Fire lights the narrow halls an otherworldly pink and orange, smoke muffling it all under an ugly gray. Roiling flames lick across the ceiling and devour pride flags and old posters. I raise my hand against the haze. But there’s so little oxygen, my lungs scream. It’s so hot, the soles of my shoes are going to melt to the floor. There’s so much noise it’s all a roar, so loud it hurts, all the fire and my own heartbeat and ragged breathing. There’s more gunshots, more Angels, and I pray: O God, Your shade is what protects me, our struggle against flesh and blood, against wickedness in heavenly places.

The Grace charges ahead, barreling through furniture and barricaded fire doors. We weave through back halls and erupt into the lobby, where flames have engulfed everything, even the bodies on the floor. The Angels broke through a defensive line here. Spent bullet casings shimmer; two Angels burn in the doorway, between the bodies of people I know. Don, who helped me do my laundry a few days ago; Lindsey, who laughed when my jacket sleeves fell over my hands.

They’re dead. For the first time in a while, I have to stop at the sight of a dead body because God, oh God, O God, Your shade is what protects us.

Something moves over my shoulder. I turn to find Carly staring at me, at the Grace, tears streaming down her cheeks. She’s supporting someone whose left arm is charred beyond recognition.

I point to the back door. “That way!” Carly nods and takes a step back, and the smoke swallows her.

A scream from the gym. Shit, the gym. I fling open the doors.

It’s an inferno. Apartments crackle and collapse, and there goes everything. Our beds, our belongings, the trinkets and pages of books held up like wards against evil. All gone.

Through the smoke, I see them: two Angels sweeping the aisles, checking apartments one by one and setting them alight. Glimmering like demons, ash smearing the hems of their robes.

Brother Faring. Brother Heard. Of course I recognize them. I always do.

I jam my shoulder into the Grace’s side. They spring forward, clattering across the waxed gym floor, and grab Brother Heard by the torso to fling him into the fire. His robes catch immediately. Brother Faring lifts his rifle but—

CRACK. He falls. An ashen hand bats aside a sheet door from an apartment just feet away, and Aisha crawls out, smeared with soot and cradling her gun like a baby.

“Benji,” she gasps, “Benji, you’re okay.”

I grab her arms to steady her as the Grace digs into the second Angel to make sure he’s really, really dead, pulling out ropes of dripping insides. Aisha is shaking and wheezing.

“I’m okay,” I manage. “Where is everybody?”