I sit with Maya all night, rubbing the scabs off her hands, keeping her hydrated, changing the sheets and her clothes when it becomes necessary. In the morning, Maya’s breathing is shallow. I set up the mirrors again. Give her more water. Tammy plays on her own most of the day, though occasionally she comes and stands by me solemnly. I lift her into my lap, and we watch together. I give all my hope to Maya, all that foolish sentimentality, but with Tammy in my lap, living, breathing, real, it doesn’t seem so foolish to hope.

  A little past two in the afternoon, the slits in Maya’s palms that I have been sanding down again and again crack open. Just a little at first, but over the next hour, they widen, like a rare flower blooming. Then, I know the precipice has been crossed.

  She will live.

  Another hour later the feeding bulbs, raw and red, lift out of her palms. She’s taking in the full amount of energy, absorbing it directly into the primary feeding mechanism in her body. Over the course of the afternoon, her breathing steadies and her pulse grows stronger. The angry red veins that knot in her forearms begin to mellow to an irritated pink, and her palms heal quickly, the way an angel heals. By nightfall, her eyelids twitch with dreams, and her hand comes up to touch mine when I put a glass of water to her lips. She drinks, gulping the water, and her eyes crack open. I’ve taped her hands as a precaution and closed the door so Tammy cannot come in.

  “You’re going to live,” I tell Maya, and something inside of me feels so full and warm and grateful. “And it was so foolish of you to let yourself be infected. We’ll discuss that when you’re better, and then we’ll find Gabe.”

  I gently lay her back down on the bed, and her eyes immediately close. The night is long, but Maya’s steady breathing is a welcome companion through the slow hours. I blink away my fatigue, surprised at how exhausted I feel after only two days without sleep. I am far from peak mission readiness, but then I remind myself that the mission is over. Perhaps it is finally acceptable to feel tired.

  As soon as the first light of dawn pushes away the darkness, I set up the Prism again in preparation. The doorknob of the bedroom rattles. I watch it turn hesitantly, and then the door pushes open. Tammy stares at me from the other side, her dark hair a messy halo around her head. She clutches Jasper in her arms.

  “Are you scared?” I ask her softly.

  She shakes her head against the horse.

  “It’s okay to be scared.” My knees pop when I stand up, and when I lift her into my arms I can feel that her diaper is wet. “I won’t let anything hurt you,” I tell her. “I’m actually pretty good at fighting monsters.”

  She doesn’t say anything, just lays her head against my chest. I change her and put her back into bed.

  “I’m going to stay until you fall asleep,” I tell her.

  “Taywen, you go there.” She points to the pillow next to hers.

  I stretch out on the bed, following her instructions.

  “And Jawspah goes here.” She puts him between us.

  “Tammy, do you think…would you like to call me…” the word seems to stick in my throat. “..Dad?”

  She giggles. “Jawspah needs to go in the barn. NEEEIGHHH. He doesn’t like the barn. So I let him stay. But he has to sleep like people sleep. He’s too big for the bed. NEEEIGHHHH. Don’t let him kick you.”

  “Okay, I won’t,” I say.

  She rambles on, her train of thought jumping so suddenly and randomly and then returning in loop upon loop until, quite suddenly, she is asleep, mouth open, dark hair resting gently on her face. I feel it again – that great, terrible hope.

  Chapter 63 – Gabe

  Bessie and I drive through the night. My bones are aching and heavy, but who the fuck cares about that? My sister is out in this night somewhere, alone and sick, and I was too drunk and pissy with my own problems to protect her.

  The sun is just coming up when I hit Las Vegas. The city is weirdly quiet, shiny and empty. Usually it’s bustling with noise and drunks in the predawn hours. Now, only a few homeless limp around. Feels like the whole world is hiding away.

  Seven days now. Seven days since the start of the Red Death. Won’t think about that.

  Two more hours at the wheel. Bessie’s rattle has turned into an unhappy clunking, but the old girl doesn’t give up. We make it to the mountain pass. This is the place Tarren told us to go if we ever couldn’t find each other. Well, that pretty much sums up the situation with a big ugly bow, doesn’t it?

  I see it, far out. A silver car parked sideways across the path. The driver’s side door hangs open like it retched out its passenger. I drill the accelerator all the way into the floorboards. Bessie sputters and then roars, lunging forward.

  “Give me all you’ve got, girl!” I say. We plow down the road, engine clunking, wheels slipping in the dust, my knuckles going bone white. I slide her next to the silver Honda. One glance through the window of the car cinches it. I see Maya’s duffle bag sitting in the back, looking sad and abandoned.

  I run halfway up that fucking mountain, though my lungs feel like they want to eject themselves out of my body by the third step. I can’t even stand up when I make it to the alcove. I fall on my knees, coughing, hacking, while colors swim across my eyes, and the sky turns white around me.

  I look around frantically even as I gag. Maybe she’ll be here, sitting on the rock with a sarcastic smile on her face like this was one of her little jokes. But the cliff is empty. I remember when we were up here, the three of us. I was in charge of laying out the picnic, but the wind kept trying to flip the plates and steal the napkins. It was the first time Tarren set up the Prism. I’d watched him in awe as he took out each polished, curved mirror from the bag. When Maya sat in front of it and the light engulfed her, damn, it was spectacular.

  Tarren was so good at that. Being smart. Noble. Saving people.

  I drag my sorry ass over to the big boulder. Something dark flutters against it. I reach out, tug it from the crevice of the boulder and stare at it dumbly. Maya’s fingerless glove, one of the pair she wore always. Always, always, always.

  I climb onto the rock, though my arms feel shaky as Jell-O. I lay on my belly and peer at the massive drop below. I don’t know what I’m expecting. To see her mangled body splattered at the bottom? I see nothing. Only rock and pale green shrubs somehow growing out of the crevices. The hot wind blows against my face.

  ***

  I sit on that boulder for a long time, and the past swallows me up. Two days before she died, Mom begged me to forget all about angels and killing them. She told me to go make a life of my own and maybe even scrounge some happiness if I could.

  She was delirious by then, drugged with painkillers, eaten alive by the cancer. I don’t like to think about those last weeks or, to be honest, that whole damn year. By the time I forced her to get into bed, she never came out of it again except when I would help her to the bathroom. Later, I carried her, and that was terrible too.

  That last week, she was already gone. It was like her ghost was lingering just beneath the surface of her pale skin, haunting right out of her living body. She mumbled to my father, told me to protect a half-sister I never knew I had. Tammy and Tarren left, on a mission they said. It was me and Mom and Dr. Lee, though I told him to stop coming and just leave the morphine.

  He left enough so I could take some too. It helped me sleep.

  When Mom begged me to quit the fight, it was the last time she was really with me, aware of reality. She was too weak to sit up, but she took my hand, and I remember how her skeletal fingers lay limp in mine. She could only curl them a little.

  Her eyes were wide and afraid, and it was like she was seeing me for the first time. She apologized for raising us the way she did, and I knew she really meant it. She thought she’d done it all wrong; left us on the battlefield with our guns and no other comforts. I tried to calm her down, tell her she did fine, and that the mission was the most important thing in the world.

  She shook her head and told me, “You’ll lose everything, Gabe. Gabriel, my angel.”

  I thought she was afraid of me dying, or of one of us getting hurt, so I kissed her forehead and told her, “We’re going to win, Mom.”

  Now I understand what she was trying to warn me about. Not injury. Not death. It was surviving.

  The wind is still kicking all the dust and dirt around, but that doesn’t really matter anymore. The sky is a pure blue overhead. The last time I was here this entire landscape just seemed dull, but now I see a million different shades of brown and red just on the face of this one cliff. Every little plant struggling to grow and live in this place of rock and sand is dazzling as an emerald.

  I’m not a poet or a writer, and I can’t use words like Maya did, but this is the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. As I look around, I feel all the pain lifting away, letting me breathe for the first time in a long time.

  I’m sorry too, Mom. I couldn’t save Tammy. I couldn’t heal Tarren. I promised Maya that I would protect her, and I couldn’t do that either.

  I pull out my gun and hold it for a while. I’m not in any particular rush. I switch off the safety. A lot of people think suicide is wrong, but if God could feel my suffering, I’m sure he would understand why I need to do this. I put the muzzle up against my heart.

  Close your eyes. Think of the happiest day of your life.

  There were good days, in spite of everything. A lot of them. I reach back, just a few months ago, and find that day in the park, when Maya pushed me on the swing, almost up into the stars, and she and I spun and spun on the merry-go-round. I see Tarren’s face peaceful in sleep.

  I can feel my heart beating beneath the press of metal. There’s nothing left to beat for…except...

  I open my eyes, stare at the sky in horrible realization. The tears come. This isn’t fair at all. I lower the gun, because there is one tiny, fluttering ray of hope. It’s so stupid, but I can’t die until that last hope is gone, until everything is lost.

  Chapter 64 – Maya

  For a long, long time I drift just below the surface of wakefulness feeling warmth and energy flow into me. There are no memories, no thoughts. Just the energy filling me up, pushing me closer and closer to the surface.

  I open my eyes, and the room is filled with such intense light that I close them again and pull up the blankets tucked around my waist. Thoughts begin to dawn, but they are so far away that I can barely hold onto them.

  Tarren. His deep, calm voice. Leaning over me. Putting a cup to my lips. Worried eyes.

  I try the opening eye thing again, this time slowly. Sunlight. The room is filled with sunlight. It streams through the open window where a series of mirrors refracts it toward the bed.

  Toward me.

  Then I remember the cliff. The buffeting wind. Tarren calling to me from the void of death. I sit up in the bed.

  I died, didn’t I?

  I’m almost afraid to look, but I pull my arms from under the covers and stare at my hands. The skin of my palms is still tinged red, but the scabs are almost gone. The feeding bulbs are out and engorged, throbbing as they drink in the light. No crusty shell. No pain.

  This is weird. The Red Death is gone, so I’m obviously dead, but why am I still an angel? And why do I have to pee so badly?

  I push the blankets off me, toddle up, and almost fall. My body is a weak thing, and my brain isn’t much stronger. My thoughts are all fuzzy. I don’t know what day it is, or what happened after the cliff, or why I have so many shards of Tarren’s voice in my mind.

  The ache of loss opens up again. Ah yes, this at least is familiar. Tarren is gone. Gabe is suffering. I did a very cruel thing to Rain. The fog begins to lift. I get a grip on the door and pull it open. Did Gabe find me? Was I rescued by some good Samaritan who put me in this barely decent chemise that sags far too much in the chest? A thought wallops me through the haze of returning memories.

  The Prism. I turn around and look at all those mirrors lined up perfectly. My eyes follow the concentrated beam of light to the spot where I was lying in the huge canopy bed that looks like something out of a fairy tale.

  There is only one person who isn’t currently cowering inside a bomb shelter who knows how to set up the Prism.

  But no. Just…no.

  I tentatively reach out with my mind and feel the steady hum of energy nearby. Familiar yet strange. The energy is quiet. Smooth.

  Not him.

  The energy is near. I take hesitant steps into a wide hallway. The expensive looking art on the wall seems to depict blobby shapes having blobby sex with each other. Interesting decorating taste going on here. The energy emanates from a closed door just on the other side of the hall. I turn the knob and open it.

  Tarren is stretched out on a big, luxurious bed. I’ve never seen him this deeply asleep except for the one time we drugged the hell out of him. His aura is a soft blue, vibrant and smooth, and it is truly him. That familiar face utterly handsome in repose. Those strong shoulders. That dark hair grown longer and a shadow of stubble across his jaw.

  The sunlight pours over him, almost putting him on display. I watch, fascinated, confused, thrilled beyond belief as deep, easy breaths come in and out of him. But it must be a dream. Not only because Tarren is dead, and even if he were alive, he would never be able to sleep so peacefully, but also because he sleeps next to a slumbering little girl who clutches a sky-blue horse to her chest. Long black hair lays across her round cheek and flutters against her rosebud mouth. She wears a Mulan nightgown, and her face is half buried in the horse’s side.

  If it weren’t so utterly improbable, I think the adorableness of the scene would melt my eyeballs right out of my sockets.

  I walk up to the bed.

  “Tarren?” I say in a voice that comes out as an uncertain whisper.

  The girl opens big, blue-gray eyes. Tarren’s eyes. His thick, black lashes. His deep, emotional stare.

  “Hello,” I say to the girl.

  She blinks at me then turns and nestles herself and her horse into Tarren’s chest, tucking her head under his chin. He pulls in a big breath and drapes an arm around her.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispers into her hair.

  “I think I scared her.”

  Tarren’s eyes flip open, and he closes his arms around the girl. Then it’s him again, that cold, calculating face, wary eyes, and granite jaw ready to take the world’s blows.

  “Are you in control of yourself?” he asks in a cautious voice.

  “Who is she?”

  Tarren doesn’t answer. I guess there are other questions I should ask first. How are you alive? How am I alive? Are all the angels dead? How could you have left us? But I can’t get the girl’s eyes out of my head.

  “She’s yours, isn’t she?”

  Tarren sits up. He’s achingly careful with the girl, keeping her held to his chest. I watch in wonderment as lavender hues of love cascade through his aura, an aura that has always been so closed off, so bereft of emotion. The girl turns her face out again and stares at me with Tarren’s eyes. My eyes.

  “Her name is Tammy,” he says.

  Chapter 65 – Gabe

  Francesca is ridiculously easy to find. She’s still going to the same nursing school and updated her records to an address in Colorado Springs. I turn the radio on to keep myself awake as I drive and instantly regret it. It seems like the body count of the Red Death Plague is finally slowing, but news has leaked that there’s something wrong with the corpses besides their obvious deadness. “Certain genetic abnormalities,” the radio announcer states.

  The president, along with the director of the CDC, is going to hold a press conference this afternoon, but the health minister in Denmark already gave a press interview. Seems the genetic mutations aren’t a direct cause of the virus, blah, blah, blah. Everyone is freaking the fuck out.

  Yeah, welcome to my world.

  After a few minutes, I just turn the damn radio off. Not my problem anymore.

  The sun moseys on across the sky, and my head feels like it’s swelling with all the bad stuff inside of me. Bessie isn’t doing so well either. She coughs and shudders, but we both keep going. Just a little farther. A little farther…

  At some point the sun sets, because it’s night when I spot a row of neat blue condos and pull into the parking lot. Time is kind of floating in front of my eyes. I don’t remember getting out of the truck, just suddenly being on the porch, pounding on her door like a maniac.

  Right about this moment I realize that I’m making an especially bad mistake. Francesca is the best person ever, and I am a royally fucked disaster. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I should just leave her alone and blow my brains out in some dark corner where no one will notice.

  Except that by the time I figure this out, the door is already opening.

  Francesca.

  Beautiful as ever with sleepy eyes, rumpled Mickey Mouse pajama pants, and that long hair uncombed and tucked behind her ear. For a moment I just stare in awe of her, because it’s her. She. The girl of my dreams.

  I give her my best smile and say, “Buongiorno.”

  “Gabe? What’s wrong?”

  “I love you,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Gabe, you look…when’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Say no. Say no, and I’ll go away and never bother you again.”

  I can hardly see her in the dark, but she’s still beautiful.

  “Come inside and sit down,” she says.

  “No, you don’t understand,” I insist. “You have to laugh at me or just roll your eyes, that’s fine too, and then slam the door in my face.”

  She looks me over.