22

Another hour passed after that conversation, and I was hanging around the Renaldi home until we were ready to put our plans into motion. I didn't really mind being there, although nothing was helping to quell the nervousness inside of me, not to mention fear. Even though I believed that Cass and Jade would make sure that Saffron wouldn't be able to hurt me, I was still worried about my aunt. What was Saffron doing to her right now? Had he hurt her, or was he using her in whatever way he liked?

I was standing near the window, looking at the yard and nearby road in an effort to distract myself. I'd been running through the unlocked memories that I now had from where my soul had been reincarnated over and over, mulling over all of the details within them.

I could remember all of my past lives now with at least a little bit of clarity. Of course, these lives after the first one hadn't been happy ones. The first two girls that I had been reborn as were plagued with nightmares and sudden, strange deaths around them. Both of them had ended up committing suicide by the time they were seventeen.

The first, Faith Anderson, hung herself in the garage of her home, and the other, Hannah Faith Morris, ended up mutilating herself in her room after Saffron's repeated attempts at convincing her that she was ugly. This girl may have had a rough life, but she'd always thought that she was at least blessed with a beautiful face and body. Saffron had made sure to destroy that belief by using all of those around her to convince her of every imperfection that she'd had.

The next two were tormented as well, although theirs was more direct. Saffron would often appear as a dark shadow person and do horrible things to them. He'd hurt them, hold them down in their beds, and frighten them wherever they went. Both ended up being sent to mental hospitals for what doctors believed was Schizophrenia, and both ended up dying in those hospitals.

The first, Candace Faith James, was killed by her father when he'd come to visit her. Saffron possessed him while he was meeting with her, and he attacked her and threw her out of a third story window. The other girl, Faith Parks, was killed by her brother, who had also been admitted to the hospital after he'd apparently started flying into uncontrollable rages. He snuck into her ward one night shortly afterwards and strangled her, once again under Saffron's control.

But the memories that bugged me the most were of the last girl before me, a girl named Faith Kent. Her memories were the most disturbing of all of them to me. It wasn't that her torment was worse than the other girls. It was for the fact that she'd actually been used far worse than Faith Evans.

Faith Kent's memories were the strongest aside from the ones in my current existence, but I believe that this was because of everything that she'd experienced and felt back then. Like all of the others, her life was also rough from the start. From the fragmented memories of her childhood, I got the sense that her mother was abusive both mentally and physically, and her father was never around because of his job. Although she'd lived in a wealthy household, she'd never been a happy child. That was, until that day that Saffron had decided to make his first move.

One major difference with Saffron this time around was that he'd actually appeared in his more human form to Faith Kent. Even with me, he had not done that until recently. But with her, he'd appeared to her when she was a five year old child. He'd spoken kindly to her, and became her only friend. Faith began to trust him more than anyone, including her own parents, and he began looking after her from the shadows almost constantly.

But one night, after her father had left for a business trip, Saffron had made a suggestion that would outline her world for the rest of her life.

He'd suggested that he could kill her mother for her.

As awful as it sounds, Faith had shown no hesitation in agreeing to that. In fact, even now, I was certain that it was something that she'd truly wanted him to do. She even watched as he'd killed her, and felt no remorse, despite the brutal nature of the killing. As for me, I still felt a little bit sick when I let myself bring up that memory.

I allowed more memories from her to come to me as I sat on the floor and closed my eyes. I confess that there was something fascinating about remembering the things that my soul had experienced when I was her. I likened it to finding some long buried dirty secret deep in an abandoned attic or something like that; and trust me, Faith had plenty of dirty little secrets as her life went on.

Faith Kent's life seemed like a downward spiral from that night on. After her mother's death, her father fell into an alcohol dependence that cost him everything, and they went from living in a beautiful house to a tiny, dirty apartment. Faith was often alone there while her father stayed out at the bars, with only Saffron around to act as her friend and companion. This would be just what Saffron needed to get what he wanted out of her.

They say that truth can be ugly, and hers was no exception. About six months after Faith turned fourteen, Saffron set out to seduce her. It didn't take much for him to convince her either. Faith had been in love with him since she was a child, and that afternoon she'd given herself to him for the first time.

But that wasn't all that happened. Saffron had come up with an even more devious plan for her, and within days of taking her for the first time, he'd suggested it to her.

Saffron's plan was sickening, especially when I thought of how young Faith was. He'd convinced her that she needed to find him victims to help with his violent urges. To do that, she could lure in boys with a promise to sleep with them, and then he would kill them. It was a plan that worked with five boys when it first began. But then, a wrench ended up being thrown into it.

A wrench named Raziel Renaldi.

I opened my eyes, sitting perfectly still as this suddenly came to me. So this was the connection that Raziel had in everything. This was why he wanted so badly to end this cycle.

Raziel had met Faith Kent when they were both fourteen years old. She had moved in with her aunt at the time because of all of the issues with her father, and they had become friends very easily when they met at the local school. Faith had immediately developed a crush on him, although at first Saffron had wanted her to stay away from him. It was obvious now that he was jealous of her attentions towards Raziel, and he'd made it a point to constantly remind her that he was the one she loved and should be devoted to.

But about two months later, Saffron suddenly changed his tune about all of it. He began to encourage her to see Raziel, and to lure him in to become her boyfriend. He wanted her to form a serious relationship with him, although Faith didn't understand why.

Of course, Saffron didn't make any of this easy. He still caused accidents and deaths around Faith, turning her into a sort of pariah among the other teens. Only Raziel stayed beside her, protecting her from any malicious talk against her. He genuinely cared for her, and it wasn't long before Saffron got what he wanted, and the two began dating.

The sound of footsteps behind me broke my concentration on these memories. I looked over my shoulder to see Raziel standing there. The timing was so weird that it felt prophetic.

"I was wondering if you'd still be up here." he said.

"Yeah. Were you looking for me?" I asked him.

"I was. You don't mind company, do you?"

"I guess not."

I looked out of the window again, not sure of what else to say. How could I broach this subject of him and Faith Kent without feeling like I was prying?

Thankfully, Raziel brought it up on his own, "Cass mentioned that you can remember all of your past lives now because Jade unlocked them. I'm gonna guess that you know why I feel this way about all of this."

I managed to nod, "Yeah. I'm getting it now. You really were involved with my soul before. Faith Kent was your girlfriend." I responded.

"Yeah, she was; but I couldn't remember any of it until a few years ago, and neither could anyone else." Raziel admitted.

"Huh? Why?"

I couldn't imagine why he'd forget something like that, especially for the things that I was seeing.

"It was because my father blocked the memories from all of our minds, except for his and my uncle's. The rest of us could never remember that Faith Kent had even existed. But to be honest about it, I've never been mad at him for it either. I don't think that I would've gotten through all of that back then if he hadn't." Raziel explained.

"So your father can really block people's memories?" I said. That sounded unbelievable, even if they were all Nephilim.

Raziel nodded, "Yeah. My dad's one of the most powerful among us, and he knows how to do stuff like that. But like I said, he had a good reason too. I'm gonna guess that you've figured out what it was."

The memory immediately rushed to the front of my mind. My breath hitched as it did. No way. I'd never even dared imagine this one.

"Saffron made her use you." I whispered, "He made you believe that her baby was yours."

"He did." Raziel confirmed. He looked out of the window with me, "I didn't know a lot about that stuff back then. I knew the things that my dad told me about, but I wasn't awakened, like they like to put it, as a Nephilim. I didn't get my wings until I was nearly seventeen. But even though he'd warned me that there was something bad following Faith, I still couldn't help how I felt about her. I liked her from the moment I met her, and that just grew for me as we spent more and more time together."

"She really liked you too. I can feel it in her memories. You meant a lot to her, and I think that it really hurt her when Saffron told her that the baby that she was carrying could've been his or yours. It's like she was torn up about it for a long time." I told him.

Raziel shook his head, "Nobody seemed to know for sure for a while, not even my dad. But near the end, Saffron suddenly decided to appear and take her away, and he told us that he'd always known that the baby was his. That was the hardest day of my life and I nearly broke down afterwards. I was so bad off that Dad had to seal my memories of her and everything that had happened. He even made sure to erase things so that it was like she'd never been there. But like I said, I'm not really mad about it. Actually, I've been kind of relieved since those memories came back. It at least gave me the life that I have now and I was able to move on with Anna and have Noah." he went on.

That was a relief. At least Raziel wasn't suffering over that anymore. But at the same time, something else was nagging at my mind.

"But you know, it is kind of weird too. Why did Saffron do all of that?"

"It's hard to tell. He might have just been hoping to strike back at us for daring to get involved. My dad was trying to figure out how to break that contract and save Faith. He was probably pissed over that, and thought that I was the easiest way to teach him a lesson." Raziel surmised.

"I guess that would make sense, but I just have this strange feeling that it was something else that he was doing. But I can't remember what it was. I can't even remember her death. All I know is that the list that Noah showed me had said that her dad had killed her. It's weird though. She lived with her aunt when she met you. Why did he take her back to her dad to kill her?"

"I think that he took her back there because he wanted her to have the baby there for some reason. Maybe he even had a place for her to be taken to after she died, but I'll never know for sure." Raziel suggested.

For a few long moments, the two of us sat there in silence. I glanced over at him as we did. Really, it didn't look like Raziel had changed that much from those memories. He did look a little more mature now, but he was still just as beautiful. I could understand where Faith had fallen in love with him. Raziel had been a good guy, and I was sure that he still was.

I couldn't stop myself from speaking again, "You know, I still feel her as part of me. I think that even though my soul's been reborn so many times, it still has all of these pieces that are just those girls. It feels like there's more than one person within my soul now because of what he's done."

"It is possible." Raziel agreeing, looking at me again, "According to Malakai, whenever your soul would die, Saffron would transfer it to the girl that he wanted it to be. But he always did this right before they were born, so it actually made a real difference."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that these girls already had souls in their bodies. From what Malakai has explained to us, from the moment a child is conceived, they have a soul within their bodies. It's the true element that gives them life. But when Saffron transferred Faith's Evan's soul into each one, it kind of messed things up. While you'd think that this new soul might have pushed the other one out, that wasn't exactly the case. Instead, Cass told us that the souls had to merge throughout the years, although they never could completely." Raziel explained.

"So wait a minute. Are you telling me that I actually have seven souls in my body?"

"Not exactly. It's more like you have pieces of each of those souls that were all attached together. Every time the girl died, a piece of her soul went into Purgatory, and the rest went with Faith Evans' soul to be reborn. While they are all basically your soul, they're all still individual pieces of them too. That's part of the reason that those higher angels are so pissed. Saffron's messed with things that he had no business messing with. If a soul's meant to be reincarnated, then it must be at the time that the child is conceived. If not, it messes up a lot of stuff."

Now this was a revelation. No wonder they were so adamant now about ending this. Not only was Saffron messing up the destinies for other humans, but the souls of the girls like me were getting messed up too.

Still, I had the overwhelming feeling inside of me too that I had to say something more to him about that.

"I get that, but there's something else too. It feels like that piece of Faith Kent really wants to let you know how sorry she's always been. I feel like she really did love you, and she wished that she'd met you before Saffron. Maybe you and your dad could've saved her." I told him.

Raziel stiffened for a few seconds, then shook his head and smiled, "I know, and I believe her. I love my wife and son, and I'll always be glad that I have this family of my own, but I also know that a piece of me will always love her too. She was my first love, and nothing will ever change that. But for that, I want to keep the promise that I made back then."

"The promise?"

"Yeah." Raziel replied, "I swore before my father blocked my memory that I'd send Saffron back to Hell one day and release your soul, so I'm going to do everything I can this time to help you. I won't let you die, and neither will Noah. We're going to end all of this now."

I took his promise to heart, even if I still wasn't sure I believed any of that was possible. This curse had lasted so long that it seemed unbreakable at this point. But I was still determined that I would be the survivor. Somehow, someway, I'd be the one to finally end all of this.