I’m wearing cargo shorts and a jacket. I haven’t worn these clothes or held this knife in days. Theo hasn’t had death-squad tattoos in months, let alone fresh ones that hurt.

He lets out a small, pained noise, barely holding himself upright. His shoulders hitch. He’s dressed like he’s always wanted to be, the way he’s always seen himself: a soldier. And I’m dressed the way I’ve seen myself lately: a kid only playing soldier behind enemy lines. The bodies hanging from the trees are the deaths that have followed us. The stream shifts and changes with the bodies above it and the boys in it.

This place is what we make it.

I drop the knife into the water. It hits the surface with a hollow sound and sinks.

“Theo,” I murmur.

His glassy eyes focus on me.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” he says. “You’re going to hurt so many people.”

Slowly, I reach him. My hand curves to his cheek. He flinches away, more blood streaming through his fingers. He’s sheet white, lungs laboring for breath.

My hand is so much bigger than his. His baby-blue eyes widen as he looks up, cracked lips parted just enough for me to kiss him.

“Benji.” Nick’s voice. As if through the water, warped into something Grace-like. “Can you hear me?”

My teeth sink into Theo’s bottom lip. My wings drag in the blood water. The warm spring sun beats down hard between glittering glass buildings and the New Nazareth wall, and I know the world has returned because I would know that voice anywhere.

Nick says, “I’m here.” He says, “I’m ready.”

My claws dig into the thick mass of tumors swallowing Theo’s neck, and I tear back, rearing my head like I’m taking out a soldier’s throat. Dominion’s bottom jaw snaps between my teeth, tongue and muscle ripping with a rush of black sludge.

I reply, “Look.”

Nick hears me.

The air explodes.

Theo’s head caves around the bullet, his warped skull crumpling in on itself like it’s been bashed in, his left eye swallowed up into a deep, dark hole.

Chapter 36

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted…

—Ephesians 4:32

The carnage.

God. The carnage.

As I stare at the body of a father who had broken the neck of his infant as soon as the Graces set upon the crowd, I remind myself of the babies drowned in the river. These are the people who would cheer to see my friend’s bodies hanging from the gates. These are the people who prayed for me to slaughter what little remains of the human race.

They did this to the world. This is their own fault. They brought this upon themselves.