Oh Father, Part 1 WHO Rayne Hawthorne and Gabriel/Dominic Wyatt WHAT The storm brings revelations WHERE Rayne and Josh's Apartment → La Ville Lumière WHEN Monday, August 10, 2015 ~1:30 PM (backdated) RATING G
Rayne stood at the sliding glass door that led out onto the balcony of the apartment she now shared with Josh. A sudden storm had appeared in the midst of what was turning out to be a gorgeous summer day, and now she watched the rain from the dry comfort of her living room. Her roomie had gone out for a run - at least she thought he had. Maybe he'd had a shift at Loaf Around. She would have expected him to be back by now if not. As serious as he was about running, she didn't think even he was foolish enough to keep going in weather like this.
She was debating calling out sick at Obscura. The thunder and lightning only seemed to be growing louder, brighter, and she had less than no desire to fight the weather just so she could work on inventory. Her boss would understand...right? Or she could just send a clone.
Turning away from the door, she stifled a yawn - but it turned into a scream as her dark eyes widened and she stumbled back against the glass. Her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest as she pressed her hands to the cold surface and struggled to remain standing. "Mr. Wyatt! What...how…?" Confusion warred with panic. How the hell had he gotten into the apartment? And why?
Scaring Rayne hadn't been Gabriel's intention, but it had been unavoidable. He could have knocked on her door, but then he'd have had to waste time with pleasantries and getting her to invite him in and then he'd have had to have freaked her out by abducting her anyway, so this was a time saver. Like ripping off a band-aid, as they said. Or something like that.
Still, he held his hands up to try and convey the fact that he meant her no harm. "I'm sorry for the intrusion, Rayne. Miss...Hawthorne. We don't really have time for lengthy explanations right now. I need you to come with me."
"What?" She blinked. Then she looked down at herself. She'd only forced herself out of bed, like, two hours ago. She was still in her boxers and her old long-sleeved CHA gym shirt. She was also barefoot. "Is this...some kind of school thing?" The thing about being 'special' and going to a school like Crescent Hill was that it had a way of keeping ties on you.
He could have said yes. It probably would have been the easiest way to get her to cooperate, Gabe reasoned. But he didn't.
"No. Not exactly."
She looked at him expectantly and he knew without having to read her mind that she was trying to figure out how much of a threat he posed. He'd have liked to think none. The truth was markedly different, but where Rayne was concerned, he never wanted her to fear him.
"It's a personal matter," he told her, but the look she shot him told him that didn't make things any better. Okay. Maybe he needed to be a bit more forthcoming. "It's about your father," he clarified.
Rayne froze at the word father. When the history teacher had told her it was a 'personal matter,' her thoughts had run the gamut from 'What kind of pervert is this guy?' to 'Did something happen to my mom?' News about her father was the last thing she'd ever expected, and it immediately put her even more on guard. Her father wasn't a good man. Her father wasn't a man at all. Her father was something bad, something evil, and if nothing else her mother had ever said to her had sunk in, she at least knew that staying far, far away from him was the best thing she could do.
"I don't have a father," she said as she stood up straighter, but kept her back to the glass door. She slipped her hand behind her and let her fingers feel for the handle, just in case she had to run.
"Of course you have a father," Gabriel said with a roll of his eyes. "Your mother wasn't asexual."
"Ew!" She made a face, cringing despite the gravity of her situation. "Could you just not mention my mom and the word 'sexual' in the same sentence? Like, in any way. You don't even know her."
On the contrary, he knew Natalie Hawthorne in the biblical sense, but that wasn't how Gabe wanted to explain things. Instead, he focused on giving her a reason to leave with him. "Don't you have any questions? Haven't you ever wondered about him?"
Of course she had. She'd spent more than half her life wondering about her father. Who he was. What he looked like. If he'd be proud of her or even really like her. If she'd ever meet him. But she didn't see how that was any of Mr. Wyatt's business. She also didn't understand how he could possibly know her father. Or rather, if he did know her father, just what kind of person was her teacher, and how deep was the shit she was in now?
"I can give you the answers you want," Gabe told her. "All you have to do is come with me. Now."
Rayne was silent for a long moment, but then she shook her head. "I don't think so. I already know everything I need to know about him."
The angel sighed. "What you know doesn't even scratch the surface." He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged slightly. "I didn't want to do it this way."
She didn't have time to ask what he meant. As soon as he took a step toward her, she pulled on the sliding door and would have taken a step back out onto the balcony, if a bright flash of lightning hadn't lit up the sky at that moment, followed by a crack of thunder so loud she feared it may have ruptured something in her ear.
She fell back inside, but hands caught her. And in the next instant...there was silence.
The rain had stopped.
She looked up, but she was no longer in her apartment. No, this was very much not her apartment. Everything around her looked expensive, from the dark wood floors to the abstract art on the walls. Natural light flooded in through a bank of windows and glass doors that led out onto a terrace. She knew it was only a little before two o'clock, but something about the light made her think it was much later in the afternoon.
Wherever they were, they were high up. She could see the city laid out beyond the stone ledge, and there in the distance….
"Is that…?" Rayne's eyes widened and she pushed away from her teacher, taking a step toward the large windows. Her jaw slackened and she turned to glance at him in disbelief. "Is that the Eiffel Tower?"
"It is," Gabe nodded, clasping his hands behind his back as he watched her. "The real deal. Not the one in Vegas."
Rayne shook her head. "This isn't real. We couldn't...I mean...I don't even have a passport."
The angel laughed, able to breathe somewhat easier now that they were far removed from Havenwood, and honestly amused by her reaction. "Are you complaining about skipping Customs?"
"This isn't possible." And yet, she knew better than to think that there was anything in the world that wasn't possible. "Or at least it's highly improbable. Who are you? What are you?"
"There you go," Gabriel grinned. "Your questions are becoming more astute."
"Yeah, whatever." Rayne rolled her eyes. From the moment she'd first stepped into his classroom, she'd thought that Mr. Wyatt was one of the hottest teachers at CHA. She'd actually tried to do well in his class, not only because it would look good on her transcripts, but also because she didn't want him to think she was a total idiot teenager. She'd never pegged him as insane or evil or...powerful enough to transport them across an ocean in the blink of an eye. "Look, I don't know how we got here and, really, I don't want to know. Just bring me back."
"I can't do that, Rayne." He flashed her an apologetic look, but it was clear he had no intention of going back just yet. "Havenwood is not a safe place right now."
"Why?" A new thought occurred to her. "Is it my father?" she asked, her wariness heightening. "Is he in Havenwood? Did my mother send you?"
Gabe shook his head. "One question at a time. First, would you like something to eat?" He motioned beyond the sitting area to a wide open kitchen done in the same dark wood as the floors. It was all very chic.
The girl stopped herself from admiring her surroundings and folded her arms across her chest. For Christ's sake, she was standing in the middle of what looked like some luxury penthouse, barefoot and in boxers and an old gym shirt. What the hell was going on? "I don't want food. I just want answers."
"Well, I want food," Gabe said. "So follow me if you want answers." He headed off to the kitchen and a few seconds later, he could hear her stomping in behind him. He went straight for the fridge and began pulling out an array of foods - boneless grilled chicken breasts, shaved ham, fresh spinach, Swiss cheese, small tomatoes, Dijon mustard, and a baguette. Setting it all out on the island counter, he grabbed a cutting board and a sharp knife, and began to slice what he needed.
Rayne watched him silently. When it was clear he wasn't going to speak until she joined him, she took a seat in one of the bar stools and waited impatiently.
"Your father is not in Havenwood right now," he said as soon as she was seated. He didn't look up from what he was doing, but he did half-turn to preheat the oven. "And no, your mother did not send me."
"You said right now." She could be quick to pick up on things sometimes. "Does that mean he's been in Havenwood?"
He pulled a baking sheet from the cabinet above the oven and then proceeded to lay out the slices of baguette. "He has."
Rayne didn't know what she'd been expecting, but a confirmation was not it. Her father had been in Havenwood. She had been in Havenwood. Had he seen her? Had he been watching her? Why? And how had she just...never known? Had he passed her on the sidewalk? Had he walked into Obscura and talked to her at some point?
She paled and her hand rose to tug on the slender chain around her neck. Her fingers brushed across the thin gold disc. Was he the secret admirer?
Gabriel looked up when she touched the halo pendant. Again, it was intuition that told him what she was thinking, rather than telepathy. "You have no reason to fear him. There is nothing that he would not do to keep you safe."
She snorted. "How can you say that? He's...he's evil." She eyed the teacher, trying to determine just how much he might know. "My mother told me about him. She told me what he is. What he did."
"What he did?" Gabe echoed. He thought about it for a moment. He had never done anything to harm Natalie. He'd scared the hell out of her, in the end, just to convince her she needed to leave. But he'd never laid a hand on her in malice.
"I guess you know what he is if you're someone who can...do what you did. I don't know what type of history teacher hangs around with demons, but...well, you do teach history. That's pretty torturous in and of itself."
"Are you implying you didn't enjoy my class, Miss Hawthorne?" Instead of using butter, he grabbed a bottle of olive oil and drizzled it over the slices of bread before popping them into the oven.
"No," she answered grudgingly. History really wasn't her favorite topic, but Mr. Wyatt had made it one of the most entertaining classes she'd had all school year. And not just because of the eye candy.
Gabe tossed a cherry tomato up in the air and caught it in his mouth. Then he took another and tossed it to her. Rayne watched it and ducked aside when it got near. It hit the floor with a little bounce and tumbled into the den behind her.
"No fun." With a sigh, he leaned against the counter and nodded to her. "Fine. Do you know what a devil's trap is?"
Rayne shook her head.
"For someone who's supposed to be the daughter of a demon, you don't know much about them, do you?"
"Well, it's not like we spent our summers vacationing in the fiery pits of Hell."
He let out a short laugh. He wasn't sure if she got that smart mouth from him or her mother. "With a devil's trap, you can immobilize a demon. Trap him, for as long as the symbol remains intact."
Her brows furrowed. "Okay. Why are you telling me this? I thought you were on the 'Yay Demon!' bandwagon. And I think your bread is starting to burn."
Gabe spun around to open the oven and, while not burnt...exactly, he could see where the edges were getting very brown. "Thank you," he said as he pulled the sheet out and set it atop the counter. As he went about spreading half the slices with the mustard and laying the cheese on the other half, he continued. "I never said I was 'Yay Demon!' I said you don't have to fear your father. Those are two very different things. I'm telling you about the devil's trap for two reasons. One, it's knowledge that you should have, given who and what you are. Two," he piled the bread with chicken, ham, and spinach and then pressed each half together to make four sandwiches. Then he put them back into the oven to melt the cheese. "You're going to use the devil's trap to prove that your father is not a demon."
"What do you mean, not a demon?" Rayne stared at Mr. Wyatt. "I know what my mother told me. How would you know better than her?"
This was for the best. They were in a place where she couldn't get very far if she tried to run. All he needed was for her to hear him out. Maybe his reasons for telling her now were selfish, but he couldn't keep coming up with excuses to hover around her without her thinking that he was a weird stalker or that he was trying to hit on her. It was possible that she would decide she still didn't want him to have anything to do with her life, but that would be her choice. Whether he complied or not.
"Because it's me," Gabriel said finally. "I'm your father."