was unbearable. At the moment when I needed him most, when I was heading into the tunnels, scared and lost, he’d left me to face this alone.
“I can’t see where I’m going,” I gasped, swatting my eyes dry, struggling through the frustrating process of trying to focus my thoughts on one specific goal: getting to the tunnels and meeting Vee on the other side. “I need something to hold.”
Rixon impatiently thrust the hem of his shirt out to me. “Hold the back of my shirt and follow me. Keep up. We haven’t got a lot of time.”
I squeezed the worn cotton between my fingers, my heart beating stronger. Inches away was the bare skin of his back. My dad had told me to touch his scars; it would be so easy now. All I had to do was slide my hand …
Succumb to the dark suction that would swallow me whole …
I thought back to the times I’d touched Patch’s scars, and how I’d been briefly transported inside his memory. Without a shred of doubt, I knew touching Rixon’s scars would do the same thing.
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to keep my feet under me, get to the tunnels, and get out of Delphic.
But my dad had come back to tell me where to find the truth. Whatever I’d see in Rixon’s past, it had to be important. As much as it hurt to know my dad had left me here, I had to trust him. I had to trust he’d risked everything to tell me.
I slid my hand up the back of Rixon’s shirt. I felt smooth skin … then a bumpy ridge of scar tissue. I splayed my hand against the scar, waiting to be ripped into a strange, foreign world.
The street was quiet, dark. The houses framing both sides of it were derelict, ramshackle. Yards were small and fenced. Windows were boarded or barred. A heavy frost sank its teeth into my skin.
Two loud explosions ruptured the silence. I swung to face the house across the street.
The sound of running footsteps rang through the night, and I watched in shock as my dad let himself through the gate of the house across the street and disappeared around the side yard. Without waiting, I took off after him.
“Dad!” I screamed, unable to help myself. “Don’t go back there!” He was wearing the same clothes he’d gone out in the night he’d been killed. I pushed through the gate and met him at the back corner of the house. Sobbing, I threw my arms around him. “We have to go back. We have to get out of here. Something horrible is going to happen.”
My dad walked right through my arms, crossing to a small stone wall that ran alongside the property. He inched down the wall in a crouch, eyes trained on the back door of the house. I leaned into the siding, bowed my head against my arms, and cried. I didn’t want to see this. Why had my dad told me to touch Rixon’s scars? I didn’t want this. Didn’t he know how much pain I’d already suffered?
“Last chance.” The words were spoken from inside the house, drifting out through the open back door.
“Go to hell.”
Another explosion, and I slumped to my knees, pressing myself against the siding, willing the memory to end.
“Where is she?” The question was asked so quietly, so calmly, I almost couldn’t hear it over my soft crying.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my dad move. He crept across the yard, moving toward the door. A gun was in his hand, and he raised it, taking aim. I ran at him, grabbing at his hands, trying to wrestle the gun away from him, trying to push him back into the shadows. But it was like moving a ghost—my hands passed right through him.
My dad pulled the trigger. The shot cut open the night, ripping the silence in half. Again and again he fired. Even though no part of me wanted to, I faced the house, seeing the lean build of the young man my dad was shooting from behind. Just beyond him, another man sat slumped on the floor, his back propped up by the sofa. He was bleeding, and his expression was twisted in agony and fear.
In a moment muddled with confusion, I realized it was Hank Millar.
“Run!” Hank shouted at my dad. “Leave me behind! Run and save yourself!”
My dad didn’t run. He held the gun level, shooting over and over, sending bullets flying at the open door, where the young man in a blue ball cap seemed impervious to them. And then, very slowly, he turned to face my dad.
CHAPTER 24
RIXON GRABBED MY WRIST, GIVING IT A FIRM squeeze. “Careful whose business you go sticking your nose in.” His jaw was set in anger, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Maybe that’s the way it is with Patch, but nobody touches my scars.” He arched his eyebrows meaningfully.
My stomach was cinched with a knot so tight I almost doubled over. “I saw my dad die,” I blurted, stricken with horror.
“Did you see the killer?” Rixon asked, shaking my wrist to pull me all the way back to the present.
“I saw Patch from behind,” I gasped. “He was wearing his ball cap.”
He nodded, as if accepting that what I’d seen couldn’t be undone. “He didn’t want to keep the truth from you, but he knew that if he told you, he’d lose you. It happened before he knew you.”
“I don’t care when it happened,” I said, my voice shrill and shaking. “He needs to be brought to justice.”
“You can’t bring him to justice. He’s Patch. If you report him, do you really think he’s going to let the cops haul him off?”
No, I didn’t. The police meant nothing to Patch. Only the archangels could stop him. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. There were only three people in the memory. My dad, Patch, and Hank Millar. The three of them saw what happened. Then how am I seeing this in your memory?”
Rixon didn’t say anything, but the lines around his mouth tightened.
A horrible new thought settled over me. All certainty in regard to my dad’s killer evaporated. I’d seen the killer from the back and assumed it was Patch because of the ball cap. But the longer I dwelled on the memory, the more I was sure the killer was too lanky to be Patch, the cut of his shoulders too angular.
In fact, the killer looked a lot like …
“You killed him,” I whispered. “It was you. You were wearing Patch’s hat.” The shock of the moment was quickly being eaten up by abhorrence and ice-cold fear. “You killed my dad.”
Any trace of kindness or sympathy vanished from Rixon’s eyes. “Well, this is awkward.”
“You were wearing Patch’s hat that night. You borrowed it, didn’t you? You couldn’t kill my dad without assuming another identity. You couldn’t do it unless you removed yourself from the situation,” I said, drawing on everything I remembered from the psychology unit in my freshman health class. “No. Wait. That’s not it. You pretended to be Patch because you wish you were him. You’re jealous of him. That’s it, isn’t it? You’d rather be him—”
Rixon gripped my cheekbones, forcing me to stop.
I recoiled, my jaw aching where he’d squeezed me. I wanted to fling myself at him, hitting him with everything I had, but knew I needed to stay calm. I needed to find out what I could. I was beginning to think Rixon hadn’t brought me into the tunnels to help me escape. Worse, I was beginning to think he had no intention of ever taking me back up.
“Jealous of him?” he said cruelly. “Sure I’m jealous. He isn’t the one on the fast track to hell. We were in this together, and now he’s gone and gotten himself his wings back.” His eyes raked over me in disgust. “Because of you.”
I shook my head, not buying it. “You killed my dad before you even knew who I was.”
He laughed, but it lacked humor. “I knew you were out there somewhere, and I was looking for you.”
