Finale: Come to Jesus Moment

August heat beat down on my back as I hauled my belongings up three flights of stairs to my new apartment. Rosanna, Divya, and I had lucked out in the housing lottery, securing a spot in an on-campus apartment complex right near the dining hall. With three bedrooms, a living room, and communal kitchen, we were living large.

"You're not putting up that god-awful David Bowie poster, are you?" Mo teased, carrying a box of my clothes. He dumped it on my bare mattress.

"Be careful with that!" I said, watching dresses spill from the container and onto the floor.

"Sorry. Ever since the accident my hand-eye coordination has gone to crap," Mo said. He helped clean up the mess.

"Sorry," I said.

"It's fine," Mo said.

"Hey, kiddo. Where does your chair go?" my dad said, entering the room, trailed by my mom.

"In the corner near the window," I said.

"That's the last of your things," my mom said, gently putting my printer on my desk. Within the hour, my room was cozy as a clam. I hugged my parents goodbye and lounged in the living room, reading a travelogue by a turn-of-the-century naturalist. Mo rigged our TV so he could play a first-person shooter. My page-flipping was interspersed with screams of virtual characters meeting untimely demises.

I finished my book and looked up to see my twin, still absorbed in his game.

"Hey Mo?" I said.

He cocked his head over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"You'd tell me if you started to feel off, right?"

Mo's temple throbbed. "Shannon, would you do me a favor?"

"What?"

Mo flicked the controller. "Stop treating me like broken glass. Ever since the accident, you've been walking on eggshells around me. It's like you think I'm a different person or something."

"I don't. I'm just worried. I know how much football means to you, and – and if I were in your position, I would be pissed at the world."

Mo shrugged. He gave me his signature crooked smile. "Don't sweat it. To be honest, I'm kind of glad I'm not playing football this season. I'd rather spend more time with Rosanna and my friends, maybe get in some practice on the drums."

I raised my eyebrows. "Drums?"

Mo smirked. "Yeah. I'm taking drumming lessons. Rosanna and I were thinking of starting a band. She sings like Amy Winehouse, but you knew that already. Baxter is a bassist, and I figured the three of us together would make a kickass group."

I grinned. "That sounds like a great idea. Maybe you'll actually learn how to keep tempo."

Mo laughed.

There was a knock at the door. "Hey, Shannon, it's me. Unlock the door!" came Rosanna's voice. I jumped off the couch and welcomed her family in.

We hugged hard, and she pecked Mo on the lips. "My two favorite twins," Rosanna said, one arm around each of us. "Mo, I was so damn worried about you. The minute I leave, you become a reckless driver." She shook her head and mussed his hair. "I'm glad you're better, cariño."

We helped Rosanna unpack. She talked our ears off about her internship at a literary agency in New York City and the hundreds of romance novel queries she'd had to read:

"Really, guys, these women have never had sex in their lives. The way they described anatomy made me want to stab myself with a pen."

We laughed.

"Why romance novels?" I asked.

Rosanna smiled. "I thought they would be more entertaining than highbrow literary fiction."

Divya arrived soon after, with boyfriend Seth Yoon in tow, and the five of us went to our usual hangout, the Golden Dragon.

"I can't believe we're sophomores already," Divya said after taking a delicate bite of a bubble pancake, the Golden Dragon's specialty, which deflated when she poked it with her fork.

"Yeah, crazy," Mo said. "So much has happened since last year. I even built up my alcohol tolerance: I can do keg stands now without puking."

"Heck no. I'm not letting you drink anymore," Divya said. "You crashed into a tree. If you were intoxicated you would have driven straight off a cliff."

Guilt flared in my gut. I hadn't told Divya, or even Rosanna, that Mo was the horsemen's vessel. I didn't want Rosanna worrying that her boyfriend was a puppet of the apocalyptic squadron.

I stared at my chicken feet, which I had ordered on a whim. I wasn't really sure how to eat them.

Divya took pity on me. "Put the chicken in your mouth, suck off the skin, chew the meat, then spit out the bones. I promise you won't turn into poultry."

Mo snickered. "Shannon's real good at putting her foot in her mouth."

Rosanna ribbed him. "Play nice, Solomon."

I didn't have the heart to tell my brother to shut it.

Seth looked at my appetizers. "Hey, I'll eat those if you can't handle them. We can get you dumplings or some other white chick fare."

"I'm not that pathetic." I put one of the chicken feet in my mouth then subsequently spat it out. "Oh god. I'm a stereotypical American, aren't I?"

There was laughter. I smiled weakly.

The first day of classes drew close, my practices in the shooting range with Beelzebub intensified, and Samael was still drunk as a wino. I took to jogging in the College Woods to relax, the tried and true method of a runner's high helping to settle my mind.

I kept worrying everything would blow up in my face like it had in New York. That I would fail at mastering the Lapis Exillis, at saving Michael, and stopping Metatron. That my brother, already technically dead, would have to be put down like a rabid dog. Images of Mo's comatose body were imprinted on the black of my eyelids, always there when I lay down to sleep. No wonder Samael drank. We, specifically me, had royally screwed things over.

The night before classes, I went on my longest run yet, exploring a forgotten path in the woods. It was overgrown with roots and moss, with outcroppings of stone it was easy to stub a toe on. I sprinted until sweat drowned me, trying to evaporate the miasma from my skin. I imagined my sins pooled in my veins, screaming to be released through my pores. Crazy talk, probably, or just PTSD.

I pounded the ground hard, desperately trying to forget everything but my movement. I entered a primal state, becoming one with the dirt I crushed relentlessly underfoot. I was running away from everything, seeking solace in a place beyond the reach of disaster.

Your brother's a walking corpse, and when the time comes, you'll have to kill him. Only mortals can kill an immortal.

I took turns: a ragged right, a jolt to the left. Like a hart pursued by a hound. My petersword necklace burned.

Everything's gone to hell because of your selfishness. You should have let Mo die.

I tripped over an outcropping, falling head over heels down into a gully.

You can't handle the Lapis Exillis. You couldn't save your twin. What makes you think you can stop the end of the world?

I kept rolling, keeling over as sharp rocks tore at my skin. I didn't even bother to fight gravity. My failings had voices, a chorus of those dead at my hands, taunting me with my every screw-up.

Come at me, I wanted to scream. I'll take my punishment as it comes.

Finally, my body came to a stop, bruised and bloody at the grassy bottom of the ravine.

I let out a mad laugh, fracturing. This is where I belonged, low as dirt.

The petersword continued to feel like a spill of piping hot coffee. I laid on my back, staring up at the emerald canopy. The air smelled like flowers. Crimson, pink, and white blooms fluttered in the breeze.

"A bed of roses for the ruined," I muttered, as overdramatic as Samael. Maybe he was rubbing off on me. Now that was a scary thought.

"Or a bower for renewal," came a child's voice.

I was so far gone that I didn't care if some kid saw me in my extremely pathetic state. "That's poetic. Why don't you let me wallow?"

Laughter. An olive hand plucked blossoms just beyond my line of vision. "You don't get Purgatory, do you? This is a place for beginnings," the mystery boy said. "Sure, you can lay in the mud all you want, but this land shifts so often that you might find yourself swimming in the sea."

"So I'm in Limbo. Perfect. I could never bend backward enough for that stupid pole at Rosanna's quinceañara."

No wonder the petersword was acting up. I had unlocked the unlockable through my desire to escape. A place beyond the reach of angels and demons: the repository for souls, where the original apple-picking ditz had disappeared to for millenia, only to be reincarnated as me.

Mystery kid picked more roses, then deftly wove them into a garland. He had wild curls of black hair and a tan my ginger complexion would kill for.

Dark eyes lit like sparklers. With a hop, he joined me in the ravine, then placed the flower crown on my head.

I guessed he was an adolescent, twelve at most. However old he was, the kid didn't know when to shut up: "How pretty. I've been waiting for you for a while. A lot of people have forgotten me. Sure, they remember my name, but they don't remember me. Like Dad, I'm a wanderer. Maybe it's my fault that my words have gotten twisted - I've been away for ages. Enough time to turn water into wine."

I groaned. "You are not who I think you are. I can't deal with any more revelations."

I sat up. Kid offered me his hand. He was one of those saplings that shot up on the cusp of puberty, too tall for his lanky body.

The kid grinned. God, that smile: he could charm a lion away from its kill. No wonder he was holy.

"You don't have to call me Jesus. Just Yeshua. I know you have hang-ups over religion. Remember, I hear people's prayers. You sure did pray for BLTs a lot during services. As a fellow sandwich lover, I can respect that. Anyways, fact is, Dad's missing. He's the only one that can stop the Apocalypse. And we're the only ones that can find him. You have the keys, and I have the map. So what do you say, Shannon? Want to find God?"

Against all common sense, I said yes – yes to a road-trip with tweenage Christ.

"Great," Yeshua said. "You're driving."

TO BE CONTINUED....