To Be Obscure

| CH. 21

With Star and Nathan in the lead, Rosie walked by my side. She held my elbow, keeping me steady as the wind blew. The center of my midsection was soaked through with blood. I couldn't see much out of my left eye, but that wasn't what troubled me. The only pain that struck me down was that in the back of my head. There was a knot on the bottom of my skull, from when I'd landed. And it hurt.

"You trust her?" Rosie whispered as Star led us through the park and down the street. We walked past the peering eyes of the drunkards who'd left the bar, and those who'd finished their late-night shopping before the store closed their doors. Surprisingly enough, no one reached for their phones.

"She'll take us to Charlotte," I said with a sniff. "That's all I care about."

"Did you really kill her husband?"

I looked down at Rosie's face. She was serious, hurt, and torn—all the emotions I felt. Before I could answer, Star did. Her green eyes peered up at the sky.

"He did," she said, "and for a long time, I needed to kill him and get my revenge."

"Why didn't you?" Nathan asked as he pushed her forward. "You and Ron were so keen to do it. Even planned to use me as bait."

"I couldn't." She stopped and dropped her shoulders. With a shaky breath, she kicked at the dirt beneath her feet before looking at me with a faint glow in her eyes. "When I saw you that night at the bar, I knew I had my chance. I couldn't let them arrest you and figure you out, I needed to kill you. But you cried so hard, with such a broken heart, I just couldn't. I knew your pain, I felt it for years, and I don't know," she tried to smile, "I thought it'd be better to let you live forever with your own guilt than let you die"

A gust of wind ripped the leaves off their branches and onto our faces. The light of the moon brought glowed in all eyes but Nathan's. Star's lit the brightest. She sighed as she faced me fully, her bloody hands digging into the back pockets of her jeans. Strands of blonde hair moved over her face and for a moment, I saw the barista that captured my heart. The woman who'd listened to all my drunken stories; who'd held my hand when I needed it.

The same woman whose life was destroyed by my hands. Back in the days when I thought of nothing but Charlotte and myself. I only wished to give us the best life, and it didn't matter what mortal I destroyed along the way.

I just... I never thought they'd strike back, become immortal, like me.

"If you're wondering, I never talked to Charlotte down in the Evergreens. She's untouchable. I just—I didn't care. I only wanted to kill you, and I knew if I did, Charlotte would pay, too."

I rubbed the pink tears from my eye.

"I changed my hair, my face."

"Face?" Nathan squinted his eyes.

"Makeup works wonders. I honestly thought that's why you didn't remember me."

"I didn't recognize you, because I couldn't remember you," I said.

"I know," she said as she dropped the volume of her voice, looking down at the blood that stained her shoes. "I'd heard you couldn't remember. Word traveled through the church."

With a struggling breath, I pulled myself from Rosie's grasp and closed the space between Star and me. "The church knows about me?"

She smirked, snorted, just as a tear fell from her eye. "Everyone knows about the original five; the angels meant to take us into heaven. You were the people who received Lucifer's blessing when met with the eyes of death. Forever frozen, untouched by the hands of time. Without sin, without hate," she nearly sang the end of her words.