Red, bloody water drips off the sharp point of the stone, off Theo’s fingers, falling in rivers down his pale cheeks. It’s stained his robes pink, the same festering shade as infected gums. His head is still shaved, his robes still soldier robes, there’s a hitch to his shoulders when he moves—and a curl to his lip, his cupid’s bow twisted into a sneer.

He’s crying.

I’ve never seen him cry before. He didn’t cry when his mother martyred herself on Judgment Day. He didn’t cry when his father flayed him alive. A teardrop traces its way through the slick water on his face, his eyes are red, and he’s crying.

The blood water bubbles from my mouth. My normal human mouth, no fangs, no wounds. Without the Flood, I’m just a boy. No Graces to call, no Angels to shatter. I don’t even have the testosterone to back me up on the boy part. And Theo has half a foot and fifty pounds on me—a cis boy who could shatter me if he put his mind to it. Who has done it before. Who is more than happy to do it again.

He raises the rock to point at me, his arm shaking.

“What,” he gasps, “is wrong with you?”

I step back. My shoes sink into the slurry of mud and grass. “Theo, I—we—” Is this what I sounded like just days ago? How could anyone have seen me as a guy with a voice, a body, like this? “Put that down. Please.”

“They gave you everything!” He closes the space between us and then some. He’s almost within arm’s reach, close enough that the rock could almost smash into my skull. “Do you even understand how much you’re throwing away? How many people you’re fucking over?”

His name comes out of me like a prayer, like reminding him he’s human will snap him out of this. “Theo, please.”

“All because you don’t like it.” He laughs, and his pale, pretty face twists into something more like Dominion than the boy I fell in love with. I take another step back and nearly trip over the submerged sidewalk. “You’ve never liked anything about yourself, have you? Always trying to change it. You’ve never accepted what you’ve been given by God.”

He was the one who told me being trans wasn’t a mistake, that God made me trans on purpose. Did he never actually believe it? “Shut up. Don’t you dare.”

“You’d burn the world down if you thought it’d finally make you happy with what you’re supposed to be in this life. This life. You’d have a perfect one waiting for you if you just swallowed it like everyone else!”

But that would never work! Because—

Because I don’t believe in Heaven.