Veronica gestured from behind the stranger to the only spot available; at the end of the couch right next to her. “Why don’t you take a seat and we can explain what we know,” she insisted.

He withheld the annoyed sigh that threatened to slip from his mouth and stiffly walked past the man to sit next to her. The man was giving him serious creeper, stalker vibes and Asher was tempted to snarl at him like a wild animal.

The other seemed to sense that, giving the youth a grin that could only be described as predatory; with his mouth open to reveal the sharp canines within. The look was gone in the next instant, replaced with cool indifference before resuming his place as well. He crossed his left leg over his right and leaned back against the chair, waiting expectedly.

“Okay, so start talking,” the sixteen year old said, dropping his bag beside him. He turned his head towards the man. “You can start by telling me who the hell do you think you are and why you think I’m going with you at all.”

“I do not have to answer to you, human. You will do as I say whether anything is explained to you but I guess I can entertain your…request, despite your arrogance.”

I’m arrogant? Asher couldn’t help but think. Right, because I’m the one talking like Christine Grey from that goddamn poorly done BDSM movie.

“We apologize for our son’s behavior,” Veronica muttered, bowing her head respectfully. “We…uh…never got a chance to tell him…”

“Explain what to me?” Asher impatiently asked. “Is he some kind of pedophile? I swear to god if you two sold me off to pay off some illegal drug lord I’m calling the cops right now!”

“We didn’t sell you!” John sputtered. “We uh…look it’s a long story Asher…you know how we said that we adopted you when you were just a baby?”

The sixteen year old nodded before he continued. “Well, we didn’t know this but we knew who your mother was. Okay, not really knew her in the sense that we hang out, but we saw her. She came to us a few days after she gave birth to you but she didn’t say much. All I remember was that she was covered head to toe in blood and looked two steps from falling into a grave. No name, no ID. She just handed you over, begged us to protect you from…something…then promptly vanished before we could call the police.”

“After that, we found a note on you with our names and an adoption form filled out. We went to see if it was real and turned out that it was,” Veronica cut in. “We thought this was sign to be a family so, we lied to everyone and said we forgot all about it until then. We thought nothing of it for a couple of months until crazy, unexplainable things began to happen.”

“Like what?” Asher asked.

At that, Veronica tensed and averted her gaze to the floor. She looked…afraid to continue. It lasted for a moment and then, she took a deep breath and continued in a surprisingly steady tone. “For starters, you started walking when you were three months old. Then you started talking when you were six months. No doctor could understand how that was possible. It was as if you saw everyone around you doing it and one day made a conscious decision to do it yourself. At first, we thought you were a super genius on Einstein’s level but soon things took an unexpected turn.”

“Your mother enrolled you into first grade early, a year early to be more exact,” John said with a weary sigh. “Soon after we started getting calls from the school saying kids were ending up hurt during play time and snacks going missing. They claimed you stabbed a little girl in the ear with a pen and she had to get medical treatment as soon as possible or she was going to lose the eardrum. They also said you tore the other student’s drawings, stole their toys and even bit the teacher because she kept telling you to stop. We had to withdraw you and get you evaluated for any mental instability.”

“You sent me, a four year old, to see a whack job?!” Asher sputtered indignantly. The general age range for first grade would have been 5-7, and if he was a year early than he was four at the time he was being psychologically evaluated. “Are you stupid?! I was a kid!”

“Call us crazy for doing that but you weren’t exactly acting like a normal child given that you beat a kid older than you by two years to near death when we sent you to a different school,” John snapped back bitingly. “It was only after the results came back fine, we figured something else was causing all this so we called a priest to see if it was supernatural.”

Asher and the stranger both snorted in disbelief at that, earning a warning glare from the elder man.

“Anyways, Priest Fredrick came and talked with you and afterwards, he said you told him a guardian angel was watching over you and that was the person who hurt them. When he explained that angels of the lord didn’t hurt humans, you simply looked at him, smiled and said he was full of shit. It was funny…now that I’m saying it, after that he had come to our house he had an accident a day later. Lacerations were across his body that resembled a wild dog but no evidence found. Police couldn’t pin it on us or you because we didn’t own a dog and neither did our neighbors.”

The younger man took a moment to digest everything they said so far, some things making sense because he did remember stabbing the one girl but everything else was a hazy blur. What they said was of concern though and it puzzled him that he didn’t remember much growing up. Many had told him that he was smart and was going to make it big because of that asset. However, he could never explain why. Institutes had run tests to see if he cheated during his tests because the answers he gave were beyond his grade level. Each and every time, Asher had recalled explaining he was getting help.

A Guardian Angel kind of made sense, when he thought more on it. It wasn’t like he believed that bible nonsense but he did know there was unexplainable things in the world and having something watching over him was a lot easier to accept then him being smart. Asher knew there was always someone with him; naked to others eyes, it was like a shadow watching over him and guiding his hand as he took the tests and protected him when it thought he needed it. Sometimes, he remembered asking it to stop but all he would get in return was a smile. Whether or not it was reassuring or devious, that he was unsure of.

Still, parts were still disconnected and some points didn’t add up but he took what he got and decided to investigate when he had time to process everything without being disturbed. “That still doesn’t explain what he is doing here,” he huffed, pointedly looking across the room to the guy who seemed to just be happy listening at the moment then giving any input to the conversation. “You’re turn, Mr. Mysterious, where do you fit into this whole thing? Are you my angel that has been protecting me?”

“Like I told this filth before me when I came to collect you the first time, I am here because your ancestor’s family was foolish enough to make a pact with me,” he finally spoke after a long stretch of silence. “And I warned them I would be back when the contract was up and instead of training you to play your role like I instructed; they slacked off and turned you into a disrespectful brat. You two will be hung by your entrails for this error.”

All at once, adrenaline and pent up anger and disbelief and other emotions Asher couldn’t identify swelled up; intense and sudden it nearly took his breath away. Don’t be mistaken, he could give a bloody damn about what the stranger did too his two so-called “parents” but he wasn’t about to be talked about like a piece of meat some customer left with the butcher to make into a perfect piece for Sunday brunch.

He could feel his body moving before he could register what he was actually doing. Rushing at the man, he raised his arm, his hand clenching into a fist and threw a punch towards the man with all intent of knocking his teeth in.

Milliseconds before it made contact, he found himself thrown into the glass, rectangular coffee table, the shards digging sharply into his back and a foot pressing deeply into his sternum keeping him in place. The shock that he just realized moments after he found himself flat on his back was profound, given away by his widen eyes and expression of confusion.

He hadn’t even seen him move-almost like he was a gust of wind; you know it was there but you couldn’t see it unless it blew straight into your face. And this older man, this person who had invaded the house he grew up in and demanded he come with him without an clear explanation, had slammed into him like a hurricane. A brief moment of awareness had crossed over the others stoic face and then calculated in the short amount of time it took before the attack made contact.

That revelation sent a shiver of something unfamiliar though Asher. It was…unnatural. Scary. Without a doubt the most disturbing thing he ever witnessed. No human could move that fast in a short amount of time without no one seeing him and thrown and be on top of him the way he did.

Adjusting his tie, the man glared down at him. “Remember my name well human; I am Lazarus, the God of Beginnings and End and I am certainly NOT you’re damned guardian angel. In fact, I am about to become your worst fucking nightmare. So be a good little lamb and let me tell you how this happened so I don’t have to repeat myself.”

Well, shit.