Finale

CHAPTER 7

VEE BOUNCED THE NEON INTO THE DRIVEWAY OF the farmhouse and punched the stereo off.

“Well, that was enough crazy for one night,” she said. “What was that? Greasers verses Socs?”

I’d been holding my breath, but I exhaled softly in relief. No hyperventilating. No hysterical hand gestures. No mention of necks snapping. Luckily, Vee hadn’t seen the worst of it. “You’re one to talk. You never read The Outsiders.”

“I saw the movie. Matt Dillon was hot before he got old.”

A thick, expectant silence filled the car.

“Okay, cut the crap,” Vee said. “Small talk’s over. Spill.” When I hesitated, she added, “That was some crazy business back there, but something was wrong way before that. You were acting funny all night. I saw you running in and out of the Devil’s Handbag. And then, suddenly, you want to clear out the place. I gotta tell you, babe. I need an explanation.”

This was where things got tricky. I wanted to tell Vee the whole truth, but it was also vital to her safety that she believe the lies I was about to tell her. If Cowboy Hat and his friends were serious about digging around in my personal life, sooner or later they’d learn Vee was my best friend. I couldn’t stand the idea of them threatening or questioning her, but if they did, I wanted every answer she gave them to sound convincing. Most important, I wanted her to tell them, without any hesitation, that all my ties to Patch had been severed. I intended to throw water on this fire before it raged out of hand.

“While I was at the bar tonight, Patch came over, and it wasn’t pretty,” I began quietly. “He was—wasted. He said some stupid things, I refused to leave with him, and he got physical.”

“Holy shiz,” Vee muttered under her breath.

“The bouncer kicked Patch out.”

“Wow. I’m speechless. What do you make of all this?”

I flexed my hands opened and closed in my lap. “Patch and I are over.”

“Over over?”

“As over as they come.”

Vee leaned across the console and gave me a hug. She opened her mouth, saw my expression, and thought better of it. “I won’t say it, but you know I’m thinking it.”

A tear wobbled at the edge of my eye. Vee’s evident relief only made the lie feel that much uglier inside me. I was an awful friend. I knew it, but I didn’t know how to set it right. I refused to put Vee in harm’s way.

“What’s the story with the dude in the flannel shirt?”

What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. “Before Patch got kicked out, he warned me to stay away from the guy in the flannel shirt. Patch said he knew him, and he was trouble. That’s why I asked you to find out his name. I kept catching him watching me, and it made me nervous. I didn’t want him to follow me home, if that’s what he planned on doing, so I decided to cause mass chaos. I wanted us to be able to leave the Devil’s Handbag without making it easy for him to pick us out and follow us.”

Vee exhaled, long and slow. “I believe you broke up with Patch. But I don’t believe for one minute the other story.”

I flinched. “Vee—”

She put her hand up. “I get it. You’ve got your secrets, and one of these days you’ll tell me what’s going on. And I’ll tell you.” She arched her eyebrows knowingly. “That’s right. You aren’t the only one with secrets. I’ll spill when the time is right, and I figure you will too.”

I stared at her. This wasn’t how I’d expected our conversation to go. “You have secrets? What secrets?”

“Juicy secrets.”

“Tell me!”

“Would you look at that,” Vee said, tapping the clock on the dash. “I believe it’s your curfew.”

I sat openmouthed. “I can’t believe you’re keeping secrets from me.”

“I can’t believe you’re being such a hypocrite.”

“This conversation isn’t over,” I said, opening the door reluctantly.

“Not easy on the other side, is it?”

I said good night to my mom, then locked myself in my bedroom and called Patch. When Vee and I fled the Devil’s Handbag, the brown Chevy van had no longer been parked at the curb. It was my guess that Patch had left before the fallen angels’ surprise invasion, since he would have stormed inside the club if he’d believed I was in danger, but I was more curious to know if he’d picked up Cowboy Hat. For all I knew, they were having a conversation right now. I wondered if Patch was asking questions or making threats. Probably both.

Patch’s voice mail kicked on, and I hung up. Leaving a message seemed too risky. Besides, he’d see the missed call and know it was from me. I hoped he still planned on coming over tonight. I knew our messy confrontation had been staged, but I wanted the reassurance that nothing had changed. I was rattled, and needed to know we were still at the same place emotionally that we’d been before the fight.

I dialed Patch’s cell once more for good measure, then went to bed feeling restless.

Tomorrow was Tuesday. Cheshvan began with the rise of the new moon.

Based on tonight’s grisly free-for-all, I had a feeling fallen angels were counting down the hours until they could unleash their wrath in full.

I awoke to the sound of floorboards creaking. My vision adjusted to the darkness, and I found myself staring at two rather large, muscled legs clad in white tracksuit bottoms.

“Dante?” I said, flailing an arm toward the nightstand, hunting for the clock. “Uuhn. What time is it? What day is it?”

“Tuesday morning,” he said. “You know what that means.” A ball of workout clothes landed in my face. “Meet me in the driveway at your convenience.”

“Really?”

In the dark, his teeth gleamed with a smile. “Can’t believe you fell for that. Your butt better be outside in T-minus five minutes.”

Five minutes later I trudged outside, shivering against the chill of mid-October. A light wind stripped leaves off the trees and creaked their branches. I stretched my legs and jumped up and down to get the blood flowing.

“Keep up,” Dante instructed, and he took off sprinting into the woods.

I still wasn’t wild about traipsing through the woods alone with Dante, but I rationalized that if he was going to hurt me, he’d had plenty of opportunities yesterday. So I raced after him, looking for the occasional streak of white that alerted me to his presence. His eyesight must have put mine to shame, because while every now and then I tripped over logs, lost my footing in natural potholes, and smacked my head on low-hanging branches, he navigated the terrain with flawless accuracy. Each and every time I heard his taunting chuckle of amusement, I jumped back on my feet, determined to shove him off a steep slope the first chance I got. There were plenty of ravines around; I just needed to get close enough to him to do the job.

At last Dante stopped, and by the time I caught up, he was stretched out on a large boulder with his hands clasped loosely behind his neck. He’d peeled out of his tracksuit bottoms and Windbreaker, leaving him in knee-length shorts and a fitted T-shirt. Other than a slight rise and fall of his chest, I never could have guessed he’d just sprinted what must have been about ten miles gradually uphill.

I crawled onto the boulder and flopped next to him. “Water,” I said, gasping for breath.

Dante rose up on an elbow and smiled down at me. “Not happening. I’m going to wring you dry. Water makes tears, and tears are one thing I can’t stand. And once you see what I’ve got planned next, you’re going to want to cry. Lucky for me, you won’t be able to.”

He hooked me under the armpits and dragged me to standing. Dawn was just beginning to light the horizon, coloring the sky an icy pink. Standing side by side on the boulder, we could see for miles. The evergreen trees, spruces and cedars, spread like a towering carpet in every direction, rolling over hills and into the basin of a deep ravine that cut through the scenery.

“Pick one,” Dante instructed.

“Pick one what?”

“A tree. After you’ve uprooted it, you get to go home.”

I blinked at the trees, at least a hundred years old and as thick around as three telephone poles, and felt my jaw drop slightly. “Dante . . .”

“Strength Training 101.” He gave me a slap on the back by way of encouragement, then settled back into a relaxed recline on the boulder. “This is going to be better than watching the Today show.”

“I hate you.”

He laughed. “Not yet, you don’t. But an hour from now . . .”

An hour later I had deposited every ounce of energy—and maybe my soul, too—into the uprooting of one very stubborn and unaccommodating white cedar. Other than making it slant slightly, it was a perfect specimen of a thriving tree. I had tried pushing it over, digging it out, kicking it into submission, and futilely beating my fists against it. To say the tree had won was an understatement. And all the while, Dante had sat perched on his boulder, snorting, laughing, and hollering carping remarks. Glad one of us found this entertaining.

He sauntered over, a slight but very obnoxious smile tugging at his mouth. He scratched his elbow. “Well, Commander of the Great and Mighty Nephilim Army, any luck?”

Sweat ran in rivulets down my face, dripping off my nose and chin. My palms were scraped raw, my knees were scuffed, my ankle was sprained, and every muscle in my body cried out in agony. I grabbed the front of Dante’s shirt and used it to wipe my face. And then I blew my nose in it.

Dante stepped back, palms raised. “Whoa.”

I flung an arm in the direction of my chosen tree. “I can’t do it,” I admitted on a sob. “I’m not cut out for this. I’ll never be as strong as you, or any other Nephil.” I felt my lip quiver in disappointment and shame.

His expression softened. “Take a deep breath, Nora. I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it. That was the point. I wanted to give you an impossible challenge so later, when you finally can do it, you’ll look back and see how far you’ve come.”

I stared at him, feeling my temper boil.

“What?” he asked.

“What? What? Are you crazy? I have school today. I have a test to study for! And I thought I was giving it up for something worthwhile, but now I find out this was all just to make a point? Well, here’s me making a point! I’m throwing in the towel. I’m done! I didn’t ask for this. Training was your idea. You’ve called all the shots, but this time it’s my turn. I QUIT!” I knew I was dehydrated and probably not thinking rationally, but I’d had enough. Yes, I’d wanted to boost my endurance and strength and learn how to defend myself. But this was ridiculous. Uproot a tree? I’d given it my best shot, and he’d sat back and laughed, knowing full well I’d never be able to do it.

“You look really pissed off,” he said, frowning and stroking his chin in a perplexed manner.

“You think?”

“Consider it an object lesson. A benchmark of sorts.”

“Yeah? Benchmark this.” And I gave him a stiff middle finger.

“You’re blowing this out of proportion. You see that, right?”

Sure, two hours from now maybe I’d see it. After I’d showered, rehydrated, and zonked out in bed. Which, as much as I wanted it, wasn’t going to happen because I had school.

Dante said, “You’re commander of this army. You’re also a Nephil trapped in a human body. You have to train harder than the rest of us, because you’re starting with a serious disadvantage. I’m not doing you any favors by going easy.”

With sweat running into my eyes, I glared at him. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want this job? Maybe I don’t want to be commander?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It’s done. No use fantasizing other scenarios.”

My tone turned despondent. “Why don’t you stage a coup and steal my job?” I muttered, only half joking. Far as I could tell, Dante had no reason to keep me in power and keep me alive. “You’d be a million times better at it. You actually care.”

More chin stroking. “Well, now that you’ve put the idea into my head . . .”

“This isn’t funny, Dante.”

His smile vanished. “No, it’s not. For what it’s worth, I swore an oath to Hank that I’d help you succeed. My neck is on the line just as much as yours. I’m not out here every morning to earn a few extra karma points. I’m here because I need you to win. My life is riding on your shoulders.”

His words sank in. “Are you saying if I don’t go to war, and win, you’ll die? Is that the oath you swore?”

He exhaled, long and slow, before answering. “Yes.”

I closed my eyes, kneading my temples. “I really wish you hadn’t told me.”

“Stressed?”

Leaning back against the boulder, I let the breeze blow across my skin. Deep breaths. Not only could I potentially kill my mom and myself if I failed to lead Hank’s army, but now I’d kill Dante, too, if I didn’t lead it to victory. But what about peace? What about my deal with the archangels?

Damn Hank. This was his fault. If he’d gone anywhere but straight to hell upon his death, there was no justice in—or out of—the world.

“Lisa Martin and the Nephilim higher-ups want to meet with you again,” Dante said. “I’ve been stalling, because I know you’re not sold on war, and I’m worried how they’ll react. We need them to keep you in power. In order to do that, we need them to think your desires are aligned with theirs.”

“I don’t want to meet them yet,” I said automatically. “Keep stalling.” I needed time to think. Time to decide on a course of action. Who was my greatest threat—displeased archangels, or rebellious Nephilim?

“Do you want me to tell them that for now, you want everything to go through me?”

“Yes,” I said gratefully. “Do whatever it takes to buy me a little more time.”

“By the way, I heard about your faux breakup last night. You must have put on quite a show. The Nephilim are buying it.”

“But not you.”

“Patch gave me the heads-up.” He winked. “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway. I’ve seen the two of you together. What you have doesn’t die just like that. Here,” Dante said, handing me a chilled bottle of Cool Blue Gatorade. “Drink up. You’ve lost a lot of fluid.”

Twisting off the cap, I gave a nod of gratitude and drank deeply. The liquid poured down my throat, instantly thickening to clog my esophagus. Heat clawed at my throat, broke through, and swarmed the rest of my body. I bent forward, coughing and wheezing.

“What is this stuff?” I gagged.

“Post-workout hydration,” he said, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

I continued to choke, my lungs rioting in spasms. “I thought—it was Gatorade—that’s what—the bottle says!”

All emotion vanished off his face. “It’s for your own good,” he said dully. Then he darted off in a blur of speed.

I was still bent at the waist, feeling as though my insides were slowly liquefying. Specks of electric blue burst across my eyes. The world swayed left . . . then right. Clutching my throat, I trudged forward, fearing that if I passed out here, I’d never be found.