The Guardian

  Seventeen-year-old Genesis Green is living anything but a charmed life. As far back as she can remember, she and her mother have been bouncing from town to town, struggling to survive on Ramen noodles and minimum wage.

  Late one evening, Genesis and her boyfriend are in a car accident. Carter’s SUV rolls, and Genesis finds herself injured, lying on the pavement. Just before she slips into the darkness an unfamiliar voice calls out to her, promising everything will be fine.

  His name is Seth, and he’s the Guardian assigned to protect her.

  When Genesis begins having bizarre visions, the Guardians believe she could be useful to them. To Seth, this means stepping into the middle of an epic battle between angels and demons. Even with supernatural protection, there’s no guarantee he can keep Genesis safe, something that's becoming more important to him by the day.

  The line between reality and the celestial becomes so blurred that Genesis can't decide who’s real and who’s otherworldly, and worse: who's good and who's evil.

  THE GUARDIAN

  by

  Katie Klein

  Copyright 2010 by Katie Klein

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

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Katie Klein.

  Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:

  for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

  Hebrews 13:2

  ONE

  “You didn’t even try to stand up for me, Carter.” I flick my spent cigarette out the window and watch in the mirror as it lands on the pavement behind us, sparks exploding in a kinetic frenzy.

  “There was nothing to stand up to,” he argues. “If my parents didn’t like you they wouldn’t have invited you to dinner.”

  I glance over at him, disbelieving. “Are you being serious right now? Your dad grilled me about college. Your mom hated my shirt . . .”

  “Genesis, my dad grills everyone about college. And my mom never said she hated your shirt,” he interrupts.

  “She said I wore it too much!”

  “She said that she thought you wore it the last time she saw you!” His voice echoes through the cab of the SUV, thick with anger.

  I’m the first to admit I am not country club material. I don’t even want to be country club material. All those pastel Stepford clones. But everyone wants to be accepted, some to a higher degree than others.

  I finger the eyebrow piercing I got two years ago to spite my mom for moving me to a new town. A New Town. Again. The funny thing is that it barely fazed her. Like she expected it or something. Or worse: she wished she’d thought of it first; more concerned about the fact that, since I was underage, I let some filthy piercing establishment stick what could have been a previously-used, disease-infested needle to punch a hole in my head. Because if you’re going to ruin your body with ink and piercings at least find someone reputable to do it, right? We could have gotten a matching set. A two-for-one. The bar, though, is missing. I removed it at Carter’s. I thought it might make his parents like me.

  Tears sting the outer edges of my eyes, threatening to spill over to my cheeks. I gaze toward the ceiling, forcing them to disappear. “Exactly.”

  “So what? I don’t understand what your problem is!” He presses his foot deep into the accelerator, his steely gray eyes focusing on the road as he passes the car in front of us.

  “It’s what she implied.” I root around the depths of my purse, digging for a new pack of cigarettes to satisfy a want. I tear the plastic away and beat the flimsy, cardboard package against my thin wrist, then remove a cigarette and grab my lighter. It’s nearly depleted from over-use. I flick it with my thumb, light the cigarette, and inhale, feeling a wave of tranquility wash over me. The moment is fleeting. “Forget it. You wouldn’t understand,” I say, blowing smoke into the air between us.

  “You’re right. I don’t understand what you think my mom implied by saying she’d seen your shirt before. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s stupid.”

  The muscles in my stomach tighten in defense. “Because my feelings are stupid. I guess I’m not rich enough to have feelings. Maybe if I had a pool in my backyard you’d understand me better.”

  “Where do you get this shit from?” he asks, frustration coloring his tone.

  “You can let your mom know that we just can pay our rent this month, so if she plans on having me over for dinner anytime soon, then she’ll probably see this shirt again. She’ll have to forgive me, because it’s the nicest thing I own.”

  “That’s not what she meant,” Carter says, his shoulders relaxing. “She remembered that you liked it. That’s all.”

  He reaches his arm across the cab, stroking his fingers lightly on the bare skin of my neck. I jerk away, flinching. “None of you get it. I’m not like you. Every penny I make goes to help my mom pay the bills. I’ve got no money for college. I have one nice shirt to wear. Sucks to be me tonight, since everyone at this party probably remembers it from the last party we went to.”

  The problem with Carter, I realize, taking another long drag on the cigarette . . . is me. I am the only chink in the armor of his fantasy life. I am the glitch. I don’t have money. I don’t have nice clothes or expensive things. I’m not a debutante. I have nothing in common with his friends or the girls at the country club. I am no one.

  When I’m not with him, “dinner out” means the value menu via drive thru. If we can’t sneak leftovers from the restaurant during the slow season, Mom and I eat Ramen noodles in a bowl held over the sink, because she sold the kitchen table during one of our moves and never bought another one.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, voice softer. “You’re right. Sometimes I forget.”

  He apologized. I win. I should bite my words: force back the poison on the tip of my tongue. But instead of obeying that gut instinct to keep my darkest feelings woven tightly inside: “You forget what? That I’m not a trust fund brat like you and the rest of your friends?”

  His eyes narrow, confirming I hit a nerve. “That’s what you think we are?”

  “I don’t have to think. I know. You guys have your whole lives set up for you. Anything you want, all you have to do is ask. Daddy? I want a new car. Daddy? I need new clothes. Daddy? I want my friends to hang out at our mountain house for the week.”

  “Wait. Is that what this is about?” Carter asks. “You’re still jealous over spring break?”

  Selena invited everyone to spend the week at her parents’ mountain house, and I couldn’t go. It wasn’t the cost of food or gas money holding me back. It was timing. Spring break in South Marshall, a beach town, equates to business. I pulled double shifts. Mom and I both did. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. And at the end of the week, we had enough tip money to the pay bills left over from winter, when the town practically shut down. We had enough money for real groceries. The price was that I sent Carter off on break without me. Not that I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust them. Her.

  “I’m not jealous. I’m angry,” I clarify. “I’m angry because no matter what I do I’m never going to be good enough, and you’re never gonna understand.”

  “So what if I don’t understand you all the time? You’re not exactly the easiest person in the world to read. I shouldn’t have to apologize for that.”

  I lean forward and turn up the volume on the radio, drowning my sorrows in the strains of a guitar solo. A Friday night. My senior year. I should be happy. Happy I’m headed to a party with Carter Flemin
g, richest boy I’ve ever known, as his girlfriend.

  I glance over at him as he drives in silent anger, hands gripping the steering wheel, lips pressed in a firm line, jaw tight. He’s annoyed. And it’s all because of me. Because I will never be good enough for him. I am nothing but a pile of bones and flesh taking up space better used by someone who actually has something valuable to offer the world.

  “I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” I finally say. “You should take me home.”

  His expression shifts, the words stinging, like venom from my lips. “Wait. What?”

  I sigh. “Carter, we are two completely different people. It’s not going to work. It can’t. It’s a miracle we held on this long, actually.”

  His face pinches, voice softening. “Yeah, we’re different people, Gee, but that’s what makes us so great. That’s what makes you great.”

  “We have nothing in common,” I remind him.

  “Okay. So maybe dinner with my parents was a bad idea. What if we bail on this party and rent a movie or something? We can do something else. Anything. Just name it.”

  When I imagined our break-up, playing it scene by scene, over and over again in my head, I was moving on the assumption that Carter would do the dumping, and I would be the shivering, shell of a girl left behind. Me, alone, begging him not to go. I never thought it would end like this. That I would end it.

  “Carter, I . . .” But I don’t finish. I can’t. My eyes travel to the highway, the length of the headlights stretched out in front of us, just as a black object sprints across the road. “Carter! Watch out!” I brace myself, pushing my weight against the door, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough too late, and my entire body crashes, smashing into it as Carter turns a sharp left, veering out of the way. My skull cracks against the window.

  Metal crunches against metal in a sickening orchestra of shattered glass and twisting car parts. The entire world spins madly out of control in suspended motion. We’re falling. Falling. And then . . . nothing.

  My heart pounds wildly in my chest, breaths heavy in my ears, drowning out the rest of the world. My temples throb as the blood rushes to my head. We’re upside down. I grasp blindly, searching for the seatbelt. A sharp pain sears through my right hand as I tumble to the ceiling.

  “Genesis?” I hear Carter’s voice. “Shit. Genesis? Are you okay?” The words hang in the air between us, trembling and full of panic.

  I let out a choked sob and feel my way around the thick darkness, searching for the door handle. But nothing is where it should be.

  The door opens.

  Grappling for breaths, I crawl out on one hand and two knees into the cold, wet grass. A warm trickle of something snakes down the side of my head, cooling as it reaches the base of my neck. I brush my fingers across the thin rivers. When I pull them away, they’re covered in gooey, black sludge. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the tears as they bead across my lashes, and clutch my broken right arm close to my chest. My lungs burn as I suffocate on burnt rubber and cold, midnight air. No matter how hard I try, they won’t fill.

  I press my head against the rutted pavement, allowing the world to close in on me.

  This is what it feels like to die.

  Air circulates, moving through the trees, rustling branches and leaves. Above me, the stars twirl and swirl, spinning madly. I shut my eyes, dissolving into nothing.

  And then a voice. Soft and smooth. Almost a whisper.

  “It’s okay. Help is coming.”

  The sound is oddly comforting. Strange. Unfamiliar. And it pulls me back.

  A warm hand brushes the length of my jawline, gently sweeping the salty wetness away.

  “Don’t move, okay?”

  The voice is far-off, distant, like God Himself calling from across the universe. It’s okay. But he’s not God and he’s not far away. He’s right here. I can feel him.

  I push against my eyelids, straining to open them. The figure is a shadowy haze, blurry. His fingers intertwine with mine. His voice a low murmur: “You’re going to be fine, Genesis. I promise.”

  I let my eyes fall shut, floating, and allow the stranger with the voice to comfort me, believing every word, even as I slip into a deep, horrible nothing.

  TWO

  My eyes flutter, opening. I blink hard, focusing on the small, darkened room. Light seeps from the hallway. Monitors flash and beep every few seconds. I’m tethered to a stiff bed, surrounded by and hooked to tubes and wires. I want to sit up, but my body is heavy, leaden, my arm wrapped in a hard, white cast.

  I force myself to remember. Something rushing across the road. Squealing tires. Fractured glass. Carter. We were in an accident. I died.

  My heart pounds in my chest at the realization, registering in a rapid succession of beeps from one of the nearby machines.

  If I’m dead, why is my heart beating?

  A shadow appears in the doorway, obstructing the light, and a large black woman ambles into the room. I eye her carefully, watching as she shuffles around.

  “I know you’re still here,” the woman mumbles quietly as she re-stocks a cabinet. “What did I tell you? She’s fine. We’re taking good care of her.”

  “What?” My voice cracks beneath the word. My throat is scratchy and my mouth feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton balls and sucked dry. I work in vain to moisten my lips.

  The nurse stops and I know she’s looking at me, but her face is obscured and I can’t make out her features in the darkness. “Well, well. It’s good to see you awake, finally. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Genesis.”

  She moves to the doorway and grabs a chart from the hall. A sallow light spills into the room. “Do you know where you are?”

  “The hospital?”

  “Why you’re here?” There’s a smile in her voice. I can hear it.

  “There—there was an accident.” I pause for a moment. “Is Carter . . . ?”

  “Thought you might ask about him.” She licks her finger and flips through the pages of the file before looking up at me. “He’s fine. Just some scratches is all. We sent him home a few days ago.”

  A few days?

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Almost a week now.”

  Almost a week.

  My mom is going to kill me. Our boss at the restaurant—Ernie—he’s going to kill me. I’m going to lose my job and we aren’t going to be able to pay our rent. We’ll have to move. . . .

  “I’m gonna tell the night resident you’re awake. You sit tight, okay hon?”

  My thoughts continue to swirl. I was in an accident. I’m alive. Carter is okay.

  I lift my arm, examining the plaster encasing it. It’s heavy. I try to rotate my wrist, but it doesn’t budge. I wiggle my fingers. I will never, ever be able to carry a food tray with this thing.

  “It’s going to take some getting used to,” a voice says, as if reading my mind.

  A young doctor moves toward the bed. “Look straight ahead for me.” He lifts my eyelid and shines a bright light directly into one eye, and then the other. When he finishes, I can only see spots: two massive, luminous, yellow orbs floating midair, shrinking in size as they linger.

  “Do you know where you are?” he asks, scribbling something onto my chart.

  “I’ve already been through this,” I tell him.

  The nurse steps forward. “Knows her name, where she’s at, why she’s here. Has already asked for the boyfriend.”

  Boyfriend? No. We were fighting when. . . .

  “He’s, um, not really my boyfriend,” I mumble, trying to sort through the hazy details. “I don’t think. When can I go home?”

  The doctor exhales loudly. “We’d like to keep you here for a few more days to keep an eye on you. You hit your head pretty hard. We put you in a temporary coma to reduce swelling, so we definitely need to run some scans to make sure everything is okay.”

  “I’m fine,” I assure him.

  He s
naps the chart closed.

  “I know. In the meantime, though, we’re going to give you something to help you sleep. We can talk more tomorrow.”

  The nurse works around my IV. In a moment, my arms and legs are tingling; my eyelids grow heavy.

  “You get some rest now, you hear?” she says, her voice far away.

  I force my eyelids open, but already the darkness swallows me whole. I focus my empty gaze on the other side of the room. And briefly, just before I completely succumb to sleep, I see a shadow. Someone with me, watching.

  * * *

  “I swear, you have to get me out of here,” I beg.

  “It’s just for another day or two. They want to make absolutely sure you’re okay,” my mom explains.

  The majority of my morning was spent in radiology, where I underwent x-ray after x-ray and scan after scan. If there wasn’t anything going on before, there has to be something wrong with me now: all those lights and lasers penetrating the depths of my skull. If this is what they were subjecting me to while I was conscious, what the hell had they done to me while I was knocked out?

  “What about work?”

  “It’s fine. It’s picking up,” she assures me. “We’re fine. And Ernie can’t fire you—it’s unadvisable. At least, that’s what Mr. Fleming said.”

  “It’s . . . what? He wanted to fire me?” I sit up in bed—too quickly. My head spins.

  “Not technically, but he wanted to hire someone else. Mr. Fleming sent his lawyer over. It didn’t take too long for him to talk Ernie out of it.”

  “Wait a minute. Mr. Fleming? Carter’s dad sent his lawyer over to Ernie’s to tell him not to fire me?”

  Mom moves to the window and twists open the blinds, letting the midday sun spill into the room. The light bounces off the white walls until they seem to glow. “The Flemings are taking care of everything. Your job security. The hospital bills. Any kind of future visits or rehab you might need.”