Captain Washington stood in the doorway, gun leveled on Gabriel. She fired without hesitation, striking the archangel repeatedly in the chest.

Gabriel’s roar shook the floor as hands grabbed my shoulders. I started to swing, but caught sight of reddish-brown hair and horns. Dez. Blood smeared his face. He dragged me aside as I turned to find Gabriel. Bullets wouldn’t take him out, and probably would only irritate him more.

But Gabriel...he was up by the rafters of the gymnasium, where the ghosts were scrambling over one another to get away from him. He flew back, in through the door he’d come out.

He retreated.

I couldn’t believe it as I dragged in deep, uneven breaths.

“Are you okay?” Dez lifted me to my feet, pulling me to his chest. “Trinity?”

I nodded as I looked to where Captain Washington stood. She still held the gun. Behind her, Teller and Jordan were struggling to their feet.

“I think I just shot an actual angel. Multiple times,” Captain Washington said hoarsely. “Does that mean I’m going to Hell?”

“The opposite,” I wheezed. “Believe it or not, it means the opposite.”

There had been no time to dwell on how close I’d come to getting captured in the aftermath.

The poor captain seemed like she was in a state of shock and finding her officers on the scoreboard didn’t help. I had no idea what Dez told her or how she was going to explain any of this to her department, the public or the families of the workers and officers. I didn’t envy her.

Or Dez.

Nicolai had showed up shortly after we’d exited the school, and the moment he saw me, he looked like he wanted to murder the Warden.

The only good thing that came from the little adventure was the shutdown of any and all work on the renovations and the discovery of Gabriel’s possible weakening. But those two things were overshadowed by the senseless loss of life. There was no reason for those workers or officers to be killed, and that was twelve sets of families and friends who would never be the same.

I’d crashed and burned the moment Dez had dropped me off back at the apartment. I knew the Wardens would be patrolling for Zayne, and would call if they spotted him, but instinct told me they wouldn’t catch one glimpse of him. I slept through the night, slipping into the kind of deep sleep where the horrors of the gymnasium couldn’t follow me. I’d slept well into early Monday afternoon, but I was still moving at the speed of a three-legged turtle when I finally dragged myself out of bed.