A moment of silence. It’s not awkward or anything. Just a second of respect for the dead.

“I’m sorry,” Faith says again. “I don’t mean to be so…”

“No, I get it.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Since he. You know.”

“I know.”

Faith says, “What about you? What’s going on in your head?”

Before I can answer, Aisha wanders into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Faith mouths Sorry and grabs a mug from the cabinet.

“I smell coffee,” Aisha mumbles.

“That’s because I made some.” Faith pours a cup and sets it gently in Aisha’s hands. “Take it easy today.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Please take the coffee.”

“You can’t act like nothing’s wrong.”

Faith’s smile wavers, the light dropping from her eyes for just a second. “Please. Let me have this.”

Aisha accepts the mug, bringing down her mask to take a slow, tentative sip, and her eyes close in exhaustion for just a moment, perfectly still like if she moves, she’ll shatter into a million pieces. Under her mask, she’s put on a pretty red lipstick that stains the rim of the mug.

Faith’s question latches on with teeth. What’s going on in my head? What do I believe? How much of it is me, and how much of it was put there?

I don’t know.

Over the course of the day, a few other people introduce themselves, and I fumble through a parade of awkward conversations. One is with another trans guy, Calvin. When I turn down the offer of a chest binder—I’ve never really cared about flattening my chest—he scrunches up his nose like I smell bad and says he has something else to do.

The only person I manage to hold a decent conversation with is Sadaf, a Black hijabi girl with a medical textbook who asks me to visit her if I ever feel even slightly under the weather.

“Never hurts to be proactive,” she says, smiling so wide her eyes close a little bit.

“What do you do if someone gets infected?” I ask.

She says, “I tell Nick. He takes care of it.”

I do the math, trying to recall how long the other Seraph trials lasted. The time it took for the other martyrs to fall apart, for their skin to come off in their hands. Instead of the Flood’s usual days, hours, Seraph has given me a precious few weeks. I can hide the vomiting and the pain, but by the end of February, there will be no hiding anything.

Nick said I would be okay. Erin said I would be okay. They promised. I know that.

Right?

Our LORD’s message is clear: Mankind has disappointed Him once again. We have been tempted beyond salvation and have become a plague upon His earth. Our redemption, our eternal life, lies only in this: an eye for an eye, a plague for a plague.