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“The Troubles,” Jacks said.
“That’s right,” Kevin said. “The Angel Civil War.”
“My father . . .” Jacks said. Maddy watched his knuckles go white as he gripped the armrests of his chair.
“Yes, your father, Isaiah Godspeed, was a rebel along with Jacob.”
“What?” Jacks glared at Kevin, his eyes narrowing into distrustful slits. “My father fought the rebellion. He was killed putting it down.”
“No, Jacks,” Kevin said calmly. “That’s what your stepfather, Mark, wants you to think. The truth is, your father wanted to reform the Angels too. He supported Jacob and his child.”
“Why wouldn’t Mark want me to know that?” Jacks asked.
“Because when Maddy was only a few weeks old, Jacob and Isaiah approached him for help. They were all classmates, and Mark—Isaiah’s cousin—was already a rising star, an ambitious political prodigy. The Jackson Godspeed of his day,” Kevin said, nodding toward Jacks. He turned the final page of the scrapbook. It was blank. Maddy looked at the yellowed, brittle page. Like a future cut unnecessarily short.
“Mark refused to support them and turned them away. With the ranks closed against them, Maddy was brought to me under cover of darkness. The next day, both Jacob and Isaiah were captured by the Council’s Disciplinary Agents, mortalized, and killed in cold blood. Regina, my sister, was also murdered. Kris Godspeed and her child, Jackson, were spared. In exchange for not helping the rebels, Mark was given his position as Archangel and quickly rose in the NAS.
“Jacks,” Kevin said, his tone suddenly gentler, “your mother didn’t know. And still doesn’t. She is innocent. In her grief, she gave in to Mark’s advances and they married.”
Kevin closed the scrapbook and put his hands on the dusty cover. Jacks had turned and stared unseeingly out the kitchen window. Kevin looked at Maddy.
“The Angels promised never again to interfere with your life so long as you lived it out normally, without any knowledge of your past or what you actually are. I agreed, and you’ve been with me ever since.”
The lump in her throat was back and throbbing as it rose. She had come to speak to Kevin in hopes of finally clearing up the foggy dream world of her past. Now she realized that dream was a nightmare, a nightmare he had been protecting her from. She wasn’t just an average, unremarkable girl. She was a perversion of man and Angel. A monster. No wonder she had always felt like a freak.
She literally was one.
Maddy could feel her eyes swelling, and she didn’t know if she would be able to stop the tears. Unsteadily, she got up from the table and walked through the living room to the window. The rain had finally stopped, replaced by fog that hung low over the wet street. Maddy watched a man out walking his dog in the mist.
Jacks sat unmoving in his chair. Now it was his turn to decide what to believe.
“And now they’re hunting me for saving her,” he said softly.
“They’re probably hunting you both,” Kevin said. “Now that you’ve saved Maddy, Jacks, both of you are a threat to the Archangels’ power, a reminder of other . . . ideas about how the Angels should be. Descendants of the rebels, acting rebelliously. Dangerous. They will never allow the two of you to be together. No matter what it takes. If they can, Council Disciplinary Agents will kill you both.”
Maddy heard the scrape of chairs on the linoleum as Jacks and Kevin got up.
“You’ll have to excuse me when I say I don’t like Angels,” Kevin said, and then he offered his hand. “But thank you for saving my niece’s life.” Jacks looked at Kevin’s hand for a moment and then took it. The two shook.
Maddy continued staring out the window in silence. She watched as Jacks’s reflection appeared behind her in the glass. She wondered if he would have some lame condolence. The Immortal Angel telling the freak of nature I feel your pain or something pathetic like that. At least she could stop wondering if he actually cared about her or not. Now, for sure, she knew he would want nothing to do with her.
Jacks stood beside her. Instead of saying anything, she felt his fingers trace up her palm and then lace into hers. He had taken her hand before, quickly and for functional reasons—usually to drag her off to someplace she didn’t want to go—but he had never held her hand. Not the way couples did in parks or lovers did in old movies. Maddy stood there and felt the heat of his grip. It made her think of that first night in the diner, when they had talked about pretend memories and she had felt so connected to him. But now they were further apart than ever, she had to remind herself. One an Angel and the other an abomination.
“We should get going,” he said finally. Maddy couldn’t believe he hadn’t said I should get going, but she was too numb to care. Or think.
“Who is that?” Jacks said. He was looking at the man with his dog.
“I don’t know,” Maddy said. “A neighbor, I guess.”
“How long has he been there?” His tone at once severe.
Suddenly the lights inside the house sprang to life. The refrigerator whirred back on, and the TV in the living room blinked to life.
“—Manhunt under way for Angel Jackson Godspeed . . .” a reporter was announcing under a scrolling breaking news banner.
Outside, the neighborhoods of Angel City lit up one by one along the grid as power was restored. The man with the dog suddenly looked directly at Maddy standing in the open window and vanished. He disappeared in a literal blur and was gone, leaving the dog to look around inquisitively and sniff at its lifeless leash.
Maddy turned toward Jacks, breathless.
