“I’ve neglected you this summer. I let you run wild.”

“Oh, so it’s your fault because if you’d been paying better attention you would have stopped me from dating Tucker in the first place. Nipped those pesky emotions in the bud.”

“Yes,” she says, willfully missing my sarcasm.

“Good night, Mom,” I say, turning the volume back up. I flip to the news. Weather report. Hot and dry. Some high winds. Fire weather. Storms likely later in the week, where a single lightning strike could set the entire area ablaze. Fun times ahead.

“Clara,” says Mom slowly, obviously not finished with her confession.

“I get it,” I snap. “You feel bad. Now I should get some sleep, in case I have to fulfill my destiny tomorrow.”

I shut off the television and chuck the remote down on the couch, then get up and push past her to the stairs.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she says, so low I don’t know if she means for me to hear her. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

I stop in the middle of the stairs and turn back.

“Then tell me,” I say. “If you’re sorry, tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Everything. Everything you know. Starting with your purpose. That’d be nice, don’t you think, if the two of us could sit down over a cup of tea and discuss our purpose?”

“I can’t,” she says. Her eyes darken, the pupils dilating like my words are causing her physical pain. Then it’s like she closes a door between us, her expression emptying out. My chest gets tight, partly because it makes me so furious that she can do that, that she’s so effectively shutting me out, but also because it just occurred to me that the only reason she’d work so hard to keep me in the dark is if she doesn’t believe I can handle the truth.

And that must mean the truth is pretty bad.

Either that, or, in spite of all her supportive motherly talk, she really doesn’t have any faith in me at all.

The next day’s a red alert day. That morning I stand in the front hallway, trying to decide whether or not to wear the purple jacket. If I don’t wear it, will the fire still happen? Could it be as simple as that? My entire fate resting on a simple fashion decision?

I decide not to test it. Anyway, at this point, I’m not trying to avoid the fire. I want it over with. And it gets cold up there in the clouds. I put the jacket on and head out.

I’m halfway through my patrol when the wave of sadness hits me.

It’s not the usual sadness. It isn’t about Tucker or Christian or my parents. It’s not pity or teenage malaise. This is pure, unfiltered grief, like everyone I’ve ever loved has suddenly died. It rages through my head until my vision blurs. It chokes me. I can’t breathe. My lightness disappears. I start to fall, grabbing at the air. I’m so heavy I drop like a stone.

Thankfully I hit a tree and don’t splat right against the rocks and die. Instead I strike the top branches at an angle. My right arm and wing catch a branch. There’s a snapping sound, followed by the worst pain I’ve ever felt, high in my shoulder. I scream as the ground rushes up at me. I put my working arm in front of my face, getting whipped and stung and scratched all the way down. Then I come to rest about twenty feet off the ground, my wings tangled in the branches, my body hanging.

I know there’s a Black Wing. In my panic and pain I’ve still been able to make that small deduction. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Which means that I have to get out of here, fast. So I bite my lip and try to free myself from the tree. My wings are really stuck, and I’m pretty sure the right one’s broken. It takes me a minute to remember that I can retract them, and then I tumble out of the tree the rest of the way.

I hit the ground hard. I scream again, wildly. The pain from my shoulder is so intense from the jolt against the ground that I come close to passing out. I can’t get air into my lungs. I can’t think clearly. My head’s so clouded with the sadness. If anything, it’s getting worse, more intense by the second, until I think my heart will explode with the pain of it.

That means he’s getting closer.

I struggle to sit up and find that I can’t move my arm. It hangs off my shoulder at a weird angle. I’ve never been this hurt before. Where’s my amazing healing power when I need it? I pull myself gingerly to my feet. The side of my face feels wet. I lift a hand to touch my cheek and come away with blood.

Never mind that, I think. Walk. Now.

Every move I make jolts my shoulder, sending a shock wave of pain all through my body. In that moment I feel like I could literally die. There’s no hope, no light, no prayer on my lips. I’m so done. I’m tempted to just lie down and let him have me.

No, I tell myself. That’s the Black Wing you’re feeling. Keep walking. Put one foot in front of the other. Get out of here.

I stagger forward another few feet and lean against a tree, panting, trying to gather my strength. Then I hear a man’s voice behind me, drifting toward me through the trees like it’s carried on the wind. Definitely not human.

“Hello, little bird,” he says.

I freeze.

“That was quite a fall. Are you all right?”

Chapter 20

Hurt Like Hell

Really, really slowly, I turn. The man’s standing not ten feet away, regarding me with curious eyes.

He’s insanely attractive. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that day at the mall. I guess all full-blooded angels are supposed to be drop-dead gorgeous, but I didn’t understand that they are literally drop-dead gorgeous. If there is a mold for the perfect male form, this guy was cast from it.

He’s so not what he seems. He’s not young or old, his skin without even the smallest wrinkle or flaw, his hair coal-black and gleaming. But I know he’s old as the rocks under my feet. He holds himself supernaturally still. The sadness I feel shooting through my every nerve doesn’t show on his face. His lips are even slightly turned up in what’s supposed to be a sympathetic smile. If I didn’t know better I would think that his voice is kind and that he genuinely wants to help me. Like he isn’t some big bad angel who could kill me with his pinkie finger. Like he’s merely a concerned passerby.

I can’t run. There’s no way. I can’t fly. The grief takes all my lightness away, like a shadow blocking the sun. I’m probably going to die. I want to cry out for my mother. I try to remind myself, through the Black Wing’s despair, which lays on me heavy as a wet blanket, that on the other side of a thin veil there’s heaven, and this man, this impostor of a man, can kill my body but he can’t touch my soul.

I didn’t know I truly believed that until now. The thought makes me momentarily brave. I try not to think about Tucker and Jeffrey and all the other people I’ll be leaving behind if this guy kills me now. I struggle to stand up straight and look him in the eye.

“Who are you?” I demand.

He raises an eyebrow at me.

“You’re a courageous little one,” he says, taking a step closer. When he moves there’s a kind of blurring in the air around him that settles when he stops. The more I look at him, the less human he appears, like the body standing in front of me is just a suit he put on this morning and there’s some other creature underneath, pulsing with grief and fury, barely restraining itself from breaking free. He takes another step toward me.

I take a step back. He gives a tiny, soft laugh, a chuckle, but the noise causes fear to shudder through me from head to toe.

“I am Sam,” he says. He has a slight accent, but I can’t place it. He speaks in a low, lilting voice, trying to soothe me.