Miracle - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Maddy moved up next to me on the porch, and the two of us gaped at Ezra together.
"You took the watch off," he said quietly from the depths of his oversized hood. "I had to make sure you were all right."
"I'm fine." I crossed my arms, which reminded me I still had the watch in question in my hand. I fingered it a second, then stuck it in the pocket of my shorts. "And for the record, you were wrong about Pete. We did great together."
"I..." Ezra seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say, and ducked his head. "I'm glad it turned out that way."
Why did that meek reply make me feel so guilty?
Wait. Had he seen Pete kiss me?
Oh, shit, of course he had. That's what had distracted me out in the yard, it was Ezra sneaking around. He must've watched the whole thing.
A funny feeling welled up in my stomach, and the back of my neck got hot. For some reason, the thought of Ezra seeing that made me even more uncomfortable than my sister doing the same thing. I wanted to be mad. Here he was spying on me again, during a moment that was personal, and private, and... important.
But instead I felt embarrassed. Like I'd been caught doing something wrong. He wasn't making eye contact with me, like he knew he'd done something wrong. That only aggravated my discomfort. Ezra wasn't the boss of me. I didn't owe him anything. I'd never asked for his protection or his interest. He wouldn't even tell me why he was following me around, other than that vague comment about how I was his responsibility.
And pheromones be damned, I could kiss whoever the fuck I wanted.
So why did I feel so bad about it? I shifted my weight onto my bad leg, decided that wasn't such a good idea, and moved back. He seemed to think I was about to fall over, and came up the steps in two long strides to catch my arm.
"You okay?"
I swallowed and nodded. God, this was awkward. He let go of me, and in the porch light I glimpsed injuries on the back of his hand. I reached out to grab it.
"What's this? You got hurt."
His first two knuckles were torn and raw, like they had made contact with a brick wall, and the rest of his hand was covered in scrapes and cuts.
He shook me off, gently. "It's nothing."
I looked up into his face and gasped. His lower lip was split, and his complexion was all gray and raccoon-eyed again, just like the last time I'd seen him. "What the hell, Ezra? You look like you were in a..."
Fight. I trailed off as realization dawned. "The arcade," I breathed, as he averted his eyes. "You were there." He didn't answer, but I already knew it was true. Everything had been chaos, but that explained why Pete and I had been able to get away so easily. The police hadn't even chased us. Oh damn, did that mean he'd fought with them too?
"What happened at the arcade?" Maddy asked, wide-eyed. "There was a fight?"
"Come inside," I said, pulling at Ezra's arm.
He shook his head, and looked back over his shoulder at the driveway.
"Mom's working a late shift." Maddy took his other arm and joined me in tugging him toward the door. "Connor's right, you should come in. It's better than hanging out here in the open."
He let us bring him into the living room, ducking under the door frame. Inside, his massive size became even more noticeable. The ceiling was maybe six inches higher than his head. He had to bend to avoid the ceiling fan.
I darted into the bathroom for our first aid kit, a Tupperware bowl of warm water, and a roll of paper towels. When I returned, Ezra was sitting on the couch. But it looked more like he was seated on a footstool, because his knees were above waist level.
He'd pushed his hood back, which was a treat because it meant I could admire him in the light. And it was maybe the best look at him that I'd ever gotten. He wore his hair in tight black waves cut close to his scalp, with a neat, clean hairline framing his forehead. He still had that stubble around his mouth that made my heart skip. Those high cheekbones and sharp eyebrows, the strong, handsome angle of his jaw, lips so luscious and full that they added a bit of sensitivity to his fierce features. Even with his coloring paler than it should be, with his bottom lip a bit bloody and weary bags under his eyes, he was still the most beautiful man I had ever seen.
After a second I realized I was staring. I hurried to take a seat beside him, and pulled his hand into my lap with the first aid supplies.
"That's not necessary," he said, but I wouldn't let him pull away.
"You rode your motorcycle down here, didn't you? You can't ride back with your hands like this." I soaked a paper towel, held his hand over the bowl, and squeezed a fistful of water over his injuries. Streams of gray-brown dirt tinged with blood trickled back into the bowl.
"Did anyone see you?" I asked as I rinsed his scrapes. It was a dumb question. If he'd been out there hitting people—and getting hit, if that busted lip was any indication—then he had to have been seen. "Dr. Sarias said you could get in trouble. That you're not allowed to interact with humans."
Ezra grunted. "Bo's got a big mouth."
"Is it true, though?"
He grunted again.
"But why?"
"Are you, like, some kind of criminal?" Maddy asked, perching on the end table at his other side.
"No. I was born this way."
I stopped cleaning his hand to look up at him. "What way?"
"Tall," he said dryly.
"Tall?" Maddy and I repeated together.
"Nephilim tend to be bigger than humans. Sometimes a lot bigger. Anyone over two hundred and five centimeters is Reserved."
"That's..." I crunched the numbers in my head, "around six foot eight."
His eyebrows went up, like my mathematical prowess pleased him. "That's right."
"So how tall are you?" Maddy asked.
"Two ten."
I paused to translate that figure too. "Six foot eleven," I concluded in awe. A giant, by just about anyone's definition. He really was almost two feet taller than me.
"They won't let you hang out with the rest of the world just because you're big?" Maddy scoffed. "That's stupid."
"A long time ago, my people were almost wiped out by drawing too much attention to ourselves. We developed laws like Reservation so it would never happen again."
I dabbed the more stubborn dirt from his wounds as gently as I could, then dotted them with antiseptic gel. It probably stung, but he didn't flinch. "What would happen to you? If you get caught breaking the law, I mean. Dr. Sarias said they'd kill you."
"Unlikely. And anyway, it's not something you need to worry about. If it happens, I'll handle it."
"Ezra." I looked up at him. "You shouldn't have come today. You didn't need to do that, it was my fault. I'm the one who decided to go out with Pete, and—" I broke off, feeling heat rise in my face. "I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier, and for taking the watch off. I was just..."
"No. You were right, Connor."
I blinked. "Huh?"
"This situation you're in, it's not fair. You deserve better than a life of solitary confinement. That's why I'm here. I came to bring you this." He reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and brought out what looked like a misting bottle. It was clear plastic with pink liquid inside, topped with a spray pump nozzle. It looked kind of like one of those dollar store fragrance mists, but there was no label.
"The formula still needs work, but in my last round of clinical tests it blocked about seventy percent of the pheromones. It should buy you some more time."
I took the bottle from him and turned it in my fingers. "Time for what?" Then I remembered what he'd said that night in the desert. "Things are going to keep getting worse, aren't they?"
He suddenly looked very tired. He nodded, once. "Put that on before you leave the house. Apply it to your pulse points, particularly your groin."
A body spray for my privates? Well, that was... different. Maddy snickered, but Ezra continued on like he didn't notice. He was a scientist, after all.
"It starts losing potency after about an hour, so you'll want to keep reapplying it. When you're running low let me know, I'll send more." He closed his eyes for a minute, tossing his head like he was dizzy. Then he started to get up. "I need to go."
"Nuh-uh, no way. Are you sick? Something's wrong." I pulled at his arm, trying to stop him from standing.
"Not sick. I just used a lot on the trip down here."
"A lot of what? Sit down, you can't go anywhere like that."
"I'm all right, I just need..." Then his eyes opened, like he'd just thought of something. "Sugar. Do you have any?"
"Like... sugar sugar? Just plain?"
He nodded.
"Yeah. Yeah, we have that, hang on." I set the bowl of water and other supplies on the floor and hopped up.
In the kitchen, I dug through the pantry until I found our bag of granulated cane sugar. It was still half full. The last time I'd used it had been to make our birthday cake a couple weeks ago. I stuck my head into the living room and held it out. "Will this work?"
"Yes."
"Okay. You want it in a cup of coffee, or...?"
"Just that bag and a spoon will be fine."
Was he serious? I brought him the bag, and a spoon from the silverware drawer. Then Maddy and I both watched in befuddlement as he put a heaping scoop of the white stuff into his mouth. It took him a moment to roll it around enough to be able to swallow, and then he followed it with another.
"Is this, like, a Nephilim thing?" Maddy asked in awe. "You guys must have a serious sweet tooth."
Ezra shook his head, working the sugar in his mouth and then swallowing it down so he could answer. "It's not quite like that. We metabolize sugars in a different way."
"Different how?" I asked. He was eating with his right hand, the one I'd already cleaned and bandaged up. So I took the opportunity to give his left one the same treatment. It was in only slightly better shape than the first.
"It's complicated. Our bodies break it down quicker. Our nervous systems use it for a different kind of energy."
"Psychic energy?" I asked, causing him to gulp back a mouthful faster than I think he'd intended. He had to wipe some stray grains from his lips with the back of his bandaged hand.
"You could call it that," he said when he could talk again. "But what made you think so?"
"The prayer thing that you can do. And the whole half-angel thing. I mean, the internet's not the most reliable source of information, but most angel powers sound like psychic stuff. Mind control, flying, making animals talk. Seeing the future." I patted some antiseptic on his hand. "Not to mention getting a virgin pregnant without touching her, huh? That's some real big dick energy."
He looked both confused and astounded. "Connor, you..."
"I'm kidding," I laughed, laying a square of gauze over his knuckles and wrapping them with medical tape. "I know most of it's bullshit. Like, if you really had magical healing powers you could have just wiggled fingers over my leg when I got bit. But there's at least a few things you can do that the rest of us can't." I met his eyes. Like hearing me when I think to you.
His lips parted a little in surprise, which was immensely satisfying. Even more so was the color that had returned to his complexion. I nudged the bag of sugar back into his hand. "You're looking better, I think it's working. Eat more, okay? I'm just going to clean this up."
I ran the first aid kit back to the bathroom, emptied the water bowl into the sink, and threw all the used paper towels in the kitchen trash. In the meantime, Maddy was interrogating Ezra about the fight at the arcade. He was pretty dodgy about her questions. She wasn't getting much out of him besides grunts. But then she asked him about my watch.
"Is it true you gave that watch to Connor on our birthday?"
"Mm."
"Where did it come from? Did you make it?"
"Parts of it. It's Nephilim technology."
I hurried back into the living room, because that caught my attention. The watch came out of my pocket so I could look at it. "Wait. Do you mean this one in particular, or all smartwatches in general?"
He set the sugar bag, now empty, on the end table. "I'd better not answer that."
"Why? Will you get into trouble?"
He stood up, shaking his head. "You ask too many questions, you know that?"
"But they're good questions," I protested.
He took the watch from me and gently wound it around my wrist, securing the strap. "Yes, they are."
His big fingers drifted up then, slid under my jaw and chin and tilted my face toward him.
When Tyler had done something similar it had been out of cruelty, to demonstrate his power over me. But I had the exact opposite feeling from Ezra's touch. As if he was marveling at my power over him. His black eyes traveled my face, my fading bruises, with overwhelming gentleness. His thumb skimmed my lower lip for the briefest of seconds, and I swear to God I thought my knees might buckle with delight.
"You're truly a wonder, Connor," he said softly.
My ears were ringing.
I thought he might hug me, but instead he dropped his hand and stepped back. "I'm sorry I can't tell you everything you want to know. I hope I'll be able to someday soon. But until then, will you keep the watch on for me?"
I nodded dumbly, my chest throbbing with the discomfort of being hammered so hard from the inside. He could have asked me to wear a frilly dress and sunbonnet and I would have agreed to whatever he wanted.
He bowed his head, first to me and then to Maddy. "I'll get going then. Thank you both for your hospitality tonight."
We followed him out onto the porch where he went down the steps, turned to lift his hand in farewell, and then vanished into the darkness beyond the porch light. Everything went quiet, except for the crickets and cicadas making their night music. I couldn't even hear his footsteps across the dry grass.
Maddy bumped me from behind. "Might wanna close your mouth, there, bubba. You're drooling."
I shifted toward her with an eye roll. "Cut it out."
"Hey, I'm jealous! You've got two sexy guys making eyes at you."
"Ezra wasn't doing that," I argued as we went back inside.
"Oh no? Then what the hell do you call this?" She pinched my chin and batted her lashes. "You're a wonder, Connor. Will you wear this expensive watch and this penis perfume for me? And swear to be my cute little snuggly boo forever and ever, amen?"
I pushed her back, laughing as I felt my cheeks blaze. "He didn't say it like that and you know it."
"Pssh, that's what it sounded like to me."
I pushed past her to pick up the empty sugar bag and spoon from the end table in the living room. I carried them into the kitchen, set the spoon in the sink, and went to throw the bag in the trash. I couldn't do it, though.
Had my idol really been in my house a few minutes ago, sitting on my couch, eating half a bag of raw sugar by the spoonful? For so many years he'd been a shadow. A dream that popped in and out of my life so rarely that every time I saw him, it was like catching a glimpse of a ghost. Now he had a name, and a voice, and I could talk to him whenever I wanted.
I smiled to myself and flattened the sugar bag on the counter, folding it smaller. Then I put it in my pocket, took the bottle of pheromone blocker spray from the couch, and went back to our bedroom.
In the back of the closet, I had a big shoebox that contained a pair of leather cowboy boots, the nicest and most frivolous item I owned. Mom had bought them for me, second hand, for a wedding last year. They were actually starting to get a little tight, so I didn't wear them very often. But the box was where I had stashed the broken lock from the storage shed. I tucked the sugar bag in next to it, replaced the lid, and sat on the floor holding the bottle of pink liquid.
"What does it smell like?" Maddy asked from the upper bunk.
I uncapped it and took a whiff. "Not much. Kind of like rubbing alcohol, I guess." That might mean it would evaporate quickly. Better keep the lid on it, then.
"You think it works?"
"If Ezra says it does, then it must."
"I wonder if he made it just for you."
He'd said something about clinical trials. And he was a research scientist, right? "Maybe."
"Well, all I know is he didn't offer me any, even though theoretically you and me have the same pheromones."
I held it up toward her. "You want to try it? I'll share."
"No thanks. I like being the most popular girl in town. But you think, if you wear that around Pete, that he's still gonna like you?"
A little pang went through me at the thought. "I... don't know."
Maddy giggled and rolled onto her back, kicking her feet up in the air. "Gotta hand it to Ezra, getting rid of the competition. He's smart."
"He wouldn't do that," I said, though I couldn't help looking down at the bottle with a bit of dismay. If I wore this, and Pete was no longer interested in me, wasn't that for the best? The only reason he liked me to begin with was the pheromones. Honestly, it wasn't fair for me to be taking advantage of that.
But today had been the first time I'd gone on a date, had a real kiss. And it had been amazing. Not just being with Pete, though he was great, but being wanted in general. Being special to someone, after feeling like a freakish outsider for so long. It was going to be hard to give that up. The only other person who'd ever made me feel that way was Ezra, and it wasn't like he was attainable.
Then again, was Pete? Really? How exactly was I going to explain to him, when the time came, why I couldn't go out in public without getting attacked?
Frustrated, I got up and traded the body spray for my notebook on the desk. Then I climbed into the bottom bunk and started making notes about the things that had happened today. Ezra's formula might help, but the only real chance I had at a normal life in the long run was to learn as much as I could about what was happening to me.
It was long past midnight when I finally went to bed.
🧬🧬🧬
That night, I had a bad dream.
Well, actually, it started out great. Pete and I were in the pool hall at the arcade. He was kissing me just like he had in real life, slow and steady, but because it was a dream my chest and leg weren't hurting, his face wasn't beat up, and the two of us were the only ones in the building.
He picked me up and set me on the pool table, which brought us closer to the same height. He stood between my legs with his arms around me, keeping his mouth pressed to mine.
Then he started moving his lips more. Put his hands on my thighs and pulled me into him. Changed the angle of our mouths so we could explore one another thoroughly. I opened my eyes a little in surprise, and it wasn't Pete I was kissing anymore. He'd morphed into Ezra.
Damn, that was A-okay by me.
I put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him back eagerly. Ezra's arms went around me. His weight pressed me backward until I was lying on the pool table under him. He was huge and solid and powerful, and I was whimpering with happiness. I brought my knees up, wrapped my legs around his torso. He started kissing down my throat, into the curve of my shoulder, and I knotted my hands in the hood behind his neck.
I turned my head to the side while Ezra's lips nipped at my skin, and saw him again.
Another Ezra. Standing in the shadows of the arcade, watching. His expression was startled, and worried. Maybe even a little betrayed.
"Ezra?" I said in confusion. If he was over there, then who was... I pushed at the chest of the Ezra who was kissing me. He raised his head. Definitely still him, same gorgeous features, but somehow I knew this one wasn't my Ezra. Mine was over there, and I got the feeling that I'd offended him.
I wriggled out from under the wrong Ezra and went running across the arcade toward the right one. But he had dissolved into shadows. The maze of neon arcade games transformed into cars, the carpet underfoot became asphalt. I was running through a parking lot, calling Ezra's name, but he was nowhere in sight.
Something slammed into me from the side and sent me sprawling onto the blacktop. Tyler was leering over me, with a dozen dark silhouettes over his shoulder. I heard laughter.
"Looking for someone, fag?" he sneered, his upper lip curling to show off a canine.
"Leave me alone, Tyler."
"You think you're going to get away with it? You think you're hot shit, don't you? Guess what we do to stuck-up sissies around here."
I scooted away from him along the pavement and ran into a pair of boots. I looked up, hoping Ezra had come back for me, but found myself staring into a copy of Tyler's smirking face. There was another one of him, too.
Scrambling to my feet under a street light, I backed away. The two Tylers followed, laughing. And the shadows behind them followed. They moved into the circle of light, a few at a time, and they were all Tyler. Dozens of him, circling me on all sides, closing in. Panic rose in my throat as they reached for me, and I thrashed around, trying to shake them off.
"Stop it. Stop! Get off me!"
It was no use, though. More and more hands closed over my arms and throat and legs.
Only they weren't hands, they were snakes.
Hissing, slithering, pink-mouthed snakes with glistening fangs and rattling tails. Icy terror paralyzed my muscles as they circled my arms and neck, reared back to show me their teeth, squeezed and squeezed until I couldn't breathe and it felt like my limbs were going to be torn off.
I started screaming. I couldn't help it. I kicked and flailed, but they were going to kill me. They hated me so purely and absolutely that there was no point in fighting it. I felt a bite on my chest. Another on my neck. My inner thigh. My wrist. I kept screaming, in fear and fury, because it was so unfair. I hadn't done anything to deserve this kind of murderous animosity.
Except being born. Apparently, my very existence was so offensive it warranted punishment.
The hissing and rattling intensified as a huge black shape came charging up. Snakes went scattering, flying through the air away from me as if they'd been thrown in fistfuls like living confetti. The stinging bites stopped as the creatures were torn off of me, tossed in the other direction. Soon they were all gone, and I was being wrapped up in a warm, dark wall of protection that had a familiar voice. "Connor. Connor, it's okay, I'm here."
"Ezra," I sobbed, melting into his massive chest.
"Shh, it's okay."
"I hate this," I cried into the front of his zippered hoodie. "Everybody hates me."
"That's not true."
"It is! It's not just Tyler, it's every person I know."
"What about Pete?"
"He only likes me because of what you guys did. It's not real. Without the pheromones he won't care anymore."
"What about Maddy?"
"She's my sister, that doesn't count."
He chuckled, but by the time I pulled back to look at him he wasn't smiling anymore. He swept a finger under my eyes, wiping the tears back. "What about me?"
I swallowed, gazing into his big dark eyes with longing. "I... don't know. I don't know what you want with me."
"I want you to be happy," he said after a moment.
"But I want you to love me," I blurted out. "It wouldn't matter if anybody else does, as long as I had you."
His fierce eyebrows lifted in the middle, softening his expression to one that was almost vulnerable. A lot like how he'd looked at me earlier tonight, when he'd held my chin and called me a wonder. A little like how he'd looked when he was watching me make out with his doppelgänger on the pool table. "Connor... that's impossible."
"Of course it is," I replied bitterly. I pushed away from his chest, and he let me go.
"Connor."
The snakes had been bad, but this felt worse. He was never going to feel for me the way I did for him. He was beautiful and strong and perfect. He was a fucking angel—literally. Meanwhile, I was a wimpy, nerdy, awkward gay kid from Hicksville who contributed nothing to the universe. He'd saved my life on numerous occasions, but what had I ever done for him? What could I ever do for someone like that?
Nothing.
Dreams were the closest I'd ever get, and even in here, he was the one always saving my ass.
I backed away from him, defeated. Of course he couldn't love me, not even in my dreams. It was ridiculous. My foot slipped, and I tumbled right off the edge of a cliff that had inexplicably appeared behind me. This time, Ezra didn't come to my rescue. I just kept falling.