Feathers

Chapter 7

When Mo came out of the bedroom, I asked her everything she knew about Gabe.

"He's nice. He's a good guy, for sure," she shrugged her shoulders. 

"You know, I'm beginning to think that the weird dream I had wasn't really a dream," I confessed. 

Mo's face turned panicky and her eyes widened. "What do you mean?" 

"I think you lied to me. And what ever you are, whatever Dr. Jeremiah is, what ever you think you're protecting me from, I'm just bound to find out about later," I gave her a pointed look.  

She walked away from me toward the kitchen. I waited a moment before following her.  

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" I came around the corner and then darkness.  

I woke with an ice pack on my head and the covers up to my chin. She sun shone into my eyes and I blinked the sleep out of them. This time I was ready. I pushed the covers off of me and rushed to the living room. What I found stopped me in my tracks. 

I came into the room and found Mo standing near me, Castael sitting on the arm of the couch, Dr. Jeremiah leaning on the window, Har, the woman from my dream, next to Dr. Jeremiah looking out the window, and Gabe sitting on the couch looking between the four of them. Then he spotted me and cleared his throat. Everyone seemed to come awake and looked up at me.  

There was a long moment of everyone staring at me, and me staring at everyone.

Eventually, Dr. Jeremiah stood straight and made his way to me.  

"Alice, it's very nice of you to join us!" he clapped his hands.  

"You hit me with a pan!" I turned immediately to Mo and pointed my finger. 

Her face seemed to drop more than it had already been and she furrowed her brows in a frightened look. "Please, understand-" 

"You hit me! I think I understand quite well!" I shouted over her pleas.  

"Please-" 

"That's enough, from you two!" Har turned away from the window and looked me in the eye. "Alice, for the love of all things good and pure, just sit down." 

"No!" but I couldn't say much because suddenly I was on the couch with no memory of how I got there. I looked around at the people. "What the..." 

"Now, tell us all that you remember from the last time that we were all here," Har demanded. 

"Like what? The weird ritual thing that you people did on me? The fact that Dr. Jeremiah has wings?" I accidentally let my voice go up one pitch higher than I had hoped.  

"Honey, we all have wings," she pursed her lips. "Do you realize that we saved your life?" 

"Saved my life from what?"  

"Not what. Who." Gabe said from across the room when he had literally been right next to me only milliseconds ago.  

"Ok, then who?" I asked. 

"Kushiel, a demon," Dr. Jeremiah said looking at his shoes. 

"He's an angel just as much as you and I are," Har gave him a look.  

"He should be a demon," Gabe said.  

"He's doing his job," Har retorted. 

"Are you defending him?" Castael asked. 

"No, I'm just saying-" 

"You do realize that he's trying to destroy my family!" Castael shouted at her.