Breathe.
He told me to keep Judgment Day out of my mouth before I’d even said it. He’d had to figure out his own rules too. Breathe. He didn’t cry when Trevor died, he didn’t cry at the funeral. Breathe. He moves and leads like a trained soldier, and he tried to tear the tattoos out of his skin with his bare hands.
Oh God, and I told him he was just as bad as Mom.
Nick rips the last strip off his shirt and works my arm out from under my head. I let myself go limp and close my eyes all the way so I don’t have to pretend.
He ran from the Angels. He made it. He got away from the Angels, found a home, and survived.
He wraps the bandages tight around one arm, then the other, to cover the rotting pieces, blisters, and burns, and he slips in bobby pins to keep it all in place.
Nick did it. He did exactly what I’ve always dreamed of; the thing Dad died trying to do for me.
I keep my eyes shut as he moves to the other side of the room. I tell myself I’ll look when he leaves, but he never does. When it’s been quiet for long enough, I peek and find him asleep against the door.
I lie awake, measuring the air in my lungs. The bandages are warm against my already hot skin. They smell like him, like smoke.
He knows what I’ve been through. He understands.
I press my face into my arm, right where the bandages wind into the crook of my elbow. He called me a monster, and I called him one back. He suffered as an Angel, and I led them to his home to burn everything to the ground.
Lord, we can’t keep going like this.
Suffering is the price of flesh. Be grateful for the gift of it.
—Sister Mackenzie’s Sunday school lesson
The Watch and a few others—Sadaf, Alex, Erin—stand in the courtyard too early in the morning. None of us could sleep. Birds chirp, the sun barely breaks the horizon, and everything still reeks of smoke.
Nick stands by the broken fence, having found a replacement shirt that shows off the hard lines of his forearms. I keep thinking about his wings, long and beautiful and torn to shreds on his sides. As soon as I open my mouth, everything will come spilling out, so I chew on my bottom lip and pick at the makeshift bandages. At least I don’t feel the urge to puke every time I turn my head.
Did Nick think I’d wake up and not notice the bandages? It’s kind of endearing.
“You know,” Salvador says, rubbing xyr scars, “I was gonna ask Chris how he made that cool ace patch. I wanted one.”
Aisha says, “God, that’s not important.”
“I know. It’s just…sinking in.”
“Chris died?” Alex says. Erin squeezes her eyes shut like she can will it not to be true if she just tries hard enough. “I thought I saw him—”
Cormac says, “You didn’t.”
Alex sighs. They spent most of the night trying to find a good place for the ham radio, like putting down a baby for a nap. At least it’s still in good condition. Not great, but it turns on, and that’s what matters. They’re probably the most put together of us all right now, although that might be because adding one more thing to mourn doesn’t change much.
“Do you think we can fix the fence?” Sadaf asks, holding Aisha’s arm. I can’t tell which is supporting the other.
“I don’t think the fence really matters, does it?” Faith says. “What if they come back?”
Cormac’s eyes flicker to me.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Nick says. “Right now, we need to focus on what’s in front of us.” He shakes his hands, almost like he’s brushing dust off his jacket. I recognize the motion, and I’m sure everyone else does too, but he starts giving orders like always. Sadaf and Alex still have work to do in the bank. Erin heads back in to grab extra people for sniper duty, since we might have become a target in the night, with all the fire and smoke. Salvador is put in charge of recovering what’s left of the kitchen; Faith, the storage rooms. Aisha and Cormac each get a gun, directions to scope out the surrounding blocks, and a map from Micah detailing any traps, just in case they can bring back extra food for the night. We’re going to get hungry, and quick.