Chapter 15 #2
I realize I should’ve been on other chats, in other groups, like Grub. I should’ve been in all of them.
I text Dick Face: Any tips on killing an angel?
This time he writes back, and he doesn’t sound surprised: U can kill him hes mortal.
Oh good. It hadn’t actually occurred to me that he might be immortal. Holy crap.
I write: Did you know the hunter was an angel? Is that actually what they’re called?
He responds: Course not that’s the most human shit ive hgeard but sure angels whatever. fuckin cops is what I call them.
You knew?
I figured but they haven’t been around in a long time that I heard of. its been nice. Much more relexkin They used to be a bigger deal army of light and shit. Didn’t I tell you that?? Guess we all used to be a bigger deal haha.
Do they have a weakness? I am mentally crossing my fingers.
We can do the same stuff to them we would to a normie. it works. problem is they’re like a drug for us that’s what I heard.
Like Grub said in his unnecessarily secret message. I wish he had just texted it to me. I wish. I wish. I make myself stop wishing because it hurts too much.
I think of the first time I saw Joel. The shimmering deliciousness of him. And every time after that. Like a drug. And then that hurts, too, the thought of Joel, before, when he was perfect to me.
Dick Face writes: I never met one that’s why I’m still here! But I knew this guy that killed one. U got act first and fast. Don’t let him have the first move.
He would’ve had the first move, if he’d taken it. Or did he do something to me that I don’t know about?
No, he said he’d kill me later.
And its gotta be ur power, Dick Face continues. unless u shoot his whole head off w a sniper rifle which is actually a good idea. They can heal themself.
Sheesh.
Or maybe a bomb, he muses.
Ok great.
But prob just ur power.
Will he hurt my family? I write.
No. Fuckers are sworn to protect humankind. Thats their whole fuckturd thing. They say their keeping the normies safe from US. Like were so bad!!
Are you sure?
They can’t kill regulars. against their nature I SWEAR to all the gods.
I feel my ribs unclamp. I take a big, free breath. My family is safe. Ella is safe.
Mom is still on the phone, telling Barry he should want to keep talking. He should want to learn more relationship skills.
I text Dick Face again to ask if he knows how Joel will kill me.
He doesn’t answer for a while. Then he says he heard something about angel magic making our hearts pop like a balloon.
Or maybe it’s the brain that pops. He isn’t sure because he was lying low for a bunch of that time.
He tells me to watch out for the glow. They start to glow when they do their thing.
And now Mom is sliding out of the bathroom. She squints at me for a long moment, ruffling her hair absentmindedly. “Okay,” she says, her voice slow but tart. “Now tell me what the heck we’re doing here.”
I take a breath. I’m going to recite the lie again. Or some abbreviated version of it. But then, for some reason, I say instead: “You know how I can’t date anyone, Mom?”
She nods, fingering a lotus-shaped pendant on one of her dangling necklaces. “Your men curse.”
“Yeah. If I sleep with them, they get sick and die. For real. It’s from my father.”
I don’t know why I’m telling her, of all people, now, of all times. Maybe I just need to tell someone. Someone who is high enough to forget by morning.
She blinks at me, pats her pouf of blond hair, which is lifting in wild wings.
“And now someone is trying to kill all his children. All the people like me, who have a curse.”
Her mouth forms a gradual O. She holds up a hand. “The curse is real.”
“Yes.”
“Of course it is. . . .” she says in the same ponderous tone.
“Of course it is! That effect he had . . . It wasn’t normal, even for a rock star.
No one could resist him. I knew there was something.
I sensed it. You know how intuitive I am, Tempest. There are so many layers to the world, aren’t there?
So many more layers than people would like to admit. . . .”
She trails over to me, her fingers skimming along the edge of a bed. She always looks like she’s in her own movie.
“Oh, Tempest,” she whispers. “How could you keep this from me?” And she gathers me to her. I pat her back a few times.
“My child. Suffering alone. Because of your monstrous father.”
This is uncomfortable. And also a relief.
Maybe I should have told Mom many years ago?
I always suspected that even if she believed me, there would be an emptiness to the experience.
I didn’t need her to believe me, I needed Dee to believe me.
I needed a friend. Someone I respected. But still, this is better than no one at all.
“But wait.” She draws back. “Did you tell me why we’re here, in a swimming hotel?”
“Because someone is hunting me,” I say again. “And all of my father’s children.”
Her eyes widen, then narrow. Her thick eye makeup is smudged. “And him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I certainly hope whoever is trying to kill him succeeds.” She says it matter-of-factly. “But we have to protect you. Do you know who it is?”
I swallow. Maybe I don’t want to tell her everything anymore. But I do it anyway. “Joel. You met him, at Ella’s recital.”
“Joel!” exclaims Mom too loudly, and I glance around automatically as though Dee will appear. Mom shushes herself, a finger to her lips.
“That handsome man with the glasses! Like a professor!” She smiles a little wickedly, and I think of the professor/ student trope in some of the romance novels I’ve read. Then I think of Adam, an actual professor. “The Jewish man?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it’s him? He seemed so nice!”
“I’m sure.”
“Well. They can be two-faced. . . .” I stare at her, startled, because what kind of thing is that to say, but she continues before I can react: “He seemed very interested in you. In my opinion.”
“Not the point,” I mutter.
“Or is it exactly the point, Tempest?” And suddenly Mom seems to sharpen, her gaze zooming in. “Your curse kills the men you sleep with. This man wants to sleep with you.”
She’s arrived immediately at my own plan. At the only plan. The woman may seem spacey about, well, most things, but she knows sex.
“He doesn’t want to sleep with me anymore,” I point out. Now that he believes I killed his brother. “He thought I was normal.” I’ve been holding out some small breath of hope that Adam’s death wasn’t actually my fault. But Joel seemed so sure. I’ll probably never know exactly what happened to Adam.
“Listen, I think you know what to do, Tempest.” Mom puts a finger under my chin, tips my face toward hers. She looks at me very solemnly. “Trust yourself. Your heart won’t steer you wrong. I’d go with black lace.”
“Black lace?” A small biting headache tightens its jaws at the base of my skull.
“Baby, how long has it been?” She squeezes my arm. “Since you— ”
“Okay, okay.” I shake her off. “A long time.” It’s surreal, having this conversation. It doesn’t help that it’s midnight and I’m exhausted.
“Poor girl.” She strokes my shoulder. She’s always too touchy-feely, but particularly when she’s high. She leans in. “I’d give you something to borrow, but it’d take about ten of your breasts to fit in one of my cups!” She chuckles.
“Thanks. Cool.”
“Shave your armpits, okay, baby?”
“Seriously?”
She’s serious. “You have the advantage here,” she murmurs. “The woman always does.”
Did you, with my father? I think a little meanly. But no, no one has ever had the advantage with him.
“Joel has been trying to track me down for two years.” I sit on one of the beds, my spine a tangle of mud and thorns. Time for some Advil, which I always have in my purse. I think I’m just about done with this day.
She snorts. “Well, he’s bad at tracking people down, then.”
“I need to sleep,” I say.
But later, in the dark, I’m still awake, staring up at the low, lumpy ceiling that I can’t quite see. Mom is snoring faintly.
“You’ll go over there tomorrow,” I whisper to myself.
“You’ll do the thing Dick Face said and he’ll get sick and die.
” I ignore the twist in my stomach as I toss off these words, this boomerang of a plan that can curve in flight and come right back at me.
I think of Grub. The last time I saw him, his furry eyebrows.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to really see him again, the moving, breathing aliveness of him.
Panic clogs my lungs. He’s already fading.
He’s already being pressed flat by the heavy laminator of memory, his colors spreading, poorly preserved, his face no longer quite real.