Between the Cross and the Flame

Chapter 20: Haniel

Haniel chewed pensively on his cereal. Del, Irvin, and Chaya sat around him, but none of them were particularly talkative, either. Mavet's seat sat empty and cold. It was weird, spending nearly every second with him for a month, then suddenly having his presence ripped away. Something about what Mavet had said didn't sit right with him. The boy was compulsive, of course, but acting out in such a blatantly defiant way, and making the accusations he did? There had to be some substance behind his claims. Mavet wasn't one to blindly lash out.

Arja, Rowan, and Min-Jun were rather quiet that morning, too. Haniel had a feeling that they knew a thing or two about why Mavet was acting so rashly. He decided to confront them after breakfast. He had to get to the bottom of this. He'd promised Mavet that he would keep an eye out, and he wasn't one to break promises.

Haniel approached the three Commanders after they handed their trays in. "Hey, can I talk to you three for a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?" Arja said.

"Did Mavet say anything to you before he, you know, went off the rails?"

Min-Jun nodded. "He sure did. Almost got into a full-blown argument with us. He said he'd done some poking around, and he found where they're keeping all the angel prisoners. Said it was a nightmare or something. We tried to tell him that those were probably the prisoners that caused a lot of deaths, but he wouldn't hear it. He went on about how downtrodden they looked, they were too young, they were beat up, on and on and on."

Haniel furrowed his brow. "And he wouldn't let up?"

"Nope. Even when I told him about Satan's harsh rules against hurting angel prisoners," Rowan added.

A slight chill caused Haniel to shiver. He drew his arms to his chest. "Okay, thanks, guys. I'll see you later. Rest up before the mission, I heard that we've got four targets tonight."

"Got it. We'll see you then," Arja said.

They went their separate ways. Haniel returned to the mess hall, where he found a rather surprising sight. Julia was back, but this time, she was sitting directly across from Del, and they weren't yelling at each other. In fact, they were speaking to one another. Chaya and Irvin were staring at the pair with their mouths agape. Haniel could hardly believe his eyes, even when he sat down beside Chaya.

"Um, what's going on?" he said.

"Julia approached Del after the mission yesterday," Irvin whispered, eyes never wavering from the girls. "She came up to her and flat-out apologized for everything. Del accepted the apology, and they went their separate ways. I didn't think they were back on speaking terms, but it looks like I was wrong, and they're trying to patch it up."

"Oh. Well. That's...something."

"You know we can hear every word you're saying, right?" Del said loudly.

"Yes! Uh- sorry." Haniel cleared his throat. "We're just gonna- go now- give you two some space- "

Del smiled appreciatively as the boys left. Haniel peeked over his shoulder as they entered the main passageway, and Del and Julia were already back to light conversation, the tension still obvious, but it wasn't nearly as impossibly strained as before. Hopefully they would be able to make up enough to the point where Julia could move on. Haniel couldn't imagine being in either girl's position; trying to earn forgiveness from a former significant other sounded painful.

The three boys made their way to the cave mouth. Haniel grabbed his soccer ball from the rocky crevice that he stored it in and began to juggle. Chaya and Irvin each took a seat on some flat rocks, soaking up the morning sunshine. Haniel lost himself in the rhythm of his soccer ball: tap, tap, tap. The ball seemed glued to his foot. He barely needed to move, and his feet would flick the ball straight up, over and over again. Haniel let his focus zero in on the ball, the way it touched the edge of his shoe, the sound it made, the timing of hitting it just right to make it easy on himself.