A well-muscled arm slides around my throat from behind and begins to squeeze.

Grabbing his arm around my neck, I tuck my chin down hard, trying to transfer the pressure of his arm onto my chin rather than my throat. I have about twenty seconds to get out of this before either my brain shuts off or my windpipe collapses.

I crouch as low as I can. Then I spring backward, slamming us both into the wall. The impact is harder than if he’d weighed as much as a normal man.

I hear an “Oof” and the clattering of photo frames, and I know those gashes on his back must be screaming from the sharp frame edges.

“What’s that noise?” my mother demands.

The arm squeezes viciously around my throat, and I decide the term, “angel of mercy,” is an oxymoron. Not wasting my energy on fighting the choke, I gather all my energy for another slam into the wall. The least I can do is cause a lot of pain while he takes me out.

This time, his groan of pain is sharper. I would get a lot of satisfaction out of that, except that my head is feeling light and spotty.

One more slam and dark spots bloom all over my vision.

Just as I realize my vision is going out, he loosens his grip. I fall to my knees, gasping for air through my raw throat. My head feels too heavy on my neck, and it’s all I can do to not fall flat on the floor.

“Penryn Young, you open this door right now!” The doorknob jiggles. My mother must have been calling out all this time, but it hadn’t really registered.

The angel groans like he’s in real pain. He crawls past me and I see why. His back bleeds through the bandages in spots that look like puncture wounds. I glance behind me at the wall. Two oversized nails that used to hold up the framed Yosemite poster stick out from the wall, their heads dripping with blood.

The angel is not the only one in bad shape. I can’t seem to take a breath without doubling over in a coughing fit.

“Penryn? Are you okay?” My mom sounds worried. What she imagines is happening in here, I can’t begin to guess.

“Yeah,” I croak. “It’s okay.”

The angel crawls onto the couch and lies on his stomach with another groan. I flash him an evil grin.

“You,” he says, with a dirty look, “don’t deserve salvation.”

“As if you could give it to me,” I croak. “Why would I want to go to Heaven anyway when it’s crammed full of murderers and kidnappers like you and your buddies?”

“Who says I belong in Heaven?” It’s true that the nasty snarl he’s giving me belongs more to a hellion than to a heavenly being. He mars the fiendish image with a wince of pain.

“Penryn? Who are you talking to?” My mother sounds almost frantic now.