God's Gone AWOL

[2] R & F's Cupboard of Perfectly Legal Things

Once everything was quiet again, Atticus was able to properly bandage Bentley up without any distractions. However bizarre the scene may have been to anybody else, both of them were actually familiar with it. It definitely wasn't the first time Bentley had gotten herself hurt over the years, nor was it the first time Atticus had been the one to clean her up afterwards. Granted, in the past, a lot of those injuries were caused by him in the first place, but he preferred not to acknowledge that bit of history.

This time, she had been stabbed by an angelic blade. The last time that happened, she had died almost instantly. Atticus wasn't sure how long it would take to heal, since nobody had ever survived a blow like this. No matter what, so long as the clean, white bandage held the blood inside Bentley's body, Atticus wouldn't have to worry too much.

He was in the middle of packing up the black first-aid box, when Bentley suddenly asked him a question he knew he didn't have an answer for.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?" Atticus asked, raising his eyes to meet hers.

"Why are you helping me right now?" She rolled up into a seated position. "Are you out of your mind or what?"

"Have either of us ever been in our right minds?"

For once, Bentley wasn't in the mood for casual banter.

"I'm being serious. What are you playing at?"

"I should be asking you the same thing," he replied, "First and foremost, why have you returned from the dead?"

"To seek revenge on the one who killed me. Obviously."

Obviously not.

"You may find that to be much harder than you think," he told her, "Tell me the real reason,"

The two stared at each other in a stalemate for a moment, until Bentley eventually caved in with a sigh.

Then she recounted the story of her resurrection. How she was pulled back by some disembodied, unidentifiable voice of great power which then assigned her the daunting task of finding a Nephilim. She also mentioned meeting her brother, the whole business with Camael and the soul fragment, everything that happened up until the unhappy reunion about an hour ago.

The entire time, Atticus listened patiently, with an attentive expression. Even though he was familiar with Bentley's reputation as a skillful player of words, she had no reason to lie to him in this case. So he took everything she said as the truth without a second doubt. However, there was still conflict in his mind, even after she finished her story.

The finding of the soul fragment and Bentley's resurrection happened to line up in the timeline almost perfectly. That couldn't be a coincidence. Furthermore, the mysterious person or power that had revived her was extremely suspicious. Nothing in all of existence had ever been able to casually conquer death in this way, meaning either someone very powerful had finally figured it out, or they were dealing with something never-before-seen across all four realms. Neither option was particularly desirable.

"What do they want with you, specifically?" Atticus asked.

"Who knows," she replied, "But there isn't much else I can do otherwise. I hate all four realms. I have no friends in this world anymore. My brother is probably mad at me. And I'm definitely not gonna do anything that Hell wants. So I might as well just follow the higher power for once,"

For once.

They fell into an awkward silence. Atticus didn't dare speak for fear of ruining her honesty or saying something she didn't need to hear. So he just waited and watched her as she refused to meet his eye-contact.