Joy was hesitant. “What has been already determined will come to pass, Quinn. I don’t think—”
“Joy! You’re just going to let them cut her up in front of a live audience?”
“Quinn’s right,” said Melody. “We have to do something about it.”
A buzzing sound. Our symbiotes were all acting up now. “The council,” they said in unison. “The Archangels shall decide what the order should do. They are aware of this stream.”
“That’s right,” said Miriam, opening the door to the classroom with a heavy sigh. “And to think I just cleaned up this place,” she muttered. She dragged Mia’s corpse outside, tossing it out the door as if it were merely a sack of rice. The swarm of locusts in her wake began to set everything in the classroom back as it had been before the Demon had attacked. “You are rank-and-file Angels. And while I appreciate your concern for your sister, it very well may be dangerous to try and save her yourselves.”
“But—”
“No buts,” said Miriam. “You are not the only people who observed the communication from Blood Thunder. We have been monitoring as well.” The swarm continued to buzz all around, though many of them returned to her, resting on her arms and legs, on her shoulders and on top of her head. “I understand that you know Russula well. That you see this as an attack against her. A friend who needs saving. I’m...” Her voice softened for a moment. “I’m right there with you.”
“Then—”
“This isn’t an attack against her,” Miriam continued. “It’s an attack against us. And as such, it is the responsibility of the Archangels to decide what we ought to do. For now, we are to stay put and avoid any rash actions. If foolish Angels show themselves too quickly, we may lose the precious few opportunities we have left.”
“I... you’re right,” I conceded. This was no time to act rashly.
Miriam spoke again. “Quetzal’s perimeter remains mobilized against us. We are locked down, and they know it. And not just us; our major Sanctuaries around the world are being accosted as we speak. They know that we cannot make a statement for ourselves. If their plan goes through, it will be far more than Russula who is revealed to the world. We will be exposed and have no chance to defend ourselves.” Miriam closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before continuing. “So all that being said, I would like you to return to your rooms and wait. I must go and meet with the other Archangels.”
***
“Grace?” I asked, knocking on the door to her room. Again, there was no answer. Was she even in there? “Grace?”
“She isn’t there.”
“Oh. Carm—” No. Not Carmen. “Faith.” The words felt slimy. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her directly. I focused instead on the clean white uniform, and the hexagon emblazoned on it.
“You’re looking for Grace, right?” She was wearing shiny black platform shoes.
“That’s right.”
“She went downstairs,” said Faith. “To the bottom hallway.” Her pants were very neat, without so much as a wrinkle to be seen.
“The bottom hallway?”
“Where your room is.” Her jacket was straight, and sat evenly on her shoulders.
“Thanks.” I turned down the hall. This was so... so awkward.
“Wait,” she said.
Her voice was still so... so like Carmen’s. But I knew I had to face her sooner or later. I just didn’t want to. Not yet. “Yes?”
“Quinn, I want to talk to you,” she said. “If that’s alright.”
“What is it, Faith?” Her eyes. Her olive skin and freckles and silky black hair, and everything else was just like Carmen. But her eyes were not. Maybe it was her expression. Maybe it was something else. But staring into her eyes, I felt like I was looking into the eyes of someone far older than myself. Still, her face was familiar. It was Carmen’s. And yet it wasn’t, anymore. It never would be again. Carmen was gone. Gone forever. And all because—
“Do you hate me, Quinn?” Faith interrupted.
“No,” I said. I didn’t even need to think about the answer. I didn’t hate her. “I just... find you unsettling. I’m sorry.” I was being so rude, wasn’t I? She was still... something. Human, though? I still wasn’t sure.
“Is it because this body used to be Carmen’s?”
“A little bit. Yeah,” I said. “It doesn’t matter anymore, though. It’s too late for that. Okay? I jut... I just can’t deal with you right now.”
“You know, I didn’t ask to be born,” she said. Her voice was quivering, now.
Those words stopped me in my tracks.
“I didn’t choose to take over your friend’s body. I didn’t exactly want it. But she chose this. She made a deal. And so slowly I grew inside her, watched you through her eyes, heard her thoughts, all knowing this would only lead to far more pain and suffering for everyone involved. And I just want to know what I can possibly do to be acceptable for you.”
“I...” I leaned against the wall. This was a lot. And she seemed so earnest, so pure in her desire to be close. But I couldn’t. “I don’t know, Faith. I’m sorry.”
She balled her hands into fists. “I knew that you would hate me once I was born. That I’d be born friendless and lost and shunned by the only people that I knew. But of course, everyone was too busy fawning over Carmen. Carmen this and Carmen that, all while her time was rapidly dwindling and I was preparing to fill in the shoes of someone who people loved. I was preparing to kill your friend.”
“That’s just natural.”
“Natural is the way that you were born. That Carmen was born. I was born a murderer. I was born an Angel, my life, my future, my free will all imprisoned within some grand fight between good and evil. I never even got a choice. How is that fair? How is that okay?”
“Joy said—”
“I’m not Joy,” she said. “Joy is happy with who she is. Joy is happy to be an Angel. I wish I could be like Joy. But I’m not. I want to be your friend, Quinn. I want to be normal. But because of how I was born, because of the stupid body that I have.... I can’t.” At this point, she was on her knees. Her pristine suit was dirty and dishevelled. And as she stared up at me with tear-filled eyes, I felt my own eyes tearing up as well.
“I’m sorry, Faith. I don’t know what to say” I held out my hand, and she took it, but I still felt the urge to recoil from her touch. Though still crying, she pulled me in for a hug. And it almost felt right. Almost normal. Almost okay. I wondered if it ever would feel completely alright. What would happen if it never did?
Pulling away from me, she looked me in the eyes again. “It’s not the same,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I know. Sorry for being so greedy with your time. I know I’ll never replace her. And you still want talk to Grace.” She gently pushed me away and started down the hall.
I reached out to stop her, but paused. Perhaps she was right. I didn’t have the answers she was looking for. And I needed to talk to Grace.
***
Grace was sitting in the alcove at the entrance to my room. Her back was against the door, knees pulled up against her chest. Her head rested gently against the rough stone wall, eyes closed. Was she sleeping?
“Grace,” I said. Her head shot up at the sound of my voice.
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“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m such a monster.”
“Grace, you’re not—”
“I am,” she interrupted. “I’m out of control. And when I get out of control, I’m a menace to everyone and everything around me. Quinn, I nearly... you... I nearly...”
“But you didn’t. It was a one-time thing, Grace. You lost control. But it’s not who you are, okay? I know that. You spooked me a bit, but I know that’s not who you are.”
“It isn’t.” Her symbiote was crawling up my arm again, making his way all the way up to my shoulder.
“It isn’t what?”
“It isn’t a one-time thing.”
I looked at Grace in confusion, but she simply nodded. “Cimex is right,” she said. “Quinn, let me tell you what happened during those final days in Sanctuary 18.”
“Grace...”
“Just listen, okay?” Bedbugs crawled out of the cracks between the stones, walking up my arms and legs and pulling me into a sitting position in the alcove opposite her.
I sighed. “Okay.”
“So you know, our numbers were dwindling thanks to Quetzal and his goons. We had a traitor, but we didn’t know who it was. And though I was new, they needed me to fight right away. So rather than sending me to Mali, they trained me to fight. And fight I did. It seemed every night they’d come again, with their Echoes, smashing through windows and doors and leaving the whole of Sanctuary 18 a mess. Every day they waited outside, coming closer and closer as the days wore on.
“Pretty soon, I was taking night shifts like everyone else, and.. well... the other Angel with me got seriously injured. She was about to go down, but she asked me to drink her blood. I mean, I knew it’d do something, and it did. I felt so strong afterward. I destroyed the Demon who had come that night, and the other Angels at Sanctuary 18 praised me for it. I was a hero... and so I asked the other Angels to let me suck their blood as well. But I didn’t realize... what it was doing. That the blood was feeding my Imago. That I was losing control to it, giving into my instincts and letting them rule me. A mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Hush, Cimex. It’s a mistake. I know that you don’t care whether we’re conscious or not. It doesn’t matter at all.”
“Rather, having consciousness is a marked disadvantage, is it not? Few Angels need to deliberate their options. Most can operate simply off their reflexes.” Was that true? “And you won’t be pained by petty moral questions or discomfort anymore.”
“Don’t say things like that,” said Grace.. “Consciousness is the essence of our life as human beings. If we lose that, then... then we’ve lost everything that matters.”
“That’s a fallible, human perspective.”
“Enough,” said Grace, reaching over to pluck her symbiote off of my shoulder. “That’s quite enough. I don’t want you burdening Quinn with this sort of talk any more. One suffering Angel is enough.” She turned back to me. “Anyways, I slowly lost my grip on reality. As the weeks wore on, more and more time was spent bathing in my raw instincts. I was stopping our adversaries. I was making a difference. Though each night became lost amid the haze, each morning, I’d wake dripping in the ichor of my fallen enemies, and I never felt better.”
“Until you didn’t.”
“Until it didn’t, yeah.” She chuckled, turning away. “I mean, the traitor was still among us, so we were still besieged. There were only a few of us left awake; the rest of us were still regenerating. And then came a night when I was on the watch, and we were attacked. And I drank her blood and started getting into it, until I... I... I completely lost it. I disappeared into my subconscious and what happened next... I don’t remember. But when I awoke, it was amid the corpses of the enemy and the remaining Angels of Sanctuary 18. Nobody was left alive. Even the chrysalises were slashed open, the fragile people within suffocating or finding more violent ends. Were they all my own doing? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I’ll never really know. All I know is that many of them had the telltale puncture marks of my... of....” She couldn’t keep going.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright.”
“It’s not alright,” she said. “It’s not okay. I was out of control. I ran from there. I hid. I tried to keep away, tried to stay out of combat, and especially to keep from human blood. For a year, nearly. And I’d been training myself, forcing myself awake with drills, doing everything to prevent my consciousness from lapsing again. But when Mia taunted me this morning... I asked you... I thought that maybe I had everything under control again. I thought that, just maybe, it would be alright. Instead, it was the worst episode I’d had yet. Because I can’t control myself. And... it felt even better than before. I’m terrified. One of these days, I might completely lose it. I might let go of my consciousness forever and hurt so many people. So please, let me apologize.”
“I..”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Grace. I’m not upset at you.”
She got up and hugged me. “I’m sorry for... I won’t do it again,” she said. “I’m just... I’m so scared of losing control.”
“There has to be a way you can learn to get it under control,” I said. “You can’t be the only Angel who’s dealing with something like this.”
“There might be,” she said. “But I’m still... so afraid.”
“It’s alright.” I patted her on the back and simply held her close. “It’s alright.”
***
I finally returned to my room to find the closet door ajar. How odd. Especially given that, with the strict dress code, I never actually used the closet for anything. I opened the door all the way, finding my luggage still carefully arranged on the floor. Sarah’s living jacket squirmed as I entered, but remained on its coat hangar, thankfully. But something else had taken up most of the closet space, just barely preventing the door from closing properly.
“Angelina,” I whispered.
The person in the chrysalis didn’t respond, of course. She seemed so serene, sleeping in the fluid, her body pressed against the translucent shell, curled up like a baby. She was approaching her full adult size. I couldn’t wait for her to be back. For now, though, I simply pressed my hand against the chrysalis, able to feel her heartbeat through the membrane. How I wished I could be her, floating in a dreamless, restful sleep that healed my body and mind. That’s what I needed most.
Instead, I collapsed on the bed. The blankets felt nice, but the cacophony in my head was louder and harsher than ever.
“What is on your mind?” asked Vespa. “Russula?”
Russula. What was going to happen to her? We were stuck waiting for the Archangels to decide what they wanted. I knew it was what we had to do, but still it felt... not enough. We were powerless to leave, to escape through the net that Quetzal had cast around us. So what would we end up doing? Would we try to to sneak through the enemy lines? Were we going to do nothing at all? “Yes,” I said. “She’s... I’m worried about her.”
“Do you not trust in the Archangels to deliberate wisely on this decision.”
“To be honest, I don’t.” And my mom was involved with that, too.
“You need to have faith in them.”
“I know I should have... faith.” Faith... I’d tried to push her away, and yet she was struggling so much with her own existence. It seemed now needlessly cruel to keep away from her. I needed to try and be there for her. But was that fair to ask of me? “Is it normal for Angels like Faith to be... like that?”
“It is only a phase. She will get over it.”
It seemed like a little more than just a phase to me. At the same time... I didn’t want to hurt her, but could I really get closer?
“Carmen would have wanted you to be closer to her.”
“What do you know about what Carmen would’ve wanted?”
“Enough. She grew up an Angel. She understood her place.”
“Faith didn’t even want to exist, Vespa. How... how am I supposed to fix that? And Grace...” Grace had just unloaded a lot onto me as well. Her guilt and fear of her own body and what it could do if she lost control...
“Perhaps it would be best to simply let it all go.”
“I wish, Vespa. I wish it were that easy.”
“It could be.” My symbiote landed on my nose, staring into my eyes with her own large compound eyes and triangle of ocelli. I felt the world spinning around me, like I was going to sleep. Mirages of my... myself? Flashed through my mind. My Imago, shiny with its black-and-orange plating. My blade, slashing through Demonic foes with ease, splashing ichor and crushing stone with every strike. My instincts each heightened to a razor’s edge, guiding me effortlessly through every motion. I’d felt a ghost of this before, while deep in combat with Demons. It was something like a flow state, like playing a piano piece that you knew well, or executing a combo in a fighting game, focusing the subconscious and filling me with a sense of euphoria. But this time, the mirage went further, crowding out every thought, every conscious sensation, an overwhelming bliss that left only a being of pure instinct and ferocity,.
And before I knew it, my body started to change, too, the chrysalis forming around my fingers and toes and arms and legs. My body melted away to nothing, useless human muscle and bones replaced with the shining perfection of my Imago. My skull was gone, my compound eyes opening to a new—
“Stop that,” I said.
The dizzying visions faded, and so too did the feelings of happiness and fulfillment that had accompanied them. Gathering myself, I flaked off the chrysalis and returned to my human body, breathing heavily. Was that was giving in to my instincts would feel like? The total surrender that had made Grace into a monster, as she put it. And it felt... it felt crazily good. It was like some part of me, deep inside, was calling me to give up my consciousness. It was so much simpler. So much clearer. So much more bearable than the deluge of questions that flooded into my head as I lay there, drifting off to sleep.