Angel Burn (39 page)

She looked up at him, and he saw that she was close to tears. She took a deep breath. “Could you excuse us, please?” she said to Sophie and Nate. Leaning over, she placed the angelica back on the table.

“Yes, of course.” Sophie put the rock in her briefcase and snapped it shut; she and Nate stood up, scraping their chairs back. “We’ll be outside.”

The door shut behind them; Alex hardly heard it. “You can’t do this,” he said, still clutching Willow’s arms. “You can’t. Tell me that you’re not serious.”

She was pale. “Alex, I  . . .  I just don’t see that I have a choice.”

“Weren’t you
listening
? Willow, they think the gate will blow you apart; they don’t even know whether you can close it or not!”

Very slowly, she nodded. “I know,” she said.

Sudden fury gripped him; his voice rose, ringing around the tiny cabin. “You cannot seriously be considering this! Have you gone completely insane? Do you want to just throw your life away? Is that your plan?”

A tear streaked onto her cheek, but when she spoke, her tone was almost steady. “What else can I do — go to Mexico with you and ignore all of this? How could I live with myself, knowing that maybe I could have stopped the angels forever and I didn’t even try?”

“Willow, this
isn’t the way.
All this is going to do is kill you! Look, we’ll find a way to fight them; we’ll —”

He was holding her arms too tightly; she pulled away, her face agonized. “Of course this is the way! This is what it all
means
 —
 
don’t you see? My premonition last night, and Paschar’s vision — I’m the only one who can stop them. This is how I have to do it!”

Terror that she was right turned his veins to ice. “No. You are not doing this; I’m not letting you.”

Her expression was so torn, so full of sorrow and love for him. “Alex, if there’s even just a chance that I can stop the angels, then I have to try. You’ve fought them your whole life; you must understand —”

“Not like this!”
he shouted. “This is suicide; they can’t even tell you if it’s going to work or not! Does throwing your life away really sound that good to you?”

“It’s not like I
want
to do it!” she cried, her eyes bright with tears. “All I want is to be with you and for things to be like they have been!”

“Then
do
that,” he said. He gripped her hands hard. “Willow, please — you don’t have to do this —”

She ducked her head, her mouth twisting against tears. The pendant that he’d given her had worked its way out from under her sweater. Letting go of his hand, she reached up and touched the crystal, stroking its facets. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Without looking at him, she rose from the bed and moved stiffly to the table. She started to tuck the clothes that she’d left out for the day’s journey into her bag.

“No!”
Alex leaped up, grabbed them away from her. “No. Willow, no — you are
not
doing this, you’re not —”

“I have to!”
she burst out, spinning toward him. “Don’t you
get
it? I don’t have a choice!”

She was actually going to do it — this thing that would kill her.

The world pounded in Alex’s ears as he stared at her. All at once his chest felt tight; he could hardly breathe. Oh, God, no. Not again, not someone else he loved. Why had he allowed himself to believe that this time might be different? How could he have been so
stupid
?

“OK, so I guess you’ve decided,” he said finally.

“Alex, I — I could never live with myself otherwise,” she said in a tiny voice. “I’d see my mother’s face every day for the rest of my life, and — and what about Beth and your family —?” She broke off with a sob, covering her tear-streaked face with her hand.

He wanted so badly to comfort her. Instead he found himself glaring, almost trembling with anger. “Don’t bring my family into this. If you’re going to kill yourself, do it for your own reasons.” He shoved the clothes at her.

Willow gulped; her hands were unsteady as she put the clothes away in her bag. “Alex,
please
understand. How could you and I ever have anything good together, if I walked away from this? I feel like it would — would poison things between us; we’d always know that —”

He wouldn’t have thought it possible that he could hate her, but right then it felt close to it. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you
dare
say that you’re doing this for us,” he interrupted, his voice shaking. “There won’t be any us after you do this.” Her bag wasn’t fastened; roughly, he reached over and tied it shut, then thrust it at her. “Just — go,” he said. “Go on. They’re waiting for you.”

Swallowing hard, she clutched the bag to her chest. “Will — will you come?” she asked faintly.

Her eyes. Her face.

The words felt like ground glass in his throat. “No, thanks. I’ve seen enough people I care about die.”

Her face crumpled. She looked away, her mouth trembling. “I — I guess I’d better go, then.”

“Yeah, I guess you’d better.”

Slowly, Willow started for the door, then stopped and flew back to him, hugging him tightly. “I love you,” she said as she started to sob. “Alex, please. Please don’t let it end like this.”

He ached to hold her. He couldn’t do it; he was frozen. “Just go,” he said through clenched teeth.

Willow pulled away, gazing up into his face. Her green eyes were stricken. “I know you don’t mean this,” she whispered. “I love you, Alex. I’ll always love you.” He stood unmoving as she kissed him; he could taste her tears. She turned and ran for the door.

Then she was gone.

As if from a great distance, Alex heard the sound of voices from outside, then footsteps moving away. Silence. He stood alone in the center of the room, his muscles quivering. Abruptly, he picked up one of the chairs and hurled it across the cabin, sending it crashing against the wall. Sinking down onto the edge of the table, he shoved his hands through his hair, breathing hard. Around him were the still-rumpled sleeping bags where they’d slept the night before, his black nylon bag, packed with both their clothes. Willow’s purple Converse sneakers still lay in the corner, one of them on its side. What had happened? What had just happened? For several minutes Alex sat clutching his head, emotions crashing through him so violently that it felt like they’d tear him apart.

He heard the helicopter start up.

His head jerked up as the sound roared through him, spiking his pulse with sudden clarity. Willow was in the helicopter. She was about to fly away from him — he’d probably never see her again. He was on his feet so fast that the table scraped against the floor. Lunging out of the cabin, he ran across the small clearing, skidded his way down the deer path.

“Willow!” he shouted.
“Willow!”

The blades thudded in his ears as he burst out into the open. The helicopter had already taken off; it was swinging away over the valley. Alex sprinted after it, jogging to a stop as the wind stirred his hair. It was growing smaller; he couldn’t even see its occupants through the tinted windows. Knowing it was hopeless, he put his hands to his mouth anyway. “WILLOW!”

The helicopter kept going. As he watched, it moved away over the mountains, until it became a dark flyspeck and then vanished from sight, taking his heart with it.

Alex stared after it, shaking. Oh, God. Oh, God, what had he done? Willow had most likely gone off to her death, and he’d actually told her to
leave
? He hadn’t held her; he hadn’t even told her how much he loved her.

He had let her go alone.

“No,” he said out loud. No, this wasn’t going to happen. This seriously wasn’t going to happen; it wasn’t going to end like this. If she had to do this thing, fine, but she wasn’t going to do it alone, thinking that he hated her. He’d be there — to either help her or die with her, he didn’t care which, as long as he didn’t have to live the rest of his life without her.

Denver by six o’clock tomorrow night. He could make it if he drove nonstop.

Running back to the cabin, Alex hurriedly changed from sweatpants into jeans and threw on his jacket. He grabbed his wallet, the keys to the truck, his pistol and fresh cartridges. He was back in the rocky valley minutes later, flinging himself into the driver’s seat of the truck and starting up the engine. Spinning the wheel, he lurched out of the valley and started down the slope.

This wasn’t going to be like with Jake. He wasn’t going to let down someone else he loved.

FOR A LONG TIME in the helicopter, nobody said anything. Nate sat up front with the pilot, a man wearing sunglasses whose name I didn’t catch, and Sophie sat in the back with me. I was still clutching my bag, staring down at it, my throat so tight that I couldn’t have spoken if I tried. The look on Alex’s face as he told me to leave  . . .  my shoulders hunched as I held back a sob. When we’d first flown away, I could actually feel my heart breaking, splintering to pieces inside my chest. I couldn’t even be angry with him for not understanding — I
knew
what this was doing to him. I wanted so badly to tell Sophie and Nate to turn the helicopter around, so that I could go running back to Alex — throw my arms around him, tell him that I’d changed my mind; I wasn’t going to do this after all.

But I couldn’t.

Below us, the mountains were slowly flattening, turning to desert plains. “I’m sorry,” said Sophie, leaning toward me to be heard above the blades. “The two of you are  . . .  together, aren’t you?” I nodded, wondering if it was still true, and felt tears start to escape. Rummaging quickly in her bag, Sophie handed me a tissue. “You’re doing the right thing, Willow,” she said. “This is our only chance to stop the angels — we’re incredibly grateful to you. I know it must be awful.”

I wiped my cheek with the tissue. “I don’t have a choice,” I got out. “If I had a choice  . . . ” I couldn’t finish. Oh, God, Alex and I would be together right now, on our way down to Mexico. My pendant flashed against my sweater; it hurt to even look at it. Sophie stopped talking then, and I was glad of it. Dropping my head back on the seat, I stared at the blurred, watery plains.

A few hours later, we landed in Colorado, at a small, private airport outside of Denver. My legs were stiff as I climbed out of the helicopter; my ears still thudding from the incessant noise. I could see the Rocky Mountains in the distance, their peaks capped with snow. I looked away. I didn’t think I could ever look at a mountain again without hurting.

Nate and Sophie walked me across the pavement, where a car with tinted windows sat waiting for us. I felt like I might fly apart into little pieces, but I knew that I had to at least try to act normal, or else I would just collapse. I cleared my throat. “I thought you were the only two left on Project Angel.”

“We’re being sheltered by another department,” explained Nate. “They don’t know the details, just that we have high-security clearance and our mission’s been compromised.”

He opened the door for me as we reached the car, and I slid into the back, onto soft black leather seats. It reminded me of Alex’s Porsche. Everything around me reminded me of Alex. Nate got in front with the driver; a glass panel separated front from back. I sat tensely with Sophie beside me, hugging my bag and watching as the airport glided away. Soon we were on a highway with green fields to either side, the mountains rising beyond.

Suddenly I looked over at Sophie. “Do you know what’s been happening back in Pawtucket? Is my mom OK?”

I could sense her relief at being able to tell me something good. “Your mom’s fine,” she said. “So’s your aunt.”

My muscles sagged. “Really? They’re OK?”

“Really. I promise.”

Oh, thank God. I let out a deep breath and felt the painful tightness in my chest ease slightly. My mom was all right. She was really all right. “What happened after I left?” I asked.

Sophie took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, then rolled the window down a few inches. “The Church of Angels influenced the police investigation into your disappearance,” she said, leaning back and blowing out a puff of smoke. “It was closed after only a day or two. Basically, there were a hundred witnesses who said that you ran off with a boyfriend — that you were seen loading a suitcase into his car and kissing him.”

I stared as her words sank in. No wonder Aunt Jo’s vibes had seemed so irritated every time I tried to pick up on them. “But my friend Nina knew that wasn’t true. Didn’t she tell them?”

Sophie smiled. Taking an iPhone out of her bag, she tapped something into it and then handed it to me. I gazed down at the small screen. It had Twitter on it, with a post from Nina:
WILLOW FIELDS DID NOT HAVE A BOYFRIEND, END OF STORY! Doesn’t anyone actually CARE that my friend has vanished?

Oh, Nina. I touched the phone as sadness swept through me.

“No one’s listening to her,” said Sophie, taking it back. “From what I’ve heard, your classmates back at Pawtucket High prefer the secret boyfriend story — and there are enough Church members in the Schenectady police force to ensure that no one’s going to look into things further.” She put the phone back into her bag. “It’s probably what’s saved her life so far, to be honest.”