A knot that cannot be swallowed forms in my throat. Knowing Anna is safe, I start the car and drive away.
I peruse L.A. like a sightseer for a couple hours, but I don’t really see anything because my mind’s a disaster. I don’t understand the things I feel. I’ve always been a moody bastard, but this is beyond my normal scope. I go from rage to tenderness to terror to happiness in a few blinks. Anna’s angel voodoo is a dangerous tonic. This is worse than being piss-arsed drunk—it doesn’t seem to want to burn off.
I return to the prison with only minutes to spare—L.A. traffic blows.
I push my hearing through the walls of concrete and steel until I find that gruff voice once more, “. . . might be different for you. Your mother’s good might cancel out my bad. We don’t know . . .”
I let out a full breath. She’s fine. For the first time ever I feel strange about eavesdropping, so I pull back and ponder his words. I wonder if he’s talking about what I think he is: hell. And the fact that Neph are sent to hell after death, no matter what kind of life we’ve lived. Yes, perhaps it will be different for Anna. Her soul is too good for that kind of darkness. It would be the ultimate injustice, and I’m deeply disturbed pondering her suffering.
I step from the car and lean against it, waiting. From what I can tell, Anna didn’t get a verbal beating from her father, and I’m glad for her. When the doors open, and Anna filters out with the others, all the madness I felt today disappears. My blood rushes at the sight of her. But as she gets closer, the look on her face halts my thoughts.
Something is wrong. She ignores me and climbs into the car. I go around to the driver’s side and get us out of there. I want to ask what he did and what he said, but we’re still within his five-mile hearing range.
When we’re far enough away, I’m about to ask how it went, but she buries her face in her hands and cries the most pitiful, heart-wrenching tears I’ve ever heard. I have no idea what to say or do to make this better, which makes me feel weak and powerless.
Have I mentioned I hate when girls cry?
Thankfully, after five minutes of this she gives a loud sniff, wipes her eyes, squares her shoulders, and swallows away the rest of her tears.
“Were you listening?” she asks in a thick voice.
“A bit at the beginning and end, to make sure you were all right.”
She nods and proceeds to tell me every detail of their conversation. I usually zone out when girls talk this much, but I’m completely rapt with Anna’s storytelling. She pulls one knee up and turns her body toward me in the passenger seat, talking fast. I listen to the story of her parents’ epic, forbidden love—how they were soul mates in heaven before the Fall, and how he became a Duke to search for her on earth, finally finding her working as a guardian angel. Anna’s mother, Mariantha, broke all heavenly rules to inhabit her human charge’s drug-sickened body and be with Belial. He never cared about hurting humans, though he pushed drugs to keep his position and he was good at it. But all along, he only cared about Mariantha. For the first time ever, I find myself relating to a Duke.
When I get to the hotel we just park and sit there while she gets it all out. She hides nothing—making her joy, love, sorrow, and disappointment plain. Her father clearly loves her, but he’d been brutally honest about her fate on earth and afterward. She would have to at least appear to be working for the dark cause. She had to toughen up. I’d been wondering if her father would have positive news about Anna’s afterlife. He didn’t. She’s as hell-bound as any other Neph, as far as Belial knows. A sharp pang rips at my chest at the thought of that doom for her.
It’s not right. It’s not fair.
I shake my head and turn off the ignition. I haven’t worried about whether or not something was “fair” since I was a small child. It hadn’t taken long to realize nothing was fair in life. That bloody word shouldn’t even exist. But it’s the thought that continues to blaze through me—a soul like Anna’s should never be confined to hell. How could the One who made her even consider it?
Yet another thing to fill the churning pit of anger that fuels my daily life.
I’m incredibly edgy when we reach the hotel room. So much so that I stand in the doorway while Anna goes in, her arms crossed, lost in thought.
“This hotel has a gym,” I tell her. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get in a workout this afternoon while I can.”
Physical exertion is exactly what I need.
Anna nods absently and stares at her luggage. “I think I’ll do a load of laundry or something.”
“I can tell them we’d like laundry service when I pass the front desk.”
She gives me a puzzled expression. “Oh, you mean have the hotel do it? No way, that’d be way too expensive. There’s a Laundromat right across the street.”
I cringe. “You mean with the crackheads?”
Anna snorts and shakes her head. She’s already gathering her dirty clothes, and she even reaches for mine, but I step on the shorts she’s grabbing.
“You don’t have to do mine.” I’m a bit appalled. How can she be so casual about this?
“Oh, just let me.” She yanks the shorts out from under my foot. “I’ve had to use a Laundromat lots of times, and it’s perfectly safe. It’s mostly just moms. I’ll just, um, need some money. If that’s okay. I mean, not much, just a couple—”