The Battle of Our Minds: Flesh and Blood

Ancestry

"How can you say that? My parents - they aren't -"

"Demons?"

"No! Especially not my dad! How dare you!"

Everly's face became bright red. She looked like she was on the verge of breaking down. Brianna watched Everly connect the dots that she already had. She approached her friend slowly and placed her hand on her arm."

"Everly, please come sit down," Brianna whispered in her ear.

"No!" Everly jerked her arm away. First you people tell me I'm related to angels, and now you're telling me that my father is actually a demon! You've officially crossed the line and entered Crazy Town."

Tears began spilling down her face.

"Everly, I'm so sorry. But it's true. It's all true. We didn't make the connection until you gave your testimony at the First Ceremony. Your powers equal in strength to those of the first-generation of Nephilim. We thought, at first, that the reason behind this was related to a higher percentage of angels in your family history, but then we did more research on your background. We wanted to know what made you special."

Isaac picked up where Brianna left off.

"I was the one who discovered this Everly." Isaac had a look of shame on his face for what he was about to admit. "I was the one who was responsible for recruiting you. For bringing you into the Five Minds. I watched you for months, observing you to see if you were Nephilim, as we suspected."

"Stalkerish much?"

"If you want to consider it that way." His eyes were dark, but held no regrets. "It's the way we do things here. We can't just assume that someone is Nephilim. We have our measures for being absolutely sure, and a close watch is our most practiced measure. I saw your strength and demanded that Brianna ensure your acceptance to the university and invitation into the Five Minds."

He saw more than her strength, Brianna thought to herself.

"I didn't understand why your powers were so strong, but I knew that you were someone we had to have on our side, at least until we figured it out."

"So you've been using me this whole time?" Everly whimpered.

"It's not new to you Everly. You've known all along that we're in a battle of spiritual warfare and we need soldiers," Brianna added.

"How can you say that? I keep forgiving you...I keep trusting that you're my friend and again and again you betray me."

Everly's words cracked something open inside Brianna and nothing but the truth could spill out.

"I am your friend. But I'm not going to pretend that we invited you to be a part of the Five Minds because of your likeability. We need you and I'm not trying to hide that from you. I care about you - like I said, you remind me of Melody. Every time I see you, I think of her. I think of how I let something terrible happen to her, but I couldn't stop her from fulfilling her duty. And even if you try to pretend like we're using you, you know good and well that you want to make a difference in the world and fight just as badly as we want you to. We just want you to fight for the Light. We've never forced you to do anything and we've given you multiple opportunities to walk away."

"Can you tell me something?"

"What?"

"What happened to Melody?"

"Melody went out one night after a fight. We'd had a long day in Atlanta. It's pretty close by and notorious for human trafficking. We were trying to put a stop to it as best as we could. Anyway, she wanted to go to this party, but it wasn't at the Lion's Den. Somehow, someway, the Darkness found her. I never heard what happened to her, just got a call the next morning from her friend letting me know she lost her after she went chasing after this person outside the bar. Melody never came home. I don't know what happened to her. I probably let my own sister die, just like my mom, fighting on the frontlines against the Darkness."