God's Gone AWOL

[10] Hazel Actually does Something

"So Xander's going to Hell, you're going to Purgatory," Hazel said, "Frances and Atticus are staying here... What about me?"

With a simple shrug, Bentley merely glanced over in her direction. "What do you want to do?"

The question was quite simple, but it made Hazel frown. This whole time, she had been dragged around like a ragdoll. First, Atticus and Bentley had kidnapped her from Jericho and whisked her off to France simply because she was distantly descended from an angel. Then her ability to manipulate deceased souls was discovered, so Smythe hypocritically dragged her down to Hell. Then once Smythe was arrested and Xander decided to go on his illegal jailbreaking spree, she was pulled back up to Earth. Never once had she been allowed to make her own decision, and what little decisions she had made would have been made for her one way or the other. So now that Bentley was actually asking what she wanted, Hazel was a little stumped.

Even before she discovered that her friend was secretly a millennia-old heavenly entity, Hazel wasn't particularly good at making decisions. The night that Bentley came back to life, her mother had kicked her out of the house, but she hadn't resisted. She just delt with the aftermath as it came. And even though she knew that Owen wasn't happy in his relationship with her, she had still stayed with him simply because she didn't want to bring about any change in her life. Then when a different sort of change came knocking anyway she had just allowed it to pull her along. She hadn't resisted, or struggled against the current of fate. She hadn't spoken up, or taken initiative. She had done... nothing.

And now, it really felt as though she had to do something. But that something was for her to decide —not anybody else. Not Heaven. Not Hell. Not Bentley. Not even Atticus. Now that she knew everything that she knew: about Heaven, Hell, God, angels, demons, and creation. Now that the balance between the four realms was teetering on such a dangerous ledge, and everyone she had just become acquainted with was standing at the crossroads of fate, someone had actually asked Hazel Labonte what she wanted to do.

"What do I want to do??" Hazel repeated the question. "I— I don't know. What are my options?"

"Well, you could come up with something," Bentley suggested. "I have a couple ideas. You could stay here and help Frances, or you could go back home and pretend none of this ever happened. Or you could do something else. Ultimately, the choice is yours,"

"I can't,"

"You can't?"

"I can't pretend that nothing happened," Hazel told her.

"Alright. So what can you do?"

"I..." She trailed off for a moment. "Can I start by taking a walk?"

Bentley offered her a singular nod.

"Thank you." After a deep breath, she climbed to her feet and rushed towards the door, speeding up with every step she took. The doorway-dwelling Xander leaned to the side, allowing her access to the hallway beyond.

"Come back soon, okay Hazel?" Frances called after her.

Everyone heard a distant clunk of the front door. For a moment, all was silent in the wake of the distressed human. Atticus silently felt a rush of jealousy that Hazel actually had the option to leave this nasty situation they had all found themselves in. He had already told Bentley very clearly that he wanted nothing more than to just take her hand and disappear forever. But he wasn't the sort of person who could be offered such luxuries beyond the illusion of freedom. So with a heavy sigh, he turned back to face the group.

"We should get started," he said, "We don't have much time to waste,"

At this, everyone seemed to snap back into action. Bentley started cleaning up her crude and colourful tactical map. Frances immediately scurried over towards Atticus' book collection.