Hell Followed with Us(68)

“Oh,” Nick says. And then, “Oh.” And then, “I don’t know why you—” and a few other half-hearted, aborted protests that make an ache in my chest grow heavier and heavier before finally he lands on, “I don’t know how this works.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No.” He takes a half step away and taps the back of his neck with his palm like he’s trying to knock his thoughts loose. He says, “I don’t know how to tell if I like someone. I don’t know how it works, and I don’t want to be wrong.” He says, “I don’t know why you would like me, I don’t understand.” He says, “There are no rules for this. It scares me.”

I never thought Nick could be scared of anything. “Really?”

“I don’t want to be wrong. People get hurt when I’m wrong.”

“Nick, that’s not—”

“Salvador nearly died because of me,” Nick says. “Because I made a mistake. Because I was wrong about something.” I see the scars again—up and down xyr face, warping skin, painful—and the hurt in Nick’s voice is enough to answer every question I’ve ever had about xe’s old wounds. “So don’t. Don’t say that.”

I swallow, hard. “I’m tough enough to handle it. I swear.”

“But what if I lose you?”

Now I’m echoing him. Oh. Oh. What if he loses me. What if I lose him. What if all of this goes to hell, and we end up with bullets in our heads, and the Angels standing over our bodies. What if it all goes right, but I turn into a monster that isn’t worth loving. What if all of it is for nothing?

“Then we can figure it out if I come back,” I say. “When we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay,” and he reaches for me and pulls me in until our foreheads touch. Until our noses bump together, and his breath warms my cheek. God, he’s so warm.

This is the last time I will be safe for days, but it might as well be forever. I’m terrified. I could stay here for the rest of time, if the world would just let me.

“When,” Nick says. “When you come back.”

When I come back, we can talk about it. We can face whatever the hell this is. We can figure it out.

When I come back.

“Okay.”

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“Fuck no.”

“Nobody in their right mind would be. Here.” He takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and slips it into mine. “Promise you won’t read this until later.”

I wonder if it’s the I’m sorry again. “I promise.”

The door creaks open, and we step away from each other. Stale air rushes into the space between us. I have to keep myself from reaching for him, from pulling him back to me, because it feels so empty without him.

Erin steps into the room, face flushed and eyes wide.

“All right,” she says. “It’s now or never.”

Nick offers me an awkward, perfect smile before he puts up his mask. I smile back, the best I can, and step out into the hall.

The three of us walk to the lobby. I swear the hall lasts forever. My mask is down. My sleeves rolled up. What’s left of my heart beating holy, holy, holy in my throat.

We step inside.

John 8:32.

The truth will set you free.

“Uh,” I say. “Hey, guys.” People turn, confused to hear someone raise their voice in the quiet. Then they realize what they’re seeing, all at once, and the silence could kill.

“Hi again.”



* * *





It’s not enough. All the planning in the world, all of Erin’s reassurance and Nick’s control, and it’s not enough.

The quiet goes on too long. The staring. The terror lodged in my lungs. It’s long enough that I wonder if Seraph is playing tricks on me, more than the feathers at the edges of my sight and the tooth buried in the courtyard. It has frozen this moment and is forcing me to take it all in, to recognize the fear in my friends’ eyes. Cormac reaching for a gun that isn’t by his side anymore. Aisha’s back pressed against the wall, trembling.

I promised I would be good. I should have known it wouldn’t be enough.

It isn’t until Carly audibly whimpers that I realize it isn’t Seraph. It’s just us, what’s left of us, all terrified of one another. Nick puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. I can feel the tension in his fingers, like he’s putting everything he has into this little touch.

“Easy,” he says. I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or everyone else. “Everything’s okay. Benji, go ahead.”

I don’t know what to say. What is there to say at all?

“I, um.” I am a monster standing among the living, a boy made of raw meat and dying flesh. “It’s me.”

Sadaf saves me.

She springs off the floor and runs to me, skirts billowing out in a pastel cloud. Aisha tries to grab her, then Faith, but she slips between their fingers and comes to a stop just inches away. Her soft hands clasp what’s left of my cheeks. Her eyes glimmer.

“I knew it!” she cries in triumph. “I knew something was going on! I didn’t think it could be the Flood, since it was moving too slowly, but I knew it had to be something—oh, are you contagious?” I shake my head. “Didn’t think so. You wouldn’t do that.” My chest twists painfully. She has no idea. “Sarmat, Aisha, come look at this!”