“And I should stop kissing you.” A shadow crosses her face. “We’re supposed to be friends.”
I nod slowly. I’m in no rush for her to come to her senses.
My face glitches, and the warped bands roll down from my hairline and disappear beneath the collar of my shirt. They don’t stop there, but at least my clothes hide most of it.
Celine traces my cheekbone, and I force myself to maintain eye contact. “The static,” she whispers. “At first, I thought it was a weakness.”
“It is,” I rasp. “What else could it possibly be?”
Her lips curl. They’re pink and a little puffy. Because of me.I like that. I like that a lot.
“They’re more like my wings,” she says. “Fewer settings, but you glitch when you’re emotionally overwhelmed. It’s cute.” She reaches around me, securing the deadbolt and the flimsy gold chain anchored in the wall.
We eat in silence, but it’s not uncomfortable.
Celine excuses herself to shower, and steam waftsthrough the crack under the bathroom door until the entire bedroom is hot and sticky. When it’s my turn, I stand under the spray until the water runs cold, remembering the feel of her lips on mine.
I’m a fool.
My self-preservation instincts are all but gone.
But I can’t bring myself to care.
The squatty black clock screeches far too early.
Celine slaps it with her palm, and it shatters, wires and springs and bits of plastic shooting everywhere. “Shit.” She sits up quickly. “I didn’t mean to hit it that hard.”
I hide my smile. My eyes are gritty, but I’m content. Embarrassingly so. “Cheaply made,” I tell her, reaching out to pluck a plastic fragment from her hair.
She gets up and heads to the bathroom. “I’ll be ready to go in five minutes.” Her voice is muffled, but I can still hear her. These walls are paper-thin.
After I’ve dressed and swapped places with her to brush my teeth, we check out—the new desk clerk is a bored teenager—and get back on the road.
“The gateway is roughly five hours away,” Celine says.
I nod. Five hours or fifty, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m along for the ride, and the longer it lasts, the less inclined I am to get off.
The rumored gateway is in an unincorporated part of eastern Oregon. By the time we’re approaching the coordinates, Celine is buzzing, and I’m nervous.
“What’s your plan?” I ask. “If the gateway rumor is real.”
“Get in, lie low until I know where Malach’s being held, break him out, then remove my father’s head from his body.”
Good gods.I stare out the window to hide my expression. She’s been away for a long time, and it’s understandablydifficult to make a solid plan without eyes on the inside, but that’s not what I’m worried about. She’s talking as if she’s lost her ability to strategize.
“If you can’t get in cleanly, will you wait until you can?”
Her silence is loud.
I’ll have to be blunt. “If you don’t outsmart him, he’ll kill you.”
“I know that,” she says. “I’m not embarking on a suicide mission, but I can’t hide any longer. He’s gone too far, and if I don’t stand up to him now, I won’t be able to recognize myself.” She’d rather die than be someone she’s not. It’s terrifying.
“And if Malach is complicit?”
“He isn’t.”
“But if he is . . .”