Dark Hope (25 page)

“But it’s not fair! It’s not fair to him!” My voice rang out, echoing off the concrete pillars and ceiling.

Michael drew up short, gripping my arm and giving me a shake
to warn me into silence. “It’s the best we can do. Let the authorities figure out how your father was in Vegas at the same time hundreds of people saw him at work in Alabama. The confusion alone will buy us time.”

My eyes blurred and hot tears ran down my face. My father had given up everything he had to protect me. Now, because of me, he was going to be exposed, ridiculed, and hated. Hated for something he didn’t even do.

Michael loosed his grip. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost soothing. “I promise you, Hope, he won’t go to prison for this. He will spend a few days under the spotlight, but they won’t be able to get around his alibi because it’s real.”

I sniffed a tear back. “My past. It’s going to come out, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Michael said. “But knowing your mother, she’ll fight hard to keep it from the media.”

“What if he loses his job?” I asked, knowing it was virtually guaranteed.

“Small price to pay,” Michael asserted in a matter-of-fact manner.

It felt so odd, talking about my father as if he wasn’t present, when it was his voice, his face, his body right here with me; it felt so odd to be treating him like a bit player when in reality this was as much his story as mine.

“Vegas will buy us time.” I repeated it to myself, willing myself to believe.

“Vegas will buy us time.” Through my tears, I saw the corners of Michael’s mouth lift slightly. “And in Vegas, we might find Maria.”

I opened my eyes wide. “She’s there?” I gasped.

“The traffickers moved her there after they picked her up again. I guess they figured things were too hot to keep her in Atlanta.” The vein in his forehead throbbed as he tried to contain his anger.
“That’s why I went over to your house tonight. I know how important it is to you to find her. I wanted to tell you.”

“But how did you—?” I broke off, unsure how to finish my sentence.

He shrugged my question off. “I figured it out the old-fashioned way and knocked some heads together. It’s amazing how persuasive a little violence can be when you’re dealing with street scum.”

I stared at him, more confused than ever. It was important to me to find Maria. I’d thought he’d given up on her. But instead, he’d gone out of his way for her—for me.

“You came over to tell me and take me to Las Vegas to look for her?”

“No,” he said emphatically, his eyes flashing. “I was going to tell you, yes. But I was never planning to take you along with me to search for her. This is not the kind of trip for a teenage girl. But when I found you and your mother’s car missing, I knew something was wrong. So I came prepared,” he said, gesturing to the backpack I still clutched in my hands.

“So now I’m going with you.”

“Now you’re coming with me.”

“To look for Maria.”

He squared his jaw. The effect wasn’t quite the same, seeing it in my father’s jowly face, but his displeasure was clear. “To lay a trail. I’m the only one who will be doing any exploration. You’re going to stay put.”

I was about to protest when I thought better of it. I still didn’t know whether I could trust him, and it was better not to press my luck now. I could always argue my way out of it later, once we were on the ground in Las Vegas.

He lifted my chin in his hands. Another wave of heat swept through my body as he cradled my face. “The only thing I need
you to do while we are there is to smile for the security cameras. You got that?”

I nodded mutely, confused and angry that even after everything that had happened, my body still responded to him; embarrassed that his touch affected me so much; and more than a little creeped out by having that reaction when, at least on the outside, it was my own dad standing there. Gross.

Michael dropped his hand away and moved into the terminal with me in tow. This early, the place was still empty. He walked briskly to the ticket counter and asked for the first flight to Vegas. The ticket agent looked at me funny and then looked Michael up and down.

“Is everything all right?” she said, looking at me pointedly. I looked down and realized that I was filthy, my clothing stained with red clay and rust from the factory.

The humiliation and fear of the night was all too fresh, and I began to waver. For a moment, I considered telling her everything. But when I played through the scene in my mind, I kept getting stuck at the part where I told her that the man beside me was not my father. Who would believe that? Even I could only tell the difference when I looked closely into his eyes. And after all, Henri had told me to go with him. Everything—including my own father’s safety—might depend on that.

“She’s fine. Right, honey?” Michael interjected smoothly, producing IDs and some paperwork. He handed them across the counter to the agent who shuffled through the papers one by one.

“What’s your name, young lady?”

“Hope Carmichael.”

“Well, Hope Carmichael, your papers seem to be in order. Including permission from your mother for you to travel with him.
And he is?” She pointedly ignored Michael, directing her questions to me.

“My father, ma’am,” I answered, doing my best to look chipper. “Don Carmichael.”

“Funny place for a family trip. Las Vegas.”

Michael interjected before I could answer. “I have business there. It was convenient.”

“Planned at the last minute, huh?” She looked at me searchingly. “I mean, it looks like he pulled you right off a playing field or something.”

The agent paused as if she expected me to say something more, but when I dropped my eyes down to stare at my feet, she sighed and started mechanically processing our tickets. She seemed to stall as much as she could throughout the process, now and then looking down the grand hall to where a security guard stood, trying to catch his eye, but he was engrossed in conversation with a janitor. Finally, when she could drag it out no further, she passed Michael the tickets.

“Hope,” she said, looking at my ID and looking at my face until she was sure she’d met my eyes. “It’s our company policy for me to ask this if I’m not sure of the answer. Do you want to be traveling with your father today?”

Michael set his jaw, but I ignored him. “Yes, I do,” I said firmly, meeting the agent’s eye.

The agent bit her lip and looked down. I wasn’t sure how convinced she really was. “You two have a fun trip to Las Vegas,” she said at last, her eyebrows knitted together with worry as she slid my ID across the counter. Michael smoothly thanked her, guiding me away by the elbow.

In less than fifteen minutes we were through security and on the
tram toward our gate. The train rattled around the curves as the mechanical voice announced each stop. Even though our car was empty, Michael stood as close to me as he could, leaning against a pole for support.

“Henri didn’t show up tonight, did he?” he asked. He tried to sound casual, but I could see the interest burning intensely in his eyes.

Careful
, Henri said.
I can be more helpful to you if he doesn’t know I am with you
.

I tried to act surprised. “I always assumed you knew whether or not he was here,” I said to Michael. “Can’t you guys all see or sense each other?”

Michael shook his head. “No. We can communicate with one another, but it’s kind of like walkie-talkies. If he turns off his button or chooses not to answer me, I have no idea whether or not he’s even out there. I take it he is not.”

I shook my head and chose my words carefully. “No. I haven’t really heard from him in weeks. Probably since right after you found me on Stone Mountain. After you argued with him in my room.”

Good girl
.

Michael laughed a bitter laugh. “Some guardian,” he sputtered, his fingers gripping and regripping the shiny steel. “To make a point about me, he goes on strike, leaving you completely exposed. As if he was in a union! I have half a mind to take him to court myself and file a complaint, have him stripped of his duties.”

“You can do that?” I said, quickly calculating whether there was any way I could forestall him.

“Yes, though the heavenly bureaucracy is notoriously painful to navigate. If we had more time I would do it in a heartbeat. Maybe after we visit the Library.”

“The Library? Where is that?”

The train ground to a halt, the screech of its wheels drowning out Michael’s answer. The doors swung open with a hiss and the train spat us out to find our gate.

“Not where. Who,” Michael repeated as we climbed the escalator. “The Library is really an Elder—a Librarian, you could call him—who keeps all the records related to Heaven. Every testament, every prophecy, every battle, every promotion or demotion. The Elder remembers it all and keeps records of it squirreled away somewhere.”

“Everything?”

“Everything,” Michael said emphatically. “If we have any hope of figuring out what the Key is, we’ve got to start with that Elder. He’ll at least be able to tell us the prophecy in its entirety.”

“Where is he?”

Michael smiled. “Let’s just say he’s off the grid.”

“So, let me get this straight,” I asked with a low voice as we stepped off into the concourse. “We’re going to Vegas to lay a false trail that will throw off both my mom and the Fallen Ones, find Maria, visit the Elder, and—if we have time—we’ll squeeze in a little lawsuit against Henri?”

Michael smiled with grim self-satisfaction. “Exactly. Only there will be very little ‘we’ involved in any of that. You will be staying put in the hotel.”

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he cut me off, placing one hand on each of my shoulders and pulling me in close. There was an air of expectation between us as I looked up into his eyes. I could feel his touch burning into my skin, but the heat of his gaze was even stronger. He swallowed, hard, before spinning me around in the opposite direction.

“Go in and clean yourself up,” he said. “You should have a
change of clothes in your pack. And don’t even think about trying to run away. I’ll find you wherever you go, just like I did last night.”

With that, he gave me a little shove in the small of my back, propelling me toward the restroom.

Inside, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. No wonder the ticket agent had looked at me funny. My lip was cracked, a tiny clot of blood visible in the corner. My hair was a complete rat’s nest. Clay had worked its way under my nails and into my cuticles, making my hands look almost bloody. My clothes were destroyed.

I was alone in the restroom, so I stripped down and did my best with the thin paper towels to wipe myself clean. I worked a brush through my hair, the tugging and pulling of snarls and knots jolting me awake, each bit of pain making me more alert. My old clothes were too damaged to salvage so I dumped them into the trash. I rummaged in my backpack for a change of clothes, but all I came up with was a pair of gym shorts and a lame T-shirt that read, “I run like a girl.”

Run, run, run
, the shirt mocked me.

Every ounce of instinct I had was on fire, urging me to find a way out, to run anywhere I could to get away from Michael, but I could think of no way out. And at the same time, I felt irresistibly drawn to him; I wanted to bury my face in his chest and let him comfort me as I wrestled with the fear and disillusionment he had caused.

Was anything that had happened between us—any of our friendship—at all real? Or was I really just a pawn to him in some heavenly game of war?

Henri’s voice echoed in my mind.
It’s as I said. If he means to harm you, you will never escape him, no matter how far you run. And if he is telling the truth, going with him may be your only chance
.

I sighed, knowing he was right.

“You know, Henri, it’s kind of creepy to spy on girls when they’re changing their clothes. Especially when you’re invisible.”

Humph
, he replied, clearly offended, and for the first time in a long time, a smile stole across my face.

I shook the wrinkles out of my T-shirt, pulled it over my head, and squared my shoulders.

“Viva Las Vegas,” I muttered to myself. I gripped the edge of the white porcelain sink and stared at myself, long and hard, under the fluorescent lights.

“Hope?” I heard my father’s voice calling into the restroom after me. I stared at the mirror for a moment longer before answering.

“Coming, Dad,” I called back, almost choking on the words.

Picking up my bag, I whispered to the mirror, “I’m coming, Maria,” saying it like a vow.

Then I went outside to meet the angel who carried my fate in his hands.

eleven

I
pushed my face deeper into the pillow, the rustle of sheets reminding me where I was. I groaned. My body ached and my head throbbed with the regularity of the blinking neon signs that decorated the Strip.

Las Vegas.

We’d arrived in Las Vegas that morning. Michael had chosen one of the local haunts on Fremont Street as our base. Even though she’d been newly renovated, the old bones of the El Cortez stood as testimony that this shop was “old school.” When we’d stumbled through the riot of slot machines and busy carpets to the front desk, I’d been overwhelmed.