The LORD’s gift is not an easy one to bear. It is painful—but the reverend mother says no blessing worth having comes without pain. You will suffer sickness, agony, and rage beyond your imagining. Bear it with dignity, for salvation is forever yours. (But I would make it easier, God, if only I could.)

—Sister Kipling’s notes on the Flood

Trevor’s funeral is the next evening. The whole day, the ALC is still as a corpse. Nobody will so much as breathe until the oppressive taste of the air is gone, until the terrible thing seeping into our lungs is looked in the eyes.

The funeral is held in the courtyard at the back of the ALC, boxed in by a bank and the gate. It can barely hold all forty people, let alone the shoebox-size open grave marked by a rock. I’ve never been to a funeral before. Angels look down on them. Mom’s uncle died when I was eight, and her side of the family stopped speaking to her after she refused to attend the service. Funerals are a function of grief and therefore sacrilege. Loss is God’s plan. How dare you grieve what was always His to take?

It’s getting dark, and the sky is orange and indigo. The only person not gathered around the grave is the sniper on the roof, who sits with her legs dangling over the edge.

I’m the last one out. I ease the door shut behind me, where it hits the brick keeping it propped open. People clump together like algae on the pond in Wagner Commons. The Watch clusters by the gate. Erin stands behind the grave, whispering to someone I can’t see. And Nick stands away from everybody, alone except for his bead lizard.

Faith tries to wave me over to the Watch. Aisha is leaning against her shoulder, desperately trying to wipe away tears. I wave back, offering a smile I hope comes across behind my mask, but make my way over to Nick. After watching him crumble in front of the Vanguard, I don’t like the idea of him standing by himself. Or something. I don’t know.

Nick is focused on his lizard. He stares at each bead as he goes over it with his fingers. I like that we don’t have to say anything. It’s easier this way.

“Thank you all for being here,” Erin says, just loud enough to carry across the courtyard and no more. Erin changes when she’s in front of a crowd. There’s no waver to her voice, no uncertain twitches or nervous tugs at her braids. “The past few days have been difficult, and I am incredibly proud of how we’ve soldiered through. But keeping a stiff upper lip for too long hurts everybody. It would mean a lot to Trevor that we’re letting ourselves come together like this, even for just a little bit.”

How dare you grieve what was always His to take? I haven’t been able to cry for years. The Angels made sure of it; Mom made sure of it. I watched my father die, and all I did was keep it crammed in my chest where nothing can get out except my own literal guts. I watched his head cave around the bullet, turning his face into a bloody flower of skull and tongue, and I accepted it and kept running because I couldn’t do anything else.

“Trevor was our heart,” Erin says. A girl sobs into her sleeve. “He fought for us because he loved us. He stormed City Hall when our funding was cut, and he stuck with us through That Day and every day after. He died for us because he loved us.”

Dad died for me because he loved me. I’m going to join the Watch, I’m going to be good, I’m going to make the Angels suffer, because I love him.

A boy in the crowd leans on his friend, and I see the person next to Erin: a scraggly white kid in a patchwork coat. In funerals like the ones I’ve seen in movies, I could picture them as the widow. Instead of a bouquet of lilies, sprawling white funeral flowers, they clutch a charm bracelet.

I wish I had Dad’s watch. His wedding ring. A scrap of his shirt, his blood under my fingernails. Anything.

“If anyone knew him,” Erin murmurs, “it was Alex.” She puts a hand on their shoulder, ducking her head ever so softly. I remember Erin asking Salvador to track them down in the hours after Trevor’s death, because they’d disappeared and she was worried—and I remember their coat lurking near the ham radio in the lobby, only catching flashes of it as I passed by. They looked so gaunt, so destroyed. They still do. “Is there anything you want to say?”

Alex shakes their head and puts the bracelet in the tiny grave.

They never got to see Trevor’s body, did they? Do I pity them for it, or am I jealous? Would I feel better if Dad had been killed behind my back, if Steven had grabbed me by the neck and led me away while Brother Hutch put Dad down? If Dad hadn’t died with his hand in my hair and his blood in my mouth?

“You’re grinding your teeth,” Nick whispers.

I unclench. It takes every muscle in my face to manage it. “Thanks.”

Do I believe Dad is in Heaven? What happened when the bullet tore through his brain and turned that delicate organ to sludge? I want to think he’s happier now than he was, suffocating under Mom and the church, but I can’t stomach it.

“Again,” Nick says.

“Shit.” I work my jaw and stare at the brick wall beside me because it’s better than looking at the grave. “I just…”

“I know.”

Somebody else is talking now. Alex stands to the side, wrapped up in their coat, head down in silence. They’re so small. I wonder if I looked that small beside Dad’s body, in the moments between his head shattering and me getting to my feet to run.

A prayer for the dead is sacrilege, heresy, blasphemy. I was never taught any, so I have to make one. I dredge up Mom’s words, the church’s howling screams, and fasten them into something I’m not sure I believe. O Lord, accept these souls into your arms and ease their suffering. Do they reach anything? Maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as it takes a bit of this weight off my chest. In Your wisdom, let them be judged and let them rest. I can’t tell if I’m faking it. If I just want it to be true the same way Faith wanted it, so we know there’s something more than nothing.

Alex stifles a sob and steps away.

Prayers don’t help any of the living besides the one saying them. I can’t just stand here. I promised I would help.

I whisper to Nick, “Be right back.”

He says nothing, just watches.

Alex is walking away from the grave. They look a lot like me: pale, feminine in the face, bags under the eyes. I catch them by the back door, underneath the sniper’s legs dangling off the roof, right before their hand reaches the handle.

“Hey,” I whisper. Alex jumps and turns a watery glare on me. “Alex, right?”

They sneer, “Who the hell are you?”

I understand anger, God, I do. “I’m Benji. The new guy. I wanted to say…” I was there when Trevor died. I watched the light go out of his eyes. “I lost somebody a few days ago too. If you, uh, want to talk about it? I’m here.”

Alex punches me in the face.

Pain snaps through my jaw. I hit the wall, my head cracks against it, and I’m frozen long enough to say, “What—” Long enough for Alex to jam their arm under my throat and lean on it so hard, it sends a bolt up the soft part of my esophagus. I fight for air, scrabbling for a hold on their arm.

Their eyes bulge, red and bloodshot, and they growl, “It was you.”

“Alex!” someone shouts, shattering the desperate quiet of the courtyard. I dig my nails into their wrist so hard something pops.

“You killed him,” Alex keens. They press harder into my throat, and I gag. “You killed him! He would’ve lived if you hadn’t gotten in Nick’s fucking way!”

“Alex!” It’s Faith’s voice, louder. “Alex, stop!”

Alex’s concentration breaks for just a second, and I wrench an arm around the back of their neck and slam a fist into their ribs and throw my body into theirs. We hit the grass together.

I think I hear Erin, I think I hear Nick, I think, because I don’t know. I can’t hear anything but the rush in my ears now, hot blood roaring through my veins, because I’m on the ground with Alex and I’m making some terrible noise, wet and deep in my throat like a Grace. I’m on top of them. Their knuckles hit my jaw, my tooth clicks, and a piece of enamel hits the back of my tongue right where the rot is boiling over, seeping between my teeth. Every nerve ending is on fire. Red burns into my vision.

I have a knife. What if Alex has a knife too? What if they stick it into my lung?

I lean on them, putting all my weight on them until they choke, their nails cutting into my face. Our shoes dig into the grass, and their knee hits my stomach as they buck and twist. I have to get my knife first, I have to—

A hand grabs me by the hood of my jacket and yanks me back, dragging me down to the dirt. I snarl and lash out with my foot. Alex scrambles back, clutching their neck. Ghost-white marks around their throat fade as blood rushes back into the skin.

Above me, Cormac steps back, heaving with anger. Hair has fallen out of his ponytail and hangs around his face in a mess.

“What the fuck,” he spits. “What the fuck?”

The stranglehold on my vision eases. The world comes into focus: the entire ALC staring at us. Nick holding Erin by the wrist. Everyone frozen, even the Watch, eyes wide like they caught me reciting an Angel prayer.

“Jesus Christ,” Cormac says. He holds out a hand for Alex, who scrabbles farther backward before finally staggering to their feet, ignoring him entirely. Cormac turns to me, face contorted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I don’t answer. There are no words. I barely hear him, just the thrum of my heartbeat and the creaking of my bones. Just Flood in my mouth, burning, tasting like corpse flesh. I swallow it down even though I know it will come back up later.

Cormac turns his glare away from me, marches up to Nick, and jabs a finger into his chest. Nick recoils. Erin puts an arm between them.

“If you think I’m going to work with that motherfucker,” Cormac hisses.

Nick replies, simply, “Don’t touch me again.”

Alex flings open the back door and flees into the ALC. Cormac shakes awkwardly for a second, looking from face to face, waiting for someone else to speak up. Nobody does. Aisha, Faith, and Salvador all turn away.

Giving up, Cormac grunts and follows Alex inside.

And all that’s left is me.

The burning is stuck under my fingertips, searing hot, my cells breaking and bursting. My thoughts are an angry swirl of words, none of which I can get past my tongue. Everyone saw that they started it, right? I did what I had to. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like that.

One word gets past the block in my throat: a bloody, rot-splattered, “What?”

Nick breaks from the group and hauls me to my feet, not at all gently.

“I think,” he says, his face right next to mine, “it would be best if you turned in for the night.”

It isn’t until I nearly try to pull his arm out of his socket just for touching me that I manage to take a step back from myself and realize.

Something is really, really wrong with my head right now.

I don’t do this kind of thing. This isn’t me.

So what was it?