Blake was home and safe. But how long could it possibly last? Between the aliens, starvation, andcruelty of human desperation…it couldn’t last.
For so long, they’d been scraping a living. Trying to hold on for just one more day. Clinging to the desperate hope that if they could just survive long enough, something would change.
But surviving wasn’t enough.
And no one was coming.
There was a small part of him that had known that from the beginning. From the moment his boots touched down on DC’s burning streets, he’d known this was it. That the burden of the lives he cared about rested on his shoulders. And he didn’t have the courage to askwhy him?
Gabriel was used to carrying the weight of his mistakes. The souls he took and the ones he couldn’t save. Now he was carrying something far more precious: hope. The weight of it was unbearable.
But he would do it. Because he had to. Because failure was not an option, not when his mission was so precious.
He buried his nose in Blake’s curls, listening to him breathe.
Blake had been his reason to survive. Now he was his reason to fight.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Blake set his mug down on the Formica table and bent over, inhaling the metallic-smelling steam from his coffee. It felt good. Refreshing against his swollen eyes and sore body. He felt like he’d been hit by a car, which wasn’t too far off. Even after Gabriel had undressed and bathed him, he still found gravel in his hair and a smear of blood behind his right ear.
His palms stung where he held the ceramic mug. Road rash from the multiple times he’d been thrown onto the street. The tips of his fingers were even burned from the Molotov cocktail he’d thought wassucha good idea at the time.
And that was just his physical ailments. His nose was stuffy from all the crying, and his eyes were swollen and tender. Even his face was red from crying so hard he’d burst the tiny capillaries around his eyes. He’d be embarrassed if he had any energy at all.
Gabriel had woken him when he got up that morning. He’d apologized, told him to go back to sleep. But without his warmth and his anchoring presence, Blake found sleep fitful at best. He kept having vivid dreams that felt so real, he woke with his heart pounding in his chest and his temples slick with sweat. He tried to remember what he’d dreamt, but all he could recall wereflashes. Images he couldn’t place and the bloodied back of Sara’s mother as she disappeared around a corner.
He didn’t see her die. In some ways, he thought that might be worse.
More than once, he’d convinced himself that she might have lived. That the FUD might not have seen her or been called away by a Handler. After all, she was just one injured woman. Hardly a threat.
But it was a thin thread of hope. One that wouldn’t bear weight.
Before the night’s frost had burned off, Blake had been up. First, he saw to Emily, making sure she got her insulin and discussing her symptoms with her. Her family wasn’t sure they’d stay with them at the motel long-term, but Blake was committed to helping her for as long as she needed.
He wanted her pink skin to be healthy, and the doses of insulin to matter. To ease the knot of guilt that squeezed his chest.
Maybe someday it would.
Now he was sitting in the lobby sipping shitty coffee that tasted like ash and tin, hoping the heat would relax him enough to eat something.
“Mind if we sit?”
Blake looked up to see Judd, Victoria, and Sara looking down at him. Judd had his hands full with two plates he set down the moment Blake nodded. Sara was clinging to his jacket, her face half hidden behind his arm. He wished they’d find seats with Tommy and Phin on the other side of the canteen, but they were already sitting across from him.
She looked different in the light of day. Or maybe it was the bath. Someone, probably Victoria, had brushed her hair out, too. It was honey blonde and pin-straight, hanging just past her shoulders. She didn’t move from Judd’s side.
“Now, I don’t know about you northerners, but where I come from, we enjoy a good breakfast,” Judd said, his voice loud against the tiled lobby. He speared a boiled hotdog with a fork before extending it to Sara.
“Breakfast is a universal concept,” Victoria sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Ah, not like at my momma’s table.” Judd began regaling them with all the things his mother used to fix for breakfast. None of them were particularly unique, but it wasn’t about the food. Or even the story. It was a distraction. A flapping red cape to draw Sara’s attention so she didn’t think about eating.
She began picking at the food, taking tiny bites while she warily scanned the lobby. Behind the curtain of her hair, Blake could see she had brown eyes and a dainty upturned nose. It was difficult to tell with her malnutrition, but he thought she was probably about six years old. She had a Band-Aid over her chin but otherwise looked unharmed.
Blake set the coffee down, unable to continue drinking. He should have seen to her last night. Made sure she was comfortable and cleaned. Checked her for wounds. But he hadn’t been able to even look at her. Even now, he could only glance at her, terrified of what he’d see in her eyes.
