by Maribel Fox
Fuck him.
I’m shaking and vibrating when I look over to Micah. He stares at me, open-mouthed, knowing he should say something, but clearly at a loss.
“Do you think I’m being a child?” I ask, hearing how petulant and childish it sounds.
Fuck him so much. I’m trying my best damn it.
There’s a voice deep down that questions that, but I shove it aside quickly.
Micah blinks and shifts uncomfortably in his seat on the couch. “Uh…”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”
“Ava, emotions are not my strong suit… Or women… People in general, to be honest. I am not the best person to comfort you in this situation. I believe we are all struggling with many factors and Seamus has likely said things he will later regret.”
I sigh and hug my knees tighter. That’s not really comforting at all. But I guess he did already tell me he wouldn’t be the best person for the job.
“If I am honest with you, I do not believe you deserve any of this, Ava. I am sorry for my kind, and my interference here. I apologize for bringing all of this down on your head. It is not a burden you should have to bear, especially unwillingly.”
Despite everything he said before and everything I just thought about him, that… actually makes me feel better somehow. It also makes me cry, which might be more of the reason I feel less like I’m going to implode. I hate crying, but the release is exactly what I need.
Micah stands stiffly and walks over to where I’m curled in the chair, patting my back gently.
“I am truly sorry, Ava. We will right this.”
I sniffle, and suck in a deep rasping breath, but I think breathing only fuels the sobbing because a fresh wave of tears breaks through and I can’t hold back the strange, gurgling cry that escapes.
Micah’s hand is still on my back, not moving anymore, still enough that I nearly forget he’s there at all while I’m close to hyperventilating, the overwhelming weight of everything crashing down on me at once.
Micah’s hand moves lower, to the base of my spine, his other hand joining, both palms flat against my back with his hands pointed up. It’s a strange enough thing that I focus on that for a moment instead of the pressing burdens that trouble me.
“Does the road…” Micah whispers, words too soft for me to hear as his hands slowly, chastely slide up my spine.
“What?” I sob-hiccup, so confused. I like him touching me, and I can’t deny that having him here, even if he claims to be bad at emotions, is making me feel a little better.
His hands stop like he only just realized I’m still here.
“It’s a rhyme I learned some years ago. Part of a poem… It has helped me to focus and calm my breathing many times.”
I frown, turning to look at him. He’s not kidding though. I’m not sure Micah knows how to kid. He always looks so serious, so intense. But in this magnetic, deep way. Like a cave that draws you in with its mystery.
What happens when I can’t find my way out again?
“Controlling your breath is the key to controlling your emotions,” he says. “There is no shame in crying, however—”
“I want to hear it,” I say, hugging my knees tighter. “I wanna hear your rhyme.”
Micah looks thoughtful, his lips firming, his unlined face not betraying much.
“Very well,” he says. “Breathe along with my hand,” he says, replacing his hand at the base of my spine. His fingertips apply gentle pressure along the ridge of my vertebrae and he moves up steadily as he says, “Does the road wind uphill all the way?”
Without thinking, I’m inhaling as his hand moves up. At the top of my spine, I hold the breath until he starts speaking again, moving down this time.
“Yes, to the very end,” he recites, dragging out the seconds between the words, forcing me to exhale slowly, holding my lungs empty longer than is comfortable before he starts again.
“Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?”
Again, I breathe in, slow and steady, eyes closed, focusing only one Micah’s deep voice rumbling through me, his hands pouring steadying calming magic into me.
“From morn to night, my friend,” he finishes, his face just over my shoulder, his hands at the base of my spine, his lips near my ear, warmth from Micah flooding every vein, every cell, every molecule in my body.
“Take care, Ava,” Micah says suddenly, pulling back from me, something strange crossing his face. Am I totally misreading him? I feel like he’s into me. That felt like way more than a ‘breathing exercise,’ especially considering the uncomfortable heat blooming between my legs.
I don’t have a chance to ask him or convince him to stick around. That’s all he says before he’s leaving. And then I’m alone in the living room, tear-stained in front of the fireplace, hoping like hell my little brother doesn’t walk in and wonder what’s wrong.
That would be a fun conversation to have.
All the guys are gone for the first time since Seamus showed up, and even though there’s an empty ache inside of me, there’s another part of me that’s relieved. Hopefully with all of them gone, we’re safe. We won’t be targeted.
They’re the ones Heaven’s concerned about. Them and the sword, and now none of it is in my B&B. Now it’s just me, Ian, and Rue. Just how it should be.
That’s not the ‘back to normal’ you were wishing for earlier, a voice says.
Who is that voice? Why is she always raining on my parade?
Fuck Seamus and fuck that voice too.
Maybe it’s my conscious.
I groan and wipe the tears off my face, pulling myself out of the chair. Best friend time is what I need. Luckily, she’s always nearby, only a few steps away when the bar’s open.
“A, you look rough. Another long sleepless night?” she asks as I sit down, giving me a suggestive eyebrow waggle.
“No,” I mutter, sending a sideways glance to Ian who’s working on a drawing of some kind while drinking a root beer. “Just a lot on my mind.”
Rue nods, then looks Ian’s way.
“Hey bud, do you see that long stick lighter there beside you?”
“Yeah,” he says, grabbing it carefully. He’s not allowed to play with lighters. He’s not old enough to remember the fire, but I’ll never forget how it was everywhere. That’s the one thing I remembered when everything else was erased from my memory. Fire everywhere. The walls, the floor, the ceiling as it fell in front of me and showered everything with more ravenous flames.
“Pass it here,” she says, wriggling her fingers.
I look at her curiously as she pulls out a box from under the counter.
“Candles?” I ask skeptically.
“Figured the old sham could use some mood lighting,” she says with a shrug. “Besides, they’re relaxing, and you seem like you could use all the relaxing you can get. Wanna help me put them out on the tables, Ian?” She’s got a couple dozen little votives in the box, and Ian’s quick to help her arrange one per table.
Once all the candles are on the tables, Ian hurries back to the bar looking excited, though for what I couldn’t say.
“Sup?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Watch.”
I do, but all I see is Rue carefully going around, lighting each candle with the stick lighter.
“Rue,” Ian calls, exasperated, maybe even disappointed. “Why don’t you do it like the other—”
“That was a special thing,” Rue says quickly, her dark skin blanching momentarily.
“What special thing?” I ask, head tilted to the side.
“Nothing,” Rue says. “When he was at my place the other night I showed him a neat thing I bought online—”
“It wasn’t a trick!” Ian protests.
“Sorry, bud,” Rue says, moving away from us through the rest of the bar.
Ian huffs as he reclaims his bar stool. “She lit the candle like that,” he says, snapping his fingers at me. Only he doesn’t actually kno
w how to snap his fingers, so they just slide off one another and he glares at his own little hand.
A shiver runs down my spine at the memory — Ian fascinated with me in my room, playing with candles, lighting them like that, snap. Then the next thing I knew there was fire everywhere. Everywhere. Moving so fast. Smoke filling the air, making it hard to see anything. All I could do, all I could think to do, was grab Ian and run out.
He can’t remember that, though. He was too young.
Wasn’t he?
“Sometimes we’re sure we saw something, but it didn’t really happen that way,” I tell him, swallowing thickly. Rue showed him a trick candle and he superimposed a memory of me playing with my magic on top of it.
But if Ian remembers that, then it’s real. All my memories, all the nightmares… It’s really my fault. I started the fire that killed my mother, and Seamus wants me to try and get more powerful? Is he insane?
I can’t.
I won’t.
“I guess,” Ian mutters, back to his drawing. I hope he never realizes, never connects the dots. I can’t bear the thought of how he’d look at me if he knew. Would he ever be able to forgive me?
I’m not sure I can ever forgive me, though there’s not much point in dwelling on a past I can’t change. All I can do now is take steps to ensure it never happens again, and if that means ignoring my magic for the rest of my life and letting down Seamus and his people, that’s the sacrifice I’m going to have to make.
24
Kush
The stench of undeserved righteousness is overwhelming. That’s what I get for letting myself get captured. I deserve every lick, every bruise and every drop of blood spilled.
I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life but getting picked up by the Celestials takes the cake.
How the hell was I supposed to know they’re camping out in the woods with a full battalion?
One minute I’m out for a stroll and my morning toke, minding my own business. Next thing I know I’m surrounded by Angels — bastards showing off with their wings outstretched — being dragged to their camp, tied up, and interrogated.
Seems these guys really want to know what Seamus is up to. I’ve never been happier that the crazy fool is inscrutable. There is nothing for me to tell them, even if I wanted to. And I don’t. I would die before I give them anything.
Even though I’m alone in the tent right now, I know it’s only a matter of time before someone is back for some more questioning. Always weird to be on this side of things, but I guess that’s my retribution for being one of their lackeys for so many years.
It’s not that I’ve got any regrets about how many bodies I can take credit for, it’s that I had a part in Heaven’s genocidal mania. I just didn’t realize how freaking bad it was till it was too late.
Till they wanted me and Micah to kill Seamus.
There was no fucking way. I wouldn’t do it, Micah wouldn’t do it — I knew he wouldn’t, though we never got to find out for sure. When I was told about the mission, I protested every way to Sunday. All it got me was a one-way ticket to Earth and my wings lopped off. In exchange, Seamus got to live, and Micah never had to find out the kind of monsters he was working with. I thought I was protecting him — should’ve known better.
His dedication to the cause has always been such a huge part of Micah’s identity. Where he worked tirelessly for years to get his position in ERS, I got mine only to spite my father who still probably views the job as beneath us. I was supposed to go into the military and become an officer like him. Not be out on the ground getting blood on my hands. That was for the lower-born Angels.
I scoff at the very thought. The whole lot of them are hypocritical jackasses.
Micah never deserved any of this though. He’s a true believer. He always thought he was doing the right thing. Getting the order to kill Seamus — not exactly an innocent, but not deserving of an execution — might have actually been the offer that Micah refused. Killing Seamus simply because he’s a powerful Fae and they’ve failed to do it half a dozen times isn’t really a justification that Micah would be willing to accept.
And once I pointed that out… Well, they were already losing me, did ERS really want to lose their best little soldier too?
I was trying to save him. Who knows if it was the right choice at this point. I still haven’t been able to talk to him about it. He’s desperate to know what happened to me, where I disappeared, and why, but now I might not ever get the chance to tell him.
The tent flap opens, and bright light streams in, blinding me momentarily.
“How are we doing?” Commander Onama strolls in, grinning malevolently as he does. I’m bound to a post in the middle of the tent, tied up so most of my weight is hanging from my shoulders rather than resting on my feet. My hands are completely numb and cold from losing circulation, and my whole face is throbbing with what I’m sure is a ton of swelling. My body aches in places I didn’t know it could, but I’m not going to show him any of that.
I’m gagged, so I settle for looking disinterested.
“Looks like someone cares about you after all,” the Commander says, sneering.
It takes me a sec, but then I see him across the way — Micah. He’s going into a tent that’s not that far from this one. Close enough I could call out to him if I wanted. But I don’t. I’m gagged, but that’s the least of the issues with the idea. We’re surrounded by soldiers, and there’s no plan. Micah and I haven’t even talked really since I showed up in Lupine Bay, so I’m not sure he’d even come to my rescue. He may be here on my behalf — I don’t even know that much for sure — but that doesn’t mean he’ll take on the full force of Heaven’s Army to pull me out.
It’s suicide, and I won’t put him in the position of choosing.
The Commander drops the flap and steps back into the tent, shaking his head at me, looking disappointed as he has so many times before. I didn’t give a shit about his disappointment when he was my boss, and I sure as hell don’t give a shit about it now that he’s the man who chopped off my wings.
He can find himself in a Hellion orgy for all I care. Maybe I could wrangle an invitation to watch as they rend him limb from limb and flay him while he’s conscious.
The image comforts me a little bit. It’s a fun picture and makes me better able to handle what he says next.
“It’s such a shame what you have become, Kushiel,” he says, walking around me slowly. “You held such promise. Your family… They’re so disappointed. A Fallen? That’s the kind of shame you don’t come back from.”
Big whoop. There might be some who care about all that bullshit, but I never have. My dad always pushed the duty and honor, the rank and respect nonsense. I say you get respect if you earn respect. You get loyalty if you earn it. I’m not going to follow someone’s lead because they happened to get born into the right family.
No way.
And that’s what the people never seem to understand about me. My dad’s always been convinced he can guilt me into being the son he wants. But the more he pushed me in one direction, the more I rebelled and went in the other.
The Commander is cut from the same rigid cloth. He likely can’t fathom how it wouldn’t bother me that my actions have left my family’s reputation in tatters.
Honestly though, it’s kind of refreshing to hear. It might be all lies, but if I was reported as Fallen then Onama had to have admitted my defection. Which couldn’t have reflected well on him, the partner of his adopted son…
No, I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t have tarnished his own name to hurt my memory, and I already know he has no qualms about openly and boldly lying.
Perhaps the Commander realizes I don’t believe him, or that I wouldn’t care if I did. Either way, he steps around to face me again.
“It’s Micah who is going to be harmed by your treason the most. I allowed him to believe you died an honorable death, but now he will have to know the truth. He will have to see you for
the blasphemer you are. Perhaps he will even perform the execution after he realizes how you betrayed him. Perhaps it will be what I need to finally strip him of those troublesome scruples of his,” the Commander says, laughing softly to himself.
“On the other hand, his cooperation with you is probably enough to warrant his execution alongside you. It would be a devastating blow to me personally, though I expect there will be more sympathy sent my way than blame.”
I grind my teeth together, fighting to maintain control over my expression. I can’t let him see he’s getting to me. That’s what he wants. He wants a reaction. He wants to press my buttons. He wants to break me down, find my weakest spots, and probe at them until I’m begging for the sweet release of death.
He’s gonna have to try a hell of a lot harder than that.
“That still leaves the problem of that Fae whore and her brother… Can’t have them escaping. Those Fae multiply and swarm like diseased rodents, though the rodents have a more pleasant odor, I must say.”
Threatening Ava is a step too far. I can’t hide the blaze of anger that flashes through my eyes and the Commander spots it, grinning.
“A Faerie Queen is quite a thing, you know. Thought we’d eradicated them all. Kill the Queen, kill the hive — they’re pests. Insects, Kushiel. That is what you have always failed to realize. Soon we’ll have exterminated every last one. Won’t that be nice?” He leans forward and smacks me on the cheek — too hard to be friendly.
“I’ll be back to see you soon. I hope you’re ready to share some secrets with me then.”
If I could feel my fingers, I’d flip him off. I try anyway, but with my hands tied together up and behind my back, I can’t see if it works.
I’m all alone now, no one here to guard me. Why would they? I’m tied up, beaten, and wingless. How would I go anywhere? Where would I go?
Cocky fucking Angels.
I swear they’ve forgotten I’m one of them. Only I also have the benefit of sixty years of life as a human, complete with all the pop culture I could consume. This is the part where Double-O-Seven gets out of the impossible trap. This is where MacGyver hatches his ingenious plan. This is where my cold and numb fingers finally manage to work through the knot I’ve been picking at all day.