Brent transported himself to Elizabeth’s home ahead of her arrival. He wanted to find out what, if anything, awaited her there. At this point, he needed to be as far ahead in the knowledge department as possible.

Standing in the middle of the living room, he could hear Mrs. Franklin upstairs. He looked through the ceiling to see her standing in her bedroom. In her hands were two dresses on hangers.

He sent himself into the room to see if those dresses meant what he suspected.

“Hmm… Blue?” She held the sequined dress before her while looking into the full-length mirror beside her dresser. “I don’t know. Not exactly feeling it.” She tossed the dress behind her onto the bed and lifted the other before her. “Dark green. Haven’t worn it in a while. I don’t think Nancy has seen this one. It does look good with my hair. Okay, done. Green it is!”

Laura Franklin proceeded to hang up the blue dress in her sizable walk-in closet, then walked back out with a pair of matching heels. She looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand as she set the dress on the bed and the shoes on the floor. “I’ll need to start getting ready in about an hour and a half.”

Great, thought Brent with no small amount of sarcasm. That’s just perfect. Can’t you two take your eyes off yourselves for a while? “Your daughter wants to kill herself!” he screamed.

As he expected, not even a hint that she had heard him.

Elizabeth would be home at any moment, and she was going to find that she was, once again, alone for the evening. Alone time was not what this girl needed.

“IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT! Get together! Fun with some friends! Pizza! Games! Call Elizabeth! Call Tina!”

Brent was doing his best to get into the head of Colleen Burns. He figured that she would be the best candidate for suggesting something fun for the evening, and, it was acutely apparent that she would be best served by getting out of her home environment for a little while. It hadn’t taken long before her mom began nagging her about her failings both as a daughter and as a ‘normal’ human being. Apparently, she wasn’t living up to family expectations.

Standing within the confines of a rather lavish kitchen, Colleen continued to hear about it. “Your brother and his girlfriend are coming over. The least you could do is spend some time with the two of them and us. It won’t kill you to play nice for a few hours.”

“Yeah, right. Playing nice means tolerating Kara’s de-meaning looks and her prissy attitude. Then when all of you begin to drink…” “I’m sorry, but I’ve got plans. Tina and I, and several friends, are getting together for a night of movies and pizza at her place,” she lied. “We may even be spending the night.” “Please, God, let that happen!”

“You and your religious friends sure do have a way of making the rest of us feel excluded. Doesn’t sound like the Jesus I heard about as a kid. I thought he wanted to be around ‘sinners’ like us.”

“There we go with the finger quotes again. Always trying to use my beliefs against me.” “Well, Mom, if you and Dad would like to come to church with me on Sunday, I’ll show you that my ‘religious’…” She used the finger quotes back at her mom. “…friends are normal people and that Jesus is much more than you think he is.”

Vonda Burns glared at her daughter for a moment then turned away, walking out of the kitchen.

Colleen glanced upward. “God? Are you going to do something about these people before I explode?”

She, too, left the kitchen and went up to her bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hi, Mrs. Morrison. Is Tina there? It’s Colleen.”

About thirty seconds later, Tina picked up.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” asked Colleen.

“Nothing’s changed since study hall. My family will probably all be home for the evening. How about you? Got an idea for something to do? I’m sure I can get out of doing nothing,” Tina quipped with a laugh.

“Well, I just told my mom—and I guess I should confess to you—that I was going to be over at your house with friends having pizza and watching movies. Want to make that happen?”

Colleen couldn’t tell if the pause at the other end of the line included a rolling of Tina’s eyes or not, but it was likely.

“Hold on. Okay?” said Tina. “Be right back.”

As Colleen waited, she prayed. “God, I know I do things out of order sometimes. I probably shouldn’t have told my mom that I already had plans, but I need to get out of…”

“Okay, I’m back. Mom says that if you would like to come over, you can. But we’re not allowed to have a bunch of other friends.”

Colleen was so very glad to hear that. Another thought struck.

“Do you think maybe…Elizabeth?”

“Good question. I’ll ask Mom, but I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

And that was exactly what Brent wanted to hear!

WHEN BRENT ARRIVED back at the Franklin home, Garian was waiting.

Brent had been picking up on the clue that when this giant being was around, something not-so-good was likely to be encountered around the next bend.

The two stood on the landing on the second floor, just outside Elizabeth’s bedroom.

“What’s going on?” asked Brent.

“The Enemy will step up his attack on Elizabeth today.”

Brent nodded, accepting the news. “I already have a plan in the works. Hopefully it will do two things: buy some time and get Elizabeth out of a lonely house.”

“Your plan, if it does work, may only be delaying a tragedy. The more she refuses truth, the more time the Enemy has to manipulate her. The outcome will not be good.”

“I know,” said Brent, feeling the burden of the angel’s estimation. “Somehow we have got to get her to hear…to want to hear the truth about God’s existence and his love for her. We’ve got to silence these demons.”

“Agreed.”

“What about some more of you? Angels.”

Garian genuinely looked perplexed with Brent’s question. “For what reason?”

Brent thought the answer obvious, but said, “You know. Intimidation. A show of strength.”

Clarity hit Garian’s eyes. “Son of Earth, this war that we are engaged in against the Enemy has been going on for eons—thousands upon thousands of years. The fallen ones who have been surrounding Elizabeth know the balance of power is against them. They know that I have the strength to vanquish several of their kind at one time. But, for the time being, there are rules of engagement that protect them from slaughter.”

Brent grew a little angry with the response. “But why? Why are there rules? Why can’t we just attack and rid Elizabeth of the demons?”

“For the same reason that the Great War began in the first place: free will. Life is the greatest gift given to Creation. The second greatest is the capability granted each individual—Angelkind and Mankind, alike—of choosing one’s own path.

“Lucifer’s self-pride was the catalyst for revolution. He chose to disregard the power of the Word who is known as Christ. The moment that a created being chose to challenge the One who created him, everything in creation shifted. Everything became bent. But without the Word providing us—and you—with the ability to choose for ourselves, we would be no more than mindless servants—something that the Word did not want. I admit to not understanding all of the Word’s reasoning. I only know that he wanted his creation to both honor and love him because they desired to—each of his own free will.”

“Okay, I get that. But the demons that are trying to destroy Elizabeth…doesn’t what you just said apply to what they’re doing? Aren’t they violating Elizabeth’s free will?”

“No.”

Brent waited a moment, hoping for more. When nothing came, he simply said, “No?”

For the briefest of moments, Brent thought he saw frustration register in the face of the angel.

“No. They merely manipulate. Ultimately, any final decisions made will belong to Elizabeth. Understand that, even if no angels or demons were involved, Mankind’s sin nature would incline most to disregard the Word’s gift of salvation. In this world, fallen beings manipulate fallen beings. Free will manipulates free will. The outcome is ultimately a desire of the heart—that of one who is faced with a decision. In this case, so far as I am granted wisdom and insight, Elizabeth is desiring within her heart something other than God. She wants freedom from any restraints. The Word—God—in her mind, is just another form of governance over her own wishes. She believes that, if she is not the one in control, then the outcomes in her life will not be her own. She wishes to be, above all things, self-sufficient.”

“Yeah, well, she is self-sufficiently wanting to kill herself,” said Brent, frustrated.

Everything that Garian had said made sense. He wished that he had asked the angel about these things sooner, though he didn’t know how this new revelation would have changed anything.

Free will. Brent was glad that it had been given by God, but he was also hating so many of its effects.

He looked at Garian. “Let’s go to Elizabeth. Let’s see if we can do some free-will manipulation of our own.”