The Flawed

By C.A. Marlet

Mitch is an ordinary police officer in a small Midwestern town until an angel named Rosaline fell from the heavens. Mitch finds her, unconscious, in the woods behind his parent's cabin. Mitch feels it is his duty to help her find the other Flawed, other angels who have been banished from Heaven, and discovers that one of the detectives in his precinct is an angel. Along the way, the three of them find other angels, good and bad, and try to find a way to return the Flawed to Heaven.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.A. Marlet
• Release date: Feb 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781500827762

C.A. Marlet

C.A. Marlet is an ambitious author who lives in Northern Virginia. She surrounds herself with people who know when it's time for coffee, to make a pot of tea, or open a bottle of Cabernet Sauvingon and the difference between those times.

Book preview

THE FLAWED

C.A. MARLET

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

© Copyright 2014 C.A. Marlet, United States.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtains by contacting [e-mail]. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.

For more about the book and author, visit camarlet.tumblr.com.

Copyright © 2014 C.A. Marlet

All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Acknowledgements

First things first, I have to thank my friend Billie, who decided to give me the rights to her original manuscript and gave me the permissions to publish this story.

Secondly, I have to thank my family for always believing me and for encouraging me in my writing.

Thirdly, thank you to everyone who has ever read anything by me for your encouraging me and telling me to never give up.

Fourthly, thank you to you, the reader, for purchasing this book and making the decision to read it. There would be no book without the constant support from those around me and without the constant encouragements from those who support my writing. Writing is something I have always been passionate about and it has always been a dream of mine that my writing would be available for people all over the world to read.

Prologue

What happens when your Heaven is lost?

When your light is dimmed?

What happens to those torn from the light,

Ripped from Grace?

Those shattered souls, where do they turn?

How do you live up to the perfection?

What become of the Rejected, the Broken,

The banished souls?

The scorned, the lost,

The imperfect ones.

What becomes of them,

What becomes of The Flawed?

Chapter One

The heavens were in turmoil, and as Mitch gazed out of the window of the cabin, he knew he had a front row seat to the mayhem. As another clap of thunder shook the cabin, he delighted in the roof over his head. The rain lashed at the windows, like millions of tiny fists, knocking for entrance.

The majority of the light that filled the cabin came from the soft lamplight powered by a generator that Mitch's father had called 'indestructible'. The rest of the light filtered from the fire, which was slowly dying in the grate. Other than the intermittent flashes of lightning, the cabin remained relatively dark. Mitch strode towards the small kitchen, hoping to refill the mug that he held in his hands which, until recently, had held hot chocolate.

Suddenly, however, he was plunged into darkness. There was a deafening crack and a blinding flash of lightning before the lamplight sputtered out. Mitch was left with the little bit of light which was emanating from the dying embers in the hearth. He cursed quietly, standing still, allowing his vision to adjust to the sudden darkness. When he was relatively secure in his night vision, he made his way into the kitchen and placed the mug in the sink. Immediately, he reached into the drawer next to the oven that had held the flashlights in the old cabin for as long as he could recall. His fingers came in contact with the hard plastic of a flashlight that had been in the drawer for as long as Mitch could remember. As he stood upright again, the first thing he spotted was the smoke. The smoke poured from the generator outside the kitchen window, shocking Mitch into the realization that this had not been an average blackout, as it would have been in the city.

He hurried to the back door, pulling his sister's purple polka dotted poncho--the only poncho in the cabin--off of a hook on the way out to check on the damages. After pulling the plastic poncho over his head, he flicked on the flashlight, and walked out through the back door and into the rain. The heavy rain pelted him on all sides as he made his way around the back of the cabin to check on the generator. The smoke, it seemed, was pouring not from the generator itself but from the woodwork that sheltered it. The wood was scorched and splintered; most of the woodwork had fallen to the ground upon impact--impact of which Mitch deduced had been lightning. Mitch hurriedly stomped out the fiery remnants of the housing, before turning his attention, and the flashlight on the generator.

After a preliminary check of the ages old generator, he found nothing of concern and, as he stood there with the rain hammering down around him, he pondered what he was going to do to get it started again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of light.

At first, Mitch dismissed it as lightning, but as the seconds ticked by and the sudden sustained light persisted, it drew his attention. He turned, shocked to see a bright white object shooting from the sky, much like a falling star.

Mitch stood next to the generator, mesmerized, as the light source moved closer and closer. He may have mistaken it for a meteor had it not been for the light that shone around being too white to be identified as a meteor. It had almost a sense of purity around it, that snow white light. The closer the source came to the Earth, the brighter the light became, forcing Mitch had to turn his head and shield his eyes against the light as the thing finally came in contact with the earth in the woods behind the cabin.

A faint glow arose from the spot in the woods where the thing had landed and Mitch stood staring at the light for a moment or two before another clap of thunder jolted him to his senses.

He considered just turning around and going back inside, but curiosity pulled him to the line of trees that bordered the yard of the cabin. He pulled the hood of the poncho tighter around his head and stepped through the underbrush.

He walked through the trees in the driving rain, frequently checking the sky for the faint glow of light that the mystery object emitted. The closer he traveled towards where the mysterious object had landed, the more the light seemed to banish every shadow from the forest. Every nook and cranny seemed illuminated by the ethereal light.

He stepped into a spot where the canopy was broken through, allowing the rain to drive down harder upon him, and each fork of lightning be seen above. As Mitch stepped into the makeshift clearing he had to shield his eyes once more against the pure white light. The object that was emitting the light now rested in the middle of the small clearing, shining more brightly than ever.

Suddenly, for the second time that night Mitch was plunged into darkness. The light vanished and Mitch was left with the illumination of the lightning and that of the flashlight, which hung forgotten from his wrist. He blinked a few times as his eyes once again adjusted to the darkness that surrounded him before picking through the underbrush towards the source of the light.

The first thing he saw were the wings. Massive wings, covered in pure, first-snow-of-the-season white feathers. He expected to see a large bird under those wings, but as he approached closer, Mitch was in for a great surprise.

Sprawled beneath the wings appeared to be a human being. A woman. A winged woman. Mitch's mind was reeling with two main questions about the young woman as he came kneel at her side. Who was this woman? Where on earth had she come from? As he raised his gaze to the Heavens above him, he couldn't help but wonder. The first few strikes of cold rain drops on his cheeks alerted him to the fact that it was still raining. Lightning forked across the sky again as Mitch looked down at the woman at his feet. Whoever--whatever she was, he couldn't leave her out in this storm.

Crouching down, resisting the urge to feel the wings attached to the woman's back, Mitch scooped her into his arms. She was surprisingly light, he thought as he turned her in his arms. She seemed to be wearing what Mitch thought fitted the scene perfectly--a toga or draped cloth of some sort. He turned her carefully, so that the wings were folded against his arms and she was facing inward.

He could feel the texture of the feathers through his poncho covered arms. He ignored the odd shiver that raced down his spine as a result and began retracing his path, heading back towards the cabin. He stepped out from the slight cover which was created by the canopy of trees and into the back yard of the cabin. Mitch hurried to the back door, carefully pushing it open and carrying the woman inside.

He sighed when he realized just how wet they both were. Mitch carried her into the living area of the cabin and deposited her on the sofa that resided against one of the walls of the room. Mitch walked across the room to a small wood box by the fire place, tossing a few pieces of kindling and logs on the fire, all the while carefully avoiding turning and looking at the woman who was now lying on his couch.

He left the room, pulling the poncho off as he did so, and soon after came back into the living room, dressed in dry clothes. He had a small stack of clothes on top of a folded quilt in his arms. He gently tossed the quilt over her and sat the clothes beside the sofa, before walking back to the fireplace.

He shifted the logs in the fireplace for a few moments, before settling into a chair near the fire, waiting for his odd new house guest to awaken. Within a few moments, he was asleep.

Chapter Two

Mitch was awakened a short time after he had dozed off by a shallow, buzzing sound. Opening his eyes, he glanced around the room, surprised to see that it was flooded with light once again. The generator must have started up again, he thought, standing and slowly stretching. He stopped cold when he glanced over to the sofa and saw a strange young woman perched on the sofa, dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and a t-shirt which was far too large for her. After a moment he recalled why she was there. He watched her intently for a moment and she appeared to be watching him as well. He was shocked to see that no wings sprouted from her back now. She could even pass for a regular person.

Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me where I am? She spoke in an oddly regal voice, large brown eyes locked on him.