World After

69

SHADOWS SWOOP DOWN beyond the reach of the torches at the edge of the lawn. Raffe watches a scene that’s too dark for me to see. I catch a glimpse of shadows flying back up into the air, though, giving me an impression of iridescent insect wings.

Out of the darkness walks little Paige.

She moves stiffly and carefully as if she was part machine, part girl. In the torchlight, the stitches that run across her face are red-black and her razor-edged teeth reflect the flames as she passes by the torches.

Now that I’m looking for it, she does move like someone in pain but her expression doesn’t show it. She’s toughing it out, maybe because it probably hurts to wince or make any expression. I never knew she had such steel in her.

Beliel tilts his head, watching her as she walks toward him.

“Little Worm,” he says. “Is that you?” His mouth stretches into a smile that’s part surprise and part pride. “You’re no longer crawling in the dirt.”

He puts out his hand. “You’re coming into your own, aren’t you?”

It kills me to see my baby sister slip her small hand into his.

Doc was right. Somewhere in me, I clung to the hope that he was off his rocker. But seeing her turn to a demon like Beliel only reminds me how horrible it must have been for her to be with the rest of us.

Paige looks up at him. Her neck strains as she meets his eyes. Holding hands like that, they could almost be father and daughter.

Beliel partially opens his stolen wings and holds up Paige’s hand as he turns to smile at Uriel. His smile says, See? Look at my trophies.

Paige tugs his arm so that Beliel ends up leaning down toward her. For a second, I think she might give him a kiss. The thought makes my stomach roil.

Instead, she leaps and bites into his neck.

She shakes her head like a rabid dog as a chunk of his neck comes ripping off in her mouth.

Beliel shrieks.

Blood flows everywhere.

Uriel and his entourage jump back from the attack. Everyone else just stops in the middle of whatever they’re doing and stares.

The buzzing above gets more frantic as the swarm of scorpions twists in the distance and heads back for another flyby. Hadn’t the scorpions been following Beliel’s commands all this time? Will they be angry?

Paige spits out the still attached piece of flesh and grabs Beliel’s head before he can pull out of her reach. She rips into his face.

Three scorpions dive toward them from the sky.

I gasp, thinking they are attacking Paige.

But instead, they grab Beliel.

Their stingers zap in and out, pumping him full of paralysis venom.

Instead of finishing him off, Paige begins kicking him. Screams at him. Rips out clumps of his hair and skin. She tears out chunks of his flesh and spits them into his face.

And all the while, she is crying.

I am mesmerized by the sight of my little sister raging against Beliel. He’s no small opponent, but she caught him utterly by surprise.

I have never seen a seven-year-old with this much fury. I’ve certainly never seen Paige with anything like this much anger. She pummels him with her tiny fists in a way that I know is more about dealing with her internal demons than about the demon that is Beliel.

It feels like my heart chars and turns to crumbling ash as I watch the remnants of my sister. Salty wetness touches my lips before I even realize I’m crying.

The ocean wind blows against me, making me shiver like a frail petal in a storm.