Birthdays; it was the one day of the year that made most people happy. Sure I felt that way sometimes, like when my father Soogeun, or rather adoptive father had gotten me a princess cake for my 5th birthday or my childhood crush had given me a flower on my 10th birthday. But as you get older, birthdays become less of a celebration and more of a normal day in the year. Today though, on my 19th birthday, it was neither of those things. For months I had been dreading this day and now that it had finally arrived; I had no idea how to get through it. This birthday was special. Scratch that. It wasn’t special. It was horrible. It was terrifying. It was stressful. This dreadful 19th year was the last year of my life that I could be used as the key to unlock the gateway to heaven so every vengeful fallen angel could go back and slaughter archangels and guardians as well as female and children angels. I knew exactly what my wish was going to be when I blew out the candles on my birthday cake; I just wanted to survive this year.

“Are you ready?”, my aunt Taehee came into my bedroom. She and my uncle Jihoon had insisted on throwing me a party since I had been away from home this whole year; attending Wanna One University. Taehee wore an excited grin, oblivious to everything, ever since Jaehwan and his coven had wiped their memories. They had no recollection of the incident with my brother, Daehwi who had been kidnapped and used as a tradeoff for me. We had managed to save him, but that didn’t mean his safety was guaranteed. He was never going to be safe as long as The Fallen were after me. Daehwi had chosen not to have his memory erased, which seemed like the best option to ensure he was alert at all times.

“Tris, what’s wrong?”, Taehee placed a hand on my shoulder. So much was wrong; Woojin was still in a coma, the man I loved and my guardian angel couldn’t handle being in the same room without wanting to beat the out of each other, a whole bunch of bad angels wanted me dead and they were willing to kill my family and friends to achieve that. And if all of that wasn’t bad enough, if Daniel ever tried to protect me or used his powers in any way; he was going to die.

T