“I sneaked out.” Her smile twisted up on one side. “I had to see you again. I’ve been trying for a long time, but security—well, you know. It’s not exactly lax. Your kind and my kind—we aren’t supposed to mix. But you know that.”
“Coming here was a bad idea.”
“I know it’s been a while, but I was hoping for a slightly more friendly reaction,” she said, pushing her lips out in a pout.
Patch didn’t answer.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.” Dabria dimmed her voice to a low, sexy pitch and took a step closer to Patch. “It wasn’t easy getting down here. Lucianna is making excuses for why I’m absent. I’m risking her future as well as my own. Don’t you want to at least hear what I have to say?”
“Talk.” Patch’s words didn’t hold a shred of trust.
“I haven’t given up on you. This whole time—” She broke off and blinked back a sudden display of tears. When she spoke again, her voice was more composed but still held a wavering note. “I know how you can get your wings back.”
She smiled at Patch, but he didn’t return the smile.
“As soon as you get your wings back, you can come home,” she said, speaking more confidently.
“Everything will be like it was before. Nothing has changed. Not really.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch. You have to save a human life. Very judicious, considering the crime that banished you here in the first place.”
“What rank will I be?”
All confidence scattered from Dabria’s eyes, and I got the feeling he’d asked the one question she’d hoped to avoid. “I just told you how to get your wings back,” she said, sounding a touch condescending.
“I think I deserve a thankyou—”
“Answer the question.” But his grim smile told me he already knew. Or had a very good guess.
Whatever Dabria’s answer was, he wasn’t going to like it.
“Fine. You’ll be a guardian, all right?”
Patch tipped his head back and laughed softly.
“What’s wrong with being a guardian?” Dabria demanded. “Why isn’t it good enough?”
“I have something better in the works.”
“Listen to me, Patch. There’s nothing better. You’re kidding yourself. Any other fallen angel would jump at the chance to get their wings back and become a guardian. Why can’t you?” Her voice was choked with bewilderment, irritation, rejection.
Patch pushed up from the pool table. “It was good seeing you again, Dabria. Have a nice trip back.”
Without warning, she curled her fists into his shirt, yanked him close, and crushed a kiss to his mouth.
Very slowly Patch’s body turned toward her, his stance softening. His hands came up and skimmed her arms.
I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the stab of jealousy and confusion in my heart. Part of me wanted to turn away and cry, part of me wanted to march over and start shouting. Not that it would do any good. I was invisible. Obviously Miss Greene … Dabria … whoever she was … and Patch had a romantic past together. Were they still together now—in the future? Had she applied for a job at Coldwater High to be closer to Patch? Is that why she was so determined to scare me away from him?
“I should go,” said Dabria, pulling free. “I’ve already stayed too long. I promised Lucianna I’d hurry.”
She lowered her head against his chest. “I miss you,” she whispered. “Save one human life, and you’ll have your wings again. Come back to me,” she begged. “Come home.” She broke away suddenly. “I have to go. None of the others can find out I’ve been down here. I love you.”
As Dabria turned away, the anxiety vanished from her face. An expression of sly confidence replaced it.
It was the face of someone who’d bluffed their way through a rough hand of cards.
Without warning, Patch caught her by the wrist.
“Now tell me why you’re really here,” he said.
I shivered at the dark undercurrent in Patch’s tone. To an outsider, he looked perfectly calm. But to anyone who’d known him any length of time, it was obvious. He was giving Dabria a look that said she’d crossed a line and it was in her best interest to hop back across it—now.
Patch steered her toward the bar. He planted her on a bar stool and slid onto the one beside it. I took the one next to Patch, leaning in to hear him above the music.
“What do you mean, what am I here for?” Dabria stammered. “I told you—”
“You’re lying.”
Her mouth dropped. “I can’t believe—you think—”
“Tell me the truth, right now,” said Patch.
Dabria hesitated before answering. She gave him a fierce glare, then said, “Fine. I know what you’re planning to do.”
Patch laughed. It was a laugh that said, I have a lot of plans. Which one are you referring to?
“I know you’ve heard rumors about The Book of Enoch. I also know you think you can do the same thing, but you can’t.”
Patch folded his arms on the bar. “They sent you here to persuade me to choose a different course, didn’t they?” A smile showed in his eyes. “If I’m a threat, the rumors must be true.”
“No, they’re not. They’re rumors.”
“If it happened once, it can happen again.”
“It never happened. Did you even bother to read The Book of Enoch before you fell?” she challenged.
“Do you know exactly what it says, word for holy word?”
“Maybe you could loan me your copy.”
“That’s blasphemous! You’re forbidden to read it,” she cried. “You betrayed every angel in heaven when you fell.”
“How many of them know what I’m after?” he asked. “How big of a threat am I?”
She tossed her head side to side. “I can’t tell you that. I’ve already told you more than I should have.”
“Are they going to try to stop me?”
“The avenging angels will.”
He looked at her with meaning. “Unless they think you talked me out of it.”
“Don’t look at me like that.” She sounded like she was putting all her courage into sounding firm. “I won’t lie to protect you. What you’re trying to do is wrong. It’s not natural.”
“Dabria.” Patch spoke her name as a soft threat. He might as well have had her by the arm, twisting it behind her back.
“I can’t help you,” she said with quiet conviction. “Not that way. Put it out of your mind. Become a guardian angel. Focus on that and forget The Book of Enoch.”
Patch planted his elbows on the bar, radiating thought. After a moment he said, “Tell them we talked, and I showed interest in becoming a guardian.”
“Interest?” she said, a bit incredulously.
“Interest,” he repeated. “Tell them I asked for a name. If I’m going to save a life, I need to know who’s at the top of your departing list. I know you’re privy to that information as an angel of death.”
“That information is sacred and private, and not predictable. The events in this world shift from moment to moment depending on human choices—”
“One name, Dabria.”
“Promise me you’ll forget about The Book of Enoch first. Give me your word.”
“You’d trust my word?”
“No,” she said, “I wouldn’t.”
Patch laughed coolly and, grabbing a toothpick from the dispenser, walked toward the stairs.
“Patch, wait—,” she began. She hopped off the bar stool. “Patch, please wait!”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Nora Grey,” she said, then immediately clamped her hands over her mouth.
There was a faint crack in Patch’s expression—a frown of disbelief mixed with annoyance. Which made no sense since, if the calendar on the wall was correct, we hadn’t met yet. My name shouldn’t have sparked familiarity. “How is she going to die?” he asked.
“Someone wants to kill her.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” she said, covering her ears and shaking her head. “There’s so much noise and commotion down here. All the images blur together, they come too fast, I can’t see clearly. I need to go home. I need peace and calm.”
Patch tucked a strand of Dabria’s hair behind her ear and looked at her persuasively. She gave a warm shudder at his touch, then nodded and shut her eyes. “I can’t see … I don’t see anything … it’s useless.”
“Who wants to kill Nora Grey?” Patch urged.
“Wait, I see her,” said Dabria. Her voice turned anxious. “There’s a shadow behind her. It’s him. He’s following her. She doesn’t see him … but he’s right there. Why doesn’t she see him? Why isn’t she running? I can’t see his face, it’s in shadow… .”
Dabria’s eyes flew open. She sucked in a quick, sharp breath.
“Who?” Patch said.
Dabria curled her hands against her mouth. She was trembling as she raised her eyes to Patch’s.
“You,” she whispered.
My finger moved off Patch’s scar and the connection broke. It took me a moment to reorient myself, so I wasn’t ready for Patch, who wrestled me into the bed in an instant. He pinned my wrists above my head.
“You weren’t supposed to do that.” There was controlled anger in his face, dark and simmering. “What did you see?”
I got my knee up and clipped him in the ribs. “Get—off—me!”
He slid onto my hips, straddling them, eliminating the use of my legs. With my arms still stretched above my head, I couldn’t do more than squirm under his weight.
“Get—off—me—or—I’ll—scream!”
“You’re already screaming. And it isn’t going to cause a stir in this place. It’s more of a whorehouse than a motel.” He gave a hard smile that was all lethality around the edges. “Last chance, Nora. What did you see?”
I was fighting back tears. My whole body hummed with an emotion so foreign I couldn’t even name it.
“You make me sick!” I said. “Who are you? Who are you really?”
His mouth turned even more grim. “We’re getting closer.”
“You want to kill me! ”
Patch’s face gave away nothing, but his eyes grew cold.
“The Jeep didn’t really die tonight, did it?” I said. “You lied. You brought me here so you could kill me.
That’s what Dabria said you want to do. Well, what are you waiting for?” I didn’t have a clue where I was going with this, and I didn’t care. I was spitting words in an attempt to keep my horror at bay.
“You’ve been trying to kill me all along. Right from the start. Are you going to kill me now?” I stared at him, hard and unblinking, trying to keep tears from spilling as I remembered the fateful day he’d walked into my life.
