Saving Me, Saving You: Two
Levi's eyes narrowed first at Jake then at Annabelle – Bunni, she called herself. How in the world did Rosemary wind up tangled with not one, but two demonic creatures of the night? Was she aware of their true form? How could ask her about that?
"Nice to meet you," Bunni finally said, but her voice was flat, as was her expression.
"Likewise," Levi replied, readjusting his bag, if only to do something with his hands – as his first instinct was to throttle those in front of him. He turned to face Rosemary then, countenance softening so as to not reveal how he truly was feeling right now. "We need to get to class.
"I know, I just wanted you to meet my friends while they're here," she said with a small smile. To Jake and Bunni, she went on, "We all have a break in two hours, right? Let's meet up then, how about that?"
"Yeah, Rosie, sounds like a plan," Jake told her, but he wasn't looking at her at all – brown eyes were openly glaring at the angel.
Probably anticipating Levi to kill him soon. That was his job, after all – destroy all demons and demon-folk. And the fact that his charge was best friends with this creature created quite a few problems for him, to say the least.
Levi started to talk away without a word, and with that Rosemary followed after, waving good-bye to her friends and scurrying behind him.
"Are you shy?" she asked him as she caught up to him, now keeping pace.
He didn't answer at first; his brain was full of ideas on how to deal with Jake and Bunni without causing too much of a fuss or causing any harm to Rosemary. Finally, he answered, "Kind of."
She let out a small giggle. "I can tell. You barely said five words to them. But they're so nice and super funny. You'll like them a lot."
He kept his gaze forward. "I'm so very sure they are hilarious."
Their lunch break came after such a long class – they studied for forty-five minutes, were given thirty minutes to do some work, then continued with their lesson for another forty-five minutes. It was easy enough for Levi; this was a subject he'd studied over and over and over again in his fake-college scenarios. He could tell, however, that this would be quit the struggle for Rosemary.
Looks like he would be playing teacher as well as guardian.
As they exited the classroom, Rosemary faced Levi with a defeated look, heaving a small sigh. "Ready to eat?" She sounded so dejected; math definitely sucked the life out of her.
"I have to make a phone call," Levi answered, pulling out his phone and leaning against a nearby wall. "Go ahead of me. I'll meet you there."
Lifting her lips into an understanding smile, she turned toward to the building's exit, disappearing into the throng of students. Only when she was gone did he finally make his call.
"How do you like being back on Earth?" asked Erwin, sounding bemused.
"It would be great if her two best friends weren't creatures of the night," Levi muttered through gritted teeth.
"Wait – what are you –"
"A half-demon and a witch," Levi interrupted, still keeping his voice low, his gaze to the ground, trying to appear as nonchalant as humanly possible considering the type of conversation he was having. "And those are just the friends I met. I'm supposed to meet some of her other friends in a few minutes for lunch."
"Sounds like you'll need your squad after all," Erwin suggested with a chuckle.
"You think this is funny?" Levi shook his head, incredulous. "Just get me my people as soon as possible. No later than tonight."
"Your usual will be there, Levi, don't worry." With that, Erwin ended the line.
Levi hurried to the buffet hall and looked around the large room full of students and various restaurants before finally finding her dark blonde head near the back of the room. He also saw the brown hair of Jake and wavy black hair of Bunni sitting with their backs turned to him. Beside Rosemary sat someone else with dark blonde hair and blue eyes – actually, strangely enough, this person looked almost identical to Rosemary, save for this girl's hair was cut at her shoulders.
Levi could sense the power coming from that table – the demon's, the witch's, and a third's. It was light yet dark at the same time. It shone like gold but also hid in the shadows.
The girl beside Rosemary was a fallen angel.
How did Rosemary end up in this group of misfits?
Levi approached them, and before making it halfway across the room, all three of the others faced him, their eyes almost accusing – accusing him of being about to kill them, whatever it may be. Rosemary turned her head then and she practically beamed at Levi when she saw him. It was enough to cross the distance and find a spare chair from another table and sit between Bunni and Rosemary.
"Calling home already?" Jake teased, a smirk on his face, pushing up the glasses on his nose.
"Yeah. Actually some… cousins of mine are going to start here soon." Levi looked between the three creatures, avoiding eye contact with Rosemary altogether. "They've just been on vacation, is all."
"Oh, that's so exciting," Rosemary exclaimed. "I can't wait to meet them."
"So, so exciting," Bunni said with a sigh.
Rosemary turned to the girl beside her, the one that appeared like her twin. "Lily, this is Levi, by the way. He helped me find the clinic earlier."
"Oh, so he knows – " Jake began.
Rosemary shook her head quickly. "No – no, I didn't say anything…"
Levi looked between all four of them, brows furrowed. "Knows what?" He racked his brain of the paperwork he'd been given, trying to remember some key detail that would have to do with being in the school's medical facility.
"Well… not to bring the mood down…" Rosemary cleared her throat, moving the plastic bowl of salad she was picking at to the wide and folding her hands before her on the table, "But I have… a heart condition. Congestive heart failure. Got it from my biological father, apparently." She shrugged, biting her lower lip as she looked at him. "I take medications, and I eat well and exercise. So everything should be fine."
"'Should'?" Levi repeated, crossing his arms.
"Anything can happen," Bunni answered for Rosemary before the shorter girl could speak. "She could have a heart attack or something and, you know, up and die."
"Don't say it like that," Rosemary chastised her friend, pressing her hands against the table now and leaning forward. "I'll be fine."
Just one more thing to add to the list, Levi though. Just great.
At nearly six o'clock that evening, Rosemary insisted on meeting her friends one last time in the parking lot before going home. She didn't work either of her jobs that night, for which she was grateful; that Calculus was going to take all night and she needed as much time as possible to go through what they'd learned that day.
Levi first met up with his "cousins" – his squad: Petra Ral, Eld Gin, Oluo Bossard, and Gunther Shultz. They were four of the strongest guardian angels they had. They met just outside the library before making their way toward the parking lot, plan on hand.
Levi and Eld would take on Jake, Gunther would fight Lillian Simpson – Lily, as Rosemary had called her – and Petra's powers would be best against the witch, Bunni.
"And what about Rosemary?" Eld asked as they drew closer and closer to Rosemary's car in the back of the parking lot.
"I was going to knock her out. Don't worry about her." There was a way for Levi to put Rosemary to "sleep" during their brawl. He would hide her in her car during that time. Hopefully – and this is a great hope – she would come out of this unscathed.
Now with this whole heart condition on the table, he had to be extra careful with her.
"What's going on?" Gunther asked as they now they could see the group by the green VW Beetle. "Why are they yelling?"
Levi and the others rushed to the scene; Bunni and Jake were kneeling over Rosemary, who was lying on the concrete, seeming to fight staying awake.
"What happened?" Levi demanded as he knelt down by Rosemary's head, which happened to be have a small gash on it.
"Some idiot in a sports car hit and ran against her, slamming her into her car," Jake said angrily. He looked back at him with almost pleading eyes. "Can't you do some angel thing and fix her?"
"We're not supposed to involve ourselves with mortals like that," Oluo informed Jake matter-of-factly, crossing his arms and glaring down at the half-demon.
"Levi…?" Rosemary glanced at him, eyes seeming to glaze over a little. "You… brought your cousins."
"Yeah, yeah, that's kind of not the topic of conversation right now, Rosemary," he said, looking to his comrades before gazing back down at Rosemary.
He didn't know why – she was different. These other-worldly creatures wouldn't hang around a human like this if she wasn't special somehow. And dammit, if he wasn't going to lose his charge after just a few hours of getting her.
Lifting a hand, he hovered it first above her chest.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Captain?" Eld asked, his voice soft. As if he understood somehow.
Without answering, a shining light of gold left his fingertips and entered her chest. He then did the same thing to the top of her head where she was bleeding, the wound healing almost immediately.
Rosemary blinked rapidly, eyes never looking away from Levi or what he was doing. When he was done, he asked her, "Can you sit up?"
"Actually…" Rosemary, slowly, sat on her bottom, pressing a hand first to her bosom then her forehead. "I feel great." With knitted brows, she glanced back at him with curious blue eyes. "What did you do?"
"It's… a long story," Levi answered, helping her to her feet.
"And we might make it even longer, Rosie," Bunni said, looking to Jake and Lily and nodding.
It appeared that everyone had come to a decision: reveal the truth to the human.