Chapter 10 – Danger

Phils POV

I was standing on a cliffside overlooking a beach. It's too cold to go swimming in the ocean, but I could feel mist from the water gently hitting me while wind rushed behind me blowing my hair off my face. Dan walked right past me to stand on the very edge looking at the water and the rocks below. He smiled slightly and closed his eyes, leaning forwards allowing his body to fall carelessly onto the rocks. I screamed when I heard bones crack and ran over to the edge to see Dan laying on top of grey and black rocks in an odd position. Suddenly, Dan pushed himself off the rocks and started popping his joints back into place and shook it off like nothing at all happened. He began to pace, kicking the sand up with his feet.

Another man appeared, next to Dan, crossing his arms angrily at him. He was tall, towering over Dan which I thought would be impossible seeing as Dan was really tall to begin with. He had short brown hair and seemed to be glowing.

"Daniel," he greeted, his voice sounding smooth like a beautiful song.

"Jophiel," Dan nearly spat.

I dropped my mouth open wide. Jophiel? The actual angel Jophiel?! I almost felt like a fangirl, but I only know about him from religion class. Jophiel is the very first angel to appear in the bible. According to Catholic beliefs, Jophiel was the angel that kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. He's also considered the "Prince of Law" meaning it's his job to punish those who disobey. Father Pyre said that Jophiel has been considered a male and female in different texts, but from what I can see, he's definitely male, and definitely angry with Dan.

"I've been sent here by the archangels to deal with you," he started.

"Aww, and here I thought you just wanted to see my pretty face and be in my company," Dan pouted sarcastically.

"Stop that right now Daniel. You have sinned against God. You must be punished."

"Yeah?" Dan asked. "You already ripped my wings from me—"

"I did that because I had to! Because you disobeyed!"

"So what is it Joe, if I may call you that? What was more fun? Hearing me screaming and beg for mercy while you sawed and tore my wings right from my flesh or watching me fall for days before crashing on Earth only after shattering near every bone in my body? Which, by the way, I found you can't kill us after all, even with a fall that long."

"You may not," Jophiel ordered in regards to the nickname. "You shall call me only by Jophiel."

Dan rolled his eyes and scoffed walking away. Jophiel grabbed Dan's shoulder forcing him to turn around.

"Don't turn your back on me, brother. Don't walk away from me."

"Oh, so now I'm your brother? I thought you were too good for me," Dan replied narrowing his eyes. "Nice wings by the way. Did daddy give you an upgrade when you finished tearing everyone's wings off? I bet that was nice, huh?"

"Do not turn this on me. I wouldn't have to punish if you obeyed—if you stayed a soldier of God."

"Right, okay. So what'd I do this time? Fallen angels can't sin. At least that's what I've come to know. Dad doesn't care about us anymore. We're not under his law."

"Father still believes in you Daniel. In all of you. His love is never-ending! He wishes for you all to return home. Beg for his forgiveness—"

"No. No, I won't."

"That is quite unfortunate. I have come here to punish you, Daniel, and I will not leave until I do," Jophiel sighed.

"What're you gonna do? Spank me?" Dan teased, turning around to stick his butt out towards him mockingly.

"Hush Daniel. You know you are not to have relations with humans."

"Don't you dare talk about him," Dan demanded standing upright.

"You've sinned Daniel! You are an angel whether you like to think of yourself as one or not! You cannot love a human!" Jophiel paused to summon patience before continuing. "Daniel, do you defy because you find it entertaining?"

"Sometimes, yeah," Dan smiled cockily shrugging his shoulders.

"Kill him. Destroy him for his sins and you may return to the kingdom of Our Father. We can be brothers again."

Dan nodded giving Jophiel a fake smile before pulling his arm back and punching Jophiel with all the force he had in him. It didn't faze either of them, but it made me jump.

Don't you dare touch a hair on his head or I will come after you Jophiel."

"Either you kill him or I do. He's going to die."

"Leave."

"I will be checking up on you Daniel. If he's still breathing by the first of the next month, I will destroy him and I shall make you watch. It'll be incredibly slow and painful if I do it. You have the choice to make it quick and painless for him. Do this if you care about him as much as you say you do."

Dan grit his teeth making all of his features hard.

"Fine," he huffed, hands balled into fists. "I'll do it but if you even breathe on him–"

"And now for your punishment," Jophiel interrupted, swinging around a flaming sword he pulled from nowhere. "Do not fight me. Make this easy on yourself and remove your shirt. Show me your scars."

I was back on the couch in Dan's lounge. Dan looked up at me and pulled his shirt back on, deciding to keep his distance until he found out what I saw. I decided right then and there that while Dan is on the defensive side, I'll be the one asking questions.

"How did Jophiel punish you if you can't feel anything?"

Dan tensed up and looked away for a moment, pretending to admire a piece of art on the wall before giving attention to his hands, then me.

"So that's what you saw? The beach thing?" he asked as I nodded. "The only place we could feel pain are our scars. That's why angels are good soldiers of God. We can fight and die without feeling any pain. However, once you remove our wings, our scars remain. They're our weakness."

"So you can't feel any touch at all unless it's on your scars? When you kissed me; you couldn't feel that?"

"Don't be silly, Angel," Dan giggled. "We can't feel pain. We're not completely paralyzed. We can feel love. We can feel touch. When you hit me, I felt your skin on mine. When you kneed my ribs, I felt the hair on your leg dig into me, I just didn't feel the pain from it."

I blushed for a moment looking away from him. If I knew that, I wouldn't have wasted my energy hitting him and would have gone straight for his back. Though, now, I don't want to hurt him. I just want to talk.

"You said you were a fallen angel. Why did you fall?"

Dan smiled and walked over to me taking a seat on the other end of the couch so that he was near me but still keeping his distance. He perched himself up on the armrest of the sofa looking more like a cat than anything.

"Honestly, I thought it'd make me human. I thought if I was on earth and I lost my wings, I would be human. At the time of the fall, no one knew differently. There was no such thing as a fallen angel so no one could know. And Lucifer was a good speaker. He convinced a lot of us that we'd have our deepest desires if we followed him. He told us that Earth was full of possibilities so I thought why not?" Dan looked up at the ceiling rather than at me. "So I sinned against daddy…then Jophiel, daddy's right hand bitch, cut off my wings and kicked me out. So…I fell."

"Daddy. Daddy as in God?!" I asked standing up, shocked that he'd take such a tone when talking about Him.

"Well, yeah…he did create me," Dan replied, smiling slightly. "I suppose that would make him my dad."

"You sinned against God just to become human? Why would you do that you big fat dummy?! What's so great about being a human?!" I shouted as I paced, stopping only to wait for Dan's answer.

"Well for one, there's you."

"But I wasn't alive when you fell. There's got to be another reason, Dan."

I closed my mouth and watched Dan smile a little, seeming somewhat happy that someone cared enough to ask why he fell and actually stick around to hear what he had to say.

"I want to feel, Phil. I want to get beaten up and have to hold an ice pack to my face like they do in the films. I want you to come up to me and kick me in the stomach or between my legs and I want to lose my breath and fall to the floor in pain. You think pain is a bad thing, and most of the time it is. But when you live your entire life without feeling physically hurt, it becomes a sick obsession. A lot of other fallen angels aren't like me. When I first fell to Earth, I wanted to know what it was like to be human. I spoke with them—lived alongside them. Hell, I even loved and had close relationships with some of them. But other fallen angels, they don't include themselves with the human population. They go into hiding and lose sense of everything. They wouldn't be able to feel the softness of a kiss or the way their heart skips and their stomach drops when they see someone they love. I don't want that to happen to me, Angel. I always want to feel you."

Dan was near tears, but he was able to blink them back quickly and get a hold of himself. I sat back down on the couch not knowing what else to say and watched as Dan slid off the arm rest and onto the cushion of the couch. He was curled into a ball, his legs folded into his chest, but he began to scoot closer to me reaching his hand out to touch my cheek. His fingers slowly glided over my skin and he smiled, but he still looked sad.

"Are you going to kill me?" I dared to ask. "So that you could get back into Heaven?"

"No," Dan replied dropping his hand. "But Jophiel will. I sensed him and I strongly believe he was at your house tonight which is why I needed you out of there."

I gulped and looked at my knees. I knew someone was watching me this entire month.

"Jophiel is a very powerful archangel. He wants me to be part of the Heavenly Host again and he knows I'm not even going to consider it as long as you're around. I was pretty high up before I fell which is why they want me back so badly."

There was suddenly a loud bang making me jump.

"How the hell did he find us? I made sure we were out of their sight," Dan mumbled to himself looking at the small symbol on the door.

"What's going on?" I asked feeling panicked again.

Dan narrowed his eyes and grabbed my hand, placing his car keys in it.

"That's Jophiel. He's going to kill you if you let him, do you understand me?" Dan asked as more banging sounded through his secret room. "I need you to take my car and drive away. Drive to Marylebone Inn and buy any room, it doesn't matter. There's money in the glove compartment, I don't care what you spend. I'll hold him off but you have to hurry."

"What about you?" I squeaked.

Dan pulled me into his chest hugging me tightly for a moment and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"Stay safe, Angel. I'll be there as soon as I can."