caught helping me. I nodded.
“I’m sure they put a block on you going to Earth because that is where Kendra is. They want you to keep your mind on your task, but see—” she said and smiled. There was hope in her eyes again, a sort of yearning, too, maybe. She swallowed hard as she looked up at me with nervous eyes. “You still have your soul, and they can’t stop you from going to Limbo.” She took my hands and I looked down at the joined fingers in confusion. “I can go there with you. We can be together. We can be happy together and you will never have to worry about—”
I jerked my hands from hers and took a step back. I heard Malcolm sigh again. I slowly raised my gaze to meet her eyes. There was the hurt I promised I wouldn’t give her. Damn it!
“You know I love Kendra, Jossel. Happiness is not an option for me.” I stepped forward to ease her pain, but she only cringed away, dropping her tear-filled eyes to the floor. I stopped and let my extended arm fall to my waist in defeat. “I’m sorry. This has completely thrown me off guard. I didn’t expect for any of this to happen.”
“Cause you only see what you choose to see,” Malcolm said. “And that is the reason it is too early for you to know what I know about your situation in the Underworld, brother. You are blinded by what you think you feel, so therefore it will be impossible for you to feel what you must in order to return here. You will have to bring her back with you or accept your fate and stay there in misery.”
I looked up at him then. I supposed what he was saying made some sense to him, but I was convinced I could overcome any obstacle necessary to get back to Heaven and reclaim Kendra as my charge again. I didn’t have to stop loving her to bring some girl back over to the good side. I could do it for Kendra. I didn’t want to think what would happen if I failed this mission.
I would never be happy again, even if I was allowed to go to Limbo. I couldn’t be with Josselyn and put her through that type of misery. She deserved better than what I would ever be able to give her.
“I can handle this. You underestimate me, both of you. I wouldn’t doubt either of you could do what was necessary to return to your charge…”
“It is her…” Josselyn said quietly, and I quickly moved my attention back to her. Her head was still down. The stiff set of her jaw led me to believe she wasn’t at all happy with the path the conversation had gone down. She was upset. And I had a feeling she was upset with me. She was going to try her damndest to hurt my feelings because I had hurt hers by rejecting her.
“What? Who is?”
“It will only make it more difficult for him to accept, Jossel. If you want him to return please don’t do this,” Malcolm pleaded with her, seemingly ignoring the fact that I was encouraging her to do what he was begging her not to.
She didn’t look at him. She looked at me again, her jaw still set and fire in her glistening eyes. “Abigail. It is her.”
I threw my hands up in total confusion. “Abigail is her…” I was obviously missing something big and important. “…I don’t get it.” Was it possible my IQ level had dropped when I fell into Hell? I wasn’t feeling smart. Or maybe they were just making me feel dumb by skirting around the obvious instead of just being as blunt as I would be about it. Yes. That had to be it. I was even beginning to confuse myself.
I sighed. “Abigail is her, but who is…her?”
I knew they couldn’t be talking about Kendra. She was on Earth. I was sure of that. And she’d met her soulmate. I was also sure of that.
Josselyn only continued to stare at me in anger. What was her problem? “I haven’t met any girls in Hell.” If either Pogo or that minion that had bit me was somehow a girl in disguise I would choose to be alone in Limbo. I wasn’t going to even pretend to like something that hideous.
“How’d you get that hole in your heart,
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