The Nephilim Chronicles: Vol. 1

The Nephilim Chronicles: Vol.1, Ch.2

~ Evelyn ~ 

            “Eve…Evelyn! Hey, it’s okay, it’s just you and me now. You’re fine, everything’s fine. Eve, can you hear me? You’re burning up, oh s**t, I don’t even know what to do.” 

            I felt Gabe’s hand on my arm before I could hear him or focus on anything but the fiery rage boiling up from some eternal pit in the center of my chest. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I usually didn’t react this way, but the anger came out of nowhere as if everything I had held back after taking years of Dante’s s**t had exploded from the dark cave I had crammed it into, no longer willing to be silenced. Through all of this though, I felt a light, calming presence radiating from something on my arm, another second later and I realized it was coming from Gabe’s hand gripping my arm firmly, but not hard enough to hurt. It felt…nice, like a cool, calming breeze of radiant white light that swept through my system from my arm up to my brain. Breaking through the haze of anger, I began to hear what he was saying as if I had started removing cotton balls from my ears until I heard him at his normal decibel again. Snapping out of it, I leaned my head back against the booth and drew in a deep breath to steady myself. 

            “I’m fine, sorry. I think I had a panic attack or something, I don’t know. I’ve never done that before. I’m not even sure why I reacted that way.” Gabe slowly removed his hand as he became more confident that I wouldn’t totally lose it again anytime soon at least. 

            “Um, I don’t if I should bring it up again since that’s what seemed to trigger you last time, but Dante called you for like the 5th time and you answered, talked for a few seconds, then hung up. After you ended the call, you like kind of lost it and I couldn’t get you to snap out of it until now.”

            “Huh, that’s so weird.” Pulling my long hair up from around my neck, I could feel how hot my skin was even though I wasn’t sweating, like at all. I piled my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head and began packing my stuff up.

            “Thank you for doing whatever you did to bring me back to reality, Gabe, but I think I better go. I’ve got a pretty long drive ahead of me back to the city and it’s already getting kind of late for a school night. I’ll talk to you later, but I think we’re good to go for the project.” I was quickly packing up and made a move to stand. Barely vertical, my vision began to blur in a red haze and I felt super light headed. I tried to sit again, but knew I was going to miss my mark as I was going down and couldn’t summon the strength to stop myself. Luckily, thanks to Gabe’s quick reflexes, he caught me under my elbows and held me steady while redirecting me to sit on the bench instead of face planting on the floor. 

            “Okay, Eve, I don’t think you should be driving. You don’t look good at all. Is there someone you can call to drive you home? I could drive you if you’d like, but I’m not sure where your new place is downtown since you moved to the city. If you give me your address, I could drive you there, though?” 

            Summoning my strength to turn down his offer, I tried to stand up again while I attempted to fake a bravado that I suddenly had no energy for. 

            “Really, I’m fine Gabe. I’ll be able to make it home no problem. I could even text you when I get home. I just need to get to my car and then I’ll be fine.” Standing up, I was able to turn around to grab my bag when my vision started to black out, this time entirely, and I heard buzzing sound in my ears. I barely heard Gabe say my name before I suddenly felt as though I was free-falling into darkness. 

~ Gabriel ~

            I barely managed to catch Eve the second time, but somehow managed to throw an arm out around her waist at the last second to grab her before her head collided with the tile floor. Letting my instincts take over, I slid an arm under her knees and lifted her nearly effortlessly off the floor to cradle her in my arms. People saw that I had caught her and offered assistance in light of the sudden emergency. After asking one of them to hold the door open for me to get her into my truck, I managed to her carefully carry her out and set her in the passenger seat. Running back in to grab both of our bags, I glanced over at her G-wagon and knew that it would be safe parked overnight in this area before walking over to my truck. I quickly thanked everyone who helped me get her in and out of doorways with a quick wave, then backed out of the parking spot. Now alone and waiting at a stop light, I leaned over to buckle her into the seat of my truck and propped her head back between the seat and the door frame, so I wouldn’t inadvertently “break her neck” as I was driving. I spotted her phone in a side pocket of her backpack and pulled it out to see if I could unlock it somehow to call her mom. It was one of those smart phones that unlocked with face recognition, so I held it up to her face hoping to trick the phone, but it was smarter than anticipated and eventually locked me out from too many unsuccessful attempts. Sighing, I tried to wake her for the third time to see if I could get an address out of her, but once again got nothing from her, as she remained blissfully unconscious leaving me to handle this situation by myself. With no other option and not knowing exactly where her friends lived, I decided to take her back to my house, and if she woke up along the way I would just change direction and take her home. 

            Twenty minutes later, she was still knocked out in the passenger seat as I pulled into the driveway of the modest three-bed, two-bath ranch style house that I called home. Grabbing our bags, I checked to see if she was still breathing for the 15th time in the past thirty minutes before heading in to find my Mom. The second I made it through the front door, I called out for my Mom in that obnoxious way kids do to their parents, and instantly got a response saying she was in the kitchen. After quickly explaining the situation to her, I ran back out to the truck without waiting for so much as a response to carry Eve into my house. Luckily, raising two boys and working as a critical care nurse had prepped my Mom well to handle unexpected situations.

Calmly, she held the doors open for me to make it to my room and stood by as I gently laid Eve down on my bed. It was about 9:00 p.m. now which meant my brother was knocked out cold in the room next to mine. Whispering the details of the situation to my Mom, she checked Eve’s pulse, felt her forehead and quickly came to the diagnosis that Eve had simply passed out from what sounded to her to be stress, and she was sure Eve would be just fine after she rested for a bit. Making sure Eve was safe and sound in the middle of my bed so as to not roll off the edge, I realized she still had her shoes on and thought about how uncomfortable that would be. Making quick work of her laces, I gently pulled her shoes off and placed them on the floor next to her book bag. Grabbing a blanket off the chair in the corner of my room, I unfolded it to lay over her and then followed my Mom out to the kitchen to discuss further what had happened and to make a plan, so she could contact Eve’s mother with the details. 

Fifteen minutes and a phone call with Ms. Romano later, it was nearly 10:00 p.m. and I had already started yawning as the exhaustion of school, football practice, and Eve’s unexpected response to the phone call with her boyfriend had crept up on me. My eyelids were starting to feel heavy when I suddenly felt my Mom’s hand resting on my shoulder. She smiled, told me she was proud of me, and to go to bed. Making it to my room in a daze, I was barely awake as I initially just put on a pair of gray sweats and was about to sleep in the chair shirtless, until I thought better of it with Eve being here, and switched into a pair of athletic shorts and a T-shirt instead. 

I had moved an old lounger my parents had bought in the late 90’s that came with a foot rest into my room a few years ago before my mom had the chance to get rid of it. She had finally saved up the money she needed to get the new furniture set she deserved, so I moved some of the old furniture to my room to use as a place to sit and practice playing my guitar, but barely used it since it reminded me of better days when my Dad was still in the picture. 

Initially my Mom thought she had found a good one when she met my Dad. They were in love, and he got her pregnant a year after they met. When I was about 3 years old he was recruited to fight in some war; the details were never clear. About a year later she received news on the day of my 4th birthday that he had died in battle. She was devastated, but being the strong woman she is, she put herself through nursing school, worked like a dog for the next 3 years picking up extra shifts to make sure I had a normal childhood, and had everything I could ever need or want. Thankfully, she met Tom who worked as a pharmaceutical rep in the hospital she worked at. They quickly fell in love, and married a year later, only to have my half-brother, Blake, 6 months after their wedding. This brought my Mom down to working part time as she raised two boys, which allowed her to enjoy life more, so I was happy she had found Tom. 

There’s about a nine-year age gap between Blake and I, and I’m not entirely sure how well he understands that we’re half-brother’s since he’s only 8 years old, but I made sure growing up that he always felt like I would be there to protect him, have his back, and be there through the tough times, especially after his Dad died from a stroke a couple years ago. Blake had just turned 6 when he lost his Dad, and my Mom lost her second husband, leaving me to hold the three of us together at just 16 years old. Going to state college also made sense being just an hour away from my brother and mom if they needed anything. 

As I tried desperately to make myself comfortable in the old, worn down chair, sleep evaded me for the next two hours. I checked the clock at midnight and had reached an all time high of desperation. Looking over at Eve sound asleep on my bed, I noticed she had rolled to one side, leaving plenty of room in the queen sized bed for another person to fit next to her without even touching each other. I really wasn’t the guy to take advantage of a girl, and I didn’t want to make Eve feel uncomfortable so I compromised with myself and agreed to only sleep for a few hours in the bed next to her. I would wake up at 5am and move back into the chair before she woke up so she wouldn’t feel as though I was taking advantage of the situation. I was dead tired, and had another 3 hour practice after school tomorrow to prep for the state championship football game that we were already slotted to play in. Barely thinking twice of the situation, I was already horizontal on the bed and just finished setting my phone alarm to go off at 5:00 a.m. as my eyes closed and sleep finally claimed me for the night.

~ Evelyn ~

            I felt myself laying in a bed and thought nothing of it as I stretched and rolled onto my other side. Wrapping a leg around the body pillow next to me, it felt thicker than I remembered, but I didn’t think twice as the coolness of the pillow seeped into my limbs pulling me back into a deeper sleep. I had a fleeting thought nagging at my consciousness that I didn’t remember going to bed last night, which was immediately overcome by the fact that I was so comfortable I didn’t care what I did or didn’t remember. I drifted in and out of a deep sleep for the next hour or so before I heard my phone alarm go off, which was weird because I didn’t remember setting that either, but again, didn’t care about the details as I blindly felt around on the other side of the pillow to find my phone and shut off the noise. Barely another second of the noise blared as I suddenly found the phone and hit a side button that I knew would shut off the noise and put the alarm into sleep mode. 

            It felt as though another hour went by before I finally heard the phone alarm begin to blare loudly next to me ear on the pillow I had set it on the first time it went off. Letting it go for another few seconds, I groaned as I reached for the phone behind my head. I pushed the button again but made a deal with myself that I would get up in a minute or two. Rolling back over, I snuggled deeper into the pillow with one arm and one leg wrapped around it, I squeezed tight and rubbed my cheek onto the soft material. It was weird though because my body pillow had a soft fluffy pillow case on it and suddenly it felt as though this pillow was made out of a T-shirt. Blinking one eye open, I looked across the material of the pillow. Seeing an emblem on it, I recognized the school mascot and the name of our high school with words ‘captain’ printed under the mascot. What the hell? I don’t have a captain shirt like this or this color? Feeling around on the pillow, I realized the pillow wasn’t fluffy but more like rock hard abs. Running my hand up further in front of my face I felt the distinct feeling of pecs and realized all too slowly that I was not laying on my body pillow, but instead using a body as a pillow which instantly jolted me awake, but oddly enough I didn’t fly up off of him right away. I didn’t move at all actually, and as I laid there trying not to move so as to wake Gabe up, I tried to analyze what I was feeling in the moment. Why did this feel so good, so right? I realized I didn’t want to stop being here with him like this, I didn’t want to move at all, so instead I shut my eyes and breathed in his calming scent. He made me feel like I was safe in his arms and I didn’t really know why or when I started feeling this way. Had I always felt this way about Gabe? He wasn’t my usual type if I was being honest with myself, I always went for the bad boys, more specifically the worst of the bad boys, and Gabe was the total opposite of that. He was kind and thoughtful of others, always doing the right thing, and loyal to a fault, willing to risk his own safety for others. 

            As my eyes focused and I took in my surroundings, I realized not only was I in bed with Gabe, but we were in his room. The same exact room he had when he was a kid. Different now with a bigger bed and different décor, but I would have recognized this room in any setting. The weird part was that I wasn’t freaking out at all, in fact I really wanted to just go back to sleep which I was seriously contemplating, when the damn phone suddenly started blaring the alarm again and this time Gabe actually heard it. Without opening his eyes he felt around blindly on his side of the bed for the phone and finally found it up near his head after a few seconds, turning the alarm off the same way I did. He laid there with his eyes closed for a second, then sucked in a breath and jolted awake as his eyes popped open and he looked down to see me curled up around him. Smiling and serenely calm, I very slowly unwrapped myself from around his body and sat up on the bed, stretching my arms above my head like a cat would after napping in the sun all day. I wasn’t too sure what I was doing, but I think I was trying to flirt with Gabe which almost shocked me back to reality….almost. 

            “Good morning, did you kidnap me from the café to keep me here to yourself, or are their other details that I’m assuming I’m missing?” I smiled seductively, and gave him a break by getting up out of bed and walking over to my backpack that I always kept an emergency shirt and some makeup in. I didn’t want him having a heart attack or seizure or anything and the way he was opening and closing mouth really made me think that he might have been having an aneurism.