"WHAT? Where's Rose? Are they both okay?" Billy's voice was frantic as he talked to Bastian over the phone. At the same time, Matt and Sean were staring him down, trying to figure out what happened after his outburst. "Oh, thank heavens. Alright. Yeah, I have them – we are on the jet now. We'll be there in a couple of hours." Billy shook his head as he placed the phone on the table, looking into space as his mind scrambled to process everything.
"Dude!" Matt snapped, breaking Billy's train of thought, and looked up to find Matt glaring at him, arms crossed. "You going to just to sit there and make us wait to find out what happened? Tell us, dork!" Sean shot Billy the same annoyed look, letting him know that he shouldn't keep certain things to himself, especially if they had anything to do with their sister.
Billy shot back a sarcastic look back at them. "Fine. Sean wasn't the only one attacked tonight," Billy said finally, realizing he should have given more context as he watched the brothers' faces darken.
"WHAT?" they said in unison as they jumped to their feet, now hovering over Billy.
Billy held his hands up in surrender and tried to calm them, saying, "Guys, Anastasia is fine. Relax. Bastian made it there just in time and took out the demon." Just then, Billy looked ahead and slapped his forehead, realizing his colossal mistake. "Oh fuck," he could only muster. He was so concerned with Rose's safety that he didn't even think about what he was saying.
"Whoa whoa whoa…," Matt stammered, taken aback by what Billy just said, and took a few steps back." Rewind to the part where you said, 'Bastian'…what do you mean 'Bastian made it there'… he's ALIVE?"
"This is too much," Sean muttered as he went pale. Like Matt, he stepped back, not even looking where he was going, and stumbled into a seat.
Billy was muttering to himself, knowing he had just messed up more than he could imagine. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
"Billy. Is Bastian alive?" Matt repeated his question, looking Billy straight in the eye. Bastian was a role model for Matt. He practically grew up with him, and he became a part of the family, so Matt and Sean always saw him as an older brother and losing him was as devastating to them as it was to Anastasia.
She didn't know it, but after Matt and Sean consoled her, they had to console each other when one or the other cried often in secret after the incident.
Billy looked at an emotional Matt sorrowfully. He didn't know how to lie to them—he couldn't. "In a way, yes, he is."
It was now Matt sank into chair and gaped, losing color on his face. He glanced at Sean, who was as visibly upset as he was, but they weren't sure what they were upset about more; the fact that he had been alive all this time or the fact that they experienced so much hurt from the loss of their mother and Bastian, that they swore to never get that close to someone again to avoid this kind of pain.
"How?" Sean finally managed to say, gradually overcoming his shock from this news.
"I shouldn't have said it in the first place. My mind was so occupied with Rose being safe I wasn't thinking," Billy muttered softly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Well, the cat's out of the bag now, so spill it, Billy," Matt demanded, looking at him with expectancy. I haven't seen him, so has he been hiding all this time?"
"That's the thing," Billy sighed. "He's been hiding in plain sight, and you have seen him a few times actually."
Matt's eyes bulged like they were about to fall out of their sockets. "Where? When?"
Billy froze, side-glancing from Matt to Sean and then back to Matt, knowing this was it. He could be in serious trouble if he said anything more, which may send Bastian back home to the celestial city. "I can't..." he hesitated.
"Billy, please. We won't stop asking until you tell us. And Ana..." Sean started saying until Billy's body jilted up.
"No! Ana must NOT find out about this!" Billy cutting him off.
"Why?" Matt asked, perplexed.
"If I tell you the whole story from the beginning, you have to swear to me that you will not tell anyone, especially not Ana, or mention to Bastian that I told you!"
"But they were like soulmates…they loved each other, and she was broken when he died...," Sean protested, glancing at Matt, who nodded in agreement.
"I know, and that's what makes everything so complicated—because they still love each other even now, but they can never, and I mean NEVER, be together again. Swear it otherwise, I cannot tell you anything," Billy said, his voice dead serious. It was a side of him that Matt and Sean rarely saw, and they knew he wasn't joking.
Sean and Matt looked at each other for several moments, hesitant to make such an agreement because it would mean that they would have to keep something this big from Anastasia, which would be difficult, especially if she ever mentioned him, which she sometimes does—not as much as four years ago, but occasionally. She loved to tell stories of what they went up to as teenagers.
"Matt, what do you think, bro? This will be hard on us, but we have to keep it to ourselves if we agree," Sean asked Matt with silent sadness.
Matt looked at Sean, nodding in agreement, and then he turned to Billy with a resigned expression, clearly not happy about the decision. "Yeah, we swear. Tell us."
"Well, the first thing you should know is that Bastian currently goes under another name…Warren," Billy said cautiously, waiting for their reaction.
"You have got to be fucking with me," Matt blurted out, bending over with his hands covering his mouth in total disbelief. Sean looked more confused as he hadn't met 'Warren' yet. Matt's mind raced back to all the times he'd run into Warren – not often, but enough. He'd seen him on campus a few times, at his fraternity meetings, and he was always super friendly. He was the same guy who helped get Anastasia back to his dorm the night Britney drugged him and the same guy who showed up at the hospital earlier. He hadn't thought much of it; he just figured Warren was a good friend of Ana's. But now, everything was falling into place. "That would explain why I have seen Warren, or should I say, Bastian, a lot on campus. But wait…he may look slightly like Bastian, but his face is completely different. Did he come back as a different person?"
Billy motioned Sean and Matt with his hand toward the chairs before him. After they settled in the armchairs opposite Billy, they sat silently, waiting for Billy's explanation. Just then, Billy swiped his hand across his face, revealing a completely different face, which made Matt and Sean flinched in fright.
"What the fuuuuuck! Why do you have my face?" Matt's anxiety soared to the roof. He didn't realize he had grabbed Sean's arm in reaction, which he immediately noticed and let go of him. Billy managed to shapeshift his face to look exactly like Matt, showing them one of his angelic powers. He swiped his hand across his face again and returned to his usual self.
"Angels can change their face to look any way they want to. That's just one of the gifts bestowed on us to protect ourselves – to blend in," Billy explained. "That is why Bastian doesn't look like himself. It was a condition that was set before he came down here."
"So that explains your wings then," Sean said, putting pieces of the puzzle together. "But we all pretty much grew up together. How is it possible that you're an angel?"
Billy took a deep breath, bracing himself to dive into a story that would change their lives forever. "Right. I will start from the beginning…"