Angel Fever (27 page)

A
LEX AND
I
WENT TO
an empty room on the town hall’s chilly second floor. As soon as he shut the door behind us, I let out a shaky breath and wrapped my arms around him.

“Whatever this is, can it wait just a few minutes?” I said hoarsely against his leather jacket.

His voice was rough too. “Yeah – that’s an excellent idea.” His arms enfolded me; he dropped his head down to my shoulder. I pressed close, listening to his steady heartbeat under my cheek.

“I still can’t believe this,” I said finally. I drew back and wiped my eyes. “Oh god, Alex, to actually have you back again…” I couldn’t finish; I’d start crying for real.

“I know. It must have been—” Alex broke off as he studied me. “You look different,” he said softly. He stroked his knuckle across my cheekbone. “Your face and your eyes.”

I thought of the grief that had lodged in my throat these past twelve months, making it hard to eat, giving me hollowed-out cheekbones. My reflection in the truck’s rear-view mirror on the way here: my eyes showing a year’s worth of pain.

And Alex’s voice when he’d left:
Trust me.

An emotion stirred that I didn’t want to analyze. I pushed it away and tried to smile. “Just another year older, that’s all.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah…I guess that’s it.” He kissed me; I shut my eyes as his warm lips touched mine. Then he sighed and rubbed my arms. “You know, all I want to do is hold you for about the next week, but…”

“I know.” I could sense his apprehension over whatever he had to tell me – and suddenly recalled my premonition that whatever happened in Pawntucket would be especially awful for me. I could have done without remembering that, right then.

There was a metal table with folding chairs; we sat down. Alex took my hand. “See, my dad’s idea was that the energy field in the angels’ world could be used to destroy them,” he said. “Cully thought it was possible, so I had to try it – even though getting there seemed suicidal. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Just imagining the look on your face…”

The look on my face. I thought of this last year again and couldn’t respond.

Alex sat gazing down, playing with my fingers. “Anyway, the blast destroyed the gate, and then I wasn’t able to connect with the energy field anyway – I was just stuck. So I went to Denver to try and find another way back home, and…that’s when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

He took a breath. “Willow, I met your mother in the angels’ world.”

The words slammed into me. My spine jerked away from the seat. “You
what
?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Humans who have severe angel burn are like ghosts there. Their physical bodies still exist here in our world, but their minds just…go wandering with the angels.” He gave a sad smile, his thumb rubbing my palm. “She’s beautiful. She looks just like you. She’s been, like – frozen in time at twenty-one.”

Alex described his encounter with my mother as I sat stunned, drinking in every word. “She asked about you,” he said. “She wanted to know everything. And…she wished she’d been a better mother.”

“She did the best she could,” I said fiercely, swiping at sudden tears. “I always knew that – even as a little girl.”

Alex squeezed my hand hard. “She helped me escape,” he said quietly after a pause. “And, Willow…” He hesitated. “She said
you
could be the one to link to the energy field in the angels’ world.”

I straightened, staring. “Me?”

“You’re half angel, half human. You can straddle the two worlds and use their energy field to destroy them. I’m pretty sure that’s what Paschar’s vision meant.”

Was Paschar’s vision really true, then? I shook my head in a daze. “But, Alex, the immunity to the angels that’s happening here…Jonah thinks
that
has something to do with me too.” Quickly, I told him what Jonah had said. “None of this makes any sense!”

“Maybe it does.”

My hand in his went cold. “How?”

Alex shrugged. “The quakes were the most catastrophic event our world’s ever known – on the ethereal level too. What if, afterwards, humanity started trying to heal itself? Maybe people are unconsciously reaching out to the one thing that could save them from the angels.”

“Me, in other words,” I said in disbelief.

“Yeah, maybe. Except the only ones who can manage it are those who’ve been around you and know what your energy feels like.”

I remembered standing above Pawntucket with Seb – that strange sensation of the whole world straining towards me. “Fine, but that doesn’t explain what it is about
me
that lets them all marshal themselves! Why not Seb?”

Alex’s gaze was level. “Because he’s not the one who could save them. To be able to connect with the angel world’s energy field, you’ll need a link there to ground you, and you’ve got your mother. A piece of her energy is there – you connect to it every time you reach out to her.”

I opened my mouth; at first nothing came out. “So you’re saying that Paschar was right,” I said finally. “I really
am
the one who can destroy them.”

I could sense Alex’s fears for me. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m saying,” he said shortly. “And that means we’ve got to hold the angels back, no matter what. Miranda said that you need to try from Pawntucket – there must be a gate here you can still get through. If the angels destroy it, that’s our last chance gone for ever.”

My brain felt numb. We’d hoped to defeat them so many times. But oh, god, if this was true… I pressed my fingers against my temples. “Did Mom say where the gate was?”

“No, she didn’t get a chance.”

“Well, she didn’t get out much, so…maybe it’s somewhere in Aunt Jo’s house?” The idea was bizarre, but no more so than anything else today.

Alex got up. “Okay, let’s check it out. If we’re lucky, we can find it fast and do this before the angels even get here.” Then he stopped. “Wait, I haven’t had a chance to ask – how are things back at the base?”

My chest went tight. I saw Sam fall again – heard the screams of almost two hundred AKs. The news would devastate Alex. And what good would telling him now do, with thousands of angels about to attack?

I rose too, and ducked my head as I zipped my parka. “They’re all fine.” I glanced up and managed a smile. “We’ve been recruiting new people, training them… Everyone’s fine.”

Alex looked relieved. He touched my hair. “Good. When we have time, I want to hear everything that’s been going on, okay?”

That strange emotion flickered again like a dull flame. Remembering how I’d cried myself to sleep at night in the bed we’d shared, I almost said,
I don’t think you really want to know, Alex.

I swallowed – and instead of speaking, just hugged him hard.

He was alive. That was all that mattered.

At my Aunt Jo’s old house, I was bracing myself for a black, burned-out shell – instead there was only a vacant lot and a driveway that led to nothing. I couldn’t stop staring. It was like no one had ever lived there at all.

We searched the ethereal plane for hours. Nothing – and when I reached out to ask Mom where she’d meant, her energy was as warm and unresponsive as ever. I tried reading Alex too…and though the image of my mother that was in his mind brought tears to my eyes, I didn’t get anything new.

When it became too dark to search, we went and helped with the fortifications. People were working by torchlight, doing everything they could to prepare the houses for the fighters. We pounded in nails and climbed up and down chilly ladders until my limbs felt numb.

Finally, sometime after midnight, Alex gave an order for people to start grabbing food and sleeping in shifts, and we headed back to the school. As Alex drove, he rested one hand on my thigh; the feel of it brought back a thousand memories. I kept glancing over, taking in his strong profile.

I felt that if I stopped looking at him, he’d vanish.

When we got out of the truck, we saw a tired-looking cluster heading towards us: Jonah and Nina, with Seb, Scott and Rachel. “My group will keep making nail bombs in here tonight,” Seb was saying.

“They know how to make them now?” Alex asked sharply. When Seb nodded, he said, “Good – we need you for something else tomorrow. We’ve got to start searching the town at the crack of dawn.”

He explained what he’d found out in the angels’ world – and the mood shifted abruptly to excitement. Jonah’s eyes widened. “You mean we could actually
defeat
them?”

For the past few hours, I’d managed to blank out the fact that the fate of the world apparently depended on me after all. I cleared my throat as we all headed inside the school. “Maybe,” I said. “If I can figure out what to do when we find this place.”

When
– okay, more like
if
. It looked as if the gate between worlds could be anywhere in town. Finding it could take days – and we didn’t have many left. I tried not to think about it.

It was weird being back in the elementary school again after so long, with its bright posters now all in shadow: the school’s single long corridor was lit with Coleman lanterns.

“We don’t turn on the lights at night,” Nina explained. “Just the heat.”

Looking distracted, Rachel tucked back an auburn strand of hair. “The kitchen’s probably the best place for us to make the bombs, once the others get here,” she told Seb.

“Yes, fine,” he said shortly. He turned to Scott. “Will you show me where that is?”

As they headed off, Rachel bit her lip. “Wow, he really doesn’t like me, does he?”

I’d sensed how tightly Seb was holding his emotions in check. “It’s not you,” I said, gazing after him. “You just remind him of someone, that’s all.”

Alex stood studying a bulletin board; he glanced at me. “You’re kidding. He’s finally fallen for Meghan?”

Suddenly I remembered Seb’s lips on mine, only days ago. My cheeks heated – though I wasn’t sure
why;
it wasn’t as if I’d had a clue that my boyfriend was still alive. Remembering why I hadn’t known, that odd emotion stirred again.

“Kind of,” I said, managing a smile.

Then, taking in the weary set of Alex’s shoulders, my heart twisted; everything else faded away. Alex was
here.
It was every dream I’d ever had since I thought he’d died.

I touched his arm, stroking it gently. “You look really tired.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, I am,” he admitted. “I’m about ready to crash, if Seb doesn’t need any help.”

“We’ll let you know if he does,” Jonah said. “Do you want something to eat first? We’ve got canned stuff, or more canned stuff.”

Alex smiled slightly. “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

“I’m not hungry either,” I said – and then realized what that meant: Alex and I would be going to bed now. My heartbeat quickened. Suddenly I felt like I was sixteen again and had never even held hands with a boy.

Nina took my arm. “Come on, I’ll show you where the sleeping bags and stuff are.” As the two of us headed down the corridor, she lowered her voice. “Willow, this is all so weird. Are you okay?”

I looked back at Alex, savouring the sight of him. He stood talking to Jonah and Rachel with his hands stuck in his back pockets – a pose I’d seen him in a thousand times.

“Better than okay,” I said quietly.

Nina shook her head. “It’s so unbelievable. I mean,
I’m
still stunned, and I don’t even know him.” She grinned suddenly. “Oh, and he’s gorgeous, by the way. But then, so’s Seb. Are you just, like, surrounded by hot guys now?”

I rolled my eyes. “Seb and I are just friends, Nina.” But remembering what I’d sensed earlier, a tiny pang struck me. I’d wanted Seb to get over me for two years – but knowing that he actually
had
felt a little strange.

Nina opened up a supply closet and started pulling out sleeping bags and pillows; I moved to help her. “So, you and Jonah, huh?”

Her voice held a smile. “Yeah. For almost a year now. Jonah says he fell in love with me right when we first met – I was so fierce and suspicious, he said. For a long time we were just friends, though. Then when he started doing the Voice of Freedom, we did a lot of travelling together – he has to broadcast from all over, so he won’t get caught – and one day we were broadcasting from the woods, and I looked at him sitting there with the sun shining on his face, his expression so intense…and I just knew.”

A weary-looking group passed on their way to the lunchroom. I smiled automatically as people said, “Hi, Willow,” and “Oh, man, it is so good to have you back!” – and tried to ignore the awe in their eyes.

“I was never this popular in high school,” I muttered to Nina.

She shrugged. “I know, but I guess you’ve become kind of a hero here – you and Alex both. Besides—” She broke off, studying me.

“Besides what?” I said uncomfortably.

“Well…you
are
one, aren’t you? I mean, it’s you who we’re all counting on.”

I had no idea what to say to that. Just then I heard Alex and the others approaching. Nina glanced back and cleared her throat. “Listen, um – if you two want some privacy tonight, no one sleeps in the gym this time of year.”

My lips had gone desert-dry. “Yeah, privacy is probably good.”