Battle Angel (Immortal City 3)

Kris didn’t press him, but her eyes reflected a silent compassion back to Jackson. Part of him wanted to open up to her, but that part was overruled by the part that was so hurt that it didn’t want to let anything—or anyone—in.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I know I must seem a little . . . off. It’s just that I haven’t been getting very much sleep lately,” Jacks said. “I really should go back to my rooms. I have some stuff to do for Gabriel.”

“Jacks,” Kris said, stopping him, slightly lowering her voice. “What’s happening—up there—there is no way to feel good about it.”

“It doesn’t have to feel good,” Jacks said, anger bleeding in. “It just has to be right.”

“But . . .” Here Kris paused, measuring her words. “How can you be sure of what is ‘right’? Is what you’re saying because you’re sure that what we’re doing really is right? Or are you saying it because of some anger you’re holding on to?”

Jacks looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you’re pro-human or something?” He almost said “pro-her” but caught himself.

Kris’s face quivered slightly upon hearing Jacks’s words. “This isn’t about being pro-Angel or pro-human, Jacks. What I’m trying to ask you isn’t about politics. It’s about you and your feelings,” she said. Jacks and Kris both knew she didn’t have to add “about Maddy” for him to understand what she meant. Kris continued, “Things will be changing drastically in the next few days, and I just want to say, don’t forget who you are. What kind of Guardian you are.”

Something inside Jacks cracked open, just slightly. A crack in his facade, which irritated him. “I don’t know what I think, Mom,” Jacks spat out. “And sometimes I wish people would just stop asking me. Because I don’t have an answer.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Kris said softly. “There are no easy answers here. No matter what Gabriel, or even your stepfather, might say. It’s not so cut-and-dried.”

Jacks let his mother’s words touch him for a moment before suddenly making himself distant. Again, he remembered her at the pier, with the pilot. Her words, and how they knocked the wind out of him.

“I have to go now, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

• • •

“Jackson Godspeed!”

Taking a breath, Jacks stopped in the hallway on the way to his place. The Australian accent and layers of calculated, playful seduction in those two words meant it could only be one person.

“Are you really going to just walk by without saying hello?”

He slowly turned around to see Emily Brightchurch’s famous red locks and beautiful face poking out from the partially opened door. The rest of her body was hidden inside her quarters.

“Come here!” she demanded.

“Now’s not really a good time, Emily,” he said. But she had already disappeared inside, leaving the door slightly cracked.

Her voice was muffled, but he could still hear her. “Jacks, don’t be silly. Just give me a second to get ready.”

Ever since she was a teenaged Immortal arriving in Angel City from Australia, Jackson knew that Emily Brightchurch had had her sights set on him. She had been a Vivian Holycross wannabe for a couple of years, mirroring the older, fashionable, and ultrafabulous Angel’s every move when she was with Jacks. When they broke up and Jacks got together with Maddy, she told all her friends that there was only one half-human, half-Angel standing in her way. From her provocative billboard-sized ads on the Halo Strip to her semiscandalous everyday wardrobe choices, Emily played up every aspect of her sexpot personality.

And now that she and Jacks were alone in the close quarters of the sanctuary, there was no way she was letting him get away.

The door swung almost fully open, and Jacks could now hear the television chattering away from inside.

“All right, then, what are you waiting for?” Emily said.

Jacks came to the door, sighing. Emily was wearing just a towel.

“You know, they have robes, Emily,” said Jacks.

“Do they?” she said innocently, showing way too much leg for her own good. The Aussie Angel seemed suspiciously not wet for having just stepped out of the shower. Was her idea of “getting ready” for Jacks taking her clothes off and just putting on a towel?

“I really should be . . .” Jacks couldn’t finish his sentence.

Emily yanked him, unwillingly, into the room, and before he knew it, the door was closed behind him.

She eyed him up and down, a devilish grin on her face, faking modesty by wrapping her towel a bit more tightly around her chest.

“You went outside, didn’t you?” she asked.