The Nephilim Chronicles: Vol. 1

The Nephilim Chronicles: Vol. 1, Ch.1

~ Evelyn ~ (POV)

“We need to talk,” is never something you want to hear from your Mom when you’re trying to sneak into your house past curfew. Sucking in a breath, I turned around as a lamp flipped on in the corner, illuminating my Mother’s face in a warm glow. Blowing out the breath I had been holding while I thought I was successfully sneaking into my house past curfew, I walked over to sit in the chair next to her and waited to hear whatever form of torture she had thought up for me this time. Staring me down for a few seconds, her face softened as if she suddenly decided to change her approach. 

            “Evelyn, while I’m clearly not pleased with you breaking your curfew, there’s something more important I need to talk to you about. I should have told you a long time ago, but I didn’t want to destroy your perception of the world…I just kept thinking I had more time…” Her eyes lost focus as she very obviously drifted off into her own thoughts. Leaning forward, she gripped her hands together tightly and rolled her neck in her signature move, letting me know that she had something serious she was about to tell me. I felt myself holding my breath as I braced for impact. 

            “It’s about your father, Evie. Since you’re turning 18 on Friday…there’s something you need to know…now. I’ve waited long enough to tell you.” She reached over to grip my hand in hers, which was totally out of character for her since she had never been very affectionate with me as a child, and hoped I would be able to handle whatever bomb she was about to drop on me. 

~ Gabriel ~

            Shifting out of my senior year letterman jacket, I rolled it up and stuffed it in my locker before grabbing my books for first period. I greeted a few of my friends from the football team on my way to first period before ducking into the classroom. Making my way to the back of the room to sit with my best friend, Mike, I set my stuff down and opened my notebook in preparation for the lab project we were about to start. The teacher had just launched into the class lecture for the day when the door to the room flew open and in walked Evelyn Romano, followed by a warm gust of air that blew through the classroom, as if she brought the heat in with her. As her long black hair fluttered out around her shoulders, she breezed through the room and made a bee-line to sit with her popular crew consisting of the cheer team captain, the varsity girls’ tennis captain, the varsity girls’ volleyball captain, and was now complete with Eve, the varsity girls’ soccer captain. They weren’t the mean girls of the school per se, but they certainly appeared to be untouchable. With Eve leading their pack, they had made sure to capitalize on their four years of high school in preparation to move on to the big leagues. 

Each one of them weren’t only the captains of their perspective sport, but also presidents of clubs, had all at one point won homecoming queen, and their fearless leader was also finishing her high school career as the student body president and well on her way to being prom queen. With all of them expecting nearly full-rides to the ivy league school of their choice, their lives seemed perfect on the outside, but I knew better. More specifically, I knew Eve, and growing up together as neighbors gave me a front row seat to what her home life was really like, and it wasn’t as nicely wrapped up as she made it seem. Looking over at Eve now, she caught me staring at her for a second too long and I quickly turned away to look back down at my notes. Pretending to focus on the task at hand, I recalled the small sad, smile I swear I saw on Eve’s face before I had broken our stare down, and wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me, and if they weren’t, what it meant if anything at all?

~ Evelyn ~ 

            “Eve!” I heard someone yell my name down the hallway, and turned to see Sarah, and Rebecca calmly following Tiffany who was waving at me as she bounced towards my locker. Shaking my head, I laughed and turned back towards my locker to switch out books for next period. Tiffany grabbed my shoulders in an attempt to scare me, which is hilarious considering her cover was blown when she screamed my name a few minutes ago. Sarah rolled her eyes and Rebecca laughed at the ridiculousness that was “Tiff” as they leaned against the lockers next to mine while I finished switching out my stuff. Grabbing my lip gloss for a last minute touch up, I almost managed to unscrew the cap before it was snatched out of my hands by Sarah and then passed around to the other two before making it back to me. Shaking my head, I finally swiped on a layer of gloss before shutting the door to walk to my next class with the girls. Since I was class president, I was able to make sure all of our schedules matched for every hour of our last year of high school. 

            Managing to walk ahead of us a few steps, Tiffany turned around to face us and somehow was able to walk backwards and continue talking 100 miles per hour about prom and how we needed to get our dresses as soon as possible for a dance that was a month away. Rebecca and Sarah groaned and I laughed as I let them handle the “animal” that was Tiffany as we made our way towards the classroom. In a dramatic twirl at the last possible second, she whipped around just as we strolled through the door to our Honors Literature class and took over our usual corner of seats in the back of the room. Finally settled in to my seat, I thought about the conversation I had with my Mom last weekend and was lost in my thoughts until the last few students filed into the classroom followed by a few guys from the football team, including Gabe. 

Gabriel Smith was exactly what you’d picture an All-American high school athlete to look like. At 6 feet tall with blonde hair, blue eyes and bronzed all over, this hottie was not just an all-star quarterback who was on his way to play D1 football at the state college, but he was also a genius and would be riding on a full scholarship. Surprisingly enough, Gabe might have been the captain of the football team, but he wasn’t like the other guys he played with. I mean, this is a guy who volunteered at local food banks and animal shelters…in his free time. He was nice to everyone; organized the high school wheel-chair and handicapped sporting events for charity every year, and overall just wasn’t a douche bag like the rest of the male athletes at this school. His best friend Mike, who also played on the football team, wasn’t terrible either, but pretty much just followed Gabe’s every move. In comparison, my boyfriend, Dante, made Gabe look like a saint. 

Dante Fiori was the captain of the guy’s varsity soccer team at our school and basically the seed of all trouble. His dad was a big-shot Italian mafia boss and Dante had been groomed to follow directly in his footsteps. As the leader of his soccer “gang” they were constantly starting fights not only with the other male athletic teams at our school, but against rival schools as well. He was rough on the outside, with sinfully dark features and hot as hell. He had never hurt me exactly, but he wasn’t winning boyfriend of the year right now…or ever. Constantly checking out other girls, going to other high schools’ parties without telling me or even inviting me, and I was ashamed to admit that it was only a matter of time before I would hear about him cheating on me, unless he had already, and I was just the fool who was none-the-wiser. I also only heard from him when it was convenient on his terms, and he was never there when I needed him. 

The only reason we were still together was due to the fact that we had been deemed to be the high school’s “power couple” and it didn’t help that my Mom, being a criminal defense attorney at the largest firm in the city, frequently had business dealings with Dante’s dad, helping him out by getting a few prison sentences lowered. All things considered, I never felt like I had the option of breaking up with him, and our lives seemed to fit together easily enough. With both of us being the captains of the soccer teams at school; I was set to go play at Columbia and he was planning on playing at Princeton next fall, it was as if the world had planned for us to be together. Until recently, the relationship had been bearable enough, but as of this year, Dante had been getting under my skin in a bad way. It was weird to me since we had been together for three years and we never really fought about anything, but for the past few months I had been on edge, as if all of Dante’s annoying traits that I usually ignored had built up to a boiling point and it felt like I could go off at any minute. 

“Evelyn Romano…” Hearing the teacher say my name snapped me back to reality and I mentally shook off the fog that had overcome my thoughts and focused on class as finals were approaching. 

“Evelyn, you will be paired with….Gabriel Smith for the final paper. Please email me your paper proposal by Wednesday at midnight so that I have time to go over them before Friday when you will work on them with your partners during class.” As she continued to read off the rest of the project partners to the class, I blinked at what just happened, still trying to process that I was paired with Gabriel. Looking over to where Gabe was sitting, he looked at me and smiled at me before looking back down at his phone. I got the hint and picked up my phone as a text popped up on the screen. The words ‘Maybe: Gabe’ lit up as I unlocked the phone.

Hey….hoping this is still your number?

Hi, yeah it is. I’m kind of shocked you still have it lol, it’s been like 5 years… My mind briefly flashed back to the middle school days when we were thick as thieves and would hang out every day after school. Back then Gabe and I were inseparable and had been that way since the first day of kindergarten. We even shared the same birthday and would bring in cupcakes for the class together every year until we hit middle school when everything changed between us. We had both gotten cell phones for our birthdays in eighth grade and exchanged numbers with each other immediately. Texting and calling each other all day, every day that year, I had naively started to believe that we would be best friends forever. Unfortunately, when the realities of high school hit about half way through freshman year, I had pretty much succumbed to the pressures of being popular and stopped making time for Gabe. It was entirely my fault, and I don’t blame him. He had tried his hardest to get us to hang out together and I had basically started ignoring him over time until we didn’t talk at all anymore. Every now and then I still think about the good times I had with him, and sometimes overcome with the sadness of losing that friendship, but for the most part I figured we had both moved on with life and forgot about how close we were back then when things were still simple. Crashing back to reality now, I looked down to see Gabe’s response.

So, how do we want to do this? Would you want to meet after school to come up with a plan for the project? 

Yeah, that sounds good. I’ve got practice ‘till 5 tonight, want to meet somewhere near the school after that? 

Sure, I could meet you around 5:30 when I’m done with football, if that’s cool?

No problem, I think I could survive waiting that long lol. Wanna just meet at the Sit n’ Sip

Café whenever you’re done?

Sounds good, I’ll see you then.

Deciding not to respond, I clicked my phone off just as an electronic bell chimed over the speakers to signal that class was over for that period. Gathering my stuff quickly, I kept my eyes focused on my friends as we made our way out of the room and on to our next class of the day.

~ Gabriel ~

By the time 5:15 rolled around, I was exhausted, but kind of excited as I hit the showers before heading to the café to meet Eve. We hadn’t hung out in so long, and even though I had already accepted that we were no longer friends, it didn’t mean that I had instantly stopped thinking about her. Every now and then I would see her in the halls or in class at school, and miss our friendship, but that ship had sailed a long time ago. We had both gone our separate ways and forged our own paths in high school. Maybe it was for the best that we found different groups, everything had seemed to work out for her in the end. I was college bound to go to a state school while she was planning on staying in the city. The friendship would have ended sooner or later anyway, right? I tried to convince myself that was the truth of the matter as I showered quickly and dressed just as fast. Jogging out the doors of the locker room, I ran out to the parking lot hoping that I hadn’t kept Eve waiting for too long. 

            Pulling up to the café in my old truck, I spotted Eve’s spotless black G-wagon parked in front of the doors and felt my heart beat increase with nerves. Telling myself to pull it together, I grabbed my bag out of the passenger seat and walked towards the front doors of the coffee shop. Spotting Eve, I walked over to the table as she looked up at me through her glasses and smiled. Her smile alone made my chest tighten and I barely registered the grin that broke out across my face in return as I sat down across from her. 

            “Hey! Sorry if you had to wait awhile, I rushed here as soon as I got out of practice.”

            “Not a problem, I was working on other homework anyway. I also ordered you a coffee, but I made a guess and ended up just getting you the same thing I usually get…a large iced Americano? If you hate it, you totally don’t have to drink it. I probably shouldn’t have even ordered it, I just…”

            “Evie. I mean, Eve. It’s fine, I love anything coffee, I’m sure it will be great. Thank you, what do I owe you?”

            We locked eyes for a second and I lost myself in the clear emerald color of her eyes until I noticed the light blush color of heat in her cheeks. Was she embarrassed? Was it something I said?

            “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you like it. Usually, when I pick something out for Dante he hates it…so I…I shouldn’t have assumed. Anyway, did you have any ideas for this project, because I thought of a few things while you were at practice.”

            Picking up the Americano, I chugged a large amount of it, like half of it, in one sip before setting it down. 

            “Wow, that’s actually pretty good, how did I not know about this? What even is this, an iced coffee or something? And um yea, I thought of one thing.” Looking up at Eve, a huge smile appeared on her face as she laughed lightly.

            “It’s just espresso over ice, so it has way more caffeine than iced coffee. Sorry if you’re up all night now. Anyway, lay it on me, what were you thinking?”

            Pulling out a very ragged copy of Fahrenheit 451, I launched into my idea of focusing on how the book portrayed the government restricting society too much to the point of rebellion and how our paper could basically break that down and discuss how it relates to where we’re at in our society now and how it was directly affecting our generation. After my speech and reading off my notes I had jotted down, I looked up to try to gauge how Eve felt about it.

            “So, first of all, how many times have you read this book? And secondly, I didn’t know you read, like in your free time, I’m impressed… and failing at not acting like I’m shocked.” 

            Laughing at her response, I tried to defend myself as best as I could. “I do know how to read you know, there are some guys out there that can and do read in their free time. And…this happens to be my all-time favorite book. My dad gave it to me a long time ago, so it’s seen better days before I got my hands on it when I was a kid.” I flipped open some pages for her to see how handy I had been with duct-tape to keep the book alive until the words faded from the paper. At least that was the plan anyway. 

            “You are literally the only guy up to this point in my life that I have ever known to read a full book, let alone one not assigned for homework. So, congrats on being one of a kind, and I like your idea. Let’s go with that.”

            “Well, wait a minute, what were your ideas? I want to know in case yours are better and I want to do one of those instead.” She laughed and pulled up notes on her computer, then flipped it around for me to read on my own. She had about 10 great ideas that would have all worked well for this project. One of the ideas on her list was the same as mine, so it would be easy to roll with that one. As I was reading down the list, I was just about to turn the computer back around to face her when a message from her boyfriend, Dante, flashed across the screen. 

Where the hell are you, you should have been home from practice hours ago. I swear to god, Eve, call me back NOW.

Rage boiled up out of nowhere at the way he was talking to her, but I swallowed it down, closed my eyes for a second, and turned the computer back around to face her right after the message disappeared from the screen. 

            “All of those were great, but since we both had a similar idea, I guess we should just move forward with that plan. Do we want to just split the project in half? I could do two topics and you could do two topics, then we could meet one more time to pull it all together, edit, and then turn it in. What do you think?” 

            “Sure, that sounds easy enough. How do you think we should break it up?” 

For the next hour we worked through how we would break apart pieces of the paper for us to work on and then planned a time to have it done and pull it together by. Eve had just submitted the email proposal to our teacher when her phone started blowing up for the 5th time that hour. Sighing loudly and obviously annoyed that her boyfriend clearly couldn’t accept the fact she was busy with her own life, she answered the phone. 

            “Dante, seriously, I already told you that I’m working on a class project. What the hell is wrong with you?” Cringing as she pulled the phone away from her ear, I could faintly hear Dante’s voice blaring from her phone’s speaker as he cussed her out. Bringing it back towards her face, Eve lowered her voice to a low tone that I had never heard her use before. 

            “Dante, I don’t know what your problem is, and I’m tired of dealing with your s**t. Talk to me like that again and we’re done. I’m over this conversation and done with your bullshit, maybe I’ll see you tomorrow or maybe I won’t.” Ending the phone call, Eve slowly and deliberately set the phone down on the table and closed her eyes. Letting her have a moment to gather herself, I watched her shoulders rise up and down steadily and I could have sworn I could visibly see the fury radiating from her like a heat wave. Not really sure how to comfort her, I slid a hand across the table in an effort of showing support and leaned towards her. 

            “Hey, Eve? Are you okay?” As if she suddenly remembered I was there, she slowly raised her head again and blew out whatever breath she had been holding in an unsuccessful attempt to calm herself down. As our eyes met, a chill ran down my spine as I caught a glimpse of the rage boiling beneath the surface of her bright green eyes as if a raging fire was blazing within. I had never seen or known Eve to react to anything by flying off the handle bars like it seemed she was about to do now, but I felt as though if I didn’t intervene soon, whatever lid had been holding her at bay wouldn’t be able to contain to rage much longer. Already a foot away from her face now, I held eye contact as I reached across the table to lightly grip her arm. My hand felt as if it were close to burning when I made contact with her skin, but I held on anyway as I tried to get her attention.