Even If Saving You Sends Me to Heaven

I decided I would probably die or boredom one night if every night started out as boring as that one. I was truly not in the mood to sit around for hours on end with nothing to do. I looked at the clock; they’d only been sleeping for two hours!

“I’m sick of this,” I mumbled. “I’ll go crazy if I have no one to talk to and I’m trapped in my mind!”

“Talking to yourself is the first sign of going crazy,” a voice from behind me stated.

I jumped to my feet and looked toward the doorway to see who the voice had come from. I was amazed to see an amused young man with short brown hair and brown eyes. His cheekbones were sharp and his lips were thin, but he was still good looking. He looked to be in his mid twenties.

At first I was shocked that he was staring right at me and had even spoken to me, but then I saw his wings. Unlike my small feathery lumps, his wing span must’ve been at least five feet on each side. The tips of the feathers were black, but they faded into white as they got closer to his body. He wore casual jeans and a loose tee shirt.

He grinned at me and gave a slight nod, and I noticed he was holding a folder and a guardian angel handbook. He tossed the handbook aside, but it disappeared before it caused any damage to Zane’s already destroyed bedroom. After noting that I was sitting in the only chair, he settled down on the floor, opened the folder, and began to read.

Baffled, I watched him for some time before I mustered the courage to clear my throat and say, “Um, who are you?”

“I’m Danny,” he replied, never lifting his eyes from the folder. “And you?”

“I’m Arianna.” His presence still confused me. What was another angel doing here? “Uh… Aren’t you going to read the handbook?” I asked.

“I already have,” he answered mechanically. “Many times. I know the drill.”

“What do you mean?” I scoffed. “How?”

“I’ve done this many times.” He was still reading from the folder as if he wasn’t in the middle of a conversation with me.

“How? Why?” I questioned, interested.

Danny sighed, rolled his eyes, and finally looked up at me. “Look, I have a lot of reading to do. If you don’t mind, could we save Twenty Questions for later?” he retorted. More gently, he added, “I promise I’ll answer anything when I finish.”

I shrugged, taken aback by his sudden changes in attitude. “I’ve got plenty of time,” I mumbled.

After about a half hour, Danny looked up at me at last. “Okay, Arianna.”

Of course I’d been making an even larger list of questions to ask him while I waited, so I was ready to blurt out, “Why are you here?”

He shrugged. “Same reason you are, I guess.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Why does Zane need two people to protect him?”

Danny snorted. “I’m not here to protect Zane, I’m here to protect Mara.”

“From what?” I inquired.

He rolled his eyes, saying, “That’s part of the job, you know: finding out. I’ve been here for less than an hour. Do you expect me to know?”

I shook my head.

“Do you even know?” he pressed. Eyeing Zane and Mara, he wrinkled his nose and added, “It looks like they spend a lot of time together. We might be protecting them from the same thing. How long have you been here?”

I had to think before I answered, “Two days. I have no idea what I’m supposed to save Zane from. Wait, how did you know I was a guardian angel like you? You can’t even see my wings.”

”I had two clues. First, you looked a little out of place. Second, you were talking nonsense,” he replied with a shrug. “Don’t worry, they’ll grow in time.”

“What?” I said in confusion.

“Your wings,” he stated. “They’ll grow. At least, mine did.”

The rest of my questions came out in a long string. “When did they have time to grow? Why did you throw away your handbook? Don’t you need it to tell you what to do?”

Danny shook his head. “Of course I don’t need it. I’ve done this plenty of times. I could probably write a handbook.”

“What?” I exclaimed in alarm. “You’ve had to do this more than once? Why?”

Danny’s cocky smile fell as quickly as the blade on a guillotine. He dropped his eyes to the ground, saying, “You only have to try again when you fail.”

“Oh,” I breathed almost inaudibly. A heavy silence blanketed over us until I was able to ask, “If you’ve done this so many times, you must know a lot about it.”

“Or nothing about it,” he contradicted quietly.

I sighed. “Anyway, have you ever met any other guardian angel?”

“Hm,” he pondered. “Come to think of it, I guess not. That’s a strange coincidence. Two of us with two people so close together.”

I decided to ignore his wondering and continued pressing, “Yeah, very strange. Why don’t more people get guardian angels? I mean…” I shrugged. “I died, didn’t I?”

“I think I’ve figured that out,” he told me excitedly. “The only ones who get help are the ones who want help, in my experience.”

I frowned and glanced at Zane doubtfully. “I’m not sure he’s the type to want help with anything,” I admitted. “And I’m not sure if I even want to help him with anything. I don’t like him much.”

Danny laughed darkly at a private joke. “You don’t like him?” He snorted again. “Well, you’ll want to save him.”

“Oh?”

His smile and eyes fell again. “Oh, you’ll want to save him. Trust me, you will.”