“Please tell me this is a homing device,” he says. “That it’ll take us back to the Enterprise if we click our heels together and say sweet things about home?”
I sink to the floor, kneading my face with the heels of both palms as the halo finishes its transformation.
“You know, I—I haven’t tried that.”
His eyes are reflected in the burnished surface. They look bulbous, amplifying this ridiculous geek-out. “Where did you get it?”
I don’t know what he’ll do if I tell him, but I know this: I won’t lie to Marco like my dad lied to me. Not even to make this conversation easier.
“Jake gave it to me,” I say.
“Can I touch it?”
I nod. He’s not looking at me, but I do it anyway. “It won’t hurt you.”
He presses his face closer and his fingers prod at it, like he plans to dissect it next. After a minute he slides his index finger around the rim. “It’s so hot. It’s like . . . like your hands,” he says quietly, his emerald eyes finding mine. “The night we found the children.”
He’s talking about something that happened at the warehouse. I reached down to help Marco up, and after wearing the halo for several days, my hands had taken on its heat. At the time he looked . . . well, like he looks now. Confused and in awe all at once.
It’s a feeling I understand.
“It does that,” I say.
He finally plucks up the courage and lifts the halo in his hands. I nearly have a heart attack, but I let him.
“What is it?”
And there it is. The question I really don’t want to answer.
“It’s a halo.”
I jump at the voice, but it’s Jake, standing in the doorway. Suddenly the world weighs half as much.
“Halo? Like the game?” Marco’s eyes haven’t moved from the crown in his hands.
“It’s nothing like the game,” Jake says.
And then he does it. There isn’t time to do anything but gasp before Marco has the thing on his head. It’s that fast. My throat makes a strange sound, and Jake looks as stupefied as I do. But he holds his hands up, his eyes telling me to wait.
Waiting is hard.
“It’s so hot,” Marco says. His shoulders sag and his eyes flutter and I don’t know what to do, what the halo will do. Jake must sense my discomfort, my need to act, because he signals again that I should wait.
Marco’s cheeks flush red, and his eyes, though closed, move back and forth behind his lids. He takes one . . . two . . . three . . . four peaceful breaths and then his breathing accelerates, faster and faster. He groans and cries out, jerking upright and sending the halo tumbling to his lap.
His upper lip breaks out in beads of sweat and his face takes on a slick, white pallor.
“Marco?” I say, crawling closer. “Are you all right?”
His Adam’s apple moves up and then down as his trembling hands push the halo off his leg, flinging it from him. It tumbles to a rest under Jake’s bed, but Marco’s standing already, holding every bit of my attention.
“Marco?” I ask again.
He shakes his head and turns away, toward the door. Toward Jake.
“Sit down, Marco. We’ll explain.”
His head turns left and right, and his hands continue to shake. I remember a time, in this very room, when mine did the same. I realize only half a breath before it happens that Marco is going to run, just like I did.
And then he does.
His shoulder connects with Jake’s as he pushes past him and down the hall. I stand and lurch toward the door, Jake already pursuing him. Before I make it halfway down the hall, I hear the front door open and close.
Marco’s gone.
As I round the corner into the kitchen, Jake flings open the door, his momentum propelling him onto the porch. I’m right behind, but when I fall into step next to him, his arm wraps my waist and I stop.
“Let him go,” Jake says.
“What if he saw the Celestial, Jake? He won’t understand that without help.”
“Not now. If I know Marco, he needs to try to figure this out on his own. When he reaches the end of his understanding, he’ll be back.”
“Jake . . .”
“Waiting is a part of the process, Elle. His mind can’t be forced.”
Canaan’s said those very words to me. On that same night. The night of the warehouse. The