Standing there, I had a moment of understanding—way back before this, before time, before the Fall, she’d been something else altogether, something so beautiful that it burned with holy fire. Now here she was, beaten and broken, lashing out at anything she could and cringing away from the pain.
“Or maybe it’s the good boy’s turn to dole out a little punishment.” She raised one eyebrow. “Is this what He gave you for your faithful service? Some pot shots at revenge?”
“Mikal.” My voice was ragged and hoarse from the effort it took to speak through the invisible razor blades. “Come with me. You don’t. Have. To stay.”
Time dragged out while she sneered up at me from the floor. I hadn’t realized it before, but even while I was holding still, I could feel my flesh burning and bubbling, cracking with the heat, then sloughing off and regrowing in itching prickles like bugs crawling along under the surface of my skin, but slow enough to drive you insane. Except you couldn’t go insane here—there wasn’t even that much escape from the torture.
When Mikal grinned, I knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Please, Mikal,” I croaked, trying to change her mind. “Come with me.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” she said.
Tough
I’d thought the hard part of sneaking off would be the getting outside without anybody realizing what I was up to, but that turned out to be pretty easy. Once Clarion decided he was sending messengers, we all kind of broke up and went downstairs. Clarion shifted into a coyote and went to bumping shoulders and making noise with his pack, probably laying out the plan. Lonely and Scout talked to that crow-girl Talitha and Lonely’s cousin Cash Pershing, figuring out the best way to issue weapons to the human troops and train without the fallen angels catching on. And the humans milled around Lonely and Scout’s little group, trying to overhear everything.
When the tattoo parlor door opened and Finn stuck his head in, only a couple people closest to the front noticed.
Finn looked around a second, then grinned at me. “Just the guy I wanted to see. Want to step outside and have a chat?”
Dodge and Willow were standing near the door, talking to just each other. I pointed from myself to Finn, then outside.
“Got you,” Dodge said. “Anybody needs you, we’ll holler.”
I nodded and slapped him on the shoulder on my way out to say thanks.
The front of Lonely’s shop faced east, and the sun had gone down far enough that we had plenty of long shadow stretching out to protect us vamps. Probably how Finn had gotten there in the first place.
I wanted to ask him what he was doing up so early. Most younger vamps slept a lot longer than the older ones—most of them who weren’t me, anyway. If you believed Mitzi, she was almost two hundred years old, and she still slept from just before dawn to nearly nine or ten every night. Finn had barely been undead since we graduated high school.
Since I couldn’t ask, though, I had to wait for him to start talking.
Finn didn’t act like he was in any hurry. He leaned up against the brick column next to Lonely’s big front window and puffed away at a cigarette. I leaned against the wood post holding up one corner of the awning.
“How’s the revolution going?”
I shrugged and a shiver rolled down my back. Finn was probably soaking up the heat from those bricks. I half wanted to go over there and cozy up next to him so I could get a little of that warmth, too, but I stayed put. If he’d been Jax, maybe I would’ve done it. It’s not gay if it’s your best friend. Even if you eventually end up murdering him.
I snorted. I was pretty sure Jax would’ve laughed at that, too, but maybe I was just kidding myself.
Finn was watching me out of the corner of his eye like he wasn’t quite sure whether he should be worried or not. I could’ve told him that people who weren’t my brother, best friend, or girlfriend weren’t in any danger from me, but that wasn’t quite true. I mean, there had been that groupie. I didn’t know if that one counted or not since Mitzi was the one who picked him up. Probably. A joint-murder is still a murder.
Shit, I was a laugh riot tonight.
Finn raised one of his plucked eyebrows at me.
I shook my head. Even if I could talk, he wouldn’t get it. It was one of those you-had-to-be-there things.
He shrugged, then dropped the butt of his finished cigarette onto the sidewalk and dragged his high-top across it before he dug out his pack. He lit up another one, then nodded at me. “Want to bum one?”
I nodded. I’d never smoked while I was alive. That shit reeked, plus it was as good as taking a blow torch to your vocal cords. But none of that mattered anymore, so why the hell not?
Finn stuck a second cigarette in his mouth and lit that one up. When it had a good cherry going, he handed it over.
I took a drag off it. Either I did it wrong or the smoke hit me wrong because I went from sucking in straight to coughing the smoke back out.
“You’re good at this,” Finn said.
I shot him the finger.
“Don’t just breathe it in,” he said. “Get a little air in your lungs, then do it. But don’t suck it all the way into your lungs or you’ll start coughing again. Hold it right here.” He pointed at where his throat met his chest.
I tried it again and managed not to cough my lungs up that time.
