Faith tries to wave me over to the Watch. Aisha is leaning against her shoulder, desperately trying to wipe away tears. I wave back, offering a smile I hope comes across behind my mask, but make my way over to Nick. After watching him crumble in front of the Vanguard, I don’t like the idea of him standing by himself. Or something. I don’t know.

Nick is focused on his lizard. He stares at each bead as he goes over it with his fingers. I like that we don’t have to say anything. It’s easier this way.

“Thank you all for being here,” Erin says, just loud enough to carry across the courtyard and no more. Erin changes when she’s in front of a crowd. There’s no waver to her voice, no uncertain twitches or nervous tugs at her braids. “The past few days have been difficult, and I am incredibly proud of how we’ve soldiered through. But keeping a stiff upper lip for too long hurts everybody. It would mean a lot to Trevor that we’re letting ourselves come together like this, even for just a little bit.”

How dare you grieve what was always His to take? I haven’t been able to cry for years. The Angels made sure of it; Mom made sure of it. I watched my father die, and all I did was keep it crammed in my chest where nothing can get out except my own literal guts. I watched his head cave around the bullet, turning his face into a bloody flower of skull and tongue, and I accepted it and kept running because I couldn’t do anything else.

“Trevor was our heart,” Erin says. A girl sobs into her sleeve. “He fought for us because he loved us. He stormed City Hall when our funding was cut, and he stuck with us through That Day and every day after. He died for us because he loved us.”

Dad died for me because he loved me. I’m going to join the Watch, I’m going to be good, I’m going to make the Angels suffer, because I love him.

A boy in the crowd leans on his friend, and I see the person next to Erin: a scraggly white kid in a patchwork coat. In funerals like the ones I’ve seen in movies, I could picture them as the widow. Instead of a bouquet of lilies, sprawling white funeral flowers, they clutch a charm bracelet.

I wish I had Dad’s watch. His wedding ring. A scrap of his shirt, his blood under my fingernails. Anything.

“If anyone knew him,” Erin murmurs, “it was Alex.” She puts a hand on their shoulder, ducking her head ever so softly. I remember Erin asking Salvador to track them down in the hours after Trevor’s death, because they’d disappeared and she was worried—and I remember their coat lurking near the ham radio in the lobby, only catching flashes of it as I passed by. They looked so gaunt, so destroyed. They still do. “Is there anything you want to say?”