Shadow & Smoke

Chapter 14

After Malachi had answered those questions, I worried he would disappear again before I could ask more. But, he sat perched on the side of my desk as if he had all the time in the world.

So many things came to my mind but they wouldn't cross my lips. My brain seemed to be completely disconnected from my mouth at that point. Maybe, he was right that I didn't actually want to know the answers.

But, I had to ask.

I had to try.

I couldn't just let myself drown in blissful ignorance. I owed it to myself—and the people I cared about and wanted to keep safe—to do my due diligence. If Malachi was dangerous then I needed to find a way to keep him far away from myself and everyone else.

"Are you even real?" I finally blurted out after the way Malachi stared at me became too much to handle and I had to break the deafening silence between us.

Malachi laughed at my question.

I was very tempted to roll my eyes but refrained again.

"Define real?"

Unable to hold it back, I let my eyes roll and as predicted, Malachi's hand was at my cheek instantly but not around my throat like the first time. Instead, he gently stroked my face with his finger but the look on his face told me that he desperately wanted to be less than gentle.

"Am I crazy that I see you?" I clarified as I tried to keep my face from showing annoyance. "You appear out of the shadows. You are menacing. You scare me. One minute you're there, the next you're smoke."

My assessment seemed to please him and that pissed me off even more.

"You're not crazy for seeing me." He clarified and I was surprised by the immense weight that I felt ease off of my shoulders at his confirmation. The sole bright side so far is that I was not certifiably insane.

Malachi continued, "Real is subjective, love. What is real to one person is impossible to another. Some people have a great capacity for what they are willing to believe. Others, not so much. There are things out there in the universe that you many not believe could possibly exist. But they do. I do."

Chills erupted all over my body as Malachi dropped his hand from my cheek and stood upon to pace my small office.

"Would others believe that I exist in the way you know me?" He asked rhetorically. "Probably not. But that doesn't mean that I am not here with you right now."

I nodded in somewhat of an understanding.

"So, what does that make you?" I tilted my head at him. "You refer to yourself as a man."

Malachi stopped to ponder my question as if it had caught him off guard. After a moment, he resumed pacing, "It has been a very long time since I have been a man."

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

My face must have conveyed my thoughts because Malachi continued, "I was born a man but I will not die one."

Again with the fucking riddles.

"Over the years, in the line of work that I'm in, time is not kind. A certain type of toll is taken and with that, I become less man and more...something else."

I hated how I understood what he meant without knowing what he was talking about.

Time had done a similar thing to me. I wasn't old by most people's standards but I had been though a lot. Time and the experiences that it had brought me had certainly worn me down to where I hardly recognized myself. That was why I kept everyone at a distance and until Verity Falls, refused to put down roots.