Page 9 of Against All Odds

My fucking phone was gone.

Now, the panic really grabbed me by the throat. My sobs grew louder as I felt around in my pockets, in my bag, probably looking like a lunatic there on the side of the road. How was this possible? My bag was open; how could I have been so stupid? This had to be a nightmare. I counted my fingers – still five on each hand. Squeezed my arm, begging myself to wake up. Squeezed harder. Nothing happened, which was even worse.

Where was my bike? Where was my goddamn fucking phone?!

“This can’t be real,” I forced out between choked sobs. Real or not, I needed this fucking nightmare to end. I needed to get home, one way or another.

Without a second thought, I stumbled toward the road and started aggressively waving my arms at the cars that neared.

Seren

Watching Soraya self-destruct was more painful than my worst imaginings of Hell.

I had little knowledge about guardian angels beyond a vague memory from a serene painting on the wall at my elementary school. A young woman, dressed in white robes, praying with her eyes closed and a smile on her face. Another woman, also dressed in white, lightly floating with a glowing halo around her head, smiling behind her while her hands hovered just above her assigned’s head.

I had not imagined the assigned as a drunken college student, crying, screaming and cursing into the night, bleeding scratches on her knees and palms from an ugly fall she didn’t remember, searching for a phone she had dropped before getting on the bike she had also lost. She had been searching in the same places for the past ten minutes, after cycling in circles for at least half an hour.

Much less had I imagined the guardian angel to be me, groaning and shaking my head as I was forced to watch from my cursed place above her.

I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Jurrian had shown me how to use my power, assessing and altering harmless probabilities, but doing it alone was something else entirely.

Still, I didn’t feel like he was leaving me in the dark on purpose. His arrogance was frustrating, but he did not seem malicious – which made this whole thing worse. If Jurrian didn’t know how to save this troubled soul, then how should I?

He had explained the rules of the game to me, at least – to an extent. I had no cool superpowers. I couldn’t bend time, couldn’t telekinetically move objects, couldn’t even fly – just float. Like I was watching a world I was no longer part of, not really. My only superpower was a lame and confusing one: to assess the odds of variable events and change them.

I zoomed in on my pitiful assignment, a frown forming on my face. I tried to think, because clearly, she no longer could. If she could still use her brain, she would just stop and walk back from where she came from, and she wouldn’t have to walk far to find her bike. Then, if she just cycled two more blocks, she would be right back at the bike she’d dumped just behind Catchphrase – where her phone should still be on the ground, as Jurrian and I had lowered the odds of someone taking it.

But clearly, there was too much booze in her veins for that.

“Oh, come on,” I muttered, unable to hide my irritation when Soraya reached into her bag for the twentieth time. “Your phone won’t magically appear there.” If I could make that happen, I would’ve done it already – get the damn girl home and into her bed, so I could at least get some peace of mind for myself.

How on earth could I make myself useful here? Not like she was rolling the dice on which direction to walk into. In fact, she did not seem to be walking in any—

Oh, hell no.

My stomach turned when her expression changed and she walked – well, limped – in the direction of the road. Where cars raced past at fifty miles per hour.

And she started to wave her arms like a dumb white girl in a horror movie begging to die.

Did she have a damn death wish?! Was my assigned soul not just an addict, but also suicidal?

I might’ve chosen Hell if I had known she’d turn my life into one.

I commanded my panicked brain to think as cars honked, swerving around her dangerously. What odds were we looking at here? The odds of her getting swiped off the road and murdered? If she was dead, I surely wouldn’t get into Heaven, now would I?

Before I could decide, a car blinked its lights on the opposite road. He slowed down, indicating he was about to make a turn. Soraya dropped her arms, relief crossing her tear-stained face as she – thank God if he existed – stepped off the road.

But then I zoomed in on the driver’s eyes, and bile rose in my throat. Because I knew that grin. I did not need to read his mind to know this kind of man, the kind of predator who was more than likely to take advantage of a helpless, drunk girl. Consequences be damned, I could not let this monster take the girl. I didn’t need to be an angel to know that.

I closed my eyes and tuned in to the Source.

“Every soul, dead or alive, is connected to the Source,” Jurrian had said, “the conscious collective closest to a god-like entity we know. Some humans, even on Earth, are more in touch with it than others. Some fully deny its existence, attributing everything in life to coincidence. Others are aware of it, but have been led astray by religious texts or figures. The only way to connect to the Source is by closing your eyes and tuning into the light that flows from above through you into Earth. Some call it prayer, others call it meditation, but they are essentially two sides of the same coin.”

He had paused to make sure I was still following. “As a guardian angel, your connection to the Source is somewhat different from that of a living soul. The living can connect with it intuitively, speak out their fears and desires – whether framed as requests or demands – and by setting their minds a certain way, they can raise their frequency and influence the course of their lives. However, they cannot directly influence facts that do not concern them, such as manifesting wealth by merely thinking of it – despite what some gurus may tell them.”

I had averted my eyes at his words. The spiritually searching were among the easiest to manipulate, and I had a feeling he knew why I knew.

I imagined a beam of light coming from above, reaching Earth through me. I couldn’t tell if it worked; I didn’t feel different.