For the rest of the day, I struggle to keep down food and catch fragments of sleep. People avoid me in the kitchen and the halls. I check the mirror to make sure Seraph hasn’t etched itself deeper into my body, but there’s nothing there I hadn’t seen before.
I did good. I made them suffer. I did it.
Theo still loves me.
But what the fuck happened? Why did I end up in New Nazareth, why did I see the body hanging from the tree, why did I see the monster? I want to crack my head open and search through the brain matter for the rot creeping across my frontal lobe. I want to ask Theo to do it for me. He’d break me open if I asked him to, wouldn’t he? He understands I never asked for this. He won’t hurt me this time.
I’m scared of the beast in the trees, the barest glimpse Seraph has given me of fangs, feathers, and flesh. Because I think that beast—six wings, Death on his pale horse, the monster of the sea and blasphemy, the wrath of the Lamb, the wrath of the Lamb—is me.
* * *
I don’t sleep more than a handful of hours. The next day, I’m so tired that my eyes burn, and I’m so hungry my stomach has given up on growling. Instead, I ache all over and take too long to respond. My hands tremble. Low blood sugar, Dad would always say. Or maybe it’s Seraph. Does the Flood cause tremors? I can’t remember.
I tuck my hands between my knees as the Watch sits in the media room in a terrible, stretched-out silence. We don’t say anything. Just look at one another.
It’s Salvador that finally speaks.
“Sorry to be a bummer,” xe says, slapping the arm of the loveseat, “but I can’t do this. I’m going back to bed. Later.”
Sadaf untangles herself from Aisha and Faith to reach for xem. “Sal.”
“Let xem go,” Erin whispers.
Salvador leaves the media room, wiping xyr face and letting the door slam behind xem. Nick watches the ground. Cormac picks at his nails.
“I didn’t sleep well,” Faith says, her voice teetering on the edge of a whisper. “I mean, none of us ever sleep well. But worse than usual.”
“Me neither,” Aisha says. “I was up half the night, I just—” Sadaf squeezes her hand. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear this.”
“Nightmares?” Erin prompts gently.
Aisha says, “It’s worse when I’m awake.”
Nick meets my eyes across the room. He knows I don’t have anything to say here. That I’m used to this, that this is my normal, and all I can do is watch everyone else crumble.
Cormac says, “I don’t know why this is any different. This isn’t the first time we’ve killed people. Nothing’s changed.”
“There were children!” Aisha protests. “There were children. They were just kids.”
“And so was Trevor,” Cormac says. “Stop acting like this is so terrible.”
I can’t take the broken look on Aisha’s face. “Cormac,” I say, “shut the fuck up.”
Erin says, “Nick? What about you? Do you want to talk?”
“I’m fine,” he says.
“You always say that,” Faith whispers.
“Then stop asking. My job is to take care of you, not the other way around.”
Erin either takes the bait or lets it slide, because she keeps going. “Everyone deserves to know somebody is looking out for them. I know what you go through isn’t always understood by everyone else at the ALC.” She leans over to put a hand on the back of the couch. “Sadaf, I’m glad you’re here. This support means so much to us.”