Angel's Mark

Ten

"I'm very serious about my tomatoes," Cian warned, squinting at his Walmart receipt. "Make sure it has enough tomatoes."

"Okay, sure," I said, then gestured for him to show me the phone screen again. He did so, displaying the text Lucie had sent him; she'd told us that she wanted whatever, as long as it has ham. Cian brought his phone back, and I placed a hand on the door handle. "I'll be back in five."

As I hopped out of the car and into the light drizzle, Cian shouted behind me, "Tomatoes!"

As if I'd ever forget his beloved tomatoes.

I threw my hood on, ducking my head against the sprinkle of rain from the hazy charcoal clouds. Everything was blurred and foggy: the streetlights softened at the edges, the muffled music from behind the sandwich place's doors. Specks of water darkened my shoulders like jewels as I yanked the door open and hurried inside.

A rush of warm air hit me, and I gave an involuntary shudder at the sudden difference, striding up to the counter. "I need to pick up an order," I said.

"Name?"

"Horne."

"Just a second, sir."

I don't know why, but it was weird to be called sir. There was something too formal about it, I guess, especially considering my age, and how close the cashier was to it. An awkward silence resulted in which I just nodded and stepped aside to make room for the next customer.

The restaurant—well, it wasn't quite the place that warranted the word restaurant, something more like joint or bistro—seemed to be the only bright thing in a sea of gray. The city was strange that way. It had days where sunlight was liquid and everything was alive and humming, and it had days where the hills were smothered in a bleak, monochromatic gloom. It also had days in between.

Today was an in-between day, I thought. Not bright enough, not dark enough. Gray.

"Horne!" called the guy behind the counter, and I stepped up as he presented a paper bag to me, printed with the place's logo and steaming with heat. I swiped Cian's credit card, took the receipt, and, opening the bag to check if Cian's sandwich had a sufficient amount of tomatoes on it, headed out the same way I'd come.

A hand grabbed my arm, jerking me to stillness. I turned to see a face mostly hidden beneath a forest green hoodie. "Can I help you?" I hissed, trying to free myself. The guy had an iron grip.

"You already have," he said, and dragged me towards the back door before I could protest.

The door struck the jamb with a promising thwack, and my back met cool, damp brick with the same intensity. As I wheezed, fumbling for my cell phone, my attacker flicked his hood back.

I stopped fumbling, and exhaled. "Alan?"

"Ah," he said. "You do remember me."

Of course I would—that wasn't the question here. The question was how he remembered me. Zev said they forgot, that humans always forgot. How was he going to explain this, I wondered?

Alan held his arm against my throat; I coughed, furling my fingers around his wrist and lowering it. He let me, but nothing in his gaze softened. His eyes, where they'd looked brown before, were green, a deep emerald that shone out of his freckled face like gemstones. He was breathtaking in the way an enigmatic artwork was breathtaking. I wanted to stare at him until I could understand him even if I knew I never truly could.

"You were—you're supposed to forget," I told him, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead. "Why haven't you—"

"How can I forget that? You—you and that other guy—saved my life, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. You have..." He trailed off, his eyes raking me in such a way that I squirmed with extreme discomfort. "Your wings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I saw you, you had wings, right?"

"Well, I mean, wings are a retractable kind of thing."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, who just wants to go around with them sticking out all the time, it'd be annoying—oh my—why am I telling you this?" I lifted my free hand to my forehead in vexation, my grip tightening on my to-go bag. Cian was in the car. I'd told him I'd be back in five, and had to have been ten minutes by now. If I left him waiting any longer, he'd surely start to worry. Oh, how sick I was of being the cause of everyone else's troubles. "Look, I was like you once. I know it's hard to take, but you just need to calm down, and not—not think so much."

He blinked like he genuinely didn't understand. "Thinking is how you understand things. How you get things done."

I sighed raggedly, shoving him away from me. "I have to go now."

He caught at my arm again. I groaned in exasperation. Zev always talked about humans like they were annoying pests, bugs that refused to be squashed. I was beginning to see where he was coming from.

"You can't do that," Alan told me, and I wasn't sure how I hadn't realized it until now, but he spoke with a faint something more, an Australian accent of some sort tinting each of his words. "You can't just act like it didn't happen."

I thought for a moment, and then I turned to him. The rain had stopped, sunlight slicing through heavy clouds in thin rivulets. They caught on each of Alan's curls, turning them from black to brown.

My voice trembled a little with indignation. "What do you want me to say, then?"

"That I wasn't hallucinating. It's real. You're an angel," he replied. "Tell me that."

I let out a noise that was somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff, not pleasant but not entirely acidic. "Is that it?"

To my surprise, Alan actually considered this for a moment. Then he said, "And your name."

Distantly I recalled Zev introducing us. I cursed the heavens that he would forget my name and not everything else.

I raked a hand back through my hair; the strands were slick with water. I blinked at him for a moment longer, hesitating.

"Vinny," I answered, already turning to go. "And, yeah, I have wings. Since you like thinking so much, you can probably connect the dots."

It sounded a lot more sarcastic than I'd intended, but I kind of liked it.

And when I turned my back and walked away, he let me go this time.