Angel Star

  Angel Star

  Published by Lands Atlantic Publishing

  www.landsatlantic.com

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Murgia

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0982500538

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  For Christian & Megan ~ my own two angels.

  And for my husband Chris ~ you have my heart.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Acknowledgments

  For it is written,

  He shall give His

  angels charge over thee,

  to keep thee

  Luke 4:10

  Prologue

  I knew the moment of death was upon me. Strange how in a matter of a few days it had come to this. I realized I was shaking and had to work quickly before…I didn’t want to think it.

  I grabbed the tiny dagger. Though deadly, the weapon I held was beautiful. Tiny etchings glinted in the gold handle, retelling the story of the Archangels’ fall from heaven, their story delicately carved into the deadly blade.

  I swallowed hard. Would God accept me now?

  Splinters of uncertainty swelled within me, but my mind was already made up.

  Without another thought, I plunged the dagger deep into my heart, hoping my plan would work. Gasping, I lurched forward, scrambling for anything my fingers could touch. I found the curtains and brought them crashing to the ground, the rod ripping out of my wall, leaving huge gaping holes. As if mimicking those holes, the velvet night ripped itself open, rain falling to the ground in wet torrents. My eyes closed to the haze that was now enveloping me, and I lay there as the rain quickly stained the weary sky and the heavens wept for me.

  Chapter One

  It was there again.

  The fluttering. The wings.

  My eyes squeezed shut and I once again convinced myself there was no way this could be real. I was dreaming—again.

  But, sure as day, I felt a breeze on my skin, felt my hair shift around my face. The air around me was in motion, my heart beating faster. I gulped down my panic deep into my stomach and did what I knew had to be done.

  I opened my eyes.

  As awareness slowly wormed its way through my brain, I studied the long, strange shadows that stretched across my ceiling as I recalled the dream.

  It was a dream, wasn’t it? A dream that was so very real as soon as my eyes closed. A dream that I desperately wanted to wake up from yet struggled so hard to retain once my eyes opened. I could still feel his eyes on me, the color of a storm, pitch black and fearless, studying me as I searched my sleep for dreams more peaceful, more normal—but it was over now. I was awake.

  My room was hot for March; my tiny fan was waiting in my closet for warmer days. So confusion, of course, surfaced as I ran a clammy hand through my long, damp hair that moments before had been blowing gently around my pillow. I couldn’t remember getting under the covers and falling asleep, but here I was in bed, trembling like so many other nights.

  Unable to go back to sleep, I pulled myself out of bed and shuffled over to my computer, which I’d accidentally left on the entire night.

  An ad for overstocked Chia Pets stared back at me.

  Ch…ch…ch…bye-bye.

  Two messages were waiting in my inbox and I clicked on them, yawning. The first was a printable coupon for Barnes & Noble.

  “Twenty percent off’s not bad,” I whispered sleepily to myself. Sheepishly, I scanned my bookcase and the overflowing collection it now held. “What’s one more?”

  My mother, who is a librarian, is forever trying to convince me to borrow books instead of spending my precious allowance on them, but I can’t. I can’t give up the thrill.

  I skipped to the next e-mail and instantly felt my skin prickle with fear. It was from Brynn Hanson—the beautiful, pom-pom shaking, self-appointed queen of Carver High School. I, unfortunately, was her favorite poor soul to pick on. Reluctantly, I opened it.

  Only one word had been typed but that single word was enough to send irritation all the way to my toes.

  Freak.

  I read it again. In fact, I read it a few times, disbelieving that her hatred could find its way into my computer—that it was, in fact, meant for me. I quickly clicked the icon that would delete the message, as if I was disposing of a slimy bug.

  “Wait until I tell Claire about this one,” I mumbled to myself, thinking of how my best friend would handle the situation. She would most likely forward it back to Brynn, giving her a taste of her own medicine.

  But me? I was still hoping the delete button would erase it forever.

  6:12 a.m. glowed from the lime-green iPod dock on my nightstand and I stood up to stretch, crossing my arms over my face, blocking the view of my otherwise seriously outdated bedroom. Evanescence posters and angel sketches covered my pale-purple walls, but there was little hope for the rest. I pulled up my covers, put away my dog-eared copy of A Great and Terrible Beauty, and got ready for school, knowing Claire would be honking the horn of her little white Cabrio sooner than I realized. Taking the school bus was most certainly not an option.

  Flashbacks of second grade circulated through my head. It was the year Brynn began torturing me, when she poked fun at the crocheted hat my Aunt Karen had made for me. That, combined with the fried-egg sandwich I’d had for breakfast, resulted in my throwing up all over Eddie Carmichael’s new hoodie.

  That was a bad day.

  These days, I still ride the bus from time to time. And Brynn? Well, Brynn got a BMW Z-3 convertible for her sixteenth birthday last year.

  I wasn’t sure why I was at the top of her hate list. In fact, I wasn’t sure about a lot of things.

  I let my fingers trace over the tiny silver frame on my dresser, the one photo of my father I was lucky enough to call my own. My parents had never married and my mother never spoke of him. Maybe she was dreading the day I would ask about him, dreading the one moment when I would question the strangeness of it all. He had simply vanished. There was nothing else to tell. Other kids had two parents. I had her. It worked. We had a bond between us that stretched and contracted like a rubber band. Best friends one minute, mother and daughter the next. Inevitably, she would cross her arms and huff and I’d roll my eyes, and the elastic between us would snap again.

  A
s I grew older, though, it crossed my mind from time to time that perhaps she was lonely. My father’s absence was an unspoken void that lived within our walls, and although I longed for the day I, too, would fall in love, I was fearful. What if the person who would someday hold my heart disappeared too?

  “Left you some hot water, honey!” my mother called.

  Mom was turning off the shower and if I didn’t get my butt in gear I’d miss my ride and have to take the dreaded bus after all.

  By the time I arrived at school, my head was pounding from stress. I stood staring at the inside of my locker for what seemed like an eternity, silently cursing Brynn’s “happy day” e-mail and the dark eyes of my dream.

  “Hellooo? What’s with you? You’re practically catatonic,” Claire said in between bites of a cherry Twizzler.

  “My head hurts,” I answered quietly and continued selecting the books I needed for the morning.

  The noise level in the first floor hallway was beginning to cause a slight tunnel vision effect on me. I wondered if the nurse turned kids away before first period.

  “Up late on the computer again? Trust me, Google has been known to cause serious neurological problems with kids our age. Unless…” In an instant Claire had that all-knowing gleam in her bright eyes. “Did you meet a guy on a chat? Do we know him?”

  I slowly turned my head to face her. Claire Meyers and I have been inseparable since the third grade but the mechanics of her brain were still a mystery to me.

  “I got hate mail from Brynn,” I admitted, my less-than-cheerful attitude dropping to an even lower notch.

  Claire leaned on the next locker and sighed sympathetically. “Not again?”

  “Yep. At least I keep someone up late at night.”

  “It’s for the good of mankind.”

  “S’cuse moi?”

  “At least she doesn’t pick on me!” Claire smiled as she flicked my arm with her finger. She stared me up and down for a few seconds then said in a serious voice, “You need a boyfriend.”

  I stuck out my jaw and sighed. Like that was going to happen anytime soon.

  “You know, someone to save you from the evil witch who walks these halls.” Claire’s gaze drifted out into the traffic of students.

  Just as I opened my mouth to respond, the familiar pit-pat of leather flats came to an abrupt stop behind us.

  “Get my message?” Brynn clucked her tongue against her front teeth. Her arms were folded against her crisp white shirt that was neatly tucked into her tartan skirt. Her deep-brown eyes gazed at us maliciously.

  “We go to public school, you know,” my forever smart-lipped friend quipped. “Perhaps you got lost and forgot to go to Saint Andrew’s across town.”

  Brynn, ever so politely, gave us the finger, then spun on her heels and marched away.

  “What?” Claire shoved a stick of gum into her mouth, then threw the wrapper into my locker without a care. “You know you were thinking it. She dresses like she goes to some sort of prep school and we’re the dregs. Just ignore her, Teagan.”

  I heard Claire’s voice; in fact, I completely agreed with what she was saying, but I couldn’t stop staring after Brynn. I couldn’t stop looking at that end of the hallway, where kids were wrestling with their backpacks, where others were opening and closing lockers…laughing, gossiping, talking. It wasn’t humanly possible for me to tear my eyes away because at that precise moment the hallway was a dark, suffocating tunnel where I stood at one end and he stood at the other.

  Is this possible?

  I felt his black eyes on me just as I had felt them in my dream. I felt my skin reacting in an all-too-familiar chill. My muscles had turned to steel and I was rooted, helplessly, to this one particular spot, yet all I wanted was to make a mad dash in the other direction.

  Two large shadows extended from behind the figure. Appendages so enormous that even from this distance I could make out the deep-charcoal wings, leatherlike in texture, beneath the fluorescent lighting.

  I drew in a deep breath. Obviously, Claire wasn’t paying any attention to this dreamlike intruder down the hall. No one was.

  Instinctively, I took a step back and then he was gone.

  “She thinks she’s perfect,” Claire continued, her tone building gradually in my ears as if the volume had been muted and was now slowly rejoining reality.

  Shivering, I grabbed my books and took a deep breath, feeling my head automatically nod in agreement.

  “It’s a sign of insecurity. She has her claws in deep now. She knows what pushes your buttons. Besides, you know it only makes her feel more superior when she can make someone else feel like crap.”

  I eyed my best friend as if she had just transferred from the moon.

  “Claire, didn’t you see?” I turned to face where the dark figure had appeared only moments ago.

  “Oh, yeah, I see. And he’s looking fine.”

  Forget it. I had lost her.

  Ryan Jameson yanked his leather Columbia bag a little higher onto his broad shoulders and stopped in front of us just as the first bell sounded in the hallway.

  “Teagan.” He nodded, regarding me.

  I smiled back, trying not to notice how quickly and comfortably Claire’s hand slipped into his.

  “Maybe you should go to the nurse. You look kind of pale.” Claire’s eyebrows scrunched up in concern. “See you at lunch, Tea.”

  I watched her wave as she walked away with her new boyfriend and I slammed my locker shut, feeling the echo reverberate through my pounding head. Gearing myself up for class, I began the boring walk toward the gymnasium, passing lockers and a few obnoxious football players, but my eyes were pulled toward the far end of the hallway, still trying to make sense out of the unreal. Could it just be that I was still suffering from a horrible morning and my mind was playing tricks on me? My nightmare seemed to be lingering, crossing the median into reality and following me into school. Maybe Claire was right. Maybe I needed a boyfriend—or the nurse for that matter—someone to help me keep my mind off my insane life.

  Making a split-second decision to skip both the nurse and gym, I purposely wandered out to the courtyard for some fresh air. I dropped my backpack to the ground and slumped down onto a concrete bench. The morning was beautiful, despite the fact that I could still see my breath, but the crisp air was clearing my head, allowing me to see and think more rationally. I stared at the landscaping, the trees, the sidewalk leading to the south stairwell. It was all trimmed and clean and didn’t hide any creepy little niches from which a dark-winged creature could suddenly lunge.

  I marveled at the pink buds emerging from the recently skeletal branches above me. Even the sky was a perfect, cloudless blue, the kind you see on postcards or commercials; and, yes, it was supposed to make me feel all peppy and cheerful but it just wasn’t happening. Cradling my face in my hands, I closed my eyes because somehow the pounding in my head just wasn’t going away.

  Although muted, a voice managed to penetrate the throbbing. “Are you okay?”

  I hadn’t heard anyone enter the courtyard, not a single footstep, making his voice seem as if it came from out of nowhere. I must have jumped or shrieked because the look on his face mirrored the uncertain pounding I was now feeling in my chest.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  I cleared my throat. “No, not at all. I mean, I’m okay.” Looking up, I found myself staring into an unfamiliar face. The most beautiful face I had ever seen.

  The tall boy stood in front of me, his features soft, yet chiseled, and I couldn’t help but notice the way the sunlight played with his sandy hair. The way it curled loosely around his face, capturing the specks of light that fell onto us from between the branches. But…his eyes. They were the warmest, most endless aqua—and inhumanly hypnotic. Suddenly, I couldn’t recall any sort of discomfort in my head, just a soothing warmth flowing within me, and the panic of the morning—the taunting, the winged mirage in the hall—simply melted away at the
sight of him.

  “I’m Garreth.”

  I sat like an idiot, staring at his hand, which was extended toward me. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t speak. I tried desperately to find my voice but I was entranced. I had to speak soon or he would assume I was socially dysfunctional and at this particular moment that was a fate worse than death.

  “Teagan,” I replied, at last finding my voice. I took his hand.

  It was so warm I didn’t want to give it back. He smiled at me and I felt my cheeks redden. I guess I held it a little too long. He was staring at me and I quickly looked away, feeling panic rise in my chest. But it was a good panic. The nice kind.

  Garreth unfolded a thin piece of paper that I recognized as a student schedule. His brow furrowed before he looked at me again.

  “Would you happen to know how to get to room 303?” he asked with a smile.

  “Mythology’s actually my next class too. I’ll show you if you want.”

  My hands were clammy as I reached down for my bag, which he politely picked up and handed to me. I stood up slowly to avoid any unwanted dizziness and was surprised to find I felt perfectly stable, despite the odd stammering sensation in my heart.

  “Thanks.”

  I took my bag, feeling a trifle inferior now that I was standing. He easily stood six feet tall. I would have pegged him for a senior, not a junior, like me; and, feeling like a child next to him, I silently cursed my petite frame.

  “Did you just move here?” I asked.

  Surely I would have seen him around town if he had just transferred from another local school. Hopewell has three: Carver High, Hopewell Vo-Tech, and Saint Andrew’s. Hopewell isn’t very big. Just a quiet little town with quaint Victorian and Colonial houses, located in western New Jersey. It was peaceful most of the time, and when the school kids got bored, they would either head down to New Hope or up toward Princeton to escape.

  “I came over from Saint Andrew’s.”

  Garreth eased into the conversation, his golden voice gently melting into the air around us as if it were cotton candy, and I found myself stealing glances at him as we made our trek to the third level stairwell.