“Calm yourself,” he commanded the younger man.
Foster glowered at him with tear-filled eyes. “How?!” He wailed softly, and Gabe felt a twinge of sympathy. How confusing and overwhelming, to have a mortal heart paired with the curse of immortality. But there was work to be done.
“I say this with love, Foster.” he came to his side and gripped the boy’s shaking shoulders. “But you?—”
A soft, shuddering cough interrupted the moment. Foster whirled to face the bed.
Gabe turned slower, brows lifting in astonishment. “She wakes.”
The boy was by her side in an instant, scrutinizing her face as Sra. Delgado gave another soft cough. Her eyes flickered open, closed, opened again, and fixed on his.
“M-mijo,” she croaked, wincing at the strain, her words muffled by the mask strapped over her nose and mouth.
Foster whimpered. “Abuela.”
Gabe cringed and averted his gaze from the…touching scene.Speak your piece and go, old woman.
“Foster…mi amor…” Her breathing was labored and pained. Foster leaned in close to listen to the whispery words she managed to force out. “Ayúdame.”
“Help you how,abuela?” The boy was on the verge of tears, and his obvious affection for the woman brought a lump to even Gabe’s throat. He turned to the window to allow them some privacy.
“Let…me go...” The old woman rattled and wheezed. “Set…me free,angelito.”
Her eyes slipped shut again and stayed closed. A long silence stretched over the room, broken only by the steady beeping of the monitors and the soft whirr of the breathing machine. Gabe ran his fingers over the curtain, picking at a loose thread on the bottom. This was a hideous plaid pattern and an awful color.
Then Foster began to cry. He couldn’t even begin to comfort the boy; what was he supposed to say? It was terrible, but this was the way it was. They might as well get something back in exchange, it only made sense.
“Gabe.”
He gripped the curtain tight, wincing at the pure desperation in Foster’s voice. The fabric tore in his grasp. “You should respect her wishes.”
More ugly silence. Gabe turned, but Foster wasn’t looking at him. He knelt beside the bed with his forehead pressed to the crisp white sheet, both hands folded around one of the old lady’s as if he was praying with her.
Gabe folded his own hands before him and bowed his head. Ironically, he wasn’t much of a believer in the power of prayer. He had seen too many prayers go unanswered, including his own. He had lain prostrate before his King and pleaded once before, to no avail.
But if it brought Foster some comfort, Gabe could pretend.
“The rebellion with Adam.” Michael kept returning to the same comment, his mind whirling with the implications.
“However many times you say them, the words are the same.”
“Technically I’m just repeatingyourwords.” A sharp tug on his wounded wing had him grunting.
“Semantics annoy me, and you know that.” Luce returned the wing to a proper position for splinting, folded neatly against Michael’s back. “Hold still, you fidgety child.”
Michael made an affronted noise. “I’m not?—”
“Oh, shut up, it’s the truth.” Luce scoffed. “You were always so sensitive about injuries, but only after you ignored them and got yourself nearly killed.”
“I suppose I do tend to get... hyper-focused.”
“Hyper-focused? Michael, abombcould go off beside you, and you wouldn’t notice if you were tracking.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging to loosen the tension, and picked up a roll of cloth bandage. “All nonsense aside, you better sit still for me to bind these wings, or they won’t set properly.”
“I’m not a child, I can keep still without a binding.”
“I have absolutely no faith in your ability to control yourself. You can’t even follow the simple direction to stay away from me.”
“You’re still so arrogant.”
