Free Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) by Nicholas Adams Page A

her future children along with her. Even if she managed to provide some kind of decent living for them, they would never be able to live more than a meager existence in the LTZ.
    She also tried to tell herself that she would not have wanted to burden her children with her abandonment issues fearing they would have resented her for growing up in a world in which they were shunned as the descendants of traitors.
    Her husband squeezed her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s for the best,” Erik whispered. He left Evangeline alone in the room to tell the nurses that surgical preparations could resume. She had no inkling that in a few short years she would be divorcing Erik and returning to her maiden name.
    Anguished, Evangeline wondered at her muddled thoughts that were now beginning to surface after fifteen years of repression and denial.
    She had a wonderful husband, who was fantastic with kids, and not just the virtual ones. Jack had grown up in the LTZ as a normal child who had played with other normal children; he knew how to talk to them without talking down to them.
    Most parents in Olympus had Angel nannies like those who had taken care of Evangeline in her own childhood. Alternatively, many families had virtual nannies, like the ones Jack designed, to monitor older kids who were more independent. She knew if she wanted to, she could go back to a fertility clinic and explain her condition, to get on a waiting list for an Angel to volunteer to give up her reproductive organs. However, the children from that womb would not be hers biological offspring. They would not be a blending of Jack and herself.
    When the young family began to gather their belongings and exit the train, Evangeline realized she had gone several stops beyond the base.
    Frustrated at herself, she had no choice but to stay in her seat until the next stop, when she would have to exit the train and move to the other side of the platform to wait for the next train heading back in the other direction.
    This delay would only make her arrive about thirty minutes late, but she was frustrated nonetheless. She was taking on a new trainee fresh out of the simulators. Her hands were going to be full, and she did not need her mind to be a bowl of emotional spaghetti.
    While the train glided back toward the base, she was able to pull herself together and regain her composure. She pushed the unpleasant memories and feelings down deep, back into the sinkhole on the barren moon where they belonged.
    On the other end of the train car, she noticed three Angels standing together. As they rode to their destination, they all sat smiling to themselves and at other passengers or looking out the window. One was petting a dog standing next to an elderly man.
    Evangeline watched them for a while and then discovered something she had never taken notice of before. She realized she had never seen Angels engaged in conversation by themselves. The one Angel petting the dog was talking to its owner, then the other Angels joined the conversation, each one petting the dog when it expressed interest in them. However, once the elderly man left the train, and there was no one else around them, they resumed their polite smiles and looked out the window.
    Evangeline remembered the many mornings as a small child when she would wake up and find Crystal staring out the window. She had always looked out the window when she was by herself.
    Evangeline continued observing the Angels as the train glided along the tracks toward the base. Again, she witnessed them smile and converse with people who sat near them, but if there no one was around, they would simply stand there, smiling their empty smiles or gazing out the window with their unfocused eyes. Evangeline could not solve the puzzle of the Angels’ peculiar habits, nor did she have the time. The train reached the station at the base and she was in a hurry to get into her flight suit before roll call.
    She walked passed the Angels in