Angel Fever

28

I KNEW THAT IT COULDN’T be him. It couldn’t be. But my heart didn’t care.

“Alex!” I screamed, and it was as if I’d woken myself out of a trance. I lunged out from behind the house and started running as hard as I could, snow flying with every step as my feet pummelled the ground.

The boy’s head snapped up. “Willow!” he shouted.

In seconds he’d vaulted over the tree and was running towards me. This was a dream – it couldn’t be true.

When we reached each other, I threw myself into his arms. He caught me up hard, swinging me around in a circle. Alex. With a sob I clung to his neck, breathing him in.

“Oh god, I missed you – I missed you so much—” He gripped my head, scattering kisses across my face. As he clutched me close again, I pressed tight against him, tears starting down my cheeks. Warm flesh…his leather jacket…his T-shirt, smelling of dust and sweat. If I loosened my hold, I’d wake up to find he’d vanished, the same as after a hundred dreams.

My shoulders were shaking. “Hey, hey…” whispered Alex against my hair. “Oh, babe, don’t cry – I’m back now. Everything’s okay.”

I couldn’t answer. I just held on, trembling. He was real.

“Oh, man! Are you Alex Kylar?”

I felt Alex keep one arm around me as he stretched out his hand to someone. “Yeah, who are you?”

“Scott Mason. Wow, this is just a complete honour. I can’t believe you’re really here—”

“Look, you’ve got problems,” broke in Alex. “I waited until the scouts were gone so they wouldn’t see me. Did you know you’ve got, like, three thousand angels waiting to attack just thirty miles away?”

My blood was pounding through my brain. I pulled away slightly, staring up at the strong lines of Alex’s face. It was more tanned than I recalled, his eyes looking very blue. This couldn’t be happening. Could not.

Scott had gone pale. “Scouts?”

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I – I don’t know, but – we had some other angels this morning, kind of sneaking around town…”

Alex grimaced. “Let me guess; you killed them all. So they sent some others and stayed high this time, and found out you’ve got an alarm system and a bunch of sharpshooters in town. Nice one.”

Scott licked his lips. “Okay, but…they probably already knew that. One of our fighters got captured a few weeks ago.”

“It’s usually not a great idea to confirm their info,” Alex said dryly. “But at least they might assume you don’t know about the attack and think they can catch you unaware. You did already know about it, right?”

“Yeah, we’re busy planning right now – hey, you can help! A bunch of us are at the town hall…”

The world was tilting – I was sliding off its edge. Why wasn’t Scott surprised that Alex was still alive? But he hadn’t known he was dead. Which was real? Did Alex die, or not? Maybe this whole last year had just been a bad dream.

Alex glanced down at me then; his face creased in concern. “You go on,” he told Scott without looking at him. “We’ll catch up.”

Once Scott had left, Alex held me close. “I was so afraid of this,” he whispered. “Willow, you thought I’d died, didn’t you?”

“I—” My voice was faint.

Alex drew back to brush away my tears. Then he paused. My hair had tumbled down as I ran, and I saw him taking it in – felt his surprise.

I grasped his hand before he could speak. He still wore the woven bracelet I’d given him, bright against his tanned wrist. “How are you alive?” I choked out. “How?”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Somehow I managed to put coherent sentences together. “That day – the day that you left – Sam and I went after you. When we reached the New Mexico camp, the entire centre exploded. There was nothing left.”

The blood drained from Alex’s face. “You were there for that?”

“Alex, I felt it…I felt you die…”

The memory was like my soul being shredded. Alex wrapped his arms around me again. “Oh god, Willow, I am so sorry,” he said, his voice fervent. “I’ve been in the angels’ world. That’s why you couldn’t sense me.”

“The angels’ world?” I repeated in a daze. “But – why didn’t you tell me that’s what you were doing?”

“Because—” His throat moved as he swallowed. “Because I was pretty sure that just the attempt to get there would kill me,” he said roughly. “I don’t think I could have forced myself to go otherwise.”

I stared at him, trying to get the words to make sense. He clasped my hands between his, his skin warm, familiar. “Willow, I’m sorry. I know what these last few weeks must have been like for you. God, if it was you, I’d—”

“Weeks?” I interrupted. Suddenly my heart was battering at my chest. “Wait, wait – is that what you said?”

“Yeah. Over three weeks…” Alex trailed off, taking in my long blonde hair again. When he’d left, my hair was still brown, just past my shoulders.

His face paled.

We stared at each other. Three weeks. The year of grief, bleak and sharp as winter, rose up in a grey crest and threatened to drown me. “Alex, no,” I got out finally. “It…it was longer.”

He touched a strand of my hair and stroked it slowly down its length. When he spoke again his voice was thick with dread. “How long?”

“Over a year.”

He shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “No way.”

“It’s true. You’ve been gone exactly one year and eleven days.”

For a second Alex looked as if he might pass out. “The Edens,” he murmured, pressing his hands to his temples. His knuckles were white. “I kept seeing all these new Edens on my way here – I didn’t get how we could have missed so many, back at the base…”

I couldn’t respond. Alex gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “Jesus, I can’t – I can’t even get my head around this—” His fist tightened. With his other hand, he gently cupped my cheek, his touch so familiar that it hurt.

“You thought I was dead all this time,” he whispered.

I wanted to hug him; I wanted to hit him. Hugging won. With a moan, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed close. He held me tight – I felt his lips brush my head. “I am never leaving you again,” he said in a low voice. “Willow, I swear it.”

“Alex!” called someone.

We pulled apart as Seb jogged to a halt beside us; Nina and Jonah stopped behind him, looking blank with surprise. Seb stood gaping, his cheeks white. “Scott told us, but…but how…” he stammered.

“I was in the angels’ world,” Alex said, holding out his hand to Seb. “For only a few weeks, I thought.”

For a long moment, Seb stayed motionless, staring dumbly. “You’re really alive,” he murmured at last.

Suddenly a broad grin split his face. “You’re alive!” he shouted, ignoring Alex’s hand and pulling him into a back-slapping hug. “Ah, you cabrón, I could kill you for this – but it’s so good to see you again, mi amigo.”

“Thanks. You too.” Alex’s voice was gruff as they drew apart.

Nina glanced at me, eyes wide. “Is this really—?”

I gave a small nod. “This is Alex…my boyfriend.” I tried to laugh; a sort of gasp came out. “He’s alive after all. Alex, this is Nina. You remember, I—”

“Hey, yeah – Willow’s told me a lot about you.” He extended his hand.

Nina looked lost for words as she shook it. “Well, I – I hope to hear a lot about you too.”

Jonah offered his own hand. “You probably don’t even remember me, but—”

“Jonah?” broke in Alex. “Yeah, I remember. What are you doing here?”

Jonah and Seb helped Alex drag the tree away so he could get his truck through; as they did, Jonah gave him a quick rundown on what had been happening. Alex stopped in his tracks. “Immune to the angels?” he said sharply. “Why?”

My eyes begged Jonah not to go into their strange theory about me. I couldn’t deal with it right now, not on top of everything else. “It’s…kind of a long story,” Jonah said, glancing at me. “Maybe we should get back and start planning first.”

Alex’s blue-grey eyes found mine and held them. And I knew that planning an attack was the last thing on the planet he wanted to be doing. “Yeah,” he said tersely. “I guess we’d better.”

We parked at the elementary school and walked to the square. Alex had on a pair of old work boots that I’d never seen before. He wove his fingers through mine, his dark hair falling across his forehead, just the same as always.

“Willow, listen, I’ve got to talk to you when we have a minute,” he said in an undertone. “I found out something in the angels’ world that – well, we’ve got to talk.”

Every time I looked at him, it was like worlds colliding, reality turned upside down. Just the feel of his fingers against mine was indescribable. I wanted to be alone with him so badly it hurt.

I nodded, still reeling. “Yes, um – talking would be good.”

We made our way through crowds of people hanging out on the snowy front lawn of the town hall: all my old Pawntucket High classmates. I could sense their tension over the scouting angels – then their excitement at seeing Alex and me.

“Go, Angel Killers!” shouted someone, and there were actually cheers.

Part of me was sure this was a dream. When we reached the room with the shortwave radio, everyone was relieved by Alex’s presence but not really surprised. No one but Nina and Jonah had known he’d died.

No, he didn’t die, I corrected myself, gazing at Alex’s face as he studied the map. He’d been alive this whole time.

It had all just…been a mistake.

Scott was briefing Alex on their defence strategy. I could feel Alex’s forced concentration – his desire to get me on my own. “Yeah, attacking from the roofs is good, but it leaves your vanguard fighters pretty exposed,” he said. “What you should also have are bombs you can detonate from the ground.”

“Bombs?” Scott stared. “Uh…we don’t exactly have that kind of technology.”

“Yeah, you do – bombs are easy.” Alex started drawing on the side of the map, his hand moving in quick, sure strokes. “Look: this is a nail bomb.”

He described how to make it; the materials were all commonplace. “You put it on a roof, then shoot at it from the ground as the angels appear. The nails will explode thirty feet up in the air, like bullets – any that hit a halo will take an angel out.”

Excitement crackled through the room. “Oh, yes,” Rachel cried. “We have definitely got nails here!”

“I can help with the bombs.” Seb seemed to be avoiding looking at her. “At the reformatorio, a boy there taught us how to make them.”

“Will five days be enough for all this, though?” Nina put in anxiously.

Alex’s eyebrows shot up; he tossed the pen aside. “Five days, with scouts here just an hour ago? No way. We’ll be lucky as hell to get two.”

“But…” Nina glanced at me in alarm.

The dreamlike feeling had turned nightmarish. There was no way Pawntucket could prepare that fast. “We were supposed to have five more days,” I faltered.

“I’ve got some information that might help, with luck.” Alex’s eyes met mine. Without looking away, he said, “You guys go and get started.” Then he seemed to catch himself. “Sorry, I’m not trying to take over – I’m just used to being in charge.”

Scott barked out a laugh. “Dude, you are Alex Kylar. I think I speak for everyone here when I say: Please take over.”

Alex smiled thinly. “Okay, if you all agree. Jonah, you and Scott tell everyone what the plan is, then get started fortifying the houses and making the bombs; we don’t have any time to lose. Willow…I’ve got to talk to you. Alone.”