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“Alex, look, look!” I darted over and tried them on; they fitted perfectly. And they were only four dollars. “Okay, these are definitely mine. ” I put back the pair of old running shoes I’d been going to buy.
Alex grinned. “Hey, excellent. ” Then he took in my face and started to laugh. “Is this another girl thing? I’ve never seen someone look so happy over a pair of shoes before. ”
He was right; I couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe it was stupid, but it felt like I’d gotten back a little piece of myself that I’d lost.
We’d parked around the side of the building, in the shadows. When we got back to the bike, Alex pulled off the blue T-shirt he’d been wearing for the past few days and reached for the bag with our clothes. Warmth stirred through me as I watched the muscles of his chest and arms move. We’d been together for over a month, but it felt like longer – I couldn’t imagine my life without Alex now.
“It’s not really fair, you know,” I said, leaning against the bike. “I can’t just start changing my clothes out here the way you can. ”
The AK tattoo on Alex’s bicep flexed as he pulled a long-sleeved white thermal shirt over his head; he put on a faded red plaid shirt over it, leaving it hanging open. He raised an eyebrow at me as he rolled up the sleeves a few turns. “Go for it. I don’t mind. ”
I laughed. “No, I bet you don’t. Nice try. ” I put our clothes bag in the motorcycle’s storage compartment, shoving it down so the lid would close. “How much money do we have left?” I asked. Everything had been really cheap, but we’d still spent almost a hundred dollars.
Alex squatted down to fasten the tent under the rear of the seat. “Let’s just say I’m really glad we don’t have to spend money on motels any more. ”
I bit my lip. That bad. Part of the reason we were going to Mexico – apart from practically the entire United States being on the lookout for us now – was that it was cheaper. “We should try and save money on food too,” I said as Alex strapped the sleeping bags to the bike. “If we go to grocery stores instead of fast-food places from now on, we can—” I broke off, breathing in sharply.
A flock of gleaming white angels had just glided out from over the top of the strip mall – fifteen or twenty of them. They flew across the street from us at an angle, their great wings stroking the air.
Seeing my face, Alex rose hastily; I sensed his energy shifting. His expression hardened as he spotted the angels. “Get back,” he said, not taking his eyes off them. We pressed against the side of the building, Alex shielding me with his body, trying to hide my aura with his own. He drew his gun out from under his waistband. I heard a faint click as he took the safety off.
The angels continued on their way without noticing us, achingly glorious against the mundane buildings and run-down houses. I stared at them from under Alex’s arm, my emotions in a tumult. That deadly beauty was half me. I wasn’t a predator like they were, but half of me was angel all the same. As the flock grew more distant, they winked in and out of the street lights like stars, finally fading from view.
I felt Alex check out the area around us, and then relax. “It’s okay; it’s clear now. ”
We stepped out of the shadows and glanced at each other. My legs felt like cotton. If the angels had seen us, we’d be dead right now. Especially me, after what I had done – and if they still thought I was the one who could destroy them all. I knew Alex was thinking the same thing, but neither of us said it.
“That was a really large flock,” I said at last.
“Yeah. I’ve never seen one that size before. ” He put his gun away, revealing a ribbon of toned, flat stomach. “I guess they’re from the Second Wave – maybe heading down to Albuquerque to live. ”
I swallowed. It was already starting, then. The Second Wave of angels, settling into our world alongside the first. Silently, Alex crouched to finish strapping our stuff to the bike; when he straightened again he wrapped his arms around me, holding me close for a long moment. “Are you ready?” he asked.
I nodded; suddenly I could hardly wait to get away from this place. “Yeah. Let’s go. ”
We drove for hours, heading south on minor roads, stopping only once to grab food from a tiny convenience store in the hills north of Alamogordo. The land turned to desert, vast and empty, with the stars shimmering overhead. Once, as we skirted a town, I saw another angel in flight, its pure white figure clear against the night sky. As I watched, it wheeled sharply on one wing and plummeted, deadly as an arrow. I turned my head away as we sped on, hating what I knew was happening at that very moment.
We started climbing back into mountains; the cold wind whipped at my face and arms. I shivered, pressing against Alex’s back, and was glad when he finally pulled off the road. It felt late, after midnight.
“I thought New Mexico was supposed to be hot,” I said as we got off the bike. He’d taken us down a dirt road that led deep into the woods; we were at the bottom of a narrow canyon. Moonlight cast a faint, silvery light – I could see my breath in the air.
“Not up here,” said Alex as he unstrapped the tent. This was his home state, and he seemed to know it inside and out. I fumbled coldly in the storage compartment for the sweater I’d bought, pulling it on over the one I was already wearing – and remembered how Alex hadn’t even needed a map back in September, when he’d guided us over a hundred miles of New Mexico back roads.
“But we’re not too far from the border now, and then it’ll be desert again,” he went on. He tossed the rolled-up tent onto the frosty ground, and started undoing the sleeping bags. “I just thought we could get a couple of hours’ sleep up here where we’re hidden, then cross before dawn when there’s a little more light – I don’t remember exactly where the crossing-place is; I might miss it in the dark. ”
Needless to say, we weren’t going into Mexico the legal way. Pushing aside my apprehension about what the next few hours might bring, I helped Alex put up the tent.
“I’ve never gone camping before,” I commented as I unwound a guy rope.
Alex was wrestling one of the tent pegs into the hard ground; he glanced at me in amazement, his face looking sculpted in the moonlight. “Never? Really?”
“No, Mom never took me, and Aunt Jo. . . ” I shrugged. I had told Alex what Aunt Jo was like; I didn’t have to explain.
He smiled, knowing what I meant. “Well, we’re sort of roughing it,” he said, moving on to the next rope. “You can get, like, fridges and stoves and stuff, but that’s never really seemed like camping to me. ”
“Not that any of that would fit on the bike anyway,” I added.
Alex shook his head, making a tsk-ing noise. “What, so you wouldn’t carry a fridge on your lap if we got one? That’s a serious lack of dedication. ”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. ”
Crawling inside, we got the sleeping bags zipped together. The ground felt freezing through the nylon floor of the tent. “I don’t need a fridge, but a heater would be nice,” I said. My teeth were practically chattering.
Alex grabbed our things from the bike and brought them inside; then he fastened the tent closed, securing us in. “Come here, babe, I’ll keep you warm. ”
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