“Just my own personal demon, Mom. Don’t worry. He’s just a little weakling.”

Weak or not, we both know he could have killed me if that’s what he wanted. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I was scared, though.

“Oh.” She sounds calm suddenly, as if that explained everything. “Okay. Don’t underestimate them. And don’t make them promises you can’t keep.” I can tell by her fading voice as she says this that she’s reassured and walking away.

The baffled look the angel shoots at the door makes me chuckle. He glances my way, giving me a you’re-weirder-than-your-mom look.

“Here.” I toss him a roll of bandages from my stash. “You probably want to put pressure on that.”

He catches it neatly even as he closes his eyes. “How am I supposed to reach my back?”

“Not my problem.”

He relaxes his hand with a sigh, and the bandage rolls onto the floor, leaving a ribbon on the carpet as it rolls.

“You’re not sleeping again, are you?”

His only response is a muffled, “Mmm,” as his breathing turns heavy and regular like a man in deep sleep.

Damn.

I stand there, watching him. This is obviously some kind of healing sleep by the look of his previously repaired injuries. If he wasn’t so gravely injured and exhausted, there’s no doubt he would have kicked my ass to kingdom come and back, even if he chose not to kill me. But it still irks me that he sees me as such a small threat as to actually fall asleep in my presence.

Duct tape was a bad idea that only made sense when I thought he was weak as wet paper. Now that I know better, what are my options?

I dig around the office kitchen drawers and supply room and come up with nothing. It’s not until I go through someone’s gym bag under a desk that I find an old-fashioned bike lock, the kind with heavy chains wrapped in plastic, with a key in the lock. There’s something to be said for an old-school chaining.

There’s nothing in the office to chain him to, so I use a metal cart sitting next to the copier. I sweep the stacks of paper off it and roll it into the corner office. My mother is nowhere to be seen, and I can only assume she is giving me the professional courtesy of letting me deal with my “personal demon” in private.

I roll the cart next to the sleeping man—angel, I mean angel. Careful not to wake him, I loop the chain tightly around each of his wrists, then wrap it several times around one of the metal legs of the cart so that it takes up all the slack. Then I snap the lock shut with a satisfying click.

The chain can slide up and down the cart leg but can’t escape it. This is an even better idea than I first realized because I can now move him around without him being able to run off. Wherever he’s going, the cart will go with him.