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Her name is Evie, and believe me, the connotations of that name aren’t lost on me.
I saw her naked once before we met.
I didn’t mean to. I was simply trying to check on her as I had with many others in the city. Knowing the danger they put themselves in to steer clear of that one final step to homelessness, I checked on as many humans as I could as often as I could, and when I was able to, lead them to the pathway of a better life.
When they would let me.
I had no way of knowing I’d find Evie like that.
Of course, I should’ve suspected there’d be a high chance of it, given her job as a sex worker and the building she was in—that seedy hotel they use to conduct business. But still, she caught me by surprise. She couldn’t see me, it was too dark outside, and internally, it eats me up to admit I watched her longer than I should have.
I should’ve turned away the moment I realized I had caught her at a vulnerable moment, or at least closed my eyes and waited until she was decent and dressed.
Her fare had just left. Other areas have different names for them—customers, tricks. But here, they called them fares, and while there was the rare one who simply sought some company, the sex being incidental, most of them were the scum of the city. Those who lived other lives elsewhere and came here to take out whatever sick desires they had on those who had no choice once you showed their handler the cash.
Before he left, he had hit her, and I knew it wouldn’t have been the first time he had laid hands on her like that.
I wanted to go to her then and there, but swooping in through the window of a fifth-floor room while she was naked and vulnerable was a terrible idea. I had the control in me not to do that.
Barely.
But I didn’t have the control not to follow that man as he left her room, nor to stop myself using fear to remind him what would happen if he ever struck a woman again.
I should’ve walked away and been saved from the pain of having to leave her.
There are a lot of things I should have done differently.
When I went back to check on her, instead of leaving as soon as I saw she was okay—as okay as she could be at that moment—I watched her for a while. She wasn’t the first woman I had seen naked, of course, but her body told a story. The way she moved spoke of grace. Perhaps when she was younger, she was a dancer. Yet her eyes told me any confidence she had wasn’t in who she was as a person but merely in her outward appearance. Her curves spoke of someone who took pride in her body, even if she felt she had to keep it that way for the job alone. Blonde hair cascaded down her back and made me think of what the fares would see in her. They’d visualize whatever remaining innocence she had and how they longed to take it from her, to break her, to shatter whatever life and light she had in her eyes, so they could feel as though they owned her. Perhaps that would make them feel better for their petty existence.
It made my blood boil.
But her scars told a much different story.
I didn’t scar, but if I were scarred from emotional distress, my body would be a tapestry of all the horrors I had seen and all those I hadn’t been able to save.
Perhaps that’s what pulled me to her.
Her scars spoke of a woman who had been through abuse and of a woman who at least once had enough of the pain and tried to take it away herself to flee from this world.
The scars made me want to care for her, but everything else made me want to take her.
Not only away from this city and lifestyle, but away from everything and to be with only me.
It made me long totakeher in a way I shouldn’t think about.
Her skin looked soft. I longed to touch it and do much more.
These were dangerous thoughts to have for a man who was supposed to be rescuing her, showing her a better life, and caring for her as a lost lamb.
These thoughts were even more dangerous for an angel to have.
I am Zaqiel, and if I am to fall, it will be because of her.
ZAQIEL
You know your life is messed up when a demon has to save you.
Ademonfor God’s sake.
