difficult decision the best thing for your recovery and your future was for me to walk away.”
“Patch—”
“As for Hank, I refused to watch him destroy you. I refused to watch him ruin any chance you had at happiness by making you carry around those memories. You’re right — he kidnapped you because he thought he could use you to control me. He took you away at the end of June, and didn’t bring you back until September. Every day during those months you were locked up and left by yourself. Even the most hardened soldiers can break in solitary confinement, and Hank knew that was my greatest fear. He demanded I show my willingness to spy for him, even though I’d sworn an oath. He dangled you over me every minute of those months.” Patch’s eyes glittered with a hardened edge. “He’ll pay for that, and on my terms,” he said in a low, deadly voice that sent a chill up my spine.
“That night in the shed, he had us surrounded,” he continued. “The only thing on my mind was keeping him from killing you on the spot. If I’d been alone in the shed, I would have fought. I didn’t trust you to handle a fight, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I couldn’t handle seeing you hurt, and it blinded me. I underestimated everything you’ve already been through and grown stronger because of. Hank knew that, and I played right into his hands.
“I laid a deal on the table. I told him I’d be his spy if he’d let you live. He accepted, then called in his Nephilim men to take you away. I fought as hard as I could, Angel. They were mangled by the time they managed to drag you away. I met Hank four days later and offered to let him tear out my wings if he’d release you. It was the last thing I had to bargain with, and he agreed to hand you over, but the best I could get out of him was by the end of summer. During the next three months, I searched tirelessly for you, but Hank had planned for that as well. He went to great lengths to keep your location secret. I caught and tortured several of his men, but none of them could tell me where you were. I’d be surprised if Hank told more than one or two handpicked men he assigned to make sure your basic needs were met.
“A week before Hank released you, he sent one of his Nephilim messengers to find me. The messenger smugly informed me that Hank intended to erase your memory once he let you go, and did I have any objections? I wiped the smirk off his face. Then I dragged him, bloody and battered, to Hank’s home.
“We were waiting for Hank when he left for work the next morning. I told him if he wanted to avoid looking like his messenger, he would erase your memory far back enough that you’d never have flashbacks. I didn’t want you to have a single memory of me, and I didn’t want you waking up with nightmares of being locked up and completely alone for days on end. I didn’t want you screaming out in the night without knowing why. I wanted to give you back as much of a life as I could. I knew the only way to keep you safe was to keep you out of everything. Then I told Hank to never lay eyes on you again. I made it clear that if he crossed paths with you, I would hunt him down and mutilate his body beyond recognition. And then I would find a way to kill him, no matter the cost. I thought he was smart enough to hold up his end of the bargain until you told me he’s hooked up with your mom. Instinct tells me this isn’t just about his amorous affections. He’s up to something, and whatever it is, he’s using your mom, or more likely
My heart pounded in double time. “That
Patch laughed grimly. “I would have used a stronger word, but that works too.”
How could Hank do those things to me? Obviously he’d chosen not to love me, but he was still my father. Didn’t blood mean anything? How did he have the audacity to look me in the eye these past few days and
“He has an endgame in all of this. I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be harmless. Instinct tells me he wants his plan put into motion before Cheshvan.” Patch’s eyes sliced to mine. “Cheshvan begins in less than three weeks.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “That you’re going after him alone. But don’t rob me of the satisfaction of bringing him down. I deserve that much.”
Patch hooked his elbow around my neck and pressed his lips fiercely to my forehead. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“So what now?”
“He’s had a head start, but I plan on evening the score. Your enemy’s enemy is your friend, and I have an old friend who might be useful to us.” Something about the way he said “friend” implied that the person in question was anything but. “Her name is Dabria, and I think it’s time I gave her a call.”
It seemed Patch had decided his next move, and so had I. I swung out of bed and scooped up my shoes and pullover, which he’d laid out on the dresser. “I can’t stay here. I have to go home. I can’t let Hank use my mom this way and not tell her what’s going on.”
Patch let out a troubled sigh. “You can’t tell her anything. She won’t believe you. He’s doing the same thing to her that I did to Vee. Even if she didn’t want to trust him, she has to. She’s under his influence, and for now, we have to leave it that way. A little longer, until I can figure out what he’s planning.”
My resentment boiled up, flaring at the very thought of Hank controlling and manipulating my mom. “Can’t you march over there and tear him to shreds?” I demanded. “He deserves a lot worse, but at least it would solve our problems. And give me some satisfaction,” I added bitterly.
“We need to bring him down for good. We don’t know who else is helping him and how far his plan extends. He’s assembling a Nephilim army to go against fallen angels, but he knows as well as I do that once Cheshvan starts, no army is strong enough to defy an oath sworn under heaven. Fallen angels will sweep in by the droves and possess his men. He must be planning something else. But where do you fit in?” he pondered aloud. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Whatever he’s planning, it all hangs on information he needs from the archangel. But to get her to talk, he needs an arch-angel’s necklace.”
Patch’s words seemed to smack me. I’d been so caught up in the rest of the night’s revelations, I’d completely forgotten the hallucination of the caged girl, which I now knew was a real memory. She wasn’t a girl, but an archangel.
Patch sighed. “I’m sorry, Angel, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.”
But I cut him off. “I know about the necklace. I saw the caged archangel in one of your memories. And I’m pretty sure she tried to tell me to make sure Hank doesn’t get it, but at the time I thought I was hallucinating.”
Patch watched me in silence for a moment, then spoke. “She’s an archangel and powerful enough to insert herself into your conscious thought. Clearly she felt it necessary to warn you.”
I nodded. “Because Hank thinks I have your necklace.”
“You don’t have it.”
“Try telling him that.”
“That’s what this is about,” Patch said slowly. “Hank thinks I planted my necklace on you.”
“I think so.”
Patch frowned, his dark eyes calculating. “If I take you home, can you face Hank and convince him you’ve got nothing to hide? I need you to make him believe nothing has changed. This night never happened. No one blames you if you aren’t ready, least of all me. But first I need to know you can handle this.”
My answer to his question came without hesitation. I could keep a secret, no matter how difficult, when the people I loved hung in the balance.
CHAPTER 22
I SET MY FOOT HEAVY ON THE VOLKSWAGEN’S GAS pedal, hoping my route didn’t intersect with a bored cop who had nothing better to do than slap my wrist. I was on my way home, having left Patch with great reluctance. I hadn’t wanted to leave, but the thought of my mom alone with Hank, a puppet under his influence, was unbearable. Even though I knew it wasn’t solid logic, I told myself my presence could protect her. The alternative was giving in to Hank, and I’d die before I went there.
After dishonorably trying and failing to convince me to stay until a normal waking hour, Patch had taken me to retrieve the Volkswagen. I didn’t know what it said about the car that it managed to sit unscathed in the
