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Tears were rolling down Maisie’s face. “I can’t just let you take him away. He trusts me. He needs me.”
“He’s going to die,” Dahlia found herself saying. “He’s used himself up.”
The social worker turned on her, eyebrows furrowed.
“I mean, if you love him,” said Dahlia, recovering, “you also don’t leave him to die.”
Maisie sniffled. “I guess that’s true. And if he could get clean, m-maybe we could be a family again, all of us.”
But Dahlia knew that was worthless. When they went into the bedroom, the man was unconscious, and his pulse was barely stuttering away.
Dahlia didn’t let herself touch him, but she wanted to. She only stopped it by holding her hands behind her back, digging her fingernails into her palms and biting down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.
An ambulance was called.
He was still alive when he went away in the back of it.
Dahlia was practically jumping out of her skin. Her wings were tingling, bright, hot, ready to burst into flame.
She and the social worker left the apartment together, and Dahlia stood there, numb and hungry, as the social worker went on and on about the next steps, educating Dahlia on proper procedure for this and that, telling her that they needed to write this up when they got back to the office.
“My hours are done for the day,” said Dahlia. “I really have to get to my job. I’m the only person on the schedule.” This was a lie. Well, she did need to get to work, but Max was there, and anyway, she wasn’t sure when she’d be getting to the sandwich shop, because she was losing it. “Would it be all right if you showed me the proper procedure for the paperwork tomorrow?”
“All right, but you have to realize that this is a job that you don’t just clock out of,” said the social worker.
“Believe me, I do,” said Dahlia, privately thinking that she’d never worked anywhere in which the people in charge didn’t think the job was incredibly important, even at sandwich shops. She just hear Will saying the same thing,This isn’t a job you just clock out of.
For him, she supposed, it wasn’t. It was his livelihood. He needed the shop to stay open to keep the lights on and feed himself. It was important to him.
Dahlia staggered around the block, heading for her car. She got out her phone.
Usually, she’d call Tommy. But she was too far gone for that. Tommy wasn’t the least bit reliable. If she called Tommy, he’d show up, sure, but by then, she’d have probably wreaked some havoc in her wake, burning through a streak of bodies as she ate her fill.
She called Niles.
“I need to feed,” was all she said. “I’m sending you where I am on a map. Can you just… I need you to come—”
“I’m there, baby,” said Niles. “I’m on my way.”
Her wings thrust out behind her body, bright and flaming and orange.
She shrieked.
xiii.
NILES FOUND HERinside her car, banging on the windows, everything inside lit up, the entire car full of smoke. He was terrified the car was going to explode.
That was his first fear. She was in a parking lot in Martinsburg, out near where the mall used to be, across from a set of apartment buildings which had gone up. He tugged open the door and she tumbled out.
Her eyes were glowing orange and she let out this caw, like the sound of a raven, a mournful cry. Her wings fluttered out and seared into him, and that’s when he realized it was magical fire. It hurt, but it didn’t burn.
He pulled her into his chest. “Hey,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “Hey, you take what you need. I’m here.”
She threw back her head, and there was nothing sane on her face. It was like she wasn’t there, which terrified him.
Shamefully, he was afraid for himself.
However, he was more afraid for her. If she needed him to keep her in check, he would do that.
