it’s rooted inside her. Erasing someone’s memory isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s like trying to pick all the chocolate chips out of a cookie. It’s never going to be perfect. Pieces get left behind. Unexplainable beliefs that feel compelling and familiar. Vee can’t remember what I did to her, but she knows not to trust me. She can’t remember Rixon, but she knows there’s a guy out there who caused her a lot of grief.”
It explained Vee’s suspicion toward guys and my instant aversion to Hank. Our minds might have been wiped clean, but a few crumbs got left behind.
“Might want to cut her some slack,” Patch suggested. “She has your back. Honesty is a good thing, but so is loyalty.”
“In other words, let her off the hook.”
He shrugged. “Your call.”
Vee had looked me in the eye and lied without reservation. It wasn’t a light offense. But the thing was, I knew how she felt. She’d had her memory tampered with, and it wasn’t a good feeling. Vulnerable didn’t begin to describe it. Vee lied to protect me. Was I that different? I hadn’t told her a thing about fallen angels or Nephilim, and I’d used the same excuse. I could either hold Vee to a double standard, or I could take Patch’s advice and let it go.
“And my mom? Going to vouch for her, too?” I asked.
“She thinks I had something to do with your abduction. Better me than Hank,” he said, his tone cooling. “If Hank thought she knew the truth, he’d do something about it.”
He was putting it lightly. I wouldn’t put it past Hank to hurt her if it meant getting what he wanted. All the more reason to keep her in the dark … for the time being.
I didn’t want to feel a shred of empathy for Hank, to humanize him in any way, but I found myself wondering what kind of man he’d been when he first fell in love with my mom. Had he always been evil? Or, in the beginning, had he cared about us … and over time, he’d built his entire world around his Nephilim mission, and it had taken precedence?
I abruptly ended my speculations. Hank was evil now, and that was what mattered. He’d kidnapped me, and I was going to make certain he was held accountable.
I said, “You mean the arrest was never going to happen because Rixon’s in hell now.”
He confirmed this with a nod, but his eyes darkened a shade. I supposed Patch didn’t like to talk about hell. I doubted any fallen angel did.
“In your memory, I saw you agree to spy on fallen angels for Hank,” I said.
Patch nodded. “What they’re planning and when. I meet weekly with Hank to share information.”
“What if fallen angels find out you’re selling secrets behind their backs?”
“I’m hoping they don’t.”
I wasn’t comforted by his casual attitude. “What would they do to you?”
“I’ve been in worse situations and managed to pull through.” The edges of his mouth tilted higher. “All this time and you still don’t have any faith in me.”
“Could you be serious for two seconds?”
He leaned over and kissed my hand, and spoke to me with sincerity. “They’d cast me into hell. They’re supposed to let the archangels handle that, but it doesn’t always work that way.”
“
He slouched back with a certain lazy arrogance. “Humans are forbidden from killing each other; it’s the law. But people are murdered every day. My world isn’t much different. For every law, there’s someone out there willing to break it. I won’t pretend to be innocent. Three months ago I chained Rixon in hell, even though I had no authority other than my own sense of justice.”
“You chained Rixon in hell?”
Patch eyed me with curiosity. “He had to pay. He tried to kill you.”
“Scott told me about Rixon, but he didn’t know who chained him in hell, or how it was done. I’ll let him know he has you to thank.”
“I’m not interested in the half-breed’s gratitude. But I can tell you how it’s done. When the archangels banish a fallen angel from heaven and rip out his wings, they keep one feather for themselves. The feather is meticulously filed and preserved. If the occasion arises where a fallen angel needs to be chained in hell, the arch-angels retrieve his feather and burn it. It’s a symbolic act with inescapable results. The term ‘burn in hell’ isn’t a figure of speech.”
“You had one of Rixon’s feathers?”
“Before he went behind my back, he was the closest thing I had to a brother. I knew he had a feather, and I knew where he kept it. I knew everything about him. And because of it, I didn’t give him an impersonal send-off.” Though I suspected he meant to remain impassive, Patch’s jaw contracted. “I dragged him down to hell and burned the feather in front of him.”
His recounting of the story raised every hair on my scalp. Even if Vee betrayed me so blatantly, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to make her suffer the way he had clearly made Rixon suffer. Suddenly I understood why Patch had taken the subject so personally.
Breaking away from the gruesome picture Patch had painted in my mind, I recalled the feather I’d found in the cemetery. “Are these feathers floating around everywhere? Can anyone stumble across one?”
Patch shook his head. “The archangels keep one feather on record. A few fallen angels like Rixon make it to Earth with a feather or two intact. When that happens, the fallen angel makes damn sure his feather doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.” The suggestion of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “And you thought we weren’t sentimental.”
“What happens to the rest of the feathers?”
“They rapidly deteriorate on the way down. Falling from heaven isn’t a smooth ride.”
“What about you? Any secret feathers locked away?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Plotting my downfall?”
I smiled back, despite the seriousness of the subject. “A girl’s got to keep her options open.”
“Hate to disappoint, but no feathers. I came to Earth stripped naked.”
“Mm,” I said as casually as I could, but I felt my face growing warm at the picture that one little word had planted in my brain. Naked thoughts were not good thoughts to have while I was locked away in Patch’s ultrasecret, ultraswanky bedroom.
“I like you in my bed,” Patch said. “I rarely pull down the covers. I rarely sleep. I could get used to this picture.”
“Are you offering me a permanent place?”
“Already put a spare key in your pocket.”
I patted my pocket. Sure enough, something small and hard was snug inside. “How charitable of you.”
“I’m not feeling very charitable now,” he said, holding my eyes, his voice deepening with a gravelly edge. “I missed you, Angel. Not one day went by that I didn’t feel you missing from my life. You haunted me to the point that I began to believe Hank had gone back on his oath and killed you. I saw your ghost in everything. I couldn’t escape you and I didn’t want to. You tortured me, but it was better than losing you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me everything that night in the alley with Gabe? You were so angry.” I shook my head, remembering every caustic word he’d directed at me. “I thought you hated me.”
“After Hank released you, I spied on you to make sure you were okay, but I swore to end my involvement with you for your own safety. I’d made my decision and I thought I could deal with it. I tried to convince myself there was nothing left for us. But when I saw you that night in the alley, my argument fell apart. I wanted you to remember me the way I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But you couldn’t. I’d made sure of it.” His gaze dropped to his hands, clasped loosely between his knees. “I owe you an apology,” he said quietly. “Hank erased your memory to keep you from remembering what he did to you, but I agreed to it. I told him to erase it back far enough that you wouldn’t remember me, either.”
I snapped my eyes to Patch’s. “You agreed to
“I wanted to give you your life back. Before fallen angels, before Nephilim, before me. I thought that was the only way you’d get through the worst of what happened. I don’t think either of us will deny that I’ve complicated your life. I’ve tried to make it better, but things haven’t always gone my way. I thought it through and came to the
