Hallowed (Unearthly 2)

He turns to look at me, scratches at the back of his neck.

“This isn’t going to become one of those creepy situations where you show up at all hours of the night to watch me sleep, is it?” he asks playfully.

“Every moment I’m away from you, I die a little,” I say in return.

“So that’s a yes, then.”

“Are you complaining?” I ask, quirking an eyebrow at him.

He grins. “Nope. Definitely not complaining. I just wanted to know so I can start wearing more than my boxers to bed.”

That gets a blush out of me. “Well, don’t—uh, change anything on my account,” I stammer, and he laughs and crosses the room to kiss me again.

We spend a very nice few minutes hanging out on his bed. Nothing heavy, since Tucker still has this notion that since I have angel blood in my veins he should try to keep my honor intact. For a long time we simply lie there, catching our breath. I lay my head on his chest, feeling his heart thumping beneath my ear, and I think for the thousandth time that he is without question the best guy on the planet.

Tucker takes one of my hands and curls and uncurls my fingers around his. I love the texture of his hands, the calluses along his palms, evidence of all the hard work he’s done in his life, the type of person he is. Such rough hands, but he’s always so gentle with them.

“So,” he says out of the blue, “are you ever going to tell me what happened the night of the fire?”

Moment over.

I guess I knew this question was coming. I was maybe hoping he wouldn’t ask it. It puts me in this terrible position, knowing other people’s secrets, especially when those secrets are all tangled up with mine.

“I—” I sit up, pull away from him. I seriously don’t know what to say. The words catch in my throat. This must be what it’s like for Mom, I think, keeping things hidden from the people she loves.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, sitting up next to me. “I get it. It’s top-secret angel stuff. You can’t tell.”

I shake my head. I decide that I am not my mother.

“Angela’s forming a club, for angel-bloods,” I say as a start, even though I know this isn’t what he asked me.

This is so not what Tucker thought I was going to say. “Angela Zerbino’s an angel-blood.”

“Yes.”

He snorts. “Well, I guess that makes sense. There’s always been something off about that girl.”

“Hey. I’m an angel-blood. Are you saying there’s something off about me, too?”

“Yep,” he answers. “But I like it.”

“Oh, okay, then.” I lean in to kiss him. Then I pull away.

“Christian is an angel-blood too,” I say, trying to be brave and look him in the face and say it. “I didn’t know until the night of the fire, but he is. A Quartarius. Like me.” Tucker’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says in this emotionless voice, and looks away. “Like you.”

For a long time neither of us speaks. Then he says, “Big coincidence, huh, all these angel-bloods popping up in Jackson?”

“It was a pretty big surprise, that’s for sure,” I admit. “I don’t know about coincidence.” He swallows, and there’s this little click in his throat. I can see how hard he’s trying to play it cool, pretend that the angel stuff doesn’t scare him or make him feel like he’s standing in the way of something more important than him. He’d still step aside, I realize, if he thought he was distracting me from my purpose. He’s already putting on the breakup face. Like he did before.

“I don’t know what was supposed to happen that night,” I say quickly. “But the fire’s over.

I’m moving on with my life.” I hope he doesn’t detect the touch of desperation in my voice, how much I want to make the words true just by saying them. I don’t want to think about the possibility that my purpose could last another hundred years. “So I’m all yours now,” I say, and the words ring false, so terribly false, in my ears. And here I started out determined to tell him the truth.

Only I don’t know the truth. Or maybe I don’t want to know.

“All right,” he says then, although I can tell he’s not sure if he believes me. “Good.

Because I want you all to myself.”

“You’ve got me,” I whisper.

He kisses me again. And I kiss him back.

But the image of Christian Prescott, standing with his back to me at Fox Creek Road, waiting for me, always waiting, suddenly flashes through my mind.

When I get home Jeffrey’s out in the yard, chopping wood in the rain. He sees me and nods his head, lifts his arm and wipes sweat from above his top lip with his sleeve. Then he grabs a log, lifts the ax again, and splits it easily. He splits another. And another. The pile of chopped wood at his feet is already pretty big, and he doesn’t look like he’s stopping anytime soon.

“You deciding to stock up for the whole winter? Can’t wait for the snow?” I ask. “You do know it’s only September.”

“Mom’s cold,” he says. “She’s in there in her flannel pj’s, wrapped up in blankets drinking tea, and she’s shivering. I thought I’d build her a fire.”

“Oh,” I say. “That’s nice of you.”

“Something happened to her that day. With the Black Wing,” he says, trying out the words. He looks up, meets my eyes. Sometimes he looks so young, like a vulnerable little boy.

Other times, like now, he looks like a man. A man who’s seen so much sadness in this life. How is that possible? I wonder. He’s fifteen.

“Yeah,” I say, because I’ve concluded the same thing. “I mean, he tried to kill her. It was a pretty rough fight.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“I think so.” The glory healed her. I watched it wash over her like warm water, taking away the burns, the bruises from Samjeeza’s hands. But thinking about it brings back the image of her dangling from his arm, flailing, gasping for breath as his hand tightened around her throat, her kicks growing weaker and weaker until she went still. Until I thought she was dead. My eyes burn at the memory and I quickly turn away to look at the house so Jeffrey won’t see my tears.

Jeffrey chops some more wood, and I pull myself together. It’s been a long day. I want to crawl into bed, pull the covers up over my head, and sleep it all away.