I stagger forward another few feet and lean against a tree, panting, trying to gather my strength. Then I hear a man’s voice behind me, drifting toward me through the trees like it’s carried on the wind. Definitely not human.

“Hello, little bird,” he says.

I freeze.

“That was quite a fall. Are you all right?”

Chapter 20

Hurt Like Hell

Really, really slowly, I turn. The man’s standing not ten feet away, regarding me with curious eyes.

He’s insanely attractive. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that day at the mall. I guess all full-blooded angels are supposed to be drop-dead gorgeous, but I didn’t understand that they are literally drop-dead gorgeous. If there is a mold for the perfect male form, this guy was cast from it.

He’s so not what he seems. He’s not young or old, his skin without even the smallest wrinkle or flaw, his hair coal-black and gleaming. But I know he’s old as the rocks under my feet. He holds himself supernaturally still. The sadness I feel shooting through my every nerve doesn’t show on his face. His lips are even slightly turned up in what’s supposed to be a sympathetic smile. If I didn’t know better I would think that his voice is kind and that he genuinely wants to help me. Like he isn’t some big bad angel who could kill me with his pinkie finger. Like he’s merely a concerned passerby.

I can’t run. There’s no way. I can’t fly. The grief takes all my lightness away, like a shadow blocking the sun. I’m probably going to die. I want to cry out for my mother. I try to remind myself, through the Black Wing’s despair, which lays on me heavy as a wet blanket, that on the other side of a thin veil there’s heaven, and this man, this impostor of a man, can kill my body but he can’t touch my soul.

I didn’t know I truly believed that until now. The thought makes me momentarily brave. I try not to think about Tucker and Jeffrey and all the other people I’ll be leaving behind if this guy kills me now. I struggle to stand up straight and look him in the eye.

“Who are you?” I demand.

He raises an eyebrow at me.

“You’re a courageous little one,” he says, taking a step closer. When he moves there’s a kind of blurring in the air around him that settles when he stops. The more I look at him, the less human he appears, like the body standing in front of me is just a suit he put on this morning and there’s some other creature underneath, pulsing with grief and fury, barely restraining itself from breaking free. He takes another step toward me.

I take a step back. He gives a tiny, soft laugh, a chuckle, but the noise causes fear to shudder through me from head to toe.

“I am Sam,” he says. He has a slight accent, but I can’t place it. He speaks in a low, lilting voice, trying to soothe me.

I think this is a pretty ridiculous name for this creature with cold, dark power radiating off him in waves in some kind of anti-glory. I almost laugh. I don’t know if it’s the terrible pain from my shoulder or the weight of his emotional baggage, but I feel like I’m losing all sense of reality. I’m cracking already and the torture hasn’t even started. I start to numb everything out, like my body can’t handle it and is shutting down piece by piece. It’s a huge relief.

“Who are you?” he asks pointedly.

“Clara.”

“Clara,” he repeats like he’s tasting my name on his tongue and likes it. “Appropriate, I think. What level are you?”

For once my mother’s practice of keeping me in the dark about everything pays off. I have no idea what he means. I guess I look about as clueless as I feel.

“Who are your parents?” he asks.

I bite my lip until I taste blood. I can feel a strange pressure in my head, like he’s prodding my brain for the information he wants. It will be deadly for everybody I know if he finds out. I see a flash of Mom’s face, then try desperately to think about something else. Anything else.

Go with polar bears, I say to myself. Polar bears at the North Pole. Baby polar bears scooting along after their mothers in the snow. Polar bears drinking Coca-Cola.

He’s staring at me.

Polar bears pushing through the ice to get to baby seals. Long, sharp, polar bear teeth. Polar bears with pink muzzles and paws.

“I could make you tell me,” says the angel. “It will be more pleasant if you volunteer.”

Polar bears starving to death. Polar bears swimming and swimming, looking for dry land. Polar bears drowning, their bodies bobbing in the water. Their eyes glazed and dead. Poor, dead polar bears.

He takes another slow, deliberate step toward me. I watch helplessly. My body won’t respond to my urgent order to run away.

“Who are your parents?” he asks patiently.

I’m out of polar bears. The pressure in my head intensifies. I close my eyes.

“My dad’s human. My mom’s Dimidius,” I say quickly, hoping that will satisfy him.

My head lightens. I open my eyes.

“You’re strong for having such weak blood,” he says.

I shrug. I’m just relieved that he’s not still trying to hijack my brain. Somewhere deep inside me, though, I know he’ll try again. He’ll get the names. Where we live. Everything. I wish there was some way to warn my mom.

Then I remember my phone.

“Yeah, I’m not worth much to you. Why not let me go?” As I say the words, I slide my hand into my jacket pocket. Good thing my cell is in the left pocket, because I can’t seem to get my right arm to work. I feel for the number two and press it, inwardly cringing at the tiny beep it makes. It starts to ring. I pray that the Black Wing isn’t close enough to hear it. I clamp my fingers around the speaker.

“I simply want to speak with you,” he says gently. He talks like my mom, sounding completely normal and contemporary one moment, and the next, old-fashioned, like he’s stepped straight out of the pages of a Victorian novel.

“Hello?” says my mother.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says. He moves closer. “I wouldn’t dream of hurting you.”

“Clara?” says my mother quietly. “Is that you?”

I have to get the message through to her. Not to come save me, because I know there isn’t a way that she could fight an angel and win. But to save herself.

“I just want to get out of here,” I say as loudly and clearly as I can without drawing the angel’s suspicion. “Get out of here and never come back.”