Wings of the Wicked

6


ON THE DRIVE HOME, WILL WAS IN A GOOD MOOD. He was proud of me. But there were things I needed to know, and I was pretty sure asking him would upset him.

I broke the silence between us with an easy question. “Marcus was born in the eighteenth century, right? I remember he was about two hundred years old when I knew him last.”

“Right,” Will confirmed. “He’s not that old for our kind. It doesn’t mean he’s weak, though.”

“How old is Ava?”

“A few decades older than I am.”

I chewed my lip. “Is she demonic?”

“Ellie …” At least he didn’t laugh.

“No, I’m dead serious.”

He glanced at me and frowned. “I’m very sure she’s not.”

“How sure?”

“Positive.”

“Could you be wrong?”

“No,” he said firmly. “She’s not demonic. Why would you ask?”

I shrugged. “Well, she’s not very nice and she didn’t want me to use my swords with her. And the way my power burned her? I know I’ve only ever tried that on Ragnuk, but it made me wonder. Angelfire only burns the demonic, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s not completely the same,” he said. “You’re an angel, an archangel. Your power is virtually limitless, and we don’t completely understand it. Whatever it is about your power that is able to burn, it may not even be angelfire at all. You spent decades of mortal years in Heaven, training, before you were reincarnated this time. Maybe this is one of the results of that training. Once your memory returns fully, then perhaps more of your new powers will as well.”

I let his words sink in, wanting so much—so, so much—to remember everything that I’d forgotten, and not just bits and pieces. Most of it had come back to me, my past lives and such, but the deeper, darker things still eluded me. It felt like something evil pulsed at the very root of my strength, feeding on it, even though I was supposed to be divine. Human emotion was supposed to make me stronger, but it seemed to just make me crazier. Maybe it was the humanity getting to me, the evil of humanity contaminating my power the way the frailty of humanity made my body weaker than my enemies’. My power may have been greater than theirs, but this body was mortal, and mortality was synonymous with death. Will had never died, because however much he resembled a normal guy, his body was not human. He was a reaper, and they happened to be difficult to kill, for many good reasons.

My lips grew tight as I thought hard. “But how do you know the difference between a demonic reaper and an angelic reaper? Like, really know without testing with angelfire. It’s not like it’s tattooed on their foreheads or anything. Do they feel different to you? A vir reaper is just a vir reaper until it tries to kill me, and then I know it’s demonic.”

“It’s the darkness,” he explained. “The evil that fuels them. The brutality they’ve known since birth and that runs through their veins. Violence is the only thing that makes sense to them. When their power and emotion grow, they begin to feel very different from my own kind. The wickedness of the demonic has a powerful effect on the angelic.”

“So you can’t tell just by looking at them?”

“Evil is deeper than just what’s on the surface. Something can look frightening and be pure and innocent.” Then he grinned. “Unlike shoes, evil doesn’t have designer labels.”

I scowled at the metaphor, completely aware that he was making fun of me. However, I did remember the strange things that’d happened to me since my powers were awakened. The feeling of darkness in my power, the black spidery lines that I’d seen on my own skin—a vision I still to this day didn’t understand the meaning of. Was I mistaken in thinking it was evil in me that made me experience those things? How distinct was the line between good and evil, and how much of it all blended together? “I still don’t get how a reaper is inherently either good or evil, depending on their genetics.”

“That’s just the way things are. Ava is an angelic reaper.”

“So she won’t turn bad?”

“Of course not. She can’t become demonic. Or vice versa.”

“So she isn’t a demonic reaper that turned good?”

“No.” The stern finality in his voice signaled to me that this was the end of the conversation.

“All right,” I conceded. I needed to trust Will’s judgment, no matter how confused I was over Ava … and Cadan. He was even more confusing. I wanted to see the best in Cadan—and perhaps the worst in Ava, for stupid reasons—but Will would know, right? He was one of them, after all. And despite who and what I was, I was still an outsider.

But at least I could kick all their asses.

There was one more day of school before the weekend, and this would be my first fun weekend in a few months. My grades were up and I was no longer grounded. Along with my friends, my parents believed Will and I had broken up from our imaginary relationship. If he was my boyfriend, they would expect me to bring him around the house and to do family things together—and by they, I meant just my mom, since my dad preferred to be MIA unless he was yelling at me for something or another.

“So, Movie Night tomorrow?” I asked as we got close to my neighborhood.

“If you wish.”

I smiled slyly. “If I wanted to go shopping and asked you to hold my bags, you’d do it, huh?”

He frowned and glanced at me. “I’d dislike that.”

“But you’d still do it.”

“You wouldn’t ask me to.”

He was right. I didn’t think I had it in me to abuse our relationship. “No, I wouldn’t. But don’t press me. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

That made him laugh a little. “I know exactly what you’re capable of. I’ve see you at your best and at your worst. Nothing you could do would shock me in the least.”

“Is that so?” I gave him a challenging look. “That better not be a bet, either.”

“You know, for an angel, you sure do gamble a lot.”

“You’re a bad influence.”

“Oh, okay,” he said sarcastically.

“Maybe I’m just above the rules.”

“Or you’re not.”

“I’m the Preliator. I do what I want.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

“You’re exhausting, that’s what you are.”

“And you’re obnoxious.”

“And you’re childish.”

“You think I’m childish?” I looked at him pleadingly, feigning hurt.

He looked crushed. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Ellie, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“You’re mean,” I said through a small laugh disguised as a sob. I couldn’t keep a straight face to save my life.

He blinked at me. His lips made a slight curve. “Faker.”

“Am not. I’m really devastated. I’m shocked you would say such things.”

“You know I’d never say anything to hurt your feelings on purpose.”

I sat back and winked. “Of course.”

We pulled into my driveway and Will shut off the car. “Are you making me go to that party Saturday, too?” he asked.

I noticed the change in subject, and my mood took a sudden turn as well. “I want you to be there, and not just keeping a lookout. I want you really there. With me.” We were supposed to be broken up, according to my friends and family, but we still had to pretend to be just friends, even though we weren’t and would never be just friends. Even if the world ended and the reapers took every last mortal soul, I would still be madly in love with him. Nothing would change that.

He turned to look at me again, but his gaze held mine a little longer than before, and this time with softness. Maybe a little sadness, too. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

I tried to hide my frown, but I knew I had failed by the look on his face. “I miss you. I mean, I miss you.”

His body sagged a little, and he looked away from me to the floor at his feet. His hand tightened on the console and his thumb tapped it, but I wasn’t sure if that was from impatience or indecision. His eyes were dark, and his expression turned to stone. I hated when he froze up like that, impenetrable and distant. When he opened up to me, things were their best, like only a minute ago when we’d been laughing and teasing each other. Some things needed to be said, though. We couldn’t keep living each day pretending everything was fine. Every day, another tiny shard of my heart broke away. If we kept going on like this, I’d never be able to piece it all together again. Will had my heart, and it would never belong to anyone else, but if he didn’t take care of every little piece of it that broke away, then it might be lost to us both forever. I couldn’t let him forget that. If I forgot it, if we both did, then my heart would never be whole again.

“I know,” he said, and left my car without another word.

My friends noticed how quiet I was the next day. Kate especially. She’d been my best friend since elementary school, so she knew if anything was on my mind. In third-period civics, I felt the vibration of my cell and slipped it out. Kate had sent a text from her desk in the row next to mine.

Why are u moping?

Instinctively I touched the winged pendant around my neck for support. I frowned and stared at the sentence for a moment before I typed one word in response.

Will.

I watched the teacher, Mr. Johansson, until he turned his back to scrawl more definitions on the dry-erase board. The whiny squeaking of his markers was utterly maddening. In my peripheral vision, I watched Kate chew on her lip as she held her cell underneath her desk and texted back to me.

Cant be friends?

Well, that wasn’t the problem, of course. What would I write back? What should I write? The truth? Maybe a little of it.

Still in love with him.

No chance of getting back together?

This was where I’d have to lie.

Different places in our lives. College keeps him busy and he doesnt think itll work out.

LAME.

I know. Tell u more at lu—

My phone was snatched out of my hand so fast, I bounced in my seat and my heart stopped. I jerked around and saw Mr. Johansson had come out of nowhere and now held my phone in his clammy hand. When had he started doing rounds through the aisles? I should have been paying attention. Getting detention was not going to look good to my mom when I was already on thin ice. My pulse pounded in my head, and I exchanged looks with Kate. Her face was completely calm, as if she had nothing to do with it and feared no consequences.

Mr. Johansson tsked as his watery eyes and index finger scrolled through my text conversation. He smelled like a moldy old sweater in one of those antique shops my nana dragged me to on rainy Saturdays when I stayed with her. His hands were stained from the dry-erase markers he used all day, and I could just imagine the kind of grubby fingerprints he was leaving on my phone’s touch screen. “Sounds scandalous, ladies. Still in love with him, huh, Miss Monroe?”

Mortified, I turned away from him and stared at my notebook in front of me. I heard my classmates’ laughter and whispers, and I felt all their eyes on me. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I thought teachers only read notes to the whole class in stupid teen movies. This was not happening. Not happening.

“Detention, for both of you, after school today,” Johansson barked, his voice lilting proudly like he thought he was awesome for catching two girls texting each other. “You’ll have plenty of time then to copy down my notes from class instead of sending your own. You can have your phones back after that.”

He grabbed Kate’s phone from her hand and sauntered up to the front of the room. I made a deliberate attempt not to hear another word he said for the rest of the hour.

Kate stabbed her salad with her fork like she was trying to kill the cucumbers before she devoured them. She swore loudly enough to make her mother faint. “We should kill him.”

“We so should.”

“I can’t believe he read the texts out loud and gave us detention.”

“Seriously.” Why couldn’t a reaper have eaten him instead of Mr. Meyer?

“Babes!” Landon greeted us as he slid into the seat beside Kate and blew a raspberry on her cheek. She scowled and swatted at him, and then explained what had happened with Mr. Johansson.

“Don’t sweat. Detention is only like an hour. You’ll have plenty of time to get ready for tonight.” Landon said it with a smile, but he failed to make either of us feel better.

“Yeah, but it’s Friday,” Kate whined.

“At least it’s not Saturday detention,” I offered.

“True,” she said. “So what did you want to tell me? About Will?”

“Girl talk,” Landon mumbled. “That’s my cue.” He got up and moved to the end of the table where our other friends, Chris and Evan, sat.

“So?” Kate pressed.

I let out a breath and ate a bite of my lunch. “I don’t know. It’s just so hard, seeing him so much and not being with him.”

“He’s still tutoring you, right?”

“Yeah. He’s coming tonight and to your party Saturday.”

“Pretending to be friends is impossible when you like someone that much.”

“Even if we stopped hanging out, I’d have to see him for our tutoring sessions.” If one considered my sparring, patrolling, and fighting evil soul-stealing monsters with Will tutoring.

“Can’t you get a different tutor?”

“Not really. We were sort of paired together.”

“Has he kissed you since you broke up?”

My stomach considered imploding. “No.”

“Well, that makes things easier. I don’t know. Keep hanging out with him. If he still loves you, then it’s got to be hard for him, too. He’ll cave. He’s a guy. And it’s not like you can stop loving someone just like that. It takes a long time, not overnight. It takes a long time to fall in love and to fall out of love. My advice is to remind him of what he’s missing as often as possible.”

“Like how?”

“Be cute. Be sexy. Just use what you have, lover. I’m sure you know what he likes best about you. Flaunt it. When he misses it—misses you—too much, he’ll come running back. You see him so often. It can’t be difficult.”

I wished it was that easy. But she couldn’t know the entire story. I was divine, pure, untouchable in Will’s eyes. I was the Left Hand of God. Trying to seduce Will wasn’t going to get him to ignore Michael’s threat. But I knew that Will loved who I was, and that’s what I needed to remind him of.

I smiled. “I might have it figured out. Thanks, Kate.”

“You got it. Think I should start my own dating hotline?”

I laughed. “You give everyone the same advice.”

“Well, duh. You do know who you’re talking to, right?”

“Yeah, well,” I started, and shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “I don’t think I’m ready for that with Will yet. Even if we were together.”

“If you’re not ready, you’re not ready,” she said with a shrug. “You don’t want to look back on it and think, Oh my God, what was I thinking? Before you take that next step, make sure it’s a good idea. It doesn’t have to be special. You just don’t want to regret it.”

I admired Kate for a moment, quietly reflecting on what she said. If Will and I slept together—and thinking about it made my insides flutter—would it be a good idea? Would I regret it later?

She took another bite and winked at me, flashing a secretive smile. “You know it’s a good idea.”

My cheeks burned and I shook my head, laughing. “Like I’ll ever get the chance to find out.”

Did I have any regrets? I was afraid Will would become one. I’d lived countless lives, and I wondered about what had happened in those lives—the big and small things that I couldn’t remember. Had I ever been married? Had I ever had any children? Did I have descendants somewhere out in the world? My eyes bugged. That was too much to handle. Smaller things, Ell, I told myself. Don’t think that hard.