Chapter 11
Truth
I hadn’t seen her in seven years. Unable to react, I stayed rooted to the spot and stared, my arms rigid at my sides.
All these years, I’d hoped and hoped for her return, so I’d given a lot of thought to what I would say when I saw her again. But now that she’d finally shown up, I seemed to have forgotten everything I’d rehearsed.
She looked no different—her diamond-shaped face was still thin and sharp with minimal makeup on—she’d never liked caking her face with powder—her long black hair was still curled and dyed brown, and her body still lean and curvy. Nothing had changed but, somehow, she just seemed so different...and strange...
“Averie?” Was her voice the same? “Is your dad home?”
Stiffly, I shook my head. I wasn’t sure if I could speak; something hard seemed to be lodged in my parched throat.
“Great,” she said with a sigh, clearly relieved. “I need to speak to you, honey. Can we talk in the house?”
It was a few moments before I nodded dumbly. It felt really weird looking at my mother now. It was like I didn’t know her. “Okay.” Turned out I could speak after all.
She tapped the gates. “You need to open these for me, dear,” she said with a small smile.
I pushed a switch on the wall next to the front door, and the gates swung slowly open. She walked in, and my body grew tenser with each step she took. She had no baggage with her, aside from a small tote bag. So she wasn’t planning on staying…
“I miss you so much, baby. I can’t believe how big you’ve grown!” She swept me into a big bear hug, squeezing me so tightly I had difficulty breathing.
“I can’t breathe,” I wheezed.
She snapped out of the embrace, holding my shoulders instead. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I muttered uneasily, standing very straight. She felt like a stranger to me.
“Let’s go to your room, okay?”
I nodded mechanically and headed upstairs with my mother. As we passed through the house to get to my room, she asked the obvious question, “Why is the house wrecked? Were you robbed? Is everyone all right?”
“It’s a long story,” I told her simply, my mouth feeling very dry.
“Tell me about it later?” she insisted, a worried look etched deeply on her face.
I nodded, even though I had no idea how to break the news of Dad’s complete breakdown.
She followed me into my room. “It’s pretty clean and neat in here,” she remarked, so casually I couldn’t stand it. Didn’t she feel awkward meeting me—as I did meeting her—after being apart for so many years?
Out of habit, I locked my bedroom door, and she asked, completely baffled, “Why do you have to lock the door?”
“To keep myself safe,” I said matter-of-factly. Her eyebrows pulled together tightly, so I said again, “It’s a long story.”
She sat down on my unmade bed. “Tell me. I have time to listen.”
“Before that, let’s talk about what’s brought you here, shall we?” I said in a sharp tone, clearly hurting her feelings, but I ignored the wounded look on her face. I wasn’t about to feel sorry for her just yet. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to forgive her for leaving me to fend for myself when I needed her most. Everything hung on her explanation.
After a brief moment of silence, she opened her mouth to speak, her gaze flitting anxiously around the room. “Well...I—” Her eyes suddenly fixed on something behind me.
“What’s that behind your door?” she asked agitatedly, leaping off my bed. She reached my door in a few steps and grabbed my uniform off its hanger. With a heavy frown, she read the school crest. “Black Gold! Why do you have Black Gold uniform in your room?”
“I’m not in the mood for games!” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest. “You were the one who got me to enrol in Black Gold.”
“Me? How did I get you to enrol in Black Gold?” she said in bewilderment. The puzzled expression on her face was driving me crazy.
I stomped to my bedside table and fumbled through its drawer’s content, pulling out the note she’d left on the doorstep just weeks ago. I shoved the note at her. “This isn’t funny at all.”
She took the note from me, looking at it as though she’d never seen it before. “This didn’t come from me, I swear. This is too scary.” She grimaced. “No way would I ask you to go to Albion Savant—he’s the one making our lives difficult!”
I stared at her blankly, too stunned to say anything. Who would’ve pulled such a lousy prank on me? It made no sense at all.
“Quickly pack some clothes, Averie. I need you to come with me. This place isn’t as safe as I thought, and there’s someone you have to meet.”
“Who?” I demanded, wanting to get to the bottom of things before we headed anywhere else.
“Someone important to both of us.”
“Gabriel?” I tried. “My real dad, Archangel Gabriel?”
“Huh?” blurted my mother in response, looking more confused by the minute. “What are you talking about?”
Well, it certainly seemed that the two of us were on very different pages here.
“Dad isn’t my biological father,” I explained impatiently, not bothering to tone down the annoyance in my voice. “My real father is Archangel Gabriel, or so I was told.”
“Who told you that?” she mused, her eyes trained unnervingly on mine.
“Sir Albion.”
She sighed suddenly, looking relieved. “It’s a blessing that man doesn’t know whose child you really are. So you know all about the archangels already?”
I sighed. “I don’t know if I know everything,” I said jadedly, “but I’ve found out a lot about them in recent weeks.”
“You’ve been completely misled, Averie. Gabriel isn’t your father, Lucifer is. Archangel Lucifer.”
Seized by shock, I collapsed onto my knees. Mum hurried over, bending down to help me up. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I told her weakly, feeling numb.
Please don’t let Lucifer be my father.
“I wouldn’t lie about that, sweetheart. Lucifer is your—”
I cut her off hastily, “Maybe there’s some kind of a mistake?”
“Why are you finding it so hard to believe?” she asked, a bemused expression on her face.
“He’s the bad guy!” I retorted, unable to believe I even had to explain this. “Nobody wants a bad guy for a father!”
“Lucifer isn’t the bad guy, Averie,” she said, frowning. “Don’t blindly believe everything people tell you. From what I understand, they might very well be turning you against your father to take him down.”
So he’d raped someone’s daughter-in-law for revenge, fathered a poor boy to take all the blame for his appalling crime, and he wasn’t a bad guy. It was just too convincing.
I stalked to my wardrobe, grabbed some clothes, emptied my backpack, and stuffed the clothes into it. Slinging it over my shoulder, I grabbed the passport Sir Albion had finally given back then turned to my mother and said, “Take me to Lucifer. I want to hear from him in person.”