I don’t mention how I whispered to the Grace escorting us and slaughtered every Angel who laid eyes on me that day. That the Watch and I are the reasons New Nazareth has lost so many people in just the past few days.
“We got stuck in the city after that,” I say. Another tendril of meat comes up to wind between my fingers. “We were about to make it across the bridge when a death squad found us. So.”
“They killed him,” he says.
“They did.”
“And that group you were with a few days ago?”
“Saved me.”
His jaw works under his mask. I know what he’s going to say. “No. You know it won’t work.” He looks away. “They don’t know who I am. If they did, they’d kill me.” But Nick knows who I am, Erin knows, and for some reason I don’t say that. “They kill Angels. It’s what they do. You can’t come back with me, if they see your scars you’re dead, and—” I say this instead. “I can’t lose you again.”
He takes my hand, the one not twined with the Grace-meat.
“Thank you,” he says. To fear and to keep. Mark 10:9—What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate. Not even ourselves. “Not going to lie; I’m impressed you got so far. How did you get past the gate?”
I snort. “Carefully and with our heads down.”
We give that time to settle. For everything in our chests and stomachs to calm.
This time, Theo starts.
“Did word ever make it back about Squad Calvary?”
It takes me a while. I don’t know the squads by name. But it does sound familiar, and when it clicks, my stomach sinks. “That was your squad, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Was.” To my surprise, he reaches out for the meat curled around my hand. Behind the altar, hundreds of eyes watch carefully as it grasps for him. “One of the members went rogue. Killed everyone but me and asked if I wanted to leave with him.” A breath. “And the thing is? I thought about it.”
I swallow, hard. “You didn’t.”
“I did. I thought he’d kill me if I refused, you know? Figured he’d put a bullet in my head if I said no, just like he did the others.” I touch my cheekbone, right where Dad’s face caved in on itself. “But he didn’t. Just walked off. And when I came back alone, they called me a failure and tore the wings off my back.”
There’s nothing to say, not really.
“I could have stopped him, was the thing. He’d gotten injured in the firefight, and I could have stopped him if I’d just—” He scrapes his hair away from his face. It’s sticking to his forehead; even at night, it’s just a bit too warm. “He’s probably dead. The wounds probably got infected, and the son of a bitch died.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Probably.”
“That’s why I was so mad when you said you didn’t want Seraph,” Theo whispers. “You were just handed the thing they took from me.”
I finish for him so he doesn’t have to say it. “And I rejected it.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”
I practically spat in his face; I dug my nails into the wounds in his back.
I guess…I can’t blame him for being angry. We all get angry these days.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say.
He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, my face nestling in the crook of his neck like it always has. He smells exactly the same.
He says, “Me too.”