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“Yeah. ” Kara swallowed hard. “I told them you were all dead, killed in the Mexico City quake. It was true, for all I knew – I just didn’t want them to get anything about the base here, no matter what. Finally they started on more…physical methods. ”
Alex’s fist was still tight. With his other hand, he gently touched Kara’s bruised cheek. “This?”
Without the dramatic make-up she used to wear, her beaten face looked young and exposed. “No, that was after I escaped – there was a bandit I stole the truck from. He didn’t want to give it up, but I was pretty desperate – believe me, I gave as good as I got. The angels are…subtler than that. You don’t want to know, okay?”
Taking in the slight quiver of her mouth, Alex knew she was probably right. With a bitter anger, he longed to destroy every angel who’d touched her.
“Anyway, they’ll be pissed off that I escaped,” Kara said, triumph clear in her tone. “Since they couldn’t get anything from me, they were going to use me at the Salt Lake Eden founding celebration. Like, look who we caught! What do you think we should do with her, oh noble Salt Lake Eden people?”
Alex could just imagine: it would have been like a scene from ancient Rome, with them tossing Kara to the Church of Angels’ lions. A silence stretched out between them. From the clock on the wall, Alex saw that it was after two in the morning.
“How did you get away?” he asked.
She shook her head; he could see how exhausted she was. “It doesn’t matter – it was while they were transporting me to Salt Lake Eden. But, Alex, listen: there’s something I haven’t told you. ” She groped for his hand again; he enfolded hers in his own.
“What?” he urged.
Kara shut her good eye for a moment; finally she opened it again. “Before they put me in the hospital, I managed to get out of A1 a few times and tried to escape – once I made it as far as the lowest sector in the city, where they keep people who are in really bad shape. And, Alex – Cully was there. I was with him when he died. He knew something. ”
AT THE NAME OF HIS old mentor, Alex straightened slowly. Cully had been the best Angel Killer he’d ever known – practically a father to him. The news that Cully’s angel burn had finally killed him was almost a relief; Cull would have hated what he’d become.
“What do you mean, ‘he knew something’?” Alex asked.
Kara fumbled in her jeans pocket and produced a cellphone. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “I managed to hide it. Have you got a charger?”
The phone was identical to Alex’s – he’d bought them both the previous December. “Yeah, I’ve got one,” he said, staring down at the silver case. “What’s on it? A video?”
Kara nodded, her gaze sorrowful. She knew what Cully had meant to him. “He was ranting pretty badly, and he kept mentioning you. Alex, he was worried – he kept saying, ‘We can’t let him figure it out’. ”
Alex tucked the phone into his own pocket. Obviously, Cully had realized the deaths of a few angels could destroy them all. Don’t worry, Cull; I screwed that one up good, he thought. The angels are totally safe now, for ever.
“You think you know what it is,” Kara said, watching him.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “And it’s all over. ” He told her what had happened. The words tasted bitter.
Kara swallowed but thankfully didn’t comment. “I don’t know, Al…what Cully was saying didn’t seem related to the angels being linked or not. He kept talking about Martin too. ”
Alex frowned. “Dad?”
“Yeah. Something about an idea that Martin had had… I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Just watch. Maybe it’ll help, somehow. ” Her eyes fluttered closed then, her bruised face gaunt.
Frankly, Alex doubted it – his dad had been pretty out of it those last few years before he died. He sat studying Kara for a long moment, his emotions jumbled.
“Listen to me,” he said finally. “If you’re staying, then I don’t want to hear a single word about Willow and Seb. They’re part of the team – end of story. ”
Her good eye reluctantly opened. “I know,” she said after a pause. “It’s just a gut reaction; I can’t help it. But I’ll keep it to myself. ”
Alex realized that was probably the best he was going to get from her. Maybe when what she’d been through had faded a little, she’d come around. Unfortunately, she had all the time in the world to do so now, with no end to any of this in sight.
He rose. “Get some sleep, okay?”
Kara lay watching him, her muscles tense. “You’ll watch the video?”
“Yeah, I’ll watch it. ” At the door, Alex paused. “Hey – I’m really glad you made it,” he said.
Kara’s smile was a ghost of smiles he remembered. “Me too. ”
The temptation to go crawl into bed beside Willow, forgetting the whole world as he drew her into his arms, was almost overwhelming. The weight of the phone in his jeans pocket wouldn’t let him do it.
Alex headed for the comms room instead, where he’d stowed all their old phones in a cabinet. After he’d plugged in Kara’s cell, he sat with his thumb hesitating over the buttons. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Cully near death. At least the last time he’d encountered Cull, the man had looked in perfect health, even if he was feverishly devoted to the angels.
Finally Alex started the video. The quality was grainy; Cully was lying on a cot in what looked like a crowded warehouse, packed with other sick people.
Alex grimaced, unsurprised that this was how the angels treated their followers when they neared death. He wouldn’t have recognized the spindly man on the cot – until he saw Cully’s eyes: the vivid blue of a Georgia sky.
Kara’s voice was just audible. “Hey, I didn’t catch all that, Cull. Can you tell me again, straight from the top?”
Cully was turning his head restlessly. His voice was still deep, with a southern resonance. “You’ve got to stop Alex from doing it – you’ve got to. He’s smart; he’ll figure it out…”
And then Alex stopped noticing anything except the words Cully was saying. The video was just over a minute long. When it finished, he slumped back against the office chair. His heart clubbed against his ribs as he stared down at the phone.
Jesus. No way. This could not be true; there was just no way.
Finally, in a daze, he reached for the phone and hit the Play button once more. As Cully’s monologue filled the small room again, Alex wasn’t surprised that Kara hadn’t understood what he was talking about – it was all half-finished phrases, allusions to things that only Alex and his brother, Jake, had known. Along with their dad, whose insane idea it had been to start with.
But if what Cully had said was true…maybe it wasn’t so insane after all.
Alex listened tautly. Cull’s voice was clear, despite the background noise of groans and people talking. “It can be done, like Martin always said. I took over where he left off, back at the camp. I had to. Couldn’t help myself; I didn’t care what might happen. Took me so long, and I got so close – then I got sick and ended up here. ”