by Ali Cross
While every part of me that wanted to push myself forward and answer the call of touchhimtouchhimtouchhim, I had a stronger need to step away—to run away.
I did this to him.
I caused this torture to be thrust upon him. His pain, his pallor, his clinging to life—I had done that.
I pushed back. Practically fell out of the bed in my haste to get away.
I got to my feet, gasping at the pain in my chest. I walked backwards out of the room until I bumped against the wall on the far side of the hallway.
“Desi?” Miri called from inside the room. But I didn’t answer, didn’t stay.
Instead, I turned and ran.
chapter twenty-two
James unlocked the front door of our apartment and slipped inside. I had curled myself into a tight ball on the couch, a soft, fuzzy blanket tucked in all around me. I had passed the time as still as a stone. I didn’t think, I just sat. Just breathed. I didn’t dare look inside my heart or mind, didn’t dare in case the flood gates opened and I disappeared in a haze of emotions. Instead, I pressed everything into the hole in my chest where the staff had pierced me through. The pain enveloped the emotions until I could pretend there was nothing left.
James stood in the pitch black entryway, absolutely silent for three heartbeats. “Des?” His voice whispered into the room—an invitation, not a demand.
I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to go unnoticed. To never be seen again. Instead, I sighed.
He moved toward me as though my sigh had been a homing beacon, a flare shot from a sinking ship, a message in a bottle. And when he reached me he gathered me to him, wrapping his arms around me, buoying me up with his steadiness. I gasped at the pain, but clung to him all the same.
“Ah, Des.” His voice crushed the dam I’d carefully erected around my heart. It reached inside, tearing out the barriers. I leaned into him and cried.
For Michael, and what he’d become.
For myself and what I had done.
For the spark I had kept secret all my long life but now seemed so very far away.
James held me, saying nothing, and let me cry. It didn’t last long—I needed information more than I needed release. I didn’t deserve it, anyway.
“How . . .” But I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t ask the words. Is he okay? Is he going to be okay? Has he woken up? Does he remember me?
Does he hate me?
“Shh,” James murmured against my hair. “He’s alive. That’s all we know.” He pressed his cheek against the top of my head and tightened his arms around me. “His wounds are healing more slowly than you’d think a Gardian would heal—Cornelius says it’s because the weapon is a dark one and Michael is made of light.” James sucked in his breath as if what he’d said might offend me, but I knew what Michael was. No matter what he’d been forced to Become, nothing could change the nature of his being. At least, I hoped not. “But Knowles says that mark on his face is bad news.”
I waited a beat, wondering if he’d say more. When he didn’t, I nodded. “Does he have others?” The words swept out like a breeze, with barely any sound. I hated the question and feared the answer.
James was quiet too long, and I knew. I knew. “Over his . . .”
“Heart.” Of course. Because I’d seen those marks before—I knew what they meant. What they were for. They claimed whatever lay beneath them for Hell. For Satan. Of course Father would want his heart. Of course he would take the one good thing that had been mine and change it into something that could never be mine again.
Michael will never belong to me again.
And strangely, the tears were gone. In their place a familiar cold emptiness settled on my heart.
“Are you okay? Longinus says you shouldn’t have left like that—that you’re still healing too—though faster than Michael.” He gasped at his mistake, held his breath. I was healing faster than Michael because I was made of darkness.
I pulled away from James and let the blanket slip from my shoulders. “I’m going to bed.”
“Come on, princess. Don’t be like that.” He reached out but I stepped out of his reach and left him in the dark. “It’s not just about you this time, princess,” he called to my back, a sour note darkening his tone.
I froze, one hand on the wall beside me, my spine as rigid as rock.
“Miri’s mom died, in case you’ve forgotten. She’s being strong—doing what Miri does—taking care of everyone else. Taking care of you.” I heard him stand. Knew he took a few steps across the room. Knew he stood right behind me. “But it wouldn’t kill you to think of her before yourself for once.”
My shadow-self stretched as first shame then indignation blossomed through me like a flame on dry kindling. I whirled around, my Shadow scraping against the walls, gouging long rakes through the drywall, causing the hallway to tremble. “I did think of her. I thought only of her. If it hadn’t been for Miri, Michael would never have gone to Hell, never have captured Heimdall and I—” The words caught in my throat. I knew I’d gone too far. Knew things weren’t as cut and dry as I made them out to be. But there would be no turning back, now. I stepped closer, saw my reflection in his eyes, saw my wings take shape behind me. James took a step back, but I only pressed forward. “If it hadn’t been for Miri—none of this would have happened.”
Lies. I knew they were lies.
I brushed past James, tore the balcony door off its track, and lunged myself over the railing and into the sky.
chapter twenty-three
I flew for hours until exhaustion forced me home. I collapsed on my bed, though I never found sleep. At some point I heard James get up, move around for a while, then leave. He left the apartment smelling of fresh brewed coffee—a peace offering in a war he didn’t ask for.
I rolled over and pulled the downy white comforter more snugly around me. I wished for darkness, but the sun had risen and despite the drawn blinds, slivers of sunshine reached into the room, casting stripes of warmth over my body.
I stared at the pattern on my arms. Shadow and Halo. Despair and hope.
Me.
I snorted, threw off the comforter, and lurched from the bed in one continuous motion. I stomped toward the bathroom when suddenly a biting cold washed over me. I froze with dread.
Father had come.
The wound on my chest burned and I pressed a hand to it while I gripped my other hand at my side, clenched into a tight ball of fury. “What?”
My whole body shuddered with cold until my mother’s necklace warmed like the sun and sent rays of warmth out to battle against the cold. I touched my fingertips lightly to the surface. I feared its protection would never be enough. I wondered if I even still wanted it.
“Whatever you came to say, say it.” I stared in the mirror, expecting to see Father take shape behind me.
But I saw nothing.
His presence lingered for a while longer and I tried not to rip the sink out of the wall.
A fierce pain, like a knife to the wound over my heart, skewered me and then suddenly left—and with it, Father.
Even after the cold had lifted, I stood there, hands clenched, breathing ragged.
I stumbled back until I bumped against my bed. I sank down and sat on the edge of it, trying to regain control of the wild beating of my heart. It didn’t really work. My right arm tingled and I rubbed at it absently.
On the mountain, Father said I had returned to him, but I’d done no such thing. I was no longer Hell’s child. No longer my Father’s pawn.
Or was I?
Maybe everything had changed.
My mind raced with all that happened the past week. Eleon, the vamp-kids. Michael rescued, his wounds healing. But his mind still clinging to the darkness in which he’d been imprisoned. And I had . . . what? I had abandoned him once more.
He was here, here, and I’d left him.
I scrambled to get ready, took a freezing shower because I didn’t want to wait for the water to warm up. I dashed p
ast the mirror to the bedroom—until I caught a glimpse of my body, the towel wrapped tight around me. Above my heart, a gray ragged scar stretched a quarter-wide. I hesitated, then lightly touched my fingertips to it. Cold. Burning cold. But utterly healed. I swung my arm, poked the wound—and felt nothing. I yanked the towel up higher to cover the ugly scar, and stomped out of the room.
I steadfastly refused to acknowledge that the scar seemed to have taken the circular pattern of a snake, winding round and round. Urgency spurred me into breakneck speed. I dressed without thought, ran through the open balcony door until I perched on the railing, ready to Become and take flight—
Until a child’s laughter rang out from below me and drew my attention away from the sky.
“Look, Mama!”
I looked down, frozen in time as my eyes met the wide eyes of a little boy bouncing up and tugging on his mom’s shirt.
“Oh my god!” the mother shouted when she saw me. She threw herself around her son, pulling his face against her stomach. My eyes flicked from the son to the mother and time slammed into me.
“No. No, no. It’s okay!” I hopped back onto the balcony, my hands up as if I’d been caught stealing or something. “I-I was just . . .” I looked around for help, for something to explain . . . “Just hanging a wind chime!” I grabbed a string of shells Miri had started and held them up triumphantly in my fist.
But the mother had already picked up her son and hurried out of view.
The blood pounded in my ears as I walked out of the apartment, down the flights of stairs to the parking lot and out to my car. I followed the speed limit and drove with care. My thoughts were stuck on an endless loop of the little boy’s voice and his mother’s eyes.
She hadn’t just worried her kid might see me jump. The look on her face was something else—something I was pretty familiar with.
She’d looked at me with fear.
And I wondered—what had she seen?
The drive took forever and felt like torture. I saw the little boy. Saw the mother. Felt the burning cold that had fueled me into making the brash decision to fly—in broad daylight—to the school. To find Michael. To run away from whatever was happening to me. Maybe with him I would feel better. Feel safe again.
Because right now, I felt the furthest from safe as I’d ever felt.
chapter twenty-four
Parking near the cemetery instead of in the school lot, I entered through the door in the old hallway. I thought nothing of the door, protected by a charm in the Old Tongue, that once refused me entry, until I tried to pass through it. It felt like pushing through molasses. Before I made it through, it seemed as though my heart had been squeezed in an iron fist. Once on the other side I turned and looked at it—but it seemed the same as always.
I didn’t want to think about how I might be the one who had changed.
I walked down the dark and quiet hallway and past the Situation Room, my focus on the stairs at the back of the rectory that would take me to Cornelius’ apartment. I’d gone maybe ten steps past the Situation Room door when a small sound behind me caused me to stop and listen.
I heard the rumblings of the furnace room from somewhere down on this level.
But nothing else.
I lifted my foot to continue walking but before I set it back down I heard the sound again. A small sound, barely anything at all. I walked backwards the five or seven steps until I stood outside the Situation Room door.
“I know you’re there, Desi.” Miri’s voice sounded weary, resigned.
James’ words from the night before returned to me like a slap on the face. I steeled myself, ready to apologize, to explain myself, to defend against her complaints. I was a bad friend, the worst kind. The excuses were on my lips before she even came into view.
“Miri, I—”
She jumped up and threw her arms around me. “I’m so sorry Desi. So sorry. Are you okay?” Miri stepped back, swiping her hands over her eyes and blinking fast to clear the remains of her tears away.
I, stunned into silence, just stood there.
Miri took my wrist and pulled me into a seat. She sat beside me. “Have you seen him yet today? I talked to Corney, and he said he was hadn’t changed. But I thought maybe when you saw him tha—”
“Miri.”
She blinked. Leaned back.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I had no subtlety. No finesse to translate the thoughts in my head. “Your mom just died. Shouldn’t you . . . James said . . .” And then I snapped my mouth shut because the look on Miri’s face made me wish I hadn’t said anything at all.
She slumped back into her seat and stared at something that wasn’t me. Her lap. Her shoes maybe. Maybe her hands, because they had taken to twisting the drawstring of her St. Mary’s sweatpants.
Her normally perky hair lay flat against her fair, freckly skin and beneath her eyes the skin was practically blue it was so transparent.
I felt a tug at my heart. A slight pull that took me back to the first time I met Miri and how I helped her through her first night of alcohol withdrawal—instead of liquoring her up like Father expected me to do. She’d looked like this, then. Vulnerable. Alone.
The spark of goodness inside of me had guided me then. But now . . . All I felt was cold.
“I-I’ve gotta go. Cornelius . . . Michael . . .”
I was lame. Lame, lame, lame. But I was out.
I turned and ran. Through the old doors, down the cold and dank hallway, and all the way to the end. I found the stairs and took them two at a time up to the main floor of the cathedral. It took me a few tries to find the rectory. I feared I wouldn’t recognize it, but when I opened the door onto a dark, quiet room that smelled of incense and oil, I knew I’d found it.
I don’t know why, but I slowed, crept past the row of choir robes hanging on the left, the shelves full of trays, decanters and candlesticks. But when I spied the glowing green EXIT sign I threw the door open with exaggerated force. Stairs went down to the parking lot, I guessed, and up. I bolted up.
The stairs opened into a narrow hallway with two doors. One said ‘Sister’, the other said ‘Father’. A brief round of maniacal laughter echoed in my mind as it skipped over how improper that seemed, how the Father and the Sister could get into all kinds of trouble. I pressed my fist against my chest where the spear had pierced me. Though healed, the spot burned ice-cold and threatened to steal my breath. Dropping my hand, I forced myself to breathe and dashed for Cornelius’ door. I pushed it open without knocking.
I practically fell into the room, stumbling forward and catching myself on the small table that stood near the door. I had to reach out and straighten the statue of the Mother Mary before she toppled over and smashed on the floor.
Longinus and Cornelius sat opposite one another, a chess board on the coffee table between them. Cornelius leaned forward, examining the game while Longinus sat back in a plain wood chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Both sat up straight and gaped at me as I barged into the room.
“Where is he?” I shouldn’t need to say it, it should be obvious. Still they looked at me like I had lost my mind. Like I was a demon in a priest’s apartment.
And I guess I kind of was.
Finally Cornelius stood, tugged his pushed-up sleeves down to his wrists. I did not like the look in his eyes. Did not like how they seemed to say, Don’t get your hopes up—he’s not going to make it.
“Right this way,” Cornelius said.
I followed on suddenly reluctant legs. What if I’m making a mistake? What if seeing me only sends him further away? What if he’d rather spend an eternity in Hell than a few minutes with me?
Cornelius stopped in front of a door down a very short hallway. Two doors stood opposite one another, the open one on the right led to a tiny bathroom. Cornelius gestured toward the closed door on the left. “You can go in, child.” He opened the door.
But my feet froze in the hall. I saw the darkness in the room,
and my heart lurched. Normal dark. Perfect for resting. For sleeping.
And I could feel him there. I wanted nothing more than to bolt. Run away—as far away as possible. He doesn’t want you here! a voice screamed in my mind.
It was that voice’s insistence that I was not wanted, that seeing Michael was the wrong thing to do, that finally got my feet moving. Through the door. Into the quiet, dark room of a priest.
Into the room where my beloved lay.
chapter twenty-five
Everything fell away when I stepped into the room. There was only the bed on which he lay, only his frail hands lying at his side, his pale face like the moon on the pillow.
Michael.
I stepped nearer. I could see the rise and fall of his chest. Hear the quiet whisper of his breath; in and out, in and out. He looked so peaceful, like a child. But I knew. How could there be peace for him? And yet I wished it. Oh, how I wished it.
Placing my hand on the edge of the bed, a slim finger’s length from his hand, I stood there, watching. Hoping. Slowly I moved my fingers until they touched his and love poured through me, filling every crevice, flying down and through my hand until I curled my fingers around his and breathed deep for the first time in twenty four hours—for the first time since he became Father’s.
I collapsed into the chair by his bedside, keeping my hand on his and my eyes on his face. I stared at the rune carved into his skin and anger burned inside me, nearly obscuring the love that minutes ago had filled me. I wished I could wipe the mark away, obliterate it, but I couldn’t. I could never. That mark, Father’s claim, would be there forever, no matter Michael’s fate.
A sudden thought grasped me and I reached for the cord around my neck, pulling the necklace out from under my shirt. I hadn’t taken it off since the night Cornelius gave it to me. Since he told me it had belonged to my mother and kept her hidden from Father’s view while she was pregnant with me.
Now I held the whale-tail shaped pendant in my hand. The size of a silver dollar, but much heavier, the ancient token was more than what it seemed. Intricate knots covered both sides—I recognized it as the Old Tongue. Father had few possessions from Asgard, but what he had were all decorated with the mysterious language he refused to teach me. He claimed it to be the language of traitors. But now I wished I knew what it said, how its protection worked. If it even did.
