Preface
When the rain got me, I was still running along an unfamiliar street that seemed endless on both directions. Within seconds, the drizzle became a cold downpour that soaked me to the bone, plastering the thin shirt and jeans onto my body. My hair was sticking on my face, pricking my eyes like dozens of needles, but I didn’t stop. Lost in a haze of despair, I could not comprehend the faint voice in my head that warned me to go back. I kept running away. Where I was heading, I could not tell anymore.
Everything around me seemed strange and obscure; no houses, no shelter, only the perennial olive trees and the murky veil of rain.
For the last two years in my life, every day, every minute, every second had been spinning around one single pivot; that rescue mission had been the only pivot of my new life. It had defined my actions, my thoughts, and my whole existence. I had gone a long way, overcoming any personal limit and fear, transcending time, only because I was fixed on a purpose. I had left my old life behind.
I had a life once.
Now, my mission was my life. A mission that’d taken me far away from my family, my friends, my studies and my future. But I did not care anymore. I had chosen my destiny. It had always been about him. Christopher. He had turned his back on me and the pivot support had suddenly vanished. I had nothing to lean on. My whole life was collapsing. I was collapsing. There was no angel coming to my rescue this time.
A sharp pain in my chest blocked my breath, forcing me to stop. But I welcomed the pain, didn’t want it to ease out. Strangely enough, it seemed to be the right thing to feel. This is how some people have died, right? Perhaps this could be the end…
“Hey, you’re standing in the middle of the street!” a voice in my head shouted. “And that yellow light approaching is about to crash into you in minutes. Can’t you hear it? You have to move to the side. Don’t just stand there. It’s a car! It’s definitely a car and the veil of hale certainly does not help. MOVE!”
Then why wasn’t I moving? Could I be waiting for the car to put an end to this excruciating obstacle race I had started?
I closed my eyes and held my breath as the roaring sound of the car approached.
Angels
Angels didn’t always look gorgeous. Sometimes, they had rough hands and smoked-yellow moustaches. Their faces could be wrinkled, carved with paths that reveal the burden of each year of
hard living. Even more, they could hit the brake at the very last moment if they meant to spare your life. But they did cover you with their worn-out coat to protect you from the hailstorm and they didn’t ask a lot of questions. They took you in their old, rattling truck and drove you to the nearest village to find someone who could speak your language.
He asked for my name.
“Emma.” I mumbled. “My name’s Emma.”
“Tourist?” he asked.
“Yes, tourist.” I lied.
Angels could tell when you needed help. They even bought you a drink and waited until you found the strength to speak again.
“What’s happened to you?” a stout, young woman with long, curly black hair asked me, having been assigned with the interpreter’s role by my angel. I guessed she must have been the café owner’s daughter, judging by the resemblance they shared. He’d been the first to storm out of the café to my assistance when my angel pulled over and called frantically for help. The poor man had been so alarmed by my shivering.
“Was anyone after you?” About a dozen saucer eyes around me were waiting for answers as she tried to wipe my hair with a towel. She smelled of fresh lemon. A faint but still invigorating scent, released every time she brought her hands close to my face.
“Yes.” I nodded, still shivering. I thought it was not a good time to tell her I could speak Greek.
“Who was it?”
I sat up on the uncomfortable, plastic chair, searching vainly for a lie. “I’m not sure.”
She put the towel on the table, looking worried. “Shall I call the police?”
“The police?” That brought me to my senses. The police were the last thing I needed right now. “No. I’m fine now. I was just scared of…the storm.” I tried to sound embarrassed. If I had started lying, I must have been my self again. She turned to translate my silly explanation to our audience, and next minute, I
realized I had disappointed her customers who’d been expecting something more exciting to disturb the tranquillity of their simple life. Just normal, ordinary life. Deadlock-free.
“Where are you staying? I can call a taxi to take you home.”
Home. Home is where your heart is. Once again, my dad’s voice repeated in my head, like a broken CD. Where was my heart now? Did I have a heart anymore? It must have been shattered. Its pieces felt scattered all over my chest.
“Yes. I need a taxi. I must go to Korinth,” I said.
“Korinth? It’s three hours drive at the least.”
“I have money.” I had been wearing my bag across my chest ever since I’d left the Squad Headquarters. Just a few hours ago, I was still in the future, a time-traveller to Christopher’s world, determined to set him free and get him back.
For a fleeting moment, I thought of what those villagers’ reaction would be if I tried to tell them what was lying ahead. To warn them. Tell them we were all being watched; and those of us who stood as a threat to the future world, like me, were in mortal danger. Those villagers would not call a taxi for me then, but the fastest means to the closest mental health institution. Who could blame them?
“Okay. I’ll take care of it. Just drink your ouzo. It’ll make you feel better,” the chubby, young woman said and turned to our curious audience, who reminded me of the chorus of old men in ancient Greek plays, to translate our short conversation. Obviously, my situation was of no interest to them anymore. They smiled in front of the naïve tourist who had gotten scared of the thunderstorm and started running. They probably had other problems to deal with now that the hail was ripping against the blossomed trees, destroying the crop of this year. Maybe their lives weren’t really as simple as I’d thought.
“Your taxi is coming,” the young woman shouted behind the counter.
Curled in the backseat of the taxi, I watched the headlights of the cars passing by. We were already on the highway and despite the
fact that it was still early in the afternoon, the gloomy shroud of the menacing storm covered everything, stalking my escape.
Angels could tell when you needed them. They sometimes called you when you least expected them to; when you thought they’d forgotten about you the same as you had forgotten about them.
“Hey? Did I catch you in a bad time?” Alex’s voice sounded worried through my cell phone. Alex. A rainbow in the storm of my torment.
“Alex! Thank God!”
“What’s going on, Emma? Where are you? You don’t sound good.”
“It’s over, Alex. It’s all over. You were right. I shouldn’t have gone there. Now, it’s too late.” My voice broke. Tears were streaming down my face and I realized I was sobbing.
“Emma, can you hear me? Concentrate. Where are you?”
“In a taxi…somewhere…near Pylos.”
“Where are you going?”
It was so hard to collect my thoughts. “I’m going to …Korinth. Yes, I’m going to Korinth.”
“Okay. I’ll find you there as soon as I can. Just go home and wait for me. I’ll take you away from them. Do you hear me?”
“Yes. Hurry, please.”
“I’ll see you soon. Just call me when you get there, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Hang on, Emma. Listen to me. Try to relax. Everything will be all right.”
I wiped the blurred glass with my sleeve and looked outside. The dark clouds that carried the torrential hailstorm were now moving to the north, hiding the mountain-tops behind the haze.
Were angels like
ly to play tricks on you? To try and fool you? Was it possible that they might let you take a glimpse of paradise just to make you realize what you would lose afterwards, when they’d deserted you? Did they let you believe they’d always be there, eternal guardians of your soul, until one day you’d wake up
to find you were on your own, wondering if they’d ever really existed or they’d been just a figment of your imagination?
I had a guardian angel once. In his eyes I found the bluest skies. It was the hint of the oncoming storm that I missed. His face tortuously gorgeous, altogether perfect. His heart a bleeding wound because of his haunting past, searching for healing. When he first revealed to me that he came from the future, I was certain he was a compulsive liar. Yet, when he unveiled his assignment in my world, he scared me to death because the charming tutor I thought I had spent the night with, was transformed into an ex-assassin, a Crusader of the Future World, entrusted with the mission of protecting my life. Because on that same night, I discovered I was going to be murdered for the same reason my father had been murdered thirteen years ago.
The deplorable twist of the story had totally been my fault. After all, Christopher would still be one of the Crusaders if he hadn’t traded his freedom for my life. I wouldn’t have suffered the ordeal of the car crash the night I was told he’d left me, a near-death experience, months in a wheel-chair and, worst of all, the loss of our baby. Although I found out about my pregnancy after the car crash, when it was too late, the loss was still an open sore for me. But he didn’t know anything about it. I would always wonder if there was a chance we could still be together had I gone along with the League’s orders. If Christopher hadn’t chosen to offer himself to his worst nightmare, Denzel, commander of the Squad, the Special Forces of The League. He had been Christopher’s boss in the past, after he had him arrested years ago in their time, when Christopher was just an abused teenager. He’d recruited him to the Squad and trained him until Christopher became the most efficient Squad agent: a ruthless killer, a soldier of The Future, condemned to defend the secrets of The League. They had ordered my father’s murder when he refused to cooperate and conceal their secrets. And Christopher had taken part in what happened, although not directly. The League had ordered my death too when they found out I was following on my dad’s steps to excavate the area where the
Gateway that connected our worlds lay. That was when Christopher came to my time to save me. And he did it out of love. Unfortunately, it was just for a while. Because when I challenged the League, I turned them against Christopher too. That was how he had decided to put an end to the threat by surrendering to Denzel and going back to a life he’d tried so hard to redeem his soul from. I knew it was worse than death for him, but I knew he did it for me.
I’d do everything to get him back, to disentangle him from the Squad’s claws. That was no secret to Denzel. So, here I was, a double agent, ostensibly on a new mission assigned by the same people who had ordered my death. I was supposed to locate the Gateway for them, which had for some strange reason, moved. For an even stranger reason I couldn’t fathom, Denzel was convinced I was the only one who could carry this mission through. Such was his despair to find the Gate that he had accepted my one and only condition: to let Christopher come with me. To my astonishment, Denzel had no clue of the clandestine save-Christopher-mission the Crusaders had organized to get their comrade back. Which was going pretty well and according to plan apart from a slight detail which changed everything. No sooner had I gotten back to my world with Christopher when I discovered he was different. A changed man, a cruel assassin once again, a loyal Squad member who made it clear I meant nothing to him anymore. In his eyes, my mission to save him was nothing but a huge blunter. And my life was hanging in the balance.
That was why I had no other choice but run away from him in the rain; because I was pretty sure I couldn’t endure another second near him without risking my sanity.
When I got out of the taxi I took a moment to stare at the beach house in front of me. The house Christopher had bought that summer for us. I was determined to clear my thoughts of anything related to him. Since he was gone, the place felt desolate, forlorn and abandoned.
I found the key behind the gardenia pot where I always left it in case he came back. Every time I tried to reach it I prayed for it not to be there. But just like today, it was always there. I unlocked the heavy wooden door and took a few seconds before I entered. This would be my first time there without the hope that Christopher would return. Never before had that place seemed emptier to me. I closed the door behind me and almost ran up the stairs. My movements were mechanical, fast. I took off the clothes that had already dried on me and showered. It was unbearable and, at the same time, wistful for me to stay here. I should not let my mind play the same tricks again, recalling his face, imagining him sitting in the living room, on the porch, or lying in bed next to me.
After the shower that did little to alleviate the ache inside my chest, I curled on the sofa in my bathrobe with a glass of wine. I turned on the TV hoping it would distract me. Alex wouldn’t answer his cell phone, but I kept calling him several times and left a couple of messages. What could have happened to him?
Things would have been much different if I hadn’t crushed Alex’s hopes last Christmas, when I told him outright that I only saw him as a friend. We had a terrible fight, which ended with his departure for Greece. I had no one to blame but myself. If I hadn’t taken advantage of Alex’s feelings for me for as long as Suzan, my Crusader friend, needed him as a cover up while she prepared me for my time-travel and my encounter with Denzel, maybe things would have turned out differently. Alex had forgiven me for what I did. But it didn’t mean I forgave myself.
It was already dark outside when I began to wonder how long it would take for him to get here. More than four hours had passed since he’d called, but I told myself I shouldn’t panic. He should be here in any minute. Then he would take me away from here and we’d try to find Tom or Susan. They would know what to do. As long as I didn’t have to look into those empty, deep-blue eyes again. I would manage to go on somehow, to find a way to survive. I had done this before. I should know.
Under Duress
The ear-splitting sound of thunder jerked me awake. Someone was in the room. My eyes felt awfully heavy, and despite my instincts warning me, my body refused to cooperate. The house was dark. Trying to figure out where the intruder was, I quietly reached for the bottle of wine on the coffee table, the only way to protect myself. But I couldn’t find it. My heart was pounding.
In a sudden flash of lightning, I saw him sitting in the red armchair, right across the sofa. A familiar, still figure in his usual black Squad suit; broad shoulders upright against the back of the chair, hands resting on the armrests.
“That was a very foolish thing to do,” Christopher said calmly, a second before panic punched my chest.
My relief lasted only for a split of a second. I remembered he was the one I’d been running away from, unable to deal with the change in him. Why on earth did he have to follow me here? Why did he keep on torturing me with his adorable face and his irresistible voice?
“Why are you here?” I whispered sitting up. “Why don’t you leave me alone?” I continued, my voice faltered. “Haven’t you tortured me enough?”
“It’s too late for that I’m afraid. It was you who brought me back, remember? You started this, Emma, and no one can stop it now.” His voice sounded milder than a few hours ago, when he had drawn the line between us. Still, underneath his composed façade, I had the feeling there was something he was trying to hide.
“I’m perfectly sure I can stop it now. I won’t be bothering you anymore; you’ve made it clear that you want nothing to do with me.”
“As I said, it’s too late. They’ve got your boyfriend.”
About the author
Urania Sarri has studied English Language and Literature in the university of
Athens (BA). She also holds an Msc in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)from Aston University, Birmingham UK. She has worked with young adults for the past 20 years as a teacher of English. She developed an interest in writing from a very early age and has a keen interest in mystery an suspense books that she shares with her students.
Find out more about her on her blog
Urania's Distractions
And Goodreads
Gate Deadlock is also available on paperback.
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