“Up here,” she called back.
I spotted her flying straight toward the top of the Transamerica building, so I followed her. We sat side by side, perched on a small ledge.
“Look at this city, Lucian, so still like this. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“Were you looking for me?” she asked.
“Yes.” I looked down at my fidgeting hands. “Evey found a lump in her breast.”
She huffed. “Well, Lucian, humans go to the doctor to get those things checked out. That’s the protocol. What do you think, that you can heal her? You’re not a fucking healer.”
She seemed so agitated. What did she know that I didn’t?
“Calm down. Why are you so angry?”
She wasn’t looking at me—she was staring out into the distance. “I’m angry because you’re causing a lot of confusion. Honestly, I think Evey will be fine, but one never knows. Cancer is a human disease. It has nothing to do with us.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s a fact, and one that I had confirmed earlier today.”
“You’ve been keeping tabs on me, on us?” I asked.
“I overheard you in the apartment, talking about it.”
“You care for me, don’t you, Mona?”
She sighed. “Both of you. I care for both of you. I was told there would be consequences for you, but I don’t know what they’ll be. Your selfishness alone will cause Evey pain; I know that. And it will have nothing to do with cancer.”
Thinking that I was causing Evey pain stung me deeply. “If this is all my fault, then why are you concerned?”
She took a long breath. “Because I’ve seen you with her. You are different, or she is different. You should have found a way to control it, but you didn’t. I don’t know if you were capable of staying away from her in that way, and that’s why I pity you now.”
“I wasn’t capable of staying away from her, I promise you that. But I’m still feeling lost, and I probably always will. I only feel normal when I’m with her. I just have to have faith that she’ll be okay.”
Mona smiled peculiarly at me. “That’s right—faith. But if she’s not okay? Will you curse God because of it, Lucian?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
She laughed through her nose. “You never learn.”
I checked my phone and noticed magic hour was almost over. “I gotta go.”
I took off into the fog, and boom! I was suddenly spinning out of control. I’d had a collision. A moment later, I hit the ground hard.
“Oh fuck, my back!”
An angel hovered over me. A big male. “Watch where you’re going, dumbass!” He spit on me before taking off.
“Oww,” I moaned. My wings, jaw, and elbow were bleeding. “Oh fuck.” I got up and stumbled home because I couldn’t get off the ground.
When I came into the apartment, Evey was awake. Magic hour had been over for some time. She gasped. “My God, Lucian, what happened? Were you drinking?”
“Geez, you really don’t trust me. It was foggy; I ran into some massive linebacker angel.”
“Come into the bathroom. Let me clean you up.” She wiped the blood from my wings and elbow and kissed the blood from my mouth. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.
