“Nick.” I move my lips but I’m not sure any sounds come out. “Nick.”

The time it takes for Nick to look at me, figure out something’s wrong, and track my gaze across the pond is probably less than two seconds, but it feels like forever. And when Nick sucks in a sharp breath, that’s the death blow—that’s when everyone notices it at once. Something is very, very wrong.

There’s a girl across the pond.

She’s eleven, maybe twelve, the same age as one of the boys who died on the floor of Reformation Faith Evangelical Church, whose ear sits in that bag. The age of the tiny skeletons Dad and I found while crossing Acheson, curled in bed when their parents realized the world was burning and it would be better for the little ones to die quickly.

She moves slowly. Too slowly. Dragging one foot behind her.

“Ah, shit,” Joey mutters, pulling his rifle to his front. “We got a sick one.”

No. No, no, he’s going to shoot her. Cormac takes the safety off his gun, pushing through the crowd to the edge of the pavilion. Seraph burns in my throat, right where the Flood comes up.

They can’t do this. She’s a kid. She’s harmless.

Just like the choirboys were harmless.

They had weapons. We did what we had to do.

“Cormac,” Faith says, voice trembling. “What are you doing?”

Cormac doesn’t look at her. “Don’t play stupid.”

He’s going to shoot her. Her foot catches on a rock, she stumbles, and sludge falls from her mouth to the grass. She makes an awful keening noise, barely human. Nick winces. The fingers on his right hand stretch so much, he’s going to shatter something.

I whisper, so quietly I’m barely speaking, “Please go.”

Go. They’re going to hurt you.

I remember when the Grace stood over me and a pile of Angel bodies. When the Grace at the café stared into my eyes, recognizing me for what I am. When the Grace in the rescue mission threw Nick to the ground to protect me. When the Grace broke down a door to flee the Angels, when the nest of the not-quite dead in Reformation cried for me. I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I promise.

I don’t want them to hurt you too. Please, go.

Nothing happens. The girl hits the gravel path. The cracks in her skin are visible now, breaking open like a bloated corpse.

“God,” the woman in the Vanguard whispers. “What the hell?”

“I’m gonna need you to back up,” Cormac calls out, sharp and commanding, everything that Joey is trying and failing to be. The members of the Vanguard look at one another warily. Cormac’s gaze does not falter. “We will fire.”

GET AWAY.