chapters 9 and 10

CHAPTER 9

The first sun rays came up early in the next morning, announcing that another hot summer day was about to start. Monica was the first one in the group to wake up, and, after gently pulling away from Sally’s embrace, she smiled with all the love in her heart when she turned to her right and saw her best friend lying next to her, tiredness evident on his handsome features as he slept.

“Oh my dear friend... I know how you’re feeling, I know how much you would like to protect us all, and you’ve been doing that since this terrible accident happened, believe me. Just be patient, I’m sure all this suffering is about to end...”

Softly, she stroked his blond hair, but, despite that delicate movement, Andrew woke up startled and with a puzzled expression on his handsome face:

“Monica!...”, he cried, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. She held his face with her hands and looked into his eyes:

“Calm down, Andrew, it’s ok! You were sleeping right beside me, it was just a bad dream...”

The blond angel sighed, feeling both relieved to be just dreaming and disappointed to see how much worried his dear friend was. Sitting in front of Monica, he took her hands and kissed them:

“I’m sorry, Angel Girl... It’s just that... I guess I’m feeling kinda paranoid about all this, that’s all...”

“You have nothing to be sorry about, believe me!”

Although it could not totally banish fear from his mind, her soothing voice certainly managed to warm his heart:

“You’re right...”

“So, try to forget about it; it’s time for us to set off, because I can’t wait to come back Home and hug Tess again, and I’m sure that John and Sally want to do the same with their mom and dad!”

She squeezed his hands and smiled mischievously:

“And, right now, I think we’d better move on before Sally wakes up and gives us another demonstration of children’s peculiar curiosity!”

He couldn’t help but chuckling at that comment, and, slightly blushed, the blond angel leaned to brush a loving kiss on her forehead:

“You wake them up, Angel Girl, I’ll put the fire out.”

While he was putting out the last flames of the fire he had lit on the previous night, Monica gently shook the children:

“John, Sally, it’s time to wake up...”

Sleepily, they opened their eyes and yawned:

“Can’t we stay just a little bit?...”, the boy pleaded.

“Oh no, we have plenty of walk today, and the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll find help to come back home!”

“Do you think people will find us today?”, Sally asked, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands.

“I’m quite sure about it, dear!”

Andrew was almost finishing to put the fire out when a sudden sensation of panic crept on him, as if a great danger was about to come:

“Monica, children, c’mon, take your backpacks and let’s get out of here immediately!”, he commanded, quickly grabbing one of the bags and putting it on his shoulder. The Irish angel frowned at that unexpected behaviour:

“Andrew...”

“Monica, please, don’t ask me why; just do as I say...”

All that outright fear caused the two siblings to be equally afraid:

“Is there anything wrong, Andrew?”, John asked.

But, before he could answer to that question, a shot echoed through the trees, breaking the silence of the woods, and a bullet came to rest on a tree trunk just a few inches from where they were:

“Quick, let’s run!”

The group started a desperate and frenetic escape through the trees, but now that was twice as difficult, because the path that lay ahead was rocky and inclined, and one could easily slip and roll 10 meters down the mountain. Not far from them, Bill and Jack appeared from behind a huge stone:

“Are you nuts or what, Bill?!”, the thief cried, still not believing in what his partner had just done.

“These two are really damn lucky idiots!”, the black-haired thief cursed, still holding his gun. “And you’d better not try interfere again, you hear me?!”

Bill took the other thief’s revolver and kept it with him:

“This stays with me now, ‘cause you’re becoming too sweet!... If only we’d found them earlier!”

“If you hadn’t fired this stupid gun maybe we would’ve got them!”

“What’s the problem with you, man?!”

“I’m just trying not to get ourselves more messed up than what we already are! Now let’s go after them, on the contrary they can escape!”

“They won’t; I can assure you, Jack!”

The criminals started to run in the same direction the angels and the children had gone, and, minutes after, arrived at the same cliff the group was descending:

“There they are!”, Bill cried, spotting them running among the vegetation a few meters down.

“Bill don’t shoot! We’ll catch them anyway...”, Jack dissuaded the other thief, who put his gun down:

“You’re right. There aren’t many bullets, we can’t spend it. And we can get rid of the two adults when we get them!...”

In a desperate hurry, Andrew, Monica and the children kept on going down the hill; rocks covered with moss, and, therefore, extremely slippery, were spread all over their way, increasing the danger of a sudden fall:

“Try to grab the vegetation that grows around here, so that you can’t stumble on the rocks and fall!”, the blond angel said, holding Sally in his arms, as the little girl would never have been able to run fast enough to escape from the danger that chased them unmercifully. Behind him, came Monica and John. With their hearts pounding loudly in their chests, they followed Andrew’s instructions, and all of them would hear the thieves’ voices not far from them. The Irish angel’s body was entirely shaking and it took her an extra dose of effort to remain standing on her feet and run.

“Let’s get down a little more and then go into another direction, maybe this will mislead them.”, said the older angel.

But, at that moment, Monica stepped on a loose stone and slipped, falling heavily on her knees against the rocky soil. John, who was right in front of her, stopped running and tried to help her:

“Monica, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, John...”, she had a few scratches on the palms of her hands and her knees were aching because of the sudden shock with the ground: “... keep on running John, don’t stop because of me!”

“I can help you to get up...”

“No, just go on I can handle it myself!”

He decided to obey that order, but only because he knew that there was somebody who could help her better than he would:

“Andrew! Monica stumbled and fell! She needs help!”, the boy screamed. Immediately, the blond angel stopped running and looked back, so that he could see his best friend trying to get up. To worsen the situation, the sleeve of her coat was stuck in a sharp pointed twig, which tore the fabric, and she could not get rid of it. Andrew put Sally on the ground and took her little hand:

“Sally, dear, listen to me, I’m gonna help Monica and you and your brother will wait for us right here, ok?”

The girl nodded, unable to speak as fear had total control over her. He dropped the backpack on the grass and came back the same way, climbing the slope to meet Monica:

“Let me help you out, sweetie...”, he tore the sleeve of her coat completely, so that she could free herself from the plant:

“Oh Andrew, I’m so sorry!”, the little angel wept, still with her hands trembling.

“You have nothing to be sorry about, remember? Now, come with me, I’ll help you.”

He grabbed her hands and helped her to her feet:

“You can make it, Angel Girl!”

“Thank you, Andrew, I...”

Suddenly, another shot echoed through the vast woods, but, at that time, it went straight to its target: Monica felt a sharp pain on her shoulder and, in shock, gripped Andrew’s coat, already falling down on the soil again:

“Monica?...”, he cried out in horror, as he saw the colour disappear from her face  and her blood flowing from the wound the bullet had made.

“...Andrew...”, she whispered, unable to stay on her feet anymore. He took a firm hold on her waist and a look of sheer terror appeared on his face.

Then, panic claimed him.

CHAPTER 10

“Damn it, Bill! You can’t do anything without using that stupid gun, can you?!”, Jack shouted, pushing the other man and visibly nervous about what had just happened.

“What’s the matter with you, man?! These two are gonna give us away at the first opportunity they have!”

“I’m not a murderer, Bill, that’s the problem!”

“Oh really? And what the hell are you? ‘Saint Jack’?!”

“I may have committed many crimes but I didn’t kill anybody and I don’t wanna start doing this now!”

The black-haired man laughed sarcastically:

“You should’ve thought about that before getting into this, buddy! Now c’mon, ‘cause I’m sure I got one of those two!”

They went down the hill until the place where Monica had been shot, but, arriving there, the criminals found nothing but bushes and rocks:

“But where the hell are they?!”, Bill stormed.

“They’ve escaped! Again!”, Jack said, after taking a quick look at his surroundings.

“That can’t be possible! How many times can these bunch of idiots hide from us?!”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t shot at them, we could’ve caught the four!”

“They can’t be that far...”

Bill was staring at the rocks in the soil and smiled evilly:

“...look at this! It’s blood... I knew I had got one of them!”

Exasperatedly running his fingers through his dirty hair, and with an anguished expression on his face, Jack elected not to argue with his partner:

“So let’s move around, but just try not to use this gun of yours, ok?!”

Not far away from there, hidden behind some bushes, Andrew held Monica in his arms, pressing a handkerchief against her wounded shoulder to contain the bleeding. She was breathing hard, trying to bear in silence the terrible pain she was feeling. Despair consumed the blond angel and the sight of his dearest friend hurt in such a cruel and coward way was like a deep and sharp pain in his heart. At the moment she had been shot, the only reaction the angel was able to have was to take Monica away from that place, fearing that the criminals would fire their gun against her a second time.

As a matter of fact, the image before him caused Andrew to be paralysed, unable think about a way to get all of them out of there. And soon the two thieves would find them. The children, on the other hand, had disappeared through the trees and bushes at the moment the gun was fired, and there was no way he could call out their names, as this would easily give them away.

With tears of sorrow in his eyes, the blond angel stroked Monica’s pale cheek; all he wanted to do was to take care of her, and suck all the pain she was feeling at that moment. But he sighed completely hopeless, because, at that very moment, there was nothing he could do. Soon the evil men that pursued them like a hunter goes after his preys, would find where they were, and the group should be prepared for the worst.

Although she was in terrible pain, the Irish angel was conscious all the time and could feel all the anguish that flew from her friend’s heart, which only increased her own sorrow. She knew how much Andrew wanted to protect them all and how incredibly guilty he was feeling about that tragedy. She briefly closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer asking for help. An instant later, she opened her brown eyes again and heard John’s whispered voice near them:

“Andrew...”

The blond angel turned his head to the left and saw the boy standing some meters from him:

“I’ve found a place where we can hide!...”, there was a tense tone in his voice for fear of being caught at any moment, “It’s this way, come with me!”

That announcement seemed to take Andrew out of a trance: he took a firm hold on his best friend and followed the boy. But it didn’t take too long before the two criminals realise the movement through the vegetation:

“It’s coming from that side...”, pointed Bill, “I think I got them this time!”

“Yeah, it can be them or an animal, so try not to chase whatever it is away until we are sure about it, ok?!”

“As you wish, buddy!”

They headed in the same direction Andrew had gone a minute earlier. The rocky and irregular terrain, together with the dense vegetation, made it difficult to walk or find something in the place. And that was the reason why, passing by some bushes and looking around them, the two thieves didn’t notice the cave that was hidden just a few steps from them. Inside that dark, narrow hole, carved in the hill, were Andrew, Monica, John and Sally. In an anguished silence, they heard the criminals voices near them and closed their eyes, wishing they would go away. And, some minutes later, they could hear Bill and Jack’s footsteps moving away from the entrance of the cave:

“I think they’ve gone...”, John whispered.

Only then, Andrew lit up a flashlight and everybody’s concern was focused on Monica, who lay weak in his arms:

“She’s badly hurt, isn’t she?”, asked Sally, stroking the angel’s auburn hair.

“I’m afraid she is, Sally...”

“But you’re gonna take care of her, you’re not gonna let her die, right?”

The blond angel felt his entire body tremble with that question: could angels really die? Were they to face more sorrow than they had already experienced so far?

As an angel of death for so many years, Andrew had been a permanent witness of human’s tremendous suffering caused by the loss of a loved one. Although his kind heart could understand people’s pain at that most difficult hour, he was convinced that his role was to bring peace to a God’s child and take her Home, to rest in the Father’s arms. But now the situation had changed: he was the one whose beloved friend was in great pain; he was the one suffering with the possibility of losing somebody he loved deeply.

At that moment, the blond angel came to realise something: it was that he had always been afraid of since that terrible accident took place. Feeling tears forming in the corner of his eyes, Andrew shook his head, not believing that something like that could happen to an angel. Was he about to face his greatest fear of all?

But the blond angel looked at Monica’s pale face and, besides all the suffering she was bravery bearing, he saw her love for him shining from her brown eyes. And, then, he realised something else: she trusted him wholeheartedly and he could never let her down:

“John, I’m gonna need your help here, ok? Take that first aid box inside the backpack and the bottles we filled with the water we took in the river.”

“Alright...”

He looked at Monica and gently put some strands of her hair behind her ear:

“I’m gonna take care of you, sweetie, I promise...”

“I know...”, she whispered, with a feeble smile.

The blond angel carefully placed her on the ground and put his coat under her head. After, he took off her coat and tore the left sleeve of her sweatshirt: the small bullet had opened a wound, which was covered with blood. Andrew felt a blow in his stomach at that image, and it took him all his strengths to keep his emotions under control. John, too, was shocked to see the one he already loved so badly hurt. Nervously, he turned to his little sister:

“Sally, sit over there, ok? I don’t want you to see this...”

Taking the other flash light, the girl obeyed that order under no protest, and went to sit next to the wall of the cave, knees drawn up to her chest and a sad expression on her face.

“I have to stop this bleeding immediately.”

“And how are you gonna do this, Andrew?”

He frowned and took a deep breath:

“I hate to say that, but we don’t know how much time we’ll stay here and she can’t hold much longer with a bullet in her shoulder... I’ll try to remove the bullet and then treat the wound.”

Andrew opened the first aid kit and took a bottle of alcohol, some bandages, gauze, cotton and all the material necessary for the procedure. John shone the flashlight on Monica’s shoulder and the blond angel wiped all the blood that covered her arm and cleaned the wound.

Then, he took a pair of tweezers, previously heated with a lighter, and dragged the small piece of metal from inside the Irish angel’s left shoulder. The pain Monica felt was more than she could bear, and she let out a cry followed by some tears.

All the procedure lasted about 40 minutes and, at least during this time, there was no sign of the two criminals who had been a constant threat to the group.

Andrew put a dressing on Monica’s shoulder and covered her with his own coat, holding her in his arms again afterwards; her head resting on his chest.

“You’re gonna be fine, Angel Girl... you’re gonna be just fine...”

He kissed her face and stroked her hair, but the little angel was too weak to answer, as she had lost a considerable quantity of blood and experienced intense pain. Both closed their eyes and the blond angel rested his forehead on hers, their faces close together. Completely hopeless, he shed some tears, which came to rest on his friend’s cheeks. They were weak and defenceless, and somebody had to find them as soon as possible; on the contrary, they would not resist much longer, especially Monica.

But how could the search and rescue team find them inside the cave if it was already difficult to look for lost people inside the woods, along a mountain chain? At the same time, they could not get out of the cave, as Bill and Jack were waiting to catch them at the first opportunity they had.

There was nothing more to do except to wait resignedly for any sign of help. The group spent the following hours in complete silence. All of a sudden, Sally, with some tears in her eyes, spoke for the first time: standing on her knees and with her hands conjoined, the girl started to pray:

“Dear God, please help us... My friend Monica is hurt and needs to go to hospital. Send somebody to take her out of here... And protect us from those bad men...”

“Sally, what are you doing?...”

“I’m talking to God, John. Monica said that we are all His children and that we can talk to Him whenever we feel like, because He is always listening. And it’s true because when we got out of the river and were lost in the woods, we prayed for help and then you and Andrew showed up.”

Hearing those words, Andrew raised his head and looked to the little girl, realising something that he had not noticed before: the last time he had prayed was inside the bus, some hours before the accident happened. Since then, his faith seemed to have disappeared gradually and the angel seemed to have forgotten who he really was.

But that little girl, that innocent child, had just taught him a lesson he would remember for the rest of his existence: to trust in the Father and put his destiny in His hands in the most difficult hours, because He would never abandon them. Although as an angel that had always sounded so natural to him, in human form, feeling trapped and defenceless, he had to relearn all those valuable teachings.

“Do you really think God knows where we are? Do you think He can hear us?”, the boy asked. But it was the blond angel who answered to that question:

“Sally’s right, John. God is always listening to our prayers, watching our actions and taking care of each and every single creature in this world. He never forgets anybody... Even if we, sometimes, forget about Him and how much He loves us...”

“But... if He is taking care of us, then how could He let something so bad happen to Monica?!”

“What happened to Monica was not His fault, John. There’s evil in the world too; and we’ve been exposed to it for the last hours. And even if the accident hadn’t occurred, those men would’ve attacked us and the other children at the campsite...”

At that moment, a beautiful glow involved Andrew’s figure, causing the children’s eyes to grew wide:

“...And that’s why He sent some angels to be with you, in this very difficult hour...”

“So... you’re an angel?!”, John asked, not believing in what he was seeing. His astonishment was shared by his sister’s:

“A real angel, just like the ones who live in Heaven?!”

“Yes, I am. And so is Monica. And, at first, even I was feeling abandoned,  hopeless and frightened, questioning why so many bad things could have happened to us. But, now, I understand why God sent us here...”

“To protect my brother and I? To be on our side all this time?”

He smiled:

“Yes, Sally. So don’t be afraid, children, because you were never alone, believe me.“

“But we aren’t at the campsite, and, now, Monica is badly hurt...”

“Yes, but she’s not alone either. After all that’s happened, we are still all together, close to her and helping God to take care of her.”

The blond angel bowed his head and closed his eyes:

“Oh Father, please, forgive me... I should have known that you would never abandon your servants and these two children. And now, in this most difficult hour, I have to thank you for putting into this little girl’s words everything that I had to listen... She gave me back what I had lost at the moment the accident happened: my faith. And, without it, I was never able to believe in anything else...”

All of a sudden, Andrew felt the ever-loving presence of The Almighty inside his heart and all around, and knew it was an immediate reply to his words.

“So that’s what we need right? To have faith?...”

The angel smiled at the two siblings:

“Yes, that’s everything we need, John. To have faith and trust in His infinite power.”

Together, the children and the blond angel spent the following minutes praying, for them and for Monica.

*

Suddenly, their prayers were interrupted by a noise coming from the outside:

“Listen!...”, John cried, with his heart pounding loudly in excitement, “... it’s a helicopter!”