Read Online The Watchers by Lynnie Purcell - Free Book Online Page B

were focused on the idea
that I would pay for her sin. I walked down the hall and out the
front door, trying to block her sadness. Hurrying to get away from
her guilt, it somehow mirroring mine, I barreled through the door
and walked up the street, finally not feeling the bitter wind on
me. My thoughts moved back to my father and the reasons why we
moved so much; a place I often went when I saw Ellen in such a
mood.
    Ellen had never been one to keep secrets from
me; she was as honest as she was a free and loving spirit. Too, the
secret of what I was, of what I would become, was too dangerous to
keep from me. I had to understand. I had to know why secrecy was so
important, and why our lives depended on me keeping that
secret.
    When I was twelve, we had rushed home to pack
after running into a strange man on the street. He had followed us
for two blocks, his strange red eyes obtrusive as he stalked us. We
had finally lost him in a crowd of people, but hadn’t taken the
encounter lightly. As we packed, she had told me in her wonderfully
direct way that angels existed and some of them, the ones that were
set to watch over humans in the beginning, had fallen from grace by
taking humans for mates. She told me how the fallen angels wandered
the earth still, occasionally falling in love with humans and
making little mistakes like me. That was also the day I learned
about the others like me, who were the sons and daughters of
angels. They were at war. She didn’t know over what. She did know
that the ones like me, the sons and daughters of angels, were
divided into two sides, and that each side searched endlessly for
recruits. It was the reason we had to keep a low profile and run as
often as we did. If a person wasn’t willing they killed them, so
the other side couldn’t have that person as an asset. That’s what
people like me were to them – an asset. There was no good side;
there was just pain and death if they found you.
    I wondered for the millionth time how my
father could leave us to that fear and constant paranoia. He had
abandoned us to a war we didn’t know how to fight. He could have
protected us, he could have made sure we were safe, but he had
walked away without even a letter to say where he had gone. Had
Ellen and I been mistakes to him? Had he really loved her, or was
she just a blink of an eye in his long life? Was I paying for his
sin now?
    I turned on Main Street and the thoughts,
which had been fuzzy and distant, reached the point that I couldn’t
ignore them anymore. They surged up like a tornado, circling in my
head:
    That must be Ellen’s kid. Look at her walking
in this cold, what’s she doing?
    17, 18, 19 No. Huh. I was sure I laid out
twenty.
    No! No! You put the starch in first!
    I wonder if Billy would be willing to take me
to Fiji for our honeymoon?
    Billy is going to tell her tonight that we’ve
been seeing each other. I’m glad. I’m tired of hiding it.
    Of course I love you,
baby. Visions of a young couple kissing in the dark
flew up, their passion filling my brain.
    I put my hands over my ears trying to drown
out the noise, but it was useless. I gasped as more chattering
voices flooded over me, visions circling, and I started walking
faster. I needed a place that was silent, a place I could be truly
alone with my anger.
    As I walked past a small store, my head
lowered against the wind and the thoughts, I felt an unexpected
presence. I turned instinctively and saw Daniel outlined by the
door, holding a plastic bag in his hands. I stumbled away from him
and kept walking up the sidewalk, not really wanting to hear any
more thoughts. Despite his eerie silence, I knew I would hear him
eventually.
    “Hey, where’s the fire?” He jogged to catch
up with me, his long legs closing the distance easily.
    “I just set one, that’s why I’m walking so
fast. I don’t want them to catch me,” I said.
    “I wouldn’t have figured you for being a fire
starter.”
    “There are probably a lot of