CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KENNEDY
The silence that follows Pestilence’s departure is somehow worse than her presence. At least when she was here, the fear had a face, a direction. Now it just sits in my chest like a stone, heavy and cold.
I’m still gripping the bars when I hear Jenna’s faint voice. “You can let go now. She’s gone.” Her voice has regained some of its earlier bite, though I can still hear a slight tremor underneath.
I don’t know why, but I’m reluctant to let go of the iron bars, and when I do, I need to flex my fingers, trying to work feeling back into them. I didn’t even realize that I was gripping them so tightly. “Does she do that often? Just pop in for a chat and a bit of light psychological torture?”
“Often enough.” Jenna retreats into the shadows, and I hear her settle onto what I assume is a bench or the floor. “No, this is a rarity. She usually saves the theatrics for when she has an audience. She must really want something from your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my—” I start, then stop. Because what is Reaver to me, exactly? The man who saved me, kissed me, disappeared for over a year, then showed up to watch me kiss someone else? “It’s complicated,” is the best I can come up with.
A dry laugh echoes from the darkness. “Oh, honey. When isn’t it complicated with Angels? Especially the broken ones.”
I turn toward her voice, wishing I could see her face. The torch I lit earlier casts just enough light to illuminate the cell, but she’s tucked herself back into the farthest corner. I would too, if I had been locked away for ten years. “You know about Archangels?”
“I know about a lot of things.” There’s a pause, then, “Ten years is a long time to have nothing to do but think. But yes, I know about Archangels… well, more specifically, the fallen kind.”
Ten years. A decade of being trapped here in the dark. I’ve been here less than a day—or at least I think it’s been less than a day. Time is hard to track in this place—and I’m already climbing the walls. Metaphorically, anyway, the literal walls look much less stable.
“Well,” I say, moving away from the bars and settling onto the cold stone floor with my back against the wall, “I hate to break it to you, but I have zero intention of being here long enough to develop your level of Zen imprisonment acceptance.”
Another laugh, this one with slightly more humor. “Zen? Is that what you think this is?”
“Sarcasm is my defense mechanism. I use humor to deflect from processing trauma.” I pause. “I’m going to have so much to unpack after this.” Having a deep understanding of how the human mind operates, or more precisely, how it processes trauma, isn’t exactly a blessing at this point in the game.
“If you survive to have an ‘after this.’” I can’t help but roll my eyes at her candor. And I must wonder if she’s able to see my expression in the dim light. I’ve been told more than once that even if I’m silent, my face tells the complete story.
“Again, with the optimism. You’re really selling this whole cellmate experience.
” I pull my knees up to my chest. My practical side—the one with the PhD and the supposed rational thinking skills—knows I should be panicking, or at the very least, planning.
Doing something productive. What I need to do is channel my focus on tasks, solve one, and move on to the next.
But the truth is, I’m exhausted. Physically, emotionally, existentially exhausted. “So,” I say after a moment of reflection, “what’s the plan?”
“The plan?” Jenna’s voice is sharp with disbelief. “The plan is to sit here and try not to get eaten by whatever she keeps in the corridors until your boyfriend shows up and trades Heaven for your life. Didn’t you listen to anything she said?”
“First of all, let’s get this straight. He’s not my boyfriend.
Second, I listened, and I just don’t accept it.
” I stand up, brushing off my pants even though it’s a futile gesture.
Everything down here feels perpetually damp and filthy.
“There has to be a way out. All we need to do is think through the problem.”
“Oh, of course. You’re right, I haven’t tried every possible means of escape over the last decade.
Why didn’t I think of just working through the fucking problem?
” The sarcasm is thick enough to cut. “Ten years, and it never occurred to me to look for a way out. Thank the gods you’re here now with your fresh perspective and just a hunky-dory can-do attitude. ”
“Look, I get it. You’ve been here forever, you’re tired, you probably have some complex Stockholm syndrome thing happening—”
“Stockholm syndrome?” Her voice rises, and I can hear her moving in the darkness. “You’ve been here five fucking minutes, and you think you understand anything?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t understand anything.
I don’t understand why an Archangel would disappear for over a year.
I don’t understand why Pestilence thinks she can use me as bait.
I don’t understand what the hell you are—and yes, I noticed the wings, very mysterious—and I definitely don’t understand why I can’t just have a normal life with normal problems like student loan debt and whether I should get bangs!
” I yell, and my voice starts to crack, and I can feel the prickly burn of tears threatening to stream down my face. “I just…”
The silence stretches out. Then, unexpectedly, Jenna laughs. It’s a real, unstoppable laugh, not the bitter sound from before. “Bangs?” she finally manages to choke out between the giggles.
“It’s a legitimate crisis. I have a round face.” I inform her, defending my delusional rant.
“You’re insane.”
“I beg to differ. I have a PhD in human behavior that says I’m eccentric, thank you very much.
” I move closer to where her voice is coming from.
“Look, Jenna, I know you don’t know me, and I’m sure I’m annoying as hell—people tell me that frequently—but I meant what I said.
I’m not sitting here waiting to be rescued, and I’m definitely not letting Reaver trade Heaven for me.
So, either help me figure out how to get out of here or sit in your corner being mysterious and traumatized. It’s your choice.”
Another long silence, then, “You really are insane.” I can hear the slight humor in her voice. I’ll take it. This woman probably hasn’t had much to laugh at in the last ten years.
“Is that a yes?”
I hear an audible sigh. “Fine. But when we both end up dead—or worse—I’m going to haunt you so hard.”
“Deal.” I feel a small spark of something that might be hope begin to radiate in my chest, or it quite possibly might be the early stages of hysteria. It’s hard to tell. “So, where do we start?”
Jenna emerges from the shadows, and in the torchlight, I can see her face more clearly now. She looks younger than I expected, though there’s a darkness behind her eyes that makes me think age might not mean the same thing for whatever she is.
“As you said, we work through the problem. So, let’s start with the basics,” she says. “These bars? They’re not regular iron, they’re enchanted. Reinforced with the kind of magic that’s specifically designed to hold things like…” She gestures vaguely at herself. “Like things that aren’t human.”
“But they’ll hold a human too.”
“Obviously.” She walks to the bars and runs her finger along them but not touching them. “There are runes carved into them. See?” She points, and I squint. Sure enough, there are faint markings I hadn’t noticed before.
“Can you read them?”
“No, they’re ancient, and I haven’t learned.” She tilts her head. “But I do recognize a few. Like this one.” She runs her finger over the etched marking. “It’s a binding rune, and this one, I think, is to prevent teleportation. This one…” She frowns. “This one, I don’t recognize.”
“Great. Mystery runes. My favorite.” I examine the bars more closely. “What about the lock?”
“What lock?”
I point to where a heavy padlock hangs from a chain wrapped around the bars. “That lock.”
Jenna stares at it, then at me. “That’s new.”
“New as in…”
“As in it wasn’t there before.” She looks genuinely disturbed by this. “She doesn’t usually bother with physical locks. The magic is enough.”
A chill runs down my spine. “So, she added it after she brought me here.”
Jenna nods her head slowly as she examines the newest addition to her cell. “Which means she’s worried about something or someone.” Jenna’s eyes narrow. “Your boyfr—” I give Jenna a side glance. “Reaver,” she says, eyes wide. “The Archangel must be more powerful than she let on.”
“Or more unpredictable.” I think about Reaver, about the way he looked that night on the street—like he was barely holding himself together. “He’s… he’s not exactly stable.”
“The broken ones never are.” Jenna smooths her finger over the shiny new lock, and I watch as she winces and recoils her hand. “Silver, of course.”
“That hurts you?”
“Not normally, but silver is pretty easy to enchant, or whatever it is that she does. So yeah, let’s just say I have… sensitivities.” She pulls her hand back. “But you don’t.”
I understand what she’s suggesting. “Do you think I could pick it?”
“Well, I would suggest we start small, like maybe let’s see if you can touch it first, and then we can go from there.”
She has a point. I’ve always been one to skip steps.
It’s probably why all my Ikea furniture fell apart.
It looked enough like the picture, and so what if I had extra pieces?
I shake my head to get back on to the task at hand.
“Good point,” I admit as I reach for the lock.
I hesitate only for a breath before I wrap my fingers around it.
“Nothing,” I say triumphantly. “Should I try to pick it? You don’t think she’s booby trapped the inside locking mechanism, do you?”
Jenna stares at me for a moment before shaking off whatever she was about to say. “Have you ever picked a lock before? No offense, but you don’t exactly look like you’ve led a life of crime.”