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She’d hesitated when she first saw him, then said something to the other girl and came over alone. She still wore the black T-shirt she’d had on for the simulation, now with an oversize sweater on top.
“Hi,” she said faintly when she reached him.
Seeing her bright, buoyant aura so cowed made Seb ache inside. “Are you all right?” he asked. He barely stopped himself from calling her chiquita.
Meghan crossed her arms tight and stared down at the shopping level below, where AKs stood talking in huddled groups. “I guess. As okay as any of us. ” Her blue eyes were anxious as she looked back at him. “What about you, though? You were right there when Sam…when…” Her voice faltered.
Without thinking Seb moved closer, ready to take her in his arms. She stepped back, wiping her eyes. “No, don’t,” she ordered softly. “Nothing’s changed. It just makes it harder. ”
“You’re right,” he said after an awkward pause. “I’m sorry. But, Meggie, I…” He trailed off. Everything had already been said a hundred times. Meghan knew how much he cared about her. It wasn’t enough.
From her expression, she knew that he had nothing new to say…and wasn’t surprised. “I’ll see you later, Seb,” she said quietly. She turned and walked away.
Seb stood looking after her as she started down the stilled escalators, graceful even in her too-large clothes. A memory came of Meghan lying on his bed, watching him dress. “What’s this from?” she’d asked, reaching out to touch the raised, twisting scar on his stomach.
“From when I was a pirate,” he’d said with a grin. “I was very bad; they had to punish me with the whip. ”
“Ooh, a rebel pirate…sexy. ” Her auburn hair had been half falling over her face, her generous mouth smiling. Her finger traced the scar, following its curves. “What’s it from really?”
When girls in the past had asked about his scars, he’d spun stories until they gave up. But as always with Meghan, Seb had found himself telling the truth: his mother’s boyfriend had beaten him with a belt when he was small; the buckle had ripped open his skin. Without stitches, the wound had healed badly.
Her face had become very still. When he finished, she said nothing – but leaned over and pressed gentle lips against the scar.
“Meggie, it’s all right,” he’d said, crouching down and touching her hair. “I haven’t thought about it for a long time. ” It was true, yet the tenderness of her gesture had touched him deeply.
Still gazing after Meghan, Seb took in the stray auburn tendrils curling lightly against her neck – knew by heart the smell of her shampoo, the feel of her hair as he curled a fiery strand around a finger. Pain touched him, and he looked away. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with her? It should have been so easy. But, no, it was Willow, always Willow – no matter what the hell he did, like a sickness he could never get rid of.
He started back to the food court, fists buried in his jacket pockets. He’d been lonely most of his life; you’d think he’d have gotten used to it by now. But these last few months, he’d reached a whole new level. Meghan had taken the sunshine with her, leaving him more taunted than ever by what he couldn’t have.
It would have been better for her if she’d never met me, he told himself harshly. Meghan, of all people, deserved someone who was in love with her.
Yet it filled Seb with bitterness, somehow, to imagine anyone else having the right to hold her – to wake up next to her and see her smile.
When everyone had gathered back at the trucks, Kara passed out military-issue meals. Seb sat eating listlessly with some of his students. People ate without conversation, huddled into themselves.
Willow sat with Liz, and though he deliberately wasn’t looking, Seb was aware of her – knew she was still worried about whatever had been bothering her in the truck. Even now, he wanted to go to her, do whatever he could to help.
His capacity for idiocy was apparently limitless. He shoved his half-finished meal aside.
Kara had managed to grab the shortwave radio from the base. She tuned into the Voice of Freedom, and the low voice wrapped around them: “If soldiers come to your dark town, hide, run away, fight – do anything you can to avoid being taken to an Eden. The angels are deadly. Whatever you do, don’t trust them…”
As if they really needed to be told that, after today. Aware that people were finding comfort in the familiar voice, Seb kept his cynicism to himself. And as the broadcast continued, the thought came to him that at least one angel had shown he could be trusted.
Go – leave, Zaran had said. Why had the cabrón saved them?
Yet Seb knew exactly why; it was something he himself might have done. He’d never paid much attention to the rules, and it looked like his father didn’t either. The thought wasn’t pleasant. He didn’t want anything in common with the being who’d killed his mother – so many of his friends.
Then as his gaze fell on Meghan again, Seb realized the similarity went even deeper. I started to really care about her. I tried to leave her alone. His father, too, had caused pain to a woman he claimed to care about. Zaran had known that Seb’s mother was in love with him, known that every time they touched he was hurting her – yet still hadn’t kept away.
Was his son really so much better?
WHEN IT FINALLY GOT TOO dark to see, people had started curling up to sleep on the food court floor, using clothes as pillows. Now their slumbering shapes were dark huddles around me – no one had moved for hours. I lay gazing at the skylights in the mall’s high ceiling. I could see bright stars, wisps of cloud.
It all looked so pretty. It didn’t seem right.
Sam. The deaths of the others hurt too – but Sam. He’d been like a big brother to me. He’d been there when Alex died, held me as we cried together – forced me to see reason and keep on living.
I swallowed, remembering all our long conversations. The way he’d sometimes dropped a casual arm around my shoulders as we walked down the corridor. The keenness of his blue eyes as he’d studied me during lunch a few days ago. “You’re gettin’ too thin, angel chick. You gonna eat that stew, or what?” In his solid, blunt way, he’d shown me how much he cared a million different times this last year.
I’ll miss you, Sam, I thought bleakly.
Him, and all the others. An all-too-familiar sorrow knifed through me. Heather. Eric. The girls who gave me the picture of Alex. That picture was gone now, along with the poem Alex had given me and the photo of myself as a little girl. I felt a pang for them, but they were only things – nothing compared to the people who had died.
I hugged myself as I studied the stars. And now Pawntucket would soon be destroyed too.
My muscles tensed; I thought again of fighting the female angel in the corridor. As my wings had brushed against hers, a rush of images and knowledge had come – because when she’d seen who I was, thoughts she couldn’t control had popped into her mind.
The wide, quiet streets of my hometown. A sense of danger there for the angels – something they hadn’t expected. Raziel would be there on the tenth, in just two weeks, and he’d crush everyone in town.
As I lay on the cold mall floor, I pictured my father smirking as he strode through the streets of my childhood – pictured everyone I’d known there being killed. Nina, my best friend. All my old classmates.
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