God's Gone AWOL

[6] Angel's Anxiety

"Relax, it's only been an hour," said Frances.

"How am I supposed to relax?" Atticus replied, "I should have gone with her and made sure she was alright. Even if Bentley trusts Xander, I'm not sure that I do,"

Night had fallen.

There was no sign of Lucifer or Bentley anywhere. Atticus searched everywhere he could think of, but in the end he still came out empty handed. Eventually there was nothing left he could do except return to the Cupboard with Frances. But he just couldn't sit still in the wake of everything that had happened, so he ended up organizing a bookshelf just for the purpose of physically doing something.

But organizing the bookshelf only took a couple of minutes. Once he was done with that, he conjured up a bottle of Windex and a rag.

"What if Hazel is mistreated?" he said, wiping down one of the display cases, "They may not understand that she is a human. What if they scare her? What if they tell her some important secret about the universe that she isn't ready to know yet?"

Frances was standing at the front counter, watering one of the many plants. Beside them was an antique cash register. The moment he was finished cleaning the display case, Atticus popped it open and started sorting the ancient paper bills, counting and tallying up the total amount.

"Oh, don't bother with that. We don't even use the cash register here—" Frances started to say.

So Atticus took advantage of his wings and dusted off the tops of the endless bookshelves from seven feet off the ground.

"What if they find out that she's descended from angels? What will they do? If anybody harms her, I will never be able to forgive myself,"

"Atticus, come down," said Frances.

"And what am I supposed to do about Bentley? We searched every likely place where she would be, and there was no trace of her,"

"Atticus—"

"What if she finally took the opportunity to run away? I thought that I had gained at least a small amount of her trust. What do I do if I can't get her back?"

"Hey, Lucifer is missing as well. Maybe they're dealing with something together,"

Frances jumped up and tried to pull Atticus back down out of the air, but they couldn't reach. In the end, the flying angel came down on his own accord, however he seemingly left his head in the clouds as he did so.

"That wouldn't necessarily be a good thing," he said.

Frances was probably stressed out by this whole ordeal. They no doubt had more important things to worry about than household chores. Atticus decided to help out by taking the watering can directly out of their hands before quickly watering every single plant in sight.

"Lucifer isn't a trustworthy individual," he continued, "Bentley isn't afraid of him, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be,"

"Atticus, calm down." Frances tried to take the watering can back.

"You saw what he did earlier today. He's intelligent, powerful, and extremely dangerous. I don't want him bringing any harm to anyone, especially not Bentley,"

The moment Frances succeeded in reclaiming the watering can, Atticus snatched up the broom and started hurriedly sweeping the floor. They had just swept it earlier that day, so there really wasn't any dust or anything accumulated yet, but Atticus didn't even notice.

"I promised myself that I would stay by her side," he said, "I cannot break that promise, no matter the cost,"

Just then, the gentle ring of the bell hanging on the door upstairs announced someone's arrival. For the first time in the past hour, Atticus' ceaseless movements finally stilled. Frances let out an inaudible sigh and waited at the counter politely as two sets of footsteps sounded throughout the Cupboard.