Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

“Hi,” Tom said. He lifted up a bag. “I came up through the back entrance. And I brought you some food. I hope you don’t mind Chinese. It was the only thing I saw on the way.”

Maddy realized with a shock that she hadn’t really eaten anything all day. Tom really was thoughtful. “Thanks,” she said. “I guess I should try to eat.”

“You’re not going to do anyone any good if you starve to death,” Tom said. He pulled a plate from the cupboard and scooped some vegetable noodles out of the takeaway containers. “The navy trained us to always make sure you’ve eaten. No matter what’s going on.”

Maddy took the plate of steaming food. She managed to take a bite or two before putting it to the side.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Maddy said miserably.

“No apologies,” Tom said. “Can we agree on that?”

“OK,” Maddy said. “No apologies.”

“He – I mean, Jacks – didn’t seem too happy,” Tom said. The pilot looked over at Maddy.

“No, he wasn’t,” she said. “It’s just so . . . complicated.” Maddy kept her eyes down. “The whole reason I became a Guardian was for an idea – the idea that those who can protect those who can’t protect themselves. Somehow along the way I forgot that.” She looked out on the darkening Angel City through the window. “And now everything is changing. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Nobody can predict the future,” Tom said.

“He says it’s my fault.” Maddy glanced up, looking into Tom’s eyes.

“It’s not,” Tom said, suddenly upset. “Because Jacks can never see things the way you and I do. He doesn’t understand what it’s like. He doesn’t understand looking into your eyes and seeing the hurt, and the confusion, lurking behind . . . this beautiful, confident woman. He has no idea, he’s just an Angel.” Suddenly, like magnets drawn together, they were just inches away from each other. “I can see it, though.” She could almost feel his body heat radiating from his skin.

With a shock, Maddy suddenly realized her eyes were closing, and the heat of Tom’s breath was tickling her lips. And then his mouth was on hers. Without thinking, she pulled him in, closer, tighter, her lips pressing hard against his as she welcomed the kiss.

After a moment, they both drew back. Her breath was coming hard and shallow. She tried to look into his eyes, but in lifting her chin, her mouth brushed his, and then his lips were against hers again, and as much as she tried to stop it, she wanted it. Wrapped her arms around him and threw herself into the kiss. His fingers laced through the hair at the nape of her neck. It was all she could do to draw back. He must have felt the force of the kiss fading, and her lips withdrawing, because he suddenly withdrew too. Maddy knew she couldn’t be close to him any longer.

“We have to stop, please,” she breathed.

With the last of her self-control, she backed away until her back hit the far wall; then she slid down the wall to her knees. Stunned.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, confused, “I didn’t know that was going to happen.” He looked around for his coat. “I should go.”

“No, don’t— ” Maddy stuttered. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “You don’t have to go.”

Maddy slowly gathered herself and returned to the couch. As if sleepwalking, Tom sat down on the couch as well.

“I – it’s not like I planned it or anything,” Tom said, his face slightly burning. “I respect you too much to do that.”

Maddy’s mind was whirl of confusion. It was as if everything had suddenly flipped upside down in an instant. Everything she felt and believed. That she could have been so attracted to Tom that they suddenly fell into each other’s arms.

It was like waking up in her home and suddenly discovering there was a whole other wing of it she’d never even known existed. And it’d been there the whole time. Maddy’s world swam before her eyes. Everything she thought true and real was now turned and distorted. But what was the truth?

There was something about Tom that felt real. Solid, tangible, in the glimmering, transient tempest of the Immortal City, where if you were famous, someone always seemed to want something from you, all the time, always. Where you couldn’t believe what you saw in front of you – it could simply be tricks of the camera. But the pilot next to her, she felt that he was real. She felt a connection to him, a kind that she hadn’t felt before – no, not even with Jacks. Like he truly understood what she had gone through. And she realized she’d been feeling this for a while. She just hadn’t realized it. And apparently he hadn’t either.

“Tom, when we first started training together, why did you say you had to help me?” Maddy asked. “That you owed something to Professor Archson?”

Tom took a breath in. “To Susan? I can’t . . . tell you, Maddy. Not now. It’s more than I can get into. I will tell you sometime, I promise.”

Maddy and Tom sat silently on the couch in the dark room, lit by the flickering blue of the TV in front of them. On screen, President Linden was about to give his press conference. As he neared the podium, he ran his right hand across the front of his suit jacket, smoothing it.

“Should we turn the volume up?” Tom asked.

The podium bore the new seal of the Global Angel Commission. Linden stood behind it, his lips moving but still muted. His hair was, as usual, perfect. The current sitting president of the United States stood behind him, off to the side, along with other global officials and their emissaries.

Maddy hit the button on the remote.

“It is under the gravest of situations that I speak to you tonight. Many of you may not have agreed with my viewpoints in the past, and many of you may not have even voted for me. But I hope that we can all put our differences aside and agree, as Americans, and global citizens, that something has to be done about the Angel question. The shocking footage of yesterday’s save by Guardian Madison Montgomery Godright confirms that abundantly. This save proves that the Angels’ insistence on high fees and Protection for Pay is just a ruse, that they in fact can save more than one person at a time, and around the globe thousands are dying unnecessarily due to greed and manipulation by the NAS. Although we know very little about the Angels’ methods or training, we have thought since President Grant’s time that the Angels could only save a certain number of people. Protection for Pay was supposed to allocate who got saved – not cruelly, without conscience, let others die.