The exterior bathroom door opened. Closed. Footsteps crossed the tile floor.
“Alex, it’s Elizabeth.”
Her eyes flew open, and she glared at the beige stall door.
“I owe you an apology,” Riley continued. “I should have anticipated that things would deteriorate after you left Vancouver. Springing my presence on you in that fashion was badly thought out. I’m sorry.”
Badly thought out? It was a goddamn ambush.
“Poor judgment aside, however, circumstances remain unchanged. On Dr. Bell’s recommendation, you’re required to attend daily sessions with a therapist. Staff Roberts felt—and I agreed—that you might be more comfortable with me than with Dr. Bell. The decision, of course, is yours.”
Only with the greatest effort did Alex remain seated and not barge out of the stall. She gaped at the door. After her outburst in Roberts’s office, to hear Riley speaking with such calm, such reasonableness, as if Alex was just the run-of-the-mill, overstressed cop—
It was no bloody wonder the psychiatrist irritated her so much.
Riley sighed and her voice softened. “Damn it, Alex, I’m not the ogre you think I am. Talk to me. Give me a chance to help you.”
Alex blinked away an unexpected haze.
Another sigh from outside the stall. Then Riley returned to her usual brisk, professional self. “Have it your way, then, but I’m not giving up and you’re not getting out of this. Bell isn’t the only one who thinks you need to talk, and your performance just now only makes me more certain. Staff Roberts has arranged the use of an office for me while I’m here. I’ll leave the information on your desk. As there’s never any time like the present, we’ll start this afternoon. I’ll expect you at two o’clock.”
Hollow footsteps retreated, pausing at the door. “And, Alex, if you’re considering skipping, don’t. Not if you want to remain on the job.”
Door open.
Door closed.
Alex sagged, body, mind, and soul. So that was it. She’d run out of time and escape routes. If she wanted to have any impact at all on this whole mess, then she truly had no choice. She was going to have to finally succumb to having someone poke around in her head and, worse, her heart. And she’d have to do so while facing the stares and murmurs behind her back from everyone in the office who’d heard her outburst.
Her brain snagged on one thought that stood out from the rest, and the more she circled it, the more ludicrous it became. She thought she could have an impact? By doing what, running around after a handful of human murderers in the midst of everything the world faced? Who the hell was she trying to kid? What difference would her efforts make in a war between supernatural beings that could—and would—wipe out the entire mortal race? What—the outer washroom door opened again.
“Naphil?”
She stared at the beige metal between her and Michael. Now what?
“Are you all right?”
Whatever had begun to give way inside her in Roberts’s office snapped. She stood, slammed open the stall door, and glowered at the Archangel in the main doorway. “You have got to be joking.”
Michael’s dark brows meshed.
“No,” she said. “No, Michael, I am not all right. I will never be all right. None of us will be. Your precious One has made certain of that.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Michael stepped inside the washroom. He closed the door behind him, keeping one hand braced against it. “Humanity has played a role in this, too, Naphil. You’ve had free will since your creation. You’ve been responsible for your own decisions, your own choices, for millennia. Yet look where you are, at what you’ve accomplished.”
“Some of us. Not all.”
“Enough to jeopardize your race right now. And not for the first time.”
“Oh, don’t hand me that bullshit. We may not be perfect, but we’re a long, long way from being responsible for our total demise. Lucifer and the Nephilim will take care of that when you and the others have finished battling it out on our turf, and the One won’t raise a hand to stop them. Will she?”
“She has done everything—”
“Will she?” she demanded harshly.
“Let. Me. Finish.” Michael said, his voice so hard that she had to fight an urge to step back. “First of all, we’re not battling it out anywhere at present, least of all in your realm. What’s happening to the planet is because of the powers Seth refuses to take back, not because of us. Second, the One has done everything she can. Your race has the capacity to save itself from the Nephilim or not. It’s your choice. She cannot—and will not—make that decision for you. For any of you.”
“Bullshit. She’s already asking me to sacrifice everything I love with no guarantee that it will make any difference. That feels pretty decisive to me.”
“You’re right. She is.”
Alex blinked her surprise. He agreed?
“But the decision is still yours, Naphil. You can refuse, and do what you were thinking of doing when I walked in on you now. Leave, turn your back on what might very well be a lost cause, take what happiness you can while it’s possible.”
Alex jutted out her chin. “But?”
“But you’ll have to live with your choice.”
An invisible fist buried itself in her gut. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again. No sound emerged.
Michael looked down on her from across the few feet of tiled space between them. “We’ve arranged it so the words you spoke to your supervisor will be forgotten by those who overheard them. Try to be more circumspect in future.”
“That’s it? That’s all I get? Do the right thing and try not to screw up again? That’s the best you can give me?”
“What more is there?”
“Hope? Encouragement? A word of goddamn apology?”
“Apology.” His eyes turned to emerald chips of ice, and his black wings began to slowly unfurl, as wide as the limited space would allow. “Apology,” he repeated. “And just what would you have me apologize for, Naphil? My kin giving up their soulmates and their free will just to survive the war we fought on your behalf? Our Creator not sacrificing herself sooner for your benefit? Are you really that arrogant?”
The metal frame of the bathroom stall bit into her spine between her shoulder blades. Michael hadn’t moved an inch, but his presence still pressed in on her, driving her back. Her stomach flip-flopped. When the hell would she learn that pissing off an Archangel was not a bright thing to do?
“That’s not what I meant,” she began.
He fixed her with a dagger-like stare. “I don’t give a damn what you meant. I’ve told you what your choices are, now stop feeling sorry for yourself and make your decision.”
And with that parting gem of warm fuzziness, Heaven’s greatest warrior simply disappeared, leaving Alex staring yet again at the emptiness he left behind. Slowly her alarm gave way to renewed irritation, then to annoyance, and then to outright anger. She scowled. Stop feeling sorry for yourself? And he called her arrogant. The self-righteous, pompous—
The washroom door swung inward, and Joly stepped through the opening. “There you are.”
Alex threw her arms wide. “What is this, goddamn Grand Central Station?”
Joly paused, looked around the room that was obviously empty but for them, and raised a brow. “You okay, Jarvis?”
Apart from wanting to kick something? “I’m fine. Did you want something, or can I get a little privacy?”
“There’s a meeting,” he said. “In the conference room. Staff Roberts sent me to get you.”