Hush, Hush

Chapter 23

I was standing in the lower level of Bo's Arcade with my back to the wall, facing several games of pool. The windows were boarded, and I couldn't tell if it was day or night. Stevie Nicks was coming through the speakers; the song about the white-winged dove and being on the edge of seventeen. Nobody seemed surprised by my sudden appearance out of thin air.

And then I remembered I was wearing nothing but a cami and panties. I'm not all that vain, but standing in a crowd composed entirely of the opposite sex, my essentials barely covered, and nobody even looked at me? Something was… off.

I pinched myself. Perfectly alive, as far as I could tell.

Waving a hand to clear away the hazy cloud of cigar smoke, I spotted Patch across the room. He was sitting at a poker table, kicked back, holding a hand of cards close to his chest.

I padded barefoot across the room, crossing my arms over my chest, making sure to keep myself covered. "Can we talk?" I hissed in his ear. There was an unnerved quality to my voice. Understandable, since I had no idea how I'd come to find myself at Bo's. One moment I was at the motel, and the next I was here.

Patch pushed a short stack of poker chips into the pile at the center of the table.

"Like maybe wow?" I said. "It's kind of urgent…" I trailed off when the calendar on the wall caught my eye. It was eight months behind, showing August of last year. Right before I started sophomore year. Months before I met Patch. I told myself it was a mistake, that whoever was in charge of ripping off the old months had fallen behind, but at the same time I briefly and unwillingly considered the possibility that the calendar was right where it was supposed to be. And I was not.

I dragged a chair over from the next table and pulled up beside Patch. "He's holding a five of spades, a nine of spades, the ace of hearts…" I stopped when I realized that no one was paying attention. No, it wasn't that. No one could see me.

Footsteps lumbered down the stairs across the room, and the same cashier who'd threatened to throw me out the first time I'd come to the arcade appeared at the bottom of the stairwell.

"Someone upstairs wants a word with you," he told Patch.

Patch raised his eyebrows, transmitting a silent question.

"She wouldn't give her name," the cashier said apologetically. "I asked a couple of times. I told her you were in a private game, but she wouldn't leave. I can throw her out if you want."

"No. Send her down."

Patch played out his hand, gathered his chips, and pushed out of his chair. "I'm out." He walked to the pool table closest to the stairs, rested against it, and slid his hands inside his pockets.

I followed him across the room. I snapped my fingers in front of his face. I kicked his boots. I flat-out smacked his chest. He didn't flinch, didn't move.

Light footsteps sounded on the stairs, growing closer, and when Miss Greene stepped out of the darkened stairwell, I experienced a moment of confusion. Her blond hair was down to her waist and toothpick straight. She was wearing painted-on jeans and a pink tank top, and she was barefoot. Dressed this way, she looked even closer to my age. She was sucking on a lollipop.

Patch's face is always a mask, and at any given moment I have no idea what he's thinking. But as soon as he locked eyes on Miss Greene, I knew he was surprised. He recovered quickly, all emotion tunneling away as his eyes turned guarded and wary. "Dabria?"

My heart hit a faster cadence. I tried to wrestle my thoughts together, but all I could think was, if I was really eight months in the past, how did Miss Greene and Patch know each other? She didn't have a job at school yet. And why was he calling her by her first name?

"How have you been?" Miss Greene-Dabria-asked with a coy smile, tossing the lollipop in the trash.

"What are you doing here?" Patch's eyes turned even more watchful, as if he didn't think "what you see is what you get" applied to Dabria.

"I sneaked out." Her smile twisted up on one side. "I had to see you again. I've been trying for a long time, but security-well, you know. It's not exactly lax. Your kind and my kind-we aren't supposed to mix. But you know that."

"Coming here was a bad idea."

"I know it's been a while, but I was hoping for a slightly more friendly reaction," she said, pushing her lips out in a pout.

Patch didn't answer.

"I haven't stopped thinking about you." Dabria dimmed her voice to a low, sexy pitch and took a step closer to Patch. "It wasn't easy getting down here. Lucianna is making excuses for why I'm absent. I'm risking her future as well as my own. Don't you want to at least hear what I have to say?"

"Talk." Patch's words didn't hold a shred of trust.

"I haven't given up on you. This whole time-" She broke off and blinked back a sudden display of tears. When she spoke again, her voice was more composed but still held a wavering note. "I know how you can get your wings back."

She smiled at Patch, but he didn't return the smile.

"As soon as you get your wings back, you can come home," she said, speaking more confidently. "Everything will be like it was before. Nothing has changed. Not really"

"What's the catch?"

"There is no catch. You have to save a human life. Very judicious, considering the crime that banished you here in the first place."

"What rank will I be?"

All confidence scattered from Dabria's eyes, and I got the feeling he'd asked the one question she'd hoped to avoid. "I just told you how to get your wings back," she said, sounding a touch condescending. "I think I deserve a thank-you-"

"Answer the question." But his grim smile told me he already knew. Or had a very good guess. Whatever Dabria's answer was, he wasn't going to like it.

"Fine. You'll be a guardian, all right?"

Patch tipped his head back and laughed softly.

"What's wrong with being a guardian?" Dabria demanded. "Why isn't it good enough?"

"I have something better in the works."

"Listen to me, Patch. There's nothing better. You're kidding yourself. Any other fallen angel would jump at the chance to get their wings back and become a guardian. Why can't you?" Her voice was choked with bewilderment, irritation, rejection.

Patch pushed up from the pool table. "It was good seeing you again, Dabria. Have a nice trip back."

Without warning, she curled her fists into his shirt, yanked him close, and crushed a kiss to his mouth. Very slowly Patch's body turned toward her, his stance softening. His hands came up and skimmed her arms.

I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the stab of jealousy and confusion in my heart. Part of me wanted to turn away and cry, part of me wanted to march over and start shouting. Not that it would do any good. I was invisible. Obviously Miss Greene… Dabria… whoever she was… and Patch had a romantic past together. Were they still together now-in the future? Had she applied for a job at Coldwater High to be closer to Patch? Is that why she was so determined to scare me away from him?

"I should go," said Dabria, pulling free. "I've already stayed too long. I promised Lucianna I'd hurry." She lowered her head against his chest. "I miss you," she whispered. "Save one human life, and you'll have your wings again. Come back to me," she begged. "Come home." She broke away suddenly. "I have to go. None of the others can find out I've been down here. I love you."

As Dabria turned away, the anxiety vanished from her face. An expression of sly confidence replaced it. It was the face of someone who'd bluffed their way through a rough hand of cards.

Without warning, Patch caught her by the wrist.

"Now tell me why you're really here," he said.

I shivered at the dark undercurrent in Patch's tone. To an outsider, he looked perfectly calm. But to anyone who'd known him any length of time, it was obvious. He was giving Dabria a look that said she'd crossed a line and it was in her best interest to hop back across it-now.

Patch steered her toward the bar. He planted her on a bar stool and slid onto the one beside it. I took the one next to Patch, leaning in to hear him above the music.

"What do you mean, what am I here for?" Dabria stammered. "I told you-"

"You're lying."

Her mouth dropped. "I can't believe-you think-"

"Tell me the truth, right now," said Patch.

Dabria hesitated before answering. She gave him a fierce glare, then said, "Fine. I know what you're planning to do."

Patch laughed. It was a laugh that said, I have a lot of plans. Which one are you referring to?

"I know you've heard rumors about The Book of Enoch. I also know you think you can do the same thing, but you can't."

Patch folded his arms on the bar. "They sent you here to persuade me to choose a different course, didn't they?" A smile showed in his eyes. "If I'm a threat, the rumors must be true."

"No, they're not. They're rumors"

"If it happened once, it can happen again."

"It never happened. Did you even bother to read The Book of Enoch before you fell?" she challenged. "Do you know exactly what it says, word for holy word?"

"Maybe you could loan me your copy."

"That's blasphemous! You're forbidden to read it," she cried. "You betrayed ever) angel in heaven when you fell."

"How many of them know what I'm after?" he asked. "How big of a threat am I?"

She tossed her head side to side. "I can't tell you that. I've already told you more than I should have."

"Are they going to try to stop me?"

"The avenging angels will."

He looked at her with meaning. "Unless they think you talked me out of it."

"Don't look at me like that." She sounded like she was putting all her courage into sounding firm. "I won't lie to protect you. What you're trying to do is wrong. It's not natural."

"Dabria." Patch spoke her name as a soft threat. He might as well have had her by the arm, twisting it behind her back.

"I can't help you," she said with quiet conviction. "Not that way. Put it out of your mind. Become a guardian angel. Focus on that and forget The Book of Enoch"

Patch planted his elbows on the bar, radiating thought. After a moment he said, "Tell them we talked, and I showed interest in becoming a guardian."

"Interest?" she said, a bit incredulously.

"Interest," he repeated. "Tell them I asked for a name. If I'm going to save a life, I need to know who's at the top of your departing list. I know you're privy to that information as an angel of death."

"That information is sacred and private, and not predictable. The events in this world shift from moment to moment depending on human choices-"

"One name, Dabria."

"Promise me you'll forget about The Book of Enoch first. Give me your word."

"You'd trust my word?"

"No," she said, "I wouldn't."

Patch laughed coolly and, grabbing a toothpick from the dispenser, walked toward the stairs.

"Patch, wait-," she began. She hopped off the bar stool. "Patch, please wait!"

He looked over his shoulder.

"Nora Grey," she said, then immediately clamped her hands over her mouth.

There was a faint crack in Patch's expression-a frown of disbelief mixed with annoyance. Which made no sense since, if the calendar on the wall was correct, we hadn't met yet. My name shouldn't have sparked familiarity. "How is she going to die?" he asked.

"Someone wants to kill her."

"Who?"

"I don't know," she said, covering her ears and shaking her head. "There's so much noise and commotion down here. All the images blur together, they come too fast, I can't see clearly. I need to go home. I need peace and calm."

Patch tucked a strand of Dabria's hair behind her ear and looked at her persuasively. She gave a warm shudder at his touch, then nodded and shut her eyes. "I can't see… I don't see anything… it's useless."

Who wants to kill Nora Grey?" Patch urged.

"Wait, I see her," said Dabria. Her voice turned anxious. "There's a shadow behind her. It's him. He's following her. She doesn't see him… but he's right there. Why doesn't she see him? Why isn't she running? I can't see his face, it's in shadow…"

Dabria's eyes flew open. She sucked in a quick, sharp breath.

"Who?" Patch said.

Dabria curled her hands against her mouth. She was trembling as she raised her eyes to Patch's.

"You," she whispered.

My finger moved off Patch's scar and the connection broke. It took me a moment to reorient myself, so I wasn't ready for Patch, who wrestled me into the bed in an instant. He pinned my wrists above my head.

"You weren't supposed to do that." There was controlled anger in his face, dark and simmering. "What did you see?"

I got my knee up and clipped him in the ribs. "Get-off-me!"

He slid onto my hips, straddling them, eliminating the use of my legs. With my arms still stretched above my head, I couldn't do more than squirm under his weight.

"Get-off-me-or-I'll-scream!"

"You're already screaming. And it isn't going to cause a stir in this place. It's more of a whorehouse than a motel." He gave a hard smile that was all lethality around the edges. "Last chance, Nora. What did you see?"

I was fighting back tears. My whole body hummed with an emotion so foreign I couldn't even name it. "You make me sick!" I said. "Who are you? Who are you really?"

His mouth turned even more grim. "We're getting closer."

"You want to kill me!"

Patch's face gave away nothing, but his eyes grew cold.

"The Jeep didn't really die tonight, did it?" I said. "You lied. You brought me here so you could kill me. That's what Dabria said you want to do. Well, what are you waiting for?" I didn't have a clue where I was going with this, and I didn't care. I was spitting words in an attempt to keep my horror at bay. "You've been trying to kill me all along. Right from the start. Are you going to kill me now?" I stared at him, hard and unblinking, trying to keep tears from spilling as I remembered the fateful day he'd walked into my life.

"It's tempting."

I twisted beneath him. I tried to roll to my right, then to my left. I finally figured out I was wasting a lot of energy and stopped. Patch settled his eyes on me. They were blacker than I'd ever seen them.

"I bet you like this," I said.

"That would be a smart bet."

I felt my heart pounding clear down in my toes. "Just do it," I said in a challenging voice.

"Kill you?"

I nodded. "But first I want to know why. Of all the billions of people out there, why me?"

"Bad genes."

"That's it? That's the only explanation I get?"

"For now."

"What's that supposed to mean?" My voice rose again. "I get the rest of the story when you finally break down and kill me?"

"I don't have to break down to kill you. If I'd wanted you dead five minutes ago, you'd have died five minutes ago."

I swallowed at the less-than-cheerful thought.

He brushed his thumb over my birthmark. His touch was deceptively soft, which made it all the more painful to endure.

"What about Dabria?" I asked, still breathing hard. "She's the same thing you are, isn't she? You're both-angels." My voice cracked on the word.

Patch rotated slightly off my hips, but kept his hands at my wrists. "If I ease up, are you going to hear me out?"

If he eased up, I was going to bolt for the door. "What do you care if I run? You'll just drag me back in here."

"Yeah, but that would cause a scene."

"Is Dabria your girlfriend?" I could feel each ragged rise and fall of my chest. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear his answer. Not that it mattered. Now that I knew Patch wanted to kill me, it was ridiculous that I even cared.

"Was. It was a long time ago, before I fell to the dark side." He gave a hard smile, attempting humor. "It was also a mistake." He rocked back on his heels, slowly releasing me, testing to see if I'd fight back. I lay on the mattress, breathing hard, my elbows propping me up. Three counts went by, and I hurled myself at him with all the force I had.

I shoved against his chest, but other than swaying back slightly, he didn't move. I scrambled out from under him and took my fists to him. I hammered his chest until the bottoms of my fists began to throb.

"Done?" he asked.

"No!" I drove my elbow down into his thigh. "What's the matter with you? Don't you feel anything?"

I rose to my feet, found my balance on the mattress, and kicked him as hard as I could in the stomach.

"You've got one more minute," he said. "Get your anger out of your system. Then I take over."

I didn't know what he meant by "take over," and I didn't want to find out. I made a leaping run off the bed, with the door in sight. Patch snagged me midair and backed me against the wall. His legs were flush with mine, front to front down the length of our thighs.

"I want the truth," I said, struggling not to cry. "Did you come to school to kill me? Was that your aim right from the start?"

A muscle in Patch's jaw jumped. "Yes."

I swiped a tear that dared escape. "Are you gloating inside? That's what this is about, isn't it? Getting me to trust you so you could blow it up in my face!" I knew I was being irrationally irate. I should have been terrified and frantic. I should have been doing everything in my power to escape. The most irrational part of all was that I still didn't want to believe he would kill me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't smother that illogical speck of trust.

"I get that you're angry-," said Patch.

"I am ripped apart!" I shouted.

His hands slid up my neck, searing hot. Pressing his thumbs gently into my throat, he tipped my head back. I felt his lips come against mine so hard he stopped whatever name I'd been about to call him from coming out. His hands dropped to my shoulders, skimmed down my arms, and came to rest at the small of my back. Little shivers of panic and pleasure shot through me. He tried to pull me against him, and I bit him on the lip.

He licked his lip with the tip of his tongue. "Did you just bite me?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" I asked.

He dabbed his tongue to his lip again. "Not everything."

"Like what?"

'You."

The whole night felt unbalanced. It was hard to have a showdown with someone as indifferent as Patch. No, not indifferent. Perfectly controlled. Down to the last cell in his body.

I heard a voice in my mind. Relax. Trust me.

"Omigosh," I said with a burst of clarity. "You're doing it again, aren't you? Messing with my mind." I remembered the article I'd pulled up when I Googled fallen angels. "You can put more than words in my head, can't you? You can put images-very real images-there."

He didn't deny it.

"The Archangel," I said, finally understanding. "You tried to kill me that night, didn't you? But something went wrong. Then you made me think my cell phone was dead, so I couldn't call Vee. Did you plan to kill me on the ride home? I want to know how you're making me see what you want!"

His face was carefully expressionless. "I put the words and images there, but it's up to you if you believe them. It's a riddle.

The images overlap reality, and you have to figure out which is real."

"Is this a special angel power?"

He shook his head. "Fallen angel power. Any other kind of angel wouldn't invade your privacy, even though they can."

Because other angels were good. And Patch was not.

Patch braced his hands against the wall behind me, one on either side of my head. "I put a thought in Coach's mind to redo the seating chart because I needed to get close to you. I made you think you fell off the Archangel because I wanted to kill you, but I couldn't go through with it. I almost did, but I stopped. I settled for scaring you instead. Then I made you think your cell was dead because I wanted to give you a ride home. When I came inside your house, I picked up a knife. I was going to kill you then." His voice softened. "You changed my mind."

I sucked in a deep breath. "I don't understand you. When I told you my dad was murdered, you sounded genuinely sorry. When you met my mom, you were nice."

"Nice," Patch repeated. "Let's keep that between you and me."

My head spun faster, and I could feel my pulse beating in my temples. Pd felt this heart-pounding panic before. I needed my iron pills. Either that, or Patch was making me think I did.

I tilted my chin up and narrowed my eyes. "Get out of my mind. Right now!"

"I'm not in your mind, Nora."

I bent forward, bracing my hands on my knees, sucking air. "Yes, you are. I feel you. So this is how you're going to do it? Suffocate me?"

Soft popping sounds echoed in my ears, and a blurry black framed my vision. I tried to fill my lungs, but it was like the air had disappeared. The world tilted, and Patch slipped sideways in my vision. I flattened my hand to the wall to steady my balance. The deeper I tried to inhale, the tighter my throat constricted.

Patch moved toward me, but I flung my hand out. "Get away!"

He leaned a shoulder on the wall and faced me, his mouth set with concern.

"Get-away-from-me," I gasped.

He didn't.

"I-can't-breathe!" I choked, clawing at the wall with one hand, clutching my throat with the other.

Suddenly Patch scooped me up and carried me to the chair across the room. "Put your head between your knees," he said, guiding my head down.

I had my head down, breathing rapidly, trying to force air inside my lungs. Very slowly I felt the oxygen creep back into my body.

"Better?" Patch asked after a minute.

I nodded, once.

"Do you have iron pills with you?"

I shook my head.

"Keep your head down and take long, deep breaths."

I followed his instructions, feeling a clamp loosen around my chest. "Thank you," I said quietly.

"Still don't trust my motives?"

"If you want me to trust you, let me touch your scars again."

Patch studied me silently for a long moment. "That's not a good idea."

"Why not?"

"I can't control what you see."

"That's kind of the point."

He waited a few counts before answering. His voice was low, emotions untraceable. "You know I'm hiding things." There was a question attached to it.

I knew Patch lived a life of closed doors and harbored secrets. I wasn't presumptuous enough to think even half of them revolved around me. Patch lived a different life outside the one he shared with me. More than once I'd speculated what his other life might be like. I always got the feeling that the less I knew about it, the better.

My lip wobbled. "Give me a reason to trust you."

Patch sat on the corner of the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. He bent forward, resting his forearms on his knees. His scars were in full view, the candlelight dancing eerie shadows across their surface. The muscles in his back heightened, then relaxed. "Go ahead," he said quietly. "Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't."

Suddenly I wasn't so sure I wanted this. On almost every level, Patch terrified me. But deep down, I didn't think he was going to kill me. If that was what he wanted, he would have done it already. I glanced at his gruesome scars. Trusting Patch felt a lot more comfortable than slipping into his past again and having no idea what I might find.

But if I backed out now, Patch would know I was terrified of him. He was opening one of the closed doors just for me and only because I'd asked for it. I couldn't make a request this heavy, then change my mind.

"I won't get trapped in there forever, will I?" I asked.

Patch gave a short laugh. "No."

Summoning my courage, I sat on the bed beside him. For the second time tonight, my finger brushed the peaked ridge of his scar. A hazy gray crowded my vision, working from the edges in. The Hants went out.