Page 26

Loren

I’d been reluctant to believe that Indy had his memories back, but I could deny it no longer.

On the Wonder Wheel, we sat and reminisced about all times we’d come to this place and done these things.

Indy recounted them as clearly as I did, and it was…

strange. Odd to be so open with him, reminding myself I didn’t need to be as choosy about how and what I told him.

Or that I didn’t need to tell him some things at all.

His questions were deeper now, and they prompted answers that were nearer to secrets and perhaps better left unsaid.

Honesty hurt us both, but the pain had always been there, we just kept it to ourselves.

We kept too much to ourselves.

After the ride ended, we filed out onto the boardwalk where Sully and the hounds were waiting.

Sully held a plush blue whale prize from the dart game I’d seen Whitney playing.

His expression had a gleam of cheer that gave me pause.

Had I ever seen him smile in Hell?

“Congrats on the win.” Indy offered a high five Whitney awkwardly returned.

The other hound took up his post at Sully’s side, and she looped her arm around his the same way she had when we first arrived.

It was jarring to see him playing escort to anyone other than Moira, and his good humor faltered when he caught my quizzical squint.

“Rides now?” Gunnar’s wide eyes pinpointed the Cyclone coaster rattling along its track.

“Nathan’s first,” Indy replied, then slipped his hand into mine.

“You need something in your stomach if you wanna throw it up later.”

My nose wrinkled while they laughed, and our group headed for the hot dog stand.

I adjusted the foam earplugs that were doing a decent job keeping the audio clutter to a minimum.

They made my hearing closer to human, a welcome reprieve from what was often overwhelming.

Even when I was a child, the world had been too much.

I hid in my mother’s skirts until I was far too old to do so and counted on my younger sister to speak and make decisions for me.

Indy reminded me of her, brazen and bold, shining brightly in spaces where I preferred to fade.

While the others queued up in front of Nathan’s, Indy turned to me.

“Baby, do you want some cotton candy?”

I didn’t, but that wasn’t the real question.

He wanted cotton candy.

The classic pink vanilla flavor he would dab on my tongue so he could taste it when we kissed.

Glancing around, I spotted a food trailer with bags of cotton candy hanging on clip strips.

I pointed it out to Indy, then told him, “Be right back.”

He nodded and rejoined the others in line.

I may not have trusted the hounds to protect him the way I would, but I didn’t think they would harm him.

Still, I kept close enough to act if something went awry and trained my eyes and nose to signs of danger as I ordered and paid for a large bag of pink cotton candy.

Tucking it under my arm, I started back toward the group when someone tapped my shoulder from behind.

I whirled around, pulse jumping and nostrils flaring as I faced the man who had managed to take me by surprise.

Not a man. An angel.

Evander was dressed in a custodian’s uniform and holding a dustpan and broom.

He didn’t work here.

He didn’t even belong here, which meant he’d come looking for us.

My hound growled.

“Always such a friendly fellow.” Evander huffed a humorless laugh.

For as easily as I could sniff out tarnished souls or hound-possessed humans, I’d never been able to sense the angel’s presence.

He was often nearby, closer than I wanted him, and more interested in our lives than he had any business being.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“We need to talk,” he replied.

Leaving would lead him to Indy, so I was forced to stay put and hope the spite in my glare would cow him.

Evander didn’t relent, instead crowding into me and lowering his voice as he carried on.

“You know things,” he said.

“Things you’ve been keeping them from me. About Hell. About Indy.”

His blue eyes targeted me with icy intensity, and my lips peeled back in a snarl.

“Why would I tell you anything?” I snapped.

“We aren’t friends, Evander.”

“But we could be allies,” he said.

“We should be in this. You need help.”

“Not yours.”

I stepped backward and, again, he closed the gap.

We must have been making a scene on the boardwalk, standing in plain sight, both looking our most severe while talking circles around each other.

“Listen here, puppy dog,” Evander said gruffly.

“You are out of your depth. Plain and simple. That phoenix is a coveted resource. I was happy to sit by and let you two play house, but now the rest of Hell is involved, and that creates a problem for me.”

I stopped listening the moment he referred to Indy as an object instead of a person.

It made the angel no better than Nero, a fiend I despised, seeing only what “that phoenix” could give him and caring little for the measures required to get it.

“We’re done talking.” I turned toward the midway, the opposite direction of Sully and the others.

If Evander followed, I would lead him in circles until we both grew bored of the chase.

But I’d only taken one step when his next statement stopped me.

“He’s dying, Loren.”

I jerked around, nearly colliding with a woman who cut too closely past. The forced dodge staggered me, but not nearly as much as the angel’s words.

“What did you say?” I asked.

Evander’s heaved breath caused his shoulders to droop.

“His fire is going out. Maybe it’s out already. You would know.”

I bristled at what sounded like an accusation.

“Indy’s immortal,” I replied.

“He doesn’t die.”

Not permanently, anyway.

Evander’s brows drew together to form a line.

“Nothing that was once human can be truly immortal.”

His matter-of-fact tone left little room for doubt.

Indy’s fire was gone, along with his wings and, more recently, his tears.

Sully had called it regressing, but maybe…

“The phoenix power has kept him alive for a long time,” Evander continued, “but the bird is dying. If the demons manage to capture Indy, they’ll use what’s left of him, and he’ll be gone forever. A vapor. A wisp?—”

“I understand,” I grunted.

Evander frowned. “Do you?”

I nodded.

“But you don’t believe it,” he said flatly.

I couldn’t.

I’d seen the end a dozen times, witnessed Indy’s passing and mourned him.

But he always came back and, as much as it was a curse, it was also a relief.

Some part of me knew the pain was only temporary.

We would be together again.

But this, what the angel said now, this changed things.

It changed everything.

My fingers curled into useless fists.

Not angry but grasping.

Trying to hold onto the thing I’d just been told I was destined to lose.

“Why tell me this?” I asked, my voice unsteady.

“And how would us being allies help any of it?”

A father, mother, and son walked by arm in arm in arm.

The little boy clutched a bundle of balloons that bobbed in the sky like a multicolor cloud.

It was fitting that I was looking up when Evander answered.

“I can take him to Heaven.”

It shocked me, like an actual electric current that caused me to jolt.

“If Indy comes with me to Heaven before the last of his powers are gone, he’ll be preserved,” the angel explained.

“He can exist on that higher plane as a soul laid to rest.”

“And the demons can’t get him,” I said.

Evander nodded. “Correct.”

It was the only part I could process or begin to accept.

Indy would be safe. Not dead.

He would keep on living—existing—and he would be better protected there than in Brooklyn.

There were no demons in Heaven, save one.

The thought of Moira made my gut twist, and I scowled at Evander.

I’d asked for his help before.

I had begged on my knees for something better for Indy and me, and I and been rebuked.

Now he was involved.

Now it was his problem, and I knew why.

“Is that the real reason you care?” I asked.

“Miss ascended, and hers alone was one too many hellish souls in your version of paradise?”

Evander gave his head a stern shake.

“They would make him suffer. His existence would end in torment. I see no need to leave him to that fate.”

“I won’t leave him to that fate,” I replied.

“Lorenzo,” the angel sighed my name, “try to listen to reason…”

I leaned back, tensing, feeling the hair prickle down my hound’s spine and make his tail bristle.

I wanted to growl out loud, to flex my claws and swipe until Evander ran away.

To defend. Protect.

Treasure .

“You can’t have him,” I sputtered, feeling sweaty and choked.

“Heaven can’t. I won’t let him go somewhere I can’t…” My voice cracked, and I swallowed then tried again.

“Somewhere I’m not…”

Not welcome.

Not wanted. Not ever.

I would have held onto my conviction as long as it took.

Stayed angry and ready to rage at anyone who dared to get between Indy and me.

But this wasn’t an attack; it was an offering.

A rescue. The solution to a problem I couldn’t fix.

Evander puffed out another heavy breath.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“I know how much you care for him.”

“You don’t,” I mumbled.

It was a weak argument.

“I’ve seen,” he replied.

“And I wouldn’t take him if there were any other way.”

I couldn’t look at him, so instead I cast my gaze toward the water where dark waves lapped and rolled under the moon’s glow.

The cuff of my sweater sleeve found its way into my palm, and I smoothed my fingers across it.

The soft fibers pressed into the heel of my hand over, and over, and over…

“What do you need me to do?” I whispered.

Evander turned so we stood side by side with our backs to the group at the hot dog stand.

I couldn’t look at them, either.

It was too much to see Indy grinning and chatting with Gunnar like they were old friends.

Too hard to acknowledge how close Sully and Whitney had become, sharing touches and affectionate glances.

All of it made me ache.

“I could force him to go,” Evander said.

“But I think the transition would go more smoothly if you were involved.”

My head dropped, and I mumbled into my chest, “You want me to talk him into it.”

“I want you involved ,” Evander corrected.

“In whatever capacity you’re able.”

I kept my gaze down, sinking lower and lower until all I could see was the wooden boards between my feet.

“Can I have some time?” I asked quietly.

“A few days?”

“What for?”

I was too empty to cry.

Cavernous, and cold, and oppressively dark, the way I would be after Indy was gone.

He would take it all with him: my light, my joy, my love, and I would facilitate it.

But I needed time…

“To breathe.”

The silence between Evander and I allowed the Luna Park ruckus filter in.

Peals of laughter and music and cheerful conversation.

People making memories like Indy and I had, year upon year, decade after decade.

Soon, that would be all I would have of him: the memories that kept him alive in my mind every time he died.

“We can wait a few days,” Evander said.

“Then you’ll call me? When you’re ready?”

I dipped my head once more, then the angel clapped his hand on my shoulder and walked away, carrying his broom and dustpan with him.

The cotton candy was pinned under my arm, slowly going flat as the air squeezed from the bag.

I stared across the water for another minute or two and tried to do what I said I needed to.

Breathe. Fill the hole in my chest with air and hold it until my lungs burned.

When I walked back to Indy and the others, I felt like I was moving in slow motion.

He had a hot dog for each of us and a smile just for me.

Twisting open the cotton candy, I pinched off a piece and held it out in a wordless offer.

His grin turned lopsided, and he pitched forward to take the bite between his teeth.

The pink puff hit his tongue and began to dissolve, making him giggle.

I bent in, not caring who might stare as I cupped the nape of Indy’s neck and tilted his head back for a kiss.

The taste of vanilla lingered on my lips as Indy pulled away with his eyes wide.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked.

I tried to string words together, but they all slipped away, falling out of reach and leaving me speechlessly staring at his freckled cheeks, his purple curls, and his button nose.

“Love you.” He pushed up to kiss me again.

I knew that. Really, I did.

But I needed to hear it every chance I got from now till the end, so the sound of his voice would stay with me when he was gone.

Another memory. Another ghost.

I would gladly be haunted.