Chapter Two

Maddie's POV

Over the years Gabriel continued to visit me. At first it was monthly, then weekly, and soon he began to show up every day. I continuously attempted to tell my parents about Gabriel, but they always believed that I only had an extremely mischievous imaginary friend. Gabriel would constantly cause trouble for the family. He would play pranks on my parents, little things at first like tying a rubber band around the hose on the sink so it would spray whoever turned the sink on. But as he made himself more at home, the pranks got more elaborate and chaotic. There was one occasion where he set the drapes on fire while setting up a trip wire used to smack my mother in the face with a pie (don't ask me how he managed to do this, I was too afraid to ask). I won't even mention the time Gabriel sabotaged the turkey on Thanksgiving. I of course, was always blamed for these shenanigans and my parents would only take "but it was Gabriel" as an excuse so many times before they got fed up. Eventually when I was around 7 I began joining Gabriel on these pranking sprees… he may not have been the best influence on me.

Gabriel's visits were always the best part of my day. I would come home from school, rush to my room, and not-so-patiently wait for him to show up. Usually I would draw or do my homework until I heard the familiar flapping of wings indicating that he had arrived. From that point on it was nothing but magic and adventure. On most of his visits, Gabe made sure to use his angelic powers to fulfill all of my hearts desires. When I was very little I would make him create imaginary worlds for me. Several included an entire kingdom which I ruled, a literal candy land, and an enchanted forest (fairies and all). We could return to the alternate realities whenever I wanted and there was no time limit on our visits. Sometimes I would be in those worlds for weeks at a time and come back to reality to find only a few minutes had passed. He made all of my childhood fantasies come to life. As I grew older our adventures became far more realistic, I wanted to see the world. Gabe would show up and offer to take me anywhere I wanted to go. Sometimes I would have no idea where I wanted to go and Gabe would surprise me. He always whisked me away to beautiful places. Forests, and lakes, and mountains and all the world's natural wonders were exposed to me at a young age. I had probably seen more of the world at the age of 9 than most people see in a lifetime. However, sometimes we didn't even need to leave my room for adventure. Gabe was a wonderful story teller, and he would paint beautiful pictures of anything and everything magical for me through words. We would just lay on the floor and stare up at my blue ceiling and he would explain to me the wonders of the supernatural world. He would tell me stories of how the universe was created and how everything came to be. Occasionally he would tell me about his family, he would go off on some wild colorful story about how one time Michael and Lucifer did this or how he tricked Raphael in to doing this. However, no matter how entertaining and amusing these stories were, they never lasted long. Usually during the middle of a story things would take a turn for the worst, Gabe would seem to remember what he was talking about so he would stop talking and get a sad faraway look in his eyes. These moments never lasted long, but I knew that the mention of his family upset him so I took care to avoid the subject.

My time with Gabriel was honestly the best part of my childhood. He was my best friend and had a major hand in making me the person I am today, of course there were some complications with him constantly being there. After I got past the age of six my parents began to worry about my "imaginary friend." They insisted that I was too old for an imaginary friend and that I had to come back to reality at some point. These confrontations always upset me greatly and I would always demand to know why Gabriel never showed himself to my parents to prove to them that he was real. He explained to me that he wasn't really supposed to be here and that I was the only one who could know, and that telling my parents would have major consequences. I tried to understand what he meant by "consequences" but he refused to elaborate and I eventually let it go.

As I continued to grow, Gabe's visits became less and less frequent, and whenever he did come our time together was very short. He would explain to me that there was trouble at home and that Michael had begun to tighten his grip on the angels. He told me that he had to be careful so that he didn't put me in danger, this began when I was 12. One night when I was 14 I had been sitting in my room working on a sketch. I had just started getting into drawing people and had a light sketch of Gabe slowly filling up the page when I heard the familiar fluttering of wings. I turned smiling, "I see you missed me." I teased, "Though I don't blame you." However, my smile and teasing tone faded when I turned and looked at him. His clothes were ripped and he had a long gash along his right arm, in his hand he held a bloody angel blade, and for the first time since I met him he had a look of pure terror on his face. "Oh my God, what happened?!" I exclaimed as I bolted towards him. He took my face in his hands and said,

"Maddie, I'm so so sorry."

"What do you mean?"

"Something's happened in heaven and I need to go… and I don't think I'll be back"

"What?" "Gabriel you can't leave me!"

"I'm sorry!" "It's the only way, I promised you that I would keep you safe, that I would never let anything happen to you." At this, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a hug. He whispered in my ear, "This is me keeping that promise." Then he was gone, vanished without a trace. After he was gone, I collapsed onto the floor and cried. I allowed the sobs to rack my body until my mom came in and found me like this. She immediately dropped down onto the floor and held me, rocking me back and forth asking me softly what was wrong. I looked up at her and managed to choke out, "He's gone… Gabe's gone and he's not coming back." My mother looked down at me with a look in her eyes I had never seen before. As far as she knew, Gabriel was the imaginary friend that I had stopped mentioning years. She looked at me as if something had snapped inside me and as if I was broken, but for now she didn't ask any questions. She smoothed my hair and rocked me back and forth, allowing me to cry until I fell asleep.

That week I started therapy. My parents were worried and suggested I get some professional help. I went along with this because it was the only way to convince them that what was going on with me was strictly physiological and not supernatural in the slightest. I answered all of the questions accordingly, when asked if I knew that Gabriel was just imaginary I answered yes even though I knew he wasn't. Everyone was told that I had some sort of physiological break and that we weren't sure what had caused it. Though I had been bullshitting my way through every meeting with my phycologist one thing was true, something really was broken inside of me. I had no interest in anything anymore, I didn't want to draw anymore, I had lost all interest in school, and the only thing I ever wanted to do was lay in the dark and stop existing for a little while. I still prayed to Gabriel every night and begged him to come back to me, to make everything okay again… but he never showed. This was my life for a while, the only thing that kept me going was the fact that it couldn't get any worse. But what do you know, I was wrong about that too.

This is where everything in my life began to fall apart even more. Two years after Gabriel had left and my life was left in shambles, things took a turn for the worst. On one of my good days my parents said that they were going out together and asked if I would be okay at home by myself. I welcomed the privacy and told them to go have fun and that I would be fine. It was a clear night with dry roads and hardly anyone on the highway, but that didn't seem to matter. It was around 1 a.m. after I had left dozens of frantic messages on my mom's voicemail, when the cops came to the door. They told me that my parent's car had gone off a cliff… neither of them survived.

Everything came crashing down around me. All the broken pieces of myself that I had slowly started to build back up fell apart again. I couldn't breathe or think, my legs gave out from underneath me and I laid there on the floor sobbing. I waited for my mother to come and comfort me even though I knew she wouldn't and never would again. At some point the cops left and I crawled into bed and cried. Everything that had happened in the past two years hit me like a fucking brick, and then I started to think. I was only 16 and had been left alone in the world. I had no siblings, my grandparents were dead, the only person I had was my uncle. He was my father's only brother and had no kids, I hardly even knew him. If there was such a thing as angels or god, why would they let this happen? I was still practically a fucking child and I had no one. It was here that I decided I really was crazy, Gabriel was never real, and I had invented him as a child and gotten a bit too attached to my imaginary friend. This realization made everything about 1000 time's worse. I continued to sob into my pillow and curse the world. I don't remember falling asleep and I don't remember dreaming. At this point I figured, "this is it, this is the end." But now that I look back I realize… this wasn't the end, it was a new beginning.

Gabriel's POV

Over the years Maddie became my best friend, I suppose this was sad considering she was about 3 when I met her, but hey friendship does not know age. I felt as if her home was my home, I practically lived there. Not to mention the memories I made there with her, I'm proud to say that I influenced her positively by teaching her how too properly and tastefully prank someone. I felt a bit bad for her parents considering we gave them absolute hell from 3 to 12 years old.

I tried my best to show her everything. I wanted her to see the wonders of the world at a young age so we could move on to other worlds when she was older. Sadly that never happened. Remember how I mention earlier that Michael had a strict rule about guardian and their humans? Yeah well, he found out about it. For the past few years he had begun to crack down on all of the angels and began monitoring us closely. This meant that I had to stop visiting Maddie so frequently. I began to be very careful, always covering up my tracks, and I limited my visits to once every few weeks. One night when I was getting ready to leave Michael approached me.

"Hey big brother!" I said trying to play it cool with my usual sarcasm and humor. "It's been a while, have you been off oppressing the minorities again?"

"Gabriel, we need to talk." This was when I really began to worry, I kept telling myself that I had been careful and that there was no way he could have known. Looks like I was wrong.

"Where are you off to?"

"Oh... you know just off to go observe the humans again. They fascinate me."

"Are you sure that's all you're doing Gabriel, are you sure that you're not off to go visit your little friend again?" This was when I began to panic. He knew, he knew everything. At this point I felt a pair of arms grab me, blocking all movement. Michael walked towards me until we were face to face, gripped my neck and lifted me off the ground. The angel that had been holding me let go and stepped back to observe.

'Listen to me," he growled, "I can promise you that the next time you disobey me, I will send down an angel to slit the girl's throat!" My eyes widened at this,

"You wouldn't dare." I choked out.

"Watch and see if I don't, if you step out of line I will kill her." At this point Michael had let go of me and I began to struggle against the unmoving arms that had returned and were forcing me to my knees. Michael crouched down to my level and whispered in my ear,

"Perhaps I'll send someone down to visit her right now, she has certainly matured into a beautiful young girl and I'm sure a demon would have no objection to having its way with her." This was when anger consumed me and I found the strength to break the hold of the arms around me. With unfathomable speed I whipped out my angle blade and slit the throat of the angle behind me. When I turned around, Michael was already in front of me. He slashed his blade at me with lightning fast speed, I spun out of the way but not before the blade sliced a considerable sized gash on my right bicep. Before he could finish me off, I allowed my wings to unfurl and was immediately transported to Maddie's house.

As soon as she heard me arrive she turned to smiling, but her smile faded and her eyes grew wide as soon as she looked at me. I was honestly a wreck, my clothing was ripped and there was blood gushing through my fingers where I held my wound. She rushed over to me demanding to know what happened and had a look of horror twisting her features. I quickly explained to her that something had happened up in heaven and that I most likely wouldn't be back. I feel myself fall apart every time I remember the look on her face when I told her this. A mixture between inscrutable sadness and betrayal. I pulled her into a hug for what I had thought would be the last time and disappeared before Michael could send any angels down.

As soon as I returned, there were two angels on either side of me restraining me, not that I needed them. I had stopped fighting, I knew the more I struggled the more danger I put her in. Soon enough a hand grabbed my face and forced me to look up. Michael was standing above me, obviously expecting me to say something.

"I will obey you," I started, "I will not question your authority and I will no longer pay any visits to Earth as long as I serve heaven." Michael raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to continue, "Just promise me you won't hurt her, don't let anything happen to her and I will do whatever you want."

"Well, I suppose that sounds fair," he began, "Now the only problem we have is what we're to do with you." One look at my face and he knew that this was the worst punishment he could possibly give me, keeping me locked up here unable to reach her. I heard her prayers, I heard her plead for me to come back and I heard her telling me how bad things had gotten since I left. But I could never reach her. One day things took a turn for the worst.

I watched her that night as her world crumbled. I watched as she screamed and cursed at the sky. I watched her last bit of faith that she had so desperately clung to fade away. I was outraged. I appeared in front of Michael and began to scream at him.

"How dare you!? You promised me that you would keep her safe, that you wouldn't let her get hurt!"

"Gabriel," he began calmly, "Our job as angels is to not interfere with the humans and their lives, a concept you have yet to grasp." This enraged me, how was I expected to keep my part of the deal if he had disregarded his. I felt the rage welling up inside of me, and for the first time in a long time I struck out at my brother. All of my angelic power, all of the ways I could have physically pained him, and I chose to punch that bitch square in the face. With Michael on the ground with blood pouring out of his nose I figured this was my chance to leave. I began slowly walking away when I heard Michael call out from behind me,

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm leaving."

"If you leave now, don't ever come back." I continued walking and said so quietly I'm not even sure if I actually said it,

"Don't worry, I don't plan on it."