Ahh! I wanted to post sooner and with a longer chapter, but I didn't want to wait any longer. I hope to post chapter 5 sooner!

I can't believe that the season is almost over. 10 episodes don't seem like enough! They could've done so much more with Michael...like added an angel to the mix ;)

I hope y'all enjoy this chapter! Thank you for the reviews, favs and follows! They made me giddy beyond belief! It's nice to know people are liking this story.

It was over a week until the next time Michael saw Angela again. Ms. Mead hadn't brought her up since that day the girl had walked him home, but Michael knew that Mead had been avoiding going to the grocery store until she really needed to go to the butcher. She needed a goat's head for her incantations. A human sacrifice would've been ideal for Black Mass, but in this day and age, it was hard to find someone without the possibility of the law getting involved.

Michael helpfully got a cart once they entered the store. "I'll go get the stuff on the list, and you get the head," he told Ms. Mead without waiting for her.

She watched him, furrowing her brows at the order. He was being helpful, which she loved, yet he looked a little too eager. Not hard to guess why. The woman looked in direction of the registers and narrowed her eyes. Angela's head bobbed between the other people there as she worked.

Ms. Mead stared at it for a moment, envisioning it bloody, cut at the neck, on a platter on the altar for the Dark Lord, mousy brown hair snipped at that ponytail.

A goat head had to do.

Michael got the first two things on the list but lingered in front of the aisles with his cart, watching Angela from the short distance at her register. She didn't appear like she saw him. He stood there, hoping she would catch his gaze. She was ringing people up, perhaps too preoccupied. So Michael left his cart and went to the register, going past an old lady who was unloading her groceries into the conveyor.

Angela was surprised to see him.

"Sorry. Not cutting in front of you," he promised the old lady, who didn't mind as she had a full cart. "I just want to speak...to..uh…"

Angela gave him a smile as she held out a receipt to her last customer, a man who then walked away.

"Hello, Michael." She quickly glanced past the boy. He seemed to sense her question.

"I'm here with Ms. Mead," he said.

Angela nodded. "Oh, okay."

"I just wanted to come by and speak to you for a second." Michael glanced, a bit nervous, at the old lady, who didn't pay attention. She had probably twenty cans of tomato sauce to stack.

Angela really couldn't fathom what he wanted to speak about. Honestly, she felt uneasy all of a sudden, but she tried to appear cool and collected. No one was paying attention to them.

"Okay. What's up, Michael?"

Michael, looking very boyish, ran a hand through his shaggy golden hair and looked down at his feet for a second. "Well, uh, nothing. Things have pretty much been the same…"

Angela studied him. "Did you want me to help you with something?"

He broke out into a shy smile as he looked at her again—it made her heart skip a beat for no reason.

"I, uh…"

"Yes?" she prompted him. She scarcely took a breath.

He leaned his hands on the edge of the conveyor and subsequently moved closer to her. She was reminded of him doing the same the last time they saw each other, after they'd walked to his house, and he had almost ki—

"Would you want to go to the movies with me sometime?" He blurted it out but didn't stutter, confident enough.

Angela blinked owlishly. "The movies?"

"You know, like a film," he clarified.

"Oh, I…" It was dawning on her. She was frozen in place on the other side of the register. She was supposed to be ringing the old lady up.

Another customer came up behind her, his cart full.

"Just you and me?" Angela asked Michael, quietly.

He matched the volume of her voice as if they were planning something secret. "Yeah. Ms. Mead won't be there. I promise."

She looked past him again—no sign of his devilish caretaker yet. "That sounds…like a..."

The boy wasn't great at this, clearly, but he was so endearing. "Like a date. Yeah. A date. With me," he said and swallowed, hopeful.

"A...date."

It was a foreign concept. She knew theoretically what it was. She knew human culture very well—what a date entailed. She could think of a handful of synonyms. A meeting, an engagement, a rendezvous, a meet-cute. She'd just never imagined it applying to her.

Michael's expression sobered quickly the longer she took to answer. "Unless you don't want to."

"No, no, Michael. It's just that…" she whispered.

He was leaning away. "I'm sorry that I asked."

Angela reached toward him without touching him, held her hand mid-air. "No, Michael wait. It's okay. I'm just… surprised, that's all."

He looked at her like she had two heads. "Why?"

"I've...never been asked out on a date before," she admitted.

Michael gave a disbelieving chuckle. "Really? A girl like you?"

"You're the first," Angela revealed hesitantly, not sure whether it was a bad thing or not. Angels simply didn't get asked out. Well, they weren't supposed to. Lately, a lot of inappropriate things were going on in heaven.

The boy couldn't believe it. "But...you're so nice...and-and pretty!" he said, truly meaning it.

Angela couldn't help but overcome with shyness, something she never thought she'd feel—actually she hadn't felt it before, period. It caught her off guard. She floundered, losing confidence. A tiny smirk tugged her lips.

"Okay. Sure, I'll-I'll go." She took hold of her elbow and shrugged, pushing up her fake glasses.

Michael inhaled a breath, and his chest puffed out with accomplishment—relief, too. He was grinning ear-to-ear. "Awesome," he said with a laugh.

"Okay, then," Angela laughed, too.

He touched the back of his neck. "How about I...meet you here...on Friday?"

"Okay." She laughed again. Her face was hot.

Both the old lady and the man behind Michael were watching them now, waiting. The old lady was amused more than anything. The man rolled his eyes and groaned.

"Oh, that was adorable," the lady muttered.

"Fuck this," he said and just backed his cart up and went to a different register.

"Like...after you're done with work?" Michael was saying.

Angela nodded and wrung her apron in her hands. "That-that sounds good."

"Okay, great!"

Michael was the first one to tear his attention away—to the old lady behind him. Suddenly self-conscious, he started stepping away. The lady aww'd.

"I gotta go get the rest of these groceries on this list before Ms. Mead…" He lifted up a folded piece of paper.

"Yeah, go. I'm so sorry, ma'am." Angela finally started to ring her up. "Go ahead. Finish your shopping, Michael."

He briefly glanced at the lady before back at Angela. "See you Friday!"

She was still red in the face, smiling coyly at him. "See you!" she returned. Her faint chuckle died when she looked at the lady, who titled her head.

"You both are just precious," she crooned.

"Heh." Angela gulped, her hands moving swiftly over the scanner. Past the top of her glasses, she watched Michael disappear with his cart through the aisles. It took the angel the next ten or so minutes to process what had happened.

The old lady recounted the story of how she'd met her late husband. They had been fourteen, still in school, and they married when they were eighteen. And she assured Angela that that boy—Michael—really liked her. She could tell, you see. He had really put it all out there. He didn't even have to admit it aloud. It was his body language. There was something there. A spark. Definitely a spark.

She told Angela that she seemed to like him too, only Angela quickly assured the old lady that it was nothing of that sort. She liked Michael as a friend. He was a sweet boy. After handing the lady her long receipt, which she had to fold thrice, Angela braced herself on the counter. She took a moment to breathe and ask herself what she'd gotten into.

"Angela," she said, under her breath. "This is going too far."

Part of her thought that she should've already reported herself to Zachariah, to tell him of her progress. Regardless of the fact that he had wanted nothing to do with this mission in the first place. Just to report to someone. She was flying solo here. She had no idea what she was doing.

Was she too friendly with Michael? Was he getting the wrong idea? Was she falling for his...innocence?

It wasn't in her nature to judge. It wasn't in her character to be mean or cruel. She didn't know how another angel would act in her place but simply striking him down hadn't ever been an option, not in her mind.

She still thought that he could be saved.

Another customer appeared with a cart. Halfway through ringing them up, the lights in the store began to flicker, as if the power was about to go out, or there was a surge. Outside, it was sunny.

Shortly after, there was a scream heard.

She wasn't able to get to Michael in time. It didn't take long for the police to get there, either. Someone had called them because the butcher had been stabbed. Ms. Mead was screaming that Michael was innocent. Two officers had to restrain her, keep her back as Michael was put in handcuffs.

Angela pushed her way through the crowd forming inside the grocery store. Another officer didn't let her pass through. Michael had tears streaming down his face. He tried to fight his way out of the cuffs to no avail.

"...anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law…"

"Let him go, you sons of bitches!" Mead hollered.

Angela met his eyes across the floor as they pushed him through the exit. For a split moment, time came to a halt, and she saw in him something that she hadn't seen before.

Guiltless anger. Those were tears of fury. They burned in his gaze.

She knew he had done something. His expression was dark and full of seething. He didn't look sorry this time. Something, or someone, had provoked him, and this time, Angela hadn't been able to stop him.

His invitation to the movies that Friday was forgotten.

"Michael—do not say anything," Mead yelled after Michael. "Do not say a word to those cocksuckers!"

They disappeared outside while several more cops kept people back from the crime scene at the other end of the store. The place was in a frenzy after that. It didn't help that some recorded the arrest on their phones with morbid curiosity. It was disgusting. Angela, being an employee, managed to get a good look at the killed man by slipping past the frantic manager.

The butcher had been one of several butchers who worked there. It had only been him that day. He lay behind the counter with five stab wounds, one, in particular, being located in the groin. The fatal one had been his head. If he hadn't died instantly, maybe she could've saved him.

Angela was wrong—so wrong about Michael.

She disappeared before anyone noticed she was gone.

###

The black vintage Mercedes drove away. Angela had missed it and the man who had taken Michael away. She had been late due to her own indecision. Human law could keep a suspect for 72 hours, and she hadn't planned to bail him out, but she had made a plan to speak with him. She came to the Los Angeles police station, dressed in a suit, set on posing as his public defense lawyer.

She hadn't expected Michael to be gone. Inside the station, there was a frenzy as he was found missing and the cop guarding him was found dead. She came outside to find Ms. Mead yelling, "Hail the new world!" like a raging lunatic under the streaming hot sun.

The black car turned the corner.

"Where did he go?" Angela demanded.

Mead spun around, doing a double take. The girl looked nothing like she always did at her shitty, minimum-wage job. She looked like someone else entirely with that briefcase in her hand.

"You!" Mead didn't even address her by her name. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Angela rounded on her, unperturbed by the swearing. "Where did he go?" she repeated, patience lost.

The older woman sneered at her indignantly, fists clenched. "My boy is on the path to his future! He is going to make me proud! And you, you little bitch-" She raised a finger right in her face. Angela jerked away from it. "You are never going to see him again."

"He killed that man," Angela said darkly. "You were there."

"I didn't see it." Ms. Mead trembled furiously. "But damn right Michael did. Served that bigot for discriminating against me. Michael was defending me. My boy was protecting me."

"Protecting?" Angela said, aghast.

"That boy loves me, and I love him. He is going to change the world. You hear me? He's going to remake it in Satan's image. But you-you cunt wouldn't know anything about that. You and everyone else in this fucking cesspool." She threw her arms up at either side, indicating the world. "You're going to die, burn in the fire!"

Anyone else would've called the old bat crazy for spouting such insane shit, but Angela leveled her with a severe look, deadpan. The fact that she wasn't calling Mead out on what she had said allowed Angela an advantage. Mead hesitated briefly.

"No one is going to die," the girl said slowly—so that there was no shadow of a doubt, or so help her God. "But I am going to stop him."

"You?" Mead scoffed, short of spitting on her. "Hah! You are no one!"

Narrowing her eyes, Angela straightened in place, towering over the other woman. There was a bright flash in the former's gaze. It bloomed white in the center of her pupils and glowed, for a moment, contrasting starkly with the brown color of her irises. Mead all but gasped and froze.

"Who-who are you?" she stuttered, not so threatening after all.

Her eyes returning to normal, the girl simply watched her, chin raised. "I'm an angel of the Lord," she said in a tone that would've sent shivers down anyone's spin. Mead was no different. She almost raised her hands to cover her face.

She overcame with a pallor so white that it looked like she was going to pass out, the way a person would get if they came face to face with an apparition or something else that they'd never consider existing. She stared at Angela—the angel approached her again. Mead tried to stagger away, but Angela lifted her fingers toward her face.

"You-you're not—you are not real-" Mead blubbered.

"And it'll stay that way," was all Angela said. The tips of her fingers touched her forehead.

Mead's world went bright.

When her vision cleared and she could see again, she stood alone behind the Los Angeles police station and looked around, confused. There was something missing, like something had just happened. Only she didn't know what it was. It hung on the tip of her mind, a shell of a memory, like the lingering warmth on a bed when a person left it.

All memory of the girl who had come to pose as Michael's lawyer had been wiped, particularly the part where she'd revealed her true nature. Angela was left simply as the girl who worked at the grocery store, unimportant now, forgotten, put away to the back of the woman's mind. A nobody.

Ms. Mead looked back the way that car had gone and smiled again, her eyes tearing up. She stopped them before they overflowed, wiped them with her fingers.

"Boy is going to make me proud someday," she said.

###

Angela watched the circular structure for several days. In the middle of the barren desert, outside of Los Angeles, beneath the dry, dusty earth was the Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men. The location could've fooled anyone. The mailbox itself was a few miles away, and the drive was not a drive as much as it was a dirt path with tire tracks.

A bunch of warlocks would've sniffed out a being of divine origin. Angela couldn't just walk in there. She hoped to see some sort of traffic in and out of the place but people scarcely left or entered the underground structure.

Once, a tall smoking man with a five o'clock shadow went for a Costco run and came back with a truck full of groceries while finishing up a chicken bake. He swore when he dripped grease on himself and complained about having his suit dry cleaned again.

He glanced over his shoulder, as if sensing someone or something, but in the following moment, he shrugged it off and went inside.

She didn't see Michael, but he was in there. He couldn't have gone anywhere. The school must've spanned a good way below ground. It was impenetrable—which probably had been the point.

While sitting at a distance, watching between gnarled Joshua trees and cactuses, a coyote approached Angela and kept her company for a short time. Unfortunately, she didn't have any food, so in his own way, he said fuck you and ran off.

She got an idea the fourth night in and lay down on the ground, looking up at the starry sky. This far from the city, nothing obscured the atmosphere. A light or two shot across the sky—shooting stars. The air was cool, for a change. Angela watched the scenery. It was heavenly. Indeed, heaven was up there, concealed to the naked eye.

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply in an out, a meditation of sorts, and let herself be swallowed by the night. Crickets chirped. A lone coyote howled somewhere, perhaps her temporary friend. An owl hooted.

She left her mind.

###

Below the desert earth, within the school, inside one of the many rooms slept Michael. His room was dimly lit by candles and warmed by the fireplace, which crackled softly, spilling its flickering glow across the marble floor.

It was the same room where Angela had found him in present day. However, this was the past, and the place where Ms. Venable lay dead was spotless. Young Michael was sleeping soundly—until there was a light weight on the end of his bed and his eyes fluttered open. Someone was in the room with him.

Whoever it was had come in without a sound, like a mouse, or maybe a ghost. Ariel Augustus had said nothing about ghosts being in the school, but maybe he just forgot to tell him. Michael wasn't afraid, however. He'd once lived with a house full of spirits, and they had been the ones afraid of him.

Slowly, he pushed the covers off him. The weight by his feet didn't go away. If it was someone there to kill him, he'd easily deal with them. It hadn't been hard before, it wouldn't be hard now. As he sat up, he saw the outline of a woman. He knew it was a woman because her frame was thin and there was long hair curtaining her head, cascading down her back. She wasn't looking at him.

For some reason, without even seeing her face, he knew who it was.

"Angela?" he said, ceasing the silence.

The angel opened her eyes and turned her head to regard him over her shoulder. "Michael," she said upon a faint sigh.

He planted his feet on the floor and got up, cautiously taking a step toward her. He hadn't forgotten about her, but he had in fact thought that they'd never see each other again.

"Am I...dreaming?"

"Yes," she said. She watched as he padded around the bed to stand before her. She wore a simple pale dress—like an ethereal woman in white.

He wore pajamas that were dark, issued by the school. All the boys wore them. They had a collar and neat buttons going down the front.

"Why am I dreaming about you?" he asked, knowing that this wasn't the making of his own mind.

"I had to see you," Angela said. Her hands were folded on her lap. She looked ghostly, but certainly not scary.

Michael's expression shifted slightly. Most of his apprehension went away. Her words had made the corners of his lips jerk in a faint smile. "Why?" he still asked.

Angela, however, looked like she was frowning. "Because for a moment, I lost you," she said.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten you."

"Neither have I."

Emotion entered his voice then. It was the same sound that she had heard after she'd stopped him from killing those kids outside of the store. "Your face...the last time I saw you. You were...frightened."

She shook her head and dismissed his assumption before any guilt could take hold him. "I'm not afraid."

He did not understand. "Why?"

Angela's tone went flat. "Because I'm simply not."

Nevertheless, Michael sensed her disapproval and had the sudden need to justify himself. He looked down at his hands, which he raised.

"There's a power inside of me." He glanced up at her in earnest. "This place. It's a school for people to learn. I'm going to learn how to control it."

Angela ignored this. "Why did you kill that man, Michael?" she asked calmly.

He stared at her. She effectively had him floundering. He'd never seen this side of her. It was like he was going to be punished afterward. He opened and closed his mouth.

"That…ma-" he began at last, then quickly said, "I was just protecting someone. Ms. Mead. I was defending her. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just… He was being so mean to her."

If this was someone else, anyone else, he wouldn't have wasted time explaining himself and would have just killed them. Ariel had instilled a dangerous confidence in Michael, which was growing by the day. The fact that the man had told him he saw potential in him was enough to start quelling that guilt Michael had felt before.

But this was Angela, not just anybody. The look on her fair face had him needing to explain.

"So you killed him," she said.

Michael clenched his fists at his sides. "Not intentionally."

"He's dead," she reminded coldly.

Michael matched her demeanor. His own voice went emotionless, dipped low. "I didn't touch those knives."

She was patient—even if this time she had forced herself a little. She studied him and saw the same hardness she'd felt from him when he was arrested. He was going to stand by what he'd done. She just wasn't going to feed the fire that came along with it.

So she let out a breath. "Tell me what happened," she put her hand beside her, his gaze jumped to it, "Come sit beside me, Michael. Just tell me what happened. I need to know."

He looked cautious. He stared at the empty spot on the end of the bed as if he was debating on whether to acquiesce her request. His chin was raised in vague defiance. He held her gaze for a long moment and she didn't break eye contact.

Finally, he moved and sat down beside her. "That man was being mean to Ms. Mead," he repeated feverishly. "I told him it wasn't very nice of him… And the next thing I knew I…" He looked at his hands again, which he held on his thighs, palms up. He flexed his fingers.

She had to prompt him. "What, Michael?"

It seemed like it was hard to describe as he searched the lines in his skin for an answer. "It...came over me."

Angela swallowed inwardly. "What did?"

He looked back at her, his blue eyes reflecting the fire and candles. They were so clear—like ice mirroring a sunset. She could slip and fall through the depths of his pupils.

"Like when those guys were trying to take your bike, I just… I just got angry, and this-this power I can't control... The next thing I knew, it's all I could feel. And...it did what I was thinking." He seemed to sense her trepidation, even though she was trying to hide it as she listened, for then he was assuring her, "These warlocks—they are going to help me."

"I wanted to be the one to help you," she admitted.

He searched her face, tilted his head. "How? You don't have any power."

"Yes, I do," she said with such conviction that he believed her. He didn't question her. After all, she was appearing to him in a dream.

His eyebrows furrowed curiously. He had no idea what it was that he sensed about her. It was what she drew him in with. Whatever it was—strange and sublime. Angela half thought that he would outright ask her—who she was. Instead, darkness seeped into his countenance.

"Where were you?" His words were bitter. "Where were you when I was in jail?"

This broke her heart. She couldn't prevent it. He tugged on her heartstrings. She saw the hurt. It could've been a trick, but she was falling right for it. "Michael, I was… I was trying to decide what to do."

"With what?" he questioned.

"With you."

He tensed. "With me? What do you mean?"

She answered after a beat. "I thought I had made a mistake."

He was stony. "What kind of mistake?" he asked quietly.

The air in the room felt heavy all of a sudden. The fire in the fireplace burned brighter. Angela's gaze didn't waver. "When we became friends," she said.

Michael looked like a little boy and the man he was quickly becoming—all at the same time. His hair might've still been a mop, but his eyes had a sharpness in them. "Do you regret it?"

Her answer was most important. She knew this very well.

She put her hand over one of his. "No." He looked down at it. His face softened.

He covered her hand with his other. The action was tender coming from him. Her eyes fell to their touch. She hesitated, not saying anything else. His fingers curled around the back of her hand. Any suspicion he might've had during their conversation had vanished at once. They looked at each other for a long time, remaining on the end of his bed in the otherwise silent room.

Michael seemed to be memorizing every detail of her face, as if he was trying to find her soul and study it beneath her flesh—her deep eyes; her long, slim nose; the small beauty mark on her left cheek and the one above her mouth on the right side. His gaze stayed for a moment longer on her mouth, and he was lifting his hand to her jaw. He ghosted his thumb over the soft divet of her chin.

"Michael," she whispered, very still. His eyes smoldered, cat-like.

"Hm?" he hummed. His hand on his lap turned over to capture her own before she took it away. He weaved his fingers through hers.

Next, his thumb dragged very carefully beneath her bottom lip. She closed her eyes. His finger settled at the corner of her mouth, the others gathering along her cheek. She felt his breath on her face. Then she opened her eyes again—his own mouth was feather light over her lips. He pressed her a kiss.

It went against everything.

Angela deftly slipped out of Michael's touch, pulling him out of his reverie. She stood and stepped away, and he frowned with what looked like disappointment. She gave him a weak smile.

"Where are you going? Are you leaving?" he asked, crestfallen.

"I won't be far," she assured him.

He too stood, as if to go after her. "Will I see you again?"

Angela steeled herself behind an impassive exterior. "If you would like to."

Michael reached for her. "I would," he said fiercely. He wanted to touch her again. He moved his hand to her shoulder.

It passed right through it. She was no longer corporeal. He moved his hand again, right through her middle. He felt nothing but air, shocked. And right before his eyes, she faded, gone. She left him alone again.

Outside of the entrance to the school, Angela woke up with a gasp and sat where she had last been, on the desert ground. She didn't notice something moving on her leg, crawling upward. She stared at the circular maze far ahead of her, only realizing something was on her when it reached her chest.

Looking down, she saw it was a scorpion. It was pale—not a dream. Small and deadly. Calmly, she took it by the tail before it could strike her with its hook. It wriggled angrily. She set it down beside her on the ground. Then she rose to her feet, dusting herself off.

The night still had a long way to go. She'd take a walk, perhaps, and think, making a wide berth around the school so as not to be detected. She had no choice but to leave Michael where he was, to leave him under the guidance of those warlocks. Unfortunately, they had no idea who they had admitted into their numbers. They were so in over their heads that they didn't realize it yet. But they would—she was sure of it. They'd realize that Michael was far more powerful than anyone they'd had ever seen.