“Oh, Ben,” Theo murmurs. He had known they would eventually, but he doesn’t say that. In a good relationship, there’s no need for petty shit like, I could have told you so. Benji would realize Theo was right on his own, and they could talk about it then.

Weakly, his voice so small Theo can barely hear it, Benji says, “I want to go home.”

Theo would hold him here forever if he could. The Angels are saved, and everyone in Reformation Faith Evangelical Church can feel it.

“I do too,” Theo says. Thank God, thank God, thank God. “Let’s go home.”

Benjamin

Chapter 27

And so will I go in unto the king…

and if I perish, I perish.

—Esther 4:16

Before I left for Reformation Faith Evangelical Church, Nick told me that 99 percent of lying is just figuring out what the other person wants to hear. He said it’s what the Angels have always done, and I laughed because otherwise it would have hurt too much to acknowledge. The other 1 percent is keeping your story straight, and if you read the Bible cover to cover, it’s clear the Angels don’t care about that, so feed them a steady diet of their own bullshit until they choke on it.

If Theo wants to hear I’ve been driven from my friends, then that’s what I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him I want to go back to New Nazareth. I’ll tell him anything.

But I can’t call this home anymore.

It’s been a month since I last saw New Nazareth, and it is the mouth of Hell. Death-squad soldiers stand at attention by the gate, their Graces wheezing and coughing. Snipers lurk behind curls of barbed wire at the top of the wall, some keeping an eye on the road from the shade of the stairs. Bodies of nonbelievers hang in various stages of rot. Between them, giant letters scream GOD LOVES YOU, REPENT SINNERS, THE TIME HAS COME. TRUST IN THE LORD AND YOU WILL BE SAVED. Flies buzz in an incessant cloud, and when the wind hits right, I smell it.

I hear it too; the crowd on the other side of the gate. Word must have gotten out that their savior is coming home. Through the narrow slats in the gate, an ocean of bodies presses forward, desperate for a look, a touch, a whisper, anything. A reverend on the other side preaches: “All our troubles have a part. Our groaning, our burden, they are His plan.” Arms raise, fists beat on chests. “They shape us so we may see His truth. So that we may work, we may fight—and we have worked and we have fought, and today, today, our suffering will bear fruit.”

My flesh is a single, perfect, God-given fig meant to feed all the hungry. I am their savior in Angel whites and skin peeling off the bone.