Chapter 24

**Harper**

I didn't know how to return his confession. Did I love Gabriel? Oh god yes, more than I could express to him. But it felt like saying it would change it, make it possible for something to come in and take it away.

"Harper, say something please, anything." He picked a couple of pieces of grass, trying not to fidget. I licked my lips and I wanted to take the easy way out. Have him reach inside my mind to see what I was feeling so that way I didn't have to say it. But if he could spit it out, then so could I. But damn did I not want to.

"I'm sorry, I just...it feels like letting it out will make it vulnerable somehow. But I do love you, Gabriel, you are the single most important person to me." His eyes relaxed as I continued to talk. He opened his mouth to say something when his phone buzzed again.

"We are wanted at home, my mom called." I sighed, I didn't want to face Michael again. But maybe he wasn't there.

"Okay," I stood and he caught my hand before I could move away to give him time to push off. He pulled me back to him and wrapped his arms around my waist. His forehead rested against mine, and I took just a moment. Just to pretend that we were a normal boy and a normal girl. It was just a second to relieve the weight that was sitting on my chest.

"Come on, my mom is waiting." I stepped back and he launched into the sky, and I pushed after him. And usually flying made me feel like I was on top of the world like I didn't have a worry or care. But right now it was like my wings were made of lead. The closer we got the faster my heart was pounding. Gabriel slowed his flight to match mine, and he was tense. I could feel it and it mixed with my own tension.

Landing at his house I felt my heart jump up into my throat; trying to swallow it back down to my chest cavity. My father stood on the back porch with his arms crossed. Gabriel landed in front of me. Cutting my view off from my father, giving me a moment to silently panic.

"I'm not going to harm my own daughter," Gabriel's back tightened.

"I know that, and I also know that she is stressed at this particular moment, I am just giving her time to catch her breath." I put my hand on his back, more so for my own strength than for his comfort.

"Well we need to have a talk, can you wait inside son?" Gabe looked back at me and I wanted to beg him to stay. And the knots in my stomach tightened as my head nodded on its own. I guess we were going to do this now, even though I REALLY did not want to. He walked away from me and with each step he took the more I felt my body lock up. I looked at the man that had been in my corner always and spoiled me and he looked like a stranger to me. How was that possible? He was still my father. He was still the same man. But was he right? He came down to me with his hands in his pockets. He didn't really look nervous, more so like a predator trying not to frighten off his prey.

"Harper. You don't have to be afraid of me." I felt my heart dip into an eery kind of calm. And it felt like it was coming from the outside. I shook my head trying to clear away the fake feeling of safety.

"I don't even truly know who you are..." He looked a little hurt and looked towards the front of the house.

"You do know me, in the way it counts. So you don't know what blood flows through my veins. That doesn't change who I am."

"I don't even know what blood flows through MY viens...I don't even know who I am!" He came forward with his hands out and I backed away from him. The anxiety screamed under the heavy blanket of forced calm. And it all seemed to click together in my mind.

"Stop trying to force emotions on me!" My anger shot through the small blanket of fake calm. His eyes narrowed in alarm.

"You never used to be able to feel me change your emotions..." His eyes roamed over me, and I felt like I was under a microscope.

"I have been starting to feel other people's emotions like they are my own, and changing them...without even knowing that I am doing it! What am I? What are you?!" He took a deep breath.

"Come with me and we can talk about it. But I don't want to talk about it here. Go tell your boyfriend you will be back in a couple of hours." He didn't even wait for me to respond, he just walked around to the front of the house and I started for the back door. I could feel the tension in Gabriel as I approached the door. He waited with his arms crossed, leaning back against the couch in the living room.

"So what's going on?" I took a deep breath and it still didn't even seem real, it felt like it was a dream...or maybe a T.V. show. That was probably more accurate. Something like this didn't just happen to normal people.

But you aren't a normal person are you Harper? You are an angel...that can fly. There has never been a case quiet like yours before and you know it. The small voice in the back of my head spoke up. It was right I had spent much of my teen years googling and looking for another person like me only to come up empty.

As far as I knew I was the only person with angel blood that had the capability to flight? And it was due to my father's blood.

It is time to find out what that is.