“Start with the Before.”
I knew which Before he meant. Before they descended. “I was on summer break,” I started, then trailed off, having nothing to say, having too much to say.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he turned and narrowed his perfect golden eyes. “What day is it today?”
“Let’s see.” I pursed my lips thinking. The apocalypse had messed up the calendar. Not just my internal calendar of waking and sleeping, but all my plans, my future. Life is canceled, it said.
Growling rumbled in the room. Holy shit, he was growling at me. “Sunday,” I answered, voice pitched high. “August twenty-sixth.”
“And the year?”
I answered.
“Typically, what do you do on Sundays?”
“Hm.” I looked up at the celling and wrung my hands, fear choking me, making me draw blanks.
“Do you have a last name?” he continued.
“DeLuca.”
“Miss DeLuca, your memories are of great interest to me. It is miss, correct?”
I nodded.
“Lucky me.”
“Yes.” That was the default to anything this man, or male, said.
“I want to know everything about you, and especially how you’ve retained memories and sanity at the same time. How far back do your memories go? You remember your childhood? Do note your survival depends on how you answer me.”
“No pressure,” I said.
“Hm?” He tilted his head like a confused lion.
“I can tell you everything.” Pigeon for the win.
“Today, and in two minutes.” From his pocket, he pulled out what looked like an ancient watch attached to a metal chain. He pressed a thumb over a side button, and it clicked. “Time,” he said.
“Two minutes. Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth. “That saying must hold a bit more meaning nowadays, huh?”
“Time,” he repeated and turned back to watching the people outside. “Start with a typical Sunday, Miss DeLuca.”
“On a typical Sunday,” I began, “I get up around three—”
He faced me, beaming. “An early riser. This is good.”
Dimples showed on his cheeks. I swallowed. This angel was so beautiful, and he gave me all his attention, and I was stupefied, barely able to say two words that would surely disappoint him. I didn’t want to disappoint, but I admitted, “Afternoon, sir.”
A sour face replaced the pretty, smiling one. “Your Sunday must be very eventful seeing as you’ve wasted the best part of it.”
“You sound like my dad.” Sorrow gripped my chest, and my chin quivered. I didn’t know what had happened to Dad. Clearing my throat, I continued so I wouldn’t break down and cry in front of this creature. “I get up and hit it downstairs, where my little brother plays video games on the big family TV. He gets the big TV on the weekends ’cause Dad’s always outside repairing one thing or another. Mom reads on the couch. That’s what we did. Typically. Before your kind descended.”
“We?”
“We. Me and my people.” I smiled. “I call them my people. Family, you know. Anyway.” I swatted the air. “I start fresh coffee and join her, watch my little brother kick ass in one game or another, then I get back upstairs, call my friends, check online, emails, whatever, go back down and help Mom with dinner. We do family movie night unless it’s Super Bowl Sunday. We’re big football fans. Dad’s from Denver and Mom’s from Oakland, so they always fight when their teams play.”
“Incredible,” he said.
“What is?”
He flicked two fingers and changed the subject. “Did you attend kindergarten?”
“Yes.”
“What was the name of your kindergarten?”
“Brave Little Ducklings.”
The timer rang, and I tensed.
The angel ignored the deadline ping. “Ducklings?” He appeared horrified. “As in yellow quacking things that can’t fly?”
I nodded, eyes on the timer in his hand.
He slid the watch into his pocket. “ Miss DeLuca, couldn’t it have been Brave Little Lions?”
“It would have been The Lions if you went there.”
“Certainly,” he said with a nod. “And the country?”
“What?”
“Which country do you live in?”
“The United States. Why are you asking these weird questions?”
His golden eyes positively shone, but that was the only warm thing about him. His face, carved as if of marble, hardened as he walked toward me, stopping only an inch away. The kilt around him settled. All but a single piece, which lifted and touched my knee and trailed over my arm, raising goose bumps on its way up to my neck, where it wrapped around tightly.
I gulped, eyes locked with his beautiful ones.
“Because, Miss DeLuca, the world you speak of never existed.”
“I don’t understand,” I choked out.
“The world you speak of has never existed.”
“Repeating it won’t make me understand.”
“You’re delusional, Miss DeLuca.”
I shook my head and tried to pry the cloth off my neck. “Yes, sir.”
I wanted to tell him I knew what I knew. I remembered when his kind came down, the days after it when the world started collapsing before my eyes. We had watched TV and wondered what the hell was happening, and then we stopped watching because what was happening everywhere else was happening right on our street. The power outages, the food shortage, his kind flying over our heads.
And I definitely remembered him, and the sword. My wound still hurt. It hurt because I’d crashed through the window while trying to escape him. And that happened in what he called the Before.
He hissed and tightened the cloth. Heat rushed to my face. He’d strangle me to death. He would. The angels were terrifying, terrible creatures. Through my window, I’d seen them battle each other. Like beasts, they shrieked and growled and snarled, ripping wings from one another, sometimes with their sharp teeth, other times with bare hands.
“Are you going to kill me?” I choked out.
“Maybe. Are you ready to die?”
“No, sir.”
The cloth released me, the material fluttering with invisible unnatural force to join the rest of the cloth that made up his kilt. I gasped for air. Should’ve sat down when those two angels told me to sit.
“If you are not
