The Given Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rockwell.”
    Grif rubbed the knot on his skull where Nicole had knocked him out. No good deed went unpunished.
    â€œNever did I think that you’d use the free will that comes with being human to try to save those you were only supposed to Take. You should have heard the uproar from the Host when the time for Katherine Craig’s death came and went, and she still lived.”
    Grif could only imagine . . . though he still couldn’t bring himself to care. Kit had been alone in her bedroom when two men had broken into her house. Grif had hesitated, he’d watched the plasma swirl about her naked ankles as her attackers closed in, but in the end he couldn’t just sit by and watch her die.
    Sarge nodded, following his thoughts. “And then you fell in love. We decided that if we couldn’t force you from the Surface, we could at least use you to find lost souls. Those who hid from their guides. Those who fell prey to the Fallen.”
    Grif shuddered. He didn’t even want to think about the ghastly, distorted, and truly evil fallen angels.
    â€œYou have to understand,” Sarge was saying, “nobody had ever possessed both angelic power and free will at the same time. You were the first. An angelic human.”
    â€œI was a tool to be used until you didn’t need me anymore.”
    Sarge lowered his swirling gaze. “Like I said, my job is to see that all the souls in my care move on to God’s presence.”
    And he didn’t care how that got done.
    â€œI was returning to the Everlast when he struck.” Sarge pursed his lips at the memory, his legs loose as he rocked with the ship. “I had just left Dennis Carlisle’s body, and I was so pleased with myself, thinking that you’d find your wife easily and quickly now that Ms. Craig was out of the picture. I was so sure that she was the one standing in the way of your progress. He caught me just as I reached the Gates of the South Wind.”
    â€œWho? God?”
    Sarge huffed, a bitter laugh. “Even I haven’t seen His face yet. No, it was Donel. A Seraph.”
    The highest of the celestial tribes.
    â€œGod uses the Seraphim to settle things . . . in-house, if you will.”
    â€œI thought the archangels were his heavies?”
    Sarge shook his head. “Too unpredictable. They’re fanged and untouchable and full of righteousness. Plus, you can’t look them directly in the face.”
    â€œThat would make it hard to have a good heart-to-heart.”
    Sarge tried to smile, but the grin wobbled on his face. It looked like the action pained him. “Anyway, Donel said he had a message from God. So he grabbed me by my robe and told me to open my mouth.”
    â€œYour mouth?” Grif tilted his head. “Why not your ears?”
    â€œBecause messages from God are not something you hear. They’re something you feel.” Sarge swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple moved like a boulder in his throat. “He made me feel it all, Shaw. Everything you’re still angry about. The manipulation and the pain. The cruelty in the way I drove you and Kit apart. As Pures, we are not allowed to help mortals—it intrudes upon their free will. But we’re not allowed to hurt them for the very same reason.”
    The thought of it, all that pain and longing and heartache hitting someone all at once, made Grif sag on his feet. And he’d never heard of a Pure feeling true emotion before. After all, they, too, were tools—created for a specific purpose. Life lessons, and the weight of them, were not gifts that God bestowed on mere tools.
    Yet not a day went by that Grif, too, didn’t feel the pain caused by Frank’s actions. Who was he to question how God dealt with His creations? So he crossed his arms.
    â€œYou want me to say it, don’t you?” Sarge said, and his face contorted in a wry, pained smile.
    â€œWhy not?” Grif said.