Angel wouldn’t come closer. Not with Reyes so near. He was afraid of him. I was beginning to understand that Reyes wasn’t the average everyday entity. He even freaked out the dead people.
I curled back into my blanket, buried my face. “You could have told me,” I said to Angel, my voice muffled through the thick material.
“I knew it would upset you.”
“That’s why you took off for two days.”
I could almost feel him shrug. “I just figured you’d keep thinking she got away. You know, that nobody would ever find her.”
“On the bedroom floor in a pool of her own blood?”
“Yeah, I hadn’t figured that part out yet.”
“I wanted her to be happy,” I said by way of explanation. “I had it all planned. She was going to open a hotel, get to know her aunt all over again, and be happier than she’s ever been in her whole life.”
“She is happier than she’s ever been in her whole life. Just not in the way you wanted. If you could know what it’s like here, really like, you wouldn’t be so sad.”
I sighed. For some reason, that knowledge didn’t really help. “What happened?”
“She did everything right, just like you told her,” he said. “She left dinner simmering on the stove. She left her purse with her wallet in it on her nightstand. She left her shoes and coat in the entryway. He would never have suspected she’d just run away. He would have thought something had happened to her.”
“Then what? What went wrong?”
“Her baby’s blanket.”
My head whipped up. Angel was peeling paint off the side of the snack bar, doing his best not to look in Reyes’s direction.
“She went back for her baby’s blanket,” he explained.
“She didn’t have a baby,” I said, confused.
“She would have, if he hadn’t sucker punched her in the gut.”
I buried my head again, fought the sting of tears.
“She’d knitted it. Yellow because she didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl yet. She lost the baby the night she mustered the courage to tell him she was pregnant.”
My lids squeezed shut, forcing the most useless tears I’d ever cried past my lashes. The blanket absorbed them, and I wished with all my heart it would absorb me as well. Just swallow me whole then spit out the bitter bones. Why was I even on Earth? To make a fool of myself and my family? To hurt people I’d never met?
“But Zeke Herschel was in jail,” I said, unable to fully accept what had happened.
“He made bail almost the minute they booked him; his cousin is a bail bondsman.”
I knew that, but I never expected her to go back.
“Herschel caught her as she was leaving the house a second time. And he knew from the look in her eyes what she was doing.” Angel chewed on his bottom lip a moment before continuing. “After he … did what he did, he found your card in her pocket and put two and two together.”
A long silence ensued as I tried desperately to figure out my role on this Earth. Clearly, I was going about the whole grim reaper thing wrong. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe there was no going about it. Maybe I was just supposed to live my life without trying to help people, without trying to fix their problems, living or otherwise.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Angel said after a while.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice spent as fatigue and depression set in, “right. It was probably Rosie’s fault. We can blame her.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just know how you are. You take everything onto your shoulders like that guy who holds up the world, and you shouldn’t. You’re not nearly as muscular.”
“Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked him. Angel. A thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger.
“Just ’cause you’re supposed to be, I guess.”
“Oh, right, I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Why do you think you’re here?”
“To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses,” I answered. “Duh.”
“Well, if you knew…” A glimmer of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
Reyes stirred beside me, and Angel’s gaze darted to him.
“Why do you suppose he’s here?” I asked Angel, indicating Reyes with a nod of my head.
Angel thought about it, then said, “To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses.” He left out the duh, and I realized he was serious.
I glanced at Reyes. His gaze was locked on to Angel, as if in warning.
“I’m outta here,” Angel said. “My mom has a hair appointment in the morning. I like to watch her get her hair done.”
It wasn’t the lamest excuse he’d ever used, but it was pretty darned close.
“Will you just tell me next time?” I asked.
He winked at me, the flirt. “We’ll see.” Then he was gone.
“Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked Reyes as he sat beside me. He didn’t answer. Naturally. “You saved my life. Again. Are you planning on waking up anytime soon? I don’t know how long I can hold the state off.”
My pulse had quickened the moment I realized he was beside me. Now that we were alone, it charged headlong into warp drive, heedless of any stars lurking nearby. Reyes’s energy was like a tangible thing, electric and arousing as it encapsulated my body. He hadn’t moved, but I could feel him everywhere.