by Lisa M Basso
The voice behind me sent ghostly chills across my skin.
My chest swelled, filling with sunshine and butterflies and … and love. By the time I turned toward the voice my eyes were so filled with tears I couldn’t even make him out. Still, even if it was a hallucination, or trick, or another of fate’s cruel jokes, it wouldn’t have mattered.
I sprang from my seat and didn’t stop running until that familiar pair of arms was around me. I sobbed and dropped to my knees. This time, not even he could hold me up. He simply followed me, on his knees, refusing to let go.
“But … but you were so close to me. How did you … ?”
I couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t finish the thought.
“I guess when I sacrificed my wings, I got passed over. I felt the blast when it came out of you. It knocked me out cold, but … ”
Without letting him finish, I looked up at Kade, alive and well. I kissed him. Once, twice, again and again.
When my tears had dried and my knees ached, I asked, “So, does this mean we can finally go on that normal date you promised me?”
“Now why would I do that?” he asked, cocky smirk tipping up one side of his lips.
“Because, in case you haven’t heard, I’m kind of a big deal.”
His face broke into a real smile, something soft and genuine and amazing.
“In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been kind of a big deal to me for a long time.” He kissed me softly this time, sensually, taking his time, worrying my lower lip with tiny nips.
When he pulled back, I noticed his face had changed. Something was wrong. I knew that look, and when it showed up, nothing good could come of it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, noticing the look he and Cam exchanged.
“I’m going to have to take a rain check on that date. Cam and I, along with a few other angels, are going to track down the remaining wingless Fallen.”
“What? No. Y–you can’t!” I shook my head and pleaded with my eyes.
Kade lowered his voice, preserving this part of the conversation for just him and me. “We have to. They’re out there somewhere, just as dangerous as before.”
My voice pitched as I pushed off Kade and found my footing. “No, you don’t have your wings, and Cam”—I glanced back at Cam—“he’s human! What good are the two of you going to be in a hunt?”
Kade inched forward, cautiously, like I was a rabid bunny. “We know some of their faces. I know places where they might go. They’re stuck on Earth now. Word is even Lucifer is dead, and only the demons are left to run Hell. These few are the last ones.” Another step. “We both agreed to see this through, Ray.”
I back away, even though it was the last thing I wanted after thinking he was dead. Still, being in his arms now would cloud everything, and I needed a clear head for this conversation. “There’s no talking either of you out of it?” Both my boys shook their heads. “Then I’m going with you.”
Kade shook his head again, adamantly this time. “All of this, the angels, the hunt for the Fallen, the reopening of the city, it was all on hold until you woke up. We agreed that nothing would go forward before we knew you were okay. Now we know.”
The wheels in my head turned, trying to follow his lead. The clunky cogs spinning rusty gears failed. Miserably. “Which means?”
Kade rubbed his palms on his pants, the same dark gray military style pants he wore on our trip into the city. “We have to go. Now. And you, you have to go home, to your family.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve lost you again and again and again. Too many times. I won’t say goodbye anymore.”
Intensity crept into his face. Everything near his eyes sharpened, then slowly softened as he gazed into me, through me, to my very soul.
“If it takes one day or a thousand, I will come back to you. I will put everything I am into that promise, everything I have left. It’s—it’s all you.” He stroked the side of my face. “I have to go, and so do you. I will find you. Come Hell or the second coming of the goddamn apocalypse, I will find you.”
He tipped his forehead to mine, lacing his fingers at the back of my neck. “Okay?”
I could feel his breath, forced, as he inhaled and exhaled, waiting for my reply. This was when it hit me; he was just as much of a wreck as I was.
I cupped his face in my hands and tipped my forehead against his. “You’d better. Because if you don’t, I’ll come looking for you.”
A shadow passed above us. We both looked up, breaking our embrace. Elyon swooped down, still wingless to me, and landed beside us. “Quickly, Rayna, we have a helicopter coming for you. It’s already on its way.”
Kade and I looked at each other again. That face I thought I’d never see again. The face that I would never tire of seeing. He must have read something in my eyes to crane his head down to me again. In the softer-than-a-whisper voice that we used to communicate in Hell when we assumed we were being watched, I said, “Is Elyon coming with you, to hunt the rest of the Fallen?”
“No way I’d trust him farther than I could kick him.”
“Good.” I draped my fingers over his chest, reveling in the very real feel of him. “Heaven help you if you don’t come back to me in one piece.”
He hugged me. I broke the hug short, leaving Kade’s arms to sneak a hug to Cam.
Looking over Cam’s shoulder at Kade, I said, only to Cam, “Take care of yourself and take care of him.”
The whirring of an engine hummed in the distance. I separated from Cam. The first hint of any man-made machine in the sky since our return from Hell; the sound of progress. The beginning of the return to normalcy for the human world. For all our worlds. Every eye in the area shifted skyward, watching the propellers cut through the blue sky.
Determination sparked in Kade’s face. He took two ground-eating strides and wrapped me up in his arms again. I’d never had so much physical contact with anyone before in my life. Our separations had only solidified the crazy, absolute need to be near each other, with each other, no matter the cost or consequences.
“Take care of yourself and Cam too. Give the poor guy a chance to be human, okay?”
Kade nodded, his chin brushing the top of my head. I buried my face deeper into his neck, storing the memory of his scent. The wind picked up, the blades of the helicopter louder than I ever would have guessed. My hair whipped into Kade’s face. He only held me tighter. We clung to each other until there wasn’t anything left to do but turn our heads together to watch the aircraft that would ultimately separate us again.
A man dropped down from the passenger side, ducking to avoid the still-spinning blades. His light gray suit and brown leather dress shoes looked out of place when the rest of us were still dressed for battle—well, I was in a hospital gown and a bathrobe, but everyone else was dressed appropriately—until he straightened his white tie against his stark white shirt. He had to be an angel; they had a knack for wearing white better than any human I’d ever seen. If it was possible, Kade held me even tighter as he approached.
“The pilot is influenced,” the angel called over the din. “The less you talk to him and look him in the eye, the less we’ll have to wipe from his brain. Now let’s get you in the air. It’s a long flight to the Caribbean.”
The Caribbean was a long way from San Francisco. A long way from where I was leaving my heart.
I stood on my tiptoes, grabbing the back of Kade’s shirt. “Don’t make me hate you forever.” I meant for it to sound intimidating. The result was much shakier.
Kade tipped his lips to mine and claimed me, softly, sweetly. Drawing his tongue across my lower lip, he nipped it once. Heat built up in my cheeks and my stomach, and for the first time in a long time I didn’t have to worry about what might happen if I let myself go. I was safe with Kade, and more importantly he was safe with me. This knowledge helped me relax into him as he lifted my feet off the ground.
When he put me down, the only thing I could think abo
ut was how he’d never kissed me that way before. Nothing felt more like goodbye than that kiss had. He released me so slowly it hurt. I reluctantly followed the angel to the helicopter.
The angel placed me in the back seat and slid into his seat beside the pilot. I slipped the oversized headphones on the way he simulated, then steadied myself before I looked out the window at Kade, Cam, Elyon, and my home as the helicopter lifted steadily off the ground. I watched them until they became tiny black pinpoints. Soon, all I could see was water, the Pacific Ocean and the tears swimming in my vision. All I could feel was emptiness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Rayna
I ripped the lettuce into pieces with my hands, not bothering with the knife on the counter. It felt good to be using my hands again this way. Dirt gathered at the bottom of the sink from the carrots, radishes, and tomatoes left in the colander. My vegetables, from my garden.
Dad’s tablet, propped up against its stand, chimed out a ringtone. With a wet finger, I slid the bar at the bottom across to answer the video chat. “Finally,” I said as soon as the picture on the other end came into view. “You’re five minutes late.”
Lee’s face, complete with his new, frameless glasses and slicked aside hair, pixilated on the screen before it cleared. “Sorry, Ray, I was on diaper duty.”
“No way Auntie Rayna’s favorite niece could stir up that much trouble,” I said, dropping the head of lettuce back into the colander.
Gina plopped onto the bed beside Lee, causing the camera on their end to bounce. “Yeah right, why don’t you try babysitting one night? Then you’ll see how sweet and innocent Auntie Ray’s niece really is.”
I waved at Gina, wet fingers dripping onto the counter.
“Damn, chica,” she said leaning in closer to her screen. “I think you need to send some of that sun you’ve obviously been getting over our way.
“Yeah, San Francisco’s been so foggy since we moved back.” Lee agreed.
“I’ve been wondering, how is it there, with the city restructured and everything?”
“It’s great for us,” Lee said, using the adorable us to answer for him and Gina. “A lot of people are too scared to move back after all the unpleasantness here, so we’re renting a house for a killer deal.”
Gina nodded. “Plus it’s really close to our school.”
They were living with Lee’s mom and both attending San Francisco State University full-time. Between free childcare at school and Lee’s mom eager to help out with the baby, they were really making it work.
A sharp squeal pitched through the tablet’s speakers.
“Uh oh,” Gina said, leaving the bed for a second, then coming back with a different kind of angel. “Say hi to Auntie Ray, Phoebe.” The almost ten-month-old wore a pale pink dress with hot pink and leopard leggings underneath. Her round face was dark and her tightly curled hair sprang up everywhere, but her eyes and nose were all Luke’s. She was the beautiful product of both her parents.
“Hi, sweetheart!” I beamed, touching the screen and wishing I could hold her, just once.
Gina’s phone chimed. “Oh, sorry, Ray. Gotta go. That’s Luke. He’s on his way to pick up Phoebe for his weekend. We’ll talk later, k?”
“No problem. Bye, Gina. Bye, Phoebe!” I set my sights back on Lee. “You two seem to be handling everything really well. You guys are doing okay?”
Lee glanced over his shoulder before leaning in closer, tugging his screen over so he was centered in the picture. “We’re better than okay. We’re doing great. I mean, it’s hard. A lot of the time it’s hard, but it’s worth it.”
I cracked a smile. “Lee, I’m so happy for you. I’m glad everything worked out.”
His face fell a bit and he got quiet. I’d seen this side of him before, and there was nothing to do but wait him out. “Speaking of happy … any news on … ?”
I held up a hand toward the screen. “What is it about He Who Shall Not Be Named being brought into all of our conversations lately?”
Lee tipped his head a bit. “It’s been six months, Ray. I would have thought you’d have heard something by now. Not a phone call, postcard—”
“Contact is too dangerous. I guess.” Which wasn’t true, since Lee and I had been communicating via video chat since the week I’d arrived in the Caribbean.
“And how are you feeling about that?”
“Lee, please. If I wanted to have a conversation with a therapist, I’d go back to the SS Crazy. Okay? I don’t want to talk about that. At all.”
The door to Dad’s office, around the corner from the dining room, clicked and flew open. He grumbled about the door sticking. My reaction was always, “It’s summer. We live on an island. It’s humid. All the doors stick.” Still, every time he muttered at that particular door when he opened it.
He scratched his cheek and smiled at me. “Who you talking to, Ray?”
“Who else would I be talking to?” I chimed back.
Dad waved at the screen as he passed behind me. “Hey, Lee. Hope everything’s good!”
“Hey, Mr. Evans,” Lee waved back.
Dad poured himself a tall glass of orange juice, then left the kitchen with a parting, “Send your mom and that pretty little girl our love,” before he went around the corner to the den. I heard him start to complain about something to Laylah.
“By pretty little girl, does he me mean Gina or Phoebe?”
I rolled my eyes. “With Dad, who knows?”
“Oh fudge! Fidgety, fudge, fudge,” Gina shouted in the background.
“Do you need help with that, babe?” Lee called over his right shoulder.
“No, hon, it’s okay. You talk to Ray. I’ve got this.”
Phoebe wailed, her screams piercing through the speakers into our kitchen.
Lee scrambled off the bed and leaned into his laptop’s camera. “Hey, Ray, I’ll call you later when we get some quiet time. I want to hear the rest of the story about how everything went down with the angels. You keep putting it off.”
I’d been telling Lee (and sometimes Gina) little bits of the story of San Francisco and the angels—and the Fallen—but I didn’t know if it was a good idea to keep going. I’d spun a quick version of the story to Dad and Laylah, but neither of them seemed too enthusiastic about what I had to say. They knew I wasn’t crazy, that I worked with the angels, and that was as much as they needed. As for Lee, he’d heard more of the story than anyone else. I’d given him details I probably should have withheld. But what could I do? He was my best friend and he wanted to know.
Though, I still told him nothing about Hell—no one here knew a thing about my time in Hell. That wasn’t a story I’d ever share.
“Sure. Next time,” I hedged, trying my best to hide my disappointment. “Talk to you later.”
I pressed the end key on the chat, then finished prepping the salad. The timer dinged for the lasagna a few minutes later, calling Dad and Laylah into the dining room. I placed the salad on the table and watched Laylah carefully truck the hot lasagna over.
Nothing about my little sister screamed little anymore. Her blond hair, bleached lighter by the Caribbean sun, was almost to her waist now. Her face had thinned out a bit, revealing cheekbones even Mom would have been envious of. She was half an inch taller than me, with hints of curves even in the floral beach cover-ups she wore. The girl who I hadn’t seen since she was fourteen was mere months away from being sixteen. I’d also missed two birthdays of my own, one in Hell and one in the coma I’d been in after I’d disintegrated the Fallen. Laylah would start a new school in the fall, as a junior, and I would start online college—thanks to a falsified high school diploma courtesy of the angels. A parting gift for saving the world and ruining my life in the process.
I took my seat across from Laylah at the eight-seater table—much bigger than we would ever need, which was pretty much the motto of the entire house the angels had set us up in. Remembering the salad dressing, I jumped up, and was halfway to t
he fridge when a bell in the hallway chimed.
I looked around, confused.
“Would you mind getting the door, Ray?” Dad asked around a mouthful of steaming lasagna.
The door? In all the time we’d been here, we’d never had a visitor. That was the way it was supposed to be for a girl whose face had been plastered all over the news for weeks. I grabbed a knife from the counter and slid it behind my back before I pulled the door open.
A blond boy with pink cheeks stood on the porch, the low afternoon sun glowing in his hair.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Cam,” I breathed and dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor as I pulled him inside and hugged him. “I—what—how did you—?”
I couldn’t string a single question together before Dad called out, “You two are letting all the cold air out. Come on in, Cam.”
I narrowed my eyes down the hall toward the dining room. Dad knew. Nice of him to keep me in the loop. I had a hundred thousand questions for him, but they could wait until after dinner. Cam was human, after all; he needed to eat.
Just before I closed the door all the way, Cam turned back to me, standing very, very close. I had to angle my head back so I didn’t bump my forehead into his nose. “He’s waiting on the porch.”
My heart somersaulted. “Well, why didn’t you tell him to come in?” I asked with a smile, fingers still on the doorknob.
Cam stopped me from pulling the door open, stepping in front of me again, this time even closer. When he spoke his voice was soft enough to keep the conversation to ourselves. “There’s something you should know before you go out there.”
His words smacked into me like a motorcycle colliding with a brick wall. I jerked back. “What? What happened?”
Cam lowered his eyes. “He’s … being tested.”
“What? Tested by who?”
Cam parted his lips, but hesitated.
My grip tightened on the doorknob. Kade was one door away from me, and this conversation was keeping us apart. We’d already had enough of that. “Whatever is going on, just tell me. What do I absolutely need to know right this minute?”