The Fallen 3 Read Free Page B

was she to tell the woman who had been like a mother to her that she wasn’t even human, that she was the offspring of an angel and a mortal woman? And how could Vilma tell her aunt that there were forces out there … angels … Powers … that wished to see Vilma and other Nephilim like her dead?
    The answer was simple: she didn’t. It was better, safer, to keep her family in the dark.
    “I know how this must seem, but you have to trust me,” Vilma told her, looking away into her coffee mug, not wanting to see the disappointment in her aunt’s eyes.
    “Your uncle thinks that I should force you to tell me what you are doing,” Edna said, gripping her coffee mug so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. “Tell us where you are living, and with whom.” She released the mug, bringing it halfway to her lips before stopping. “He believes you owe us that at least. We’re your family, Vilma. We should know these things.”
    Vilma knew this conversation was going nowhere good.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, bending down to pull on her sneakers. “I’m sorry that I’m disappointing you, but you really need to trust me on this.”
    “How can you expect us to trust you when we knownothing about your life now?” Edna retorted. “You’re practically a child. And that boy didn’t even finish high school! What do you know about the world—
really
know about the world?”
    If only
you
really knew about the world
, Vilma thought. Really
knew about the world
. She stood and leaned in to give her aunt a quick kiss on the cheek.
    “It’s better that you don’t know,” she said quietly.
    “If you’re in trouble—,” her aunt began, eager to help in any way she could.
    “I’m not in trouble, but I really need to be going,” Vilma interrupted. She retrieved her fleece jacket from the back of the cellar door, where she’d hung it the day before, and slipped it on.
    “When will you be back? Will you at least call to let us know if—”
    “I’ll be in touch,” Vilma said quickly, anxious to leave before things truly got out of hand. She loved her aunt but knew that tears would be coming soon.
    She opened the back door, wondering if there would ever come a day when she could share the reality of her new life with her aunt and uncle. She desperately wanted to tell them everything, but it was too dangerous.
    Aaron had lost his own foster family to the forces surrounding the revelation of what he was; Vilma was not going to risk the lives of her family.
    “Vilma,” her aunt called out.
    She turned to look at the woman standing there in her bathrobe, eyes damp with tears.
    “We love you very much; if there’s anything we can do to …”
    There was nothing Vilma wanted more at that moment than to bare her soul to her aunt. “I love you too, Aunt Edna. Tell Uncle Frank that I love him, Nicole and Michael, too,” she said instead, then stepped out the door, closing it firmly behind her before she, too, started to cry.
    It was early, and Belvidere Place was eerily quiet, most of the inhabitants of the short dead-end street still fast asleep.
    Vilma walked to the far corner of the backyard, where prying eyes, if there were any, would not be able to see what she was about to do.
    She glanced back toward the house to be sure her aunt wasn’t watching from a kitchen window, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath, allowing the power that resided inside her—a power that she had suppressed while with her family—to flow up, and out of her body.
    A pair of large feathered wings grew from the flesh of her back, passing like smoke through her clothing without causing so much as a tear. Flexing the powerful muscles in her shoulder blades, she fanned the air, stirring a small cloud of dust and dirt. It felt good to stretch after her wings had been furled for so long—a thought that would have been totally alien to her six months ago.
    It was time to return to the place that had become her home since she’d accepted