The TV flickered. Angel blinked. Focused on it. A series of buildings. Still abandoned after Katrina.
Crazy, she thought. After so many years, just left to crumble.
Her side tingled and she shifted uncomfortably. It had been doing that on and off all day. Not pain. This strange . . . awareness. As if it, her tattoo, wanted her attention.
She closed her eyes. Something was shifting inside her, a kind of movement. This feeling of . . . completion.
It didn’t frighten her, though she wondered if it should. She’d seen this horror movie where the heroine had been inhabited by an alien. If she remembered it right, the character had felt the same way.
Eyes closed, Angel trailed her fingers through the boy’s soft curls. The first time her side had hurt was on her birthday. At that horrible frat party. It had twinged, on and off, ever since. But this other thing, whatever was growing inside her, her first glimmer of it had occurred while talking to Zach yesterday, then ramped up this morning, when Zander had taken her hand.
A clarity, she realized. The reason she wasn’t afraid. She was meant to be here now. With these people. All of them.
In a way she had never been meant to be anywhere. As if everything, all eighteen years of her life, had been leading to this moment.
“He’s sound asleep.”
She opened her eyes. Jacqui stood in the kitchen doorway, eyes on her son, smile soft with love. A mom’s love.
What she had never known. What she never would. It hurt.
“He likes you, Angel.”
“I like him.” She looked at Jacqui. “He’s really special.”
She smiled. “I think so, too. But I would, I’m his mom.”
She doesn’t know.
“Shame, isn’t it?” Jacqui motioned toward the television. “Beautiful old school.”
Angel turned her gaze to the screen. Sacred Heart church and school. Boarded and abandoned. Black and white graffiti scrawled across red brick. The playground with broken, lonely swings and toppled slides. Chain link fence, signs warning Keep Out.
“Where is that?” she asked.
“Lower ninth ward.”
“How come nobody’s fixed it back up?”
“It’s complicated. Cost. Location. Can’t fill a school if there aren’t enough children.” She clucked her tongue. “I’m sure the archdiocese still owns it. Looks like they’ve been mowing.”
Angel stared at the TV. Her side burned and she winced.
“What’s wrong?”
“My side. It hurts sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”
Jacqui crossed to her, laid a hand on her forehead. “You don’t have a temperature.”
“I never do.” She tried not to moan as the pain spiked again. With it, the image of Micki popped into her head.
She looked hopefully up at Jacqui. “Do you think Micki’s all right?”
“I do,” she smiled gently, the same way Angel had seen her smile at Alexander. “She’s really tough, Angel. She’ll be okay.”
“But what if—” She stopped, pressed her lips together a moment, then went on “—this time, she’s not tough enough?”
Jacqui’s smile wavered. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I like her,” she said simply. “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
“She’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“Jax?”
She stopped, looked back.
“How come you guys are friends?”
“She took me in when I had nobody.”
“Kind of like me.”
“I suppose so. Though I was robbing her neighbor’s house. Or trying to.” She paused. “I was pregnant with Alexander.”
Angel frowned. “What happened to his dad?”
“That’s a story for another time.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Micki could have busted me, instead, she helped me. I owe her everything.”
Angel’s side tweaked again. “I’m going to go lie down.”
“Let me get Alexander first, I’ll put him to bed.”
Angel waited, watching as she scooped the boy up. He whimpered and melted into her, as limp as a rag doll.
“I wish I had a mom.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m an orphan. I was left on the steps of a church.” Angel saw Jacqui blink against tears. She looked quickly back at the television, afraid she might cry too. “Who knows, maybe it was that one?”
*
Angel awakened with a start, heart thundering. The bedside light cast a soft glow, beating back the dark as best it could. She lay on top of the covers; the apartment was silent. She sat up and her sketch tablet slid off her chest.
In her dream. Someone. Calling her for help. Needing her.
Quickly, she grabbed her pencil and pad, began to draw. Focusing inward on the images from her dream. Gripping the pencil, her hand flew across the page. A curved line, a straight one. Hatch marks and smudges, light a shadow.
A figure began to take shape. One howling in pain. A female. Reaching out.
Angel brought her own hand to her mouth. Micki. The person in her dream was Micki.
Chapter Fifty-four
Saturday, July 20
1:15 A.M.