Crescendo

hailed down around us. The window in the back door had been shot out.

“Get out of here,” Patch said, pushing me in the direction of the street.

I turned back. “Where are you going?”

“Marcie’s still inside. I’ll get a ride with her.”

My lungs seemed to lock, no air going in or out. “What about me? You’re my guardian angel.”

Patch sliced his eyes into mine. “Not anymore, Angel.” Before I could argue back, he slipped through the door, vanishing into the mayhem.

Out on the street, I unlocked the Jeep, jerked the seat forward, and floored it out of the parking space. He wasn’t my guardian angel anymore? Was he serious? All because I’d told him that’s how I wanted it? Or had he said it to scare me? To make me regret saying I didn’t want him? Well, if he wasn’t my guardian, it was because I was trying to do the right thing! I was trying to make this easier on both of us. I was trying to keep him safe from the archangels. I’d told him exactly why I’d done it, and he was hanging it over my head, as if this whole mess was somehow my fault. As if this was what I wanted! This was more his fault than mine. I had the urge to run back and tell him I wasn’t helpless. I wasn’t a pawn in his big, bad world. And I wasn’t blind. I could see well enough to know something was going on between him and Marcie. In fact, I was now all but certain something was. Forget it. I was better off without him. He was slime. A jerk. An untrustworthy jerk. I didn’t need him—for anything.

I rolled the Jeep to a stop in front of the farmhouse. My legs were still trembling, and my breath rattled a little when I exhaled. I was acutely aware of the quiet all around. The Jeep had always been a place of refuge; tonight it felt foreign and isolated, and far too big for just one person. I lowered my head onto the steering wheel and cried. I didn’t think about Patch driving Marcie home in her car—I just let the hot air from the vents rush over my skin and breathed in the scent of Patch.

I sat that way, hunched and sobbing, until the needle on the gas gauge dropped half a bar. I dabbed my eyes dry and let go of a long, troubled sigh. I was just about to shut off the engine when I saw Patch standing on the porch, leaning on one of the support beams.

For a moment I thought he’d come to check on me, and tears of relief sprang to my eyes. But I was driving his Jeep. He’d most likely come to take it back. After the way he’d treated me tonight, I couldn’t believe there was any other reason.

He walked down the driveway and opened the driver’s-side door. “You okay?”

I nodded stiffly. I would have said yes, but my voice was still hiding out in the vicinity of my stomach. The cold-eyed Nephil was fresh in my thoughts, and I couldn’t stop wondering what had happened after I left the Z. Had Scott gotten out? Had Marcie?

Of course she had. Patch had seemed bent on making sure of it.

“Why did the Nephil in the red shirt want money?” I asked, climbing sideways into the passenger seat. It was still sprinkling, and even though I knew Patch couldn’t feel the damp chill of the rain, it felt somehow wrong to leave him standing in it.

After a count, he got behind the wheel, closing us into the Jeep together. Two nights ago the gesture would have felt intimate. Now it just felt tense and awkward. “He was fund-raising for the Nephilim blood society. I wish I had a better idea of what they’re planning. If they need money, it’s most likely for resources. Either that, or to buy off fallen angels. But how, who, and why, I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I need someone on the inside. For the first time, being an angel puts me at a disadvantage. They’re not going to let me within a mile of the operation.”

For a split second it occurred to me that he could be asking for my help, but I was hardly Nephilim. I had an infinitesimal amount of Nephilim blood running through my veins that could be traced back over four hundred years to my Nephilim ancestor, Chauncey Langeais. For all intents and purposes, I was human. I wasn’t getting on the inside any faster than Patch.

I said, “You said Scott and the Nephil in the red shirt are both part of the blood society, but they didn’t seem to know each other. Are you sure Scott’s involved?”

“He’s involved.”

“Then how could they not know each other?”

“My best guess right now is that whoever’s running the society is separating the individual members to keep them in the dark. Without solidarity, the chances of a coup are low. More than that, if they don’t know how strong they are, the Nephilim can’t leak that information to the enemy. Fallen angels can’t get information if the society members themselves know nothing.”

Digesting this, I wasn’t sure whose side I was on. Part of me abhorred the idea of fallen angels possessing the bodies of Nephilim every Cheshvan. A less noble part of me was grateful they were targeting Nephilim and not humans. Not me. Not anyone I loved.

“And Marcie?” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“She likes poker,” Patch said noncommittally. He put the Jeep in reverse. “I should be going. You going to be okay tonight? Is your mom gone?”

I turned in the seat to face him. “Marcie had her arms around you.”

“Marcie’s sense of personal space is nonexistent.”

“So you’re an expert on Marcie now?”

His eyes darkened, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to go there, but I didn’t care. I was so going there. “What’s going on between the two of you? What I saw didn’t look like business.”

“I was in the middle of a game when she came up behind me. It’s not the first time a girl has done that, and it probably won’t be the last.”

“You could have pushed her away.”

“She had her arms around me one moment, and the next moment the Nephil threw the cue ball. I wasn’t thinking about Marcie. I ran outside to check the perimeter in case he wasn’t alone.”

“You went back for her.”

“I wasn’t going to leave her there.”

I stayed in my seat a moment, the knot in my stomach so tight it hurt. What was I supposed to think? Had he gone back for Marcie out of courtesy? A sense of duty? Or something entirely different, and much more worrisome?

“I had a dream about Marcie’s dad last night.” I wasn’t even sure why I’d said it. Possibly to communicate to Patch that my pain was so raw it had even entered my dreams. I’d once read that dreams are a way of reconciling what’s happening in our lives, and if that was true, my dream was definitely telling me I hadn’t come to terms with whatever was going on between Patch and Marcie. Not if I was dreaming about fallen angels and Cheshvan. Not if I was dreaming about Marcie’s father.

“You dreamed about Marcie’s dad?” Patch’s voice was as calm as ever, but something in the way he looked sharply at me made me think he was surprised by this news. Maybe even disconcerted.

“I think I was in England. A long time ago. Marcie’s dad was being chased through a forest. Only he couldn’t get away, because his cape got tangled in the trees. He kept saying a fallen angel was trying to possess him.”

Patch pondered this a moment. Once again, his silence told me I’d said something that interested him. But I couldn’t guess what.

He glanced at his watch. “Need me to walk through the house?”

I gazed up at the dark, vacant windows of the farmhouse. The combination of nightfall and drizzling rain cast a gloomy, uninviting feeling all around. I couldn’t tell which was less appealing: going inside alone, or sitting out here with Patch, scared he might be moving on. To Marcie Millar.

“I’m hesitating because I don’t want to get wet. Besides, you obviously have somewhere to be.” I pushed on the door and swung one leg out. “That, and our relationship is over. You don’t owe me any favors.”

We locked eyes.

I’d said it to hurt him, but I was the one with the lump in my throat. Before I could say something that would slice deeper, I dashed for the porch, holding my arms over my head to shield my hair from the rain.

Inside, I leaned against the front door and listened to Patch drive away. My vision smeared with tears, and I closed my eyes. I wished Patch would come back. I wanted him here. I wanted him to pull me against him and kiss away the cold, empty feeling slowly freezing me from the inside out. But the sound of tires skimming over the wet