An Angel of Two Hearts Test Chapter

An Angel of Two Hearts Test Chapter

(Warning: Adult Language)

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
-" Emily Dickinson

 

“Little bird
Hoppin' on my porch
I know it sounds kinda sad
But what's it all for?
Right now you're the only friend I have in the world.”

-          The Eels ‘Little Bird’

 

Alanna stopped at the edge of the street, shaking her head at the dull brick building in the middle of Uptown. She stared at the window blacked out from the bitter winter rushing down from the north. Another one of those snowstorms she thoughts she escaped -

                Then again, I thought escaped more than the snow, but here it is -

                Come rushing back to me -

                           F**k.

                She hated the cold like a cat hated water. The world took in a deep breath with the trees ducking under the covers to not deal with the cold or the snow or everything else which came with it. She wanted to hide -

                From the world

                From Sam

                From herself?

                She stared at the windows hoping and praying to God she didn’t know if she could believe in that Nick Swan would show his lovely face, but nothing came from inside his studio, and no light came out. He had painted the windows black -why?

                Alanna didn’t know.

                She went across the street, the mitches match converses; one black with yellow, the other yellow with pink skull shoelaces didn’t for a moment stand out against her colorful attire. She had the skintight jeans along with the unknown band t-shirt, including the holes added with age, and the oversized coat to make her look like one of the cool kids running around Uptown Charlotte. The Shed Kids with their wild parties where all the wine and drugs flow free. Parties which would make Dionysus feel like he sat in Heaven, but now -"

                She glanced down at her thrift stores clothes, fearful she would look a fool in front of Nick. She glanced at the dirty window on the first floor seeing her snow-white hair matching the dog flower tone of her skin, highlighted with hints of faded green farming her pointed face. The green unnatural against her hair and the whiteness of her long her natural hair in all its glory.

                You’re a Norse goddess.

                The voice ripple from the back of her past making her look at away from the window -"

                Thank God

                She hated her face and her body and her -

                F*****g clothes.

                Alanna head back for the crosswalk. She had to be mad thinking, Nick - the new upcoming artist of Charlotte -" would want anything to do with her. He wouldn’t let her into his studio. She stopped under the sign screaming into her hands.

                She couldn’t go back home, but where else could see go. She wanted to find the nearest pill, swallow it, and numb this feeling away. She didn’t care what the pill was -

                Sleeping pill? I don’t have to be awake anymore.

                Pain Killer? I have enough to kill away.

                Ecstasy, acid, s**t -" meth, she didn’t care at the moment. She just couldn’t be here anymore in this mindset with her brother in town begging her to come home.

Home to Father. “We need you. Lenora and Zylphia miss you so much. They need you. Father-”

He still called him Father -

“is gone, he is no longer a part of the church. You’ll be safe.”

What a f*****g lie, all of it. Father - s**t I’m doing it - might be in jail but his hands were still in control of the whole church.

The sign turn whispering for her to go find what she needed.

A drug -

A drink -

A f**k - it was all out there; it was all better than this. She looked up, crossed the street, and stopped dead in her tracks looking at the man smiling. He wore the same three-piece suit she always saw him in and yet, no matter how dashing the man looked she couldn’t look away from his pale blue eyes. Those long staring eyes calling to her and reminding her of a wolf in the snow. The blanket of white hides the fangs of the wolf but his eyes - shows hints of a peaceful end.

She sat on the steps under Nick’s studio not ready to knock, but unable to leave. Every time she went to leave, she saw the pale eyes of the man standing on the other side of the road, shaking his head no. He was the reason she came to find Nick.

The other week armed and armed with Beth they went to Nick’s show, the Shadows of War, to see his work. The new Caravaggio, the New York Times, called him. There even had a few reporters at the show interviewing Nick, making his life miserable, and when Alanna saw his painting, she understood the statement undersold the truth of his skills. The painting hanging on the wall, some the same size of the wall, look to be a portal into a reality of hard shadows and hidden faces. She stood there under a mother crying with her son in her arms like Bernini’s statue of Mary holding Jesus, but the soldier face had turned a waxy white of death. The hole in his chest where all his blood had leaked out -

Making Alanna step back the first time she saw it out of fear of getting blood on her shoes

Had been the end of him. The dirt under his fingernails stood out against the cleanest of his weeping mother. Alanna went forward to the painting, wanting to hug the women, wanting to clean the man’s hand, but stopped inches from the oil painting.

Behind the crying women, the top half of her face hidden in the long shadow running along the painting, but the tears drop hung on her chin -

A few of them darken the man’s face -

Her brown hair darken with sweat the closer to the son it fell -

Alanna could almost smell the sweat -

Staring down at Alanna was the pale blue eyes of the man. She had read the reason eyes followed you from a painting was because your eyes stared back at them, not the other way around. But these eyes didn’t just stare back at her, they followed her through her life, long before she met Nick’s crying mother and dead son.

She had to know where he found them. She needed to kn -

“What are you doing here?” A deep voice asked from behind her. She jumped to her feet, spinning to see the powerful man with a braided black beard and a short Mohawk snarling at her. He had the hair done for the show to piss off his agent, it worked, and he didn’t care.

“I -hm -" I,” Alanna tried to say with his dark green eyes judging her for sitting in front of his door. How couldn’t she have heard him open the door?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Well?” He barked.

“I’m a friend of Beth’s, and I was at your show the other week and, we went out to the bar that night, and, and, and, I was hoping I could speak with you,” she vomited the words out, backing away from the softening judgment. Nick rolled his jaw not showing any emotions, lifeless, unlike all his paintings.

“You want tea or coffee?” He asked after a moment of silence with the wind dancing between them.

“What?” Alanna asked.

“I don’t have any heat,” he said, nodding upstairs, “but I can make you some tea or coffee, so you don’t catch your death.”

“Tea would be nice,” Alanna smiled with Nick letting her in.

                He locked the door behind her, casting them in a second of utter darkness before flipping the switch for the naked light at the top of the stairs on. He pushed past her, a giant to her, and for the first moment with the door locked behind her and the massive man before her the thought flashed in her mind -

                Oh, s**t, he could kill me.

                It would be easy for him.

                She had heard he had spent a good amount of time in the Marines doing the hardest missions he could find. Someone said in a hushed whisper as if Nick had been the Candyman -

                “He was Force Recon, and, killed a s**t load of people.”

                She didn’t know what Force Recon meant or why it made him so deadly, but staring up at him now, she saw how deadly he was; his arms the size of trees looking at if he worked out all the time to keep them perfect in their strength. He didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on him making her -

                She glanced down at her clothes

                More self-conscious than before. She sighed trying not to think of herself as a foolish child standing in front of a true grownup, who has his life altogether.

                “So, you know Beth, huh?” Nick asked the harshest of his voice, not breaking.

                “I do,” Alanna said, starting the climb with him.

                “For how long?” He asked.

                “About three years,” she said. “How do you know her?”

                “She grew up in the same neighbor has my grandparents,” Nick said, stopped at the top of the stairs pulling out the keys from his leather jacket. He wore tight jeans and biker boots with a dark leather jacket covering a black muscle shirt. He looked more like a Hell Angels with the beard than an artist who rocked a Mohawk.

                  Contradiction? Alanna asked herself, studying his body for a short moment.

                The truth of the matter -

                           Rather it was a contradiction or not

                Nick had been a fine-looking man, and it didn’t matter at all.

                He glanced over at her as she stood on a step below him, not like if she stood next to he would make much of a difference.

                “You came by with Beth the other day?” He asked before opening the door.

                “I did,” She nodded, but he didn’t let them in. Instead, he went out to the bar with them for the night. He drank with them, played pool, and then walked home without saying goodbye. “You remember me?”

                “The tattoos are hard to forget,” Nick said, pushing the door open. Under her coat she had on both of her arms, pale as snow, inked up with Celtic knots from wrist to shoulder. Almost everyone remembered her tattoos and her hair, which she normally kept in Viking hair knots. She didn’t have time to do them before rushing out of the house.

                She followed him, stopping in the doorway to the massive canvas across the way of the small studio. An unfished painting welcoming her and she blinked a few times at the sight of it. The background had been painted in a deep purple almost making it black. The outline of tree had been drawn on the dry paint in white charcoal. At the base of the tree kneel a woman crying, with her back to the viewer and a hand reaching up to the tree. In the background behind the women and the tree stood shadow people where Alanna knew the man with the blue eyes would be added.

                She gasped at the work in progress already seeing hints of the painting to come.

                When she finally broke away from the painting, she saw the blanket and pillow resting under it. Then she moved to the walls with endless drawing of study for the painting and saw the fire wrapping around the tree lighting up the world around it, but never, ever, able to beat out the darkness behind the light.

                “Alanna, right?” Nick asked from the small kitchen hidden by a hook in the wall.

                “Yeah,” Alanna said, moving between the books and paper on the floor. “You remember my name?” They hadn’t talked all that night when he went out with them.

                He is a slob -

                Frowning at the reading chair against the wall with a tower of books near it. She glanced back at the pillow under the easel, wondering if he really slept there.

                Why would you do that to yourself?

                Alanna sat on the stool, the only stool in front of the bar. The kitchen, except for the brush needing to be clean was neat for the most part. She could tell he didn’t cook all that much, or if he did, he kept his place very clean. The smell of paints and oils marched right up to her tapping on her nose for the first time since she entered the studio. She scrunched up her nose at the sudden assault.

                Nick turned to face her while the water heated up, “You are kind of hard to forget.”

                “Oh, really?” She smiled and for a moment -

                Just a simple moment -

                She swears she saw his eyes lit up at the smile.

                “Truth being told,” he said, digging out some mugs for their tea, “I don’t think I’ve met anyone like you.”

                “A lot of people say that because to the ink,” she said.

                “It wasn’t just the ink,” Nick said.

                “What else was it?” Alanna asked.

                “Ah, it’s nothing,” he said, putting a cup in front of her. “So, what brings you here?”

                “I want to know what is the other thing?” Alanna pushed, but Nick shook his head no. She went to fight him on the matter, but the look in his eyes said -

                Fight me,

                I’ll win,

                And you’ll be outside in the cold,

                I don’t lose.

                She looked back at the wall before pointing, “Him, the guardian angel.”

                Nick followed her finger to the man with the pale blue eyes. A picture of him sat above everything else. The drawing was done in oil pastels almost looked to be photograph with the pores in his skins noticeable from the stool. There had been a small scar under his lip made from the time he rushed while shaving, it had healed wrong, and the scar held the reminded to slow down -

                You won’t bleed if you take your time.

                A lesson learned, well.

                She turned back to Nick to see his jaw locked and a mix of fear, rage, and sorrow swirling in his lovely eyes. The teapot started to yell, but the emotions dancing in his eyes made Alanna see how much of a mistake coming here was. They both had seen this man, both of them feared him, and somewhere deep down loved him. They thought they were going mad because of his eyes, never able to speak about him to anyone. Only they could see him thinking they were alone in the madness of the man showing up randomly in their lives. Until now -

                “I’m sorry,” She jumped to her feet, rushing for the door.

                “Wait,” Nick ordered taking the pot off the burner. “Wait, don’t go.”

                “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Alanna said, still moving close to the door.

                “You didn’t upset me,” Nick said, pouring the hot water into the cup. “Please, sit.”

                She sat down, putting her hands around the mug, not realizing how cold they had been until the heat bite at the cold.

                Nick took a deep breath, “Have you seen him before?”

                “Outside of your paintings?” Alanna asked.

                “Yeah.”

                “A couple of times,” she said. “Do you know his name?”

                “I wish, I did but no.”

                “When was the first time you saw him?” She asked.

                “I don’t talk about it, how did you know he was a guardian angel?” Nick lean on the counter.

                “He - hm - saved me from my family,” she said. “He stopped me from -"

                Eating a bullet -

Doing something stupid and got me away from them.”

                “What happens?” Nick asked with a raised eyebrow and Alanna looked down at the tea in her cup, bits of steams danced off of it, being the only warmth in the whole icy studio. Somehow, it seems colder in between the four walls than outside in the wind kicking about. She wondered how much tea and coffee Nick drank to stay warm -

                A lot, if I had to guess -

                A whole lot.

                “No offense but that is a little too personal,” Alanna told him looking back up into his eyes.

                Nick nodded, “Hey, I understand.” He took a sip of his tea. “Now, what else brought you here?”

                “What do you mean?” Alanna asked.

                “It can’t be the angel,” he said, standing back up,” because you could have got Beth to get me out and asked me all the questions you wanted about him. So, what made you come here, alone?”

                “My brother is in town,” Alanna mumble. “He wants me to come home. I ran away a while ago, and now -“

                I can’t go back -

                I’ll eat a bullet before I do that -

                Never again, never.

                “He found you?” Nick asked.

                “It wasn’t too hard,” Alanna explained. “I live with my grandmother.”

                Nick smirked,” Might not have been the best place to hideout. Now, an artist who lives alone and no one knows you know him, might be a better place to hide.”

                Alanna smiled,” Not a bad plan, huh?”

                Nick's eyes went to the angel’s face. “Not at all.”

                She followed his glaze over to the painting and said, “I kind of knew you were safe because of him.”

                “Yeah, I kind of knew the same thing about you,” Nick drink his tea. “I was about to go get dinner, but I’ll order in, you want some?

“If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all and you can take the bedroom tonight.”

                “Thank you.”

                “You can stay for a few nights, but only for a few nights, I have work to do,” Nick said.

                “Another show?” She asked.

                “There is always another show,” he said, almost smiling at her, but his lips didn’t let it happen.

                “No more than three nights,” Alanna smiled, drinking her tea for the first time. “I swear.”