There was other muttering but the masses calmed themselves, sitting and standing along the staircase, their attention turning back to the council. Those that surrounded Alex returned to their positions. The last to leave Alex was the new Cormack. He eyed the angels around him one more time, his jaw set hard, and when he determined that no one was trying to attack Alex anymore, walked back into the tunnel.
Alex stood there alone, his wings glorious, his frame held high.
He looked like a leader.
“You, my boy,” the leader of the exalted started, turning his eyes on Alex. “Have caused a great deal of stir around here. The voices of most have been heard. Can you tell what is happening here lately?”
No wavering or hesitation in his voice Alex replied “The council is changing.”
“And do you understand what is wanted from you?”
This time Alex did hesitate, his eyes falling for just a moment before returning to the man’s face. “I am wanted to join you.”
The leader looked at Alex for a moment, a million judgments behind his eyes, and slowly nodded. “Most admire what you’ve done. They’ve seen what is inside of you. And they want you to lead them.”
Alex gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“I know the desire of your heart. You wish to return. We were generous in allowing you a bit more time back. Never have we granted a request like that before. But you possess no spark of life. It is elsewhere, and while you are dead you belong with us.”
Alex’s head dropped. I saw his shoulders slump just slightly.
It was hard to fight against the council’s wishes. It was like trying to fight against the gravitational pull of the moon.
“You would be foolish to not want what most are offering. While yes, being a council member requires passing judgment, your existence is fitting of what you have earned. Bliss, happiness, peace. Power. And you would give that away to go back to a world filled with pain, war, greed?”
“Yes,” Alex said, his voice a little too quiet. He lifted his head and fixed his hard eyes on them.
“See,” one of the black-eyed council hissed. “He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t even want it. He would not be able to perform his duty. Why give it to him? Place his judgment and get this over with.”
“You will not speak until it is requested of you,” Cole chimed in, turning eyes that could burn on him. He fell silent.
Now with attention back, the leader of the exalted continued. “You must understand that you cannot return in your state. You would not survive. We did not expect you to last half as long as you did.”
“I wasn’t feeling so great,” Alex said.
A small twinkle could be detected in the leader’s eye as he looked at Alex. “No, I don’t suppose you were.”
A few more scuffles broke out along the staircase. Fists flew and feather’s fluttered down toward the fiery depths. The council’s eyes darted to them.
“I said that’s enough!” Cole roared, power seeming to radiate from him. Again the cylinder fell still.
“Alex Wright,” the blue-eyed leader said. Every eye settled on Alex. “The deeds of your life have been accounted for and judgment will be passed. Your actions must be made known.”
“No!” I screamed with a scream that made my chest feel raw. My legs were sprinting as I pushed my way up the staircase. Angels looked at me alarmed, dodging to get out of my way as I barreled up. As soon as I knew I could reach it, I leapt off the staircase and landed on my hands and knees on the catwalk.
“No,” I said again, looking up into the eyes of the council. It felt like a fire had been lit in my chest giving me bravery I never knew I had. “You cannot take him.”
“Jessica!” both Cole and Alex said at the same time. A primal hiss escaped Jeremiah’s chest.
I met Alex’s eyes, rising slowly from the ground. Something inside of me twisted, like my stomach and my lungs were trying to mesh together.
“Jessica,” he said again, his eyes looking desperate. “This wasn’t the plan. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you,” I said, crossing the space between us and intertwining my fingers with his.
“What is she doing here?” a black-eyed council woman hissed. “She should not be here. She is not even dead.”
“No,” the leader of the exalted said. “She shouldn’t be here. What are you doing in the land of the dead child?”
I swallowed hard, my fury only rising at being called a child. “I won’t let him be taken,” I said, my voice firm. “It is my fault he is here. It wasn’t meant to be his time.”
“You understand that he cannot go back,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “His life is gone.”
“I know,” I said with a nod. Until then I hadn’t fully accepted that cold hard fact. Alex couldn’t go back and be dead. He wouldn’t survive.
But something stirred within me. There had been something that I had been missing all this time.
The trade.
Alex had given his life to me.
A small, satisfied smile started to curl in the corner of my lips.
…the only advantage you have against them to save him…
“He can have it back,” I said, too quiet for anyone but Alex to hear. He looked over at me, his brow knitted together.
“Jessica,” he breathed, panic rising in his eyes. “No.”
Keeping his eyes, I said, “I have to. There’s no other way. They want you too much.” I turned to the council before us. “Alex gave his life for me. That was the trade, his life for mine. I can’t have it anymore. It isn’t mine. I wish to return it and you have to send him back. If he has life in him you can’t take him.”
The cylinder was silent for one moment, everyone, including me, trying to process the possibility of my words.
Before anyone even breathed a word or twitched a finger, Cole leapt from his seat with a powerful beat of his wings. He landed on the catwalk in front of me, his eyes boring into mine. But before I could even process the hard but proud expression on his face, Cole thrust his hand into my chest.
The air caught in my throat as I nearly collapsed in on myself. Cole’s hand was buried in my chest up to his wrist. And as quick as he had driven it there, he pulled it out.
Everything within me felt like it was being ripped in half as Cole pulled out. As if my very soul were being ripped apart, layer by layer.
As I collapsed to my knees, I saw the small white orb Cole held in his hand. He looked at it for half a moment, as if this was indeed something rare, something that even he had never seen before.
And before Alex could even cry in protest, Cole shoved his hand into Alex’s chest in the same fashion. Alex collapsed in on himself in much the same way I had, crying out in pain. As he dropped to his knees, Cole’s hand retracting, his wings started quivering, re-solidifying and disappearing.
Moments later there was nothing left of them.
“Alex,” I breathed, everything inside of me feeling like it had been turned into a bloody, pulverized mess.
Just as Alex started to lift his head up to meet my eyes, Cole shoved Alex off of the catwalk. A scream ripped from my throat as I searched over the edge for him. I caught one short glimpse of the bottoms of his feet before he disappeared.
My head both spun and pounded as I let myself fall to my stomach on the cold stone. My limbs cried out in agony. It felt as if my brain had caught fire. Everything inside of me wrenched and seemed to stop.
This was what death had felt like before.
Death was where I was at again.
I rolled onto my side, back toward the council. I felt a pair of hands help me to sit up, and barely managed to lift my head to look into Cole’s black eyes.
“Thank you,” I muttered, my eyes losing their focus. The thudding in my chest came in sporadic, painful beats.
The next moment Cole was gone, landing silently back in his seat.
“That…” the leader of the exalted sai
d through clenched teeth. “That may have been the final nail in your coffin my brother. This judgment may well be your last.”
With those words, the afterlife finally erupted.
“How is that possible!”
“What just happened?”
“He’s just back?!”
“Brand her!!”
The screams were maddening. My head pulsed and throbbed. Something in my chest felt like it was going to explode.
Through the haze of pain and blackness that tried to overtake me, I saw Cole pinning Jeremiah to his seat. Jeremiah’s eyes were maddened as he looked at me. He fought with everything in him to get passed Cole and at me.
“Silence!” the leader of the exalted bellowed. All did as he commanded. Jeremiah’s cold eyes turned to Cole for a moment, and finally he slumped back into his seat.
The blue-eyed leader turned his cold-as-ice eyes on me. He seemed contemplative for a moment but my foggy brain couldn’t seem to care what he wanted to do with me now.
Pain was all I could comprehend.
The thudding in my chest stopped.
I wasn’t sure if it started up again.
Was this how it felt to be dead?
“Jessica Wright,” he said, his voice hard. “The deeds of your life have been accounted for and judgment will be passed. Your actions must be made known.”
I felt the nervous excitement that picked up from both sides. Wild whoops and cries echoed off the stone walls.
“You’re deeds will now be revealed.”
I couldn’t even focus on the two scrolls that were produced. My head hung from my shoulders, struggling to keep upright. That beating in my chest started again just once, and then stalled again, sending my entire body into panic.
I could have sworn all the blood in my body rushed up into my throat, threatening to suffocate me.
But there it was again, a dull thud beneath my rib cage.
It took me a moment to realize the words the man before me was speaking words that made up my entire being.
They say before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Mine was being read aloud, for all to hear.
Calling my sister a bad word.
Helping my mother in her garden.
Thinking horrible thoughts about the girls who taunted me at school.
Sitting with my grandma and helping her around her house.
Abandoning my family.
Learning about Sal and taking care of her.
Having lustful thoughts about Alex.
Rescuing that woman from the burning SUV.
Defying the council.
My entire life was laid out for everyone to hear. Cormack’s words echoed in my foggy head. The deeds of your life may only be read once but no one ever forgets or lets ya forget what you’ve done.
What felt like a lifetime later, which in a way it was, they read the last of the lists. Everyone was still and silent as I continued to lie there in death and agony.
I knew what came next. The part that had always echoed how unjust my previous presence there had been.
Sentencing.
The exalted leader sat there for a long time, thoughts and decisions rolling behind his eyes.
“I think now it is time to let our second new council member place her first judgment,” he finally said. Something in my chest felt like it had been quickly yanked in a different direction. This was unexpected.
One of the blue-eyed men looked at the leader with hate and betrayal in his eyes. “You think now is an appropriate time to replace me?”
“I think now is a perfect time to implement the switch,” the leader said patiently.
Not waiting to be told a second time, the man spread his wings and took his place along the staircase with the others.
“Will our new exalted council member please join us?”
From a place high above me, I caught the sight of a set of wings flapping. A figure slowly made their way down, and ever so gently, settled into the empty seat, alongside the other council members.
“Sal,” I breathed.
“Hello Jessica,” she said with a smile. Her face was flawless, the tiredness and fear she constantly held had washed away. She looked glorious and perfect. And her eyes were bluer than summer sky.
“Judgment will now be placed,” the leader said, the faintest hint of a smile crossing his face. And taking one more contemplative moment, he breathed, “Up.”
Something in my chest relaxed, just a tiny fraction. Meanwhile my head continued to spin. I wanted to throw up. My hands gripped the stone beneath me, clinging to anything I could to keep me from spinning right off the walkway.
The woman sitting next to the leader considered for a long while, watching my face. “Up,” she finally said.
“Up,” Sal said without hesitation.
The next man looked at me with malice in his eyes. I knew what his answer was going to be before he parted his lips. “Down.”
It felt as if my entire frame sank again. Any hope still left in me started to smother itself.
The last blue eyed man looked at me, his face looking torn. We sat there for nearly a full minute before he spoke. “Up.”
The first of the condemned sentenced. “Down.”
The next woman passed her judgment. “Down.”
Another “Down.”
Finally it came to Jeremiah. He had been silent throughout this entire nightmare that was now reality. His black eyes bored into me and if possible, I would have burst into flames. “Down.”
Everyone seemed to take an intake of breath all at once and the cylinder fell still as all eyes settled on Cole.
This was it. All that was needed was Cole’s vote to bring me under his rule.
My offer still stands.
I was going to be receiving my own brand in just a moment.
But when Cole’s eyes met mine, I felt nothing but calm inside. Something else grew in my chest. Something that felt like hope, or anticipation, or just plain stupidity.
“Up.”
Everything within me felt like it disappeared.
No one moved or said anything.
Never before had there been a tie. No one’s judgment had ever been split right down the middle.
I had not even considered that Cole would send me above, for this fact.
What was to be done in a tie?
“What…” one of the blue-eyed’s stuttered. “What do we do now?”
They all looked to the blue-eyed leader for direction. And he just sat there, staring at me.
“We let them decide,” Cole broke the silence. His hand indicated those along the staircase. “Let those who want her take her.”
Something jumped into my throat as my insides came back to me. Something tingled in my toes and fingertips. Something flickered to life in the back of my mind.
The council looked between each other, each as unsure of what to do as the next. Slowly, they all nodded their heads.
“It comes to all of you,” the exalted leader said, his voice so unsure. “You all have watched us make tens of thousands of judgments. Now it is your turn to decide this woman’s fate.”
Only silence reacted.
I gathered what little strength I had then and lifted myself up to my feet. I looked around the cylinder, meeting their faces. Some smiled back at me knowingly, others listened as whispers started frantically sweeping around the staircase. Others looked at me darkly, but they nodded their heads as my eyes met theirs.
“Claim her!” Jeremiah screamed.
And still no one moved. The cylinder was deathly quiet, the only sound coming from the rustle of feathers.
I closed my eyes as my head spun more, the ground beneath me seeming to tip and sway. Pulses of pain pushed their way through my brain.
“What do we do now?” a blue-eyed woman half whispered to the leader. He just shook his head, his eyes wider than normal, at a total loss as to what to do with me.
Again the beat in my chest stalled a
nd painfully restarted.
Cole coiled his wings once more, launching himself across the space to me. He landed just a foot away, his nose so close to mine.
“I told you to use their mistake against them,” he whispered so only I could hear.
“You knew this would happen?” I breathed, my brow furrowing.
“Not exactly,” a smile cracked in the corner of his lips as he studied my eyes. “But I knew you would find the answer.”
And making me jump a little, Cole placed his hot hand on my chest. His grin spread all the more on his face. His eyes danced as he looked at me. Turning back to the council, he didn’t take his hand from my chest.
“Her heart still beats,” he said loudly and clear. “This woman is not dead.”
Again there was a cylinder-wide gasp, followed by loud chatter.
“Of course she’s dead,” one of the black-eyed council members shouted. “We’ve just judged her!”
Cole shook his head, the grin spreading on one side of his mouth. “I can feel it beating inside of her. It’s not strong,” he said as he looked back at me. “And it wants to stop. It’s just like it was before he made the trade.”
It should have been obvious, but I hadn’t pieced it all together until then. With Alex’s life given back to him I was back to the same state I’d been in before the trade. I was sick. Sick and on the edge of death. Again.
But I wasn’t dead yet .
“Send her back,” Cole said, turning back to the council, dropping his hand from my chest. “She cannot be here if she isn’t dead. Let her live out the rest of her human life. In her condition it won’t be long. We can figure out what to do with her when she can join us for real.”
“No!” three of the council screamed. Jeremiah leapt from his seat, his hands already outstretched, ready to choke the remaining life out of me.
Cole’s fist connected with Jeremiah’s face with a crack that echoed off the walls. Jeremiah collapsed to the catwalk. Cole stood above him, and grabbing him by the very flesh of his chest, Cole picked him up and threw him across the cylinder back toward his seat. With a demonic cry, Jeremiah caught himself in the air with a powerful beat of his wings.