Immortal City

  “You did.”

  Maddy looked down at the plate again, her mouth flooding with water. Scrambled eggs with seared peppers and onions. It was her favorite dish at the diner.

  They sat in one of the booths in the back, the customers having thinned enough that Kevin could hang up his apron for five minutes.

  “Thanks again,” Maddy said as she scooped another forkful of egg into her mouth. “You didn’t have to cook for me.”

  Kevin shrugged as he glanced out the window. He took a sip of coffee. “Sometimes I still can’t believe you’re a senior, and that you’ll be graduating in the spring. You’ve always been my little Mads, but you’re not little anymore. My niece has grown up into a smart and beautiful young woman.”

  Maddy blushed and looked down, fiddling with her fork. She wondered why she could never stand to have anyone compliment her looks. She didn’t think she was unattractive, but as a realist, she knew she was average. She had shoulder-length brown hair, brownish-green eyes, and a normal, if slender, body. The only makeup she had were some things that her best friend, Gwen, had given her for her birthday, and she almost never used the stuff. Gwen also launched an exasperating campaign every six months or so to get her to dress “cuter,” which Maddy always evaded—she didn’t care about all that. She had to work the morning shift, get good grades, and maybe, just maybe, get into college on a scholarship. No time for clothes and makeup—or boys.

  But if she was honest, part of it was that if she even began to think about what would happen if she put on makeup and dressed “cuter”—about the attention she would get, or maybe worse, the attention she wouldn’t get—her stomach flipped in anxiety. So she mostly just hid behind her gray hoodie and her iPod earbuds. It seemed easier that way.

  “I want you to know I’m proud of you,” Kevin went on, “and your parents would be proud of you too.” Maddy paused, another bite of egg poised in front of her mouth. Kevin rarely mentioned her parents. They had both been killed in an accident when Maddy was a baby. Kevin was a kind man, and a good man, but if she was being honest with herself, she missed having parents. She missed their role in her life, and she missed them, even though she had no memories, no recollection to hold onto at all.

  Kevin was still talking. “I know it hasn’t always been easy in our little family. I know working at the diner isn’t your favorite—”

  “It’s fine, Kevin,” Maddy interrupted, feeling guilty.

  “It’s no dream job, I know. But I want you to know that I really appreciate your help.” Maddy smiled at him over her cup. “And besides,” he went on, brightening, “I think our luck is due to change this year. I really do. Just you watch, Maddy, this place is finally going to take off!”

  Maddy’s gaze drifted out the back window, out once again to the view of the famous sign on the hill. Giant white letters, fifty feet high, spelled out the iconic words ANGEL CITY. To everyone else the sign was a symbol of glamour, an icon of the Angels’ wealth and power. Maddy just couldn’t bring herself to care. Housing was actually pretty cheap up on this side of town, and all the sign really meant was that she had to endure those annoying Angel Tours tourist buses coughing blue exhaust on her walks to and from school. People all over the world would kill for a chance to live in the middle of the action—in the glorious Immortal City—but as far as Maddy Montgomery was concerned, she couldn’t wait to get out.

  Suddenly Maddy realized her uncle was staring at her.

  “I’m sorry?” Maddy asked.

  “Our luck, Maddy,” Kevin said, “I feel like it’s finally going to change.”

  “Right. Me too,” Maddy said, and tried her best to believe him.

  The door jingled as more customers came in. It was starting to get busy again.

  “I better get back to it,” Kevin said, “But have a great day at school, okay?” Maddy nodded, and Kevin rose and left. After he had gone, her eyes fell once again on the view out the window and the famous sign. Maybe her uncle was right. She was a senior now, and next year hopefully meant college. Maybe things were looking up for her.

  Then, realizing she was about to be late for school, she ran to the back to change.

  • • •

  The walk to school took Maddy down Vine Street and through the heart of Angel City. She passed under the towering billboards of Angels selling jewelry, sunglasses, designer handbags, and luxury cars. Half-naked Immortal bodies were the alluring backdrop for labels like Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Christian Dior. Maddy only casually glanced up at them. She had never had fancy things, not that she was complaining. Most of her clothes were from Target or were secondhand, and she didn’t own any jewelry, or even a proper handbag for that matter. She was also one of the only seniors without a car, and if you didn’t drive in Angel City, you didn’t exist.

  Listening to her iPod shuffle, Maddy barely noticed as she turned onto Angel Boulevard and strode down the famous Walk of Angels. She unconsciously stepped over the names bronzed in the sidewalk, the names of the most famous Guardian Angels placed in stars to be forever celebrated. She passed the souvenir shops selling little plastic Angel statues, fake wings, and T-shirts with slogans like SAVE ME! on them. She wove her way through the wide-eyed tourists looking around excitedly, hoping to catch even a glimpse of a flawless Immortal. Eyeing them, Maddy wondered if there was something wrong with her. Why couldn’t she bring herself to care about what the rest of the world seemed to be so obsessed with? What were they seeing that she seemed to be missing?

  Suddenly Maddy had to stop herself from crashing into a throng of excited tourists blocking the sidewalk. They had gathered around a shiny new star with no name on it—the star of a soon-to-be Guardian Angel. A couple girls let out screams of delight as they posed for a picture next to it.

  “What’s going on?” Maddy asked.

  “Don’t you know?” a woman replied. “That’s Jackson Godspeed’s star! He’s being Commissioned this week!”

  This Angel, of course, Maddy had heard of—everyone had. He was the hottest, wealthiest, and most eligible young Angel in Angel City, or so she had been told. To Gwen and millions of other screaming fans, he wasn’t just an Angel. He was a god. Tourists held their cell phones high, taking video of the star and chatting excitedly as Maddy squeezed through the crowd. How can you get so worked up over a sidewalk? she thought.

  While waiting for the light to change at Highland Avenue, she didn’t even glance up at the screens breathlessly reporting a “MIRACULOUS LATE-NIGHT SAVE IN TWO-CAR COLLISION IN MALIBU. WE’VE GOT AN EXCLUSIVE WITH THE PROTECTION—ANGEL CITY’S NEWEST CELEBRITY, BRAD LOFTIN!” After a moment she crossed the street, dodging a shiny new Mercedes that had no intention of slowing for her, and hurried the remaining three blocks to school.

  • • •

  Angel City High was not what you would think. It was not, as the name suggests, where the rich and famous Angels go to school. Years ago that might have been the case, but that was long before young Angels were pulled from the public school system and put in exclusive private schools. Despite the plaques on the wall recording the famous Angel alumni who had once been students there, the last Angel at Angel City High had graduated in 1969. Nowadays it was just another subpar public school.

  After passing through the chain-link fences and metal detector, Maddy walked under the faded HOME OF THE ANGELS sign and entered the crowded hallway. Like a well-worn routine, no sooner had she arrived than she was joined by Gwen, who was reading her BlackBerry. Gwen was wearing a jean miniskirt and revealing halter top she would probably be made to change out of by lunch.

  “OMG,” Gwen murmured as she scrolled through paparazzi photos, “Vivian Holycross looks so cute in those boots. And did you see the Malibu save? It’s all anybody’s talking about this morning.”

  “Of course,” Maddy said ruefully, “Angels.” Angels were pretty much the only thing that seemed to matter to Gwen at all. Every day she read the Angel blogs and tuned into Angel television to hear
the latest and greatest about the Angels’ perfect lives. The clothes they wore. The places they went. The fancy cars they drove and the amazing houses they lived in. Gwen had been known to obsess for weeks on a save if it had been one of her favorite Angels. She kept track of who was friends with who, who was Protecting who, and, most importantly, which young Angels were dating each other. Gwen was definitely what they called “Angel Crazy.”

  “And who is Vivian again?” Maddy asked as they headed to their lockers.

  “Honestly, Maddy,” Gwen said. “How can you live in this city and not know these things? Vivian is only the most beautiful Angel on the planet. We would so be best friends. If I can’t marry Jackson Godspeed, I want her to.”

  Maddy leaned over her friend’s shoulder and looked at her Berry. On the screen was a picture of a stunning brunette running with a handful of shopping bags, hiding behind a pair of Chanel sunglasses.

  “Why do you read that stuff?” Maddy asked for the hundredth time. “That guy Johnny whatever who blogs about the Angels is such a jerk.”

  “I can’t believe your uncle won’t get you a BlackBerry,” Gwen said, wrinkling her nose. “You’re, like, missing out on life.”

  Maddy pulled an ancient-looking flip phone out of her backpack and did her best Uncle Kevin impersonation. “Only for homework and emergencies, Maddy, homework and emergencies,” Maddy said, laughing and dropping the phone back in her bag.

  “Your uncle is such a dinosaur,” Gwen said. Maddy shrugged.

  “I’m sure he would get me a new one if he could afford it.”

  Maddy and Gwen reached their lockers, side by side, middle row. This was how they had met in seventh grade. Even in a school of three thousand, Montgomery and Moore were somehow always right next to each other, and it had been that way since middle school. At the beginning Maddy was quiet, especially around someone as outgoing as Gwen, but after only a few weeks of seeing each other day in, day out at the lockers, Maddy had started to let down her guard. Soon they were real friends. Then later that year, Gwen’s parents split up. A lot of her more popular friends didn’t feel like dealing, but Maddy was there for her the whole time: she knew what it was like to feel abandoned. They’d been best friends ever since.

  “I try not to read the blogs,” Gwen said, setting up her mirror and makeup inside her locker, “but it’s like an accident on the freeway. As much as I try not to, I just have to look.”

  “Or you’re obsessed,” Maddy said as she shoveled in books.

  “I’m not obsessed,” Gwen said defensively. “I just know I’ll be Protected someday. I want to be ready.”

  Maddy stopped unloading her books. “Gwen, you bought one of those maps on Sunset Boulevard and tried to get me to go with you up to their houses. On your learner’s permit.” She turned back to her locker and smiled. “Obsessed.”

  “That was so forever ago,” Gwen huffed.

  “That was last summer,” Maddy said.

  Gwen nodded. “Exactly.” She paused. “Besides, if I was really obsessed, I would have already shown you this footage of Jacks shirtless at the beach that leaked onto SaveTube last night.”

  A roar of laughter echoed down the hall behind Gwen and Maddy. They turned and saw a group of four boys heading toward them.

  “Hey, Gwen, what’s up?” one of the guys, Kyle, said. He was tall, with broad shoulders and lank brown hair. He and Gwen had dated for the first semester junior year but ultimately decided it was better to be just friends. Maddy secretly felt like her best friend might still have some feelings for him, even though Gwen swore up and down against it. He and Maddy had bonded slightly over how they didn’t care about the Angels, not the way most people did.

  “Hi, Kyle,” Gwen said, pushing back her hair. They gave each other an awkward hug.

  “Hey, Maddy, have a good Columbus Day weekend?” Kyle asked.

  “Um, yeah,” Maddy said, wishing she hadn’t put her hood down when she’d gotten in the school. She felt . . . exposed. Sometimes when it came to guys, Maddy found herself a bit tongue-tied, even if it was just her best friend’s ex. Like, why hadn’t she asked him if he’d had a good weekend too?

  “Are you guys coming?” the boy standing next to Kyle eagerly blurted out to Maddy and Gwen. He had long hair and glasses, and Maddy thought his name was Simon.

  “Dude, of course they are.” This came from Tyler, with whom Maddy had been in government class sophomore year. With every school year he seemed like he’d gotten a little “edgier”: he was wearing black skinny jeans and a little too perfectly ripped-up Vans. “Hi, Maddy,” he added as an afterthought, waving slightly even though he was only five feet away.

  “What are you talking about?” Gwen asked.

  “Ethan’s having a party later this week,” Kyle said, clapping his hand on the shoulder of the last of the boys, who hadn’t spoken yet.

  “Yeah, you should come. My mom’s out of town,” the guy said, stepping forward slightly.

  Maddy realized she recognized him, but not from school. He sometimes came in to eat at the diner. They’d had a few brief conversations at the restaurant—he had recently moved to Angel City, to somewhere up the hill from the restaurant, and he’d come in and eat sometimes when his mom was traveling for business. Today he was wearing a navy T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals, and as her gaze reached his face, he smiled at her. But that wasn’t what caught, and held, her attention. It was his eyes, which she hadn’t really noticed before. Dark hazel and expressive, they pierced out from under sandy-colored, beach-boy hair. It was almost as if they were talking to her all by themselves.

  “The party’s going to be amazing,” Simon said. In an almost reverent tone: “He got a keg.”

  “Er . . . hey,” Gwen said to Ethan, flipping her blond hair the way she did around cute boys.

  “This is Ethan. He’s new to this beautiful institution,” Kyle said, motioning to the cracked paint and dingy hall of Angel City High. “E, this is Gwen and—”

  “It’s Maddy, right?” Ethan interrupted, still smiling at her.

  “Yeah, she’s Maddy,” Gwen answered for her. Maddy elbowed her friend.

  “We know each other already,” Maddy said, feeling a little shy. “So you’re going to school here now?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “Just transferred a couple weeks ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, joking.

  “I know, me too,” Ethan said, and laughed.

  “So are you guys coming on Friday?” Kyle asked. “I know Gwen will. But, Maddy, you should definitely come too. It’ll be fun. I promise, no SaveTube and no ANN.” Kyle looked at her and gave her a flirtatious smile. Confused, Maddy glanced down.

  “ANN,” Tyler repeated with scorn, rolling his eyes. He was “alternative,” and part of that was being against all the Angel glamour and glitz—although Maddy sometimes suspected that if someone offered one of the alterna-kids the chance to become a famous Protection, they’d still do it in a heartbeat.

  “Yeah, come to the party,” Ethan said.

  “Oh, um, the weekend . . .” Maddy said, stalling. In truth, she had no idea what to say. Getting invited to parties was Gwen’s thing. Whenever Maddy wasn’t doing homework or working shifts at the diner, she usually just listened to music or curled up with a good book. Parties were pretty much unknown territory for her. She thought about the stack of college applications waiting for her back home. The weekend would be her only time to work on them.

  “I’d like to,” Maddy finally said. “But I have college apps, so . . .”

  “So that means no, right?” Ethan said, sounding downcast.

  It was Gwen’s turn to elbow Maddy. She gave her a look and turned to Ethan.

  “It just means she might have some other stuff too,” Gwen said, improvising. “She’s pretty popular, you know,” she added. Maddy felt her cheeks beginning to flush.

  “Well, if you want to come, I can give you directions,” Ethan said.

  “Ma
ybe she should get your number?” Gwen offered. Simon and Tyler slightly snickered under their breaths. Now Maddy was sure she was bright red.

  “Yeah, totally.”

  Maddy fumbled in her bag for her old phone as Ethan slipped his iPhone out of his pocket. The two exchanged information, Maddy awkwardly asking Ethan to spell his last name, McKinley, while the other boys stood there watching. Maddy couldn’t believe how embarrassed she felt. “The party should be cool,” Ethan said as he slid his phone back in his pocket.

  “Um . . . okay,” she said. “Thanks?”

  “Keep it quiet, though, he doesn’t want the whole school coming, you know?” Kyle added. Maddy could’ve sworn he winked at her. “See you guys later.”

  “See you Friday,” Ethan said.

  Simon and Tyler also said goodbye, and the group of senior guys strolled casually down the hallway. Ethan gave her a final smile over his shoulder.

  “OMG,” Gwen breathed.

  “OMG?”

  “OMF-ing G!” Gwen could hardly contain herself. “You know him?”

  “Kind of,” Maddy said, tossing another book in her locker and untucking her hair from behind her ears. “He comes in to eat at the diner.”

  “That’s the new guy everyone is talking about. I guess he moved to Angel City with his mom and she wanted him to do his senior year in public school or something, but word on the street is he’s totally loaded. He even did an around-the-world trip earlier this summer. And the big rumor is that he knows the Angels,” Gwen continued excitedly. “He sometimes surfs with them off Malibu. He might be the only student at school who will get an actual Guardian; they just haven’t announced the Protections yet, not till Friday. And, of course, he’s gorgeous.”

  “Well, I don’t know why you said I could go. Because you know I can’t,” Maddy said.

  “What?” Gwen gasped. “We’re going and I’m your wingman!”

  “I still need to finish my apps, and you should see those financial aid packets. They’re like books. Besides, Kevin would kill me. He always says parties are dangerous, you know, dumb kids and alcohol, that whole thing.”