Damned - By Brittany Booker Page 0,2

two minutes. When I opened my eyes a fast forward of scenes flooded my head. Please God tell me that was a dream. I sat up quickly. I was still lying on the ground where I had fainted. I blinked a few times and then noticed him standing against the garage. I stood up quickly. I was going to try and make a run for it. As soon as I took a step, he moved toward me. He gracefully glided, and with his movements, everything else seemed to sway around him. I took another step back. But a slinky darkness curled and formed around his amazing body. It looked almost like a moving shadow. His eyes never left mine. He grabbed my throat.

“Don’t hurt me!” I choked out. I began to cry, fumbling around in my pocket. I pulled out the bottle of pepper spray and, while swinging my legs and gasping for air, I sprayed him in the eyes.

“Ah! Damn you, worthless human.” He rubbed his eyes and with only a swipe of his hands, they were fine. I got up from where I had fallen to the ground and tried to run, but he caught me around the waist and pinned me up against him.

“Please, just leave me alone,” I sobbed and flailed with my feet trying to hit his legs.

“No. I need your help.” His voice was rough and harsh. It sounded as if he was in pain.

I let my body go still while he gently released me.

“Are you ignorant? Would you dare try to fight me?”

I shook my head. “What? Am I ignorant? Are you demonic?”

He gripped my arm, his pupils growing larger. “How dare you call me a demon! I resided in Heaven with the Lord.” My mouth was partly open in awe and confusion as I remembered the reason I fainted. The wings. What the hell? Are those fake?

Oh God! A religious man gone nutcase crazy!

“Okay, you’re not a demon, I’m sorry! You’re a—a...” I trailed off not really knowing how to respond such a bizarre statement.

“What are you?” I tried not to look at the wings but I couldn’t help it...oh God the wings.

His eyes grew paler, the light blue contrasted with his flawless dark skin. “Well, I’m a Horseman, damned to Earth.”

Like the Heaven? Horsemen, like The Apocalypse? I bit my lip, trying to hold in my nervous laughter, but it slipped.

“Angels normally come from Heaven and have white wings. And they don’t try to kill people. What kind of thing would come from Heaven that had black wings?”

His eyes seemed to harden. A radiating heat seeped off of his body toward mine. “How dare you mock me, imbecile? I’m a Horseman not an angel. The Horsemen are not what you people really think. I was appointed a Horseman when I died. My brothers and I will lead The Apocalypse. We’ve each been given different titles.”

I didn’t know what to say, because as much as it seemed unreal to hear him, or see him standing in front of me, I was starting to believe he was something supernatural. “So you’re saying you are a Horseman,” I whispered, backing away from him. I was eyeing my car and tightening my hands around my car keys.

“Dare you run? Are you that full of stupidity?” He stepped forward. “Help me, and I will leave you be.”

I swallowed hard. “What do you need?”

“Shelter.”

I bit my lip while trying to make some sense out of all of this. My eyes traveled down his body and I noticed a deep bleeding gash on his side. I cringed. How many different ways could helping him go wrong? I motioned for him to follow me.

I was intrigued. His wings were such a deep, dark black that they gave midnight a run for its money. His face was calm yet menacing. His bare chest was chiseled and his long, black hair waved around his face. His abs curved down to a perfect V peeking out of his pants. But it wasn’t just his utter beauty and enthralling pale blue eyes that struck me. It was what was folded around his back. I couldn’t seem to stop looking at them. “Are those fake?” I mumbled to myself, taking a step back. I noticed again that his side was bleeding. It looked really gross and bad.

I blinked, twice. Watching this Horseman, or so he called himself, walk around my old tree-house in our back yard was not anything that I ever thought I