I’m on my feet. Away from the sedan, up the café stairs, through the shattered glass door. I tear off the robes and yank down the mask. I just have to get to the back door. I can lose them. I can make it if I just—
There’s movement behind the coffee bar.
A boy in black points a rifle at my chest.
The Angels describe themselves as an interdenominational Protestant movement founded in 2025 by Ian Clevenger, pastor and conservative Virginia state senator. However, they are described by critics as “evangelical eco-fascists” and a Christian terrorist group.
—What is ‘Eco-Facism’ Anyway? The Angelic Movement Explained If the boy in black pulls the trigger, he’ll kill me. I picture it, mapping each detail from Dad’s body to mine. One shot to the chest to drop me, a second to the head to finish the job. His face, my face, caving around the bullet, sucked in toward the black hole of our eyes.
It would keep Seraph out of the Angels’ hands. If I were dead.
Wouldn’t it?
“Wait! I’m not with them!” I’m begging the same way I pray, before I can stop myself. “Please don’t shoot. Please.”
The boy gestures with the barrel of the gun. “Explain the whites.”
The whites, my robes; the robes I’m holding. I drop them to the floor like they’re burning me. “It’s not what it looks like, they—they kidnapped me. They made me wear them.”
Angels don’t kidnap people. They just kill.
Neither of us move. Every inch of the boy is smothered in black: gloves, belt, heavy laced boots. Even his mask is black, made with a thick fabric hiding everything below his eyes. The photo negative of an Angel, a perfect copy of the shadow on the office building across the street.
Is he going to shoot me?
A heartbeat.
Two. Three.
He fires.
There is no splitting of the sky this time, just a shriek as the world erupts into ringing. Heat scorches the edge of my ear, and blood trickles down my jaw, and he shot me, oh God, he SHOT ME.
Something heavy hits the floor. The boy grabs my arm—“Down!” I think he says, I can’t hear him—and yanks me behind the coffee bar.
We collapse against trash cans, plastic bags, and wash buckets. It smells like dust and dead roaches. I push myself away until my back hits the cabinets. The ringing starts to fade.
“Christ,” I say, and cringe, like Mom’s palm is going to crack against my cheek. But it doesn’t. The boy just watches me. He’s white as an Angel under his black clothes, and there’s a half-confused crinkle between his brows like he isn’t sure what he’s seeing.
“You’re bleeding,” he says.
I touch my ear. My fingertips come away red.
“There’s been a lot of that today,” I say, because otherwise I’m going to break down screaming behind a display case of moldy pastry remains.
He tears open a package of napkins. “Here.” He shoves a handful my way. I press them to my ear, and it stings but only a little bit. “You’re fine.”
“You shot me.”
He says, “There was an Angel.”
I peek out from behind the counter. Lying on the floor, eyes wide like this is all just some strange surprise, is a soldier. One of the ones I didn’t recognize, with a simple wedding ring on his left hand. There’s Brother Hutch too, slumped against the sedan. The line of fire matches up perfectly.
I pull back. “Who are you?”
“Nick.”