Angel Read online

Page 53

 

  Cully stopped. His hands moved in supplication. “Alex, truly, I thought I was doing the best thing all those years, but I was wrong — we all were. You gotta listen to me, boy. The angels have a plan for us. They love us. We gotta do what they say, so that we’re deserving of their love —”

  Jesus, no. Not angel burn; not Cully. Alex felt sick. “What are you really doing out here?” he interrupted.

  “I live here, like I told you. I’m doing the angels’ work, Alex. ”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Cully shrugged, his hands still up. “There might be a couple of AKs still left outstanding; if they turn up here, I can hold them till the angels come, to show them how they’ve gone astray. And as for right now — boy, every Church of Angels member in the country’s been keeping a lookout for y’all. I’ve been thinking you might turn up here for days. I wouldn’t have budged an inch if I hadn’t been flat out of food and water. ”

  Alex stared at him, his thoughts reeling. A couple of AKs still outstanding? Christ, what had happened to all the rest of them? But he had a terrible feeling that he knew.

  “Who’s left?” he said in a low voice.

  Cully snorted. “No one, probably; I’ve been here for months. Now, I’m begging you, bud: you’ve gotta shoot that thing like they want, before she hurts the angels. Just do it now, and this’ll all be over with. Hell, I’ll even do it for you; just give me the gun. I can tell you’ve got feelings for her —”

  Alex had heard enough. “Come on, Willow. Let’s get out of here. ”

  Standing near the door, Willow seemed frozen, staring at Cully with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. At Alex’s words, she turned toward him — and suddenly Cully reached under his T-shirt and yanked out a pistol, aiming it at Willow. No! Alex fired at the same moment Cully did, their shots echoing through the room like the backfiring of a car. Time slowed, sharpened. Alex heard Willow cry out. Cully staggered and fell backward, his gun clattering to the floor; a red bloom of blood burst from his shoulder.

  Alex sprang across the room; time snapped back to normal speed as he grabbed Cully’s gun. The man was struggling to sit up, grimacing as he clutched his shoulder. “Lemme finish her off!” he gasped out. “By the angels, lemme finish her off!”

  As Alex turned back to Willow, his heart constricted; she was sitting slumped against the wall, her face the color of paper. Blood stained her bare arm, and darkened her lilac T-shirt.

  “Willow!” He was at her side in seconds, trying to shove down the pulsing fear as he scanned her slim figure. “Where were you hit? Are you —?”

  “I’m OK,” she said, her voice trembling. “It’s just my arm. ” She held it out.

  Relief rushed through him, leaving him weak as he saw that the injury was minor. The bullet’s head must have just missed her; its body had trenched into the side of her forearm as she’d put it up to defend herself. The wound was small but deep; it had to hurt like hell.

  He gripped her other arm tightly. “Is that the only place you’re hurt?”

  She nodded, her lips pale. “I think so. ”

  “Then come on, let’s get the hell out of here before his friends show up. ” Helping Willow to her feet, Alex picked up the rifle that she’d dropped. Cully’s cell phone was lying on the floor beside it; he stomped it hard a few times, until the display screen cracked and went blank.

  Cully had staggered to his feet, too. He held on to the back of a chair as he clutched his shoulder; blood twined over his fingers. “Alex, I swear to you — you’re making a big mistake,” he panted.

  His eyes were bright blue, almost as familiar to Alex as his own. A hard pain clenched in Alex’s chest as they regarded each other. Brothers, he had said. The man had been more like a father to him; Alex had looked up to Cully more than anyone he’d ever known.

  “Yeah, I know I am,” he said softly. “I should kill you — the old Cully would have thanked me for it. ”

  WE RAN FOR THE GATES, our footsteps thudding on the baking concrete. With every step, pain burst through my arm; blood was streaming down it in ribbons. I gritted my teeth and shoved the pain aside. I was not going to slow us down.

  A dusty black 4x4 truck sat parked outside the gate beside the Chevy; in the back through its tinted windows, I could just make out stacks of boxes. Alex helped me climb up onto the passenger’s side, his hand strong under my good arm. He grabbed our things from the Chevy, then flung them in the back and jumped into the driver’s seat. A second later, we were roaring off, bouncing and jolting over the rough earth as clouds of dust swirled up behind us. My arm was so bloody now that I could barely see the skin. Closing my eyes, I slumped back in the seat, feeling like I might pass out.

  A few minutes later, the truck stopped. My eyes flew open — and then widened as Alex yanked his white T-shirt over his head. “Give me your arm,” he said. He took out his pocketknife, started a tear in the shirt, then ripped it in half and folded the material into a long strip.

  Shakily, I held my arm out. “What are you doing? Alex, we don’t have time —”

  “We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” he said. “As soon as we’re safely away somewhere, I’ll dig out my first-aid kit. ” Bending over me, he started wrapping the makeshift bandage around my arm. His head was bowed, his dark hair tousled.

  My pulse pounded as I stared down at him. Even through my pain, I had to resist the urge to stroke my fingers through his hair or touch the smoothness of his bare shoulder. His hands as he worked were deft and sure, but so gentle — he was being careful not to hurt me any more than he had to. I sat very still, hardly daring to move.

  I was in love with him.

  The knowledge swept through me, truer than anything I’d ever known. Oh, my God, I was in love with him. And even though we were friends now, he had never said that what I was didn’t matter. How could it not matter to him? He’d been trained to kill angels since he was five years old.

  Alex tucked the end of the shirt in, securing it. The AK on his bicep flexed slightly. “There,” he said.

  I glanced down at my arm, hiding my face. “Thank you,” I said as I touched the soft white cloth. It had the same energy that his T-shirt in the motel room had, that same comforting sense of coming home.

  I could feel his blue-gray eyes on me; I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. Then he started up the truck, and in seconds we were racing through the desert again. After creeping along in the Chevy, the truck was like flying. We came to the dried-out riverbed and rocked across to the other side. Finally we were swinging onto a dirt road, heading north.

  Put it aside, I ordered myself harshly. Yes, I was in love with him. I had been for days, I realized — that moment on the side of the road when I’d wanted to hold him, and last night, when just feeling his fingers in my hair, his closeness, had made me want to faint.

  But it didn’t change anything. He didn’t feel the same way about me; he couldn’t.

  I took a deep breath. “So — what do we do now?” I asked.

  The muscles of Alex’s bare arm moved as he shifted gears. “I don’t know,” he said. “If it’s true that the rest of the AKs are gone, then —” He broke off, shaking his head. “Christ, I really don’t know. ”