“Do you see the thermal reading?” she asks, pointing at one of the screens.
“Yes.”
“In the car I told you that when a partis uses their powers, it emits gamma rays. The white spots you see are places where gamma rays have been emitted.”
I see one in the church where Jesse was being held. The explosion that killed Jeremiah is probably the source of that gamma burst. I see another in the area where Gloria’s second hideout apartment was. Not in the apartment itself, but just outside, like maybe someone was watching us from the riverbank.
“Jason?” I ask. “But I thought the gamma output was only for active powers. After all, it’s not picking up every time Jesse uses a shield or Caldwell teleports. Did Jason have an active power?”
“Not that we knew of,” she says. “Though I guess Jesse can tell us that now, can’t she? Maybe she acquired more than healing.”
The more power she acquires, the less stable she’ll be.
Jesse. Hang in there, baby.
“We need to get her back,” I say. “She’s going through—something—and the only person talking her through it is Caldwell.”
“I know,” Nikki says. “We’ll seize the first opportunity we get.”
I search her face for the jealousy, for the fear. I don’t see it.
“So there are other partis in the city.”
“When we find out more I’ll tell you. I promise.”
Her face is so sweet and earnest that I almost forgive her for breaching my privacy. Almost.
“How’s Jeremiah?”
“Alive,” she says. “But I’m not sure how long it’ll be until he’s fully conscious.”
“I’m going to want to talk to him. I need to find out what he hasn’t told us.”
Nikki sighs. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Chapter 34
Jesse
I fall asleep and Gabriel overtakes my dreams. He is holding me somewhere high in the sky, above an unknown city I can’t see because my face is pressed against his suit jacket. But I can hear his wings beating around me, protecting me from the icy air and clouds.
My stomach drops as we start to descend. I swallow a terrified wail.
“I will never let you fall.”
“That’s what they all say, bud. Then you find someone else’s lacy panties in the bed and a positive pregnancy test on the sink.”
Gabriel never laughs at my jokes.
We land. The air rushes up around my face as his wings stretch out one last time before tucking away out of sight. Gabriel puts me gently on my feet, and I feel the ground shift beneath me.
Sand.
I turn and see a house. It is sky blue with white trim; an A-frame with great big windows and a wooden sidewalk that leads up to the door. Patches of grass peek through the sand surrounding it. At the back of the house, there’s the beach, the roar of gray waves lapping hungrily at the sand. The other direction—in every other direction I look actually—there’s only open land. No houses, no civilization, nothing stretching out to the dense tree line in the distance.
A gull cries overhead.
“What the hell is this?” I ask, the wind from the water tearing at my hair.
“Go inside.” Gabriel motions toward the house.
The planks echo hollow with each step as I cross to the door. I press against the worn wood and the door creaks open on command. A soft light pours over the welcome mat and weathered porch.
A terror seizes me, as if something horrible will happen to me if I enter that house.
“Jesse?” A sweet voice calls. A voice I would know anywhere.
“Ally?”
“Go inside,” Gabriel urges again.
This time I do. I cross the wooden walkway and place my hand on the sand-smoothed door. It groans as I push it open. At the sound of the door opening, a pug, in all his fat glory, comes running across the living room floor. His little nails can’t gain traction on the wood and he slips into my legs, colliding with my shins.
“Come in here and taste this,” Ally calls.
I scoop up Winston and scratch his belly, crossing through the nautical-themed living room, into a kitchen that features starfish décor on its sand-colored walls.
Ally stands over the stove, stirring something in a pot that smells delicious. Her hair is shorter, pulled up in a messy ponytail on the top of her head. She wears a shirt that hangs off of one shoulder and white capris.
She’s beautiful.
She smiles and offers me the spoon. “Did you hear me? I need you to taste this.”
I go to her side at the stove and she lifts a wooden spoon up to my lips. Spaghetti sauce. One of my favorites.
Her eyes are wide and expectant, as if whatever I say next is of the utmost importance. I can’t remember the last time the most serious thing in our lives was what the hell the spaghetti sauce tasted like—or even when we had the time to make freaking spaghetti sauce.
“What do you think?” she asks, her brown eyes wide.
“It’s perfect,” I say and look around the kitchen. My eyes fall on a lighthouse figurine perched on the windowsill overlooking the water. “All of this is perfect.”
I turn to Gabriel who stands in the doorway, his impeccable gray suit looking even more severe in this bright airy kitchen. “What the hell is going on?” I ask him.
“I was just thinking we’d have a nice dinner on the deck,” Ally says, in a perfectly sweet tone. It’s Stepford wife-ish actually. Until I realize it’s the lack of worry that’s weird. The Ally I’ve known all my adult life is the same Ally who worries and frets over my every move. This isn’t the Ally I know. Ally thinking, Ally trying to figure out how the hell to solve this latest, greatest problem that is my bullshit. This Ally is carefree. The only thing that seems to trouble this Ally is how long the noodles had been cooking.
“Then after we watch the sun go down, I thought we could cuddle on the couch and watch some TV.”
She reaches up and brushes my bangs out of my eyes. I see a huge rock on her left hand.
I glance down and see I’m wearing a wedding band too.
“Holy fuck,” I say. “We’re married.”
Ally laughs, the sound high and girlish. Unburdened. When was the last time I heard Ally laugh like that? “It surprises me too sometimes. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She steps into my arms and clasps her hands on the back of my neck. She kisses me, a soft sweet brush of her lips. I practically fall down, it feels so good.
“So?” Ally asks, her breath hot on my lips. “What do you think?”
“About being freaking married?”
“About my plan? Dinner, a sunset, TV.”
“It sounds perfect,” I tell her. Too damn perfect.
“I did promise you a happily ever after.” She smiles and pulls out of my arms. The beach house wavers, darkening as if the light of this world is controlled by a dimmer switch. It refocuses and Gabriel and I are standing on the beach, looking out over the waves, the smell of salt and fish thick in my nose.
The beach house stands behind us.
“What’s going on? What is this?”
“This is your perfect world.”
“Is it?” I ask. “I mean, sure a world without people sounds great, but like, where the hell did the spaghetti sauce come from? There’s no one on the whole planet? Who grew the tomatoes?”
As if on cue, a small tomato garden crops up beside the house.
“Oh come on.” I point at the tomatoes. “I don’t know if those can even grow on the beach. And what about the noodles? I’m not harvesting wheat and rolling those little things out, man.”
“Why do you resist every paradise I offer you?”
“Uh, human,” I say. “Don’t you know us by now?”
“But this is the world you most want. You respond to this one, unlike the others.”
“This is the first one with Ally,” I say, and as soon as the words are out, it’s true
. “I think you were a little heavy handed with the marriage part. I mean, do we have to be married? It’s an institution set up by white dudes who want to make sure they aren’t playing daddy to someone else’s kid.”
Gabriel blinks at me.
I shrug. “I’m just saying it’s a little patriarchal.”
“Wake up,” Gabriel says. “He’s returned.”
I open my eyes and find myself on the couch in The Needle. I sit up as Caldwell steps out of the corner into the light.
“We have a bed for you,” he says, placing one polished shoe in front of another. “You didn’t need to sleep on the sofa.”
I don’t even remember falling asleep. But it’s good to know that even while I do, my shield works. It shimmers purple around me.
“What’s going to happen?” I ask him. “We can’t keep going on like this.”
“We continue to fish out the partis, eliminate them until it’s only us. I think of it as saving the best for last.”
“I can’t let you hunt and kill people.” I haven’t forgotten that two of the partis are my friends.
“I’m not hunting anymore,” he says, coming to sit beside me on the couch. He crosses one leg over the other in the most casual way. We could be discussing my college education. What did Stalin’s daughter talk to her father about?
“Now that all of the partis have been chosen, I don’t have to hunt them. I know who they are.”
“So do you have them locked away in towers too? Are you collecting us like beanie babies? Waiting for some moment I don’t know about?”
Caldwell stares out over the lake, his eyes twinkling in the low lights. “I will do whatever it takes to be the apex, Jesse. You must understand how important this is. Humanity will no longer exist, if we do not seize this chance. A million lives combined. A billion is not more important than seizing the chance to create a new, better world.”
A billion lives.
I search the water outside the window, trying to see what he sees. In the distance, there’s a lighthouse. A perfect replica of the little red and white tower that I saw on the windowsill in the beach house of my dreams. I think of Ally’s smile. Ally’s laugh. Her lips on mine.
No, a billion lives aren’t more important.
Only one.
Chapter 35
Ally
I’m about to go clean out Jesse’s room when someone interrupts us.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but he’s awake and wants to be briefed,” the guard says. He is careful not to look at me, keeping his eyes on Nikki’s. It always struck me as strange that those under Jeremiah’s command were called “sir” regardless of gender.
“Thank you,” she says. “I’ll be right down.”
The guard gives an acknowledging nod and then turns on his heels and exits the control room, hands never leaving the gun lying across his abdomen.
“I should check on Gloria anyway,” I say, expecting Nikki to dismiss me now that Jeremiah is awake and she’s returning to second-in-command. Whatever momentary privilege I received for being her girlfriend has passed.
“Come up with me.” She brushes the back of my knuckles with her fingertips.
I arch an eyebrow. “I’m going to ask questions.”
“I know,” she says with a sly smile. “He can answer them.”
I give her a look as if this might be a trick. She holds her smile just fine.
“Okay,” I say. “Just for a minute. I really do need to check on Gloria.”
Nikki leans over the control button and pushes a number. A screen on the far right blinks, changing from an image of the parking garage to our apartment’s kitchen. Gloria is still sitting under the towel.
“See?” Nikki asks. “You have a little time.”
I let her lead me to the elevator, appreciating the fact that she won’t let go of my hand. It’s not exactly romantic. Too many guns are around, and the hallway’s too white, too sterile. But it is sweet, a display of affection I could never get from Jesse. “What if I need my hands to karate chop someone?” she’d ask.
We step onto the elevator, and after a brief descent, step off again. Nikki pulls me forward by the hand, content to lead me. She doesn’t drop my hand until we step into Jeremiah’s room.
He’s sitting up in the bed and wearing a dressing gown, which is interesting given that I’ve never seen him in anything but khakis and a sweater vest.
“Glad you’re back.” He gives me the briefest of smiles. “I trust Nikki took good care of you in my absence?”
“She did.” I’m not sure what else to say.
“Are you here to stay?” he asks, his gaze heavy over the rim of his glasses.
I frown. “Jesse is still with Caldwell.”
“He won’t give her up if he can help it. He’s trying to get her to meld with her power source more quickly.”
I frown. “What?”
“Jesse sees angels. Correct?”
I glance at Nikki accusingly, but then realize I’ve never told Nikki about Gabriel.
“No one told me,” Jeremiah says as if reading my face. “I knew about them already.”
“Just explain the melding,” I say.
“Jesse still sees herself as separate from the angel. She thinks it’s her consciousness and his consciousness. She talks to it, rather than be it.”
“I’m fairly certain Jesse is human. Not an angel.”
Jeremiah nods. “She was born human, yes. But she’s changing.”
I want to argue that we can’t simply override millennia of evolution. Jesse is a primate and primates don’t simply become advanced creatures in such a short space of time.
“First Caldwell thought he’d get her to accept her power by locking her in the box. It helped her strengthen the connection she’d been denying, but she doesn’t truly accept it as her own. I suspect that he has also forced Jason’s power on her for similar reasons. More power, less humanity. But he is playing a dangerous game with her.”
My heart speeds up, and I can tell Nikki wants to take my hand, but doesn’t. Is she that scared about appearing weak in front of Jeremiah?
“He needs her to accept her powers and begin the war between the partis. Jesse was the last called, and has been dragging her feet the whole way. The danger is that once she fully accepts what she can do, he will no longer be able to control her. She is by far the most dangerous of all of them, but she doesn’t know.”
“How can you possibly know all this?”
Nikki tenses beside me. What does she think he’ll say?
Jeremiah looks away, picking at the corner of the blanket draped over his lap. “You forget I’ve been watching him for a long time.”
Nikki exhales as if she’s been holding her breath. “Caldwell is treading a thin line with her. He needs her to fully accept her power in order to complete the energy transfer, and yet take it before she can use it against him.”
I search her face. You knew about this?
“I think he is playing to her need for family, love, connection. He wants her to see him as her father. He wants to give her a reason to hesitate before killing him.”
“Because hesitation will get her killed,” I say, searching both their faces. They are sharing more information with me now than ever before, but there is something wrong about this confessional.
“Exactly,” Jeremiah says, smoothing the blanket with an open palm.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask. What do you want out of it?
“I’ve always been open with you, Alice.”
“No, you haven’t. You never even told me you had NRD.”
“I told you that my sister and father had it. You knew that meant I probably would too.”
A headache begins to form behind my eyes. “What confuses me is your part in all this? Are you partis too?”
“No.” He leans back into the pillows. “I am the observer. Think of the Book of Revelations. John of Patmos was the witness to the end times. His role w
as to observe and chronicle what he saw. That is my role in this story as well.”
I grow uncomfortably warm under the bright fluorescents of the hospital room. “Self-appointed or do you see angels too?”
“I was called, yes,” he says, evading my question.
I reexamine what I know of Jeremiah to see if this new story holds true. Back in Nashville, when a little boy was shot and killed in the crossfire, Jeremiah practically shook him at me. His little body was still half inside the body bag when Jeremiah unleashed his anger, furious that I had failed to call in Jesse to help with the mission.
“You’re not just observing. You’re participating,” I say. “With all the rescue missions and attempts to go after Caldwell, the word observer is grossly inaccurate.”
“I do damage control. I try to keep people out of the way, but yes, I have been pushing Jesse to engage from the beginning. Engage with Caldwell. Engage with the other partis.”
My jaw drops. “Why?”
“Because this needs to happen,” he says. “She is the final piece that must be in place.”
“And here I thought you wanted to keep her safe.”
“There is no safe in this world. No one is going to make it out of this alive. You understand that, don’t you?”
I take a step back. My heart is pounding wildly. Someone calls my name. It’s Nikki, saying my name over and over again as if I’ve gone deaf.
“You knew,” I tell her. “You promised to help me protect Jesse, and you knew he was walking her into the fire.”
“Al—”
I turn and storm out of the room.
Chapter 36
Jesse
Caldwell takes a phone call. He slips one hand into his pocket, his head cocked ever so slightly to listen to whoever is on the line. His face screws up in irritation.
“I see. I’ll be right there.” He slips the phone into his pocket.
I blink and he’s gone. On instinct I blink several more times, trying to reconcile the sudden absence of a person that was just there.
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