Hell Followed with Us(58)

I’ve never been good at saying it, either. I don’t like hearing it, and I don’t like saying it, but this little token already means so much.

He takes the paper.

“I shouldn’t have lost it with you,” I say. I shouldn’t have brought the Angels here. I should never have come here. This is my fault.

“I deserve it,” Nick mumbles.

“I really shouldn’t have compared you to my mother. That was a dick move.” He was raised an Angel, he read the announcement to the faithful—he knows exactly who my mother is. “So. Yeah.”

We look at the bodies instead of each other. The Angels have hurt so many people. So many it’s almost unfathomable. It’s a number so big, you can’t even start to wrap your head around it—a number in the billions, whittling humanity down to a bottleneck, down to scraps and stragglers. They find any way to hurt you they can. It’s their duty.

“You could have told me,” I say. “How you were feeling, I mean. I would’ve understood. I feel the same way sometimes.”

“I didn’t want to think about it,” Nick says. “I was scared.”

“Why?”

He takes the bead lizard from his pocket and pulls down his mask so he can chew on the beads of its tail. “Why what?”

“Why you were scared. Why you were calling me it. Why anything.”

“I was scared of you. And what you meant. I thought it’d be easier if you weren’t you.”

If I weren’t me?

“I wanted to pretend you weren’t a person,” he says. He sounds like such a little kid, barely the teenager he’s supposed to be, let alone the adult he’s convinced us all he is. “So I wouldn’t think about how much of the same person we are.”

The same person. Just like Erin said.

Are we really that similar? The only thing we have in common is being gay boys who ran away from home.

…Who ran away from the Angels. Who suffered under them and survived.

“You didn’t want to think about us being the same because I’m a monster,” I say.

“No.”

“It’s fine. You can say it.”

Nick makes a hiccupping sound. I can’t place it, and I don’t want to.

“I’ve seen the monster,” I say. “I keep seeing it.”

“Is it scary?”

“God, yes.” I peel back part of the bandage. My arms are so much worse than they were. They look like the skin would slough off if I started peeling, like a sunburn that goes all the way down to the fat and tendons. The blisters on the back of my hands are pitiful in comparison. “I don’t have long. Maybe a week or two.”

“I was wrong,” Nick says. “I won’t call you that again.”

“And I was wrong too.” More than you know, but I just can’t bring myself to say it.

Silence, then: “I was stationed at New Nazareth,” he says.

My brain short-circuits. I knew everyone at New Nazareth. This doesn’t add up. “You were?”

“We never crossed paths. My parents weren’t all that important, just some Baptist pastor and his wife.” He’s right; that could be describing a lot of people. “I was a year ahead of you in Sunday school.”

Plus, with the way Nick spends most of his time alone, and his being in the death squads…Okay, maybe it does make sense we never met. I never really focused on cute boys when I had Theo to occupy myself with.

“Did you ever have Sister Mackenzie?” I ask. “She was the worst.”

“She was awful.”

“Do you remember when she brought in that crucifix? The one with the naked Jesus that had his dick out and everything?” Nick makes a spluttering noise, which I realize is his laughter, and I laugh too. “I can’t believe she did that. Just. The entire dick was out. I swear it’s the only reason I don’t want one now.” I make a flaccid motion with my finger. “It looked like a sad worm.”

He splutters again. My cheeks hurt from smiling. A small moment of calm in this burned-out building, surrounded by bodies, both of us aching, nervous, and so, so tired.

I should apologize for burning this place down, but I don’t. I want to keep this moment safe. I wish I could stay here forever, surrounded by ash and death and his laughter.



* * *





Cormac counts the ears we manage to retrieve as if there will be more the next time he does: three. Three isn’t nearly enough for what the Angels did to us. What they took from us. Our food, our water, our home, our safety.

Alex brings up the idea of taking the ears of our dead friends. The Vanguard won’t be able to tell the difference. We consider it. There is nothing in the traps, our food stores are mostly ash, and we can’t risk disappointing the Vanguard. Not after what I did.

A lot of things are my fault these days.

Nick says, “I’ll leave it up you, Cormac.”

“Jesus.” Cormac pulls his hair. “Don’t make me choose.”

“Then we’ll vote. No looking.”

We vote with our eyes shut. I vote for it. Nick whispers the results to Cormac, who swallows hard. “All right,” he says, “all right.”

Afterward, as I slog through the mess, peeling apart sticky Angel corpses to find anything that could help us, I heave so hard, a trail of spit comes up. I take down my mask to wipe it away, but when the cloth touches my throat it happens again, and I end up with my head against the wall, gagging, waiting for the wave to pass.