“I did. I thought he’d kill me if I refused, you know? Figured he’d put a bullet in my head if I said no, just like he did the others.” I touch my cheekbone, right where Dad’s face caved in on itself. “But he didn’t. Just walked off. And when I came back alone, they called me a failure and tore the wings off my back.”

There’s nothing to say, not really.

“I could have stopped him, was the thing. He’d gotten injured in the firefight, and I could have stopped him if I’d just—” He scrapes his hair away from his face. It’s sticking to his forehead; even at night, it’s just a bit too warm. “He’s probably dead. The wounds probably got infected, and the son of a bitch died.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Probably.”

“That’s why I was so mad when you said you didn’t want Seraph,” Theo whispers. “You were just handed the thing they took from me.”

I finish for him so he doesn’t have to say it. “And I rejected it.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”

I practically spat in his face; I dug my nails into the wounds in his back.

I guess…I can’t blame him for being angry. We all get angry these days.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I say.

He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, my face nestling in the crook of his neck like it always has. He smells exactly the same.

He says, “Me too.”

When I get sick a few seconds later, Theo rubs my back as I spit rot onto the floor. He kisses my temple and brushes hair from my face because the bobby pins aren’t there to keep it back. My stomach cramps, and it doesn’t feel like it’s in the same place it’s always been. If you cut me open, my torso would be a mass of sludge and flesh. Sister Kipling described it as the way a caterpillar dissolves before reforming into a butterfly. I gag and cough, and Theo holds me close.

To keep and to fear.

Chapter 16

If you feel the Flood within you, do not fret.

God is calling you home.

—Reverend Brother Morrison’s Judgment Day sermon

Cormac kicks me awake the next morning. His designer boot-clad foot hits the edge of my mattress and waves around like a worm sticking out of a hole.

Shit, did he notice the missing supplies? Did he catch me sneaking back in last night?

“What the hell do you want?” I snap.

“You’re late.” His foot disappears just before he knocks aside the bedsheet curtain. I pull my blanket up to my nose. “We’re heading out, and Nick wants you with us. Get cracking.”