World After (22 page)

Paige reaches the table that holds the plate of sandwiches and glass of water. She crawls up the metal chair that sits beside it.

“I didn’t say you could have that,” Beliel growls. “I told you to come to me, not to the table.” He starts to lean forward in anger but eases back in pain with his hand on his bleeding stomach, letting out a deep breath.

She reaches out to the glass, looking at the water with obvious longing and thirst.

“Of course, you’re just like the rest.” His lips sneer. “There isn’t a creature alive who looks out for anyone but himself. Even a little worm like you. So you learned a lesson from your sister, did you? The only thing that matters in the end is your own survival. It’s what humans and cockroaches are best at.”

Paige looks at the water. Then at Beliel. A battle is raging inside her, and I know her well enough to know what she’s debating.

“Don’t do it,” I whisper. “Take care of yourself first.” Just for once.

Without taking a sip, she holds out the glass of water to Beliel where he can reach it.

I groan in despair. I want to snatch it away and make her drink.

“My sister is coming for me.” Her voice breaks, like she’s not sure. Her face scrunches as she fights the tears.

He stares at the water.

He stares at her.

“Aren’t you thirsty, Little Worm? Why not drink it yourself?” Suspicion fills his voice.

She sniffles. “You need it more.” She’s being stubborn. Clinging on to who she is even under these circumstances.

“Don’t you know you’ll die if you don’t get some water?”

She holds it out steadily.

He reaches out his arm without moving his body and takes it. He sniffs it as if suspicious that it might not be just water.

He takes a sip.

Then a gulp.

Then he downs two-thirds of it.

He pauses for a breath. He glares at Paige as if she insulted him. “What are you looking at?”

She just blinks at him.

Beliel puts the glass to his mouth, but this time he takes just a sip. He glances at Paige as if considering giving the rest to her.

Then he drains it in one big gulp.

“That’s what happens when you’re nice. You might as well learn that lesson early. Nice may have worked for you in the past but no more. That strategy only works when you’re wanted. But now, you’re no different from me. Ugly. Rejected. Unloved. I understand.”

I cannot wait to kill him.

He hands her the glass. She takes it, desperate. She tips it over in her mouth.

One small drop drips into her mouth.

H
ER
FACE
crumples but no tears come this time. She’s probably too dehydrated.

“Hand me the sandwiches.”

She glares at him.

“They won’t do you any good. You’ll just get thirstier if you eat them.”

She pauses, then grabs the sandwiches. She throws them at him.

He chuckles as they bounce off his chest and land in pieces on his bloody bandage. He puts a sandwich back together and takes a bite. “Not too smart, are you?”

She puts her head down on her arms on the tiny table and slumps there like she’s given up.

The video goes dark.

I catch myself before asking whether she came out of that all right. For a moment, I forgot what she’s like now. Of course she’s not all right.

Doc hovers his finger over the eject button. “Had enough?”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “Not yet.”

He drops his hand. “It’s your punishment. Who am I to argue?”

The screen comes back on again.

Time has passed. The light has dimmed and the shadows are longer now. The door opens and an angel comes in. It’s Burnt.

Paige raises her head. When she sees who it is, she scrambles off the chair and frantically crawls under Beliel’s cot.

“Ah, so that’s where it went,” says Burnt watching Paige.

“And where did you go?” asks Beliel.

“You didn’t seem to need us, so we brought you some food and water and left you to sleep it off. How are you feeling?” Burnt bends over to look at Paige.

“Just fantastic, thank you for asking.” The sarcasm in Beliel’s voice is unmistakable. “What are you doing?”

Paige screams as Burnt drags her out from under the cot.

“Let her go,” Beliel bellows.

Burnt lets go in surprise.

“You don’t do anything without my permission.” Beliel grabs Burnt by the arm and yanks him to his face. It must hurt like hell in his condition, but Beliel doesn’t show it. “You don’t touch that girl. You don’t even breathe without my permission. Uriel gave you to me to command. You think he’d spend a second of his illustrious life wondering what happened to you if you ended up as a splatter on the wall?”

Burnt looks back at him defiantly but with a touch of nervousness. “Why would you do that?”

“You really thought I wouldn’t notice that you were trying to starve and drain me with thirst?”

“We left you food and water,” Burnt grunts through his teeth as he tries to jerk his arm out of Beliel’s grasp. The demon holds tight despite the pain. “We brought you back, too, when we could have left you on the streets to die.”

“Uriel would have plucked you alive if you hadn’t. You boys still don’t have the nerve to lie to him, do you? Afraid you’ll get some divine punishment. Well, his punishment would feel playful compared to what I’ll do if I ever wake up to dinner out of my reach again. Understood?”

Burnt nods resentfully.

Beliel lets him go.

Burnt takes a step back.

“Get me some decent food and water. Fresh meat, cooked to body temperature. I’m not a child who can live off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Burnt turns to go with a sneer.

“Bring a few sandwiches for her, though.” He tips his head toward Paige. “Nothing like a dead broken thing in the corner of your room to stink up your day.”

Burnt glances at Paige who has scrambled back under the bed, then at Beliel like he’s lost his mind.

“Problem?” asks Beliel.

Burnt slowly shakes his head.

“Too bad. Now, I’ll have to wait to finger-paint the walls with your blood.”

Burnt turns to go.

“Bring a pitcher of water and some milk for the girl too. Pronto, feather boy. I don’t have all week to lounge around. The sooner I can fly to talk to your precious archangel, the sooner you might be set free from your duties.”

Burnt leaves.

“Come out, Little Worm. The big bad angel is gone.”

Paige peeks out from under the bed.

“That’s a good pet.” He closes his eyes. “Sing me a little song while I drift into a nap.” He grimaces with the pain he refused to show the angel. “Go on. Any song.”

Paige hesitantly starts humming “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

The screen goes blank.

“T
HAT
’
S
 
IT
,”
says Doc as he turns off the TV.

I have to swallow tears before I can ask, “What happened next?”

“Beliel kept her in the room as his pet until he recovered enough to go to the aerie. He had to report to Archangel Uriel. Something about a legendary angel who has been away for a long time.”

Raffe. Beliel must have reported that Raffe got away.

“Whatever it was,” says Doc, “Uriel was displeased. Beliel was in a seriously bad mood after that, and he took it out on your sister. After treating her like a pet for days—feeding her, confiding in her, taking her with him everywhere—he abandoned her to the medical team. He tossed her our way and didn’t look back.”

He pops out the video. “She kept asking for him until we—they—turned her into what she is now.”

“She asked for him?”

He shrugs. “He was the only one familiar to her in her new environment.”

I nod, wanting to throw up.

“And what exactly did you turn her into?”

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough punishment for the day?”

“Don’t pretend you give a damn. Tell me.”

He sighs. “The kids were Uriel’s pet project. Sometimes, I think he just likes playing God—something people used to accuse me of doing a lifetime ago. He wanted the kids to look like something he couldn’t even describe. Said he’d never seen the things that he wanted the kids to mimic but that no one who mattered had.”

I’m scared to ask but I do anyway. “What did he want them to be?”

“Abominations. They were to look like unnatural children who ate people. They were to roam the earth and terrorize the population as part of the angels’ endless political machinations.”

So he could pass them off as nephilim and blame Raffe for not doing his job. So he could ruin his competitor’s reputation and win the election for Messenger.

“You purposely made kids into abominations?”

He sighs, like he never expected me to understand. “The human race is about to come to an end and I, for one, am scared out of my skull. Unless we can figure out a way to stop it, this is it for us.”

He sweeps out his arm as if inviting me to look around at the scorpion factory. “I’m in a very special place to make a difference, to help figure out a way to stop it. I have access to their facilities and knowledge. I have their trust and a small degree of freedom to work under their noses.”

He leans back against the wall as if he’s tired. “But the only way I can help the human race is if I do what they tell me to do. Even if it’s horrific. Even if it’s goddamn soul-shredding.”

Doc pushes off from the wall and paces the office. “I’d do anything not to be that guy who has to make choices that haunt him night after night. But here I am. It’s me and no one else. Do you understand?”

What I understand is that he chopped up my baby sister and turned her into an “abomination.” “And just how are you helping the human race?”

He looks at his shoes. “I’ve tried a few experiments that I kept secret from the angels. Stole some angel science, or magic, or whatever you want to call it, and implemented it here and there. They’d kill me if they knew. But all I have so far are tantalizing possibilities. No confirmed successes yet.”

I’m not interested in making this butcher of children feel good about his job. But accusing him won’t get me answers.

“Why did you make my sister move like a machine?”

“What do you mean?”

“She sits with her back straight, moves stiffly with every motion, turns her head as if her neck doesn’t work the same any more, you know—like a machine.” Except when she’s attacking, of course.

He looks at me as if I’ve lost it. “The girl has been cut and stitched everywhere like a quilted doll. And you have to ask why she moves stiffly?” The guy who did that to her looks down at me like
I’m
the insensitive person.

“She’s in pain.” He says it like he’s saying
Duh
. “Just because she’s fully functional doesn’t mean she’s not suffering from excruciating, soul-shattering pain. Imagine being cut up everywhere, having your muscles ripped out and replaced, stitched up, every fiber of your body altered. Now imagine that no one gives you painkillers. That’s what it’s like for her. I guess I can safely assume that you didn’t even give her aspirin?”

It’s like he’s punching me in the lungs.

“If that never occurred to you, then it’s no surprise she left, is it?”

I can’t even think about what it must be like for her without feeling like I’m breaking.

I even offered Raffe aspirin when he was unconscious before I ever got to know him. I offered the enemy pain relief but never considered it for my own sister. Why?

Because she looked like a monster, that’s why. And it never occurred to me that monsters might feel pain.

“Do you have any guesses as to where she might be?” Hearing the tremble in my own voice sucks out my confidence.

He glances at the dark TV. “She’s not here. I would have heard about it by now. But if you’re right and she was here even briefly, then she’s looking for something. Or someone.”

“Who? She’s already come to me and Mom. We’re all she has in the world.”

“Beliel,” says Doc with certainty. “He’s the only one who would understand. The only one who would accept her and not judge her.”

“What are you talking about? He’s the last one she’d run to.”