Nephilim. Jasper looks unsure. So does Emily, who is standing off to the side half way between us and our mothers.

Did she find me and then go get our mothers? Why didn’t she wake me and ask? Did she think she wouldn’t get a straight answer or that I’d lie? She’d seen the wings, how could I lie now?

“He’s awake,” comments Jasper who has notice my awareness of the situation.

“See he’s fine. You guys have to listen to me. You are half angel and half human and so we’re our fathers and that created us, two fully angel children. Anna and Sam are fully human. That’s how it works with a Nephilim’s children. Their either completely human or completely angel. That’s why we have wings, okay?” says Gabriel more calmly. “We have not been replaced with monsters or Shapeshifters or whatever else you think.”

Grace seems saddened by his explanation. She starts crying, and slowly comes forward and hugs Gabriel. She’s considerably shorter then him at five foot four so he kind of has to bend down to return her hug.

“I knew I was a Nephilim I just didn’t tell you because I thought if you were human it would be unnecessary to tell you,” Grace whisper quietly.

She smiles at me as she hugs him. She must be happy that despite his differences he’s found somebody that can love him for who he is. Not for what he is or has or will be. I rise and gravely stare at my mother who is still standing separate from the four of us. Emily is edging toward our little group.

“Their monsters. No humans have wings. And we’re human, Grace,” she says in a panicky voice.

How could she be like this? She had raised me; you think she would have suspected something was different at least.

My mother pulls her glock and points it at us and steps toward us. We back away but we’re going in the direction of the door to the hall. It worries me, it’s probably almost ten-thirty in the morning, and almost everybody will be up and about to see us. If their reaction is anything like my mother’s, we’ll get kicked out.

Then again, if we get kicked out, we won’t have to watch our backs or worry what people think. But we also won’t have a place to live or food to eat. We won’t have the means to keep ourselves warm or alive really.

All the Venturers are in the hall when we finally back out into it. Jess is there, too. When they see us they look surprised but when they see my mother holding us at gunpoint their surprise turns to worry and concern. Jess quietly comes toward us from behind my mother and steals her gun.

“Give that back. I’m killing murderous monsters. They toke Nathan and Gabriel,” she says loudly but she’s not shouting.

“You...” Gabriel curses under his breath. He knows he’s not a monster and he hates to be called names because that’s all a lot people did to me and him throughout middle and high school. It’s amazing how for the first nine years of your life you act so innocent and then two months later everybody will change. Have a fragment of the devil implanted in them that causes them to want power. To bully and call you names.

“They look like Nathan and Gabriel to me. The wings are new but we all have our secrets, I assume this wasn’t meant to be discovered, yet,” says Jess calmly.

He seems annoyed by my mother’s statement about us being murderous monsters. His reaction is basically ‘you don’t have a clue what a murderous monster is’. Like he knew how messed up people could be and we were far from being like them. Just something about the look in his eyes said that. It made me wonder but the wonder was soon forgotten when she pulled a dagger and stabbed me with it. I stumbled backward into Gabriel and saw Jess grab my mother. He pulled the knife from her bloody hand and then tossed it down the hall to where it bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor. He kept a hold of her so she couldn’t retrieve the knife and stab somebody else.

She stabbed me. Her own son. For God’s sake what had happened to her? Jessie wrestled with her. He pushed her into a breakout room and shut the door. These were, for some odd reason rooms that locked from the outside. He shoved a nail into the key hole and turned it and for some weird reason it locked. Emily had ran off to find Cassie and I was now on the floor, Gabriel was applying pressure with his sweater, which was once a dark gray, now it was a dark, bloody crimson gray.

“Nathan, stay with me, okay?” he said trying to make me stay conscious. My lower abdomen hurt, it didn’t really hurt anywhere specifically, and it just hurt. The top of my shirt was all bloody.

“Don’t die, please,” I barely hear Gabriel’s whisper. It shocked me a bit. I wondered if it had shocked him when I shot Farren to protect him. Cassie and the male senior nurse appear soon with Emily. My vision blurs, my face feels wet... I hear sniffling. I look around and see Gabriel crying... I reach up, slowly and brush his tears away.

“I promise I won’t die,” I whisper as quietly as possible.

Everything’s a blur after. They lifted me onto a gurney, wheeled me to the office and gave me millions of pain medication to knock me out well they fixed me up. I woke up in the principal’s office with Abele. Our beds were on opposite ends of the tiny room. Jasper and Gabriel were in the middle sitting on the ground. They both looked lost, unsure, worried, and sad.

I looked down at my abdomen, it was bandaged and I was hooked up to an IV.

“Told you, I wouldn’t die,” I whisper roughly.

“Nathan,” Gabriel says surprised and gets up and comes to my bedside.

Jasper looks at me and smirks then looks down at the floor with the same lost look and then over at his brother who is still in a coma.

I stare quietly at Abele, sad. I lived but somehow I wish me and Abele would have both woken up. It didn’t seem fair for him to die. He had so many things to do or experience in this world, he didn’t deserve to die, and he was only eighteen. He didn’t deserve to die over such a stupid thing.

Gabriel knew I was distracted.

“Maybe he can heal people,” thought Gabriel, he sounded nervous, yet, excited.

“Don’t get his hopes up,” I reply, not wanting to implant false hope that Abele might get better.

“If his power was anything else don’t you think he would have found it by now? He hasn’t found out that he can heal people because he hasn’t tried,” comments Gabriel.

“What if he doesn’t believe us?” I whisper.

“He has wings, he’s an angel. Noah said so,” replies Gabriel quietly.

“I mean what if he doesn’t believe about the second power? And what if he doesn’t believe in his ability to heal people. It might not work. I think we should wait. If Cassie starts saying he should consider pulling the plug then we can suggest it,” I say trying to reason with Gabriel.

What if he didn’t have a power? We’d be giving him false hope.

“It might be too late then,” says Gabriel sounding worried.

“Well, I don’t want to spread false hope and lose his trust and friendship, “I say calmly annoyed. “He’s already, sad as it is, we shouldn’t make it worse.”

Gabriel seems nervous but he signs and quietly goes over to Jasper. He’s whispering so I can’t hear.

“Really?” says Jasper.

Gabriel whispers in reply.

“Okay,” says Jasper quietly rising.

All three of us still have our wings out, it makes me nervous. What will Abele’s reaction to them be? Most of them had thought my mom had been the one to lose it rather than us but there were still some who were whispering about us and spreading rumors and wanting to kick us out. I wonder if Sam had heard anything yet. Anna hadn’t shown up after Gabriel got shot and that made me wonder if she knew.

Jasper slowly put his right hand to his brother’s forehead, takes a deep breath and tries to concentrate. Nothing happens for a few minutes but suddenly his hand starts glowing. He backs away a little worried he’ll hurt Abele instead of heal him for a few seconds. But he must of thought ‘what have I got to lose?’ soon afterward.

He presses his palm to Abele’s forehead and the light becomes so bright we all have to turn away. When the light finally goes away, all of Abele bruises and scratches as gone.

“I did it,” says Jasper calmly. A lot calmer then I expect. Usually if you save a life you’re a lot more excited than him.

“I guess we don’t have speed healing,” jokes Gabriel holding up his bandaged arm. The sling is gone and it’s just bandaged in a bright neon green and cotton splint like he broken his wrist instead of getting shot.

“That would suggest were not immortal, either,” comments Jasper.

I really hoped we weren’t immortal. Life would be so terrible. Watching everyone you loved die and then having to deal with it all.

There was a knock at the door and Cassie opened it quietly.

“Good, you’re awake. He seems to be doing better,” she says glancing at both me and Abele.

Michael and Jess are behind her. They look concerned, but I can tell it has nothing to do with our injuries. Cassie steps away and Michael and Jess come inside and shut the door.

“Well, you two have a lot of explaining to do and I assume whatever they say will also explain you,” says Michael calmly.

Jasper rubs the back of his neck nervously well glancing at Abele.

Gabriel signs,” Our parents were half human, half angel. This either results in fully human children or fully angel children. We are fully angel; Sam and Anna are fully human. If you kick us out at least allow them and our mothers to stay. They don’t have wings or powers,” says Gabriel defensively.

“Well, right now our concern is whether if you stay you will be safe. Many people who are not in the ventures or who don’t know you well or choose to believe you are monsters want you out. We’re worried if you stay that you will be beat up or forced out by the others,” replies Jess.

“I guess you can’t blame them for fearing us. Especially when my own mother stabbed and called me a murderous monster. You’d think they’d be more willing to believe a person who’s lived here longer and provided for them but I guess some humans are just ignorant,” I comment calmly.

“That’s putting it mildly,” comments Gabriel.

He’s still mad about my mother’s outburst. I wish I knew why she was reacting like this. Had she never seen whichever of her parents was an angel? They could have hidden many things but surely she had to suspect something. She, too, was part angel; she said she had the power to see the future so why wasn’t she seeing any of this? Why couldn’t she believe any of it? Was it really so unlikely in her mind?

Jess stares at us nervously. Why is he here, anyway? Michael could have informed us himself.

“We are going to have somebody guard whatever room you stay in. Only Cassie and Grace will be allowed in. Jessie will be taking the first shift,” states Michael. “If you wish to have other visitors please be careful.”

That’s why he was here.

“You both will be excused from the ventures for the next few days so you can heal and things can settle down. I advise you take this time to get better and perhaps explain the situation to Sam and Anna,” he nods and leaves with Jess but you can still see his shadow outside the door afterwards.

We all sign.

“That sucks. How long is a few days?” Gabriel asks sarcastically in a three-year-old’s voice. “I’ve never gone a day without going outside and now we’re confined to this room. It’s going to be really boring for the next three days.”

He’s right, at the very least we’ve always gone out to the roof if we didn’t go outside on ground level.

“When do these things retract? You guys had them hidden before how come I can’t do it now?” asks Jasper pulling a feather out of his wings.

“Usually it does work but we haven’t been able to do it since yours and his appeared. It probably has something to do with Noah. Gabriel did the vision continue? Cause I still woke up but you stayed unconscious,” I ask quietly.

“I don’t know whether it was vision or sleep. I remember Noah telling us Jasper was an angel but after my question it’s kind of blurry,” he comments.

Jasper takes a seat on Abele’s bed; he seems to be trying to make sense of something.

Gabriel is silent as if he is trying to remember the vision.

That’s when I notice our wings getting smaller.

“They’re going away,” I say pointing at their wings. Soon the wings disappear and were stuck back in human form.

“Do you think your Mom will still throw a fit if she sees you now?” asks Jasper.

I didn’t know. She’d changed so much in the past three years I hadn’t been with her. What had happened to her? Where was Grace? She had been with her, maybe she knew. Death, gore, sadness, hunger and grieving had changed me, too but I was still myself. Humans are meant to adapt. Hot, cold, forest, fields. I had adapted and lived but was like she was stuck at the beginning of the apocalypse. Waking to the new nightmare every day and learning she no longer had a home.

Gabriel slips his hand under the blanket and holds my hand, nervously. He’s getting bold.

“Who knows?” I reply.

“Why did she react like that? She was acting like you were an alien or something. Didn’t she know you were at least part angel? She’s half angel, right? That’s just mean. She needs to grow up and accept who and what you are,” Jasper spoke the truth.

“Do you remember if your parents ever told you about their heritage?” I ask calmly.

“They died when I was five. If they did, I don’t remember it,” he replies smoothly.

“You would have reacted the same way then if your wings hadn’t grown and we told you,” I reply coldly.

“I still think I would have reacted a little more calmly. It seems that younger generations are more accepting these days,” he comments.

He gets up calmly and stands by the door and holds his hand over us. The same light that engulfed Abele engulfed us. I felt my skin mend and heal and then he disappeared. Like a ghost. He wasn’t leaving; he just needed some time alone to make sense of everything that had just happened.

“When did he learn he had that ability?” I ask Gabriel.

“Well you were out. His being started flickering and then he concentrated and we learned he could turn invisible and walk through things,” he replies. “Well, I won’t need this anymore.”

He rips of his brightly colored cast and discards it the garbage.

“Why don’t you say we go somewhere?” he asks smiling.

“And how do you plan to get out of here if we can’t turn invisible?” I reply.

“That’s what the vents are for,” he replies still smiling.

He grabs one of the roof panels and moves it aside and lifts himself up, I follow knowing if I don’t I’ll be questioned about where he went. We’re safer together, too. Less chances we’ll be mobbed by the people who fear and resent us if we’re together. We crawl all the way to the roof, the vents end in a ladder that leads to a hatch which leads to outside.

“Well, we’re free from jail,” remarks Gabriel.

“I think we should go talk to Sam and Anna,” I suggest.

“Which part are we telling them? That we’re angels and they’re humans? Or that you’re gay and we’re in love?” he says it sarcastically like he has no part in it.

“How about both? They deserve the truth, don’t they? They are our siblings, Gabriel, “I reply trying to win him over. “They’re family.”

“I was hoping to wait till Anna was older. She doesn’t understand the whole; boys are different from girls thing quite, yet. You know? You can tell Sam if you want to. I don’t know how happy he’ll be about that. He seemed unhappy a few days ago, you could make it worse. You already upset your mother, do you really want to upset your brother, too?” he explains smoothly.

“Whatever, if she hates you later because you didn’t tell her, that’s your problem. This would be how trust issues develop between friends and family members,” I reply sarcastically.

“I was only going to wait a year or two, Nathan. She’s young. She doesn’t need to be troubled by my problems,” he replies.

“She’s your sister. You’re family. You’re supposed to share your problems with them, not carry all the weight by yourself,” I comment. “You’re supposed to stick together, like the four of us did when we were still in school.”

“I made the choice to tell you, Melody, Quinn, Arran and Emily. Look what it did. It destroyed my friendship with Emily. I wanted to be accepted by everyone. But I wasn’t. What if Anna does the same?” he says worried.

“She will think it’s normal because she doesn’t know the difference between normal and what some consider weird, yet. She won’t reject you. Gabriel, please. You should tell her now before someone tells her the difference between normal and what others consider as weird. Once people have an impression of something it is hard to change it,” I plead with him.