Finding Alice (Alice Clark Series) by Andrea DiGiglio

would have made. I should have let that angel kill me . He continued to clean and set bones in no particular order. At some point, I passed out.

    It felt as if I slept for days without getting any actual rest. I opened my eyes; a little less swollen finally. I inhaled to find an unusual mix of chamomile and chicken broth. I sat up as steadily as possible to see crutches nearby. I anchored myself on them and slowly headed in the direction of the very pleasant aromas.
    “You’re finally awake. Glad to see you made it,” my father said. He looked odd in my kitchen. He poured me a cup of chamomile tea into Cole’s mug. He saw the sadness in my eyes, dumped it into my mug, and set it on the kitchen table in front of me. I willed myself to my cookie jar and removed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I felt him judging me for it. I think after what has happened to me, I can have a cigarette. Not to mention you don’t really get a say in what I do. He looked at me surprised; until that moment, I don’t think he realized I was capable of hearing his thoughts and knowing he could hear mine. I lit the cigarette and took a breath in with caution. Coughing would kill me; I was sure of it. He set a small plate in front of me.
    “How long have I been out?”
    “Two days. I’m sure you’re starving.” He smiled an infectious smile. Angel tricks, I assumed. I nodded as he poured me a large bowl of chicken soup. I didn’t know if I should trust him, but my stomach thought I should. Just the right amount of salt with freshly-made pasta and a broth that had to be cooked from scratch. It was amazing and not only because I hadn’t eaten in days. He cleaned up the kitchen while I finished slurping down the bowl for the last taste. I reached for the tea and stop midway, grabbing onto my side in agony. “I missed a rib.” He said it so calmly, as if he were saying he missed a bone in the broth. He walked over and grabbed a hold of me, setting my rib back in place. “I set them all the best I could. I assumed you wouldn’t go to the hospital.” He was right.
    “Thank you. Does Cole know what happened to me?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Please keep it that way.” He nodded. I stood slowly, shoving the cigarettes into my pocket. He handed me the crutches and I limped to the front door. I always imagined as a child what it would be like if I met my birth parents; I could say without a shadow of doubt this did not line up with one of them. He reached to open the door. Please don’t. I was weak, broken, battered even, but I wasn’t dead and I needed to feel as if I was at least capable of opening my front door. I struggled with it for a few minutes before finally getting it open. Apparently, having my body flung into it repeatedly had messed up its alignment a touch. I set the crutches against the house and limped like a wounded animal to the spot I escaped death by an angel. I felt him walking up behind me.
    “My grass is a little burnt,” I tried to joke.
    “I really am so sorry for all of this, Alice.”
    “You know the crazy thing is that the first person who ever treated me like they wanted me, like they loved me, was told to watch me and protect me. I was an order for him. Everyone else was perfectly okay with throwing me out with the trash. All those foster families and you. Even God doesn’t love me.”
    I felt his shame, his pain for the choices he had made. It made me feel a little guilty for speaking to him the way I was, but only a little. The idea of creating a nephilim, who was mostly angel with a human soul just to delay Judgment Day and their final punishment from God, seemed petty to him in my current state of anguish. I didn’t need a mirror to see that I was ten times over in worse condition than my run-in with Cole’s great-grandfather.
    “I am confused about one thing though. Did he die or just hurry back to Heaven?” I asked.
    “The bounty hunter?” he said, obviously confused.
    “You’re kidding