Breaking An Angel

Chapter 11: Sister, Sister

PENELOPE POV

Azrael gently pushes me off of him and brushes past me to pick up the clothes I dropped on the floor while I was in my haze. He quickly begins to dress himself, I turn away to give him some privacy and just look out my window into the garden. 

I can’t help the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment and shame for pushing myself on him. I didn’t do it on purpose, I knew what I was doing wasn’t me but my body wasn’t responding.

“Why don’t you go shower and change, I’ll wait for you downstairs,” he proposes making his way to the door.

He hesitated as he reached for the doorknob like he wanted to say something but he stops himself, steps out and closes the door behind him.

I can feel the tears beginning to sting my eyes, but I refuse to let the tears fall. I look up at my ceiling trying to steady my breathing focusing on one spot and recalling things I can see from my peripheral vision. 

Slowly but surely my eyes begin to dry and I can finally take a deep breathe without feeling like I’ll fall about any minute. I find myself in the shower and realize that the water is scalding hot but I can’t feel anything, my skin is turning red and irritated so I quickly finish showering and head to my closet. I have no interest in picking out clothing so I just chose the first thing that catches my attention, a pair of black joggers and a black crop top hoodie. I put on my panties and a sports bra, followed by my chosen clothing, my socks and my sneakers. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror before I walk out of the closet.

I sigh, “You look like s**t Penelope.” And with that I walk out of my room and downstairs.

I find Alexius and Azrael eating brunch at the kitchen island, making jokes and laughing together like they’re the best of friends. Butterflies, I feel butterflies as soon as I make eye contact with Azrael, he sends a big smile my way followed by a wink and I feel my legs are ready to Gove out.

“Really? Can you two do this somewhere else?” Alexius groaned.

“Good morning to you too sunshine,” I respond sticking my tongue out at him.

“It actually was until you walked in my room.”

“Please never bring that up, I’m still traumatized,” I joke.

Alexi rolls his eyes at me before he stands up to get another serving, “You know I can feel your sadness, you really like her don’t you?” I ask.

“Like who, what happened in his room?” Azrael interjects.

Alexius and I both stare at him and then at each other, forgetting that we were talking about his sister. 

“Remiel,” I mumble under my breathe hoping he doesn’t hear me.

Azrael chuckles and looks at Alexius, “That’s funny, for a second I thought you said Remiel.”

“She did…”

“Wait. Wait! Remi!!” He yells out. “What did you do to my sister?!?”

“More like what she did to me, according to her this was a one time thing.”

“Okay maybe we should take a beat,” I say as I place myself in between them in case one decides to react. “She seems like a responsible young woman who knows what she’s doing.”

“I’m not trying to control her Penelope! The last time she was involved with a human she lost her grace and went on a f*****g rampage when he was punished.”

Alexius is just standing by his seat looking down at his food not knowing what to say.  I don’t think he knew about what she had been through, they didn’t really give each other the time to get to know one another.

“Okay, I get that, but you said that it was allowed now, so what’s the big deal?” I ask.

“The big deal is that as far as we know he isn’t her soulmate. Remi shouldn’t be getting involved with someone who isn’t her soulmate she will only end up getting hurt and she doesn’t know how to handle her emotions.” I can see Azrael getting visibly upset, his arms are pulsing as his hands are gripping the island countertop and his eyes are sealed shut. I can feel that he’s trying to calm himself down so he doesn’t hurt Alexius but it isn’t working.

I make my way to his side and place my hand over his in hopes that I can help him in some way. He visibly starts to relax and looks up at Alexius. “Even if you aren’t her soulmate, if your intentions aren’t pure stay away from her so she doesn’t get hurt.”

“I wasn’t planning on hurting her,” Alexius responds. “I actually wanted something and she said otherwise, so I won’t push her.”

“Okay, so now that we’ve discussed that why don’t we just finish eating?”

We sit in silence eating breakfast, the once blossoming friendship between Azrael and Alexius has now come to an abrupt end, hopefully they can get past this. 

Adonis walks in looking worse for wear, “Woah, what happened in here?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” respond Alexius and Azrael at the same time. They look at each other and smile before turning back to their meals. 

Their bromance is going to be okay.

Adi grabs a plate and comes to sit across from me, “Adi, I can feel your misery, go talk to Jo.” I demand, knowing that I probably shouldn’t be feeling intense emotions after what happened last night.

“I’m not miserable P.”

“Yes, you are, it’s radiating off of you and I can feel every fiber of my being calling for Jo” I say. “Si no lo haces por ti mismo, al menos hazlo por mí (If you won’t do it for yourself at least do it for me), I don’t think I can handle the extra sadness.”

“Wow, one of your brothers had a quickie with one of my sisters and the other one is basically breaking Jo’s heart,” Azrael teases me. “They aren’t really doing so good this morning.”

“Hey it isn’t like you haven’t done anything to our sister,” Alexius retorts. “Or did you forget your little dry hump session on a tree swing.”

“Le dijistes (you told him)?!?” I yell out at Adonis.

Adonis is sipping on some orange juice before looking up at Azrael with a sly smirk, “You’re lucky Achilles isn’t here.”

“I hate you, all of you,” I pout.

Azrael grabs me pulling me closer to him and kisses my temple before bursting out into laughter with my brothers.

I stand up from my seat placing my hands on the counter making sure to make eye contact with each one of these assholes, “Laugh it up but remember this, none of you are getting laid anytime soon.” They each look at me like I’ve just taken their favorite toy and crushed it in front of them.

That’s what I thought.

“Now if you all don’t mind, Azrael, who do I need to talk to about learning how to control this,” I say as I point to myself.

“I’ll call Gabi.”

******

At this point we’re waiting for Gabrielle to arrive in our backyard, luckily our closest neighbors are a mile away, so no one would question the Angel that will be landing here any minute. An hour passes by and she still hasn’t arrived, Azrael has tried calling her but she might not be getting cell reception wherever she is at.

 Gabrielle finally shows up, and she does not look happy whatsoever, in fact she looks like she could murder someone right now. Her pearly white wings are splattered with a black substance, along with her hands and some across her face.

“What happened?” Azrael asks her.

“A demon was close by, we can’t have them finding out about her before she can learn how to control herself.”

“You’re a total badass,” I yelped.

“Thanks.” She says.

“She’s alright,” Azrael interrupts.

Gabrielle rolls her eyes at him seemingly annoyed by his comment, “you’re welcome for protecting your little girlfriend.”

“Now can we please get started, I have work to get back to, we don’t all have an army of angels at our beck and call.”

“Well you were friends with Sofia, so you should know how to help her,” Azrael says.

“Who’s Sofia?”

“She was my best friend and one of the most powerful empaths I’ve ever met. She lived a long time ago,” Gabrielle answers.

She looks down at the ground her eyes glistening with heartache, before quickly fluttering, that stern expression once again coating her features.

“Okay so how do I do this?” I ask.

“So what Sofia would do is whenever she would syphon emotions voluntarily or involuntarily she would release it. We saw yesterday that you can create energy bursts, the more concentrated the more lethal. Sometimes she would just release back into nature by touching the ground or sometimes she would release back into the universe. She said that all energy needed to go somewhere, so if it’s released back into nature or the universe, then it would be used to create new life.”

I cross my arms afraid of the answer to the question I’m about to ask, “So how can I make sure that I won’t hurt anyone?”

Azrael walks up to me lifting my chin to meet his gaze, “you can’t, you just have to trust yourself. Why don’t you just give it a try?” I nod reassuringly turning to Gabrielle waiting for the next step.

“Alright so take my hand and try to syphon my emotions don’t take too much, just enough to where you can feel them.” I do as she says, as I’m holding on to her hand I can begin to feel her anger, nervousness, and a hint of repressed love.

Who is she in love with?

“Okay now what?”

“Now take your hand and touch the ground, think of releasing the energy not in waves or blasts but more like sprinkles.”

Okay I can definitely do this, it’s no big deal.

I place my hands on the ground closing my eyes trying to concentrate and will myself to release the energy.

The ground softly vibrates underneath me making me think that it’s actually working only to feel the ground begin to shake and then...

BOOM

A mushroom cloud of dirt covers me from head to toe.

“I don’t think this worked,” I say as I stand up with my eyes closed trying to spit out dirt from my mouth.

I look over at Azrael and Gabrielle who are bent over dying of laughter. 

I’m glad my dirt covered face makes them happy.