Chapter 30
A door opened and closed. I waited to hear footsteps approach, but the only sound came from the ticking of a clock: a rhythmic, steady pounding through the silence.
The sound began to fade, winding down. I wondered if I would hear it stop completely. I suddenly feared that moment, unsure of what came after.
A much more vibrant sound eclipsed the clock. It was a reassuring, ethereal sound, a melodic dance on air. Wings, I thought. Coming to take me away.
I held my breath, waiting, waiting, waiting. And then the clock began to go in reverse. Instead of slowing, the beat became more certain. A spiral-like liquid formed inside me, coiling deeper and deeper. I felt myself pulled into the current. I was sliding down through myself, into a dark, warm place.
My eyes flickered open to familiar oak paneling on the sloped ceiling above me. My bedroom. A sense of reassurance flooded over me, and then I remembered where I'd been. In the gym with Jules.
A shiver slid over my skin.
'Patch?' I said, my voice hoarse from disuse. I tried to sit up, then gave a muffled cry. Something was wrong with my body. Every muscle, bone, cell was sore. I felt like one giant bruise.
There was movement near the doorway. Patch leaned against the doorjamb. His mouthed was pressed tight and lacked its usual twinge of humor. His eyes held more depth than I'd ever seen before. They were sharpened by a protective edge.
'That was a good fight back in the gym,' he said. 'But I think you could benefit from a few more boxing lessons.'
On a wave, everything came back to me. Tears rolled up from deep inside me. 'What happened? Where is Jules? How did I get here?' My voice cracked with panic. 'I threw myself off the rafter.'
'That took a lot of courage.' Patch's voice turned husky, and he stepped all the way inside my bedroom. He closed the door behind him, and I knew it was his way of trying to lock out all the bad. He was putting a divide between me and everything that had happened.
He walked over and sat on the bed beside me. 'What else do you remember?'
I tried to piece my memories together, working backward. I remembered the beating wings I'd heard shortly after I flung myself off the rafter. Without any doubt, I knew I'd died. I knew an angel had come to carry my soul away.
'I'm dead, aren't I?' I said quietly, reeling with fright. 'Am I a ghost?'
'When you jumped, the sacrifice killed Jules. Technically, when you came back, he should have too. But since he didn't have a soul, he had nothing to revive his body.'
'I came back?' I said, hoping I wasn't filling myself with false hope.
'I didn't accept your sacrifice. I turned it down.'
I felt a small Oh form at my mouth, but it never quite made it past my lips. 'Are you saying you gave up getting a human body for me?'
He lifted my bandaged hand. Underneath all the gauze, my knuckles throbbed from punching Jules. Patch kissed each finger, taking his time, keeping his eyes glued to mine. 'What good is a body if I can't have you?'
Heavier teardrops rolled down my cheeks, and Patch pulled me to him, tucking my head against his chest. Very slowly the panic edged away, and I knew it was all over. I was going to be all right.
Suddenly I pulled away. If Patch had turned down the sacrifice, then-
'You saved my life. Turn around,' I ordered solemnly.
Patch gave a sly smile and indulged my request. I tucked his T-shirt up to his shoulders. His back was smooth, defined muscle. The scars were gone.
'You can't see my wings,' he said. 'They're made of spiritual matter.'
'You're a guardian angel now.' I was still too much in awe to wrap my mind around it, but at the same time I felt amazement, curiosity… happiness.
'I'm your guardian angel,' he said.
'I get my very own guardian angel? What, exactly, is your job description?'
'Guard your body.' His smile tipped higher. 'I take my job seriously, which means I'm going to need to get acquainted with the subject matter on a personal level.'
My stomach went all fluttery. 'Does this mean you can feel now?'
Patch watched me in silence for a moment. 'No, but it does mean I'm not blacklisted.'
Downstairs, I heard the quiet rumble of the garage door gliding open.
'My mom!' I gasped. I found the clock on the nightstand. It was just after two in the morning. 'They must have opened the bridge.
How does this whole guardian angel business work? Am I the only person who can see you? I mean, are you invisible to everyone else?'
Patch stared at me like he hoped I wasn't serious.
'You're not invisible?' I squeaked. 'You have to get out of here!' I made a movement to push Patch off the bed but was cut short by a searing jab in my ribs. 'She'll kill me if she finds you in here. Can you climb trees? Tell me you can climb a tree!'
Patch grinned. 'I can fly.'
Oh. Right. Well, okay.
'The police and fire department were here earlier,' Patch said. 'The master bedroom will need to be gutted, but they stopped the fire from spreading. The police will be back. They're going to have a few questions. If I had to guess, they already tried reaching you on the cell you called 911 on.'
'Jules took it.'
He nodded. 'I figured. I don't care what you tell the police, but I'd appreciate it if you left me out of it.' He slid my bedroom window open. 'Last thing. Vee got to the police in time. Paramedics saved Elliot. He's in the hospital, but he'll be all right.'
Down the hall, at the bottom of the stairs, I heard the house door shut. My mom was inside.
'Nora?' she called. She tossed her purse and keys on the entry table. Her high heels clicked across the wood floors, almost at a running pace. 'Nora! There's police tape on the front door! What is going on?'
I looked to the window. Patch was gone, but a single black feather was pressed to the outer pane, held in place by last night's rain. Or angel magic.
Downstairs, my mom flicked on the hall light, a faint ray of it stretching all the way under the crack at the bottom of my door. I held my breath and counted seconds, assuming I had about two more before-
She shrieked. 'Nora! What happened to the banister!
Good thing she hadn't seen her bedroom yet.
The sky was a perfect, rinsed blue. The sun was just starting to fan out across the horizon. It was Monday, a brand-new day, the horrors of the past twenty-four hours far behind. I had five hours of sleep under my belt, and other than the all-over body pain that came from being sucked into death, then spat back out, I felt remarkably refreshed. I didn't want to hang a black cloud over the moment by reminding myself that the police were expected to arrive any minute to take my statement on the night's events. I still hadn't made up my mind what I was going to tell them.
I padded to the bathroom in my nightshirt-mentally blocking the question of how I'd changed into it, since I'd presumably been wearing clothes when Patch brought me home-and sped through my morning routine. I splashed cold water on my face, scrubbed my teeth, and tamed my hair back into a rubber band. In my bedroom, I pulled on a clean shirt, clean jeans.
I called Vee.
'How are you doing?' I asked.
'Good. How are you?'
'Good.'
Silence.
