The ground began rumbling.

Aumae and Damien both started, but I knew the cause. I was holding his hand. Both caught on when Kellan and I didn’t move.

“Oh.” Damien frowned. “I’m sorry for my part.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He echoed my question.

“Why did you do it? You were born to a human family. That means you have family still, Damien, and I’m not talking about me or our father.”

He glanced away, his jaw clenching.

“Oh dear.” Aumae spoke for the first time, her quiet words splicing through the tense room. She shifted in her seat. The corner of her mouth turned down. “Are they still alive?”

Damien jerked his head up and down. “My mother is, and so are my little sister and brother.”

He had siblings. That rocked me. “From a different father?”

He nodded again, his voice growing hoarse. “I’m sorry, Shay.”

He had a family. I did not. I tried shrugging. It didn’t matter. I had Kellan now, but my shrug fell flat. It did matter. It stung. Damien had a true family. A mother he could go back to and hug. Two siblings that would wind their tiny arms around him. I murmured, “I bet their father loves you like his.”

“He does.” Damien breathed out. “Yes. They think I was kidnapped, which I was in a way. Sachiel took me in and taught me about my messenger lineage.”

“What happens when you deliver us to him?”

Everyone turned to Kellan, hearing his question.

Damien’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I’m free. I can go back to my family and live out my life like a normal person.”

“But you know that’s a lie, don’t you?”

Kellan’s question hung in the room as he stared at my half-brother. It wasn’t a challenge, just the truth how Kellan saw it. A second later, Damien nodded and sighed. His hands fell to the chair in front of him and curled tight around it. “I know.”

“He’ll never let you go back, if your family is even still alive.”

“I know.”

“And you’ve finally realized that now, and that’s why you’re coming clean to us.” Kellan rose from his chair. “You want our help.”

With each statement Kellan said, Damien’s gaze fell to the table, then to the floor. He looked back up now, shame brimming bright in his eyes. “Yes.”

Kellan narrowed his eyes, “That’s what I thought.”

The last two days passed too quickly. Damien explained there were only two ways to kill a messenger, and none of us would be free until Sachiel was killed. One way was to use a biblical weapon, which we had none, and Damien didn’t know where to find one.

I asked then, “And the second?”

He didn’t answer at first, drawing in a deep breath. “You’re not going to like the second option.”

“What are your choices?” Kellan mirrored Damien, standing at the opposite end and leaning forward with his hands on his chair’s backrest. “Spill it, messenger. Let’s start getting this over with.”

And he began, “Well, you see—you’ll have to let Sachiel start to drain your power…”

Here we were. Standing on a hill, feeling the ground shake with my father’s arrival, and I knew that I would either live through this or not. Those were the two options. The plan consisted of letting Sachiel start to drain our powers. Kellan and I would be linked. Sachiel would open himself up to us and he would be vulnerable. When that happened, Damien and Aumae were going to connect to us as well, and the four of us would instead drain Sachiel of his power. When that happened, when he had no power left, he would be vulnerable to a human weapon. Mr. Kent Ocean had volunteered for that part, stepping out from a closet, pale face and trembling like the other night.

He raised his hand in the air and tugged at his shirt’s collar. “I’ll do it.”

Aumae made a sound and hurried to his side. She flashed Damien and Kellan a warning, touching a protective hand to his shoulder. “Now, dear, are you sure?”

The owner pumped his head up and down. “If this guy is as bad as you say, he won’t be focused on a little human being around. He’ll be distracted by all of you guys.”

“If you kill us instead, I will come back from hell. I will kill you and every single member of your family.”

Sweat formed on Kent’s forehead. He wiped it off using the back of his arm, his eyes held by Kellan’s during his threat, and he squeaked out, “I won’t. I, just… I want to help now. I don’t think a lot of us folk ever get called to fight a battle like this. I mean, I’m a church-going man. I don’t think I could sit back and not help, you know.”

“You’re a church-going man?” Kellan drew closer, moving around the table and me.

Aumae snapped at him, “Stay back!”

I caught Kellan’s arm. “Stop.”

“I—uh—I mean, it’s not right. No matter how much of a celestial being your father is. He shouldn’t be forcing his son to turn on his daughter. I’m a father too and that isn’t right. It’s the children that are supposed to be protected. That’s my job. That should be his job too.”

And so, here we were. Mr. Kent Ocean was tucked away behind some nearby trees, protected by the same spell Kellan used to hide us when we were at Kent’s home. Sachiel had no clue the person who would kill him was the least powerful there was and in a way, it was ironic. He wanted power, but he was going to get stripped of his instead.