Silence

“I dragged him down to hell and burned the feather in front of him.” His recounting of the story raised every hair on my scalp. Even if Vee betrayed me so blatantly, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to make her suffer the way he had clearly made Rixon suffer. Suddenly I understood why Patch had taken the subject so personally.

Breaking away from the gruesome picture Patch had painted in my mind, I recalled the feather I’d found in the cemetery. “Are these feathers floating around everywhere? Can anyone stumble across one?”

Patch shook his head. “The archangels keep one feather on record. A few fall en angels like Rixon make it to Earth with a feather or two intact. When that happens, the fall en angel makes damn sure his feather doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.” The suggestion of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “And you thought we weren’t sentimental.”

“What happens to the rest of the feathers?”

“They rapidly deteriorate on the way down. Falling from heaven isn’t a smooth ride.”

“What about you? Any secret feathers locked away?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Plotting my downfall?”

I smiled back, despite the seriousness of the subject. “A girl’s got to keep her options open.”

“Hate to disappoint, but no feathers. I came to Earth stripped nak*d.”

“Mm,” I said as casually as I could, but I felt my face growing warm at the picture that one little word had planted in my brain. Naked thoughts were not good thoughts to have while I was locked away in Patch’s ultrasecret, ultraswanky bedroom.

“I like you in my bed,” Patch said. “I rarely pull down the covers. I rarely sleep. I could get used to this picture.”

“Are you offering me a permanent place?”

“Already put a spare key in your pocket.”

I patted my pocket. Sure enough, something small and hard was snug inside. “How charitable of you.”

“I’m not feeling very charitable now,” he said, holding my eyes, his voice deepening with a gravelly edge. “I missed you, Angel. Not one day went by that I didn’t feel you missing from my life. You haunted me to the point that I began to believe Hank had gone back on his oath and killed you. I saw your ghost in everything. I couldn’t escape you and I didn’t want to. You tortured me, but it was better than losing you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me everything that night in the all ey with Gabe? You were so angry.” I shook my head, remembering every caustic word he’d directed at me. “I thought you hated me.”

“After Hank released you, I spied on you to make sure you were okay, but I swore to end my involvement with you for your own safety. I’d made my decision and I thought I could deal with it. I tried to convince myself there was nothing left for us. But when I saw you that night in the all ey, my argument fell apart. I wanted you to remember me the way I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But you couldn’t. I’d made sure of it.” His gaze dropped to his hands, clasped loosely between his knees. “I owe you an apology,” he said quietly. “Hank erased your memory to keep you from remembering what he did to you, but I agreed to it. I told him to erase it back far enough that you wouldn’t remember me, either.”

I snapped my eyes to Patch’s. “You agreed to what?”

“I wanted to give you your life back. Before fall en angels, before Nephilim, before me. I thought that was the only way you’d get through the worst of what happened. I don’t think either of us will deny that I’ve complicated your life. I’ve tried to make it better, but things haven’t always gone my way. I thought it through and came to the difficult decision the best thing for your recovery and your future was for me to walk away.”

“Patch—”

“As for Hank, I refused to watch him destroy you. I refused to watch him ruin any chance you had at happiness by making you carry around those memories. You’re right—he kidnapped you because he thought he could use you to control me. He took you away at the end of June, and didn’t bring you back until September. Every day during those months you were locked up and left by yourself. Even the most hardened soldiers can break in solitary confinement, and Hank knew that was my greatest fear. He demanded I show my willingness to spy for him, even though I’d sworn an oath. He dangled you over me every minute of those months.” Patch’s eyes glittered with a hardened edge. “He’ll pay for that, and on my terms,” he said in a low, deadly voice that sent a chil up my spine.

“That night in the shed, he had us surrounded,” he continued. “The only thing on my mind was keeping him from killing you on the spot. If I’d been alone in the shed, I would have fought. I didn’t trust you to handle a fight, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I couldn’t handle seeing you hurt, and it blinded me. I underestimated everything you’ve already been through and grown stronger because of. Hank knew that, and I played right into his hands.

“I laid a deal on the table. I told him I’d be his spy if he’d let you live. He accepted, then called in his Nephilim men to take you away. I fought as hard as I could, Angel. They were mangled by the time they managed to drag you away. I met Hank four days later and offered to let him tear out my wings if he’d release you. It was the last thing I had to bargain with, and he agreed to hand you over, but the best I could get out of him was by the end of summer. During the next three months, I searched tirelessly for you, but Hank had planned for that as well. He went to great lengths to keep your location secret. I caught and tortured several of his men, but none of them could tell me where you were. I’d be surprised if Hank told more than one or two handpicked men he assigned to make sure your basic needs were met.

“A week before Hank released you, he sent one of his Nephilim messengers to find me. The messenger smugly informed me that Hank intended to erase your memory once he let you go, and did I have any objections? I wiped the smirk off his face. Then I dragged him, bloody and battered, to Hank’s home.

“We were waiting for Hank when he left for work the next morning. I told him if he wanted to avoid looking like his messenger, he would erase your memory far back enough that you’d never have flashbacks. I didn’t want you to have a single memory of me, and I didn’t want you waking up with nightmares of being locked up and completely alone for days on end. I didn’t want you screaming out in the night without knowing why. I wanted to give you back as much of a life as I could. I knew the only way to keep you safe was to keep you out of everything. Then I told Hank to never lay eyes on you again. I made it clear that if he crossed paths with you, I would hunt him down and mutilate his body beyond recognition. And then I would find a way to kill him, no matter the cost. I thought he was smart enough to hold up his end of the bargain until you told me he’s hooked up with your mom.

Instinct tells me this isn’t just about his amorous affections. He’s up to something, and whatever it is, he’s using your mom, or more likely you, to accomplish it.” My heart pounded in double time. “That snake!”

Patch laughed grimly. “I would have used a stronger word, but that works too.” How could Hank do those things to me? Obviously he’d chosen not to love me, but he was still my father. Didn’t blood mean anything? How did he have the audacity to look me in the eye these past few days and smile? He’d ripped me away from my mom. He’d held me captive for weeks, and now he dared step inside my home and act as though he cared about my family?

“He has an endgame in all of this. I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be harmless. Instinct tells me he wants his plan put into motion before Cheshvan.” Patch’s eyes sliced to mine. “Cheshvan begins in less than three weeks.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “That you’re going after him alone. But don’t rob me of the satisfaction of bringing him down. I deserve that much.”

Patch hooked his elbow around my neck and pressed his lips fiercely to my forehead. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“So what now?”

“He’s had a head start, but I plan on evening the score. Your enemy’s enemy is your friend, and I have an old friend who might be useful to us.” Something about the way he said “friend” implied that the person in question was anything but. “Her name is Dabria, and I think it’s time I gave her a call.” It seemed Patch had decided his next move, and so had I. I swung out of bed and scooped up my shoes and pull over, which he’d laid out on the dresser. “I can’t stay here. I have to go home. I can’t let Hank use my mom this way and not tell her what’s going on.” Patch let out a troubled sigh. “You can’t tell her anything. She won’t believe you. He’s doing the same thing to her that I did to Vee. Even if she didn’t want to trust him, she has to. She’s under his influence, and for now, we have to leave it that way. A little longer, until I can figure out what he’s planning.”

My resentment boiled up, flaring at the very thought of Hank controlling and manipulating my mom.

“Can’t you march over there and tear him to shreds?” I demanded. “He deserves a lot worse, but at least it would solve our problems. And give me some satisfaction,” I added bitterly.

“We need to bring him down for good. We don’t know who else is helping him and how far his plan extends. He’s assembling a Nephilim army to go against fall en angels, but he knows as well as I do that once Cheshvan starts, no army is strong enough to defy an oath sworn under heaven. Fall en angels will sweep in by the droves and possess his men. He must be planning something else. But where do you fit in?” he pondered aloud. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Whatever he’s planning, it all hangs on information he needs from the archangel. But to get her to talk, he needs an arch-angel’s necklace.”

Patch’s words seemed to smack me. I’d been so caught up in the rest of the night’s revelations, I’d completely forgotten the hallucination of the caged girl, which I now knew was a real memory. She wasn’t a girl, but an archangel.

Patch sighed. “I’m sorry, Angel, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.” But I cut him off. “I know about the necklace. I saw the caged archangel in one of your memories.

And I’m pretty sure she tried to tell me to make sure Hank doesn’t get it, but at the time I thought I was hallucinating.”

Patch watched me in silence for a moment, then spoke. “She’s an archangel and powerful enough to insert herself into your conscious thought. Clearly she felt it necessary to warn you.” I nodded. “Because Hank thinks I have your necklace.”

“You don’t have it.”

“Try telling him that.”

“That’s what this is about,” Patch said slowly. “Hank thinks I planted my necklace on you.”

“I think so.”