1. Rebellion
"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being." ― Albert Camus
Annabeth
I watched the sun disappear behind the skyline in the distance. I'd been standing there for some time, perhaps several hours; certainly the sun had moved from a bright burning ball high in the atmosphere to a watery red residue over the sky behind the far away city. I was vaguely aware of the door opening behind me but I didn't turn round; there was only one person who would walk in here without knocking first. I knew the reason he was here, invading my personal space, and quite frankly I didn't want to have that conversation right now. Only because, deep down, I knew when it came down to it I didn't have a leg to stand on. I'd broken the rules, rebelled against the carefully constructed life that had been created for us behind these stone walls. No, I had no excuse for that so instead it was easier to stare out at the dying red embers of the sunset glowing behind the brick buildings of the sleepy town. I listened to the quiet foot falls of Caleb's feet as he headed towards my bed. He had been trained since he could walk in the art of stealth and hunting: it was only because I'd had the exact same training that I heard anything at all. I waited with baited breath for his tirade but it didn't come. He was playing the waiting game. Well two could play and there were hours left before the darkness fell with such ferocity that I'd be blind to the outside world. Hell, I'd even stare into the darkness if it meant Caleb was the first to speak.
"You missed training today." I bit down on the inside of my cheek to stem the smirk that was trying to form at winning the silent game.
"Since I still have all my faculties I really don't need an itinerary of my own day." I snapped back with undue force but turned to face Caleb who had made himself comfortable spread across my bed; his long legs swung backwards and forwards as he waited patiently for me to get out of whatever funk I was in and open up to him about what the hell was up. We'd known each other for as long as I could remember but that wasn't unusual or particularly special since everyone here had known everyone for as long as they could remember. No one new ever came into the house, hadn't for years. The only people who entered or exited were Metatron and his cohorts. I sometimes wondered why no one else found this strange. Why was I the only one who longed for more than the compound and training for a war and revenge that I had no interest in? Caleb, perhaps, understood me a bit better than the rest of our ragtag family but I knew he still found me an enigma at times. His gray eyes met mine and raised one pale eyebrow to silently ask his true question "why?" but I didn't, couldn't, answer, just picked at some grime under my nails while I tried to figure out quite what to say apart from the snarky response I'd give anyone else. Caleb would never accept it.
"Annie." He whined, trying to repress a smirk as he waited for me to explode over the nickname. The one thing always guaranteed a reaction from his stoical best friend. I knew his game but I played along anyway. There was something soothing in the routine.
"Don't you dare call me that. My name is ANNABETH. Anna is acceptable and even bitch works on occasion but never Annie." I playfully shook my head at his dirty tactics; he knew I had always had a strange aversion to Annie, even when we were tiny children toddling along and everyone thought it was a cute little nick name. Perhaps that was why: cute had never quite fit my personality. Not that Caleb could talk; he had the brooding looks of someone a human would cross the streets to avoid. If they ever got the chance to see him. His dark grey eyes sparkled in humour as I sat on the end of the bed and whacked him across the leg none too gently.
"It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea that a maiden there whom you might know by the name of Annabelle Le-eek!" He yelped as I lunged at him, arms outstretched to playfully gank him for the joke. He fought back, his arms trying to get under my defences, I knew he was going for the spaces between my ribs. My one weakness. We ended up giggling hysterically with a flail of limbs and gnashing teeth. Once we stopped to get our breath back I realised Caleb was on top of me, his face inches from mine and his warm breath brushed against my lips. For a split second I thought he might lean down those final few centimetres and place his lips on mine. Break the rules. For several more seconds neither of us moved. We stared at one another, like one of our childish staring contests we used to have. He opened his mouth, his head ducking down towards mine. My eyes fluttered shut and I waited to feel his lips on mine. My first kiss. However, instead of his chapped lips on mine, my entire body became lighter. Startled, I opened my eyes to find Caleb sitting up on the bed, still gasping slightly from their energetic tumble as he pushed his wild dirty blonde hair out of his eyes. I sat up, pushing my hair back into a loose bunch and trying to look as nonchalant as possible.
"So why didn't you come?"
"Didn't want to. It just seemed… pointless." I shrugged with false nonchalance, lounging back on the pillows next to him on the bed, if I was honest with myself I wasn't quite sure why I had felt like rebelling against the accepted regime today but I had. Yet another reason why I was so different to everyone else here. Everyone else, at least on the outside, seemed perfectly content with the strange life they had built. The regime, the routine was their lives and they never questioned it. But I had always longed for more. I could spend hours gazing longingly out the bedroom window at the street below; watching the comings and goings of the oblivious humans. They didn't even notice the Cathedral sized building housing a couple of dozen Nephilim. But they got to come and go. To see the wide world. To dive into the blue sparkling sea that was just visible from the top spire in their home. The children of the angels never left the Abbey; they trained and studied and prepared for the war Metatron had promised them. I wanted more; I felt a burning desire inside me to go out into the wide world and find my family. Metatron had sworn that our angelic parents had made the ultimate sacrifice and given us up willingly to create the perfect army. It was for the greater good. A boarding school without end. But maybe if my Mother or Father saw me they'd change their mind and take me back. It was a foolish, childish dream that I was sure we had all shared at some point in our lives: I just still had it.
"They'll be angry, Anna. They'll..."
"Can we drop it? I'll go to the next one." I whispered, fear seeping into my voice at the prospect of our superiors' views on my disappearance. I was never really one to think ahead, I hadn't spent hours contemplating what they would do to me like Caleb would. I hadn't wanted to go so I hadn't.
"So are you going to eat dinner or are you continuing with your little rebellion and going on a hunger strike too?" Caleb smirked coyly and braced himself for the sharp thwack he knew I would provide. Annoying he always knew the best way to make me smile. Needless to say I grabbed a pillow and smashed it into the back of his head.
"I need strength for my little rebellion so dinner is surely a necessity." I smirked before standing up and finding my black boots scattered under the writing desk. I'd recently waxed them and the black leather shone in the evening dusk. At least I wouldn't get told off for scruffy clothing; there wasn't so much a uniform at the Abbey but everyone wore similar black utilitarian clothing. And they always had to be clean and orderly. Slipping my boots on over my black jeans I grabbed my leather jacket and headed out; taking for granted the fact that Caleb would be on my heels like a loyal puppy dog.
The Abbey was what most people would expect from an abandoned Nunnery: large, cold and unfriendly. Despite the fact I'd lived there since I was born I never thought of it as home. It was more like a prison. The dining room, however, was full of laughter and bubbly conversation as we entered. There were perhaps thirty angelic children sat around two long wooden tables in the centre of the room. Off to the side, beside the door into the kitchen was a line of counters where meals were being lined up as they came through the hatch in the wall. The Abbey had a rotary system for everything: who cooked, cleaned the rooms, cleaned the weapons, wrote up reports. Everyone did their fair share to make the community self-sufficient. Now we were older the handful of angels who oversaw us were starting to take a back seat; the five angels had taught us everything from how to walk to how to hunt demons but now we were starting to take over. They were readying us for the long awaited war that had been fabled for years but never really expanded upon.
I grasped for Caleb's hand before heading for the food. It smelt good, it never smelt that nice when Caleb and I were cooking. Thankfully for everyone we were currently charged with cleaning the weapons which we excelled at. Any old human could cook something delicious but really how many could make a gun that could kill angels? I sniffed the steaming plate; trying to work out whether it was lamb or pork mince on the spaghetti, earning an annoyed glare from Clarice, a short blonde haired girl who was currently floating plates through the hatch and over to the table. Show off. Clarice and I had never really hit it off, especially after an unfortunate incident when testing out a new weapon I'd created, I might have managed to accidently singe off Clarice's eyebrow. Perfect shot.
"Just put the damn food in your mouth and sit the hell down." She snarled making me smirk before following Clarice's advice and heading for our usual table. I usually sat on the table closest to the door with Caleb and was glad to see my favourite seat at the very end of the table was free. Caleb had already taken the seat beside mine and was making fast work of his dinner. I'd never met anyone else who could demolish an entire plate of food, minus the peas which he beautifully christened devil's spawn, in under two minutes in my life. Sometimes I wondered if he even chewed or just swallowed it all whole. Needless to say by the time I sat down and ate my first forkful he had finished and was gulping down a glass of milk in one go.
"I'm not sure whether to be impressed of utterly disgusted." I wrinkled my nose in his direction, only to have Caleb childishly stick his food covered tongue out. "Well that decided it. You're disgusting." He chortled but his laughter died on his lips as his eyes focused on something above my head. My blood congealed in my veins. It was time then. I took a deep breath, knowing exactly what was about to happen, but I didn't turn round knowing that acting normal would be the best way to get through this.
"Annabeth I'm so glad to see you looking well. I thought something awful must have happened for you to miss training today." The icy voice sent shivers up my spine but I plastered my best I'm-a-good-little-girl smile on my face before turning round to see my mentor bearing down upon me. Alana was a tall, severe woman with her thick auburn hair pulled into a tight bun atop her head. Her beady eyes and sharp accusing eyes always reminded me somewhat of an eagle especially as she grasped my shoulder with thin claw like fingernails.
"Sorry, I uh…" What could I say I wasn't feeling well? I had grace, there wasn't much that could be wrong with me. I had a family crisis? I had none. I couldn't be bothered? Yeah… no. "I'm sorry."
"Well, I think we need to have a little chat don't we? Come to my office after dinner." She squeezed tightly, the claws digging deeper into my shoulder and I had to take a deep breath before nodding, my usual sarcastic retort caught in my throat by the sharp pain emanating from my shoulder. Alana gave a tight lipped smile, a malicious glint evident in her dark eyes, before releasing her painful grip and striding away. I rubbed my shoulder, trying to get the blood flowing again but I still couldn't help but grimace at the lingering pain and knowing that the bitch had used her angelic power to make it that bit more painful. I suddenly noted how quiet the hall was and how many pairs of judgemental eyes were turned aghast in my direction. Even Caleb, who was even less fond of such attention than me, was staring intently at his discarded peas as if they were about to jump up and do a magic trick. My impending doom had put a dent in my appetite but I knew as soon as I had finished I'd have to make the trip upstairs to Alana and quite frankly that was something to put off for as long as possible. I was lost in my own disturbing thoughts but a gentle caress down my arm made me turn to find Caleb's nervous gray eyes boring into me. He pushed his plate towards across the table to me and I saw he'd made a lopsided smiley face out of them. Unable to contain the laughter I let it bubble out into an odd hysterical gulping sound. In return for cheering me up I pushed my plate towards him, his gesture giving me the strength to go face the wrath of my superior, hell if I was early maybe I'd even get brownie points?
The angelic officers' offices were located on the top floor, there was a running joke that it was because they were closer to heaven, and I took my good sweet time walking up the many spiral staircases. Alana's door was the first on the left, a large oak door with a heavy iron handle that still took two hands to push open. I knocked, a loud firm knock despite the fear coursing through my veins, but I could hear nothing through the wood. Curiosity got the better of me and I pushed against the door. It opened with a low groan that made me wince as it echoed off down the corridor but hearing no movement or sounds of investigation I decided to peek around the door into the gloomy room; I'd been in there one too many times for my liking, so I could picture the desk in the far corner of the room and the book cases lined with leather bound tomes, more for display than anything else I guessed, but in all honesty all I could see was darkness. I should have waited outside like any other good angel would have, but the sneaky devil voice inside me taunted me to go inside. The door was open just enough for me to squeeze round and I quietly closed it behind me before leaning back against the wood to let out the breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the gloom and I could make out with ever glowing clarity the gray blurs of furniture at the other end of the room. As I scanned the room I realised I had no plan; what was I looking for? Why was I risking everything to go snoop in a room. And then, then it hit me. Maybe there was some record of my parents hidden here?
Unable to stop myself I practically sprinted across the room and began rifling through the wooden draws. But there was nothing bar an old broken watch: no paper, no stationary, nothing that could lead me home. I was just closing the lowest drawer when I heard voices outside the door. If they found me in here there wouldn't be a scale to measure how much trouble I'd be in so I did the only thing I could; I flung myself on the floor and slipped under the desk. The wooden frame would hide me as they walked in and as long as Alana didn't tuck the chair in too much she wouldn't hit my cowering frame. The only problem would be if Alana decided to stay and wait for me, but I couldn't think further than saving my delinquent butt for the next few seconds.
"We should have seen this coming!" Aleric, another of the supervisors, angrily snarled as two sets of feet made their way into the room.
"How could we have seen this coming? Castiel was a perfect angel before…"
"Before Winchester? You really think Winchester corrupted him in hell. He was corrupted a long time before that." Aleric let out a derivative snort at a joke only he seemed to find funny.
"Well we always knew Winchester would be difficult, no one knew what he was capable of. No one knew that when Castiel laid his hand on him in hell that blackened, twisted soul would corrupt him!" Despite all the times I'd seen Alana angry, and there had been dozens, I'd never heard the sheer unadulterated hatred that coated her voice now. The tone caused me to shiver even though I didn't have a clue what the hell they were talking about; who, or what, were Castiel and Winchester, and why were they the cause of so much hatred?
"We should have dealt with her then. The moment he turned. We already knew she had one unpredictable bloodline, two was too much."
"Metatron was always certain about their match. Said they were perfect and he knows what he's…"
"And what about now? Metatron's disappeared off the face of the earth and we're left waiting for our rightful places back home. That girl is going to ruin it all! She's different! I've told you all along. If she dared to miss training then what else will she do?" Oh God, they're talking about me. I subconsciously curled myself into a tighter ball and tried to quieten my heart which was currently thundering obscenely loudly in my ears. Please leave.
"I'll keep her on a tight leash. She's the perfect soldier and we need one of them."
"Please, even locked up here away from her Father's corruption she's turning rebellious. It's in her blood. If she escaped and found Castiel this would all be over." Castiel. I finally knew my Father's name. Having a tangible name seemed to change him from a blurred background figure to a smiling man, whose grace resonated with my own, who would beam down on me and keep me safe. Suddenly, stupidly, my current predicament didn't faze me. I would do what they so feared and find him. Find a home. If he was as rebellious as they said then he would surely help me liberate the rest of the angelic children. Together we could teach them about free will. I'd practically moved myself in with him in my mind; the warm thoughts loosening my tightly curled body when feet were suddenly upon me. Hastily I pulled back my limbs as Alana flopped graciously into the chair but kept it, thankfully, turned to the side as I continued to focus on Aleric. I didn't even dare breath. Every minute twitch my body made, every beat of my heart, suddenly seemed impossibly loud in the confined space.
"So what do we do?"
"She's coming here, right?" Aleric asked and I did my best to remember my training and not flinch as his booted feet came into view.
"Yes, any minute now."
"Then we kill her."
