Immortal City

mouth. She could still hear his words echoing in her head. Could she really believe him? Could he really have feelings for her?

She stepped back off his toes and looked at him. He was watching her through wet stabs of hair, scrutinizing her. Waiting. Another ribbon of lightning glowed in the sky and she saw a flash of his eyes. She felt desire welling up inside her. She wanted to kiss him again. But she didn’t want to be a silly, Angelstruck girl. She took another step away and looked out into the storm, embarrassed. Jacks’s face fell in frustration.

They stood there quietly, neither speaking.

“I was scared, Jacks,” Maddy finally whispered. “I mean, not about what happened to me. But scared for you.

The reporters. . they said you were next. With the murders on the Walk of Angels.”

Jacks nodded, gently wiping water away from her cheek with his thumb. “Well, now I have something much worse to worry about.”

“What happens now?” Maddy said.

“Now they’ll come for me.” She looked back at him.

His face had hardened.

“What?”

“The Angels.” He paused. “The Council’s Disciplinary Agents.”

“Because you saved me?” she asked in disbelief. The idea of Angel Police flickered in her mind. What would that even look like?

“Because I saved someone who wasn’t supposed to be saved. There are consequences in my world, Maddy.”

“What consequences?” The lightning flashed again and this time she saw fear in his eyes.

“They’ll take my wings,” he said quietly.

“They can make you. . they can take them?” A stab of panic hit her stomach.

“Yes,” he said, his mouth a grim line. “The Archangels would never admit it officially, although somebody out there sure seems to know about it. They’ll remove my wings, which will draw the immortality out of me. They’ll do it slowly and make sure they do it right.”

“They can’t do that. You’re Jackson Godspeed.”

“They can. And they will. There is a system to uphold.

Disciplinary Agents are hunting me as we speak.” Jacks’s face was miserable but resolute. “Nothing is impossible when you break the rules.”

Maddy shook her head, as if the movement could somehow shake the reality away. She simply couldn’t believe it. That by saving her he had actually, knowingly put himself in line for a consequence this severe. So much was kept hidden about the Angels, about how they handled their internal affairs — brutally, it turned out. All the while they put on a smooth, clean exterior for the public and the media.

“What can I do?” she said finally.

Jacks looked at her through the deluge.

“Come with me.”

There he stood in the pouring rain, the image of shirtless soaked perfection. He stood before her offering her a choice just like he had the night they went flying. She was at another crossroads. She knew she could just leave. Knew she probably should. But they were going to take his wings, and it was all her fault. Her fault for going to the party, her fault for trying to follow through with her plan, her fault for leaving and insisting on walking home. Could she really leave him now? Before she had even decided, her mouth opened.

“Yes,” she said. Just like when he had invited her to the party. It simply came out, as though her true desires could no longer be repressed.

Jacks smiled a dripping, radiant smile. A flash of lightning lit the roof, followed closely by a bark of thunder.

“There are Angels I know who will help us. I can’t fly or the ADC will take me immediately. We need to get off this roof and lie low, travel on foot.”

Maddy nodded. Her decision made, questions began pounding her mind. She pulled out her BlackBerry Miracle and tried to power it up. The screen was black and lifeless.

“Dead from the rain,” Jacks said. “Mine too. They can track them anyway. Come on, let’s get going.”

Jacks began walking toward a door on the far end of the rooftop. Maddy lingered for a moment, thoughtful.

“How did you know?” Maddy asked.

“What?” He strained to hear her over the roar of the downpour.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” she said again.

She might not follow the modern Angels, but one thing she did know from her required Angel History reading was that they never disclosed how they made their saves. They simply performed them, leaving the public to guess about their trade secrets.

Jacks’s eyes searched hers. How many rules could he break in one night? “You know I’m not allowed to tell you this.”

Maddy stood where she was. Something in her needed to know. “Do you trust me?” she asked quietly. The rain continued pounding down across the Immortal City.

After a moment, Jacks let out a long breath and spoke. “I saw it,” he said simply.

She looked at him through the cascading liquid.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I felt it first and then saw it. After I focused on your frequency,” Jacks said. “Every person has a frequency.

In Guardian training we learn how to tune to them so we can then do it for each of our Protections. We learn people’s frequencies. That way we can instantly feel when something bad is about to occur and then tune in through the static of all the other human beings. It sounds more complicated than it really is.”

“But with me?”

Jacks paused. “I felt your frequency that first night in the diner. How could I not?” He looked out into the night.

“It’s the big secret of how we always know when our Protections are in danger. Tuning to the frequencies. Otherwise it would just be random images, feelings. Like jumbled static.”

Maddy’s heart stopped in her chest. The world around her halted. Everything faded into the background as Jacks’s words rang in her head. The Angel looked at her stunned expression.

“I know it sounds amazing, but to us it’s really no big deal, like flying or anything else we train for that the NAS keeps secret. It’s just one of those things. Like being double-jointed or something.” He laughed.

Even soaking wet, Maddy felt every hair on her body standing on end. Jacks walked over to the roof access door and tried the handle. It was unlocked. He turned to her.

Despite the rain, he could see she had gone white as a ghost.

“What is it?”

“We need to go back to my house,” Maddy said. “I have to talk to my uncle.” Lightning flashed right overhead, followed by a vicious crack.

“I’m sorry, Maddy, it’s just too dangerous. They’ll be looking for us there.”

“I have to, Jacks.” Her voice was growing hysterical. “I have to talk to my uncle. It’s important.”

“Maddy, we can’t. It’s out of the question,” Jacks said.

“You don’t understand. I’m going to my uncle’s house,” Maddy yelled through the storm, “and I’m going whether you come with me or not.”

Then the night seemed to literally explode.

It was like a terrible firework lighting up the sky as a finger of lightning reached down and struck a power line on the hill not far away. The crack of the contact deafened Maddy’s ears, leaving them ringing. A plume of blinding sparks erupted from the transmission tower, momentarily illuminating the ghostly Angel City sign, and then, like strands of Christmas lights being unplugged, the streets and neighborhoods of Angel City went dark. They blinked