attached to hundred-pound weights. My vision seesawed. But I refused to pass out until I had Patch’s feather.
“Patch,” I murmured, just as an ember landed on my shirtsleeve, igniting the fabric. Before I could raise a hand to tamp it out, the flame shot to my elbow. Heat torched my skin, so bright and agonizing, I screamed and pitched sideways. It was then that I saw my jeans were also ablaze.
Scott bellowed orders behind me. Something about leaving the chamber. He wanted to close the door and trap the fire inside.
I couldn’t let him. I had to save Patch’s feather.
I lost my sense of direction, stumbling forward blindly. Bright, licking flames eclipsed my vision.
Scott’s voice, so urgent, dissolved into nothing.
Even before I opened my eyes, I knew I was in a moving car. I felt the irregular bump of tires bouncing over potholes, and an engine growled in my ears. I sat slouched against the car door, my head propped on the window. There were two unfamiliar hands in my lap, and it startled me when they moved at my command. I turned them over slowly in the air, staring at the strange black paper curling off them.
Blackened flesh.
A hand squeezed my arm in consolation.
“It’s okay,” Scott said from the driver’s seat of his Barracuda. “It will heal.”
I shook my head, imp my headlying he’d misunderstood. I licked my parched lips. “We have to go back. Turn the car around. We have to save Patch.”
Scott said nothing, just cast me a sidelong look of uncertainty.
No.
It was a lie. A deep, unimaginable fear swallowed me up. My throat felt thick and slippery and hot. It was a lie.
“I know you cared about him,” Scott said quietly.
I turned my attention out the window. I stared at the night, at the blur of trees and fields and fences, here one moment, gone the next. The words in my throat coiled into a scream, all sharp edges and icy pain. The scream hung there, swelling and hurting while my world unraveled and drifted out of orbit.
A pile of twisted metal blocked the road ahead.
Scott swerved to miss it, slowing as we passed. I didn’t wait for the car to stop; I threw myself out, running. Patch’s motorcycle. Beaten and battered. I gaped at it, blinking over and over, trying to see a different picture. The demolished metal, twisted over on itself, appeared as though the driver had raced at top speed—then jumped through a hole in the wind.
I ground my palms into my eyes, waiting for the awful picture to clear. I searched the road, thinking he must have crashed. In the impact, his body must have been thrown a distance. I ran farther, a little farther, searching the ditch, the weeds, the shadows off in the trees. He could be just ahead. I called his name. I paced up and down the roadside, my hands shaking as I plowed them through my hair.
I didn’t hear Scott come up behind me. I hardly felt his arms around my shoulders. Grief and anguish rattled me, a living presence, so real and frightening. It filled me with such cold, it hurt to draw breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.
“Don’t tell me he’s gone,” I snapped. “He crashed his motorcycle and kept on walking. He said he’d meet me at the studio. He wouldn’t break his promise.” I said the words because I had to hear them.
“You’re shivering. Let me take you back to my house, your house, his place—wherever you want.”
“
My feet drifted back to the motorcycle.
“Patch!” I cried out, dropping to my knees. I stretched my body over his motorcycle, strange, powerful sobs erupting from deep in my chest. I was slipping, sliding into the lie.
I thought his name, waiting, waiting. I sobbed his name, hearing myself make uncontrollable noises of anguish and despair.
Tears rolled down my face. My hmy face.eart hung by a thread. The hope I’d clung to untethered, drifting out of reach. I felt my soul shatter, irreparable pieces of me flying outward.
What little light was left inside me flickered out.
CHAPTER 39
I GAVE MYSELF UP TO SLEEP. DREAMS WERE THE only place I could reach Patch. Holding on to a phantom memory of him was better than living without him. Curled up in his bed, surrounded by a smell that was distinctly his, I summoned his memory to haunt me.
I never should have trusted Pepper to get the feathers. I should have known he’d screw up. I should not have underestimated Dante. I knew Patch would dismiss my guilt at once, but I felt responsible for what had happened to him. If only I’d arrived at his studio ten minutes earlier. If only I’d stopped Marcie from lighting the match . . .
“Wake up, Nora.”
Vee leaned over me, her voice hurried and charged. “You have to get ready for the duel. Scott told me everything. One of Lisa Martin’s messengers came by while you were asleep. The duel is at sunrise in the cemetery. You have to go kick Dante’s butt to Jupiter. He took Patch away from you, and now he’s out for your blood. I’ll tell you what I think about that. Hell,
Duel? The idea seemed almost laughable. Dante didn’t need to clash swords with me to steal my title; he had more than enough ammunition to blow apart my credibility and reputation. Every last fallen angel had been chained in hell. The Nephilim had won the war. Dante and Marcie would take credit, explaining how they’d bullied an archangel into giving them the feathers, and how they relished every moment of watching them burn.
The thought of Patch imprisoned in hell slashed a fresh wave of pain through me. I didn’t know how I would hold my emotions in check as the Nephilim cheered wildly over their triumph. They would never know that up until the last moment, Dante had been helping fallen angels. Nephilim would sweep him into power. I didn’t yet know what it meant for me. If the army was abolished, would it matter that I lost control of leading it? In retrospect, my oath had been too vague. I hadn’t planned for this.
But I had to assume Dante had plans for me. Like me, he knew the moment I failed to lead the army, my life was over. But in the name of covering his bases, he’d likely arrest me for the Black Hand’s murder. Before the day was out, I’d either be executed for treason, or at best, imprisoned.
I was betting executed.
“It’s almost sunrise. Get up,” Vee said. “You aren’t letting Dante get away with this.”
I hugged Patch’s pillow to me, breathing in the lingering smell of him before it was gone forever. I memorized the contours of his bed and nestled into the imprint of his body. I shut my eyes and imagined he was there. Beside me. Touching me. I imagined his black eyes softening as he caressed my cheek, his hands warm and sturdy and real.
I ignored her, choosing to stay with Patch. The mattress dipped as he scooted closer. He smiled and slid his hands beneath me, rolling me on top of him.
