Chapter 1Mature

A few years earlier…

I hurried out of the shower to grab the phone and nearly slipped on the green tiles. I growled and glanced at my watch, only one person could be calling this late.

“Hello,” I said, grabbing a towel from the shelf.

“Heyyy Shawn. How’s it going?” came my brother’s cheerful voice with music playing loudly in the background.

“Hi Brett.” His timing was impeccable. Every time I had plans, he had to interrupt them. “Can I call you back? I was…” I moved the phone away as the DJ loudly announced the next song.

“What? Sorry, I’m at the bar,” he said with a chuckle. I could tell he had been drinking.

“Yeah, I noticed. I’ll call you back later, I was going…” I struggled to dry myself while holding the phone between my ear and shoulder.  

“Can you come over for a few minutes? I have something important to tell you…” his voice trailed off. “Well hello there, how are you sweetness?”

I rolled my eyes. Brett, or Danyael as I knew him, was a lost cause. “Wouldn’t it be great if someone invented some kind of magical device that would allow two people to talk to each other while being far away. Oh wait, they did… it’s called a PHONE!”

A group of people was shouting behind him. “What? You bought a new phone?” he said speaking over the noise.

I grumbled under my breath, he was doing this on purpose. “Can’t this wait until you get back home?”

The small two bedroom apartment we shared was twenty minutes away from the bar but that’s not what stopped me from going. It was the humans. I wanted nothing to do with them. The only reason I hid amongst them was to keep Danyael safe.

“Just get over here, you’re not that far away,” he added on a more serious tone.

I sighed heavily; this was going to be a long night. “Alright, I’ll be there soon,” and I hung up.

It was pointless to argue with someone who had the attention span of a squirrel. And just like that, my plans to go to work to quietly finish a pile of paperwork crumbled.

There is a fine line separating a genius from an idiot and I couldn’t tell which side Danyael was on most of the time.

I walked into the bedroom with the towel wrapped around my waist. An early summer breeze came from the open window sparking chills that ran up and down my body. I looked outside wondering if a hunter might be staring back. I closed the blinds and carefully pulled my wings away from this human disguise to wrap them around me.

The once soft and pure white feathers had lost their shine during our fall from Heaven. A day we remembered all too vividly. The now gray and tarnished wings were a constant reminder that no one remains pure without Father’s grace.

I shook the thoughts from my head and dug through the drawers for something to wear. Fashion was something I didn’t care much about. Humans however, were particularly fond of it. The fact that simple pieces of cloth could grant promotions or attract lovers was ridiculous.

I slipped into a white shirt and a pair of jeans and made my way towards the door with a bad feeling in my gut. I shuddered. Humans…