He shoves me onto my back. His knees press into my stomach. I see his snarling face for just a second before he plunges my head underwater.

Don’t breathe.

I grab for the Flood in his head, like I can pull it out of his body and leave an exit wound like the one they left in Dad. I reach out for a Grace that can snap their jaws shut and break him in half. But there’s nothing. Just that girl’s skull breaking with the force of the Flood, her hand reaching out for mine.

I want it back. I want Seraph back. I want it back not because of the power, but because it’s who I am, and I am done being thrown among so many bodies.

Theo’s arms tremble with the strain of holding me down. My nails find his cheek. His hand comes down on the side of my face, pressing my skull against the edge of the sidewalk.

He could bash my head into the concrete if he wanted.

I am part of the ALC. I am part of the Watch, the people who kill Angels, who fight back, who turned the extermination back on the exterminators. I am Seraph, and some boy isn’t going to be the fucking death of me.

Wait—the Watch.

My head is going light from lack of oxygen, and the blood water is burning my eyes, and I reach into my pocket to find the knife.

This is the knife Nick gave me. The one he gave me because he saw a warrior, because a person like Seraph would be able to walk through the flames of Hell and come out snarling and burned—but alive.

The knife I haven’t had since I gave it back to Nick in his room.

But I haven’t had these clothes, either. I haven’t had this body.

And I’m not going to be afraid of some boy.

Click.

The knife hits once, but that’s all it has to do. It sinks right into the soft flesh beneath Theo’s ribs, and I rip it out as hard as I can. A hot cascade of blood erupts across my hand, and Theo screams and stumbles away, his weight suddenly disappearing from my chest.

I sit up, water rushing over my face. It falls into my mouth as I struggle for air. Fresh red swirls around my arms, bright against the dark, browning pink. I shove myself to my feet, head swimming, trying to focus my vision.

Theo stands half bent in the water, robes pooling around his shins, clutching his side. Blood trickles through his fingers. His robes have fallen off his shoulder—he never bulked up as much as he claimed he would—and there are bandages sprawling the expanse of his back, peeking from his underclothes.

Bandages? For what? What kind of injury would follow Theo into the culling fields?

…A tattoo.