Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1)(12)

I roll the cart next to the sleeping man—angel, I mean angel. Careful not to wake him, I loop the chain tightly around each of his wrists, then wrap it several times around one of the metal legs of the cart so that it takes up all the slack. Then I snap the lock shut with a satisfying click.

The chain can slide up and down the cart leg but can’t escape it. This is an even better idea than I first realized because I can now move him around without him being able to run off. Wherever he’s going, the cart will go with him.

I roll up his wings in the blanket and stow them away in one of the large metal filing cabinets beside the kitchen. I almost feel like a grave robber as I pull the files out of the drawer and stack them on top of the cabinet. I run my fingers along the stack. Each of these files used to mean something. A home, a patent, a business. Someone’s dream left to collect dust in an abandoned office.

As an afterthought, I drop the key to the chain lock in the drawer where I stored the angel sword on the first night.

I trot back through the lobby and slip into the corner office. The angel is still asleep or comatose, I’m not sure which. I lock the door and curl up on the executive chair.

His beautiful face blurs as my eyelids get heavier. I haven’t slept in two days, afraid to miss the one chance I might have if the angel woke, only to die on me. Asleep, he looks like a bleeding Prince Charming chained in the dungeon. When I was little, I always thought I’d be Cinderella, but I guess this makes me the wicked witch.

But then again, Cinderella didn’t live in a post-apocalyptic world invaded by avenging angels.

~

I know something is wrong before I wake. In the twilight between waking and sleeping, I hear glass breaking. I’m wired and alert before the sound fades.

A hand clamps onto my mouth.

The angel shushes me with a whisper lighter than air. The first thing I see in the dim moonlight is the metal cart. He must have jumped off the couch and rolled it over here in the split second it took for the glass to break.

It dawns on me that if, for the moment, the angel and I are on the same side, then someone else is a threat to us both.





CHAPTER 9



Below the door, light plays back and forth in the semi-darkness.

The fluorescent lights were on when I fell asleep but now it’s dark with only the moonlight streaming in through the windows. The light moving in the crack beneath the door looks like a flashlight jerking back and forth. Either an intruder came in with flashlights, or my mother turned one on when the lights went off. A sure sign of habitation.

It’s not that she’s unaware of the risks. She’s far from stupid. It’s just that her brand of paranoia makes her fear supernatural predators more than natural ones. So sometimes, lighting the dark to ward off evil is more important to her than avoiding detection by mere mortals. Lucky me.

Even chained and pulling a metal cart, the angel moves like a cat to the door.

Dark stains seep through his white bandages like Rorschach patterns on his back. He may be strong enough to break a roll of duct tape, but he is still wounded and bleeding. Just how strong is he? Strong enough to fight off half a dozen street thugs desperate enough to roam at night?

I suddenly wish I hadn’t chained him. It’s a good bet that whoever the intruder is, he’s not alone, not at night.

“Hell-ooo,” a man’s voice calls out playfully through the dark. “Anybody home?”

The lobby is carpeted, and I can’t tell how many of them there are until things start to crash from different directions. It sounds like there are at least three of them.

Where’s Mom? Did she have time to run and hide?

I gauge the window. It won’t be easy to break, but if the gang members could do it, I should be able to too. It is certainly large enough for me to hop through. Thank whatever goodness is left in the world that we’re on the ground floor.

I push at the glass, testing the sturdiness of it. It would take time to break this. Plus, the noise would echo throughout the building as I bang repeatedly on the window.

Outside, the gang calls to each other. They hoot and holler, smash and crash. They’re performing for us, making sure we’re good and scared by the time they find us. By the sound of things, there are at least six of them now.

I glance again at the angel. He’s listening, probably figuring out his odds. Being wounded and chained to a metal cart, his chance of outrunning a street gang is about zero.

On the other hand, if the gang is drawn by the noise of the window breaking, they would be fully occupied as soon as they saw the angel. The angel is like the proverbial gold mine and they the lucky miners. Mom and I could get away during the chaos. But then what? The angel can’t tell me where to find Paige if he’s dead.

Maybe the gang will just break a few things, raid the food in the kitchen, and leave.

A woman’s scream pierces the night.

My mother.

Men’s voices shout and tease. They sound entertained, the way a pack of dogs might sound if they’d cornered a cat.

I grab a chair and smash it against the window. It makes a huge bang and flexes, but doesn’t break. I want to make as much of a distraction as I can, hoping the noise will make them forget about my mother. I bang it again. And again. Frantically trying to break the window.

She screams again. Shouts come my way.

The angel grabs his cart and hurls it at the window. Glass explodes in every direction. I cringe but a distant part of my mind is aware that the angel has shifted, using his body to block the shards from hitting me.