“Jacks, don’t talk like that,” Maddy said, feeling miserable. “I won’t go. I’ll just stay here. We’ll do something else.” She approached Jacks and held his two hands in hers.
But he slowly shook his head. “No. You should go. Darcy will be pissed if you don’t.”
“I don’t care what Darcy thinks. And I don’t care what the Archangels think. Or what Senator Linden thinks. Or what anybody thinks, except you, Jacks.”
Jacks shook his head. “I’m sorry, Maddy. I’m sorry I brought up the other stuff. You should go; you need to go. I’m going to be mad now if you don’t go. This is all my own stuff I’m trying to deal with.”
“But— ”
“No buts,” Jacks said emphatically. “I want to look on ANN tonight and see footage of” – he put on a Tara Reeves voice – “‘gorgeous Maddy Montgomery coming out to shine with the stars’.” Jacks smiled and laughed a little.
Maddy looked at him. She felt upset and confused and didn’t know what the right answer was, or even if there was a right answer. Was Jacks being selfish? Was she being selfish? She felt exhausted all of a sudden. “Are you . . . are you sure?”
Jacks nodded, running his thumb along her cheek. “I’ve been meaning to spend some time with my mom, anyway, and I know she’s home tonight. Not a big deal.” Jacks smiled more, swallowing his disappointment ever deeper.
That night at the event – an Angel-studded gala on the rooftop of the Angel City Art Museum – Maddy was the centre of attention, wearing a spectacular Alexander McQueen dress she and her stylist had been planning on. She smiled and took pictures along the red carpet and did brief interviews with ANN and A!, which had correspondents waiting to pounce on the hottest Angels.
The autumn air was starting to crackle with energy as the biggest event of the year was just a month or so away: Commissioning Week. Emily and Mitch were both going to be Commissioned, and Maddy was hoping that for at least a week or so, the spotlight wouldn’t glare so brightly on her. She couldn’t even imagine how nervous she was going to be in a couple of years when her own Guardian assessment was going to take place. So much attention was already on her.
She glanced around the event: anyone who was anyone in the Angel world was there, but Maddy had the strange feeling they were all looking at her. She kept up appearances, trying not to stumble in her Louboutin heels, which she was slowly but surely mastering, but she had a bad feeling. She walked over to the edge of the roof, where there weren’t so many people, and pulled out her iPhone. She saw she had a text from Gwen: “Look at this . . . L,” with a link to a blog posting with pictures already up from the Teen Vogue red carpet just thirty minutes ago.
“Maddy One Step Behind!” the headline read.
It showed pictures of Maddy arriving at the red carpet that night in her McQueen dress. And then it showed pictures of Emily the night before wearing the same exact designer dress.
Emily had already tweeted – from the other side of the party: “Don’t you hate girls who are just copiers? Get your own style!”
The Aussie Angel had somehow found out that Maddy was planning on wearing the McQueen dress to the Teen Vogue event and wore it just to make her look bad!
Looking back over her shoulder into the main bustle of the party on the rooftop, she saw Emily’s friend Zoe with another group of young Angels, all rolling their eyes and laughing at Maddy. Maddy’s cheeks burned. She felt like a bug on a pin. She had been walking around the party, not knowing that everybody thought she was just copying Emily.
Sighing, she looked out on to the dark hills and the Angel City sign, which was barely visible in the distance. The gala glittered behind her. She thought about Jacks, whose pride wouldn’t let him come with her tonight. Because no matter how bad she felt for Jacks, she realized that’s what it was: his pride.
As Jacks was on her mind, a disconcerting thought suddenly arose in her head, very clearly.
How long can this go on?
CHAPTER 18
The next morning, Maddy looked out of the window of the helicopter at the auburn desert flats below her and couldn’t help but smile to herself at the irony: they were using the chopper to fly her out to the desert, so that then she could practise flying. Angel efficiency at its best. The roar of the blades overhead was dulled by the headset she wore.
“Almost there,” the voice crackled over the radio in her ear. Below her, the seemingly never-ending development of Angel City had butted up against mountains and then finally given way to vast tan, parched desert that stretched now as far as she could see. It was incredible to her. She’d driven through with Uncle Kevin once when they’d visited some relatives in Nevada, but being above it gave her a sense of the scale of the whole thing.
The Angels had top-secret proving grounds out here near the military bombing ranges, but not even the military were allowed to trespass on the Angel training grounds here in the desert. Maddy soon saw a gleaming silver structure in the distance, just inside what looked like tall cyclone fencing.
“Dropping the bird down,” the pilot said, landing them on the helipad next to the building. Sand and dirt swirled around angrily as the helicopter touched down. Maddy pulled her hood close around her and jumped out of the chopper into the churning grit, following her flight instructor, former ADC Agent Trueway. It was time for Maddy’s more advanced speed training.
She might be able to get by without knowing time manipulation – there were some Angels who weren’t too great at it – but there was no way she’d make it to Guardian without getting the hang of flying. It was crunch time, and Maddy knew it.
Maddy and Trueway were met by a tall, muscular Angel in ADC uniform – when not prepping Guardians, the agents performed their advanced tactical and flying training out here in the desert. Junior ADC agents stood guard at the building. Maddy felt a slight shudder run down her spine as she saw the black uniform but tried to chase it from her mind. She noticed the entire grounds were surrounded by six-metre-tall electrified cyclone fence.
They were led into a black truck, which drove a short distance down a gravel road until it reached a paved clearing. In the centre of the paved clearing was a metal pylon, which reached about six metres into the sky. More pylons continued as far as Maddy could see, each about a football field’s distance apart. Far off, it seemed as if they started zigzagging a bit.
“Ready?” Trueway said to Maddy as they reached the paved clearing. Maddy looked at him and nodded. She slipped off her hoodie so that she was wearing only her flying training gear – a nylon-and-cotton form-fitting uniform that had openings for wings. It wasn’t too weird, but it made Maddy, who had never been particularly athletic, feel self-conscious. She stepped out of the truck and looked into the distance at the pylons.
“Maddy, now normally when we bring Guardian nominees here, it’s just to hone their already God-given instinct as an Angel to fly. We train for more speed, smooth over some rough patches. Essentially help them become the best flyers they possibly can be.” He scrutinized Maddy through his sunglasses. “Now, with you it’s a little . . . different.”
Maddy’s cheeks flushed as she recalled her repeated embarrassments during agility training, her inability to master the basic techniques necessary to fly gracef