Chapter 19: Revelation
"Wait," I backtracked after remembering that this was Angelo's place and not mine. "What are you doing here?"
Genie gave me a sheepish smile.
Then my eyes landed on the man before me who adjusted himself uncomfortably. "Do you know her? How do you know my best friend?"
"She was my servant before she was your best friend."
"Excuse me?"
My eyes turned to Genie urgently. Surely he was pulling my leg.
How could a girl I've known all my life, all twenty-four years, since we've been diaper buddies, be his servant?
"Are you on something?" I asked him, reverting back to my old habit of thinking he was insane. "How could Genie be related to you in any way? She doesn't even know the first five books of the Bible."
"The reality of it is much deeper than that."
"So does everything seem to be when it comes to you."
I internally cringed at how wrong that could have been taken.
If Angelo took notice of it he was exceptional at not letting it show.
He sighed. "Genie is-"
"Pardon me, but could you give me the liberty of breaking such news to her myself? I am the one who deceived her all these years, even if it was your order. I don't want you to take this opportunity from me to come clean."
My nose turned upwards in disgust at how polite she was being, especially towards Angelo.
"Genie, what are you doing? Why are you talking to him like that?" My eyes zoomed in on her guilty face and that was when it occurred to me.
"Did you borrow money from him?" I accused, my voice nearly reaching the roof.
She shook her head, a tired smile coming onto her face. "No, I didn't borrow money from him. I stopped doing that years ago. You know that."
I held my chest and nodded in relief. "That's good. We don't want you walking down that path of gambling and drugs again."
"I actually never did any of those," she revealed with a tiny voice. My face was a canvas for the shock that splashed across it at her confession. "B, I don't want you to take this wrong way. No matter what, just remember that I've been sincere to you all this time, okay? Promise not to hate me too much for what I'm about to tell you."
Her panic shifted something inside of me and a bad feeling settled itself in the pit of my stomach.
I never saw this desperate side to her before and it scared the heck out of me.
"Hey, calm down." I said, getting off the bed and towards her. I brushed her natural hair softly, taken aback when I saw a tear roll down her cheek. "Genie..." My eyes snapped back up to look into her brown orbs as the anxiety rolling off her in waves began to affect me.
"I sinned," she started between heavy breaths. "While I was in heaven, I committed one of the worst acts any being could have. I fell in love with a demon. I knew I wasn't supposed to but I couldn't help it. It was temptation at its finest."
I shook my head, hands slowly removing themselves from her.
Her brown eyes followed the act with a broken look, but she didn't stop relaying her truth.
"Because of what I did I was punished. I didn't mind it at the time because I had already found out I was only being used by that creature. I was just an experiment for him to see if us from heaven were really as pure as the rumors said. I guess I disproved them way too quickly because he abandoned me as soon as he got me into his bed." She chuckled harshly. I sucked in a deep breath at the sound of it. It was unlike anything I've ever heard from her.
Shamelessly bitter.
And we were talking about the girl who I had seen at her every low point in her life.
"I took my punishment because I deserved it for what I had done. I was supposed to be demoted from a low level angel and sent to the Realm of Darkness to repent for eternity. That's what the High Council had determined to be my fate. I guess they wanted to make an example out of me." She shrugged, as if her mouth hadn't just said the most gruesome thing I've ever heard.
They were going to do what to her?
I felt my hand starting to shake. My other one slickly covered it up, but I saw Angelo take notice of the movement from the corner of my eyes.
"That's how I was going to go down in history for a moment's weakness," she sighed then her disheartened expression found a little lightness to it. "I knew who Angelo was - the entire heaven did because of how special he is. What I didn't know was about the complications he had caused for falling for a human. At that time, nothing that didn't concern the level below the highest one of the three triads would reach a lower being. Nobody knew of his involvement with a human except royal or important officials. But after the war, everything about what happened reached a few ears, including my own."
Her gaze was skittish and she bit down onto her fingernails, looking as if she didn't know where to go from there.
"I had asked of the High Council to show some mercy and suppress her as a mortal instead of eternal damnation." Angelo spoke from his spot on the bed, coming to her aid.
He was powerful enough to interfere with such a decision?
Genie nodded eagerly. "He promised that if I were to help watch over his beloved when he found her again, I wouldn't have to go to the Realm of Darkness."
Cold sweat coated my forehead as I realized where this was headed.
"That's you, B." She said softly. "He made me become your best friend since we were young as soon as he found your location. After a while, he wasn't sure if you were the one he was looking for despite all the facts pointing to you. You had reincarnated so differently you see. You're practically the total opposite of yourself from the past. Or at least that's what I've gathered from his countless paintings."
"So what you're saying is that you're not..." My lips trembled. "You're not my best friend? That it's all been a lie?"
"No, no, no! You are my best friend! You are the kindest human I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. It made me become one of you, not such a terrible thing after all."
I chuckled darkly. "Only because you were left with no other choice but eternal damnation?"
Her mouth dropped open. "Isabelle..."
"Fuck," I groaned, feeling my head starting to pound at the way she called me. "Don't call my name."
"B-"
"I said don't call my name!" I screeched, my anger finally bursting through. "Don't act like you know me! All this time you've been using me to get out of your sinful mess. You've been living by a script for twenty-four years, and goddamn, you played it so well. I'm actually contemplating whether I should bow down at your feet because of how impressed I am."
Her lips made a thin line. "I admit that I had no other choice. That the idea of coming here as a mortal was revolting for someone who used to oversee you all, but after getting to know you I had a different perspective. As clichè as it sounds, I learnt not to judge a book by its cover. That you humans have a deeper meaning to every choice as well as the mistakes you make."
Bile rose into my throat as I sent her a death glare. "Oh, don't you be getting all sentimental on me. It doesn't suit you one bit."
"You should know well enough this isn't the first time I've been emotional in your presence." She sent back my way stiffly.
I rolled my eyes.
"Oh, you mean the endless amount of times you've complained to me about Eric? For goodness sake, Genie, you don't expect me to believe he's actually your boyfriend after all of this, do you?"
She folded her arms defensively. "He actually is. Don't forget that I'm no different from you now. I'm human too. Why would it be incredible for me to date normally like one?"
I laughed.
Like actually laughed at that.
The kind that had tears brimming from my eyes, me holding my belly and letting out short breaths in between. "I can't believe you actually have the nerve to say that after fooling me for all our lives. Or should I say all my life? You've already lived one before you went around fucking a demon."
Genie closed her eyes as if she had been punched in the stomach.
"You're going too far."
"As far as you went tricking me all these years? What about your parents? Was any little mishap that happened to you in that shitty household actually true? Did your father even try and molest you or was that another ploy in your little scheme?"
The sound of the slap registered in my ears before the sting of it on my left cheek.
"I told you," She was shaking, tears running down her face. "You're crossing the line."
I wiped at the corner of my mouth numbly.
"Get out."
She froze at my cold order.
"I don't want to see your face ever again. Get the fuck out of my sight."
"You don't mean that," she said tersely. "You always react irrationally and say dumb shit when you're angry."
"Oh, trust me. This isn't me having a fit. I'm being serious, Genie - if that even is your name."
She narrowed her eyes at my patronizing tone.
"Are you deaf? I said leave!"
"This isn't your place." The girl argued back just as on edge now.
My eyes found Angelo, silently telling him to convey my thoughts to her.
He held my gaze unwaveringly. "Genie will stay. I reckon you've already done enough damage. I don't want to kick her out on top of it."
"You're taking her side?"
"There is no side to take," he said firmly, "I'm just telling you to know your limits."
"And she wasn't going over hers for slapping me?" I blew out in disbelief.
"Violence is never the answer to any dispute between two people, or more, however I thought that maybe it would knock some sense into you. You have been insufferably biased towards her situation."
I bit down onto my bottom lip, feeling the urge to cry again.
"You're the one who caused this, who are you to judge me? If you didn't force her into this situation she wouldn't have been a two-faced bitch to me all this time!"
"I did it for your own good, not only because of my selfish desires. In the past you had many beings who were envious of my attention towards you. I didn't want that to follow you even in this life which would become inevitable the moment I got involved in it again. Take the rouge demon at the club we reunited at for example. I barely spoke to you for five minutes and he caught a whiff of my scent then decided to interrogate you. Albeit, it was my fault for being careless in my approach towards you. I should have masked my scent better, or rather, attempted to."
"So you're saying I'm supposed to just accept the fact that you planted a spy in my life and made her pretend to be my best friend?"
"When you put it like that it makes me sound like the bad guy," he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Genie is not to be blamed. Neither am I. Not even you are, Isabelle."
"Then who am I left to pin the blame on, God?"
He took a step towards me, stiffening like he always did when I made such comments. "Don't stoop lower than you already have. It's embarrassing."
My fists folded tightly. "Say that again and I swear I'll make you regret ever knowing me."
"I think you need some rest." He said, raising a hand towards me.
When I dodged it with swift reflex, he looked at me shocked.
"I'm not letting you use your weird sleeping touches on me." I growled.
"Stop being a handful and get over here." He beckoned with an exasperated face, hand still outstretched.
"Fuck off." I spat at him.
He hardly flinched, but I caught the sight of his jaw clenching.
"I said get the fuck over here." His eyes flashed with a certain warning, the alarming grey looming over in the background.
"Make me." I dared him between gritted teeth.
In a flash, he was standing before me and my heart almost leaped out of my chest.
Every detail of his face was in high definition and it made the storm brewing within his eyes ten times more terrifying.
"What did you just say?" His inquiry held a level of authority to it and that made me weak in the knees.
The thought of responding with anything remotely distasteful was seriously contemplated.
I began to wonder if I would lose my tongue the moment I said something like screw you or worse.
My mouth opened and then closed, like a fish out of water.
"That's what I thought." He smirked at my loss of words.
Looking towards Genie who looked just as intimidated by this side of him, he asked. "Why did you come and visit me today? I'm sure it's not something pleasant since I have already told you only emergencies require your presence away from Belle."
"That's why I'm here." She informed him.
"Expound on that."
"I went over to Isabelle's apartment to check on her since I've been negligent for the past few days. When I went there, she was nowhere to be found. I called the number I had for her workplace and they said she took a couple days off. She never takes days off. At least not without telling me." She whispered the ending sadly.
I winced at how affected she was by all this, a part of me regretting being so harsh on her earlier.
Are you forgetting that she lied to you? It's not a little white one either. She made you believe she's the only one you could rely on in this world, but turns out that was just an obligation.
I felt torn on the inside over which side I should listen to.
"No matter how much I searched I couldn't find her so I decided to come seek your help. Turns out she's been here all along."
"Did you hear that?" He said directly to me, a hint of grey malice still lingering in his eyes as much as his tone. "She came because she was worried about you."
I didn't bother saying anything.
He huffed at my stubbornness.
"Genie," he paused midway in addressing her to give me a tasteless look. "That is her name by the way."
It was my turn to huff.
Angelo ignored it, giving me the cold shoulder and turning his back.
"Genie, you may retire for today. Also, I apologize on behalf of Isabelle. She has a temper that could rival the Devil's. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive her thoughtless actions."
The girl nodded at his words, eyes trailing back to me pitifully.
But I didn't look.
I didn't want to break under it, not knowing where my heart was. There didn't seem to be a common ground as of right now with all the betrayal I was experiencing. They might as well have just told me all my life has been a lie.
I began to wonder who else could have been a pawn in Angelo's game to get to me.
Or "keep me safe" in his terms.
With one last glance, Genie sighed before heading out the room.
My chest unknotted, air finally feeling as if it could reach my lungs again.
"You really need to work on that temper of yours." Angelo said with a very lethal smile.
At that, I flashed him a look which could have put him six feet under.
Then again, he technically couldn't die.
How unfortunate.
"Don't talk to me. I'm still mad at you."
"Do you want me to make it up to you?" His silver eyes twinkled mischievously like night stars.
"Not even that I'm in the mood for." I snapped before heading to find wherever the bathroom was in this place.
***
You know she's mad when she even denies that.