Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Gabriel licked his lips with a frown. “We could burn him. There’s a furnace in the cellar.”
Abaddon chuckled and let go of Gabriel, pulling off his T-shirt to avoid getting it yet more dirty during the much-needed clean-up. “Once I ascend, I will make sure you are rewarded.”
Gabriel stared at him from chin to belt. “Of course my imaginary angel is insanely ripped. Makes sense, Gab, why not go all out while you’re at it,” he mumbled and scooted down, crawling to the scattered produce.
So he didn’t yet believe. But he would. In the meantime, there was no need to push the fragile human mind beyond capacity.
3
GABRIEL
For a psychotic delusion, Mr. Watson’s body had been surprisingly heavy and cumbersome to transport. And Gabriel’s imaginary angel needed help with it, as if he weren’t much stronger than the average man.
The fire shining through the grate of the massive furnace illuminated Abaddon’s tanned body as if he were a demon watching sinners burn somewhere in Hell. Now that Gabriel’s panic levels dropped, he appreciated his sick brain for making this so appropriate. After all, in the elaborate delusions he’d suffered in childhood, the cook had tortured him with fire, so this brand new hallucination included an element of poetic justice. An eye for an eye. Fire for fire.
Gabriel should have been terrified that missing a single dose of his meds had such a catastrophic effect on his sanity, but he found himself going with whatever his imagination produced. Nothing ever happened in his life, so maybe this was his mind’s way of adding some color, even if bloody, to an existence of routine and limited freedom? What was the harm in following through with this a bit longer, if he still had the awareness of Abaddon not being real?
With his heart pounding like a massive drum, Gabriel peeked at the ‘angel’ whose sleek dark hair shone in the glow of the flames. Throughout the tedious and gruesome cleaning process, Gabriel had plenty of opportunities to admire him, but what was the harm in being more obvious about it if he wasn’t real anyway? The tattoos covering Abaddon’s chiseled body, seemed like a cacophony at first glance but had a rhythm and pattern.
Symbolic eyes stared back at Gabriel from Abaddon’s arms, chest, neck, one reaching even onto his chin, all placed on bands of ink circling his arms, neck, and torso. On his back were two sets of black wings. One pair, made of feathers, reached from the top of his shoulder blades onto his arms and seemed to extend when the limbs moved. The second—a bat-like set with claws, folded on his back and was large enough to disappear under his pants.
Gabriel’s body erupted with invisible sparks every time Abaddon stood close or brushed against him. There was such an ease to their touch, as if Gabriel hadn’t been wary of any and all physical contact since his psychotic episode in childhood. But the angel wasn’t really here, and even that heart-squeezing kiss to his head had felt like a celestial gesture. Like the angel was calming a kitten, not making a move on a man. It was only Gabriel’s own flesh-bound existence that made it inappropriate.
But what Abaddon didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Then again, he had known what happened to Gabriel in the past, so maybe he was also capable of mind-reading?
Of course he does, since he’s a figment of your imagination, Gabriel’s logic offered, but there was just one way to find out if this hallucination was separate from him.
“What am I thinking?” Gabriel asked, turning to Abaddon’s handsome profile.
The fire cast long shadows on the angular face and made the angel’s gray eyes golden when he faced Gabriel with a somber expression.
“If I were to guess, I’d think you’re relieved to see him gone.”
While correct, it was a guess. “I… sometimes have violent fantasies about the people who hurt me.” Only that they hadn’t really touched him and he’d imagined it all. “Did he do this to you before I came?” Gabriel pointed out a large bruise on Abaddon’s side.
Abaddon frowned and twisted his muscular body to see the blot of dark colors marking his ribs. “No... it was already there when I crawled out of the ground.” His lips set into a line, and he absent-mindedly rolled in his fingers a small cross hanging from his neck on a leather strap.
"Does it hurt? Do you feel pain?" Gabriel asked and ran his knuckles over the bruise. They both smelled of the bleach used to clean the kitchen, but the scent from the furnace was becoming more pronounced, and Gabriel shuddered, realizing it might be the human body roasting behind the grate.
“Hit it,” Abaddon said, raising his arm to expose the blot on his side. And as if the tattoos reaching the skin around his face weren’t unnerving enough, he closed his eyes to reveal a second set inked on the delicate lids to watch Gabriel even when the angel didn’t look at him.