Page 100 of White Lights
“I did,” Rafe says quietly. “The night of the accident. Right after I left you on the road. I healed him as much as I was able to … as much as I was allowed, Dez. And so he made it to the hospital. Held on all this month. Long enough for you to be the one to make his film.”
She runs her eyes over Rafe’s gorgeous features, once so irritatingly perfect, now imbued with something richer, something previously unimaginable. She shakes her head and glares at him. “You really are an angel.”
A smile spreads across his face.
“So,” Dez whispers. “There’s a God? God is real.”
Dez had been raised, of course, to believe, but over the years there had been so many times when she doubted God that they started to stack overwhelmingly together. Tonight, confronting her brother’s death, was the kind of moment she’d expect she might swear off God forever. What God would let this happen, after all?
Except, here’s Rafe, inviting her to believe in the miraculous.
“I used to know angels who knew Them,” Rafe says.
“Them?”Dez whispers. A thrilling sense of truth, of rightness, flows through her.
Rafe nods. “In the heavenly realm, everything is paired. You’ll see.”
“What are They like?”
Rafe considers this. “It’s been a while since anyone has experienced Them. Some say They’ve gone back to the time before time.”
“What does that mean? Why would God leave?”
“I can answer a lot of your questions. But there are a few that are beyond even me.” He tips his head toward the Vault. “Can we go back inside? Moriah’s about to explain something I think you’re going to want to hear.”
Dez shakes her head. She can’t go back in there.
“If you don’t attend the gala until the end, you don’t pass the midterm, Dez. It’s one of Acheron’s ironclad rules.”
“I can’t.”
“We’ll hang in the shadows,” Rafe assures her. “No one needs to know we’re there.” He puts his hand out again.
“No more healing,” Dez warns.
“I’ll keep it to myself.”
She looks at his hand. Still doesn’t take it. She’s so exhausted, so tremendously sad that she wants something real to hold on to. But she knows this isn’t it.
“Why are you being kind tonight? Because my brother died?”
“I’m sorry your brother died.”
“I won’t get used to it,” she says. “Odds are you’ll be a dick again tomorrow.”
Rafe runs somber, penetrating eyes over her face. “Ask me why I haven’t been kind to you before tonight.”
She meets his eyes. “Why haven’t you been kind?”
“Because”—he draws a breath—“from the moment I met you, it was clear that you would change me. In ways Ireallywant to be changed. But I could also see what lay ahead for you.” He gestures around them. “I knew your brother would soon die, that you would make his film. I knew that this night would come when you would stand in the Vault and learn the truth. I knew that it would break your heart.” He reaches for her, strokes her hair. “What I didn’t know was whether you’d stay once you found out. And this part’s selfish and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bear to get close to you if after tonight, you left. You could have used a better friend these past few weeks. I wanted to be it. But I’ve been scared I might lose you.”
Dez can’t believe what she’s hearing. It makes her angry, and at the same time, it makes sense.
“You knew all this, yet you don’t know whether I’ll choose to stay?”
He shakes his head. “That’s a mystery. Because it’s up to you.”
Dez stares into his azure eyes, remembering the first night they met. “Well, I hope you got it all out,” she says.
