AN: Hi everyone! I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 2: Faster

I landed harshly on cold, wet pavement in an alleyway. It was raining which actually felt pretty good. I stood up and found I had left a crater in the pavement. How embarrassing. I went off to the side and heard dogs barking behind a wire fence. I sat in a puddle and felt something feathery next to me. I stopped and looked next to me and found two large feathery wings blotched with blood. I gasped and stood up. Watery blood coated my arm. Michael, what did you do? Would I have to do the same? I didn't know how to conceal my wings and neither did he. He must have thought it best not to attract attention. All the more important, Michael was here. I wasn't too far behind.

I felt a flash of pain in my neck where my halo was and I clawed at it. Now I knew how it felt to be a dog with a barking collar. I cracked it off and threw it to the side. I could not be an archangel here. I had to do what Michael did. I took the knife I had tucked in my boot and reached back. I held in a breath and began to slice my wings off close to my back. I began to scream bloody murder. Trust me, nothing hurt more than what I was doing. I was in tears by the time I had finished. I would need to get that stitched up.

I made my way out of the alley. I found a car and looked around to see if anyone was around. There weren't even street lights on. I punched my fist through the window and unlocked it. I played around with some of the wires and got the car working. I once had a best friend in high school who knew how to joyride a car and taught me the ropes on how to do it. I always vowed that I would only do it unless it was an emergency. And this was definitely an emergency.

My blood was dripping down my back and was staining the car seat. I needed new clothes and I wasn't going to rip them from somebody's back. I found a JCPenney's and found my way to the back. I picked the lock and made my way to the lockers where I found a flashlight and a first aid kit. I found a bathroom and stood by the sink. I wasn't really sure what to do. I didn't know how to stitch my own skin back together, and it would have been extremely hard in the back. So I took a wad of paper towels, soaked them with cold water and soap and dabbed my wounds with them. I took another wad and dabbed them dry, wincing in pain. I searched the first aid kit for some cream to prevent infection although I thought it wouldn't do the job completely, but it would work some way. Finally I found the bandages and taped up the wounds. I went back through the lockers and saw a pair of leather biking gloves on the bench. They would be good for gripping and protecting my hands so I took them. I searched the store with the flashlight. I didn't care if the cameras would catch me, it didn't matter. I found some underwear for me to wear, I took a tight, black camisole, some camouflage shorts that rolled and buttoned up to be short and comfortable enough for me. I pleased myself and found a black biker jacket, a Kenneth Cole New York Epaulette. I took a pair of sunglasses from the rack and found a pair of combat boots that fit me. I tucked my knife into one of the boots. I tied some of my hair back into a half ponytail.

When I got outside I threw my armor into the dumps. As I left the department store I saw the Goodwill across the street. In the window I saw a beautiful classic ruby red Harley Davidson. I made my way to it and peered through the window. Who in their right mind would give something as beautiful as that to Goodwill? I broke the window and climbed through. It had an almost empty tank of gas and the helmet was hanging on the handle. I smiled.

"It looks just like mine when I was alive," I said to myself. I looked at the helmet. It was black and completely covered the face except for the eyes. I looked inside the bag in the back and found a picture they must have forgotten to take out. It was of a dad and his daughter standing beside this Harley. The girl was tall and dressed entirely in leather, with a a big smile and plump lips, blue eyes, and dark wavy hair. The man beside her had the same blue eyes and a shaved military haircut, dressed in a leather jacket and faded jeans. My heart wrenched. "Dear God, this is mine. Whoever donated it to Goodwill is going to regret it for life once I find them."

But right now wasn't the time to be thinking about my life before I died. I needed to be focused on what was important. The unborn child. Hopefully Michael was already on his way there.

I heard an explosion in the distance.

It's already started. I didn't want to stick around long enough to be found by my own people. I pulled on the helmet and took off, shoving all painful memories into the back of my mind. Well…I might as well get a nice ride. I took off into the night. Wherever Michael was, he was ahead of me and I intended to catch up. But I needed gas first.

After I found a gas station well enough away from where the explosion, I filled it up and headed on my way. The buzzing in the back of my mind gave me a sense of direction as I drove on the freeway, I was somewhere heading into the middle of nowhere in California. I saw a vision of a run-down diner in the middle of the desert, and that's how I knew that was where I would find the woman carrying the unborn messiah.

I drove all the way through the night into morning. I stopped once again to get gas and slip on my sunglasses before I started driving through the desert where I knew I wouldn't be able to stop again for a while. I felt the presence of the child growing stronger within me. I had to get there as fast as possible. I rode on, picking up speed and actually enjoying the ride. I had missed my baby for so long and since cops weren't really around right now, I could go as fast as I wanted. The day was starting to pass by. It was definitely not the ideal Christmas, but this was more important than singing Christmas favorites. I had completely forgotten that it was this close to Christmas for the people on Earth. I guess when this all started it became the least important thing for me to worry about. How ironic that this was all happening so close to the day of peace and joy on Earth.

I drove and drove until it hit the afternoon. I was almost there and I knew it, I could sense it. I was getting an adrenaline rush and I started to hit the gas even more. Hitting around 100 I zoomed past an LAPD car with a huge crack in the windshield. I actually hardly noticed it; I was going much faster than he was. Finally, I started seeing the diner that I saw in my vision earlier and my spidey senses were tingling off the top. I pulled in, startling the people standing outside; dragging a large sack towards the dumpster. One had a shot gun aimed to shoot at me as I dismounted my motorcycle.

"Take off the helmet!" I was ordered by the man with the gun. I slowly took it off and set it on my baby's seat. I removed my sunglasses and they all looked really surprised.

"Dad, she can't be one of them. I mean, just look at her," a young man said. Jeep was his name. I just knew, that was one of the gifts angels had.

"Show me your teeth!" The man with the gun, Bob, ordered at me. I raised an eyebrow.

"Do you really think we have time for this?" I asked, my sass coming on. "Because we don't. I know what hunts you." Nobody moved. I smirked showing my teeth. I flopped my arms at my sides. "Happy?"

Bob lowered the gun. "Who are you?"

"My name's Evangeline. You can trust me. You need me on your side," I told them. "I know what they are. I know what they're after and if you all want to live you have to trust me."

"How do we know we can trust you?" A man named Kyle asked suspiciously.

I pointed to the sack they stuck near the dumpster. "Did she have creepy looking teeth? Did she hurt someone?"

They all looked at each other. Confirming, they all nodded.

"But how do you know all of that?" The one handed cook, Percy, asked.

"Because there are more like her out there. Some are going to be worse than that. You have to trust me," I said to them. They all looked at each other. I knew that by now they were desperate for explanations and protection. That's where I came in.

"Hey, who's that?" A teenage girl, Audrey, asked pointing at something behind me. It was a cop car; one with a huge crack in the wind shield. It started to turn into the diner. I grabbed the shot gun from Bob, the owner of the diner, so quickly that he hardly had any time to process what I had just done, and pointed it at the parking car.

"Everybody, get behind me now! Get back!" I exclaimed. I loaded the gun and pointed it straight where the driver would be. I couldn't see it because of the huge crack. "Get out of the car now!" I shouted. I saw the car door open. "When you're out, put your hands on your head and step away from the car! Do it now!"

I saw someone step out. He had on nice black pants, a leather protective vest, a black t-shirt, and a long gray coat. His skin was golden and his hair was cut short and brown and he was exceptionally tall. I saw his hands go up and I saw his face. I sighed when I saw him and his face loosened when he saw me. He put his arms down and I dropped the gun.

"Michael!" I breathed happily. I ran to him and jumped into his arms, my legs wrapping around his torso. This was a normal hug for me. I called them my tackle hugs, and he was used to them as well. I mainly gave them when I was in desperate need of a hug. "I am so glad you are here." He put me down.

"We'll talk later," he said to me.

"Wait, you know this guy?" Bob asked. I stood next to Michael. I nodded.

"You can trust him too. In fact you should rely more on him than me," I said to the group. A pregnant girl came out of the restaurant. She carried the messiah! She was so far along. It would be coming soon. That was a relief. "This is Michael."

Michael turned to me. "We are running out of time."

"Oh, right!" I said.

Michael made his way to the trunk of the cop cruiser. I followed, wondering what he had in there. Reinforcements, I was sure. And I was right. He was loaded with guns that he had to have stolen from a warehouse of some sort. My other babies…it was so good to see them again. Let me say, being a cop in my human life got me attached to a couple of things. I gasped.

"Who are you anyway?" Kyle asked me. I looked at him over the side of the car.

"I used to be a cop," I said. I turned to Michael.

"Why aren't you a cop now?" He asked. I turned to look at Michael. He gave me a look as he distributed guns to the others.

"I was put into a physical condition that forced me to resign," I replied. It was technically true. Dying was a physical condition.

"Let's get moving inside!" Michael said, handing me two handguns and a rife with extra ammunition for all of them.

"What the hell is going on?! All of a sudden you two show up and start telling us what to do and who to trust and-" Bob started ranting angrily.

Michael stopped right before he got inside the diner, turning his head back towards the freeway.

"What is it?" I asked.

"They're here," Michhael muttered. He bent down and picked up Bob's shot gun that I had dropped and shoved it into Bob's arms. "You're gonna need this."

The sun was setting quickly behind the diner as we all moved inside. We began to block every door and window in the joint with chairs and tables.

As we were waiting I used the time to try to learn everyone's names. There was of course Bob, the owner of the diner Paradise Falls. There was his son, Jeep, who had a crush on Charlie, the unmarried, pregnant waitress who carried the unborn messiah. There was Sandra and Howard who were a high maintenance sort of couple. Howard had been bandaged up in the neck due to an old lady who was possessed and bit a chunk out of him. He was fighting for dear life, and my heart wrenched at seeing him lying on the floor, his state of consciousness fading in and out; it only served as a bitter reminder that even as the Angel of Protection, I couldn't be there for everyone, that every had a time, and everything happened for a reason. There was their rebellious teenage daughter, Audrey. There was Kyle, a man from Las Vegas who was a single father and only wanted to see his son. And then lastly there was Percy, the one handed cook in the diner who was once in the army, and was quite a religious man.

Then, once the sun had completely gone down, the lights in the diner went completely out. People started to freak out until Percy found a flashlight. I was standing next to Michael. He was looking around and at the ceiling. Several minutes later, he found the way to the roof. The flat on the roof was right in front of the no longer illuminated sign of the diner and was guarded by a railing.

"Stay down here with Charlie," Michael commanded me.

"What? Why? You need me up there," I debated.

"You need to be near Charlie just in case some climb through the window. Do your job," Michael said. He had me there. I was better off being down in the diner just in case. I took in a breath.

"Alright," I said. He nodded and kissed my forehead.

"Be safe," he told me making his way onto the roof.

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