I planted my feet in the dead ground. “No, you need to tell me what’s going on right now. Tell me everything. No more secrets,” I added, throwing his arm off my shoulders. Images of Grandpa’s blue sword, of Nate’s green whip, of what I’d just seen him do with that pile of wood whirled around in my head without ceasing.
My words failed to jerk Nate out of sentinel mode: his eyes remained on the sky. “I don’t think we should get into this now. We have to get to the safe house.”
That’s what Grandpa had said to do. Even in the kitchen when the first thunder shook the walls, he’d known what was coming. From the moment we’d gotten home, he’d known. I’d lost control. Grandpa had said my essence flared like a beacon to them. I was the reason all this had happened. I was the reason he—
“Why didn’t we run? Why didn’t we all run the moment we got home?” My fingers clenched into my palm, every emotion and thought turning to anger. I stepped in front of Nate and forced him to look at me. He was part of this whole thing, this secret, this lie. If he’d told me what was going on, maybe I wouldn’t feel like my heart had been ripped out and placed in my own hand.
Nate tightened his jaw. “There are no headquarters or outposts we could have gotten to in time. This was the safest place, considering.”
“Safest place!” I threw my hands wide to the bare ground where the house used to sit. Only a few parts of the cement foundation were left. “You knew what was coming, and you did nothing. You just let him die!” I screamed and pushed his chest.
Ria skidded in front of me and put her arm out to stop me from shoving him again.
Nate spoke from behind her, his head barely above her shoulder. “I’m a Guardian—a lower level angel, slightly higher than the Graced, meant to protect humanity. I should have followed Solomon’s orders to protect you, to get you both out, but I tried my best to protect him, too.” He stood with his spine perfectly erect, his shoulders squared. “I know I’m to blame.”
My muscles tensed on and off with urges to punch him, to smash my fists into rocks, to do something. I couldn’t hear this right now. It wasn’t real.
A minute passed before Ria cocked her head to the side, still trying to see the boy she’d met freshman year. “But…?”
Nate’s face strained, and the longer he waited, the more Ria’s expression grew into betrayal and disbelief.
“I lied.” He set his jaw. “I didn’t move here with my parents in ninth grade, and I’m not eighteen years old now. Sol was a leader of the Patrons—Graced Nephilim created by the Heavenly Host. The Babylonians like Kovac are created by the Fallen,” he added. “Sol asked me to watch over you after your mother died.”
“She died when I was born,” I snarled, my pulse suddenly pounding.
“And I watched you from afar while you were a child. When you started venturing out with Ria more and more, Sol asked me keep a closer eye on you.”
My cheeks heated like he’d slapped me. “Keep a closer eye!”
“You’re an angel?” Ria said finally, struggling to wrap her head around the oblong piece of information.
“Guardian,” said Nate. “It’s different—like an angel but so low that no one even considers me to be one.” He danced on the balls of his feet nervously, his green eyes fixed on me. It was something he’d done for as long as I’d known him whenever he was waiting for something.
And now all it did was infuriate me.
I sucked in a breath to stifle the rage building. “And Grandpa’s a Graced.” The words tumbled out with a bitter aftertaste, almost as if I should have known, like I was too idiotic to figure it out myself. “That’s how he could make that sword, how you were able to—”
“Run faster than a speeding bullet,” Ria said hollowly.
Half a smile tried to escape my lips but didn’t succeed. I’d tried most of my life to educate Ria about superheroes, but she’d feigned listening. At least I’d thought she had.
I guess I’ve thought a lot of things that aren’t true.
“Yes. Sol was a Graced. The portion of essence he received from the Heavenly Host allowed him powers, weapons.” Nate nodded. “It’s the same power that he used to fight, the same power I should have used to run you as far away as I could.” His jaw was so tight I thought his teeth might crack. “And the same sliver of angelic soul is inside you.”
I shook my head, unwilling to believe it. Angels. Graced Nephilim. Every other fact Grandpa’d ever taught me rattled around in my head, but nothing prepared me for this.
“You’re like, really old then,” said Ria, a minute behind the conversation, her perplexed gaze stuck on Nate’s green eyes.
Nate nodded hesitantly, taking a step back to lure us to the Jeep, his red hair bobbing with each step.
“I’ve never met your parents,” said Ria. “Not once.”
He nodded, his jaw still tight.
“And Eve’s a—what’d you call her?”
I shook my head before he could repeat himself. “I’m not a Graced, a Patron, or whatever you—”
“You are a Graced. To not admit that is to disgrace your grandfather’s last dying act and everyone in your family before you.”
“Disgrace my—” I clenched my fists and advanced again.
Nate stood his ground.
“Wait…my family?” I stopped.
“They were Graced, Patrons—nearly every one of them—but the rest of it has to wait. Right now, I need to get you out of here.” He grabbed Ria’s hand and pulled her toward him.
“Why?” said Ria, allowing herself to be pulled.
“Because as powerful as a sacrifice is, there could be others on their way right now. The Babylonians are stronger since your grandfather stepped down, and even though they got their main target, they’ll be coming after you before morning.” He turned to me, his eyes pleading. “They want anyone connected with him dead.”
“But why?” I said, vengeance coursing through my veins like liquid nitrogen.
“Because he saved them when they tried to kill him, because they repay kindness with death, because one murder isn’t enough when you feed off revenge.” He opened Ria’s door and threw our bags into the back seat.
I clenched my jaw in the same manner he always did. “Babylonians are evil, we get it. That doesn’t mean—”
“Your mother didn’t die because of childbirth.” Nate’s voice broke.
“What?” My eyes bulged, and my throat closed.
“Having you couldn’t have killed her. It was the Babylonians—Kovac. He killed her right after you were born. Sol was always too powerful and smart for Kovac to get to him directly, so he killed her. That’s why Sol took you into hiding.”
I shook my head in disbelief. All these years, Grandpa hadn’t been mad at God for taking my mom. He’d known who’d killed her all along. He’d seen his face. No wonder he couldn’t hide his anger whenever we talked about it.
I clutched the single silver wing resting against my chest and traced my thumb from the tip to the edge of the broken blue stone where it would have attached to the other wing. It used to be a jagged split—broken on the night she died, the other half lost.
The tip of the pendant dug into my palm as I squeezed it. Kovac’s blinding smile was etched clearly in my mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The drive did little but bottle up every question and fear and drop of anger. Each one swam around inside of me like I was its own personal lagoon.
When I was a kid, I’d always imagined doing this—leaving in the middle of the night with only one bag that I could take with me. We’d done drills. We had MREs and weapons stashed all over the house. Ria told me he was a Prepper. I thought he was just a little crazy.
Now I knew the truth.
Ria glanced back at me in the visor mirror. She’d been crying and was trying to reapply her makeup with the backup she kept in Nate’s glove box.
I pretended not to see her; the static waterfall of the wind rushing past filled my ears and drowned out
all conscious thought. I preferred it that way.
She flipped up the visor and stared out at the road. “This isn’t the way to the safe house.”
“We never told you about this one,” said Nate, speaking for the first time since we’d left.
“Big surprise there,” I growled.
We turned onto an unmarked gravel road off the highway, and Nate flicked his lights off even though he continued to drive for fifteen minutes. I could only guess how he could see the road.
When the roar of the engine finally ceased, an old abandoned church loomed into view. The wood siding was worn gray by the desert sun and harsh rain. A few of the square panels in the windows were missing, and the paint on the double doors had been clawed away. Even the cross on the steeple was about to fall over.
Somehow, a church being the safe house didn’t surprise me. Grandpa was always superstitious like that.
And now I know why.
When I looked up at it, I didn’t feel reassurance—like there were angels watching over us. I had one literally at my side, and all I felt was heat seep out of my skin as I thought that if all this was true—angels and God and everything else Grandpa believed—then God just let one of his most faithful followers die.
Personally, I liked it better when I assigned the blame to natural selection, to chance. It was cold, simple logic.
God was colder.
“Think we could sleep in the car tonight?” Ria stared up at the decrepit church with her nose wrinkled as Nate grabbed our bags.
“Negative,” he said, marching straight up the steps and through the doors.
Ria saluted him sarcastically and followed, glancing back to see if I’d smile.
I didn’t.
I stepped over the dusty threshold and inhaled decay. Every breath of wind whistled through the cracks in the siding. The pews were covered with musty sheets, and the podium on the small stage was smashed to kindling.
“We will sleep here tonight and leave at 0500. I’ll continue to try and contact the headquarters in L.A. and Austin to see which one wants to take us.”
“What are you going to do, pray to your angel buddies? No need for cell phones?” I said, dropping my bag to the floor, knowing I was acting like a toddler and not caring one bit.
He pretended not to hear me and started pulling the sheets off the pews. I half expected a flutter of pigeons to attack us for destroying their home.
Instead, dust billowed out and surrounded us.
I coughed and buried my face in my shirt sleeve for relief, until I realized what dust was already there—still there…forever.
My tongue curled to the back of my throat, and I gagged as images of blinding white light flashed through my mind again and again. I smelled him on me, his burnt hair and skin and bone. It would never come off.
I jerked into a sprint out of the church. I pulled my collar away from my neck before it choked me to death. I gasped as acidic bile climbed my throat.
Nate grabbed my arm, but I wrenched it from him, a scream gurgling out as I ran up a nearby hill. The hot night air was like a fog my lungs strained to inhale.
I dug my shoes into the sandy hillside. Sharp branches scratched at my legs, but I didn’t stop. The pain felt good—a welcome relief to the misery making sludge in my veins.
When I reached the top, I collapsed and threw up. Retching and heaving were the only sounds that carried through the still desert.
My shirt rubbed against my skin as I twisted, and a savage instinct took over. I stripped off my shirt and rolled onto my back to get my jeans off, flinging them both as far as I could down the other side of the hill. I screamed until the sound scraped my throat raw. My chest constricted, and tears choked all feeling from the rest of my body, streaming out of my eyes in waves of hate and grief.
I was never going to see him again. He was gone…like my mom.
I fell into gray numbness. Sobbing. Convulsing. Curled into a ball with rocks scraping and denting my skin. I didn’t know how long I was there. The top of the hill overlooked a silent, starlit valley. It was so quiet I could hear my heartbeat more than anything else, forcing me to keep living when all I wanted to do was join them. Grandpa believed in a heaven. Maybe my mom did, too. I’d go there now if it meant plugging these two open wounds in my chest.
Eventually, Ria came and pulled me up so she could get a blanket around me. She held me like her mother never had for her, like my mother never had for me.
Nate appeared a little while later and walked down the opposite hillside. He came back with my clothes in hand—what was left of Grandpa’s body still visible as ever.
I recoiled slightly, my stomach knotting again as he laid them at my feet and kneeled down in front of me. “I know you’re mad at me—and you should be, I know that—but watch this.”
He moved to the side, cupped his hands slightly, and scratched at the earth like a dog with super speed. His arms were a blur as dirt streamed out like water from a fountain.
I massaged my eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
He stood, and there was a two foot deep hole in front of us.
“Impressive.” Ria nodded, her lower lip puffed out and her eyebrows raised.
Nate smiled briefly, his freckled jaw tense as the red hair on his head flitted in the breeze. “I know we can’t have a traditional ceremony, but it’s something.” He lifted the wad of ashen clothes and set it in the hole.
I wiped my eyes, oscillating between feeling complete misery and nothing at all. Ria started crying.
“Do you want to say anything?” Nate said, crouching down next to the pile of loose dirt.
“I’m going to miss you, Grampy.” Ria choked up and squeezed her arm around my shoulder.
Nate nodded. “It was an honor, Sir. I’m sorry.” He clamped his teeth together so hard I thought they might crack.
I shifted into a new position. What could I say? It wasn’t like he could hear me. I wished he could.
“I love you,” I whispered before another wave of grief wracked my chest.
Nate sniffed and shook his head violently at high speed. No emotion remained on his face when he finished. He filled the hole.
The silence that followed persisted until it was like another person sitting beside us. Part of me pretended it was Grandpa sitting there but not talking, maybe laughing at how small his grave was. That was definitely something he would do.
I leaned forward and placed a rock on top of the loosely packed dirt. I could have stayed there forever, but eventually, Ria supported me back down the hill, Nate just in front of us.
“Do you need any help?” Nate turned around when we came to a particularly steep part.
“Eyes front, Soldier,” I said, reaching to wrap the blanket tighter around me and finding that Ria had already done it, her scowl deep enough to make Nate blush.
“I didn’t mean—it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
I grinned at his discomfort, the playful position of my lips sore, like my face had resigned itself to not use those muscles again.
“You’ve never even had a girlfriend.” Ria rolled her eyes.
“I was there when Helen of Troy went off with Paris.”
“Pervert!” Ria yelled.
“No, not like…I glimpsed. It’s not like I was—” He took bigger strides and went into the church.
“You know who Helen of Troy was?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Girl’s considered one of the hottest chicks ever.” Ria flicked her caramel hair back dramatically. “I’ve got to know my competition.”
I chuckled, and Ria joined in, our laughter embracing us like old friends. It almost felt wrong, but Grandpa’s silent voice whispered encouragement like a cool wave that washed over me for half a moment. It faded like the tide pulling back, but it was still nice to know it might come again when I needed it.
“Come on, we need to get some sleep,” Nate called.
“Do you even sleep?” said Ria.
/> “Affirmative. A minimal recharge is required.”
Ria huffed, and I shook my head. Same old Nate. Get him in a situation where he was in charge, and he turned into a robot.
I changed into a new pair of jeans, a black V-neck, and a hoodie from the bag Ria grabbed for me. She did surprisingly well under the pressure—even managed to stuff the pink shopping bag with our dresses in there. Not entirely surprising considering who was doing the packing, of course.
“I’m going to get more blankets,” I said, wanting to keep moving as Ria and Nate cleaned off the pews. The more I did, the less I thought about what was going on, why we were here, the far-reaching implications of what this all meant—angels from heaven and hell empowering humans with pieces of their souls. It was bit much to take standing still.
“No, I’ll go,” said Nate, appearing in front of me with a puff of air that blew my hair into my eyes.
“You really need to stop doing that, Speedy McIrish.” I sidestepped him with a scowl.
“Sorry.” He dodged in front of me again, faster than humanly possible, and put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from moving forward.
I sighted the pressure points on his wrist, elbow, and behind his ear…if pressure points even worked on angels. I narrowed my eyes. “Keep trying to stop me, and you’ll find yourself unconscious. I don’t care if you’re a guardian angel. I can take care of myself.”
“But it’s my job to—”
I curled my lips away from my teeth in a snarl. “If someone comes, I’ll yell the codeword.”
“What’s the codeword again?” said Ria, already stretched out on the pew next to Nate’s.
“Sriracha,” Nate and I said together.
Nate tightened his jaw, and I walked out without continuing. I rifled around in the back of the Jeep and found road flares, two sleeping bags, a camo jacket and pants set, a pool cue, and twelve rolls of duct tape.
“What a pack—” I started to shake my head before a gust of wind blew up my hair again. “That’s it, Nate. You’re—”
I turned around, and a tall, muscular guy with a square jaw, dark hair, a torn black shirt, and stormy blue eyes stretched out his hand to me, panting.
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