“Great,” Tucker says. Then he says to me, “Try not to hurt yourself, okay?” Tucker hardly talks on the drive home.

“You okay?” I ask him, which I know is the dumbest question ever, but I can’t help myself. The silence is killing me.

Suddenly he pulls over to the side of the road and puts the old farm car in park.

“You finish each other’s sentences.” He turns and stares at me with quiet accusation in his eyes. “You and Christian. You finish each other’s sentences.”

“Tuck. It’s no big—”

“Yes, it is big. It’s more than that. It’s like you can read each other’s minds.” I put my hand on his arm, search for the right words.

“He was making you smile,” he says softly, refusing to look into my eyes again.

“We’re friends,” I say.

His jaw tightens.

“We’re connected,” I admit. “We’ve always been kind of connected. It’s because of the visions. But we’re just friends.”

“Do you hang out with him, as friends? Outside of that Angel Club thing of Angela’s?”

“A few times.”

“A few times,” he repeats slowly. “Like how many? Three? Four?” I make a mental count of the times he’s shown up on the roof of my house. “Maybe five.

Six. I don’t keep count, Tuck.”

“Six,” he says. “See now, that’s more than a few. I’d say that counts as ‘quite a few.’”

“Tucker—”

“And you didn’t tell me because . . .”

I sigh. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be—” I can’t say it.

“Jealous,” he fills in. “I’m not.”

He leans back against the seat, closes his eyes for a minute, then blows out a long breath.

“Actually, you know what? I’m crazy jealous.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me with a kind of puzzled amusement. “Wow. I hate being that guy. All afternoon I’ve been about a horse hair from going all Bruce Banner and Hulk-smashing a locker. I bet that’s attractive, right?” I can’t tell if he’s serious, so I act like he’s joking. “Actually, it’s kind of cute, in a caveman sort of way. Green is definitely your color.”

He looks at me steadily. “You can’t blame me, though. You had the hots for Prescott all last year.”

“But that was because I thought he was my . . .” Again, I can’t say it.

“Your destiny,” Tucker says. “Why does that not make me feel any better?”

“See, now who’s finishing my sentences? He and I are friends,” I insist again. “I admit I was a bit obsessed by the idea of Christian last year. But it was an idea. I didn’t even know him.

You’re the real deal.”

He laughs. “I’m the real deal,” he scoffs, but I can tell he likes it.

“Christian is my past. You’re my future.”

Now I’m talking in clichés.

“You’re my right now,” I say quickly, and that’s not any better.

The side of his mouth lifts in an attempt at a smile. “Sheesh, Carrots, did you just say I’m your Mr. Right Now?”

“Sorry.”

“Man, do you ever have a way with words. Be still my heart.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“So you and Prescott are friends. Friendly, friendly friends. That’s fine. I can be cool with that. But tell me one thing: did anything happen between you and Christian, for real, not in your visions or what your people want from you or anything like that, but in real life, anything I should know about? Even before we started dating?”

Uh . . . I think we’ve established that I’m not the best liar. Most of the time, when confronted by the choice between fessing up and concocting a whopper, even if it’s for a good reason, like protecting my family or keeping the world from finding out about the angel stuff, I freeze, my face gets all wooden, my mouth gets dry. In other words, I choke. Which is why I surprise myself right then by looking straight up into Tucker’s vulnerable blue eyes, those eyes that say he loves me but he wants to know the truth, no matter how much it hurts, and I say in this perfectly calm and steady voice: “No. Nothing happened.” And he believes me.

I feel sorrow then. Just a flash, there and gone in the space of a few heartbeats, so fast that Tucker doesn’t notice the single tear that slips down my face.

This time I don’t even consider that it might be a Black Wing. It’s me.

I brush it away.

Chapter 11

Storm’s Coming

Last year when the snow melted, it was great to pack up our winter coats, breathe in that new earth smell, and feel that first hint of warmth return to the valley. But this year, the sight of the snowmelt dripping off the roof, tiny sprouts pushing up and out of the flower beds, green leaves uncurling on the aspens, it all fills me with dread.

It’s spring. Between now and summer, my mother will leave us.

In the latest dream I’m in the cemetery, walking up the hillside among the graves on a sunny day. Looking at the people around me, I realize that this crowd is largely made up of the congregation. Walter holding a handkerchief. Billy, who doesn’t look sad in the least, cheery even, and smiles at me when I catch her eye. Mr. Phibbs in a gray tweed sport coat. Then there are others who I don’t recognize, angel-bloods from other parts of the world, people my mom lived and worked with during her one hundred and twenty years on earth.

It seems so obvious now that this was about my mom. Why couldn’t I see that from the start?

The answer is simple: because Tucker never shows up. Never. Not in any of the visions.

Not this time, either. I try to ignore my growing sense of betrayal, that there could be no possible reason that’s good enough for him not to be there at my mother’s funeral. He’s not dying, which is a huge relief. But he’s not there.

If only there was something that this vision’s telling me to do, an action to take, some sense of—pardon the pun— purpose in all of this, a way to train and plan and prepare the way I did for the forest fire. But the dream doesn’t seem to be telling me to do anything but to get ready for the biggest loss of my life. I feel like a bug waiting under God’s enormous shoe, and all this dream is telling me, all it’s leading me to, is to show up and stand there and wait to be crunched.