Immortal City

ring thump lightly against her chest.

Rifling around in her drawers, she found some old stationery and a pen. She thought only for a moment, then wrote:

Jacks, I’m sorry for being stubborn and impossible, and I’m so sorry for what happened. I know now that I am drawn toward you just as much as you are drawn toward me, and without you, I will always feel incomplete. I lied in the station, but I did it for a good reason. The truth is. . I care about you very much. Please know that — and please never try to find me or contact me again.

— M

Fishing out a blank envelope from the desk, Maddy stuffed everything in her pocket. Then she stopped.

She didn’t know where he lived.

He had never taken her there, and she didn’t even know where to begin looking — beyond the assumption it was somewhere in the Angel City Hills. She paced back and forth for almost a minute before something occurred to her.

She got down on her knees and looked under her bed. It was too dark to see, so she stuck her hand out and swept it back and forth across the carpet. Hair ties, old homework, her iPod box. Then her fingers curled around a folded crinkled pamphlet, and she pulled it out. Bingo. She threw her hoodie back on, stuffed the pamphlet in her pocket along with everything else, and slipped as quietly as she could out her bedroom window.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“We’re going where?” Gwen’s tone was incredulous as she drove. She had just picked up Maddy in her mom’s blue Volvo, greeting Maddy with a crushing BFF hug. She was wearing a Team Maddy shirt that she had perfectly dis-tressed to match her denim skirt and high-heel sandals.

“Relax,” Maddy said, “I know how to get there.”

“Oh, really? And how’s that?”

Maddy produced the crinkled, dusty Angel map from her back pocket, the one Gwen had bought last summer that had almost gotten them both grounded.

“This thing really works, right?” They took the turn onto Outpost Road from Franklin and wound their way up into the Angel City Hills.

“And how did you even know about those shirts anyway?” Maddy asked, looking again at Gwen’s outfit.

“Duh!” Gwen chirped. “You tweeted about it.”

“That’s not me, Gwen.” Maddy groaned. “It’s someone pretending to be me.”

“Really? OMG, you have, like, impersonators? That is so cool!”

As Gwen navigated with the map, Maddy took out the envelope and placed the note in it. She unclasped her mom’s necklace from around her neck and slid the heavy ring off it.

“Is that a Divine Ring?” Gwen gasped in disbelief.

“I’m returning it,” Maddy said, dropping the ring in the envelope. “I’m just going to leave it at the front gate.”

Gwen looked like she might hyperventilate, but seeing Maddy’s expression, she did her best to stifle her excitement and nodded solemnly. Maddy turned the envelope over and wrote JACKS on it.

They had nearly reached the top of the hill when a tall, ivy-covered fence came into view. Beyond it, Maddy could just see the spires of a breathtaking mansion. The fence ran almost a full block before a gated drive appeared. Gwen looked at the map, then squinted out the windshield.

“I think we’re here.”

They parked, and Gwen cut the engine. Being so close to Jacks again, Maddy was surprised she didn’t feel the painful emotions she was expecting. She still sensed the despair and the regret, the pain of what had happened, but these were crowded out by an altogether different, new emotion. She was uneasy. She had expected to find the street full of people by now, swarms of paparazzi and live television reports, a grand homecoming for the prodigal son. Instead, the street was empty, almost eerily so. Had Darcy forgotten to tip off the media that Jacks was coming home? It was possible, but still, it bothered Maddy.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Gwen asked.

Maddy shook off her anxiety.

“That would be great, thanks.”

Getting out of the car, they walked toward the looming gate. It was quiet. Maddy reached the mailbox and discovered it was locked. She should have figured that. What now? She looked at the gate, not really expecting to find any solution there, and paused. She stared. The gate had been left open. Maddy’s intuition flickered again. Why would the gate be open? Someone could have forgotten to close it, but that was silly. She was sure Jacks’s family had a staff that monitored the grounds.

Maddy walked toward the gap between the ironwork doors and peered through it. It must have been left open on purpose, she thought. But why would you leave a security gate open? The answer came quickly: so someone could get in.

“Just leave it inside the gate, Maddy, and let’s go.”

Maddy looked at the envelope in her hands.

“I’m sorry, Jacks,” she whispered. “Goodbye.”

That’s when she heard the scream.

It echoed down the long drive and seemed to die just inside the gate. Had she not been standing so close, she was sure she wouldn’t have heard it at all. It was a woman’s scream, one of sorrow, not of pain. A wretched sound that sent a shiver down Maddy’s spine.

“Did you hear that?” Gwen asked, startled.

Maddy hesitated only a moment before squeezing through the gate and motioning to Gwen.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Follow me, and stay quiet.”

They stayed low against the wall of the driveway and crept noiselessly up the curving drive.

“Wait,” Maddy whispered, and pulled Jacks’s Divine Ring out of the envelope and threaded it back around her neck for safekeeping. They moved forward, and the spectacular estate came into view, nestled in immaculately mani-cured gardens.

“OMG, his house is amazing, right?” Gwen whispered behind her.

“Shhh!” Maddy hissed. She stopped where the wall was just high enough to conceal them and looked at the house. Jacks’s Ferrari was in the driveway, but there were also three black Escalades with tinted windows parked in front of the house. They stood, ominous. The front door to the house had been left open. She could hear an argument coming from somewhere inside.

“I need to get closer,” Maddy whispered. Scrambling forward, she ducked down behind a circular fountain next to the SUVs that sat directly in front of the house. Maddy could make out the words of the argument now. She flinched at their hostility, their agony.

“It was the only way to bring him in quietly,” a deep, authoritative voice barked.

“He’s your son! You promised! Do something!” It was the woman again, her voice jagged like broken glass.

“I’m just doing my duty, Kris,” the deep voice retorted.

Maddy felt her heart twist. Kris. Jacks’s mother. Then someone was coming out of the house, or being led out of the house. Maddy froze.

It was Jacks. Four broad-shouldered men in black suits led him. They had chiseled, flawless faces. Not men.

These were Angels. One of them had his hand on Jacks’s shoulder. Another turned to say something over his shoulder, and Maddy saw a split tailored into the back of his jacket. For wings. Angel Police, Maddy thought. Her heart sank.

It had all been a lie. Kevin couldn’t have known, or Jacks’s mom, but they all three had been fooled by it.