I'd always admired the quaintness of Lucie's kitchen. Everything in Cian's and my kitchen was white and black and polished to a spotless shine, like one speck of dirt was the very end of the world. But Lucie's seemed more homely to me, with its warm, dusty brown cabinets and painted tiles and the little round table between the door and the Frigidaire.

I sat at that table now, Lucie across from me. She had some sort of math homework spread out in front of her, a half-crumpled piece of paper scribbled all over with letters and numbers and smudges of graphite. When I'd been in school, math had been my best subject, but whatever the heck she was looking at was way beyond my years.

Lucie tapped her pencil upon her teeth, then set it down with a heavy sigh and looked to Cian instead. "It's a pizza place," she reminded him. "It's not like they're looking for Bill Gates."

Cian, leaned against the counters, eyed her dejectedly over the crust of his pizza. He'd decided to buy some before we'd left, and he'd been devouring it ever since we got here, with that same disappointed look on his face like he already knew he'd failed. "So?" he mourned. "I want to be Bill Gates anyway. I should wow people no matter where I am, right?"

"You're an overachiever."

He harrumphed and tore another piece from his pizza slice with bared teeth. "Runs in my family, muffin."

Lucie wrote something else down on her paper, clicked a few buttons on her calculator—which was clunky enough to be a mini computer to me—and then paused. "Did he really ask you if you were Irish?"

"Yes."

"You're not Irish, are you?"

"Not that I know of! Oh my God, you're missing the point."

"I've got the point. The point is you're being a baby about this whole thing, Cian," Lucie countered, rolling her pencil around underneath her fingers. Cian was glaring at her, and she seemed aware of this, but she didn't appear to care. "I'm sure you got the job. And even if you didn't, it's their loss, anyway."

Cian's glare softened into something more along the lines of "heart eyes." I snorted. He still became a bumbling idiot around Lucie, despite the fact they'd been together for months now. "Really?" he said. "You mean that?"

Lucie rolled her eyes, then snapped her fingers in Cian's direction. "Shut up and hand me a slice of that—no, not the one you bit off of, you bozo."

"Bozo?" Cian repeated, turning back towards the box again. "That's a first."
Lucie let out a breath, taking the pizza slice from Cian, which he'd set on a flimsy paper towel that was already damp with grease. Her eyes moved towards me then, and she reached out, tapping the table with her fingers. "You've been awfully quiet, Vince," she observed. "What's on your mind?"

The right question was what wasn't on my mind. I had this annoying capability to be in five million different places at once, and it wasn't a skill I could always turn off when I needed to. For instance, at the moment, I was thinking about just how many bullseyes Zev was going to make me shoot when I got home, how many times I was going to fail before he upped the stakes. I was wondering if Cian really would get the job. And I couldn't stop thinking about what happened back at the pizza place—that feeling, that warm buzzing within my veins. Danger.

If there hadn't been any, why had I thought there was anyway?

It was while I was pondering all this that I realized Lucie was still awaiting a reply. The longer I didn't say anything, the higher Lucie's eyebrow crept upwards, the deeper her dubiety grew.

I stammered, "Nothing. I just zoned out a bit."

Cian and Lucie shared a look.

"Alright, cut the crap," Cian announced, placing one hand on his hip so dramatically that it was almost comical. Nothing about the look on his face, however, was comical, and that was when I realized just how much of a rut I'd gotten myself in to.

He drew a chair up, sitting on it backwards. "You're either gonna tell me what's up or I'm going to sit here and ogle you for the rest of eternity."

Lucie poked Cian's cheek. I wasn't sure if the gesture was intended to be scolding or affectionate. "I've told you about using that word."

He poked her cheek in return. "I'll use whatever word I want."

"But the connotation with that one—"

"Stop. Please. You're too smart for me," he said, then looked at me again. "Vinny? Speak."

I cast an idle glance out the kitchen window, a bright rectangle above the farmhouse sink. The sun was just sinking below the horizon, painting the skies pink. Cian and I would have to be home for dinner soon. Mom had recently become super adamant about eating together all the time—everyone, including Zev. It'd been awkward at first, but now at least it was getting less awkward.

We actually sort of acted like a family now, for the first time in years.

I said, "I felt it. Danger. Like something was going to happen to you."

Silence filled the space, and for a long time, the two of them were just blinking at me.

Then Cian let out a sigh, squinting one eye shut. "It's like how death angels know when someone's dead, right? But for you guys it's danger, as you said."

I nodded.

Lucie tugged on a curl of her hair, her full lips pressing together into a thoughtful pout. Her worry was written all over her. It was in the narrowness of her honey brown eyes. It was in the slump to her shoulders. It was in the aimless tapping of her fingers across the wooden table. "Why," she began cautiously, "would Cian be in danger at a pizza place? Was the oven too hot, or something?"

I dragged my tongue over my chapped lips, resting my head on the table. I was too exhausted to think anymore. "I don't think that's it, Lucie. I don't know what it was. I just know I felt something."

There was a hand on my shoulder; I glanced up to find it was Cian's. "Why didn't you tell me? I asked you and you said you were fine. Why'd you lie?"

"I don't know. I didn't wanna worry you."

"Vince, we've been over this. You've got to tell me this stuff, alright? I know this whole angel thing is new to you, that you're scared, but—"

I sat up. Cian's hand fell from my shoulder, and he raised an eyebrow at me silently.

"I'm not scared," I said. "I'm not scared. I'm fine. I can handle it."

Cian's eyebrow inched higher, and the more he looked at me like that, the more bothered I became. He really didn't believe me. What was it? That he didn't think I was strong enough, experienced enough, good enough? Even if that were the case, what choice did I have? I was here now and there wasn't any going back. I'd known that the second they'd put these wings on my back. The second the Order linked me to them.

Lucie cleared her throat as if to speak, but she was interrupted by a synth ringtone. I didn't know how else to describe it; it was just a series of coordinated beeping, but I'd been much too lazy to change it.

I pulled the phone from my pocket, hit answer, and got up, turning my back to the other two people in the kitchen. "Hello?"

"Lazarus," huffed Caprice into the other end. No, really, it was a huff. She sounded beyond out of breath, which was unusual for someone who wasn't human. "Listen. I'm at the Golden Gate, alright, and we've got an issue. Well, lots of issues, actually."

"Can you be more specific?"

"Not enough time. Get Zev and get over here. If you don't, it's going to get ugly."

"Caprice," I hissed. "You do realize that being all vague isn't going to—"

"Shut up and get over here! I swear, you're just like your nitwit older brother—" She grumbled something else less audible, then hung up.

When I turned around again, the two of them were staring at me with the same look on their faces: So?

I shoved the phone down in my pocket and grabbed for my jacket.

Cian hopped up, the chair groaning across the floors as he did. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on?"

"Stay here with Lucie," I told him, tossing the jacket on and zipping it up. I deliberately avoided looking at Cian too closely. There was something tense around him, like if I met his eyes I'd be way too vulnerable. "I'm taking the car."

"Vinny, you can't just—"

"I can just. It's my job now," I said, and then I snatched the keys from the counter and left.