“Oh my God, they’re beautiful.” I stumbled back in awe, holding my hand to my chest.
They weren’t what I expected. The wings were large, thick, shiny, and black. On his left side, a drop of blood fell from a cluster of feathers at the base of the wing. Lucian inched the wing back in toward his body as he winced, his face scrunching up in pain.
“Wait, let me clean it,” I said.
His head drooped, and his shoulders slouched in such a defeated way that it made me cry. Seeing his shame saddened me, and my tears fell onto his feathers as I brushed them with the cloth. Lucian sagged even further into himself.
“When you feel pain, Evey, so do I.” I thought it must work exactly the same way for me. “Please don’t hurt for me,” he said softly.
I swallowed hard, trying to regain control. When I was through cleaning the blood, he closed the wings and they were gone. I felt around his back, but he shook his head.
“You won’t be able to feel them unless I want you to, and right now, I just want to lie down and rest.”
“I thought you didn’t sleep?”
“I don’t, but if I rest, I’ll heal quicker. Will you do that with me? Rest with me?”
“Yes, of course.” I would have done anything he asked. I had the distinct sense that he wasn’t able to rest unless I did. I kicked off my running shoes, climbed up to the head of the bed, and propped myself on the pillows. I patted my chest. “I’ll hold you.”
He looked tortured, but he climbed up the bed with me anyway, laid his head on my chest, and closed his eyes. “I’m supposed to do this for you,” he said quietly.
“We can do it for each other.”
“You don’t understand.” He sighed.
He was right—I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know if I was crazy, dreaming, or dead, but something about Lucian, about the way he smelled and spoke, put me at ease. I should have felt scared, but I wasn’t. I wanted to ask Brooklyn to come into my room to see if he was real, but I was afraid he’d leave and I didn’t want him to leave… ever. I fell asleep almost instantly to the rhythm of his breaths.
When I woke up, he was no longer lying with me. He was standing above me, next to my bed, looking gloriously handsome and clean.
“Did you shower?” I asked.
He smiled, lifting his index finger to his mouth. “Shh.”
Something had changed in his demeanor. There was resignation and surrender, and when I looked closely into his squinting eyes, I also saw veneration… serenity… love. I can’t explain what exactly I saw, just that I could feel all of the feelings that he had for me by simply looking at him.
“I’ll always be here for you, Evey,” he whispered. Then he pressed his thumb to my forehead.
“PINKY!” BROOKLYN YELLED from the other room. “I made pancakes. Come and eat.”
Brooklyn loved to cook, but when she did, she made a huge mess and then she would just leave it. I went into the kitchen feeling groggy. Sitting at the small round table in the corner, I scanned the countertops littered with bowls, plates, eggshells, a milk carton, and trash. I rolled my eyes. Brooklyn was playing the song “Clouds” by the Borns loudly from the iPod dock while she danced around flipping pancakes. Not a care in the world.
“Last night was weird, huh?” she yelled over the music.
I put two pancakes on a plate and drizzled syrup over them. “Yeah! Can you turn it down?” I had a vague sense of déjà vu.
Brooklyn turned down the music. “So what happened with Beckett, and why were you acting all creepy weird in the living room by yourself last night?”
What was she talking about? “I wasn’t acting weird. Beckett got into this stupid music playing at the Star Wars bar. I think he had them turn it up or something, I don’t know. I just left him there and then felt bad about it, so I went back and he was gone. I sat at the bar and had one more drink, alone, before coming back home. Uneventful.”
She turned around and smiled. “Whatever you say. You were acting weird.”
The details from the night before were a bit foggy, and this morning was even foggier. “Why are you cooking pancakes at two p.m.?”
“Well, because we both slept in and pancakes are yummy,” she squealed.
“I think I was headed out for a run, then I went back to sleep. Ugh, I have a headache. I drank too much last night.” My head was pounding. I was staring into the open refrigerator.
“What are you looking for?” Brooklyn asked.
“OJ.”
“Uh, it’s right in front of your face, weirdo.”
It was centered in front, on the top shelf.
“Oh.”
She knocked lightly on my head. “Hello? Yeah, last night you were even more out of it. Weird how you were like, ‘Do you believe in guardian angels?’ Um, okay, Pinky, what’d you and Beckett smoke?”
“Guardian angels?” I stood there, stunned, holding a box of orange juice in the middle of the kitchen.
An image of a man popped into my mind, a beautiful man with striking blue eyes and dark hair. I blinked, trying to recall where the image came from. Was it a dream?
“YOU FUCKED UP,” Zack said, appearing beside me in Evey’s kitchen as we watched the disaster unfold. “You didn’t zap her good enough.”
“No, I did.”
“Look, I can tell she’s thinking about you. If you had zapped her good enough—oh, fuck yeah,” Zack mumbled as he looked at his phone. “My wide receiver scored eighteen points today. I’m killin’ it like a boss!”