The Fallen (Angelic Redemption) Read Free Page B

Joaquin. Staring into each other’s eyes, they whispered sweet promises so
easily made in youth. Once the young man broke his gaze from the pretty
senorita before him and noticed Joaquin, all his youthful hope was swallowed by
fear.
    The young couple stared at their customer with a dread
common for those who had dealt with the cartel. Whatever their suspicions,
Joaquin wished he might do something to assuage their terror. Yet he was not a
charming man and nothing existed beneath the darkness in his eyes. He just
wanted a room and small talk felt pointless.
    “Do you have a vacancy?” he said in Spanish.
    The man considered his answer carefully, finally
nodding.
    “I would like a room then.”
    “They are not nice rooms,” the woman offered.
    Joaquin revealed a tiny grin on his otherwise
stern face. “I should think not. Just a room with a bed will be fine.”
    The man nodded and fumbled through a box of keys
to find a suitable room for the stranger. Joaquin placed a few hundred dollars
before the woman who glanced down at the money then back at him.
    “Here, this is a good room. Clean and the bed is
pretty good,” the young man said.
    Joaquin took the key and hurried away, only
wishing to hide and submerge himself in despair. Even in his foul mood though,
he could not help smiling at what awaited him in his room. Brown carpet, peeling
red wallpaper, and a lumpy bed, the horrid little room felt fitting.
    Standing in front of the cracked mirror, Joaquin
studied his reflection. He was just a man, for nothing particularly special
cried out about the face staring back at him. Dark rugged features and a thick
head of chocolate brown hair, Joaquin was handsome, but he was looking for something
more than superficial qualities.
    “I’m just a man,” he whispered. “Not a ghost, not
a monster, just a man of flesh and blood.”
    His voice provided him comfort, but the words did
not, for he knew the truth. After today, Joaquin knew he was something else and
this realization brought him only despair.
    Sitting on the bed, a gun cradled in his large
hands, Joaquin burned with the unbearable desire for answers.
    Was this all there was for him? Many people had
many qualities, many uses in life. Then there were those who possessed no
qualities or uses. He was neither. He had just the one quality, just the one
use. He could kill and he could kill well. There had to be more.
    He was not an animal, for he took no pleasure from
his gift. A talent he stumbled upon while in a fit of vengeance as a young man
in Columbia. While he was no longer a young man, he was not old either. Instead,
he was nearing that point in life when people asked themselves many questions.
    Joaquin asked only one as he sulked in the foul
motel room, while an array of odors left behind from too many horrors filled
his senses. It was a simple question, but he wanted the answer to come from
God.
    If he had no other use, then was it time for him
to turn his gift on himself?
    No one would miss him - this he knew, but did not
mind. Joaquin did not sit in the sweltering room in the middle of nowhere,
wishing he might have a family or friends. He did not hold the gun in his hands
and ache for a soul mate. He just wanted to know what had made him this way. If
God created him, then maybe Joaquin had some other use besides killing? If the
devil was his maker, then maybe it really was time for him to end his life?
    No one else could, this was obvious now.
    His last assignment went wrong just minutes after
entering the compound. Joaquin should have been dead this evening and his body
disposed of in a most unflattering manner by the men he was sent to kill. Yet
not one bullet - and there were so many bullets - had even grazed him in the
blistering firefight. Joaquin realized he was invincible and this realization
had brought him to this lost place and his question for God.
    “I’m real,” Joaquin said, his voice startling him
even as its authority gave him solace. “I