Chapter 4: Jayden’s story

I wake up at 3am, unable to go back to sleep. All I can think about is the story that Arcadia told me. I was an angel, but how did I not know after being alive for 22 years?

I decide to get out my phone to pass some time before I have to work, since I can't fall back asleep. I google the story of Ida and Arcadia and clicked on one of the first articles.

"Arcadia was one of gods favorite angels, he was strong and powerful and pure. Arcadia's brothers were both fallen angels, and they hated him with a passion. They conjured up a plan to make Arcadia fall to earth so that they could torment him. Angels and fallen angels were both powerful, but in different ways, and Arcadia's brothers knew it would take time for Arcadia to learn his new powers if he fell, they knew they'd be stronger at first and they knew God would stop looking after Arcadia if he had betrayed him.

Arcadia's brothers, Rohan and Azael, figured out a plan, they would get together with more fallen angels, and they would bring Arcadia to a place of fallen angels, and God would disown Arcadia. They put their plan to motion at sundown that night. They convinced Arcadia that they missed him and wanted to see him, and then lead him to his trap. Once he was there, they had set up for one of Gods other angels to alert God of his beloved Arcadia meeting with the enemies.

God found out and sent Arcadia to earth, as a fallen angel. God didn't believe that Arcadia would willingly do something wrong, and he wanted Arcadia to be protected. He sent one of his strongest and purest angels, Ida, to be Arcadia's guardian angel.

Ida had instantly fallen in love with Arcadia, God granted her the wish of living a normal human life with Arcadia, while still letting her keep her powers. Ida was the first angel to ever walk the earth unnoticed, all of the other angels glow. Ida and Arcadia had started to enjoy their life together, they got married and had a house, and even had a daughter. A neighbor had found out their secret and set Ida's house on fire, killing Arcadia and their daughter, Bethany. This had devastated Ida so much that her soul and her wings had began to darken. God did not want to lose Ida, so he resurrected Bethany and Arcadia, and bound Ida and Arcadia's souls for eternity.

Angels aren't meant to die, but walking the earth meant that they could die, and if they did, they would resurrect and their souls would find each other. Arcadia's brothers were still after him, so they ran and his with their daughter until they had found them. The fallen angels had set fire to the house and it is believed that the whole family was killed in the fire. Since Ida had been killed by fallen angels, she could not come back to life, but Arcadia could. Legend has it that Arcadia has been searching the earth for Ida for many, many years."

Whoever wrote this must not have known the entire story, unless my visions weren't real. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself back in the house where I had my vision as Rose. I needed to talk to Arcadia again, I had so many questions. As I thought about it, my vision got blurry.

———————

I was standing in the woods alone, but it wasn't the same woods as before. I start to look around, waiting to hear or see someone.

"Hello?" I start walking around trying to look for a sign of anyone. "Hello?!"

"Olivia." I turn around and look where the voice came from, but still didn't see anyone, "he cannot give you the answers you are looking for."

"How do I find my answers?"

"Follow your heart, you will find them. You will find me."

"Arcadia? But how will I know it's you? I don't know what you look like."

"You will know my dear, I may not look familiar, but I will feel familiar. That feeling that you feel right now? You will feel that but much stronger. You are getting closer Olivia."

I didn't even know how I was feeling. It was a mixture of joy and excitement, and my heart is fluttering, but I also feel lost, and sad.

"Don't worry love, the negative feelings will go away when you are in my arms once again, I feel it too. I have faith in you Olivia, you will find your answers soon."

After that I can't feel his presence anymore, I feel alone. I try to snap myself out of it and wake up, but for some reason it's not working. I wander around the woods until I see a house, it looks familiar. It's Beth's house. I start to walk up to the door but before I can raise my hand up to knock, I get dizzy.

———————

I open my eyes and look at my phone, 4 hours have passed this time, I have to leave for work soon. I rush to get ready and find something to eat. After what happened yesterday, I make sure all of my windows are shut and locked, and then I lock my door and drive to work.

I get to work and start setting up for the day when Jayden walks in with a smile, "good morning!"

"Good morning! I didn't know you were working today, and why are you so cheery?"

"Come on a guy can't just be in a good mood? And yeah Liz asked me to come in this morning."

He helps me set up for the day and we open the store. No customers come in for the first 2 hours, it was strange but it could just be a slow day. Jayden and I start talking about life.

"You know, Olivia. There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about..." he starts.

"And what would that be?"

"When I was a kid, my parents-"

He cuts off as a customer walks in the store.

"Hi! How can I help you today?" I ask as the man walks up to the counter.

"Olivia?" He asks.

I had no clue who he was or how he knew my name, "yes...?" I ask, confused.

"There is a man who wanted me to deliver a message, his name is Azael. He wants me to tell you that he's coming for you." With that, the man walks out.

Azael. That was Arcadia's brother, he wanted to kill me, and there was nothing I could do. I didn't know my power, I didn't know how to fly, and I didn't know anyone who could help me. My head starts swirling and I start to feel nauseous. I try to walk but my balance is off, and Jayden catches me before I can fall.

"Olivia?? Are you okay? Who was that?" He asks, frantically.

"I-I don't really know honestly. It's- a long story, and it's probably not even true anyways. I think someone's messing with me."

"Are you sure? It just seemed really odd."

"I'm okay, but what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I think maybe you should go sit in the office and drink some water, you don't look so well. I'll order us some lunch, okay?"

"I'm okay Jay, you don't have to worry about me."

"Go sit, I'm gonna get us food. You need to eat and drink some water, and then we can talk. It's not like we're too busy for me to handle the store alone."

He was right, we hadn't had a single customer the entire day, only the strange man that came in. I sit down and sip on some water. About a half hour later Jayden comes in with some to-go boxes of Chinese food, "eat some food Olivia, are you feeling any better?"

I smile at him and nod my head yes as I start eating some Chinese food. I still had so many thoughts racing through my head, and I was terrified of Azael, but I had to stay calm if I was going to find my destiny.

I look over and see Jayden talking to someone on the phone, whispering. I decide to try to listen in.

"Yes.... no someone came in and told her Azael was coming for her..... how does he know she's alive already?.... but she hasn't even found Arcadia..... what do we do?.... okay..... okay..... I'll do that, thank you Liz, but what should I tell her?..... alright.... I'll keep you updated."

My heart starts pounding. How does Jayden know? And he was talking to Liz? What did Liz tell him to do? Is he going to hurt me?

Jayden walks into the office with a smile, "you doing any better?"

I let out a fake smile and nod, I don't really know what to say.

"Good. And whatever that guy was talking about, don't worry about it. If there's really someone that wants to hurt you, they can't because I won't let that happen."

I nod my head, believing him but still terrified and full of questions.

A few minutes later, a couple of our other coworkers come in, they were a few hours early so I was confused.

"Come on, you've had a long day. Liz asked them to come in early so that we can leave, I need to talk to you."

"You know what's going on, don't you?" I ask.

"I know some things, but we need to go somewhere. You have to piece together some things on your own before I can help. We will be going to see somebody else that can help you too. We will have to get on a plane, so I will drive you to your house to get whatever you need, and then we will go where we need to go."

"Where are we going?"

"Im not allowed to tell you, but everything will be okay. I'll protect you until the day I die. I've failed to protect you once, but I won't ever fail to protect you again."

"What do you mean you've failed to protect me once?"

"We will talk about it in the car, we've got to go."

He holds his hand out for me to grab, so I do. We start walking out to his car but when we get outside, we see a big fire in the parking lot. Right where my car is parked, my car is on fire.

"No! Jayden my car!"

He looks at it and sighs, "Shit! It's okay, we'll get you a new car but we've got to go."

He closes his eyes and stretches his hand toward the fire. As he lowers his hand, the fire goes down until it's eventually out, and then he grabs my hand and we run to his car.

"How did you do that? Are you an angel too?" I ask.

He shakes his head, "No, not an angel. We'll get to that later. Let me tell you my story." He says as he drives off.

"Okay."

"When I was growing up, my parents were abusive and they were bad alcoholics. They went to jail a lot and I would have to stay with my grandma until they got out. My grandma died from a stroke when I was 12, so there was nowhere for me to go when my parents went to jail. I got put into foster care. It took a long time for them to find anyone to take me in, nobody wanted to take in a 12 year old black kid who's parents were in jail. That was until this one couple met me. They were the typical middle class suburban people. They had always wanted kids but the woman had medical problems and couldn't have any. They met me and were attached to me for some reason, I had no idea why. They were nice to me, and took good care of me. I lived with them for a year, and then my aunt found out where I was and wanted to adopt me, the adoption process took a few months but she legally adopted me. She had a meth lab in her basement and she was selling drugs out of the house I lived in. The cops busted her and I got put back into foster ca- Olivia did you leave your front door open?" He asks frantically.

We were pulling into my driveway and my front door was wide open. Again.

"No! This happened yesterday too!"

"Stay in the car Olivia," he says while getting out of the car and grabbing a gun out of his waistband.

I nod my head and he starts slowly walking inside. 5 minutes go by and I don't see or hear him, and I start to get a pit in my stomach. I decide to get out of the car to go make sure he's okay.

I walk around the house, trying to look inside the windows but I can't see him so I start to panic. I go back to the front door and go inside, careful to not make any noise. I start going toward the hallway, accidentally making the floor creek. I hear the sound of footsteps.

"Damn it Olivia! I almost shot you! Why didn't you stay in the car?" I turn to see Jayden standing there angrily, putting his gun away.

"I-I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were okay." I say, tears starting to well up in my eyes.

He walks toward me and I worry that he's still mad at me, but then his eyes soften. He puts his hand on my cheek and looks me in the eye, "I need you to not worry about me Olivia. I'm supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around. Next time if I tell you to stay in the car, please stay in the car. Do not come after me, ever. I don't need you getting hurt. Okay?"

I nod, our eyes still locked and his hand still on my cheek. He brushes a piece of my hair behind my ear and leads me to my bedroom to pack.

"How long will we be gone?"

"I'm not sure, just pack for a few days. If we end up staying there longer, they have a washer that we can use."

I pack everything I'll need for a few days and put it all into a backpack, and then Jayden and I head to the airport.

When we got on the plane, I started panicking. I was worried about where we were going and what was going to happen to me. Jayden sensed that I was nervous so he leaned over and whispered in my ear, "everything will be okay, I won't let anything bad happen to you, I promise." And then he grabs my hand laces his fingers in mine and then runs his thumb around the back of my hand, I start to relax.

"You never told me the rest of your story," I say.

"I'll tell you later, when we're alone."

I nod my head and then rest it on the back of the seat, and I start to doze off.

———————

I wake up in a big bed, next to Arcadia. It isn't like the other dreams, everything seems a little more modern. The clothes and the decor and the house. I got out of bed and went to look around the house, I didn't see anyone besides Arcadia. I start walking toward the bedroom and I see him sitting up on the bed, smiling at me. "Good morning Rose, you look as beautiful as ever."

"Arcadia it's not Rose, it's Olivia."

"Olivia? I haven't seen you in ages. I assumed you had found your destiny."

"No, for some reason my visions must have time hopped. What year is it?"

"The year is 1989."

"What was the year that we first met?"

"I believe that was 1852."

"Wow. I had that vision last night."

"Sometimes the visions will do that. But you must be careful revealing to me that you are Olivia. If you are in certain times of my life, I will not understand."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course dear."

"Do your children come back if they die?"

His eyes sadden, "they do not, my dear. But they do have the ability to live forever, they stop aging."

"Are... yours and roses kids...?"

"They are alive and well. They come to see us often."

I nod my head, "so what powers do I have?"

"I cannot tell you that, but your powers will come naturally to you."

"Can I fly?"

"Yes, that will come to you along with your wings."

"There's someone helping me, his name is Jayden, how do I know if I can trust him?"

"You can trust him, he will take you to where you need to go."

———————

I wake up to Jayden shaking me awake, "the plane is about to land."

I open my eyes and notice my head is laying on his shoulder, I quickly sit up, "I'm sorry!"

Our fingers are still laces together and he squeezes my hand, "it's alright, you looked comfortable."

The plane lands and we grab our things and then go outside, he walks over to a car and motions for me to get in with him.

"Who's car is this?" I ask.

"The person we're meeting made sure it was here for us since she couldn't pick us up herself."

"So your story?"

"Where were we? My aunt was selling drugs and I got sent back to foster care. I got put into a home with an abusive couple and 2 little girls. I had my own room and the girls shared a room. After a couple months of living there I noticed my foster dad sneaking into the girls room every night, when I said something to him about it, he locked me in the basement and came downstairs to beat me every day. I was down there for months, with barely any food or water and my only bathroom was buckets. My foster dad finally let me back out of the basement, but him and my foster mom told me that if I told anybody at all, they'd kill me, and they'd kill the girls. A couple weeks later, they brought in another foster girl. She was 5..."

He looked over at me and I realized he was talking about me. Tears started welling up in his eyes and he swallowed a lump in his throat.

"I knew that something was going on, but I was too scared to say anything again. I cried myself to sleep every single night knowing something was happening to you guys, but I didn't know he was taking it far enough to actually rape you guys. I'm so sorry I let it happen to you Olivia..."

He had tears streaming down his face. "Jayden you were 13, he was strong, there was nothing you could do. He almost killed you when you tried to stop him..."

He shook his head, "there had to have been something I could've done Olivia, I should've told somebody. You never should've had to go through all of that, you were so young."

"You were scared Jay, and you were young too. You never failed me. If it weren't for you stopping him, I probably would've been in that home for a lot longer. You saved us all Jay."

He wiped his tears away and we rode around in silence, comforted by each other's presence. I look out the window and everything looks familiar, "where are we? I know this place."

"You'll see," he says as he keeps on driving. He pulls up to a driveway and there it is, Beth's house.