Hell Followed with Us(59)

It doesn’t. I take a page out of Nick’s book and find a pen and a piece of scrap paper in the bank and write to pass to him: I feel sick, I’m gonna go lie down. He walks me to the copy room and gives me a salvaged blanket, and I stay there until he comes to find me again.

“Erin wants to talk to everybody,” he says. “Should I tell her not to wait up?”

I push myself upright, a sick taste lingering in my mouth. “No, I’ll be—” I clamp my jaw shut to keep stomach acid from creeping up. “I’ll be fine. Give me a second.”

“You can rest.”

“I’m coming,” I insist and stagger to my feet.

In the lobby of the bank, Erin is sitting on the help desk, looking slightly better but not much. Everyone gathers around her like a gaggle of baby ducks, staring at her or anywhere but her, depending on how they deal with this kind of thing. Some nervously leaf through old deposit slips, click pens, or scratch the carpet. I sit by the desk, staring out the window to the courtyard. Nick takes his spot next to Erin, arms crossed.

Her gentle, wavering words break the silence.

“We don’t need to talk about what happened,” she says. “We all know what happened, and we all know what we lost. Moving forward, we’ll be staying here. The Acheson LGBTQ+ Center is not safe to inhabit, at least for now.”

A few pained cries rise up from the crowd. So much of their lives went up in flames: the books in the office; the photos on the walls; the flyers, apartments, and friends whose bodies were eaten away by the inferno. It’s what the Angels have always done to humanity—what society has always tried to do to us. Always taking, always sinking in its teeth. My fingers dig into my arm and pieces of skin start to come off. I stop myself by biting the inside of my remaining cheek until I draw blood.

Erin says, “We’ll do what we can with what we have. That’s what we’ve always done.”

Calvin raises his hand. If I have to listen to him, I might actually be sick. Aisha, where she’s sitting with Sadaf, turns away.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” Calvin says. “If the Angels know where we are, we’re fucked. They’re going to come back and finish us off, and, personally, I don’t want to be stuck waiting for them when they do.”

Another person, Lux, wrinkles eir nose and spits, “I can’t walk, dude.” E picks up eir thigh almost as if to shake the bloody bandages in his face. “You going to carry me across this damn city? Find me a wheelchair, maybe?”

“That’s your problem,” Calvin replies.

Faith snaps, “Hey!”

“I’m right, and you know it!”

Salvador leans over to Nick’s ear, whispers something. He nods, and Salvador disappears into the back room.

“Calvin, please,” Erin begs. “We can work through this together.”

“I don’t want to work with a bunch of pussies who think the idea of just sitting here is—”

Salvador comes out of the back room with a backpack and slings it across the floor so it hits Calvin in his side.

“If you don’t want to just sit here,” Salvador growls, “you’re free to leave.” Calvin goes whiter than he already is. “I mean it. Get off your ass and do your own thing if you think we’re pussies. If you hate us so much, then go!”

Calvin stammers for a moment, then snatches the bag and stands. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Salvador repeats, and Calvin looks over his shoulder once before slamming out the front door of the bank.

Half the mouths in the room hang open. I can’t see it past the masks, but I can feel it, the collective stunned silence. Aisha, the first person to make a single sound, starts to laugh. Tears stream down her face as she presses her hands to her head and wheezes until she can’t get any air, and Sadaf has to talk her down. Faith crouches beside her.

“He’ll come crawling back,” Cormac mutters. “I give it a day.”

“Not even,” Salvador says.

Erin says, “Nick, please talk to them. I can’t do this.”

Nick bangs his foot against the desk to get everyone’s attention. “If anyone else wants to follow him, now’s your chance.”

Aisha breathes into her hands. I fold my arms over my knees and lean my forehead against the bandages.

“That’s what I thought,” Nick says. “We are safer staying here than we are wandering out to find a new place. The local Angel encampment doesn’t have many soldiers, according to their documents. They’re a research facility, not a military base. After a defeat like this, they’ll be keeping their distance for a while.”

No wonder Nick knows all this. How much did he have to fake to avoid suspicion?

“So what are we going to do?” Micah asks.

That’s when Alex, from the other side of the bank, says, “Everyone shut up!” They tear out the cord of their headphones from the radio, and the air suddenly fills with the sound of static and an eerie list of deadpan numbers—five, one, eight, five, six—over and over. “It’s the Vanguard.”

Erin slides down from the desk and sprints over. Nick follows close on her heels. Everyone else glances at one another and slowly stands to follow. I prop myself up on the desk.

“You okay?” Salvador asks, stopping beside me. I wave xem ahead with the rest.