“Doesn’t sound much like friends to me,” the lady said, eyeing Abaddon’s tattoos as if she were considering whether stopping to pick them up had been the right choice.
But Abaddon smiled and pulled out Rogers’ wallet with a pleasant smile. “I suppose not. Thankfully, there’s still good people around. How much for two tickets to Red Oak?”
Gabriel curled his hands into the sleeves of his sweater, feeling as if the few passengers present could see right through them, and knew what they’d done. But no one was informing the police or calling them murderers, so once Abaddon bought the tickets, they sat at the back like normal people. As if they weren’t an angel and a freak on a mission to rid the world of the members of a cult.
Gabriel scratched the cracked leather of the seat. “I haven’t been on a bus since childhood. Before I was broken… I was actually quite happy. For an orphan.”
Abaddon’s hand moved to his knee and squeezed it as the bus moved forward, carrying the handful of passengers. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have done something to keep you safe.”
“I think that’s why they chose me along with the others. I don’t have any distant family, no one to miss me. They knew they could get away with making me disappear. I was told that someone just left me at the gates when I was a newborn. Maybe I had been an offering to Abaddon all along.” He glanced at his angel companion and put his hand over Abaddon’s. He’d never thought of himself as special, unless it was in the sense of especially unlucky, but now he wondered if all the darkness inside him had built up for a purpose.
He wouldn’t mind being offered to this Abaddon, particularly if it involved more of what happened in the shower.
“Sometimes, it’s better not to know where you come from and who made you,” Abaddon said, looking out of the window, but at this point, the outside world was a landscape of black and dark blue.
He was so beautiful, even though Gabriel could see imperfections from up close. The scratch on his chin, or a little scar on his forehead made him that much more touchable. Yet it wasn’t only Abaddon’s physicality that made Gabriel melt in his presence. For the first time in his life, he could speak his mind and feel understood. The self-harm ritual he tended to fall back on when the pain and loneliness of living became too much to bear, now seemed like something he’d never have to do again.
He didn’t need the razor. He needed kisses.
“Do you know what heaven looks like?”
Abaddon shrugged, rubbing Gabriel’s knuckle with his thumb.
“It’s a place of harmony and sun. It’s never too cold or too hot, no one is hungry, and even the rain is warm.”
Gabriel sighed when rain started tapping at the windows of the bus, because those droplets would surely be cold. “Do people and angels live there together?”
Abaddon took his time before reaching to his neck and squeezing the small cross he wore around it. “I don’t know.”
“It’s cruel of God to leave you with so little information.” Gabriel frowned. “I’m sorry. We don’t know what His plan is. But it’s frustrating.”
“Maybe I couldn’t enjoy my time here if I remembered everything I’ve seen from the dawn of time. Perhaps it’s a blessing?” Abaddon asked, squeezing Gabriel’s hand as they drove into town. In the dim light at the back of the bus, no one would see their little touches anyway.
“If Hell is full of suffering, then maybe you’re right. I often prayed to forget what’s been done to me. I was constantly either sad or angry about it. Even back when I thought I made it up and caused all the scars myself, I just channeled that anger back at myself. I’m glad you got a clean slate.”
Abaddon’s mouth curved into the slightest smile, and he pulled Gabriel’s hand all the way to his lips, to stamp it with a kiss. “The pain is difficult, but it’s up to you how to live your current life.”
Gabriel’s lips trembled at the emotion he couldn’t contain. “When you succeed with your mission, because you will, can I come with you? To Heaven?”
Abaddon’s smile dropped. “Only the Lord can decide when your time has come.”
Gabriel pulled his hand away and slumped against the window, watching the town’s lights pass by. So he was destined to be alone again as soon as Abaddon was done meting out justice. Unless, of course, Abaddon wasn’t actually an angel, but just some guy who’d pulled Gabriel into a murder spree. While Gabriel kept pushing that thought away, he admitted it was a possibility. After all, he was lonely enough to take a sliver of love from Satan himself.