Page 56

“Amara, do you want to tell me what in the worlds is going on?”

Xavier’s asked this question more than once while we run into the dying light of the city streets. It’s not a simple question to answer. Not only because I don’t know where to start, but… Xavier and I have spent years hating angels with every fibre of our being. One killed his mother. He’s the director of the AIA, for worlds’ sake.

How am I supposed to tell him that I might be one of them?

How am I supposed to tell him that his best friend is actually his enemy?

“We tracked Cain over the past week.”

I cringe at the word we. “When we found him, we found Jeremy.”

Xavier’s brows raise, but he waits for me to continue. The truth is lost on my tongue, drifting into the back of my consciousness that still fights off the shadows of the man I thought I loved.

I lead Xavier around the corner to avoid running straight into Lincoln Park and scan the skies for the sharp-winged beast. He follows without question, but the silence looms heavy. He doesn’t push or interrupt. I wish he would talk, about anything.

But he just… waits.

I clear my throat and the words stutter out. “Jeremy is… Jeremy is one of them.”

He almost trips, and I grab his elbow for support.

In the distance, a woman runs towards a house, fiddles with her keys at the doorstep, then hurriedly bursts through the door. A week ago, I’d have been doing the same.

“They can make themselves appear human. It’s not just that they can control us. They can…”

My tongue feels like sandpaper; a lump forms in the back of my throat. “They can also manipulate our thoughts. When I saw him with these blue wings stretching from his back, blood dripping from his hands, it was like I was awoken from a nightmare. Something flipped in my mind like a switch and suddenly I was free. He’d been manipulating my thoughts for years, making me think that I loved him, that he was safe, that I could trust him.”

My hands curl into fists so tight that my nails leave little red marks in my skin. “Meanwhile, the voice in my head screamed at me to wake up from his hold. It just wasn’t loud enough.”

Xavier stops running, grabbing my arm and pulling us both to a halt. “Amara, I —”

“Xavier, I’m an angel.”

“What?”

His voice is soft, nearly a whisper. As if he’s hoping he misheard me.

“I’m an angel,”

I say again. Anger burns into sorrow, my voice wobbling. “That’s why he came after you all. It’s why half the agency is dead. It’s because of me.”

The world seems to spin around me. My friend’s gaze burns into my flesh. He stares through me, as if he’s trying to rewind the moment and take it back.

“I’m so sorry.”

Silence.

“I’m so sorry, X. I swear I didn’t know.”

I take a step back from him, running a hand through my hair. Tears well in my eyes, and I pull my bottom lip between my teeth to muffle a sob. “I never – I never knew.”

Warmth wraps around me, but not the kind I’ve become accustomed to over the past week. This warmth is familiar. It feels like home.

Xavier pulls me to his chest, one of his hands stroking my head. I try to pull away, to tell him that he doesn’t need to do this. I understand if he hates me. I understand if he’s disgusted.

I’d be disgusted too.

Xavier pulls me back to him when I try to move away, squashing my face against his chest. “Oh no you don’t,”

he whispers into my hair.

He holds me for a while. I soak it in – the scent of my friend, the feeling of his arms wrapped around me. We don’t hug very often; neither of us are particularly affectionate. It’s why this feels like a moment in time that I want to keep safe.

He doesn’t need to say anything else to me. He’s a better person than I, my friend. To love me despite what I am, when it’s what killed his mother.

And though I don’t need him to say anything, he speaks anyway. “It’s okay.”

He pulls back and his hands cup my cheeks, his thumbs wiping the damp skin under my eyes. “Amara, it’s okay. Angel or not, I know who you are. I know you would never do… do what they’ve done.”

My chest feels tighter, but I don’t tell him about the slaughter at the estate.

He wipes away another tear that rolls down my cheek as I say, “I don’t know how to get through this. I – I don’t know how to trust my own mind anymore. I don’t even know who I am.”

My voice breaks at the last statement, something inside of me cracking.

Xavier nods, pressing his forehead to mine again. “We’ll get through it together, okay?”

I don’t deserve him. I’ve never deserved him. If he knew what I did at the estate, would he really think me different from them? I justified it the same way they have – as a casualty of war. Yet I slaughtered those people, and left the others to fend for themselves.

“Together?”

I whisper.

“Together.”

I nearly smile, my lips tugging to the side ever so slightly before falling.

The sound of sharp blades moving against the wind pierces through the street above us. A chuckle bounces from building to building at the same time as the sound of shutters slamming signals the start of curfew.

We step back from each other. Xavier points his gun to the sky, and I raise my sword.

The fallen angel hides within the dark clouds.

The sky bleeds red around us.

“How sweet.”

We swivel around in sync as Cain lands a few steps behind us, gripping his sword tightly. He doesn’t give us a moment to react, raising his weapon quickly and lunging forward.

His sword meets mine, and Xavier drags his dagger across the back of Cain’s knee. Cain hisses, but pushes his blade harder against mine, forcing me to take a step backward. He pushes again and my arms drop against the strength of it.

Xavier lands a punch to the skin between his wings, but with one small movement, a blade separates from his wing and flies at Xavier’s head.

It narrowly misses as he ducks. I flip the sword and aim low, hoping to take out his legs, but the fallen angel spins out of the way with effortless ease.

His chuckle vibrates along my skin. “Pathetic. All this power hidden within you and it’s wasted.”

Sharp pain erupts through my side as his blade pierces my flesh.

I fall to a knee, dropping the sword. Crimson stains my clothes.

Xavier charges at Cain with a blade in his hand. No, not just a blade – one of Cain’s own feathers.

He swerves away from Cain’s sword but narrowly misses the wing that nearly skewers him through the skull. Xavier falls flat on his back, rolling to the left to avoid another wing.

I force myself back to my feet, pain shooting through me. I lift my sword high, then slide down, leaving a line of black flayed skin down the fallen angel’s back. Cain roars, his head falling back.

Xavier rolls to his feet and digs the feather into Cain’s abdomen.

The wound doesn’t heal; in fact, it seeps black blood quicker when he whirls towards me. His eyes narrow. His growl is animalistic.

“Enough of this.”

He moves so quickly that I don’t see him grab Xavier. I turn around, only to find my friend on the other side of the road with Cain’s hand wrapped around his throat.