After a long and exhausting day full of life altering events, Husk and I decided to go to bed and get a much needed nights sleep. I however was unable to sleep so I just wrapped Husk in my arms while he snuggled his head into my chest with his wing wrapped around me like a shelter. I looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh, 'never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be free from Valentino. But now that it's actually happened, where do I go from here? What's next for me?'

It was the first time in my afterlife where I felt like my afterlife's compass was spinning around in so many directions. I mean, when I first landed in Hell sure, I was living on the streets and begging for scraps but then I met Val and he offered me a place to live, food, and a way to feed my drug addiction which in reality was the icing on the cake. But now that Val was gone, a piece of me felt... I don't know... empty I guess? Some people might call that Stockholm's syndrome but, I don't know. I mean, he didn't exactly FORCE me to sign the contract with him.

I signed it willingly. Sure at the time I didn't know that the contract was supposed to have an exit clause but I didn't exactly do my research either. I was just naive and new to Hell and was just looking for an easy way out of my suffering. 'Is it wrong that a piece of me feels guilty for putting an angelic bullet between his eyes? Is it bad that I even feel a hint of remorse? Did killing Val affect my chances at redemption?'

I looked down at Husk and run my fingertips through the back of his hair. He purrs and snuggles in closer to me. I smiled at him and rested my hand at the top of his back. I was scared that if I kept running my fingers through his hair that he might wake up and there was no way that I was going to deal with a cranky Husk at this hour. Although a lot of things felt scary and uncertain I was able to take comfort in the fact that I had this man beside me to support me; lift me up when I was feeling down.

Just as I was willing to do for him in his lowest moments. But I guess that's just what you do when you TRULY love someone. You look out for one another and you lift each other up. I know that the road ahead won't be easy for us but I know that as long as we have each other, we can weather out any storm. That final thought finally brought the peace of mind that I needed and I was finally able to fall into a peaceful slumber.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The alarm clock in our room goes off and I unplugged it from the wall before Husk started stirring and looked up at me, "ugh... what time is it," he asked with squinty eyes. I grabbed my phone and looked down at it, "it's 8:00 in the morning. Charlie wanted us up to work on some redemption exercises." Husk lets out a groan, "can't it wait at least five more minutes?" I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, "unfortunately it can't, mi amore."

Husk groans again before stretching his hands out above his head and stretches his wings out to their fullest wing span before folding them back in again. We both slip out of bed and get dressed and head to the bathroom to brush our teeth. "Angel, I think we're out of toothpaste," Husk says throwing away the empty and decrepit tube into the trash can. "We're not out, I just bought a three pack a week ago." "Oh, okay, where did you put it?"

I stopped applying my makeup and gestured to the cabinets underneath the sink, "try looking underneath the sink." He nods his head and then opens the cabinets and starts looking through it, "Angel, I don't see it, you've got too much shit in here," Husk groans frustrated. I rolled my eyes and turned my head towards him, "are you looking with your eyes or your mouth?" He turns his head and throws a glare in my direction, "Anthony!" I let out a groan, "ugh fine! Let me see."

I walked over and looked through the cabinet and discovered that the toothpaste was literally the first thing that could be seen upon opening the cabinet. "Babe, it was literally sitting right in front of your face." I pulled out the three pack of toothpaste and sat it on top of the counter. Husk blushes slightly, "oh... sorry baby." I let out a sigh and opened the pack of toothpaste and pulled out a tube before opening it and squeezing some out onto my toothbrush.

"Just, try looking a little harder next time." He nods his head and then walks up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist and kisses me on the cheek. I give him a smirk and side eyes, "mmm, hmm I see you over there trying to butter me up." He chuckles and then grabs his toothbrush and squeezes some toothpaste onto the bristles. We both finish up brushing our teeth and then I feed Fat Nuggets before we open the door and head downstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We get downstairs to the lobby and Husk leaves to go grab us some coffee. I walked over to sit on the couch across from Charlie. Vaggie gets up and starts passing out sheets of paper to all of us. I looked down at the page to see what our lesson is going to be about today:

'4 Steps to Redemption

1.) Commit to stopping negative behaviors.

2.) Avoid temptation and come up with an if/then strategy.

3.) Look under the hood,'

I rolled my eyes in annoyance upon reading the last line. 'The Hell is THAT supposed to mean,' I thought to myself before reading the next line:

'4.) Step into your higher purpose.'

'Oh for Lucifer's sake,' I think to myself placing a hand on my face. 'This is going to be a fucking long morning,' I thought to myself as Husk walks over to the couch where I was sitting and places our coffee on the coffee table in front of us. Vaggie hands him a copy of the same paper she handed me. He looked down and read through it after placing his reading glasses on. "The fuck is this shit," he asked smacking the top of his paper with his other hand.

Charlie stood up, "I'm glad you asked Husk. Today we are going to go over a few basic steps to achieving redemption." Husk and I both looked at each other and groaned right before I crossed my legs over his lap. Charlie continued where she left off, "so the first step to redemption is to commit to change! It's one thing to say that you want to change but it's a whole other thing to actually work on it.

Sure there are going to be moments where we make mistakes because everyone makes mistakes but committing to change requires one to admit to the mistakes made and to make an effort to do better." Vaggie stands up and walks over to Charlie, "the next step is to avoid temptation where you can. Considering that we are all in Hell there is temptation everywhere so it'll take a lot of work but with consistency and practice you guys will gradually become better at giving in to your temptations." Charlie looks down at her paper for a moment and then looks back up, "so I bet you guys are wondering what the third item on this sheet is supposed to be." Husk and I looked at her with our arms crossed with a completely unamused expression on our faces.

She cleared her throat for a moment, "right, so looking under the hood simply means to look deep within yourself. If you find yourself struggling to resist the temptation to go back to old habits, then this step simply requires you to take a deeper look at yourself to figure out what the root of the problem is. For example if you notice that you're struggling to stay away from drugs then it's helpful to take a hard look at yourself to figure out why you started doing drugs in the first place. It also means trying to figure out what your triggers are; which will dive more into in our next session." Husk and I nod at her having a better understanding of what was written.

Vaggie picks up where Charlie left off, "finally the last item on the list simply requires you to take action and be selfless in your goals. For example if you're looking to stop doing drugs, you can look for alternative options that are available that you can use in substitution for that drug." Charlie finishes up, "all in all, seeking redemption especially in terms of working on your addictions can be difficult. No one is perfect and we can't just snap our fingers and completely be done with our addictions. It's a long and slow process that you have to work on gradually.

For example, you can't just decide to quit drugs completely in just one day. You have to slowly cut back on the amount of drugs you do before being completely cut off from a drug as it increases the chances of a downfall." Husk and I take the last of our notes now on a sheet of paper and then close our notebook books. "Are there any questions about today's lesson," Vaggie asked cleaning up the mess in the room. The room grew silent and Charlie sat down her papers, "alright so then on the other note, 'class is dismissed!' "