The Guardian

Chapter Seven: The Chip In Her Armour

Zethos helped Ivy sit up, and immediately he began to clean her. Her head was not broken, and it wasn't bleeding. He dared to thank his Father for her being ok.
"I think I found Emmanuel." Ivy said, squinting as she touched the back of her head.
It hurt. A lot. And so did her ribs and wrists and neck and back.
"Come on, I think you need to tell your Mum you need to knock off."
"I won't be lying when I say I have a huge fucking head ache."
Zethos smiled and helped her up. Ivy's dizziness died down in the first few steps. When she practiced walking and acting normal like nothing happened, she went back inside.
"Where are the flowers?" Mrs Grey said, hands on hips.
"Turns out, it was the wrong truck." Zethos said. "Ivy accidentally gave him all the money first though."
Ivy shot him a look, and Mrs Grey gave Ivy a look.
"That's coming out of your pay check." The women growled.
Ivy nodded, and winced.
"Are you ok Ives?" Mrs Grey said, noticing something was wrong.
"I've come down with a shocking headache." Ivy mumbled, trying not to cry from the pain in her skull and ribs.
"Oh. Well I'll wait for the flowers myself then. I've almost finished the special orders and it's been quiet today."
Ivy smiled and hugged her mother.
"Thank you. So much."
Mrs Grey hugged Ivy back and smiled.
"It's no problem. You go and rest. Oh, and Zeth?"
Zethos turned to her.
"Yes?"
"Drive her home. Make sure she rests. Her headaches can get very serious."
Zethos grinned and Ivy moaned.
"It's ok. I'll take good care of her." He purred at Ivy, and she was already on her way to the carpark. Zethos chuckled, and walked on after her.

"What do we do about Emmanuel?"
Ivy asked from the passenger seat. Zethos bit the inside of his cheek as he drove Ivy home.
"I'm already thinking about that."
Ivy looked out the car window, watching the trees and fields go past.
"Why would that demon want Emmanuel anyway?" She continued. "I understand that demon and angels don't really get along, but why kidnap and not kill her?"
Zethos grimaced, not taking his eyes off the road.
"That's what worries me. God knows what they're going to do to her.."
After a few more minutes of silence, they got to Ivy's house.
Zethos pulled up in the driveway, and switched the mustang off. He gave the keys to Ivy, and she winced as a sharp pang of pain shot through her back.
"I'll have a look at that when we get inside." Zethos said.
They got out of the car, Ivy locked it, and they went inside.
Tired and sore, Ivy immediately went to her room to change and to look at her injuries. Zethos followed.
"Take your clothes off so I can see." He said.
Ivy blushed, and growled at him.
"I'll look after them myself."
Zethos sighed with frustration.
"Ivy, please, come on. I can heal them instantly, see?"
He reached out for her right hand, the wrist bruised and swollen, and as he gently rubbed it the swelling went down and the bruising faded away. Ivy stared at her wrist in fascination, and then at Zethos.
He was staring back, his yellow and silver eyes sparkling. She cleared her throat and looked away.
"I'm not taking my shirt off."
"Ivy, come on. You'll be sore for months."
"I don't care, I'll deal with it."
"Ivy, I'm your guardian angel. I've already seen you naked before!"
The shoe hit him square in the nose. "Ok," Zethos muttered, rubbing his face, "maybe that wasn't the best thing to say.."
"No, it defiantly was not!" Ivy snapped.
Zethos gave Ivy a pleading look.
"Ivy.."
Ivy's temper evaporated away, and she looked down at the ground, rubbing her arms. Suddenly understanding, Zethos stepped forward and touched Ivy's shoulder. She flinched, at his touch and his words:
"You don't have anything to hide. I know about them."
Slowly, Ivy raised her head to meet Zethos eyes again. She didn't want him to see them. The scars that she had worked so hard to hide for three years. But her back and ribs were throbbing, and she didn't know if she really would be able to deal with the pain.
Slowly, she peeled off her top green shirt, then her black tank. Blushing, she sat down on her bed, turning so her back faced Zethos.
He sat down beside her, and sucked in a sharp breath as he saw the black and purple bruises blossomed on her lower back and shoulder blades.
"These are really bad Ivy." He whispered.
"Just heal them already." Ivy growled.
Rubbing his hands together, Zethos created a soft white glow between his palms. He gently pressed them against the bruises, and he began to gently rub the healing light into her skin.
Ivy was holding her breath, and she exhaled at the relief that Zethos had brought her. As the bruises faded from Ivy's shoulder blades, tattooed lines were beginning to appear. Zethos frowned in confusion, and spread the light to make the healing process speed up. The tattooed lines formed into the shape of wings, the base of them starting from the depths of her shoulder blades, and the rest blooming across the sides, the tips reaching the ends of the shoulders.
Zethos couldn't believe it. Ivy Grey, the girl that he had been watching since forever, had a pair of ANGEL WING tattoos that even he didn't know about.
"When did you get these?" He mumbled, moving his hands to her lower back.
Ivy gasped, exhaling after she held her breath again.
"Last year. No one knows about them, or at least no one was supposed to.."
After Ivy's back was fully healed, Zethos kissed the skin between her shoulder blades. Ivy shivered.
"D-don't do that." She mumbled.
Zethos chuckled softly, and Ivy turned around. She lifted her arms up slightly to show more bruises on her ribs. Gently, ever so gently, Zethos pressed his hands against them, and Ivy hissed in pain.
"They're broken."
"You don't say?" Ivy growled.
Zethos smiled, and his hands glowed again. He tried as hard as he could to focus his attention on her stomach, and not her large bust. Her belly button ring glinted, the black stone in the middle sparkling.
"Is that an onyx?" He asked.
"It's my birth stone." Ivy replied.
When her ribs were healed, and every other bruise that Zethos hadn't missed, they sat in silence, Ivy blushing as Zethos' eyes trailed over her arms.
"Can I..?"
Ivy nodded, and he took her arms.
The ghostly white scars criss crossed all over her forarms, and underneath them, where the veins showed. He rubbed the bumpy scars with his thumbs. Guilt and sympathy for her stabbed Zethos in the stomach. He knew why she did this to herself. And yet he didn't stop her. Her couldn't.
As if reading his mind, Ivy spoke.
"Grade 9 was the year of hell for me. If what you say who you are is true, you would know the whole story."
Zethos looked up to meet her eyes. They were watery, and a somewhat hollowness from her past emptied them. He shook his head and lifted her hands to his mouth to kiss them, but she pulled away.
"I moved here by myself so that my parents wouldn't know what I was going through. I was such a fool. Why didn't you stop me from sending those photos to that asshole?"
Her tone had become angry.
"Why weren't you here with me when I did this?" She continued, rubbing her arms. "Why, Zethos?"
A tear rolled down her face, and Zethos throat tightened.
As Ivy began to cry, Zethos wrapped his arms around her.
"I'm so sorry, Ivy." He said, stroking the wings on her back. "I wanted to do this, I did. I WAS there, crying with you, screaming at you to stop."
Ivy sniffed and wiped her face.
"Then why didn't I see you?"
Zethos closed his eye and held her tighter.
"Because they wouldn't let me. Because EMMANUEL wouldn't let me." 
Zethos didn't care about that angel. A part of Zethos didn't want to rescue her from the demon. But the other side, the good, angelic, holy side, knew that he needed to do so. Even if Emmanuel kept coming between Zethos and his human. Ivy broke away from Zethos, and he reluctantly let her go. She put back on her tank top and shirt, and rubbed her face again.
Zethos remembered watching Ivy harm herself. How he could feel the blade on his own skin and how he screamed and cried for her to stop because he couldn't bare see her hate herself like she did. Ivy hated the boy she thought she was in love with, the same boy who leaked her pictures to the entire school.
She knew why she did it, and thinking about it now they were stupid, stupid reasons. Ivy didn't want to be classified as a 'boring girlfriend,' and everyone else was doing it so why couldn't she? She hated that boy, but most of all, she hated herself for lowering the armour that protected her heart for someone as low and undeserving as him.
Ivy looked at Zethos, who was wiping his own watery eyes.
"Don't cry for me." She suddenly snapped. "I don't need your sympathy!"
Zethos looked up from the bed, sniffing.
"I had always thought the greatest pain an angel could suffer is getting our wings cut off. But now, since then, I know that's not true."
He sniffed and wiped his eyes again.
"The greatest pain an angel can feel is the pain of their most beloved."