I thought of all the people we’d seen sleeping in cars and felt guilty. Tabby must have seen it in my face.
“A place to stretch out at night, Hope. And hot showers. Before it was a daycare, it was a women-only gym.”
I could almost feel the knots unwinding in my neck and back at the thought.
“What can we do to repay you for this kindness, Reverend?” Michael said dutifully, our staying now a given.
Harlan shrugged. “If you’re moved to donate before you leave, you are more than welcome.” Then his chin lifted and his eyes flashed. “But the best thing would be for you to catch the criminals preying on those girls.”
A quick tour of the facility took no more than thirty minutes, the residents darting in and out, shy, as we tried to stay out of their way. We’d missed the dinner hour, so we scrounged for ourselves in the utilitarian kitchen, making a meal out of the leftovers. As darkness fell, we cleared some space amid the folding chairs and old nap mats to spread out our blankets and pillows.
Michael was pounding his pillow as if trying to beat it into submission. I hid a smile of sympathy, imagining he was picturing the bland, blank faces of the rig workers he’d questioned earlier in the day.
“It will be nice to stretch out for a change,” I offered gently, hoping to distract him. “Are the others coming?”
“No. They said that it’s easier for them to recharge the angel way. They’ll join us in the morning.”
I hesitated. “You know, you don’t need to stay. If you’d prefer to …”
“I know. I want to be here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Tabby looked at me over her wire-rimmed glasses and mouthed: Do you want me to find somewhere else to sleep?
Blushing, I shook my head. No, I thought. There’s no need. It’s not as if Michael would find the aroma of crayons and spilled juice boxes on the ratty floor of a former kindergarten particularly romantic.
We all settled into our makeshift beds, and soon the air was filled with the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. That is, Tabby and Michael’s deep sleep: my body, feeling every little lump underneath the mélange of blankets, refused to relax, holding onto each ache and sore spot like a miser.
I flipped over and found myself staring at Michael’s back. He was sleeping in an undershirt, the white cotton stretched taut over his broad shoulders, his skin gleaming impossibly golden in the faint moonlight that trickled in through the front windows.
I curled my knees up to my chin and watched him breathing, my own heart slowing to match his steady pace. Through the lingering smells of sweat and chalk dust his own scent of honey and hay, earthy and warm, drifted over to me.
It was all I could do to stop myself from reaching out to touch him. Instead, I slid out from the tangle of blankets and stealthily made my way to the back locker room, intent on a shower.
I pushed open the swinging door, flickering a glance at the posted men’s and women’s hours. Surely nobody would be up at this lonely hour—nobody but me, that is.
I blinked in the sudden, ghostly glow of the fluorescent light. The drab converted locker room was sparkling clean, the evidence of many hands deployed against the chore chart Harlan had showed us in the kitchen. I walked past the utilitarian sinks and toilet stalls, ignoring the bank of banged up metal lockers on the opposite wall until I reached one of two shower stalls and turned the water on, cranking the knob as far as it could go.
Droplets of water bounced off the tile, sprinkling me where I stood. Soon, a haze of steam rose from the floor. I let the water warm while I went back to the lockers, stripping down until my clothes were a neat pile on the scuffed wooden bench.
I snatched a scratchy towel out of a cubby and walked back to the shower. Hanging the towel on a plain hook, I pulled the vinyl curtain, its edges just beginning to discolor with mold, behind me and eased into the curling mist.
I sighed with relief, the pelting water sinking into my skin, washing away the weariness of the day. I stood motionless, letting the heat and the syncopation of the water echoing on the plain tiles echo around my head drown out any conscious thought of the dread that threatened to overwhelm me.
Soon the air around my head was a nimbus of steam. I eased the heat a little lower and let the water massage my hair, face, and body, my closed eyes shutting out everything but the delicious feeling.
I don’t know how long I stood like that, engulfed in some primeval state of meditation. The air around me swirled, the currents of hot and cold warring with each other as reluctantly I forced myself to action, scrubbing away the grime of days’ worth of hard living with the nub of soap I’d managed to scrounge. As my hands moved over calf and thigh, over taut stomach and back, I considered how long it had been since Michael had touched me: really touched me, skin on skin, with the rush of heat and pleasure that came along with his touch. I pushed the traitorous thought away and scrubbed harder, dropping my head to watch the suds whirl about the drain, circling until they succumbed inevitably to the dark vortex of plumbing.
I sighed again, knowing that the church’s budget probably did not allow for hour-long showers, and I turned the knob until the stream of water dwindled to the drip drip drip of memory.
I threw the curtain open and stepped into the bracing air. Shaking, I wrapped the towel around my middle, the threadbare, patchy cotton almost translucent in places. I looked out at the rest of the locker room—it was nothing but steam. Guiltily, I wondered just how long I had lingered under the hot water. Shivering, I drew the towel tighter about me and made my way over the slick tile toward the sinks, a cautious hand stretched before me.
I finally hit cold porcelain. Reaching ahead through the steam, I swiped my hand over the mirror’s surface.
Michael’s face, hovering over my own reflection, stared back at me in the glass.
I whirled, clutching the towel before my chest.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, the bare skin of my waist pressing up against the sink.
His azure eyes were clouded and troubled.
“I missed you,” he said simply, staring at me intently.
I gaped back, feeling the rush of blood to my cheeks as I stood under his gaze.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he started again, taking a few quick steps to close the distance between us. “I just needed to be sure you were okay.”
The familiar pull, low in my abdomen, was growing, threatening all my defenses.
“I’m fine,” I finally managed to croak.
He smiled, the lopsided grin that always made my heart do flips. He reached out and caressed my cheek and then, ever so gently, trailed his thumb over my cheekbone to chase away an errant droplet of water, leaving a tiny wake of heat and steam in its wake.
“I’m glad,” he said. He let his fingers drift down past my sopping hair to my neck, following the expanse of gooseflesh to my collarbone.
He stared into my eyes and I felt like a strange butterfly, stuck on a pin beneath his gaze.
“I just wanted you to know that I won’t leave you—at least not until you tell me to. You told me once that some choices were only yours to make. So I’m leaving this one to you.”
He backed away then, watching for my reaction. I could hear my heart, could feel it pounding frantically. I swallowed, trying to bring myself to speak, but my words had left me.
“I’ll leave it to you. But don’t you ever think that I don’t want you. More than ever, Carmichael,” he whispered as he disappeared into the cloud of steam. “More than ever. And for always.”
I heard the clang of the swinging door as he left. My quivering knees betrayed me then and I collapsed to the floor, pulling the towel tighter, my tears mingling with the tiny rivulets of water that ran off my wet hair and skin.
For four more days and nights, then, we split up, circling the motel parking lots stained by dirty snow, haunting the places we thought Macey and Rorie might be, cursing the endless stream of men going in and out of the motel ro
oms as casually as if they were getting their hair cut or picking up a pizza. We watched and waited, Michael’s and my senses seemingly stuck, unable to find our way out of the miasma of evil, hoping that we would see Macey or Rorie. We ignored the barbed comments flung our way by Raph. We ignored the inquisitive probing of Enoch, who wished to know exactly where Michael and I stood with one another. We ignored Tabby’s arched, knowing eyebrows and her not-so-secretly mouthed comments—just talk, you two!—and sat it out.
Most of all, we ignored each other, focused on the task at hand, grateful that Tabby had arrived loaded down with hand wipes and carefully packed coolers of soul food to feed our hungry, homesick stomachs and keep our mouths occupied so that we didn’t have to talk to one another. Even an angel used to manna couldn’t deny the power of collard greens and corn bread.
The whole time, I concentrated on repairing my instincts, getting them back in order to help us find who we needed to find. But the insistent low buzzing in my head and the swirling impulse that chased through my body, leading nowhere, were constant reminders of how ineffectual my inherited angelic sense of direction had become.
I pulled the fleece blanket closer about my shoulders, my bones creaking in protest after hours of being cramped in the front seat of the car.
There was no trust left between us, I thought. Me and Michael. And it was standing in our way. Neither one of us was strong enough on our own, but our severed bond meant our signals were frustratingly weak. That was why we couldn’t find Rorie and Macey now. And I knew that mending broken trust wasn’t as simple as gluing back together a broken piece of pottery.
I didn’t know how to forgive him—or I was too proud to do so. I didn’t know if I could believe in the idea of us anymore. That thought went over and over in my head as I curled my legs up under me and pressed my face to the cold glass of the window.
“Hope.”
I looked up and turned to face Michael. In the soft light of early dawn, his face was gray, shadowed by exhaustion.
“Look,” he said softly, pointing ahead.
There, stumbling out of a motel room, was Macey.
I rubbed my eyes, holding my breath as I peered at her, picking her way across the slippery parking lot, an oafish goon watching her every step. She was shaky, as if the wind sweeping the parking lot would knock her over. She leaned into it, wincing, digging her hand into her pocket, fumbling around and mumbling something to herself over and over. Her flesh was ashen and dull, the remnants of the too-bright makeup smeared across her face highlighting her pallor.
“It’s her,” I breathed. “We have to get her.” I reached for the door.
“No,” Michael intoned, his heavy hand staying me. “We can’t take her now. We need to follow her home. She’ll lead us to Rorie. Can you drive, Hope? Can you tail them without being seen so I can get the others?”
I swallowed hard, nodding my head. He squeezed my arm reassuringly. “It won’t take but a minute. I’ll be back. Just don’t be seen,” he emphasized.
Then, in a flash of light, he disappeared, leaving a few twinkling pinpoints, like falling stars, in his wake.
I scrambled over to the driver’s side and shifted into gear.
Don’t screw this up, Carmichael, I thought sternly, trying to remain calm and focused. Every cell in my body was screaming with urgency now that we had spied our target. This may be the only chance you get.
I pulled out onto the street, keeping myself a safe distance back from the low-slung car into which Macey had been unceremoniously dumped. Each tick of the odometer was torture, each minute of careful driving stretching for an hour, every instinct urging me to go faster, to speed past the unseemly banks of snow scarred by exhaust, to ram the car and pluck Macey out, bringing her to safety.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
In the end, it wasn’t that far away. We’d been hovering and circling about the spot for days, apparently, never finding it.
When the car turned into the industrial park, I kept going, my eyes never losing the car as it wound its way to the very back and parked next to a big warehouse.
There. There was where I would find my sister.
I parked and watched as Macey, dead on her feet, climbed out of the car and stumbled to the door. The man pushed her through unceremoniously and pulled the door closed behind him as they disappeared into the warehouse.
Michael had told me to wait. But I couldn’t. Not when I was so close.
I slid out of the car and closed the door quietly behind me, the bracing chill of morning air snapping me to full alertness. Moving across the snow, I circled around the back of the warehouse to check it out. Beside the door into which Macey had disappeared, there seemed to be a dock for trucks on the back, huge garage doors lining up to break the great expanse of wall, a single door of normal size punctuating the row.
No other entrances. No windows. Just corrugated metal presenting an impenetrable wall of sameness. The outside was equally sterile, only the heaps of junk that dotted the parking lot there to break up the monotony.
The buzzing in my head was a full shriek, now, insistent, surging to a level that was painful. The building pulled on me, urging me closer, the pain nipping at me and punishing me for not moving faster to finish my task. I bit my lip, choking back the sob that threatened to be ripped from my throat.
How could they stand this? The thought came unbidden. How could the Fallen not go crazy, if this was what they dealt with every moment of their banishment from Heaven?
I shook the unwelcome thoughts away, trying to clear my head. Ignoring the throbbing in my brain, I dodged around the lights of the parking lot, still harsh and cold as the sun rose, and pressed myself into the shadows as I looped back around to the front door.
I wrapped my fingers around the knob and turned.
Locked. Of course.
When I went back to the dock side of the warehouse, I had better luck. The side door had been carelessly left open. Checking over my shoulder, I ducked inside and pulled the door tight behind me, plunging myself into darkness.
I shuddered as a feeling of recognition came over me. Suddenly, I was thrust back into my childhood, a fifteen-year-old girl once again picking her way through an abandoned warehouse full of junk, unwittingly walking into a trap laid by the Fallen.
But I wasn’t fifteen anymore. This time, I was ready, I thought, for what lay ahead.
Slowly, I picked my way around the stacks of boxes and piles of junk that littered the floor, hands outstretched in the dark. There had to be a door to the interior on the other side of the building. There just had to be.
I made it to the far wall and groped about. A light switch.
I flicked it on and the blue tinge of fluorescent light flooded the room.
Blankets, chains, and handcuffs were strewn about the floor right nearby. I bent down to pick up the cuffs. The metal was heavy. I tried to imagine someone trapped out here, a tiny body bearing the weight of the cuffs in the frigid night, and frowned.
A hand clamped down on my shoulder.
I gasped, prying the fingers away as I jumped to my feet and whirled to face the intruder, fists raised, poised to strike.
“It’s just me!” Michael whispered urgently, holding his hands up over his head in the universal sign of submission. He looked silly doing it—the mighty, muscle-bound angel, his armor molded to his body, magnificent wings outspread, each feather sparkling under the light, held off by tiny me.
A wave of relief swamped my adrenaline-laced body. I gave a great sigh, forcing myself to give up the instinct to fight, and smiled despite myself.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked, accusing.
“I didn’t know when you’d be back. I couldn’t stop, not when I was so close.” I bit my lip again, wrapping my arms about me. “The pain, Michael … it was too much. I had to keep going.”
He nodded. “I feel it too.” The sinews of his neck were heavy and corded with tension, the vein in his foreh
ead throbbing. “We don’t have much time.”
I nodded, knowing instinctively that he was right. “Where are the others?”
“They’re coming from the other side. If we can get the girls out without a fight, we will. But we aren’t leaving without them,” he said grimly. “Come on.”
He led the way to the door and tested the knob. Unlocked. He paused, and then reached out to clutch my hand, pressing it to his chest.
“Whatever happens—” he began, but I cut him off, shaking my head.
“I know.”
He squeezed my hand once more, sending a burst of fortifying warmth through my body before releasing it. Then he inched the door open and peered through.
A long hallway stretched away from us, a series of closed doors lining the way. A few bare bulbs studded the ceiling, leaving dim circles of light below.
Michael held out a hand, cautioning me to stay behind him. Impatient, I pushed him aside and plowed ahead.
The first door I came to was locked. So was the next, and the next. Frustrated, I rattled the doorknobs, the flimsy walls shaking.
“Stand back,” Michael warned.
I pressed my back against the opposite wall and watched, amused, while he unsheathed his sword, raising it above his head. Writhing flames snaked up its silver blade, bouncing light down the dim hallway. With a smooth stroke, he separated the knob from the door, leaving it a molten blob on the floor. He reached through the gaping hole and unlatched the door from the inside.
He kicked it in, poised for a fight.
Empty.
“My turn,” I said, squaring off to face the next locked door. I didn’t wait for him to answer before I kicked it in. It splintered under the weight of my foot with a satisfying collapse.
“Hey! What the hell?”
I wheeled to see the goon who’d been escorting Macey to and from the motel bearing down on us, pistol raised and aimed at my head. I looked at the collapsed door. Frightened eyes suddenly appeared at the hole I’d made, peering out.
“Rorie! Macey!” I shouted. But the faces I could glimpse were unfamiliar. How many girls were in this place?
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