Chapter 7: Painless

DANICA

I shook my head, pleading. “Please, just go. I don’t know you, and I don’t want to. I’ve been the butt of school pranks before. It’s not amusing. Just stop!”

I spun around, bracing myself for his grip, but he let me walk away.

I made it to my house and bolted inside, slamming the door behind me. Ms. Moore approached me, her eyes scanning my disheveled appearance.

“Good heavens! What happened to you?” she asked, taking in my dirt-streaked clothes and the blood trickling from my head.

I began to ascend the stairs, but the sound of the door opening stopped me. I turned to see Ms. Moore letting him in.

“No! Don’t let him in!” I cried out. “He’s been following me!” My voice was laced with panic, but she seemed unfazed.

“He’s been spouting all sorts of nonsense. I don’t know what he wants!” I was trembling now, this situation was too bizarre, too unsettling. And why was she letting him in?

“Call the cops!” I demanded.

Ms. Moore glanced at the man, who was staring at the floor, then back at me. “He’s not one for jokes or idle chatter. Maybe you should listen to him,” she suggested, her tone serious.

But I refused to believe any of this. It felt like they were both trying to drive me mad.

“Screw you!” I spat at her, then bolted to my room, locking the door behind me. I rushed to my bed and fastened the chain around my wrist.

I closed my eyes, trying to steady my ragged breathing. I broke down in tears when I heard footsteps approaching my door.

“Danica,” Ms. Moore called out. “Please, just listen.” Her voice was weary, strained.

I bit down on my pillow to muffle my sobs. “There’s a world you don’t know about. And…and I don’t know how to properly explain it all. But we’re not human. Not me, not your guardian angel. Not you, and certainly not your parents,” she confessed.

But I couldn’t process all this information. I grabbed my bedside lamp and hurled it at the door, screaming. I tried to close my eyes, tried to forget, tried to return to reality.

Sleep eluded me that night, my mind a whirlwind of confusion and fear. I needed rest, but my thoughts were consumed by the day’s events.

Why were they trying to drive me insane? It felt like they were deliberately feeding me this nonsense.

“I can make your headache go away,” the man’s voice drifted from behind the door, quiet and slow.

I opened my eyes, his words echoing in my ears. “I can take away all the pain.” He couldn’t. He was lying. He was a madman.

“I’m here to help you, Danica. I have the power to help you, if you’ll let me.”

I unchained myself and stormed toward the door. “You want to help me?” I yelled, flinging the door open. “Do you?”

His gaze swept over my tear-streaked face. “I have to,” he replied, leaning tiredly against the doorframe. “It’s my purpose. To be assigned to someone and protect them. I’m meant to be there for you. To help you.”

I shook my head. “Then leave. If you really want to help, then leave and never come back!”

It was as if he hadn’t heard me. “Don’t you want the pain to go away?” Of course I did. But not from him.

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t need your help.”

“It will get worse…,” he warned.

“Okay,” I cut him off, instantly.

He tilted his head, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “You’ll accept my help?”

I shook my head. That wasn’t what I meant. “I don’t care if it gets worse. I’ll handle it.”

His eyes softened. “I don’t think you can. It will get worse. It already has. Hasn’t it?”

I had no idea how he knew that. It was getting worse by the minute, but I hadn’t told anyone. I was scared it would soon become unbearable. But that was none of his concern.

I crossed my arms defensively. “Did Celeste Moore hire you? Did she tell you to be my bodyguard?”

He let out a weary sigh. “No.”

“Who sent you here?”

“The high court of angels.”

His answers were grating on my nerves. “Can you give me a straight answer?”

“I did!” He retorted.

I nodded, looking away. “I want you gone!”

He didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving, so I tried to shut the door in his face, only for it to be forced back open.

He seized me, pulling me against his chest as I struggled to break free. But then, the pain ceased and I found myself frozen in place.

His chin found a resting place atop my head, his hands gently stroking my back. I breathed in his potent scent, my fingers knotting in the fabric of his jacket.

I felt…normal, for the first time in a while.

Could he be something other than human? How else could he bring me such tranquility?

Suddenly, he pulled back, though his hands remained on me. I looked up at him, his eyes shimmering in the dim light.

His fingers brushed my cheek, his lips pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of him against me.

Who was this man? And why was he stirring these feelings within me? He felt familiar, like something I had been yearning for.

He guided me by the hand to the bed. “Go to sleep,” he instructed, gently easing me down. He released my hand.

The pain in my head was gone, but I could feel it threatening to return. I assumed he would finally leave me be, so I crawled under the covers.

But then, the other side of the bed dipped. I rolled onto my side to find him lying next to me, his gaze fixed on me.

His hand moved to my shoulder, and just like that, the pain was gone. I reached out to chain my hand, but he pulled me against him instead, holding me tightly.

“I will hold you,” he whispered, his grip on me tightening.

A warmth spread through me, a heat I had never experienced before. A sense of comfort and solitude I had never been able to find on my own.

But I still needed to chain my hand. “No, I will kick and scratch.”

“Do your worst, I have already bargained for it. Hate me if you must, but I will be here to protect you from the world,” he murmured, his voice lulling me.

A lullaby I had never heard before. It took a while for my heart to slow down, his own heartbeat barely perceptible against my ear.

He never once loosened his grip on me, never once moved. He was actually going to hold me through the night. It was strange, but I found myself complying.

I drifted off to sleep, dreams of the mysterious man filling my mind.

~I returned from work the following day. He was there. In the park.

I rushed over to him, pulling the stones from my pocket and showing them to him. “What is this?” I asked, desperate to know why it eased my headache when nothing else ever had.~

~I noticed his hand was healed and I instinctively stepped back. I remembered the dream of him breaking into my room, I had thought it was a dream because there was no way his hand could have healed so quickly.

“I thought it was a dream…you were in my room? What…why? How did you get in?”~

~He looked at me, seemingly unfazed. “Why are there chains?”~

~“Why were you there?” I countered.~

~He shrugged. “I was curious.”~

~”You broke into my house!”~

~I spun around and began to walk away, but he caught up to me and grabbed my arm.

I mustered all my strength and slapped him across the face.~

~He stood there, stunned, his face turned to the side where I had struck him.~

~All I could think was, What have I done?~

~His hand was still gripping my arm as he slowly turned to look at me. “I felt like there was something odd about you. So I got curious. And I was right. But I am sorry for breaking into your house.”~

~Something odd? “I sleepwalk, that’s why I chain myself to bed. Sleepwalking does not make me odd!”~

~”It’s not what makes you odd. It’s the fact that you are not human.”~

~”..What?”~

~He nodded and released me, but I didn’t step back.

“But it’s not my place to tell you.”~

~I felt a sharp pain in my head. “Can you, can you make the pain go away? Can you give me more of those stones?” Whatever they were, I needed them.~

~He took my hands in his and kissed my knuckles. Instantly, my head cleared, the pain was gone.

I let out a heavy sigh. He released me and pulled out more stones, placing them in my pocket. “Those crystals are just stones, they can’t help you unless I have charged them.”~

~”How do you manage that?”~

~”I’m not exactly human either.”~

~His claim was hard to swallow, but curiosity got the better of me. “Then what are you?”~

~He shook his head, a firm resolve in his eyes. “I can’t be the one to pull you into that world. You’ve been kept away from it for a reason, and I won’t interfere.”~

~His cryptic words didn’t matter to me. All I wanted was to escape the pain. “How many of those stones can you give me?”~

~”They only work for a day.”~

~So, a lifetime supply was out of the question. “How long will you be around then?”~

~He shrugged, a playful tilt to his head. “I’m not sure.”

His smirk told me he knew what I was after, and he was enjoying making it difficult.~

~He was a criminal, an intruder in my home. But he held the key to my relief. This was the extent I was willing to go to be free from pain. “Can we meet here again tomorrow?”~

~He tried to suppress his smirk. “I can’t make any promises.”~

~”If you’re not too busy, could you?”~

~He shrugged nonchalantly. “Perhaps.”~

~As I began to walk away, I paused and turned back. “What’s your name?”~

~”Hugo.”~