his head in my hands and pull him to my chest. He rests against me, my chin on his head as he clutches at my back. He shakes against me, and I let him because if there is something coming, he’s going to need strength. I would gladly give him all of my own to help him stand.
Eventually he calms and props his hands against the roof. I turn and lie with my back against his chest as we wait for the sun. “Should we warn them?” I ask finally. “The town?
“About what?” he says.
“I don’t know. We don’t even know if anything will happen.”
“No, we don’t.”
“But it will.”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Cal?”
“Yes?”
“I have to find out what happened to my father.”
He stiffens underneath me. “I know,” he says quietly. “But you must stay away from the river, Benji. Please. I know I can’t explain much, and I know it may not make sense, but you must hear me. Please. Stay away from the river.”
“It’s Griggs,” I tell him, certain. “It’s Griggs, and Walken. It’s Traynor. It’s whoever they were calling the ‘boss’. It’s them, I know it. They killed my father. They killed Corwin. They killed Arthur Davis.”
“And they’ll kill you,” he snaps, suddenly angry. “We must wait. We must wait until whatever comes shows its face. After that, I promise you I will do everything I can to help you. But we have to wait, Benji. Promise me.”
“We won’t have much time. They said they were moving everything on the day of the festival. Jump Into Summer Fest is only a few weeks away. I have to—” “Promise me!” he snarls in my ear, slamming his fist down on the roof. “I promise,” I whisper, though it feels like a lie, to placate. To soothe. And then a sharp intake of breath.
“What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”
“Damn,” he mutters. He tries to hide whatever is wrong, but I can see he’s favoring the hand he’s just hit against the roof. I pull on his arm to show me, and my fingers feel slick. He sighs but doesn’t resist. The sun chooses that moment to peek over the Cascades and the first rays of sunlight on a new day catch upon my life, now so unreal.
Embedded into the side of his hand is a small carpenter’s nail, undoubtedly forgotten at one point on the roof. It’s jammed into his hand almost to the nail head, his skin puckered around it. But it’s not the nail itself that catches my eye; it’s the dark-red blood welling around it.
I lift my hand in front of my face, staring at his blood on my skin. “That’s not….” I breathe. “You got shot. I saw you get shot and—”
he is weaker
“—nothing was wrong with you!”
He winces as he pulls the short nail out of his hand. I pull my shirt off over my head, the morning air cool against my body. I wrap his hand with my shirt to stop the flow of blood.
“It’s what the Strange Men said, isn’t it?” I demand. “They said someone like you couldn’t stay here. What happens if you do?”
He looks away, but not before I can see it in his eyes. He knows. This isn’t a hidden thing, lost in whatever his Father took from him before he fell. He knows this.
“Calliel! You better fucking answer me on this! I deserve some goddamn answers after everything I’ve been through, after everything we’ve done. If you even remotely care about me at all, you will tell—”
“I’m becoming human,” he says quietly as the sunlight catches his red hair. It reminds me of blood, and I almost cry out. He looks like he is covered in blood. “Father put it in place to avoid angels becoming corporeal. The longer I stay, the more human I become. And if I stay….” He watches the horizon.
“Cal?” I ask, already knowing the answer but needing to hear him say it. “What happens if you stay?”
He turns and kisses me deeply. I can feel the desperation behind it as he pushes into me. He’s clawing at my back, trying to get as much of me as he can. I pull away only because I don’t know what’s wrong. He grabs my neck and jerks me close again. When he speaks, his voice is a rasp in my ear. I tremble. “If I stay… if I stay, the moment I become human, I will die. My soul will not be allowed to ascend. I’ll fall