“Then we will not meet. Contact us only when you do, or when a month has passed. Victor Romeo Delta, over and out.”

They’re not going to help us.

That’s what it takes for the bank to shatter. It’s too much. Everything we had burned to the ground. We’ve lost so many people. We don’t have enough food or water to last us a week, let alone a month. Someone starts to cry. Erin makes a noise like a wounded animal; Faith, Aisha, and Sadaf are as silent as corpses; and my stomach turns, and bile floods hot and sour up my throat. I stumble out of the lobby, through the window into the courtyard, and drop to my knees before vomiting into the grass.

This is the worst it’s ever been. It’s so much. So much is coming up, clumps of wet flesh, red and black and slimy, leaving trails over my chin and across my hands as I peel them out of my throat. What Seraph has rejected of my insides and replaced with the virus, what it’s built from my body, what it’s doing on the inside, is all pushing out, and I have to dig my fingers into the dirt to keep from ripping the skin off my arms. It’s taking me apart. We don’t have time. I don’t have time.

We’re fucked, and it’s my fault. I led the Angels to them. There’s no other reason they would come here if not for me.

Nick comes up to the window and hops out into the grass, standing as if blocking me from the inscrutable gaze of the road past the broken fence. As if he couldn’t spend a single moment longer in that damn building, just like I couldn’t; just, Jesus Christ, I’m so tired. I can’t, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I brought the Angels here. I did this.

Nick says nothing, and neither do I. He just crouches and pushes my hair out of my eyes. I groan and cough and throw up again.

It’s almost like divine justice. I steal from the ALC to give to Theo, and God sends Angels to ruin it all. I visit Theo, and everything goes to hell, the way it always has, the way it always will. I should have learned when he hurt me. I should have learned. I was supposed to be good, and I ruined everything because I was lovesick and selfish.