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“Don’t.”

I knot my fingers together to keep from reaching out to him again. I feel ill. “You can’t really think that what I said to Azael was true.”

“Is what
he
said true?” His voice is sharp and accusatory.

I can only answer him with silence.

“Was I just an assignment?”

I have no good answer for him. “Michael…”

“Stop.” He looks away from me. “The only thing you
need
me for is a promotion, am I right? Because I’m just a job to you. You needed to convince me to join Hell. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

I shake my head, but he’s not looking at me. “No. No, you know that I’m not here for that. That’s not why I need you. Maybe at first, but—” I see his face darken, “Not anymore. You have to know that.”

He closes his eyes, squeezing them shut and blocking me out.

“Look at me. Michael, look at me!”

He snaps his head towards me and stares down at me unkindly. “The day you trained me… When we were up in the tree, you asked if I would fight for Hell.”

I look at him desperately.

He just shakes his head in disgust. “Well you can tell Azael you’ve done your job. You did your best to persuade me. To
tempt
me. But I’m sorry to say that you’ve failed.”

I drag my teeth across my lip painfully and taste the sharp metallic of my own blood. “The reason I could find you, that first day in the forest, was because you were assigned to me. My bracelet,” I say, holding it up for him to see, “allowed me to find you.”

“The one Azael gave you?” he asks angrily. “Or was that another lie?”

My mouth falls open, and I can’t stop shaking my head.
No. No. No.
“You may have started off as an assignment… But you mean more than that to me.” I search his face and see him slowly fading away from me. “
You are not an assignment.
” I can’t stop repeating myself, but he’s not listening. I need him to hear what I’m saying—to believe me.

“Then what am I to you, if not an assignment?”

I pause and hesitantly place my hand on his arm, but he shakes me off. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. Because he deserves the truth.

“I don’t know anymore either, Penemuel.” He spits out my name so harshly it feels like a slap across the face.

“It’s Pen,” I say weakly, my voice catching.

But he doesn’t correct himself. He just continues to stare at me, setting his mouth in an angry line. Betrayal hardens him into something terrible.

“I had to lie to Azael, Michael.” I’m pleading with him, desperate to break through the wall he is building around himself. I once built a wall of my own, and he was able to reach me. Now I need to reach him. “You know that. He wants to see you dead. He would have killed you himself. You’re not even supposed to be here! It’s the middle of the night. What do you think he would assume if you were here? That I convinced you, at best, or that I…” I trail off. “I lied to protect you—to protect
us
.”

“I don’t think there is an ‘us’ anymore.”

I step back, stung. “Don’t say that.”

“I don’t think there ever really was an us to begin with.” His voice is distant and low, a horrible mixture of despair and fury.

“Please,” I shake my head again, reaching out to him, but he fights me off, pushing me back from him. “You’re not an assignment to me,” I repeat helplessly. “You’re Michael—not an assignment. Do you hear me?”

He flinches but remains quiet, so I go on.

“I will give up everything for you, turn my back on Azael, on Lucifer, on Hell all together. I wanted to tell you tonight that I was going to run away, but I never got the chance. I wanted you…” My voice falters, catching in my throat. “I wanted you to join me. I thought we could start over. That I could be something better than what I am now. Because you showed me that I could be more than this. That my fate isn’t sealed.
You
made that possible.”

He crosses his arms, unmoved.

“Because you gave me hope,” I say, my voice soft and trembling. “I didn’t lie when I said—when I told you that I was falling for you. Michael, you have to believe me!”

“I can’t tell who you’re lying to anymore.” His words slice through me like a knife, the pain nearly doubling me over. I know he can see the agony in my eyes, but this time he doesn’t stop himself. Uncharacteristically, he continues to tear me apart, splitting me open until I am completely exposed. “If it’s me, Azael, or yourself.”

“I’m not lying to you, Michael. Please!” I fight back hot, angry tears and suffocate on my words.

“And to yourself?”

My voice is so small and quiet, I’m surprised he can hear it. “Please believe me.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

Please…

No.

The last thing I see is Michael’s face, hurt and angry, a single tear sliding down his cheek. And then he’s gone, up through the trees and into the sky, flying into the stars until he disappears in their light completely.

I collapse to my knees, the soft ground pressing into my jeans. It feels like there is a hot blade sticking through my stomach, and I am convinced this is what it feels like to be killed by the sword of an archangel. The heat travels outward, burning me up and stealing away my breath. I touch my bracelet and the clear beads are cold and lifeless, like me.

Michael is gone, and I don’t think he’s ever coming back.

Please.

His answer still echoes in my mind.
No.

Chapter 29

I don’t want to move. I don’t want to think. I just want to forget everything. Not only from tonight, but from the first time I saw Michael. But I won’t forget because I can’t forget. Every moment of my life is as clear in my memory as it was the day it happened. This will be no different. Michael will remain seared in my memory.

This is so much worse than my nightmare because it is real. There is no waking up and there is no escaping it. I have to live through this pain and endure it because the curtain of death will not fall on me. It will never fall on me.

I knew his return would mean trouble, but I had no idea of the extent his presence would have on me. I thought he would destroy the order of things, the balance of the worlds. If I had known it would be me he would destroy…

I wouldn’t have thought it possible to experience pain like this. It feels like there’s a hot knife slowly slicing through my chest, and every time I breathe, that knife twists deeper. I’ve read poems and stories about people dying from broken hearts, but they’ve always seen overdramatic. It’s a fallacy that hearts can be broken. Hearts can’t break—they can only be crushed. But I don’t even have a heart to be crushed. So what is this blazing pain that stretches its hot fingers out from my chest, engulfing me in invisible flames?

My chest aches, and I clutch desperately at my amulet, pulling the chain tight around my neck to distract myself. I tug on my hair, bite my cheek, do anything I can to hold back the hot tears that are threatening to escape.

Nothing helps.

I can’t look at the stars. I don’t want to see them shining just as bright as they were earlier tonight. Unchanged, unaffected, unaware. It’s me that has changed, that has been affected, that is aware of what has happened in the last few minutes. But their sameness makes me angry.

How can they remain just as they were? Shouldn’t they look different? When Michael was with me, the stars were beautiful. They should not be just as beautiful in his absence. It isn’t right.

A poem comes flooding back to me, uninvited and unwelcome.

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

The leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

The last line of Frost’s poem echoes in my mind, mocking me. Michael’s gone. His golden hair, crystal eyes, silver wings. Gold, blue, silver.
“Nothing gold can stay.”

I stumble out on the flat rock of the cliff and throw myself over the edge, spreading my wings and flying above the tops of the twisting trees that reach to the sky like they are trying to grab me and pull me back down to Earth. The colorful leaves streak below me, blurring into a muddied hue that makes me sick. I have to keep moving, but more importantly, I have to get away from here. I won’t sit on the ground reliving his goodbye.

I’m not pathetic.

I’m strong.

I’m a demon and this weakness is unacceptable.

This is why you never let yourself feel anything.
I remind myself.
Vulnerability is dangerous
.

***

It’s worse at The Aria. I can’t go anywhere in my room without a reminder of Michael. The shower reminds me of him. The bed smells like him—the pillow still creased where his head laid. Even the small scar on the nightstand from his knife sends a memory searing through my spine, the pain of which forcing me to my knees. I can’t look out of the windows, back at the mountains, and I refuse to look back to the city, where he found me covered in blood, surrounded by five dead men.

Hanging alone in the small, mirrored closet is Michael’s jacket. I forgot he left it here. I drift over to the closet without meaning to and reach out to touch the sleeve. It’s soft and warm, as if he had just been wearing it.

The elbows are worn and the zipper looks broken. The dark brown lining has small blood stains, probably from when he set it over my shoulders the first night he found me. I stare at it for a few minutes, knowing that I should walk away and leave it here. But I can’t. It’s all that’s left of him, and I refuse to leave it alone in this empty hotel room when I leave.

Slowly, I lift the heavy jacket off of the thin hanger and slide the closet doors closed. I fold the jacket between my hands and lift it to my face. The scent of Michael is so powerful I let out a sharp breath. I shove my arms through the sleeves and wrap the thick material around my middle. It’s loose, a few sizes too big, but I don’t mind. It’s as close as I’ll get to being held in his arms again.

Before the memories of the other night overwhelm me and leave me paralyzed, standing in the center of the room, I grab the last of my things, shove the leftovers of room service into my backpack, and hurry out of the room. I take one last look back at the unmade bed as I ease the door closed and leave, down the elevator, through the revolving glass doors, and out into the city streets that are just beginning to become busy with early morning commuters.

I don’t know where I’ll go, but I know I can’t bear to stay here. I have to leave the city, leave behind the streets that are haunted by Michael. I pass the alley he kissed me in and the moment rushes back to me—us next to the dumpster, my back pushed against the bricks. I stop in my tracks.

Angry pedestrians run into me, shoving around me, and I stumble into the now bright alley, tripping over my feet and falling to my knees. Each small breath I take snags on my ribs like I am tearing apart. With effort, I grit my teeth, stand up, and run out of the alley and away from the city.

Keep walking, keep moving, keep going.

I can’t stop, can’t allow myself to relive the small moments we had together. His lips, his hands, his voice, his eyes… If I think about them too long, my feet slow and I freeze, paralyzed just by the memory of him.

When I stop to remember, I’m afraid I’ll never move again. I imagine myself pausing to breathe, to remember, and turning into stone. I’d become a statue, like the marble weeping angels of cemeteries, cracked in sorrow. Maybe they lost someone too and paused just a moment too long to mourn, and now they’re frozen in grief for all eternity.

I won’t let that happen to me. I won’t turn to stone.

Keep walking. Keep moving. Keep going.

The bracelet feels heavy on my wrist, a constant reminder that I’m alone. The farther I go, the heavier it feels, but not once does it feel warm. Michael is not near me, not anywhere close.

You’re alone.

You’re alone.

You’re alone.

My hand feels empty and cold without Michael, my fingers twitching from the memory of his hand laced with mine, and I’m furious. I’m haunted by the thought of him. I hate feeling this loss. I hate the fact that I couldn’t get through to him, and I hate the fact that he couldn’t see that I was telling the truth.

I told him the truth, and he didn’t believe me.

He had less faith in me than I thought he did if he was so easily convinced by the lies I fed to Azael. And I hate him for that.

But I don’t hate him. I can’t, really.

If I were him, would I have been able to believe me?

He woke me up, shook me out of the stupor of shadows I had been living in for so long, and showed me that there was something better waiting for me.

Even as scarred and broken as I was, he found something beautiful within my cracks. For him, I was willing to try. All I had to do was wake up. And I did.