“So do you want to talk about this, or do you not want to talk about this?” Jon said. “For the record, I vote we talk about it, seeing as talking about it is the only thing I can do right about now.”
Aiden scoffed. “Not much to talk about. I’m terminally useless. From the sounds of it, I’m an actual hazard to people’s health. I should come with a warning.”
“There’s the cynical Aiden I love so much,” Jon said as he leaned on the railing. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, man. Not over something that…” Jon paused. “I don’t even know what to call this.”
“We can call it the truth. I remember all of it.”
“So this is really real, huh?” Jon crossed his arms. “Bummer.”
“When I first met Jin, she was shivering and scared out of her mind. So I decided, instantly, like it was my right, to be her shield. And the feeling was overwhelming, I couldn’t fight it. And look, it’s not like that woman is helpless. She holds me together more than anything, but it was my job—”
“Aiden,” Jon said, interrupting him. “You are not your job. She is not your job. What did they tell us, first day? ‘Don’t let this job become you,’ and you did that. That’s the only reason you feel like you failed her.”
“That’s because I did.”
Jon laughed derisively. “You’ve got to get over yourself. Don’t you get tired of...I don’t know, thinking that you have to save everything?”
Aiden narrowed his eyes. “That’s bullshit.”
“No. I’m serious. And it never ends, it’s always on playback, and all you do is let the tape stop, and then you rewind it. Look,” Jon said as he turned to Aiden. “It’s not your fault your father died. There was nothing you could do. You were just a kid. You can’t protect everyone. You can’t.”
Aiden turned away. He didn’t want to think about his dad, he didn’t want to think about the robbery gone bad. “Now’s not the time.”
“Yeah, it is. Were you even listening to anything Tinker Bell said in there? Keystones and souls and strings and shit? This is bigger than you, man. Get out of your own head. You aren’t a hero. You’re human. Nobody understands that better than Jin, better than I do.”
Aiden leaned forward and leaned his head on the railing. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Understand that this…whatever it is, happened to the both of you. That despite you wanting to have some kind of grown-man pity party, Jin has been strong. That she probably wants to crawl into your arms and be…vulnerable. If you want to protect her, be there for her.” Jon sighed deeply and turned for the house. “You don’t get to grieve for someone you didn’t lose, Aiden. Get it together.”
Aiden looked back through the door and saw Jin, huddled under the blanket, staring at the ceiling. Alive. Breathing.
A second—no—a third chance. He had to take it. He had to.
Chapter Forty-One
Dolce Confections
George Elder was a stern man.
Some would call him a dictator, someone who was used to having his way, someone accustomed to being behind the wheel, holding the whip.
No. It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that he was some megalomaniac with dreams of grandeur. He simply hated doing things more than once. Get it right the first time. That sort of thinking had saved his life a very long time ago, and it was a philosophy he espoused, a mantra he embraced. Measure twice, cut once. That didn’t apply to Imane, but a lot things didn’t apply to Imane.
He glanced at the inside of her wrist, staring at the phoenix symbol tattooed there. Measure once, cut as many times as you have to.
“Earth to Dad.”
George looked up to find his adoptive daughter smiling at him. It’d been thirteen years. Three tries.
“Are you going to take this for Mom?”
Internally, George recoiled. Ayesha’s dead, Imane. She’s been dead for so long. He blinked. Oh. She means Juba. His wife, her mother.
“Hey.”
George blinked and found Imane leaning across the table with a look on her face.
“I hope you weren't too...you know, you with Zicon the other night. He tries really hard and I know you have certain expectations of him but—”
“It was fine. We had a nice conversation.”
“Oh,” she said as she straightened. “Well, okay. He just seemed nervous that you were in town. It's good that you talked.”
“He's a good man, Imane, just...wayward from time to time. Nothing wrong with that.”
He’d walked a few blocks when he heard a noise behind him, like the slide of shoes across wet pavement. George didn’t break his stride. It wasn’t like they could prove who he was. He fingered the black-plated ring with his thumb. It sat alongside his wedding band, the most appropriate place for it considering its importance. “Give it up, boys. You’re not strong enough.”
There was a deep chuckle. “Your hearing is getting bad, old man. There’s only me.”
George paused and sniffed.
“Hugo.”
“You sound relived. That’s not like you.” A person stepped out of the shadows and George almost laughed. Hugo was still the same—pale, almost-white hair, golden-brown skin, dark eyes. Hugo was, to George’s old antiquated standards, neither man nor woman. An androgynous filter that warded away titles. He was beautiful, he was handsome. He was feminine, he was filled with virility. One day he felt like a suit and tie and a scruffy beard, the next day it was a smooth chin and liquid leggings.
Hugo visited him from time to time, unknown to most, but George was grateful for that. Because they were old friends, George was used to Hugo’s eccentricities. Sometimes it was the way Hugo dressed, sometimes it was the length of his hair, sometimes it was a trick he’d learned with that damned cigar smoke.
Today it was the shoes.
“Are those high-heeled boots?”
Hugo grinned. “Yeah. The impressive part is I managed to follow you for five blocks and you didn’t hear ’em click.”
“Well, cut it out. I thought it was those damned Cobras.”
“Watch your mouth—I am one of those damned Cobras. And what are you talking about? There is no hunt on your head.”
George stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked up at the sky. “Thank you for that.”
“Nothing to thank me for. You accepted the treaty. You just choose not to come home.”
“I don’t have a home, Hugo.”
Hugo waved him off. “I’m not doing this shit with you tonight. I came only because you’re right. There are two hunters in town, my subordinates. But they aren’t after you. We’re looking for a lost sheep of ours. Seen this kid?” Hugo reached into his shirt, down past his collar and pulled out an angloscan—something like a portable wanted poster. Hugo turned the angloscan towards him and this time George did laugh.
“This is who you’re looking for? He smelled funny, but I would have never thought. Yeah, I know him, but…why do you want him?”
“He’s Cobra. He’s been missing for years and they want him back. Where did you see him?”
“A diner a few blocks east of here. On Second Avenue. I would take you to him, but he doesn’t work tonight. He’s a good kid. Let me talk to him first, huh? Especially if I’m not going to see him again.”
Hugo shrugged. “Deal. Two nights.” Hugo spun and headed back down the street. George went in the opposite direction.
“Oh, Shemhazi?”
George froze at the name but still turned around.
“There’s a lot of shit going on. It would be good for people to see your face. You are missed.”
George managed a small smile. “I’ve got blood on my hands, Hugo. I’m the last person they want to see.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Teaneck, New Jersey
“If you’d stop…I don’t know—” Tahir flailed her arms as Key studied his image in the bathroom mirror.
“Stop what?”
Tahir gave him a pointed look over his s
houlder and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, so it’s fun. Shoot me. Have you seen him? He inflates up like a… like a…” Key paused to think, and then began laughing louder. “It’s like he puts his thumb in his mouth and blows and now we’ve got this watered-down version of Shaft. He’s all sharp teeth and big muscles and soft brains. ‘Look at me, Jonathan Kim, super-cop angel-hater, hear me roar, my word is law, yada yada yada.’ It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“It’s cute.”
Tahir groaned and plopped her forehead on Key’s shoulder. “Stop flirting with him. No, I take that back because you’re not even flirting with him. You’re taunting him, which is funny because I’m starting to get the feeling you actually like him.”
“That’s neither here nor there.”
Tahir eased her head off Key’s shoulder and met his eyes in the mirror. Key wasn’t smiling. Tahir threw her hands up and groaned. “God help us all. Help us all.”
Key waved her off. “Kill the dramatics.”
Jon walked past the bathroom and found Key and Tahir occupying most of it. He thought about continuing to his assigned room, closing his door, and going to sleep. Sleeping, and ignoring everything that had happened to him in the last few hours. That would be the smart thing to do. Then he heard Key hiss, and Jon’s steps slowed to a reluctant stop. Sighing, he turned around and retraced his steps until he was standing in the doorway, staring into the small bathroom. Key held a dish rag filled with ice up against his eye while Tahir hawked his reflection over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes as she spoke and winced every time the ice slid over a purpling bruise.
Okay, so Jon felt bad, just a little, for flying off the handle like that. He was trained for better, had been up against more evasive foes, had battled wits with geniuses. Key’s obsession with withholding information—even with their lives on the line—wasn’t the most infuriating thing he’d ever experienced. No. No, that was a lie. It was the most infuriating thing to ever exist. He didn’t care what kind of secret society of aliens Key had to protect…people were trying to kill them.
Still, he didn’t have to hit him. It wasn’t an honorable thing to do.
Jon cleared his throat as an announcement as he walked into the bathroom. It had a vintage feel to it, with a mosaic marble floor and a cream, free-standing tub with a whimsical floral shower curtain drawn around it.
“If you’re looking to take a shower, we tried the water. Gets hot pretty quick, but…no soap. You do bathe, right?” Key said as he glanced up. Tahir gave Key a look before making her exit.
“Sometimes,” Jon answered gruffly as he swung open the door to a tall cabinet against the wall in search of something. He shoved a few empty plastic containers around.
“I don’t know if this is in your realm of ability, but if you could try to be a tad bit quieter I’d appreciate it. Someone deemed it necessary to use my head as a punching bag earlier tonight, and it's killing me—yet you're making enough noise to raise the dead.”
“If you want quiet, maybe you should keep your long-winded monologues to yourself.”
“God, you’ve got a winning personality, if nothing else. I get the warm and fuzzies every time you open your mouth.”
“What you get isn’t my concern,” Jon said. He slid his hand deep in the cabinet, past a hair dryer he was sure didn’t work and ran across what he’d been looking for. Turning, he wrapped a hand around Key’s wrist, ignoring the request to let go as he dragged Key to the toilet. He flipped down the lid. “Sit,” Jon said, and without waiting for him to do so, not-so-gently pushed him onto the seat.
Key eyed what Jon placed on the counter, unimpressed. “You’ve got to give your obsession with first aid kits a rest.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Jon flipped open the kit. Flinging random items out of the way, he grabbed a small applicator of alcohol. “Uh, sorry about all the…you know…face-smashing I did.”
“Face-smashing,” Key deadpanned. “You’re a Neanderthal.”
Jon ignored the quip as he tore the applicator out of its package. He peered at the cut on the edge of Key’s brow bone. It wasn’t too bad, didn’t look like it needed stitches, but it still looked painful. “This is going to sting. Am I going to have to hold you down to clean this?”
Key offered a mischievous smile. “I’m a big boy. I’ll behave.”
Easier said than done, because as soon as the swab hit the open cut, Key hissed and jerked away. Jon grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his head closer.
“This is the one thing, maybe the only—oh my god, easy!—thing that I hate about being down here. Stupid realm doesn’t allow self-healing.” With each pass of the swab Key inhaled sharply. “Please say you’re done. Please.”
“So much for being a big boy.” Jon looked down and saw Key’s white- knuckled grip on the edge of the vanity. “Stop being a baby and hold still.” Jon threw the applicator away. Pulling Key even closer, he blew on the cut before he covered it with a small bandage. “I always imagined ‘angels’ having a higher pain threshold than that.”
“Air quote my existence again and I’ll pitch a fit so monstrous you’ll have to tie me down.”
“Scary.” Jon laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. “So, a half-angel, huh?” he said as he leaned back against the wall. “See? Without the air quotes. What makes you guys so different from regular angels and regular humans?”
“We’re a mesh of both. It’s a bit hard to explain.” Key stood up, edging around Jon.
“You didn’t even try to,” Jon mumbled. “Hey, you think all this hoobly-boobly stuff is over with, now that Jin is safe?”
“I want to say yes. I want to say that tomorrow we’ll receive the message to go home and you guys can clean up the mess. But…”
Jon raised one eyebrow in surprise. “No way. There can’t be more. What more could there be?”
Key laughed. “I tell you that your friend has died multiple times, I tell you that I’m a half-angel freak—your words—toting around two other half-angel freaks, I essentially tell you the secret of life, and you’re okay with it, everything is good. I tell you that we’re not out of danger and oh, here comes the disbelief.”
“Your memory is horrible. I’ve been in a state of perpetual disbelief all night. Sorry if it’s taking a while to wrap my head around all this Mother Goose shit.”
“Fine.” Key hopped up on the vanity beside Jon and wrinkled his nose. “You know how you look at the moon at night and know that on the other side its complete darkness? Or how you know that what goes up must come down. That crap? Well, do you think because we’ve stopped Shen that’s the end? Shen and Jin were supposed to die together, yet Jin was saved. Shen Park was saved by that very same absolution. It’d be a pretty romantic story if Shen wasn’t a maladjusted sociopath, but he is.”
“What was all that crap about fate readjusting itself?”
“It has. Her timeline has splintered off and is reworking the possibilities as we speak, however without the revelation of an anomaly, I’m not privy to that information. In a normal world, Shen’s eventual apprehension for his escape would be inevitable, and Jin would be safe…if Shen were working alone.”
“Nobody would be stupid enough to help Shen in New York. That’s too much heat.”
Key tilted his head. “You’re thinking of the wrong kind of help. If we, sentient beings of light—for lack of a better phrase—are here, fighting for good, and since it is an immutable law that for every action, an equal and opposite reaction is to occur, what makes you think that there isn’t something ‘dark’ aiding Shen at this very moment?”
Jon groaned.
“That’s an appropriate reaction. I apologize for involving you in this, but per my orders, I was to round up every good man, and you’re about as good a man as I can think of.” Key trailed his hand across Jon’s chest on his way out of the bathroom. “Round up the kids, Papa Bear. We’re not done yet.”
Chapter Forty-Three
; Jin was used to a certain type of reaction, because that was how science worked. With Aiden, she could figure out his reaction using a pretty simple formula. Danger plus loved ones equaled a series of events—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She’d seen it before, had him down to a science.
Denial was...denial, shallow like stagnant water lapping at his ankles. Anger. Well, he hadn’t quite stopped being angry yet. Anger, however rash and unpredictable, was the most relatable of all emotions—wild and feral, plainly recognizable, and easy to diagnose. It stuck to your bones like your momma’s southern cooking.
Depression was easy to diagnose, and acceptance was slow and steady like honey dripping from a dipper.
But bargaining? It was like a drug.
It took three days for Aiden to come to Jin without a haunted look in his eyes. Three days for him to come to her without the regret, and three days without apologizing. It was surreal, hearing him apologize for something as ridiculous as “letting” her die.
They’d gotten into an argument. She remembered Aiden’s words.
“Do you always have to do this? Be some kind of self-sacrificing martyr, shelving yourself for everyone around you? I don’t need you to pretend that you’re perfect, that you are better than me, and that you aren’t as selfish as I am. I don’t need you to be that!”
If anything hurt, that hurt the most. If she were some kind of perfect, self- sacrificing fool, then she would be dead and Chaerin would be alive. He was upset that he didn’t save her life? She was upset that he thought he had that kind of control.
It took days, but eventually he bartered guilt for desire, and swapped apologies for kisses.
He’d woken Jin up in the gray light of the early morning with poignantly slow hands roaming over her body and his warm, pliant frame pressed up against hers. She opened her eyes to his deep-set, brown ones staring down at her, and however corny and misplaced it sounded, it was like he was staring into her soul.
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