Beloved Purgatory (Fallen Angels, Book 2) (24 page)

Kiss me
. I'd wanted him to do just that so
badly. He'd wanted to so badly. So why hadn't we?

Something behind him glowed.

Oh yeah. The angel.

Who was still in the corner.

Staring at us.

Oz followed my gaze and groaned. "Camael, you're
upsetting Devi."

For some reason, the angel thought the appropriate
response to that was to keep staring.

Oz pushed himself away from me and ran his fingers
through his hair. "What you're doing right now is actually kind of
what I was referring to."

Camael kept staring.

I pulled on one of the dinosaur arms around Oz's
waist. "Why don't you and I go into my room? The angel can stay
here." And stare at the sink. Or the table. Or anything that isn't
me when I'm about to kiss my boyfriend.

Camael's delicate glowing suddenly went supernova as
he burst into the center of the kitchen. "I can't stay in the
closet?"

My eyes bulged out of my head. "You'd rather be in
the closet than in here?"

"I should be near you, Devi."

He stood with his shoulders back. The fragile angle
of his jaw line was as rigid as it always was. It made him look
untouchable--no, immobile, especially when he spoke in that clear,
simple voice. It was as if he truly didn't understand why I'd think
he'd find a spacious kitchen more comfortable than a closet.

Oh God, why was this happening? With a whimper, I
shoved my face into Oz's shoulder.

"I'll help you with your math homework," the angel
continued.

What? My head whipped around. "You can do that?"

Oz wrapped an arm around my stomach. "Hey, you can't
do homework during sexy time."

I scrunched up my face. "Sexy time?"

Oz bit his lip. "Did referring to it as 'sexy time'
just ruin sexy time?"

I giggled. How could I not? "I don't know, 'sexy
time' sounds fun. Still, I actually do need help with my math
homework." I ran my fingers up his bicep. "If you want, you and I
could study..."

The angel glared at Oz. "Do you know Pre-Calc?"

"Of course he does!" I shot back. "Oz is really
old."

Oz sighed and rubbed his temple with his free claw.
"Thanks, Devi."

The angel did what he was best at--stare. Thankfully
he focused on Oz instead of me. Amazingly, Oz ignored it.

He let go of me. "Why don't you take a shower and
meet me back in your room?"

"Sure," I said. "But you need to change. No studying
or sexy time in your dinosaur suit."

The black had drained from his eyes, leaving only
that vibrant, shimmering emerald color. His expression was
bittersweet--the haziness of his eyes, the slow manner in which his
lips curled into a smile. For a moment, it didn't feel like he
really saw me. Even though I stood less than two feet from him, he
seemed to be conjuring my image from memory.

"You're not allowed to comment on the clothes I
choose, then," he said. "I'll see you in a few."

***

Oz and Camael only had to wait ten minutes. The
average time I spent in the shower had gone way down ever since I
learned angels could be--and actually had been--watching.

I kicked open the door, saw Oz sitting
criss-cross-applesauce style in the middle of my room, and
laughed.

It didn't matter that I had Kool-Aid stains on my
hairline and half my face, or that I'd probably be wiping off black
eyeliner for the next five days. Oz looked insanely ridiculous in
my largest pair of neon green sweat pants and my gigantic
Church
of Elvis
t-shirt, which was even too big on him.

He frowned. "Hey."

I grinned. "I'm not saying anything, but I think you
should know that I have some star-shaped sunglasses in my desk.
They're bright orange."

"Not gonna do it. It would clash with my pants," he
said, scooting over to make room between him and the pile of clean,
unfolded laundry I'd dropped on the floor.

Camael squatted in front of us and handed out two
notebooks and two freshly sharpened no. 2 pencils. Then we got to
work.

Honestly, it didn't go too well for me.

The angel tried to reassure me. "Just take your time,
Devi."

I groaned. "I don't even know what those symbols
mean. Have we even gone over them yet in class? Oz, help me."

Oz grinned and plopped his head down on my shoulder.
"Just add them all up and don't worry about the symbols, then."

I shoved him off. "That's the worst math advice I've
ever received. Do you really not know how to do this?"

He tapped his pencil on the corner of my paper. "Sure
I do." He bit his lip. "Maybe."

I raised my eyebrows.

"That's what I would do at least," he finished.

"That's not how you do it," Camael said, and pointed
at the formula again. It was probably the closest he'd ever come to
showing irritation.

"Oz, I can't believe you don't know how to do this
when you're so old."

Oz fell back and groaned. "I can't believe you keep
calling me old."

"But you are. Would you rather I call you ancient
instead?" I picked up one of the claw mittens and set it on his
lap. "Wait, you were actually around when dinosaurs roamed the
earth, weren't you? Is that why you dressed up like one
tonight?"

Oz's lips curled into the most pitiful smile I'd ever
seen. "Fine, I'll answer your first question. I don't know Pre-Calc
because I've never needed it."

"I guess you've never needed to know how to divide
either, apparently, because whatever you did earlier was totally
not how you divide."

Oz frowned. "How do you know that's not how you
divide?"

"How do you run a bookstore?" I shot back.

"Not very well," he grinned. "You should learn how to
divide and come help me."

My pulse skipped. Was he putting moves on me at a
time like this? If I didn't watch it, I'd start laughing again.
Nothing good would come of that--not when he kept flashing me
smoldering gazes and butchering basic arithmetic.

"I can't believe this," I muttered in the most
disapproving tone I could muster. "And before you say anything
else, let me just guess what it will be. The only kind of math
you've ever needed to do is 1+1=2, right? Sexy time math."

He wiggled his eyebrows. "Or the number can be higher
than two."

I squealed and chucked my math textbook at him.
"
That
just ruined sexy time for me."

I would have chastised him more, but a calming,
melodic voice stopped me.

"Devi."

I jumped, smashing my shoulder against my
mattress.

And then I saw the angel.

That's right, he was still there. Of course he would
be. It's not like he could go anywhere else. But that meant he'd
listened to me talk on and on about sexy time math while ignoring
his attempts to teach me real math.

Camael picked my book off the floor and flipped back
open to the page we'd been on. "You must focus if you're going to
remember this. It will probably be on your SAT tomorrow."

I scooted forward. "How do you know what will be on
the SAT?"

Camael didn't look up from the book. "There were
similar questions on the practice test your teacher handed out
about a month ago."

I grabbed his sleeve. "Wait, you remember what was on
my practice test a month ago?"

"Yes." His voice was softer. Though he remained
completely still, he wouldn't look at me.

Oz began to fidget.

I ignored the demon. "Why do you know so much about
math?"

"I don't think you want to know the answer to that,"
Oz murmured near my ear. It was the tone he used whenever he told
me not to worry--like when I learned I was destined to kill
him.

My eyes narrowed. "Why wouldn't I want to know?"

"Because it's going to depress you," Oz replied.

I glared at the statuesque figure before me. "Is that
true, angel?"

He still wouldn't look at me. What the Hell was going
on? My fist curled around his sleeve. "Look, I want to know. Do
angels do math or something?"

"No," Camael answered softly.

"Then how do you know all this stuff?" I
demanded.

"From your classes," Camael replied.

A chill sliced through me. "You pay attention during
my classes?"

The angel nodded, and I caught a glimpse of his eyes
beneath the strands of gold hair that had fallen over his
forehead.

I let go of him. When I was little, I used to watch
the horizon long after the sun had set. I remembered the wind on my
cheeks as I stared at that cold, twilight blue. His eyes reminded
me of those final glimpses of color before the sky went black--they
were just as beautiful, and filled with longing.

"I remember everything I've heard," he said.

"Oh," I whispered.

And then implications of what he'd said sunk in.

He'd seen my teachers lecture me on how to hold my
pencil correctly for more than two years. He'd listened to Kai test
me on my multiplication tables for hours. He'd watched me cheat on
my second grade spelling tests by peeking at that little sheet of
paper in my desk that I'd carefully copied the words on. He'd known
I hadn't been careful enough, because I never got above a B.

He had to watch. Everything. He could never look
away--not when he was bored, or when I'd done something so stupid
it must have been painful to stand beside me silently.

I stared into his impassive face, waiting for
something--anything--but he didn't even know enough to loathe that
kind of existence.
That's alright
, I thought, blinking
frantically.
I hate it enough for both of us.

Oz hugged me. "I told you it would depress you."

That's right. Oz is here.
Don't think about the
angel.

I leaned back into him. "Why don't you remember what
you've been told then, too? You've been to a few of my
classes."

My towel slipped off my head. Oz caught it and held
it away from my shirt so it wouldn't get wet. "Yeah, but I was only
paying attention to you."

The angel pushed the book at me. It bumped my knee.
"Devi is human," Camael began. "If she doesn't do these things, she
will have difficulty finding her place in the human world."

I sighed. I hated how the angel always spoke about me
as if I wasn't in the room. "I think Oz and I will be able to
figure something out."

"And what will happen when he's no longer here?"
Camael asked.

"What do you mean if Oz leaves?" My right hand
flexed. My pencil split in two.

Camael reached for me. "Devi, you're going to
hurt--"

"Stop." I threw what was left of my pencil at him.
"Answer me. What do you mean when he's no longer here?"

Camael picked up the broken pencil. He didn't say
anything. Oz didn't, either. And, in all honesty, neither of them
needed to because I already knew.

They believed I would kill Azazel someday.

Oz put his hand on my shoulder, then started to rub
my back in small circles. I curled my hands into fists to keep
myself from slapping him away. The fact that he felt like he needed
to comfort me when I was the one who had messed up his life was too
much.

"We've had enough math for today," Oz said softly.
"Besides, if you're really going to take that test tomorrow, you
need some sleep."

I stared at the floor, cheeks hot. I couldn't look at
either of them.

"That means you go back in the closet," Oz told the
angel gleefully, not even trying to hide the fact that he loved
that idea.

Camael closed the textbook. I turned away so I
wouldn't have to look at his white, perfect hands, and smacked
right into puff paint Elvis.

Luckily, it didn't look like Elvis minded. His
bloated lime green face, surrounded by fiesta-style party squares
and squiggly lines, suggested that he'd already transmuted so much
water into wine that he'd be down with anything.

"Will you stay?" I asked.

"As long as you want me to," Oz said.

The two of us crawled onto my bed, and the angel,
silently, disappeared into the closet.

***

We pulled the blankets over our heads and lay beside
each other, face to face. For a long time we didn't speak.

Then, I grabbed his hand. "I need to tell you
something."

Oz's body stiffened. "What?"

My resolve faltered. I clutched him harder, until I
felt the muscles in his hand straining.

"Devi, please tell me."

My feet began to shake, which made the bed shake too.
"It's about the angel. It's something that happened with the
angel."

A long pause, then: "What happened?"

Tension radiated off of him. It bled into my own,
causing nausea to rise in my throat. "It's about the angel," I
croaked.

"Yes?"

Just say it, Devi. Even if he hates you, making
him wait like this is cruel, and keeping it from him is
unforgivable
. I took a deep breath, then blurted out: "The
angel healed me the other day."

For a moment he said nothing. It wasn't until he
spoke that I realized he'd been holding his breath. "And?"

"And I liked it," I admitted.

Oz exhaled. "Is that it?"

"What do you mean 'is that it'? I liked it, Oz, and I
shouldn't have. I shouldn't like anything that has to do with that
light. It shouldn't make me feel complete--"

He wrapped his arms around me.

"I betrayed you," I whispered into his chest, and the
puff paint they used to outline Elvis scratched my lips.

"You didn't betray me."

"Yes I did. You don't understand. I didn't want him
to ever stop. I wanted to stay in his arms forever. It was so..." I
couldn't continue. I shut my eyes and curled into his shoulder,
trying to push the memory of the light out.

His fingers ran through my hair. "It was beautiful,
wasn't it? It drowned out everything except that glimpse of God's
perfection that no being other than He can achieve. And the more
you looked at it, the more you longed for it."