Cradle Her In Darkness, Love Her In Light

Chapter 13

Tara found herself struggling to live comfortably in the safe house within minutes of arriving.

The underground bunker was pretty spacious, clean, and the company was as good as one could hope for. Imogen was quiet and conscientious, Shawn loud and mood-lifting, and Ava was herself mostly... with a slight nervous edge to her attitude. However, the bunker was built for supernatural beings. Tara could not open doors by herself, she could not lift chairs, she could not open food cans. Everything was made to be practically indestructible and heavy enough to be used as a weapon or shield. Oh, and there was little light to be found, especially in the area closest to the only exit, and she was the only member of the quartet that needed light to see. She did her best not to complain or make a fuss, she was just glad to be there, to feel relatively safe. There was a mild comfort to be taken in the multi-toned grey that coated every inch of the safe house, she supposed.

On day three, the group was sat about the common area eating from tin cans (Tara was fairly certain they kept up the pretense of eating and sleeping on a human schedule for her benefit) when Tara decided to bring up what she could already feel was going to be a sore topic.

"When do we know it is safe to leave?" she asked as nonchalantly as she could.

"We wait a set number of days, usually our organisation says twenty-one, and then we send out a signal to have another member of our group check out all of our common locations such as workplaces, our homes, restaurants or bars we visit," explained Imogen, slowly and gently as she always spoke.

Twenty-one days. Tara's body had frozen with spoon halfway to her mouth. She was glad her rent was paid automatically from her account or Daisy would be fucked. But would her wages up to the day she disappeared be enough to cover it? She shook her head. Why was her rent at the forefront of her mind when she could face being murdered? She supposed it was more for Daisy's sake that she was worrying than her landlord being six-hundred pounds short.

"If the locations are all deemed secure, we return to our lives with added caution and care. The first few months especially you must keep your eyes and ears primed for anything unusual."

"And if they're not?" Tara dug around in her tin to keep her hands moving. "Safe, I mean."

"We relocate."

"Do the enforcers move on after a certain time and look in other towns for... runaways? Or would Bee and Mr. Ramiel be assigned to look for anyone in this area? Or are they looking specifically for you three?"

Before Imogen could answer, Shawn's head snapped up.

"Did you just say Ramiel?" he asked tensely.

Ava's brows pulled together with concern and slight fear. "You know him?" Perhaps it was because of how much longer Shawn had spent as an Earth-residing fugitive that Ava looked so worried about anyone he would know by name, or perhaps it was Shawn's own wide eyes that were scaring her as they were Tara.

"He's an angel enforcer. Infamous. He was one of the main enforcers that chased me out of Italy. I thought you said we were dealing with a demon? A bounty hunter?"

Tara swallowed the cold lump of meatball in her mouth despite her throat tightening at his words and began to explain herself with stammering words.

Ava cut her off with a half-raised hand and said, "Bee is a demon. I could sense her presence on Tara after she interrogated her. She was cloaking herself when she stalked us at dinner but I'm pretty sure that was her too."

"I thought they were a team, part of the same group or something," Tara mumbled.

With a pained groan, Shawn confirmed what Tara could tell the women had been silently fearing. "They are definitely not, and that means we are doubly fucked."