“I’m here. I’m alive,” I cried, because I knew she needed to hear it. When my arms went around her, she gasped, as if she didn’t think I was real until that moment.

“I knew it,” she said between her tears. “I knew you were alive.”

Pulling her hands from her face, she finally looked at me, really looked at me. And that’s when I noticed the giant diamond ring on her left hand.

Noah. Sweet Noah.

That was a conversation for another time. For now we just sat there, crying and holding each other, with Noah smooshing us in a sandwich hug.

Mr. Bradstone started to lead the students out, giving us privacy when the doors burst open. I peered back to see my mother running inside with Mikey. She was pale and shaking, and Mikey looked in shock as well. I wasn’t sure how much more my heart could take. I was an emotional wreck.

They crossed the room quickly and joined us on the floor, holding on to Shea, Noah, and me. We were in one big hug chain, and all I could feel was love and acceptance. Everything I went through down there, every dark and awful thing, it was all worth it. There had been times I’d wanted to give up on life, but feeling my family holding me now was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Shadowed only by the absence of Lincoln.

Where are you?

We’d all been sitting there for a few moments, just crying, laughing, and holding on to each other, when I felt two very warm, very familiar hands on my back.

Raphael.

I burst from my family’s love cocoon and stood, letting him wrap me in a huge hug. His wings came around to encompass my entire body, and I was enmeshed in the calming, restorative presence of the Archangel of Healing.

“I did bad stuff down there,” I muttered into his chest between my sobs. Raphael had become like a father figure to me, and I felt so guilty about making that promise to the Devil and leaving Sera down in Hell.

“Shhh.” His healing voice filtered down to me, soft and melodious. “None of that matters right now.”

Pulling back, I met his gaze. “Are Elodie and her son in your office? They saved my life. You have to let them stay on campus. It’s the only place that’s safe. Everyone needs to stay on campus. He can’t see us here.” I began to panic. Now that my constant state of fight or flight that I’d lived in the past few months was dying down, I was crashing.

He rubbed my back. “Whatever you need. They can stay here forever. Don’t worry about that right now.”

I nodded, meeting his blue-eyed gaze, and built the courage to ask him what was truly pressing on my heart.

“Raph, where’s Lincoln?”

I could see his heart breaking in the way his face fell, could feel it in the way he tucked my hair back away from my face, preparing me for something awful. “He did not do well with your absence. It broke him, child.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Where is he?”

Raph looked down at his feet, unable to meet my gaze. “He went to San Francisco, enrolled in an elite Fallen Army division called the Fallen Resistance.”

I stopped breathing, and my heart sank into my stomach.

“Why do you look so scared?” I asked him.

Raphael’s eyes grew misty. “Because they rarely make it home.”

Oh God. Lincoln… what have you done?

Chapter Seventeen

I’d totally freaked out when Raphael told me Lincoln joined the Fallen Resistance. Now I was in Lincoln’s trailer, with Shea wrapped around me, and Noah sitting at the edge of the bed. My mom and Mikey were grabbing pizza for dinner, and would meet us soon.

Noah was catching me up on everything. After I’d left, Bernie abandoned the trailer and went in search of me, leaving Maximus with my mom. Lincoln left the apartment, giving it fully to my mom, and moved back into the trailer to be secluded. He’d taken time off from the Fallen Army, pushed Noah and everyone else away for a while.

Shea held me tightly under Lincoln’s denim-blue covers. Just smelling him on the sheets was driving me crazy. “After your funeral, Lincoln and I refused to believe you were dead. We started going on missions,” Shea told me.

Noah groaned. “Missions where Shea created portals, going in with Chloe, trying to find you.”

Chloe. Luke. Angela. I needed to see them.

“It killed Lincoln that he couldn’t cross over there,” Shea confessed.

Yeah, I imagined that would kill me too.

“Where’s Sera?” Noah asked.

Way to crap on my already shitty day. “I had to leave her,” I croaked.

He reached out and grabbed my ankle, giving it a squeeze. “She’ll understand.”

I nodded. Sera did understand, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Tell me something good. Did anything good happen while I was gone?”

That perked Shea up. She sat up and she moved right in my face, her eyes wide and excited. “Tiffany had a spell go wrong in class, and it singed her hair halfway off.”

I grinned, slightly entertained and comforted to know that some things just hadn’t changed. Tiffany was still a bitch, and we still hated her.

“Did she try to move in on Lincoln after I left?” Oh, she would’ve been all over that, no doubt.

Shea nodded, her lips pursed into a grim line. “But Chloe and I put her in her place.”

Noah grinned. “Got suspended for a week for it too.”

I laughed. “What did you do?”

Shea shrugged. “Totally beat the shit out of her in battle class.”

“Even Bradstone couldn’t break them up. They had to call us in,” Noah informed me with a smirk.

I leaned over, giving my bestie a tight squeeze. She protected my man from the Tiffany vulture, and for that I would be forever grateful.

“What else?”

Shea’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Archangel Michael has a daughter, and she started classes here!”

Noah leaned forward. “She’s seriously badass. Has all kinds of crazy powers. But she’s weird, and withdrawn.”

Whoa.

I knew Michael had a daughter, but didn’t know she was going to school here. “What’s her name? What are her powers?”

This random banter had succeeded in taking my mind off Lincoln, at least for the time being.

“Her name is Emberly, and her wings are silver and shimmery. She can wield a sword like nobody’s business, and I heard she can read minds,” Shea gushed.

Noah nodded. “I heard she can influence people’s minds too, plant ideas in there. She wears armor over her wings because they’re frail. Her human half weakens them or something, so her dad built her wing braces.”

Oh my God, that’s the sweetest and saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

“Wait.” I sat up too. “While I was down there, Lucifer got a delivery of Michael’s blood. Was that for her tattoo?”

Shea’s eyes widened. “Yes! They thought it might help control her powers, and strengthen her wings. We were attacked at the shop. Demons ran off with it.”

Holy shit.

“Well, Lucifer has it now,” I told them.

Noah’s brow was furrowed. “I should tell Michael. That’s important information.”

I nodded. What were those other deliveries he got every day? They could be chocolate bars for all I knew, and all Raksha told me.

The thought of Raksha pinched my heart.

“Elodie and her son are okay?” I asked Noah for the fiftieth time.

He smirked. “The kid is eating endless french fries in the cafeteria, while the mom sets up their living quarters. They’re fine.”

I’d kept my promise to Raksha. For that I could be proud.

Shea’s eyes zeroed in on my chest for the first time. “Your devil mark is gone!” she screeched.

My hand flew to my chest, then my thoughts went to Bernie and my stomach sank.

“Yeah long story--.”

There was a rapid knock at the door, and then it flew open to reveal Chloe and Luke.

They’d been absent from battle class, on some special Fallen Army assignment in the war zone. They must’ve just made it back.

“Ohmygod!” Luke shrieked in a rushed squeal.

He plowed over Chloe, shaking the trailer as he ran down the hall and launched himself on top of me. “I missed you, bitch!” he sobbed into my neck.

I laughed, all my emotions coming back to the forefront again. I had a feeling this was going to be a day of crying.

Chloe leapt on top of us too, and I struggled to breathe. “We thought you were dead. We saw you die,” she uttered in disbelief.

When they’d finally moved off me and I could speak, I decided to tell them what happened. I needed to tell someone, so why not my closest friends? I started with the first day, when Lucifer slit my throat and had a healer demon save me.

“What a psycho,” Chloe interrupted.

Shea flipped out when I’d mentioned the engagement ring vibrating with magic. “I knew it!” she shouted, jumping on the bed and smacking her head on the ceiling. Then she pointed at Noah. “I freaking told you, asshole!”

He blanched and apologized.

By the time I wrapped up my story with Lucifer wanting to have my baby, the entire trailer was silent, jaws gaping open.

“Pervert!” Chloe shouted.

I shrugged. “Yeah so… that’s what happened. That’s why protecting Raksha’s family is so important and… yeah.”

Noah raised his hand like he was in school. “Can you rewind to the part where you promised to help Lucy enter the gates of Heaven, and slaughter everything?” They’d all loved my pet name for Lucifer, but clearly not the promise I’d made.

Shea reached out, her foot connecting with his rib cage, effectively shushing him. “She did what she had to do to survive,” she snapped.

“Ow. Okay.” Noah rubbed his ribs and glared at her.

I didn’t want to talk about that right now, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer, so I grabbed Shea’s left hand and held it up to the light, distracting everyone from the current conversation. “What is this? Are you getting married?” I grinned.