Once Dead, Twice Shy

Ron's head was going back and forth in denial. "That's not how to go invisible. Madison, you weren't bending light around you; you were breaking your connection to your amulet, as if you weren't really wearing it. Dead with no connection to life. A walking soul without a body. No wonder you brought in black wings. They were…on you?"

Grace had said it was dangerous. I should've listened to her. "Nakita was going to kill Josh and take me to Kairos. I thought if I swiped her sword, she at least couldn't kill Josh. But when I went invisible to take her amulet, two black wings fell on me." Fear made me shiver. "It hurt. I think I lost something of myself." I paused as the memory of them eating my past rose anew. I unclenched my hands as I thought about Nakita and what it must be like to have two of those things inside her. "It really hurt, Ron. I went invisible again to try to get her sword away, and they sort of stuck to her when she fell through me." I looked up, my vision swimming. "I only wanted her to go away," I finished miserably. Damn it, I wasn't going to cry.

Barnabas had pulled back like I was a snake. "What about Nakita's amulet?" he asked. "How come her amulet didn't keep you grounded?"

"Because I cut those ties too," I said. "I claimed her sword, not her amulet, and it gave me enough control to break the ties without frying me."

Barnabas stood, his face pale. "Ron," he said, looking at me. "She broke the hold Nakita's amulet had on her while the reaper was still wearing it! How much proof do you need? I believe in choice, as do you, but this is wrong! Look at what's happened. Madison is—"

"Fine." Ron took up my hands and jerked my attention from Barnabas. His round face was smiling confidently, but his eyes were deathly worried. "She's fine."

"Nakita said you drew a first-sphere to watch her," Barnabas interrupted, anger coloring his face. "It's clear why. You know this is a mistake. It's wrong, and you know it!"

The older man glared at Barnabas, his grip on me tightening. "I do not have to explain myself to you . I called for a first-sphere because chances were slim anything would happen, and I didn't want to advertise that anything was wrong."

"Wrong." Barnabas faced him squarely, and Ron's expression went ugly. "You admit it, then."

"Barnabas, will you shut up!" the master of time exclaimed, and Barnabas dropped his head, frustrated. I sat there, stunned. It was the second time I'd seen Ron curtail Barnabas's words, first at the school parking lot, and then here. Something wasn't right. What had I done?

"Ron," I said, scared, "I'm sorry. I was only trying to keep Josh and myself safe. She nicked him. Is he going to be okay?"

The timekeeper seemed to notice for the first time where he was. Giving me an unhappy look, he shook his head, sending dread through me. "Nakita holds his life. She chooses if he lives or dies."

Oh God, I've killed him , I thought, the panic almost paralyzing. I had to talk to Nakita.

"There is hope," Ron soothed as my thoughts spun, but there was no comfort in his touch on my shoulder. Instead, a warning lifted in me. Behind him, Barnabas fumed. "I'm going to continue to speak on your behalf," Ron said, as if Josh's probable death was sad but trifling. "What I'm most concerned about is you. Dissociating yourself from your amulet like you did should have been impossible. That you're dead probably accounted for your ability to do it. Regardless, I'm sure you damaged your amulet. Don't do it again. Some of this is my fault. I should've looked in on your progress, but Barnabas didn't tell me you were having trouble."

He didn't care about Josh. Not really. Warning was thick in me, and I pulled out from under his grip. And why was he blaming Barnabas? Barnabas said it was my amulet that prevented me from thought-touching, not my lack of skill or lack of trying—and Ron should have known that. He was hiding something. "Grace said I cracked it," I said warily, but I wouldn't pull it from behind my shirt to show him.

Behind Ron, Barnabas stood stiff and tense. I saw a hint of the avenging angel in him as his eyes silvered. "I'm going home," he said to Ron, pain showing in his brow. "They'll let me in. They have to. I have to tell them about the black wings. They can get them out of her."

Home? I thought. As in heaven? Why wouldn't they let him in? He wasn't just earthbound, but barred from heaven? Just who were the bad guys here?

Fear slid through me like a knife, born of the sudden realization that everything I thought was true probably wasn't.

"Barnabas, shut up," Ron said as he rose between us, smaller than Barnabas but deathly serious. "I'll send word, and Nakita will be fine. They won't let you back, and I've got work to do. Stay with Madison. Try to keep her out of trouble. And keep your mouth shut!" His eyes were almost black, carrying a mix of anger, frustration, and…uncertainty. "You understand me? I can't fix this if you interfere. Keep your mouth…shut."

The image of Nakita arched in pain, white wings stretched high as she screamed, lifted through my memory. I had hurt one of heaven's angels. Who was Barnabas? Who had I been spending my nights with on my roof?

Scared, I watched Ron stride from the building, vanishing as he found the sun. I turned to Barnabas, shrinking back when he made a sound of anger and flopped into the chair next to me, his brow furrowed and his expression cross. He didn't move. Not one fidget or blink.

"She was trying to kill me," I said. "She was trying to kill Josh! She was going to—"

"Take you to Kairos. You said that," he said abruptly. There was a hint of fear in him. It wasn't fear of me, but fear for himself. He wasn't going to shut up as Ron had told him, and I shivered.

"So many religions, Madison," he said, "but only one resting place, and she was going to put you right back on that path that you skipped off when you claimed Kairos's amulet."

"Nakita's not from hell," I guessed, knowing my face was white. "You are."

Barnabas jerked straight. "Me? No," he said, coloring as if embarrassed. "Not hell. I don't even know if there is such a place other than what we make for ourselves. But I'm not from heaven…anymore. I left because I disagreed with seraph fate. They won't let me back. They won't let any of us light reapers back." Jaw tight, he exhaled, putting a hand to his head and rubbing his temples. "I should have told you, but it's embarrassing."

"But you're a light reaper!" I said, confused. "Light is good; dark is bad."

He scowled at me. "Light is for human choice, easily seen. Dark is for hidden seraph fate, no choice to glean."

"Oh! That would have been nice to know!" I shouted. "How come no one bothered to tell me that?!" I added, frustrated, scared, and a little relieved that Barnabas wasn't from hell, just kicked out of heaven. There was a difference, right?

The receptionist peeked out from a doorway, disappearing when she decided I was upset about Josh, not a little misunderstanding about light and dark.

Barnabas's thoughts were clearly somewhere else. "I don't understand what Ron is doing," he said to himself, gaze distant, and unaware that I was having a meltdown. "I believe in choice, but after what's happened, I don't know. You're a nice person, Madison, and I like you, but you put black wings in Nakita. That's…a terrible thing. Maybe the seraphs are right. Maybe you need to go where you belong. Maybe fate has a place in the world. Fighting it has only made things worse."

Where I belong? Does he mean like home with my dad, or like dead? I swallowed hard. I was not the one who'd been kicked out of heaven. "It was an accident."

"Was it an accident that you worked to learn how to go invisible?" he asked earnestly. "Was it an accident that you used that knowledge to break the hold Nakita's amulet had on you? Was it an accident that she fell through you? Or was it fate?" His head slowly shook back and forth, dark curls shifting. "I should've realized what Ron was doing sooner." His eyes narrowed. "I still don't believe it. I didn't want to believe it."