The Quo by Lola St. Vil
“—Marcus, we got this,” Ameana says with certainty.
I’m guessing the girls took off because now all I hear are the guys.
“How is she?” Marcus asks, worried.
“She had a panic attack. She’s better, considering. But she wanted to be alone,” Jay says.
“Rio, how could you not know Lucas was capable of that?” Marcus accuses.
“Hey, I’m not a fortune teller.”
“His Waves didn’t tell you that he was a pervert?”
“His Waves told me that he was horny and lusting after Emmy. There are no Waves that say ‘I’m gonna put my girlfriend on Youtube!’” Rio counters.
“I don’t care, you should have known.”
“Marcus, you aren’t the only one who cares about Emmy but we can’t protect her from everything.”
“So you think it’s okay to let some guy take advantage of her like this?”
“Argh! Is that what I said? Is that what you heard me say just now?” Rio asks incredulously.
“Rio, you should have read his Wave!”
“If Rio knew what Lucas was capable of he would have said something,” Jay assures Marcus.
“I guess. Sorry,” Marcus replies in a softer voice.
“You should be in there with her,” Rio offers.
“She hates guys right now, remember?”
“Not all guys…” Rio replies.
“I want to go in but…just look after her for me.”
He doesn’t even want to come in and see me. He’s disappointed and angry that I let him go for aperve like Lucas…
It doesn’t matter. All guys do is hurt you. With or without wings, guys always end up breakingyour heart. When will I learn that lesson? What made me think I could find a nice guy who Icould trust? Marcus is an Angel and even he betrayed me. All guys are the same: selfish, over-sexed rats.
I hate them all…
I close my eyes and all I can see are flashes of guys looking at me naked. How many people played that video on repeat? How many sent it to their friends? Did my teachers see it? Did any of my friends? Will anyone believe me when I say I didn’t know I was being filmed?
Right now I miss my mom so much; I want to die. I would give anything to stop the pain that comes with her absence.
If she were here, she would have held me and told me everything would be fine. And I would believe her because she always sounded so sure of everything.
Please Omnis, bring her back this one time. Please, please, please, just this once…
I burst into tears loudly; everyone can hear. Screw them. I want my mom back. I don’t think I can make it without her.
The grief of losing her has always felt like a tide, pulling me down. I fight it because it’s so hard to make it back to the surface. But it’s got a hold of me now. I’m going under. I’m going under.
Someone help me, please…
“Hey,” he says softly.
I look up and find Marcus kneeling down at the foot of my bed. He hands me a box of tissues. I take it and sit upright.
He waits while I blow my nose and dry my eyes.
“Everyone saw it, everyone saw the video,” I confide to him.
“I didn’t.”
“You promise?”
“I haven’t seen it and I will never watch it,” he vows.
“He didn’t even really like me, he was just…”
“I know.”
“How could he do that? How could a human being be so cruel?”
“I don’t know, Em.”
“He said I should be happy because it got a lot of ‘likes.’ Who says that? What is wrong with him?”
“I’m sorry this happened.”
“I thought he liked me. I thought he cared about me. I was so stupid.” I sob into my hands. He gently strokes my back. His hands feel warm against me. It’s a welcome sensation.
“Marcus, why doesn’t Omnis like me? What did I do wrong?” There’s a catch in his voice. His tone is reflective and sincere.
“Emmy, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why are so many bad things happening to me?”’
“You just need to hang in there long enough to pull through this. There will be other moments. Better ones. You can get past this. You have before.”
“It was easier before; I had my Mom. Now she’s gone and I have no one.” Marcus winces when I say that. I can see him through my tears. He closes his eyes. He looks pained; like he is using all his willpower to suppress a great urge.
His face is only inches away from mine. This is the closest we’ve been since we jumped off the tower. I inhale his scent. It reminds me of the Green Mountains. I remember what his embrace felt like: strong, certain, safe. I need to be in his arms because the memory of his embrace isn’t enough right now.
“Marcus, can you hold me?”
“No.”
“You’re so mad that I moved on you can’t even bring yourself to comfort me!” I accuse.
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
He remains silent. Fresh tears fall from my eyes and down my face. He slides his hand towards the back of my head, I lean forward so that our foreheads are touching; our lips ache to do the same.
“Why won’t you hold me?” I beg.
“Because sooner or later you’ll ask me to let you go and…I don’t know how to do that.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
HUMAN FREE ZONES
When he pulls away, it’s the sun being taken from my sky. I’m cold again. And there is no way to get warm.
“Jay said he’d make you something to eat,” he says as he heads to the door.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat.”
“Can you stay until the food gets here?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He takes a seat in the chair across from the bed.
“I just don’t understand; why would Lucas think I’d be okay with what he did?”
“I don’t think he cared either way.”
“Did Ameana and Miku really go after him?”
“I guess even among Angels, girl power is important.”
“I hope they split his face open.”
“Knowing Miku, that’s a distinct possibility.”
“Well, maybe he needs a little Redd in his life,” I reply bitterly.
“I should have gone after him. He needs to bleed for what he did; a lot,” Marcus says.
I can see him envisioning Lucas bloodied and broken on the ground. He’s enjoying the visual. I shake my head at the sight of the pissed-off Guardian.
“It’s better that you didn’t. He’s not worth it,” I assure Marcus.
“I guess”.
“My mom would take the same stance as you on this. When anyone tried to hurt me, she’d get this look in her eyes. She’d be out for blood.”
“So she had some fight in her, huh?”
“In kindergarten, this boy named Jackson would steal my lunch every day. When my mom found out, she put a chocolate pudding cup in my lunch box. Jackson came and took it. He opened the cup, took one bite and dropped the pudding on the floor. My mom had put cayenne pepper in it.”
“Your mom tried to poison a five-year-old!” Marcus says, laughing despite himself.
“You should have seen it. Jackson ran around in circles, screaming for help as his face turned red. He looked like a demented tomato.”
“That’s so wrong to do to a kid,” he says, still grinning.
“All I know is that for the rest of the year, Jackson never touched my food or anyone else’s.”
“I have a whole new level of respect for your mom.”
“She loved me. It didn’t matter how I came to be on this earth. She treated me like I was…special. I miss that,” I confess quietly.
He is about to say something but then thinks better of it. Then he clears his throat and avoids my eyes.
“Rio went to your house; he removed all
“How many were there?” I ask.
“Three.”
“How could I be so stupid?”
“Hey, I tried CP thinking I could stop whenever, that’s beyond stupid.”
“So…um, how did that whole thing start?”
He clenches his jaw, looks at the floor.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
He remains silent. Just when I think he’s not going to answer me, he speaks.
“It was hard when we broke up. But when you came over to the house and gave me my Rah back…”
“You took CP to stop the pain,” I reply.
“I knew there was no stopping it. But I thought with the CP, maybe I could ‘pause’ the pain, ya know?”
“Did it work?”
“Yeah, at first; then I had to take more so I could keep feeling less.”
“I think I do the same thing with ice cream,” I joke.
We smile at each other shyly. The moment lingers.
This feels nice…
“Emmy, did you really throw out the Replay I gave you?”
“I can’t believe you’re doing that right now.”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to make me feel bad about the Replay.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel anything. I just asked you a question.”
“There was a tone behind it.”
“What tone? There was no ‘tone.’”
“Yes there was. And it implied that I was a cruel person.”
“I didn’t have a tone.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Okay, so what if I did. How could you just throw out something I gave you?”
“I gave you my heart and you threw that out, so don’t you sit there and judge me.”
“How many times am I going to have to say this, I was trying to save your life.”
“ARGH! I can’t believe you still don’t get it!”
“No, you don’t get it! All you see, all you’ll ever see, is me kissing Ameana. There is nothing I can do that will take that image away from your mind.”
“Yes, I’m pissed and hurt that you did that, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is, after that night, I questioned the sincerity of every moment we shared. Every laugh, every kiss, every time you said ‘I love you.’ It’s like you poured acid over our entire relationship. Marcus, you destroyed us.”
“Well you weren’t that heartbroken; you had time to find yourself another guy. We break up and you replace me ten minutes later.”
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t even wait six months before you replaced me.”
“Is there a rule about how long a human should stay single after her Angel boyfriend cheats?”
“You replaced me so quickly, like I didn’t matter. How could you do that?”
“The same way you could suck on Ameana’s tongue for five minutes.”
“It wasn’t five minutes.”
“Really, Marcus? That’s your counter argument?”
“Why is it so hard for you to see that I did what I did to help you?”
“MAKING ME CRY EVERY DAMN DAY FOR MONTHS DOESN’T HELP ME!”
“It ripped my damn heart out to know you were hurting. Why won’t you believe that?”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t hard for you to do what you did Marcus, I’m saying I don’t care.”
“Really, Emmy? Is that your position on how I feel? You don’t care?”
“I sat on the roof, in the blue freaking rain, dying. Dying! Because you said you didn’t love me anymore. You were the only thing I had left and you abandoned me. So no, Marcus, I really don’t care how you feel.”
“It must be nice to have no responsibilities at all. I don’t have that luxury. I have to keep you and my team alive. I have to save the damn Angel world and your world, too. The only thing you have to do is feed your cat.”
“You leave Mrs. Charlotte out of this!”
“I have to make hard decisions and I’m sorry if what I decide doesn’t meet with your approval.”
“You weren’t my leader; you were my boyfriend. Your job was to love me and you failed.”
“I’m getting really sick of being judged by you; I did what I thought was best at the time,” he says sternly.
“Okay, what about now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, knowing how this all plays out now, if you had the chance to go back, would you make the same decision?”
“If it’ll keep you alive, yes.”
“You would really let me go through—you know what, get out.”
“Fine; I don’t even know why I came.”
“That makes two of us!”
He slams the door behind him. I hurl the pillow after him.
“Argh! I hate him!”
“If I get you the ice cream I owe you will it make it better?” Rio asks.
“What kind would you get?”
“Vanilla.”
“I’m more complicated than that now,” I inform him.
“So what, vanilla chocolate chip?”
“Chunky Monkey.”
“Wow, things are bad, huh?”
I nod. He squeezes my hand.
“Okay, no ice cream but you better eat the soup. Jay’s gonna be upset if you don’t.”
“Are you two talking again?”
“There’s nothing to say: Jay and I are no longer friends. We’re just…teammates.”
“Rio, don’t you think maybe you’re overreacting?”
“Emmy, he’s been using my sister since they were in the light.”
“Miku is a lot of things but she’s not weak; whatever she did or didn’t do with Jay, she was doing it voluntarily. You can’t bully that girl into anything.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s a code about that stuff. You don’t mess with another Angel’s sister.”
“She really likes him.”
“She’s just looking for something to do, that’s all.”
“Actually, it’s deeper than that.”
“How much deeper?”
“She’s falling for him.”
“No, I would have read that in her Waves!”
“This is just a guess on my part, but maybe you can’t read some of her Waves because you don’t want to. Maybe you just like being in denial about the whole thing,” I suggest carefully.
“I’m just looking out for her.”
“The tips of Miku’s wings are red from all bloody bodies she left in her wake. Trust me, she doesn’t need your protection. She needs your support.”
“What if Jay hurts her, what then?”
“Okay, Jay is not the first choice for a future brother-in-law. But you have to admit, he loves Miku like family. He wouldn’t hurt her on purpose.”
“Would it help you at all to know Marcus didn’t hurt you on purpose?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“All I’m saying is it sucks to like someone and not know if they like you back. But what’s even worse is having to fight your family and your insecurities all at once. Give her a break. Being in love is hard enough.”
“Shouldn’t you be telling yourself that?” he asks.
“What are talking about?”
“You are filled with anger. Lots of it.”
“Well, Marcus--”
“—it’s not directed towards him.”
“Okay, then who am I angry with?”
“Yourself.”
“That’s not true.”
“Emmy, I know self-loathing when I see it.”
I exhale and drop onto the chair where Marcus once sat.
“Why are you so angry with yourself?” he asks.
“Because it’s not working.”
“What’s not working?”
“I’ve been trying to hate Marcus. I’ve been trying so hard. But no m
“Why?”
“He blindsided me. It’s like I walked up to him with open arms and he just stabbed me repeatedly. And it hurt. It hurt so much.”
“I know, I remember.”
“So why do I still love him? What’s wrong me?”
“I saw Marcus the night he lied and said he didn’t love you; that was the most difficult moment he’s ever faced.”
“How do you know?”
“I went to the other side of the world to get away from Waves of sorrow and pain that were too strong to take in. Marcus thinks they were your Waves. But they weren’t; they were his. Emmy, that guy was in hell.”
“Marcus, we have a problem,” the Foundation member says as he races up the stairs. Marcus calls for the rest of us to follow him to their headquarters.
As we make our way there, I quickly inquire about Lucas.
“Hey, I’m sorry to ask this now but what did you guys do to Lucas? He’s not…in the ER or something is he?” I ask Miku and Ameana.
They exchange a quick smug look between the two of them.
“Seriously, is he okay?” I ask.
“He’s fine. We went to the school and told him we had a crush on him and that we wanted to make a video with him. He was so shocked, he almost swallowed his tongue,” Miku says.
“And then when he got him to his house we let him see our wings,” Ameana adds.
“He went nuts. We told him if he made any more videos we’d come back and remove something from his body that guys generally really miss when it’s taken away.”
“Where is he now?” I ask.
“In a mental institution.”
“What?”
“Well, that’s where you put people who swear they see Angels,” Ameana smiles.
“Ameana, Miku…thank you.”
Miku smiles brightly at me. Ameana nods slightly. That’s the best I’m ever gonna get from that girl.
We all gather outside and wait for the Foundation to let us in. Once inside, we find a room filled with very concerned Quo.
“Where’s Nipoe?” I ask Rio.
“She’s using her powers. She’ll pop into the room in a minute.”
“She can Blink like Reese?”
“No, she has the power of invisibility.”
“How do you know?”
“While I can’t see her, I can read her waves. She is not happy.” And sure enough Nipoe appears in the chair at the head of the table, looking worn out and grim.