We vote with our eyes shut. I vote for it. Nick whispers the results to Cormac, who swallows hard. “All right,” he says, “all right.”

Afterward, as I slog through the mess, peeling apart sticky Angel corpses to find anything that could help us, I heave so hard, a trail of spit comes up. I take down my mask to wipe it away, but when the cloth touches my throat it happens again, and I end up with my head against the wall, gagging, waiting for the wave to pass.

It doesn’t. I take a page out of Nick’s book and find a pen and a piece of scrap paper in the bank and write to pass to him: I feel sick, I’m gonna go lie down. He walks me to the copy room and gives me a salvaged blanket, and I stay there until he comes to find me again.

“Erin wants to talk to everybody,” he says. “Should I tell her not to wait up?”

I push myself upright, a sick taste lingering in my mouth. “No, I’ll be—” I clamp my jaw shut to keep stomach acid from creeping up. “I’ll be fine. Give me a second.”

“You can rest.”

“I’m coming,” I insist and stagger to my feet.

In the lobby of the bank, Erin is sitting on the help desk, looking slightly better but not much. Everyone gathers around her like a gaggle of baby ducks, staring at her or anywhere but her, depending on how they deal with this kind of thing. Some nervously leaf through old deposit slips, click pens, or scratch the carpet. I sit by the desk, staring out the window to the courtyard. Nick takes his spot next to Erin, arms crossed.

Her gentle, wavering words break the silence.

“We don’t need to talk about what happened,” she says. “We all know what happened, and we all know what we lost. Moving forward, we’ll be staying here. The Acheson LGBTQ+ Center is not safe to inhabit, at least for now.”

A few pained cries rise up from the crowd. So much of their lives went up in flames: the books in the office; the photos on the walls; the flyers, apartments, and friends whose bodies were eaten away by the inferno. It’s what the Angels have always done to humanity—what society has always tried to do to us. Always taking, always sinking in its teeth. My fingers dig into my arm and pieces of skin start to come off. I stop myself by biting the inside of my remaining cheek until I draw blood.

Erin says, “We’ll do what we can with what we have. That’s what we’ve always done.”

Calvin raises his hand. If I have to listen to him, I might actually be sick. Aisha, where she’s sitting with Sadaf, turns away.