“You brought us out of hell,” Christian repeats with such proud conviction in his voice that tears spring to my eyes.
“I was in hell,” Jeffrey whispers, like he only now gets it. “Did you see those people’s eyes? I was in freaking hell. How did I end up in hell?”
“Where’s Web?” Angela asks suddenly. “Where is he?”
“He’s with Billy. He’s safe.”
“I want to see him. Can we go see him? I bet he won’t even recognize me. He’s probably taller than me by now. Where is he, did you say? Where’s Web?”
Christian and I exchange worried glances. “He’s with Billy,” I say again, slowly. “He’s still a baby, Ange. He’s not even three weeks old.”
She stares at me, then at Christian. “Three weeks?”
“We’ve been taking good care of him. He’s great, Ange. I mean, he cries. A lot. But outside of that he’s the best baby.”
“But—” She closes her eyes, brings a trembling hand to her mouth. She laughs again, wildly. “So I didn’t miss it. Every day I thought, I’m missing it. I’m missing his life. All those years I wondered.” Her eyes lift to mine. “But you brought me back.”
I knew time worked differently in hell, but I didn’t expect this. Angela had been gone for ten days when we decided to go find her, but it sounds like, on her end, she’s been gone for longer.
Much longer.
She stumbles, and Christian and I catch her between us, guide her to a hay bale, and sit her down. She grabs my wrist suddenly, and I’m flooded with the tangle of her emotions, amazement and relief and rage, a deep desire to see Web, to hold him and smell that place behind his ears, a fear that it won’t smell the same, that place, or that she won’t be the same. She’s fractured now, she thinks, a broken doll with glassy eyes.
“Ange, it’s okay,” I say.
“Thank you for coming,” she murmurs, then shakes her head, brushes her bangs out of her eyes, and looks up at me earnestly. “Thank you,” she tries again. “For coming for me. How did you find me?”
“Yes, how did you find her?” booms a voice from behind us. “That’s the part I couldn’t figure out.”
Angela looks up. Then she bends her head to her knees and groans, a dying, hopeless noise.
I spin around. There, standing in the shadows at the back of the barn, is Asael.
He looks like Samjeeza, I think. They’re both tall, but that’s kind of a given for angels, with coal-black, glossy hair. This man’s is cut so that it ends just past his ears, a bit wavy whereas Samjeeza’s is straight, but they have the same deep-set amber eyes. I see Angela in his face, too, something about the Roman nose with the slight hook at the bridge, her full bottom lip. And there’s something else about him that strikes me as familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.
Lucy is standing beside him, arms crossed, looking pouty.
Jeffrey stands up. “Luce? Mr. Wick?”
Mr. Wick. Lucy’s dad. The man who owns the club and the tattoo parlor.
“Hello, Jeffrey,” Asael says. He takes a step forward. I counter by summoning a circle of glory around us. I’m so tired. It starts to waver immediately, but before it goes out, Christian replaces it with his own glory. I sigh with relief. At least for the moment we’re safe.
Asael stops short, annoyance on his face, like we’ve done something incredibly rude. He looks first at Jeffrey, who’s staring at him all freaked out, the way you naturally would if you ever encountered your girlfriend’s dad in a random barn in another state, then at Angela, who doesn’t move or raise her head, then at Christian. Then me.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says, lingering on me. “I’m Mr. Wick.”
“You’re Asael,” I say. “You’re the leader of the Watchers,” I say, for Jeffrey’s sake. “A Black Wing.”
Asael turns his hands up imploringly. “Why must you insist on such labels? Black, white, gray, what does it matter? Jeffrey, you know me. Have I ever been unkind to you?”
“No,” says Jeffrey, but he’s starting to look queasy, confused.
“It does matter,” I say to my brother. “Good and evil exist, Jeffrey. They’re real. This guy is about as evil as they come. Can’t you feel it?”
Asael laughs like the idea is preposterous, and Lucy joins in.
“Come on, Jeffrey,” she says. “Come back with us. You don’t belong with these people. You belong with me.”
“In hell?” he asks.
Her eyes flash. “That wasn’t hell. It’s an alternate world to our own, yes, but it’s not hell. Did you see any boiling pit of lava or a guy in a red suit with a tail and a pitchfork? That’s a myth, baby. What’s important is that we can be together. We’re meant to be together, right?”
For an awful second I think he’s going to say, Right, and walk across to them, and I’ll lose him again, this time forever, but then his jaw tightens.
“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t belong with you.”
“What?” She sounds truly shocked. “What are you saying?”
“He’s saying that he thinks the two of you should see other people,” I quip.
Enough with the small talk, I say to Christian, mind-to-mind. Let’s get out of here. I’d feel a lot better if we were on hallowed ground.
Can you do it? Christian asks. You’re not too tired?
I’m tired. But I’m pretty motivated to give the getting-the-heck-out-of-here plan a try. I’m fine.
Christian takes my hand, and instantly I feel stronger. I can do this, I think. Christian bends and whispers something to Angela. She stands, studiously not looking at Asael or Lucy, and tucks her arm in his.
I hold my hand out to Jeffrey. Let’s go home, I say.
“Jeffrey, listen to me—” Lucy says.
I start to imagine our place in Jackson, only a few miles from here, the aspen tree in the front yard, the wind in the pines, the sense of well-being and warmth that I always associate with our house, the squirrels staking out their territory in the trees, chattering, the birds flitting from branch to branch. That’s where I’ll take us. We’ll be safe there. We can figure things out.
Jeffrey takes my hand, which makes me feel stronger still. “Let’s go,” he says.
Asael makes an angry noise in the back of his throat, but he can’t stop me, he can’t touch me, and I close my eyes.
I’m two seconds from willing us out of there. Two seconds.
But then the barn door opens and Tucker walks in.
I know the minute I see him that we’re screwed.
21
SAFE AND SOUND
Tucker doesn’t see Asael or the others immediately. He only has eyes for me. “You came back,” he says, such relief in his voice that I want to cry, and then before I can warn him Asael is by his side, moving faster than the human eye can perceive, blocking the way out.
“And who is this, come to join the party?” Asael asks.
For a moment nobody speaks. Tucker stands up straighter, and I know he’s wishing that he’d brought the shotgun this time. Not that the shotgun would do any good.
Lucy approaches from the back, giving us and the glory a wide berth. “This must be Tucker,” she says, coming to stand on the other side of him. “Jeffrey’s told me all about him. He’s Clara’s boyfriend.”
“Ah. And a fragile human one at that,” Asael says. “Interesting.”
I find my voice. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh, no?” Asael turns to me with an amused expression, like he can’t wait to hear what I’m about to say. He’s enjoying this, the way he’s got us all standing so completely still, afraid. He thrives on this.
“We broke up. It’s like you said, he’s a human. He didn’t understand me. It didn’t work.” Christian’s hand tightens in mine as he registers how, even though what I’m saying is technically the truth, it’s also a lie, and he can feel how desperately I want to be convincing in this lie. Because if Tucker’s not worth anything to me, he can’t be used as leverage.