Lipgloss on your Wings - Branded Angel Novels book 1

Chapter 10

   I could smell toast and cheese when I got back home, Dad’s speciality dish. “Cheese toastie, Anna?” My dad smiled at me from the kitchen doorway.

   “Yes please Dad, ketchup too?”

   “Of course!”

   I left Dad to demonstrate his culinary skills to Simon and went upstairs to make a phone call. No doubt I had time, Dad would burn the first one.

   “Hello?”

   “Hey Jarryd, it’s me.”

   “I know, Angels get caller ID too.” He laughed softly at his own joke.

   “Oh, right. Yeah of course you do.”

   “Is everything alright?” He sounded instantly concerned “I’ve been picking up all sorts of emotions from you all morning. I was going to call and then they slowed down.”

   “I met up with Liam this morning.”

   “I see. I’m not going to lie to you, that doesn’t thrill me.” He paused for a second before he asked, “Is it ok to come over?

   “Yeah sure, now?”

   “Now. See you soon.” Great, I had minimal make-up, crappy clothes on and was just about to munch on grilled cheese on toast which was going to no doubt make my breath nice and cheesy. I still ate it.

   Jarryd turned up fifteen minutes later and luckily I’d thought to let my Dad know I was having a male visitor. My Dad was pretty lax and didn’t shout at me in front of Jarryd when I started to make my way upstairs but I noticed his warning and somewhat disapproving look as I glanced back at him from the stairs. Thankfully, Jarryd was polite and introduced himself to my Dad and brother before following me, whereas I would rather him just ignore them, it probably bought him brownie points as he followed their teenager daughter/sister to her bedroom. I probably shouldn’t have, but I closed my door loudly just to irk them. Haha!

   Momentary joking aside we both got serious all of a sudden and the weight of it was palpable in the cramped space of my room. I walked over to my dressing table and took a seat on my stool stationed there, Jarryd stayed standing with a pensive look on his face. He was also the one to break the silence, “I know you’re trying to help, but there’s no need for drastic measures here… yet. Even if it comes to that it shouldn’t be you having to do it.”

   “It’s okay, seriously, I’ve known Liam for years, he’s…”

   “So you’ve always known he was some sort of Angel hunter?”

   “Well, no. But…”

   “Then you don’t know him.”

   I kinda knew he was right, Liam had seemed harmless in all the years I’d known him, then all of a sudden I find out he’s been leading this whole other life, training and educating himself about Angels, whether he believed it or not until he met Jarryd is irrelevant really. He’d been preparing to kill an Angel, in the ‘supposedly’ unlikely event that he ever came across one.

   It was my understanding that there were people like him all over the world, thrown into a secret society of Angel assassins. I wondered how many Guardian Angels actually end up here, stuck, with no idea how. The only solace they could find would be with the person they‘d been watching over. There was no doubt in my mind that Jarryd was telling me the truth, if he had in fact been pursuing me he would have made an effort from the moment he started at my school, surely? Unfortunately for me and Jarryd it wasn’t enough evidence to deter the people now wanting to kill him.

   The other piece to the puzzle I had to find out was that according to Liam’s legends, woman in contact with the Guardian Angels had died. If that was true and it wasn’t the Angels killing them, then perhaps I was in danger from another threat? Connected or not.

   The list of information we needed to gather seemed endless and I felt way in over my head and more than under qualified to be dealing with all this.

   “Jarryd, your right, and I’m sorry. But he did tell me a few things.”

   “I’m just glad your ok, although if you weren’t I would have felt it and come to your aid. But no, I don’t suppose you were in any immediate danger. What’s done is done, so why don’t we just forget about that and tell me what you know. No more stunts like that again though. Please?”

   I rolled my eyes, “I can’t promise anything, if it’s going to help you, us, then I’m going to do it. But, I will promise that I will let you know what I’m up to, if I can.”

   He nodded once, “I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get, so deal.”

   “Anyway, I didn’t find out too much from Liam but I’ve got a starting point, kind of.” He watched me intensely, remaining silent so I continued, “I know that there are some documents from other cases which might hold key information, problem is, I have no idea where they are.” An idea suddenly came to me, “But… Liam did mention someone that might.”

   I presented my idea to Jarryd, he was a good listener and after I’d told him everything Liam had said, he knew as much as I did, so we were on even ground as we started to formulate our first plan of action.

   We agreed that we needed to speak to Speel’s granddad, whoever he is. To find out where he lived we used a very high tech method… we checked the Yellow Pages. There were actually a few entries under the name of Speel. The most likely was the one, R. F Speel, listed in Fetherham city. The other two were slightly further out and we figured if Liam worked with Speel in the city then him and his family presumably lived close by, going on the assumption that Speel’s granddad shared his surname and was still alive.