“I had to come. To give you a chance,” Jacks said. “And I know your frequency better than any, Maddy. You should know that by now.”
Maddy searched his pale blue eyes. They seemed deeper, flecked with more grey than she had ever seen. They seemed almost haunted.
On the deck of the ship, some sailors noticed the Angel down on the pier. They began shouting and drawing their sidearms, pointing them at Jacks.
“You! Angel! Down on the ground! NOW!”
Jackson paid them not the slightest attention.
He motioned towards the ocean horizon, where the demon sinkhole was just kilometres off shore.
“Maddy, I’m offering you a choice,” Jacks said. “To survive. To choose your Angel side once and for all. It’s your destiny. Don’t tell me you can’t feel that, honestly, in your bones.”
The words were blunt against her ears. Maddy could feel her Immortal Marks warming under her shirt. Stirrings of her beautiful wings, which she’d come to think of as an indispensable part of her.
Jacks continued. “The humans may be right about some things. But they are also confused, and weak, about many others. The Immortals Bill is wrong, and you know it. We can work together to change things for the Angels.”
Jackson stretched his hands out towards Maddy and took a few steps forward. “I’m giving you the chance to come with me. Be with me. It’s what I want. And I know it’s what you truly want, deep down.” The biotechnology circuits in Jackson’s wings glowed deeply orange as he took a breath in, then let it out.
“Lies,” Tom said, voice dripping with anger. His finger pointed accusatorily at Jackson’s impressive figure. “More Angel lies. Maddy, they’re deserting humanity in our hour of greatest need. They’d let us be exterminated by whatever things are out there, coming for us. Because we wanted to end their dishonesty – their entitlement – and democratize Protection for Pay. And you can trust what they say?” Tom snorted and looked at Jackson. “She’s smarter than that, Godspeed.”
Jacks took a threatening step towards Tom.
“DO NOT MOVE TOWARDS THE LIEUTENTANT!” a marine sharpshooter from the deck of the aircraft carrier screamed down at Jackson. Jacks looked up irritatedly at him, as you would at a persistent gnat.
“You need to forget him, Maddy,” Tom said. “It’s as much for you as for me. He’ll destroy you in the end. The Angels will never change. They’re too corrupted. I’m offering you something more. Something real. Something human. Something honest.” Tom looked into Maddy’s confused eyes, the windows into her conflicted soul. “You know that that’s what’s important in your life. What you truly want.”
The pilot’s gazed directly at her, unblinking. He reached out his hand.
All the bystanders on the dock had given them a wide berth, and sailors stood along the bridge, guns trained on Jackson. Maddy was now standing between the two young men, Tom in his olive green flight suit on one side, and Jackson in his indomitable black armour on the other, his fearsome wings curling slightly in as he waited for Maddy’s decision.
Maddy’s mind flashed to Jackson and the lookout: the site of both their first date and their last meeting. She looked at the man who had been so much a part of her life and who had driven away in heartbreak and bitterness. The pain on his face. And the pain in her heart. But also her feelings for Tom, which had swept upon her – swept upon both of them – unaware. What she felt when she was with him. And how he represented everything human about her.
And now she had to make a choice.
Between Jackson and Tom. Between Angels and humanity.
The aircraft carrier towered behind the Battle Angel and the pilot, somehow cruelly beautiful against the red-tinged clouds, as Maddy drew in a breath.