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He pauses.
“Do you know what happens when you’re Blessed?”
I chew on my lip, leaning against the edge of the tub and inhaling a mouthful of steam. “I’ve only heard stories,” I say.
“It’s not…pleasant,” he says. “They use chemicals and weird devices to—I don’t know, to change you? It’s so crazy and so far beyond human understanding that it seems like magic…and maybe it is, I guess. The Angels are a weird bunch; the people who call them aliens might be onto something, but their science can seem like magic. And when it’s over, you’re linked to your pack, physically and mentally. You can feel their pain, and their sadness, and their…zeal, if they’re devout.”
“And you felt that way?” I ask.
“For a time, I did,” he says. “And from fifteen to eighteen, I spent years running with a pack across Texas.”
He pauses.
“We did terrible things, Charlotte.”
Charlotte. He so rarely uses my actual name that I can tell he’s being earnest, his words tentative and nothing at all like the cocky man I’ve come to know over the past few days.
“Do you want to tell me?” I ask.
“Not particularly.”
I twirl my fingers in the water, glancing over the edge of the tub to find his silhouette frozen in place. “Okay. You don’t have to.”
“But I should,” he says. “You don’t know the kind of man I am.”
“The kind that saves my life?” I reply.
“That was…selfish,” he says.
“How?”
Elijah goes quiet again, and I realize I’ve chewed on my lip until it’s almost bleeding. So I don’t wait for him to respond; I dip my head under the water and rinse out my dirty hair, using the old bar of soap at the edge of the tub to at least try to wash the river silt away. The water stings on my wound, but it seems to have scabbed over, and it doesn’t bleed anymore when I reach up to check the small lump.
“What happened to them?” I ask as I pass the bar of soap over my chest, my shoulders, my pits.
“To who?”
“Your pack,” I say. “You said you were with them for a while.”
“They died,” he says shortly.
“Angels?”
“Hm…” he pauses. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Mine too,” I say quietly. “Not my pack—my parents. They died in the New Crusades when I was just a little girl. They didn’t want the Angels to take me, so they hid me away with my grandparents, and they lost their lives for it.”
Elijah sighs deeply. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I whisper.
I sit there for a few minutes, just appreciating the hot water while the fire crackles in the hearth. Elijah doesn’t say a word, and I finally force myself to stand up, water dripping off me.
“There’s a towel and a change of clothes on the chair by the curtain,” Elijah says—assuming, I suppose, that I must be getting out.
I reach for the towel, finding it fluffier than I expected, if a little musty. These aren’t ancient supplies—not as old as the house, anyway. After drying off, the clothes I find underneath are simple, and clearly designed more for sleep than travel: a pair of men’s boxers and an oversized t-shirt.
“These haven’t been worn, have they?” I ask.
