Everyone stops. Unease settles like a fog.

I heard something about that a while ago. Squad Salvation went out to sweep a possible camp of nonbelievers last month and never came back. Mom held a service on the chapel lawn for them, lifting her hands to help them to their destined place with Jesus, the gift of eternal life now and in Heaven forever. Not a funeral, though. Angels never hold funerals.

Brother Hutch takes the map. “We shouldn’t be,” he says. “We’re nowhere near the northeastern quarter, we should be fine. We should be…”

The Grace snuffles.

“We are,” Brother Hutch says. “Aren’t we?”

Another soldier crowds in. “I thought we were taking the long way around.”

“I thought we were too,” Brother Hutch says. “Maybe we got turned around by the courthouse.”

CRACK.

A wound blooms across Steven’s throat, like someone aimed for center mass and botched it, tearing his neck into a mess of meat and severed arteries. He stays upright for a second, gurgling, before he falls.

We walked right into an ambush.

The Grace screams, long and loud and high. It clatters to its feet, and its mouth opens into a hole of teeth and spit, swinging toward the office building across the street. I jam myself against the sedan for cover. Brother Hutch slides into place next to me, cradling his rifle to his chest.

CRACK. The rookie stumbles in silence, eyes bugging. CRACK. He’s dead.

The Angels scatter. Some jump through the broken window of the storefront next door, some duck behind the pickup parked in front of the sedan. Steven’s body stares at me, mouth open, a halo of blood spreading around his head.

“Where are they?” Brother Hutch snaps.

“There!” someone shouts back, pointing to the top of the office building.

Up there, backlit by the sun, a smudge of black—and it’s gone. Brother Hutch pulls me down and hisses, “Stay.”

Brother Hutch shatters.

It’s not a clean shot. The bullet nicks his eye and takes out a piece of his skull, blowing it open. I jerk back, slamming against the curb. Brother Hutch is gone. The man who watched with a gentle smile while Mom cleaned my scraped knee, the man who congratulated Theo and me on our betrothal and wished us a happy marriage through holy war, he’s gone. His body sags. There are brains on the sedan. There are brains on me.

Dad’s shattered skull. His blood in my mouth.

If they want their monster, make them suffer for it.

I’m on my feet. Away from the sedan, up the café stairs, through the shattered glass door. I tear off the robes and yank down the mask. I just have to get to the back door. I can lose them. I can make it if I just—

There’s movement behind the coffee bar.

A boy in black points a rifle at my chest.

The Angels describe themselves as an interdenominational Protestant movement founded in 2025 by Ian Clevenger, pastor and conservative Virginia state senator. However, they are described by critics as “evangelical eco-fascists” and a Christian terrorist group.