Chapter 5 - Breaking Every Rule

Marina

I search through the drawers, frantically looking for something, fucking anything to help my situation. My heart rate is through the roof. I’ve done nothing as crucial as saving someone’s life before, neither have I broken any rules, and now, I’m about to do both.

With shaking hands, I grab a package of matches and turn my head to stare at my reflection in the mirror. I’m still wearing my wedding dress, but my facial expression looks different. The person looking back at me isn’t sad or gloomy; she seems determined.

“Marina?” My father enters my tent. “What are you looking for?!”

“Nothing,” I clench my fist, hiding the package with matches from his suspicious eyes. He would stop me if I told him I’m about to save an angel. “I had a pleasant talk with my mother, and now I’m planning on heading to the store,”

My father stares at me. “In your mother’s wedding dress?!”

I plaster a smile on my face. “Yes, so if you would excuse me-...”

I steer past him, keeping the smile on my face even as he stares at me. He must think teenagers are the weirdest creatures to wander this earth. His facial expression makes it hard not to laugh at him. Strange how I somehow sneak past him without blowing my cover.

“The dress will get dirty...” My father mumbles.

“Mum said I could wear it,” I’m lying. I didn’t have time to change clothes, not that my father needs to know that.

My father shrugs and opens the fridge. A second later, he is holding a cold beer in his enormous paws. He opens it while muttering to himself. “Teenagers...”

Smiling, I run out of the tent. It’s sad to think about, but I don’t think my father will like me very much after tonight. Not after he has found out, his daughter burned the old train station down to the ground. It’s the only building in our town, and I plan on setting it on fire to create a diversion for when I’m freeing John.

With my mind set up, I run down to the street. It doesn’t take long to reach the old building, and when I go for a matchstick, my hands are already trembling.

Memories of me playing around the train station with Jenny float up to the surface. We used to play hide and seek here. I can hear her laughing voice inside my head, and for a moment, I hesitate.

Maybe I shouldn’t do this?

My heart picks up speed as time seems to slow around me. Goosebumps rise on my arms as my hands light a matchstick. If I don’t do it now, I won’t ever get a second chance. John’s life is on the line.

I close my eyes and then throw the matchstick on the flyers on the ground. They have been there forever, old advertising from the beginning of time. It doesn’t take long for the papers to burn, and then slowly but surely, the flames spread to the wooden building.

The process probably took longer than a few minutes, but I think so hard time seems to pass by faster.

Life won’t be the same after today. The men from the army will probably throw me in jail, and my father might disown me, but none of that is essential. I need to remind myself that I’m doing this for a good cause.

Suddenly the fire brows big and robust, like an awakened phoenix, and as I study the flames, an inner voice tells me the time to run has come.

Without thinking, I race down the street. People are already yelling at each other, panicking once they see the burning building.

I ignore them and run as fast as my legs can carry me. My muscles quake from the sudden stretch, and fear awakens a storm within my chest. The future frightens me, but I’m confident of my mission.

Panting, I set my eyes on John. He isn’t moving, but his head slightly lifts from the ground when he hears me approaching him. They have covered his entire face now.

“It’s me,” I whisper as I bend down to take out our kitchen knife from my shoe. I figured my pocket-knife wouldn’t be enough, so I brought big Bertha. “I’m here to free you,”

Once I’m done removing the cloth from his face, John furrows his eyebrows at me. I don’t have time to look at him. I’m busy trying to cut the rope from his wings.

“Shouldn’t you be helping the others to extinguish that fire?”

I glance at the angel, smiling once I catch his concerned expression. He glues his eyes on the smoke welling up from the old train station.

“No,” I tell him, unable to resist the urge to smile. “I was the one who sat that building on fire,”

John gasps, his face turning pale. “What?”

I laugh. “I needed a diversion,”

John says nothing else. He silently stares at the flames; meanwhile, I’m leaning against his feathered wings, surprised at how soft it feels beneath my hands. I could easily use his feathers to create the softest pillows in my town.

“Why are you squeezing my wing with that creepy look on your face?”

Dumbfounded, I return to what I was doing. My blade cuts through the first rope before I attempt to cut the other. “Don’t judge me, kiddo. I’m here trying to free you,”

“Won’t you get punished for it?”

“I will, but I don’t really care,” I smile at the confusion seeping into John’s features as he hears my words. Why does he look so guilty? “Those savages over there were planning on burning you tonight,”

John follows my gaze as I nod at the people trying to quench the flames. His lips twitch, and I jump in fright when he pushes himself from the ground. I never even got to work on the chains around his arms, but it seems he has no problem moving even with them there.

The large angel yawns and stretches his wings, tilting his head once he catches me backing away from him with cautious eyes.

“Aww,” John smiles wickedly. “Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?” I question with suspicion circling my mind. I don’t trust his eyes, neither do I like the growing smile on his lips. He is towering above me now, suddenly appearing a hundred times more intimidating.

John laughs. “Like we aren’t friends!”

A shriek escapes my lips when the large boy parks his hands on either side of my waist. Panic surges through me like lightning, and when he lifts me from the ground, I scream. There is no telling what evil plans he got in store for me!

“No, no, no!” I desperately kick with my legs. “What are you doing?!”

John inhales and hugs me to him, brushing his cheek against mine like a cat tenderly rubbing against its owner. The action is sweet, yet so very humiliating. I feel like a child in his arms, and it gets even worse when my heart explodes within me.

“Thank you so much for freeing me, Marina,”

His words make every hair stand on edge on my body, and I hold my breath, suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm and bothered.

“Please put me down,” I beg.

John catches my gaze. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

I nod with the most embarrassing blush covering my face. Suddenly I’m incredibly self-conscious.

John sighs. “I’m sorry,”

I look at him and feel many goosebumps run down my back when I find his blue eyes. The color reminds me of what my mother said about letting him drink some of my blood. His arms are still in chains, but maybe I could help free him if I let him taste me...

“No problem, kiddo,” I try to sound confident, but my voice cracks at the end, and guilt pierce John’s features.

“You’re afraid of me...” His words are a statement, not a question.

“Mmm,” I hum, too shaken up to utter a proper spoken word.

John slumps his shoulders, and his eyes seem to grow kinder. Even the smile on his face turns softer as if he doesn’t want to upset me further.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” His voice is gentle.

I inhale and dare to meet his eyes with a smile. I’m ridiculous, I know that, but his size combined with his glowing eyes is downright frightening. Every nerve, every bone-deep instinct, tells me to run, reminding me of him being a predator. And yet here I am, hugged to his warm skin as if our differences don’t matter.

“I know,” Finally I’m able to speak. “You’re just different, and do you... Do you want my blood? My mother said it might help with... Escaping...”

John blinks at me with lifted eyebrows. I want to punch myself in the face, preferably with a boxing glove, to get a confirmed blackout. My words were hardly understandable, and the amused smile spreading on John’s lips mortifies me.

“No,” He is trying not to smile but failing. “I don’t need your blood. These chains are tough, but once I’m outside this mountain, I’m certain I can destroy them without drinking your blood,”

“Oh,” Why am I feeling disappointed?

John laughs. “I’m not rejecting you or anything. I just don’t want to grow addicted. There are way too many blood junkies among my kind,”

I look up at him, suddenly turning shy under his gaze. “I see...”

John tightens his grip around me and gets up on his feet. My body is awkwardly curled up into a cheese doodle in his arms, and I’m super conscious about my cheek pressing into his naked chest as he walks forward.

“And I’m not kidnapping you or anything. I just thought we could chat a little as I try to navigate out from here,”

I smile and point to my right. “The entrance is on your right. You’re walking in the wrong direction,”

Chuckles erupt from above me. “I definitely knew where I was going. I only wanted to test you!”

I roll my eyes. “Sure,”

John silently makes his way to the entrance while my heart pounds heavily in my chest. It’s strange thinking about how we aren’t the same species, yet I already know I’m going to miss bantering with him.

“So,” I clear my throat and smile sheepishly when John looks down at me. His eyes seem to be silently waiting for me to speak. “What are your plans once you get out of here?”

John’s eyes flicker away from mine. “I don’t know yet,”

I lift an eyebrow. “Weren’t you going to marry my sister?”

“Is that what you want?”

I study his face, taken by the mute intelligence living within his eyes. It seems the kiddo read my thoughts before I even got to explore them myself. I don’t know if we are mates, but I want to find out. And if we are mates, then I wouldn’t like him to marry someone else. Or maybe I do? I mean, we are opposites of each other; he is an angel, I’m a human, it wouldn’t work between us.

“I don’t know yet,” I tell him earnestly. “My mother told me I wouldn’t be able to understand your language unless-...” I hesitate, afraid of sounding mad. This might not be something John wants to hear. He might wish for another partner, someone powerful.

“I know exactly what it means,” John says, and smiles at me.

“You do?” I stare at him.

John nods with a slight blush spreading between his cheeks. “I do, and so I’ve come up with a plan, but it might be stupid...”

“Tell me,”

John glances away from me. “How about I don’t head back to the city of angels? I could take a detour and study other places for three years, and then I could return to this place on the day I turn eighteen. And while I know humans and angels don’t willingly get into romantic relationships, we might find out that we are...”

I meet his shy eyes and suck in a deep breath. “Mates,”