“Still,” Salvador says.
The four of us give the execution a wide berth as we trudge toward the meeting spot at the edge of the pond. It’s a pavilion, a roof on stilts above a concrete slab, the kind of thing families used to rent for birthday parties. There’s even a sad little grill, blackened with ash. Nick and I pull the sled up beside one of the picnic tables—I switched off with Salvador a few blocks back because I felt bad for not helping—and Cormac glares out over the wavering fields.
He growls, “They said they’d be here.”
Along the way, Nick explained the Vanguard: They’re a militia group on the other side of the city, made up of a collection of families sitting on top of a hell of a lot of supplies. If I ever heard about them in New Nazareth, I can’t remember. We prayed for the destruction of the nonbelievers’ strongholds but never any one in particular.
I feel the knife Nick gave me in my pocket. Mom’s horror stories about nonbelievers squirm uncomfortably in my skull. Nick wouldn’t have given me the knife if this were all a setup, right? If he was just going to hand me back to the Angels? The death squads might make an exception to their no-survivors rule in exchange for getting me back.
“We still have some time.” Salvador squints at the sun. “It’s not even noon.”
“Not even noon,” Cormac repeats. “God.” I bite the inside of my cheek at the Lord’s name being taken in vain, on alert for a grown-up to overhear and scream at us. “I’m going to do a sweep. Come with me or not; I don’t care.”
Nick sighs. “Salvador, make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”
Salvador perks up. “Permission to deck him if he starts saying stupid shit again?”
“Not answering that. Be safe.”
They both walk away, and it’s just me and Nick. I sit on the edge of the concrete in a patch of sun that shifts as bare tree branches move in the breeze, and I don’t let my hand off the knife.
New Nazareth had a lot of green places like this: lawns and wooded areas, creeks and bridges over gullies. I first kissed Theo in one of those little forests. We were fourteen and barefoot in the dirt, obsessed with each other because juvenile crushes meant we could forget about the world choking to death beyond the walls. I could pretend I didn’t hate the way my body looked in a dress if it meant Theo would touch me again.
Nick says, so quietly that I know exactly what he’s talking about, “When did you join?”
My head snaps up to where Cormac and Salvador are drifting out of earshot. What kind of question is that? I open my mouth to protest, Are you trying to get me shot? But…I want to talk about it. You can’t talk about how much it sucks to be an Angel to other Angels. I tried that once, and look where that got me with Theo.
“Mom took us to New Nazareth when I was eleven. When the High Reverend Father put out the call to the faithful, if you know what that is?”
“The Cloister Order,” Nick says.
“Yeah. The Cloister Order. Mom wasn’t planning to go, said she had more work to do on the outside, but she was offered a place at the head of the church, and she wasn’t about to turn that down.” I lean back on the concrete. A flock of birds swirls overhead. “I was eleven. Got pulled out of sixth grade. Never did learn how to do algebra.”
But I can recite the Book of Revelation from memory, which I’m sure is an equally useful skill. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass…
“Were you involved with the death squads?” Nick asks.
“Only because my boyfriend was.” Calling Theo my boyfriend is easier than explaining that we were engaged, that we still are, even if I don’t wear a ring anymore, and I’ll die before I go back to him. “I went to his initiation ritual, if that means anything. He got kicked out, though.”