Page 17 of Baking and Angels

“But this is divine—”

“It’s coming from you!” he shouted, only for someone to bang on the wall. He swallowed down a breath and forced himself to soften his voice. “The energy it takes to make something like this happen, it can only be coming from you, your essence. You can’t just spend it like it’s renewable.”

“But you said I am an angel,” she said, her voice comingout small.

Another invisible stomach punch. “I don’tknow… okay? I don’t know…” He could feel his lie exposing him. “So many things in history that have been attributed to angels were just demons whose gifts worked out well for everyone. There have to be some wins or humans would not even try us.”

Helena’s expression was unsure. She didn’t understand, but before long, she would realize she needed to make a deal to have enough energy to stay. Just like with Vassago, she wouldn’t be able to remain in creation, at least not without an anchor point and a supply of energy to resist creation trying toexpel her.

Since she was not privy to any of these thoughts, she tried to reach out to him again, but he recoiled even more, taking several steps back to put space between them. He surprised himself with hisreaction.

Rafferty had never felt rawer and more vulnerable in his life. A cold chill rolled up his spine, sending shivers and forcing him to hug his arms against himself. He had never felt more naked.

I won. So why doesn’t it feel like it anymore,he thought.

“Rafferty,” she whispered, his name a plea.

“I’m sorry, but… I can’t… I just… I need…” He shook his head as he turned around, plucking up his discarded shirt from the ground to dress himself with. Somehow that small action felt just as much a rejection of her as everything else had. But he didn’t know what else to do. He needed space from her, timeto think.

Helena turned away, too, but went to the unopened suitcases. She tore through the first one, which luckily was the one she wanted, and yanked on a set of pajamas. By the time she was dressed, so was Rafferty, who headed to the door to their suite.

“Agent Sophia said to stay here,” she said, alarmed as he reached forthe door.

“I just can’t,” he repeated, but he hesitated, unable or unwilling to look at her. “I’m sorry.”

And then he was outthe door.

Rafferty never felt so shattered in his entire existence. Notlike this.

“I’m a coward. I’m a coward. I’m a fucking coward,” Rafferty repeated to the echoing sound of his feet hitting the concrete steps as he went down the stairwell. He knew he could have taken the elevator, but the point wasn’t to get away. The point was to move and try to think, not to feel so much only inside. Fifteen floors gave him a lot to think about.

Hehurt her.

Heknewhe hurt her by rejecting her like that. Whatever had happened to her, it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she had done that was evil, but he also couldn’t stay. The squirming terror inside at what she had becomedrove him.

Too soon, he reached the bottom, out of breath. Pushing his way through the door jarred him as he emerged into the opulent hotel lobby, an extreme contrast to the plain, beige walls and echoing emptiness of thestairwell.

A couple standing near the door to the stairs shot him startled, offended glances at his sudden appearance. Breathing noisily, he ignored them and scanned across the carpeted space with its warm lighting and elegant clusters of furniture to find a semicircle dais that proclaimed itself a bar.

The carpet gave way to a marble floor then back to carpet as Rafferty cut across the space before the check-in counters. The staff there gave him a passing glance, but only enough to see if he was approaching them to ask foranything.

There was nothing that he needed they could offer him at that moment.

A part of him was aware he still felt elated at his new existence. He moved about the world with freedom; everything he saw was for the first time with his new eyes. Though he had been taken to bars and had appeared in restaurants—they were the most common places desperate chefs would summon him—this wasdifferent.

Hewas free.

Dropping into one of the high chairs at the bar, his elbows hit the top, and he grasped his head as if that would help him keep it from exploding at the war raging inside him. His joy at being human again and his horror at Helena becoming… something else. He had no idea what he was about to do, but he had arrived at his destination. It was all he could focus on in that moment.

“What can I get you?” a voice asked, mildlycautious.

With a sharp lift, Rafferty dropped his hands onto the bar, aware of the scene he was making.

“Huh, I… I don’t know.”

“Okay, no problem,” the bartender said, smiling a thin smile as he slid over a menu. Rafferty didn’t look at the menu, though, but instead studied the worker’s clothing. It was a simple ensemble of black slacks with a white shirt held back with a black vest and a bowtie. What undid the formal appearance, however, was that the man had rolled his sleeves up to the elbows, and one of them looked on the brink of coming undone.

The chef in Rafferty reacted. “How are you getting away with that?” he asked, gesturing to the sleeves.

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