I bit down on my tongue as the pain in my arms deepened. They were tearing out of their sockets.
And then, through the fear and panic, I heard Patch’s voice. Block him out. Keep climbing. The ladder’s intact.
“I can’t,” I sobbed. “I’ll fall!”
Block him out. Close your eyes. Listen to my voice.
Swallowing, I forced my eyes shut. I clung to Patch’s voice and felt a sturdy surface take shape beneath me. My feet were no longer hanging in air. I felt one of the ladder rungs digging into the balls of my feet. Focusing with resolve on Patch’s voice, I waited until the world crept back into place. Patch was right. I was on the ladder. It was upright, secured to the wall. I regained a measure of determination and continued climbing.
At the top I eased myself precariously onto the closest rafter. I got my arms around it, then swung my right leg up and over. I was facing the wall, with my back to the air shaft, but there was nothing I could do now. Very carefully, I rose up on my knees. Using all my concentration, I starting inching backward across the expanse of the gym.
But it was too late.
Jules had climbed quickly, and was now less than fifteen feet away from me. He climbed onto the rafter.
Hand over hand, he dragged himself toward me. A dark slash on the inside of his wrist caught my eye.
It intersected his veins at a ninetydegree angle and was nearly black in color. To anyone else, it might have looked like a scar. To me, it meant so much more. The family connection was obvious. We shared the same blood, and it showed in our identical marks.
We were both straddling the rafter, sitting facetoface, ten feet apart.
“Any last words?” Jules said.
I looked down, even though it made me dizzy. Patch was far below on the gym floor, still as death.
Right then, I wanted to go back in time and relive every moment with him. One more secret smile, one more shared laugh. One more electric kiss. Finding him was like finding someone I didn’t know I was searching for. He’d come into my life too late, and now was leaving too soon. I remembered him telling me he’d give up everything for me. He already had. He’d given up a human body of his own so I could live.
I wobbled accidentally, and instinctively dropped lower to balance myself.
Jules’s laughter carried like a cold whisper. “It makes no difference to me whether I shoot you or you fall to your death.”
“It does make a difference,” I said, my voice small but confident. “You and I share the same blood.” I lifted my hand precariously, showing him my birthmark. “I’m your descendant. If I sacrifice my blood, Patch will become human and you’ll die. It’s written in The Book of Enoch.”
Jules’s eyes were devoid of light. They were trained on me, absorbing every word I spoke. I could tell by his expression that he was weighing my words. A flush rose in his face, and I knew he believed me.
“You—,” he sputtered.
He slid toward me with frantic speed, simultaneously reaching into his waistband to draw the gun.
Tears stung my eyes. With no time for second thoughts, I threw myself off the rafter.
CHAPTER 30
A DOOR OPENED AND CLOSED. I WAITED TO HEAR footsteps approach, but the only sound came from the ticking of a clock: a rhythmic, steady pounding through the silence.
The sound began to fade, winding down. I wondered if I would hear it stop completely. I suddenly feared that moment, unsure of what came after.
A much more vibrant sound eclipsed the clock. It was a reassuring, ethereal sound, a melodic dance on air. Wings, I thought. Coming to take me away.
I held my breath, waiting, waiting, waiting. And then the clock began to go in reverse. Instead of slowing, the beat became more certain. A spirallike liquid formed inside me, coiling deeper and deeper. I felt myself pulled into the current. I was sliding down through myself, into a dark, warm place.
My eyes flickered open to familiar oak paneling on the sloped ceiling above me. My bedroom. A sense of reassurance flooded over me, and then I remembered where I’d been. In the gym with Jules.
A shiver slid over my skin.
“Patch?” I said, my voice hoarse from disuse. I tried to sit up, then gave a muffled cry. Something was wrong with my body. Every muscle, bone, cell was sore. I felt like one giant bruise.
There was movement near the doorway. Patch leaned against the doorjamb. His mouthed was pressed tight and lacked its usual twinge of humor. His eyes held more depth than I’d ever seen before. They were sharpened by a protective edge.
“That was a good fight back in the gym,” he said. “But I think you could benefit from a few more boxing lessons.”
On a wave, everything came back to me. Tears rolled up from deep inside me. “What happened? Where is Jules? How did I get here?” My voice cracked with panic. “I threw myself off the rafter.”
“That took a lot of courage.” Patch’s voice turned husky, and he stepped all the way inside my bedroom.
He closed the door behind him, and I knew it was his way of trying to lock out all the bad. He was putting a divide between me and everything that had happened.
He walked over and sat on the bed beside me. “What else do you remember?”
I tried to piece my memories together, working backward. I remembered the beating wings I’d heard shortly after I flung myself off the rafter. Without any doubt, I knew I’d died. I knew an angel had come to carry my soul away.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I said quietly, reeling with fright. “Am I a ghost?”
“When you jumped, the sacrifice killed Jules. Technically, when you came back, he should have too.
But since he didn’t have a soul, he had nothing to revive his body.”
“I came back?” I said, hoping I wasn’t filling myself with false hope.