Halo by Alexandra Adornetto

add. “Not to mention the fact that friendship comes with expectations, so choose carefully.”
    “What kind of expectations?”
    “Human friendships are based on trust. Friends share problems, exchange confidences and . . .” She petered out with a shake of her golden head and looked imploringly at Gabriel.
    “What Ivy means is that anyone who becomes your friend will start to ask questions and expect answers,” said Gabe. “They will want to become part of your life and that’s dangerous.”
    “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied indignantly. “You know I’d never do anything that might jeopardize the mission. How stupid do you think I am?”
    I was pleased to see them exchange guilty looks. I might have been younger and less experienced than they were, but it was no reason to treat me like an idiot.
    “We don’t think that,” said Gabriel in a more conciliatory tone. “Of course we trust you; it’s just that we want to avoid things getting complicated.”
    “They won’t,” I said. “But I still want to experience life as a teenager.”
    “We just have to be careful.” Gabriel reached out to give my hand a squeeze. “We’ve been entrusted with a task that is much more important than our individual desires.”
    Put like that he had a point. Why was he so irritatingly wise? And why was it so impossible to stay mad at him?
    I felt much more relaxed at home. In a short time we’d already made the place our own. We were manifesting a typically human trait—to personalize and identify with a space—and home felt like a sanctuary after the day we’d had. Even Gabriel, although he would have been loath to admit it, was starting to enjoy living here. We were rarely bothered by the doorbell ringing (the house’s imposing façade seemed to deter visitors), so once inside we were free to pursue our own interests.
    Although I’d been eager to get home, I now found myself at a loss as to how I should be occupying my time. It was all right for Gabriel and Ivy. They were always absorbed in a book, playing the baby grand, or up to their elbows in flour in the kitchen. Without a hobby of my own, I was left to wander aimlessly around the house. I decided to focus on domestic chores for a while. I brought in a load of laundry and folded it before putting the kettle on. The house smelled a little musty from being shut up all day, so I opened some windows and cleared the clutter on the dining table. I picked sprigs of pungent pine from the yard and arranged them in a slender vase. I noticed there was some junk mail in the mailbox and made a mental note to purchase one of the No Junk Mail stickers I’d seen displayed on some of the other mailboxes in the street. I glanced at one of the leaflets before dropping them into the trash and saw that a new sports store had opened in town. It was called, rather unoriginally, I thought, SportsMart, and was advertising its opening sale.
    It felt strange to be carrying out ordinary tasks when my whole existence was so far from ordinary. I wondered what other seventeen-year-old girls were doing at that moment—cleaning their bedrooms at the behest of frustrated parents, listening to their favorite bands on their iPods, sending each other text messages to make plans for the weekend, checking their e-mails when they should be studying?
    We’d been given homework in at least three subjects and I’d written it down diligently in my school planner, unlike many of my fellow students who seemed happy to rely on memory. I told myself I should start it now in order to be prepared for the following day, but I knew that it would take hardly any time and was unlikely to pose any intellectual challenge. In short, it would be drop-dead easy. I’d know the answer to any question asked, so going through the motions of homework seemed like a tedious waste of time. Nevertheless, I hauled my school bag up to my room. My bedroom was the loft at the very top of the stairs,