Page 34 of Angel's Smoke

“Do I get a say in any of this?”

“Anna . . .”

“No, I’m serious.” She leaped to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “You can’t perch yourself on my doormat and say that none of this is personal or spout some of thatit’s not you, it’s mebullshit. You are literally standing where Travis was when he walked out on me. Because I became inconvenient. Becauseour babybecame inconvenient. A problem to be dealt with or handled. So, forgive me if I’m not willing to put up with that same line of crap from another male who thinks they know what’s good for me.”

Anna pointed a finger at her chest. “Iknow what’s good for me, and after dreaming about you for three months, it was a damn blessing to know that I wasn’t crazy and that there was a reason for the dreams. The idea of a soul bond may send you running, but you know what? For me, it feels really damn nice. The concept that I could be on someone’s team and I would make them more powerful, more meaningful in their mission, is an intoxicating feeling to wrap one’s head around. Do I have a shit ton more to learn? Sure, you bet, but I’m willing to do the work and explore what it all means, regardless of the baby I’m bringing into the world. So, if you feel more comfortable walking out that door than having a conversation and learning right alongside me, then I can’t help you.”

Anna put her mug on the kitchen counter and stomped down the hall. When she got to the bathroom, she stopped, placed her hand on the wall, and spoke over her shoulder. “Feel free to turn the generator off. I’m done for the night. And when you’re willing to talk, you know how to reach me. We shared a mind for months, Iron, and despite how alien this all is to me, I’m not willing to have the door slam in my face because you’re too afraid to hold it open for me.”

She kept going down the hall, and only when the wood of her bedroom door kissed her back, bolstering whatever strength she had left, did she finally let her body sink to the floor. A short time later, Iron’s boots retreated from her living room, the cabin grew quiet, and the generator shuddered its final tremors into the rafters.

She was alone. Again. But this time, there was no unseeing her circumstances or shirking off the cold that no amount of blankets or hot tea could ever have the hope of fighting off.

Chapter17

Iron stood among the ruins of an abandoned strip mall two towns over and wondered how mortals capable of creating the wordironycouldn’t fucking understand it when they saw it. He narrowed his eyes at the sign before him, reading it over for the third time and failing to connect it to the landscape before him.

Notice: This property is scheduled to be demolished. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Entry is strictly prohibited. Keep property free of litter and debris. If you see anyone violating this ordinance, contact the Mayerville Housing Division.

Iron craned his neck around the sign and shook his head at the landfill’s worth of shit that had accumulated in every nook and cranny of the landscape. The area wasn’t known to harbor too extensive of a homeless population, but it sure as shit served as the mecca for every college-resume-primping junior varsity and varsity athlete. Rivers of sports drinks and liquor bottles made up the formerly painted parking lot lines, while anything that could be once identified as a sidewalk or building wall was now home to a glitter bomb’s worth of glass and what had to be the least inspired graffiti he’d ever seen. Someone had painted a winky face poop emoji right next to a stick figure peeing on a cluster of questionably drawn block letters declaringSkool Sux, and So Does Your Mom!

The rest of the site wasn’t any better, with half-crumbling building facades doing jack shit to block the frigid wind. The entire thing was one CBD vape away from moonlighting as an Escher painting, with a mutilated chain-link fence decorating the perimeter for good, though ultimately useless, measure.

If the devil was in the details, this place had paid for the sins of every sex trafficker, war criminal, and crime lord with fucking pastel spray paint and atomized concrete. And that waswiththe decreased visibility nightfall afforded. He shuddered to think what sort of things slithered to the surface once the noonday sun baked the concrete landscape to an inhabitable temperature.

The metal structures the strip mall left behind, though, were still useful, and that was why he was there.

Iron toed something that looked like it had begun its life as a Powerade bottle out of his way and let the bright glow of his phone spotlight his presence so his brothers knew where to touch down when they arrived, which would be any minute.

He didnotkill time—and his sanity—by hovering his thumb over the only name he hadn’t been able to get out of his head since he’d left her cabin three days ago.

If he thought he’d known hell, he hadn’t expected the dick punch that came with seeing Anna curl up into the smallest form of herself while he dressed her down like she was a child who hadn’t thought of the repercussions that came with having ice cream for dinner every night. But the truth was, she’d been three steps ahead of him before he’d even gotten through the door. Not only did she want ice cream every night but she’d already mapped out healthy and feasible options for every other fucking meal, thus bringing balance to the force and making damn sure she wasn’t only relevant but needed—that she wasn’tinconvenient.

He hadn’t expected to be called on his bullshit so eloquently, and the efficiency with which she wielded the knife terrified him, sending him into a tailspin that had him questioning every step previously laid out before him.

So, like any male well-versed in not seeing the forest for the trees, he decided that once power had been restored to her cabin and major transit lines had opened back up, he needed to focus on a new damn forest for a bit.

The steadywhump whumpof large angel wings beating back the night air recentered his purpose.

He quickly pocketed his phone and ducked through a patch of broken fence to join his brothers. “Thanks for coming.”

Tungsten, their prime sentinel, was the first of the angels to land and step forward. “You’ve made some headway, I take it?”

“Not sure about headway. Let’s call it a working theory.”

Bronze jumped off a pile of concrete rubble and slapped Iron on the back. “Working theories don’t abandon everyone for three days. They tend to come up for air once in a while. Have you even seen a set of four walls that wasn’t the library or the armory recently?”

Iron shrugged him off but didn’t put much effort into the rebuke. “I’ve seen enough to test a theory about the relic’s shard, but I need all of us together to do it.”

Bronze rubbed his hands together. “Are we going to blow shit up? Please tell me we’re going to blow shit up.”

Titan shared a look with Tung, then folded his arms across his chest. “I’m intrigued. What are you thinking?”

Oh boy. Here’s where things get interesting.

Iron exhaled and pulled out the shard, which was still resting in its little test tube sanctuary. “What’s something that everyone wants?”

“Power,” Bronze offered.

---