“Dad?” I whimpered, finally realizing to whom the familiar voice belonged. How did he get here? In the fog of medication, the idea that I was hearing Michael, posing as my father, never occurred to me. Instead, when I heard my father’s voice I instinctively wanted him to protect me, just like he had when I was a little girl. I tried to reach out but my arms were weighted down, seemingly tethered to something.
“Time for a top off,” Pete said, tersely. Someone approached me, blocking whatever light was shining on my face, and fiddled with something. And then I was floating away, the lake pulling me back into her depths as a wave of coolness seeped into my bones.
The next time I woke up was not so peaceful. Searing, burning pain jolted me from sleep. My eyes flew open, but there was something obstructing my vision. I flailed uselessly at my face, unable to feel anything but the agony shooting through me. I hit something hard to my right and let out a howl.
“Let me out of here! Dad!” He was here, somewhere. “Dad, I can’t see!”
Strong hands grabbed me, only making the pain worse. “Calm down, sweetie,” said a woman’s voice. “You won’t do yourself any good moving around like this. You need to rest.” I struggled against the woman, but her grip on me was strong. “Just lay down and I will help you to see,” she soothed. “It’s just a bandage blocking your eyes, that’s all.”
I could feel hot tears rolling down my face. Each one stung, leaving a tiny trail of pain behind it.
“I want my dad,” I blubbered, finally giving in and sagging against her.
“Shhhh. Poor thing. So confused. Of course you mean your uncle. You just stay right here and I’ll go get Mr. Carmichael for you. But first close your eyes and I’ll take this gauze off.”
She eased me back against some pillows. Everything that touched my skin seemed scratchy. I moved as if to scratch my arm, but a firm hand stopped me. “Don’t touch anything. And don’t move that arm. You’re attached to an IV.”
I sagged back into the pillows. The hazy light suddenly gave way to full bright, and I had to blink.
“There,” the nurse said, rolling up a strip of gauze in her hand. “Better, no?” She smiled at me, her plump cheeks rosy and her eyes kind. “Are you thirsty?”
I hadn’t realized it, but my throat was parched. I nodded, and she handed me a plastic cup from a little table that was pulled up and over the bed in which I was lying. I gulped the cold water down, draining the glass and gasping for air when I was finished.
The nurse glanced at the bedside clock. Four o’clock, it read.
“I’ll go get Mr. Carmichael. He wanted to be informed the instant you woke up. Maybe after that we can see about getting you some more medicine.”
She bustled away. My eyes trailed after her as she closed the door behind her. I looked down, trying to understand why I was in so much pain. My arms and hands were wrapped in bandages. I reached up to my face, trying to touch it with the one finger that poked through the gauze, only to feel more wrappings. I prodded them and winced. Whatever was going on under the bandages wasn’t good.
I looked to the side, where a long tube led to a hanging IV machine. Beyond it I recognized the distinctive black and white décor of the hotel room.
The hotel room.
I was in Vegas. And then it all came rushing back to me.
I wasn’t here with my dad. I was here with Michael, and something had gone terribly wrong last night.
The quiet click of the door closing snapped me to attention. I closed my eyes.
“Are we alone?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Yes.” It was my father’s voice I heard. If I opened my eyes, I would see my father standing there. But he was not the man I needed to see.
“I don’t want you to be in here looking like him. I want to see you. The you from last night.”
“It’s not safe,” he protested. “The nurse—”
“Then lock the door,” I answered. “Please, Michael. I need to see you.”
I heard him turn the deadbolt in the door.
“I’m going to stay over here,” he said quietly from across the room, and I let out my breath, relieved to hear his real voice, relieved that he’d transformed himself back.
You know that he doesn’t have a real voice, don’t you?
I smiled, and then winced at the pain of it, when I heard Henri’s voice in my head. He always disappears for the trouble, but somehow he always makes it back in time to gloat during the aftermath.
“Come closer to me,” I said, trying to ignore the shooting pains in my face as I spoke. “It hurts for me to talk.”
In an instant I felt him at my side.
“How long have I been here?”
“Overnight. Sixteen, maybe eighteen hours now.”
“What happened?” An odd sense of calm had settled over me. The pain had finally forced me into a Zen-like place, and right now nothing seemed to matter but the truth. “Please. I need to know.” I opened my eyes and stared at him blankly, afraid to show any emotion at all.
His face was inscrutable. His jaw was set in a hard edge.
“What do you remember?” His eyes probed me as if looking into my soul. I let my eyelids flutter shut, trying to block out the memory of his touch, his kiss, and the spine-shattering pain that had come out of nowhere.
“Nothing,” I said, opening my eyes to fix him in a cool stare.
“Nothing,” he echoed with disbelief. Then he sighed and squared his shoulders, raising his head to look out the window. “I—lost control. My spirit turned too bright.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
He eased himself onto the bed and picked up one of my bandaged hands, holding it like a piece of delicate crystal. He peered at me intently, as if willing me to pay attention. “Remember when I explained to you who I am? That morning in your room back in Dunwoody?”
“Yes, of course,” I answered, puzzled as to why he would bring that up now.
“I told you that angels are different from humans in a few very important ways.”
“Like the pain when you don’t follow God’s will.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, like that. Do you remember the other way?” He looked away to the window again.
I racked my brain. “No, I don’t. But I don’t see what that has to do with what happened.”
“It’s at the heart of it,” he said, his fist clenching as he turned to face me. His face was twisted into a bitter smile. “Remember, I told you we angels can’t create. It would be more accurate to say that we can’t procreate.”
I looked at him for what seemed like a long time before what he was saying dawned on me. I froze in my bed, my mind unable to hold back the images of last night.
“I don’t need to know about that,” I said emphatically, my words rushing out of me in embarrassment as I pulled my hand away from his, grimacing with the sting of it.
“Oh, but you do,” he said softly. “It’s very important, Hope.”
I squirmed under his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Hope.”
I shook my head again, bringing my hands to my ears like the monkey that could hear no evil, ignoring the pain that stabbed through my body.
“Hope, we have to have this conversation. You can’t pretend that nothing is going on here any more than I can.”
“But nothing is going on,” I whispered, screwing my eyes shut.
“Not because I don’t want there to be anything.”
I let his words hang in the silence.
“Hope,” he said again, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice. “Hope, please, look at me.”
When I didn’t say anything, he simply sighed and continued.
“When I take human form, I am truly human. With every human urge, Hope.” I felt his fingers on my chin as he turned up my face to look into my eyes. “Every one. What I felt last night was very real. It still is.” His fingers grazed my chin, softly, and I shuddered.
&n
bsp; I tried to turn my face away, but he held his grip so that I couldn’t look away. I fixed him with the blankest stare I could manage, but he looked so profoundly sad that it took my breath away. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t notice, didn’t care.
“I shouldn’t have acted on my feelings. Had we not been able to stop, I would have destroyed you. Literally.”
My mind refused to accept what he was saying. “But what about the stories of the Nephilim?” I asked.
“Nephilim are childish legends,” he said softly, letting his hand fall away from my face. He absentmindedly fingered the bedspread as he continued speaking. “God ensured that it is impossible. My true nature, Hope—my angel nature—is spirit and fire. The Fire of God. It is uncontrollable. And it grows stronger with emotion. When that emotion is directed at worshipping God, it is a beautiful thing. But if it were directed in love toward a human, in the course of passion—well, it would be too intense. It would consume the other in flame. Last night, when you said just one kiss, I thought that it would be safe enough, that I might be able to escape it or even control it in my human form. But I was wrong.”
I stared at him, unable to speak. The waves of heat that coursed from his fingers through my body convinced me it was true more than did the bandages covering my wounds. Still, I clung to any shred of hope.
“How do you know?” I demanded. “How can you be sure?”
He snorted and gestured about me, letting one finger trace the line of bandages wrapped around my arm. “Just look at you. This is evidence enough.”
“It could have been something else.” My chin raised an inch, defying him to prove me wrong.
A rueful smile flitted across his face. “Even injured, you are stubborn and idealistic, aren’t you?”
Gently, he released my arm and looked at me with wary eyes. “You know the story of Lot’s wife, looking back on Sodom and turning into a pillar of salt?” Michael continued.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Just another instance of bad after-the-fact reportage. She was with an angel. She turned not to salt, but to ash.” Michael flexed his fingers into angry fists, the bitterness returning to his face. “God intends for our love to center upon Him alone. The fire is all-consuming, except for He who commands it.”
There was a long pause, during which I stared at him. Carefully, Michael lifted his hand and gingerly trailed a finger down the side of my face. “We were lucky. The burns are not too deep. Some are no worse than a bad sunburn. Other places—”
“What about the other places?” I prompted him.
“They blistered. And now they are raw. That’s why we wrapped you, to keep away infection. The doctors say you will heal with a little time, and maybe you’ll avoid scarring.”
I hadn’t thought ahead that far, to think about how I would look. I didn’t like the sound of that “maybe.” But now was not the time to dwell on it. I shifted so that I could face Michael and fixed him with a carefully neutral expression.
“How did you manage to get doctors here?”
He shrugged, looked away. “I suppose it’s a benefit of being a high roller.”
“All those nights in the casino paid off for you, I guess.” I couldn’t keep the note of accusation out of my voice.
He looked at me, startled. “I suppose so. The staff was very responsive when I asked for help. Apparently, they keep a few doctors and nurses on the payroll. The need for some quiet medical attention is not that uncommon here.”
Too convenient, Henri hissed. Almost as if he’d planned it.
The suspicion that Henri planted entwined itself about my mind. Now that the idea was there, I couldn’t overlook it. It seemed so obvious. A cold, calculating fury, stoked with the embarrassment of being so naïve, started taking over my brain.
“I guess I’m lucky I’m in bed and not a pillar of ash, huh?” My mouth twisted as the lame jest left my lips.
He grunted with disgust, his hands gripping the rails of the hospital bed so hard that his knuckles turned white. “It’s not funny, Hope. You could have been killed. I could have killed you. The one thing I vowed I would never do, and I nearly did it because of my own selfishness.”
He had given me the opening, so I took it.
“Why didn’t you?”
I heard the sharp intake of his breath and saw the shock on his face. “You can’t mean that.”
Don’t let him squirm away. You deserve the truth.
“It would have been easier for you. Just to let me die.”
His eyes glittered brightly. He reached for me, but stopped himself. “I thought—”
“You thought what?” I replied, tapping into the hurt I hadn’t even realized was there. “You thought that you could just tell me you loved me and everything would be better? That then I would ignore the impossible situation that we’re in? Ignore that there is only one way this could ever end?”
“But you asked me to—”
My voice cracked as the words rushed out, cutting him off. “I asked you to do something, and you did it—without giving me the full picture of what that would mean.”
I thought about how I’d pushed him, begged him even, to prove he loved me with that kiss. A strangled sound emerged from my throat as I realized that I’d only made it worse for myself. I was going to have to live for the rest of my life knowing what it was like to be touched by Michael just for that one exquisite moment before all hell broke loose. Nothing would ever possibly compare to that—my first kiss. I would have to deal with a memory of something that I would never, ever have again. Whatever sweetness I could have salvaged from that memory would be cut by the bitter realization that I would never know if Michael truly loved me—loved me so much he couldn’t help himself—or if this had all been part of some sick game he’d been playing with me. My head pounded as the next, obvious conclusion fought its way to the forefront of my mind.
Before I could stop myself, I voiced the idea. “Maybe you did this on purpose.”
I felt the sting of tears on my face again. I sniffed and dragged one of my bandaged arms across my face. I stared at Michael, daring him to contradict me, wanting him to contradict me, but his face was a mask. His eyes had gone dark, shutting me out.
“Perhaps it is better this way. Better for you to be wary.” He sounded tired, defeated.
“Maybe it is,” I agreed, turning away from him to bury my face in the pillow.
“I’ll get the nurse to give you more morphine,” he sighed. He stood up and made as if to go.
“Don’t,” I said suddenly.
He stopped. “Don’t go?”
“No,” I said, sitting up in the bed, trying not to wince. “Don’t get the morphine. I don’t want any more drugs. I need to be alert.” Throughout the whole conversation, in the back of my mind, an idea had been taking shape. It was spinning and twisting and now it was coming to the forefront, demanding my attention, demanding its voice.
“Why?” he asked, puzzled.
As if you didn’t have reason enough to be on your guard, Henri snorted. Next chance he gets, he may burn you to a crisp.
The image of my childhood abductor melted to ash in the motel bathroom, captured forever in the faded photograph pressed into my mother’s scrapbook, rose unbidden in my mind. I forced myself to ignore it. Grimacing, I threw one leg over the side of the bed, preparing to push off. “I need to be alert when we go to the Chinese.”
Michael looked at me, confused. I continued explaining to him as I stretched out a foot, carefully gaining my balance.
“It couldn’t be more obvious. Look at me.” I gestured about with my bandaged arms. “They didn’t trust you because they thought you didn’t have me under control, right? But now, as far as they know, you punished me for embarrassing you in front of your friends. A nice faceful of acid, right?” I hovered there, the pain suddenly intense. A wave of nausea came over me and I held my breath, waiting for it to pass, before continuing. “You show them you’re tough, you show t
hem you’re in charge. You show them that you know how to take care of your own. You save face. Problem solved. We get back in.”
His face folded into stony crags and he crossed his arms emphatically. “There’s no way I am letting you do that.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I hissed at him. “If you want that Key, you need me. And I want Maria. This is the only hope we have of getting back in there and finding her.”
He stared at me, his hard eyes turning pleading. “You should be resting. You could get hurt.”
“I already am hurt,” I snapped at him. “It might as well be for a good reason. Besides, the doctor said I could be mobile within twenty-four hours.”
He stood, frozen at the foot of my bed, unsure.
“How do you know what the doctor said?” he asked.
“Never mind how, but I know I heard him say that. And you heard him, too. By the time we get in it will have almost been that long. So what do you say? You owe me this much, Michael.”
He waited, torn.
I hardened my heart. “If you say no, then your true intentions will be clear. No more pretending.”
Finally, he dropped his head, nodding in assent. “I’ll make the call.”
seventeen
Five hours later we were driving down Spring Mountain Road. The nurse had thrown a holy fit when she’d realized that we were planning to leave the safety of our cocoon, threatening to call the doctors, but Michael had paid her off with a stack of chips he’d stashed away in a drawer. Satisfied, she’d slipped off. We were safe until morning, when the shift change was supposed to take place. Hopefully by then we’d be back.
Now we were driving through the glow of neon from the signs of endless rows of Chinese and Thai restaurants. We were in the heart of Las Vegas’s tiny Chinatown, on our way to meet the men who held Maria.
Every time Michael changed lanes or swerved, my entire body screamed with pain. I was taking nothing but triple doses of ibuprofen now, trying to keep my head clear for whatever lay ahead. Each time the pain came, I breathed deeply, talking myself through it until it crested and left my aching body. Even though it hurt, it was a welcome distraction from the gaping quiet that filled the car and the ache of the distance between Michael and me, which had somehow grown even deeper. He had put on the guise of my father once more as easily as making a change of clothes, but this time I couldn’t tell if the change made it easier or harder for me to be around him.
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