Redemption

Chapter 19

When Cain kills Abel in the Bible, God curses Cain. The ground no longer yields crops for him. He is cursed to wander the earth restlessly. Cain tells the Lord his punishment is more than he can bear, that whoever finds him will kill him. But the Lord says to him in Genesis 4:15"Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him."
~Bezaliel~

"If you think you're going anywhere without me, you're crazy," Monroe hissed. She followed us out of the house while pulling an Elvis is alive sweatshirt on over her hastily thrown-on clothes.

Marcas' figure loomed in front of me, his stride lengthening. "This isn't a field trip."

Trotting to keep up, I mentally cursed him. Didn't tall people realize walking faster meant short people had to jog to keep up?

Monroe shot past me and grabbed Marcas' jacket, her hand falling away as he spun abruptly, his face feral, his eyes tinted red. "I don't care how long it takes," she insisted.

He froze, his red-infused gaze passing from Monroe to me. "She's worth that much loyalty?"

Her chin rose. "We have a long history together."

My heart swelled. "What about your mom?"

She glanced at me, her eyes full of determination. "I'll call her later."

Marcas groaned. "Is this part of my curse now, too?" His head lifted, his eyes going to the sky. There was something curious about his stance, about the way the tension in his muscles caused his biceps to bulge. Curse?

His mumbling became unintelligible, the night closing in around us, and I scanned the driveway curiously. "Do you have a car?" I asked. My thoughts strayed back to the night I'd met him in the alley at Everett's, to the surreal moment when he'd returned me to my room, and to my suspicion that he could fly. I'd thought it a dream before, but now I wasn't so sure. "Please tell me you have a car."

His head lowered, his brows arching as he moved aside to reveal the road beyond.

Monroe whistled. "Damn, it's Eleanor," she muttered, quoting the Gone in Sixty Seconds movie as we both perused the sleek black 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 that sat in the street, the vehicle mostly camouflaged by the night.
Without uttering a word, Marcas approached the Shelby and entered the driver's side. The car surprised and relieved me. I'd pegged him for a motorcycle guy, but my relief that we weren't flying overrode that. Maybe the flying had been a dream.

Monroe climbed into the back of the vehicle, her eyes cutting to the stoic figure seated behind the steering wheel. "Don't offer to open the door or anything."

The snide remarks were usually my forte, but I was still reeling over the whole he-bled-I-bled thing.

Marcas glanced at me as I slid in next to him, a brief flash of something indefinable in his gaze that was gone before I had a chance to decipher it. Backing into the road, he sped into the night, the only sound the occasional shifting gear.

My gaze found his profile. "Who are you?"

"You know what I am."

"That's not what I asked."

He threw me a quick glance. "Let me make something clear. I'm not here to get to know you. I could give a damn how you feel, and I'm not here to explain myself to anyone. I'm here because my brother has wild ideas that are going to get a lot of people killed."

I stared. "If you're done with the whole Demon tirade, can you tell me what I have to do with any of this?"

Marcas stiffened. If he thought his verbal montage affected me, he was wrong. I'd spent seven years in a home where my feelings weren't spared. Why start now?