Teen Ink

Prologue

“I need you to watch over someone,” he says.
“Who is it and what’s the situation?” I ask him. I hadn’t been assigned to watch someone in almost one hundred years now. I was eager for an assignment.
“Her name is Sarah Nicole Blake. Her father was just murdered, but they weren’t looking to kill him. They were trying to kill her. We can’t figure out who the man was that did this, or even if it was a man. She needs your protection,” he said. He whispered the last part, as if her death would be the end of the world.
The beautiful necklace suddenly appeared into my hands. It was a regular chain with a pendant on it. On the front of the pendant was a carving of an angel. On the other side it said “guardian angel.” I was to give this to whomever I was assigned to protect. This necklace was a sign that she belonged to me.
I put the necklace in my pocket, trying to decide how I would give it to this girl. I had the sudden urge to fly down to Earth and hold her in my arms. I had only gotten this feeling once before. She was my very first assignment, and I immediately fell in love with her.
“I accept,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“That’s wonderful news! You will have to blend in at her school, though. But, you might want to watch her from a distance first. This might be a tricky assignment,” he warned me.
“I have a good feeling about this one,” I said to him.
“Well, start looking after her as soon as you can. Rather sooner than later,” he said, as he disappeared.
“Wait! What should my name be for this assignment?” I yelled to his fleeting figure.
“You shall call yourself Dean Lenz,” he said, his voice fading. And then he disappeared. I dug out he necklace from my pocket, and held it in my hand. It had been one hundred years since I had seen this necklace, and now I was holding it in my bare hand, closely examining it.
“Dean Lenz,” I muttered to myself. That was the name I would be known by today. Dean Lenz. I figured I would be about 18 years old. I would watch her for a few months, and then join her school. But I still hadn’t decided how I would give her that necklace. That beautiful necklace I still held in my hand.
“Sarah Blake,” I said. The name rolled off of my tongue, and it felt as if I had said it a million times.