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  The camera panned up.

  Above their heads, standing out against the blue sky, embedded into the telephone lines the city ran from pole to pole were the severed heads of twenty or so dogs and cats, evenly spaced; their tattered furs still wet, and their severed necks still dripping down onto the street. The camera panned around the entire neighborhood—every single phone line, street lamp, and traffic light was covered in them. It looked like every pet in a three block radius had been strung up in bloody decorative fanfare.

  The first thing I thought was how strange it was that a news crew would show something so graphic on daytime television. The second thing I thought?

  “Well that’s fucked up.”

  The demon snatched the remote from my hand and chucked itself into my dad’s favorite chair. It scanned channels until it found what is looking for.

  “Attention.

  Power.

  Poise.

  The new Vilagios’ Secret bra.

  ...LIE…

  It’s all you need to do is

  ...LIE…

  He can’t resist your

  ...LIE…

  Especially created by our Male Lingerie Scientists. This one of a kind invention is padded and re-padded, but not for your body, for your self esteem.

  ...LIE…

  For when it’s obvious you can’t look like our models, at least you’ll get him to think so.

  THE LIE BRAAAAAA …

  (Vilagio’s Secret waives all liability for what you look like when product is removed. Elastic buckles on the Vilagio’s Secret Lie bra pose a serious choking hazard for children below the age of five and men above the age of seventeen. This product, and all affiliated products, including Vilagio’s Redacto Thigh Creame, should not be used in conjunction with any form of contraceptive. Product is not sold outside of the U.S. territories. Bra is not made for most women).”

  As the next commercial buzzed onto the screen, I sighed and rolled onto my back. Pinky hooking one of my ramen pops, I took one lick and nearly threw up on myself.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Well that’s fucked up,” Barnem said, staring at the spectacle in the distance and crossing his arms.

  “That’s what I said,” I mumbled, and quickly regretted it. I didn’t want him laying his whole doting guilt trip nonsense on me. Okay, so I admit it. I knew damn well that I had screwed up. I just, you know, didn’t need the constant reminder. I was going to fix it. Okay, at very least I was looking into it, right? I got the gravity of the situation. So when Barnem said that we had to go out and see this pet freak show for ourselves, I only gave him ten to fifteen excuses why he should go alone. And then, after he caught me trying to use my fire escape as a means of egress, and then faking my death in the bathroom―he didn’t buy me drowning in my bathtub―I willingly volunteered to go. Honest.

  There was already a huge crowd when we got there. Wading into them set needles prickling against my skin, but I kept this to myself and tried to breathe through it. I guess as soon as the news had dropped, everyone came out to witness the freak show for themselves. Barnem had forced me to jump on a train with him to Styeklesci Boulevard, deep in the heart of Brooklyn where the dogs and cats had been strung up like ornaments during a psychopath’s birthday. I only went, mind you, because I was on a mission. I needed to convince this dick-ish Seraph to leave me out of his little spiritual adventure. And I was going to be my charming self to make sure that message came in, loud and clear.

  Even though the police tape kept us far away from the actual scene, I could still make out the city worker pushed up on a cherry picker, using pliers to remove the animal heads from the cables and slowly stuffing them into oversized garbage bags. How they got up there, especially with the skulls spliced through the telephone line, was on everyone’s mind and, by the amount of phones being whipped out, social media feed. Of course, only one of us in the crowd might have an answer to that, but the big shot Seraph wasn’t talking.

  Looking around, I noticed the community was the exact opposite of my little neighborhood in Queens. Styeklesci was a prime example of how the city tries to force change. The neighborhood was stuck in assimilation limbo, flashing the typical bouts of gentrification and rebellion: a mixture of worn down houses wedged between housing projects, factories, and all crammed block to block with lanky condos. No matter how many boozy brunch lounges and coffee stops and vinyl stores sprout up all over the place, it didn’t take a genius to see that there were people still struggling. Not beautiful, not harmonious—a rampaging collage of freshly inked tattoos, old men hollering at women while balancing on stolen milk crates, licensed dog walkers, bodegas, and crackheads. Most of the young hipsters walking around with their five dollar triple mocha, double soy, single caf fraps, names scribbled on the labels, had absolutely no idea what a piping hot two dollar chop-cheese with extra onions does for a person’s soul.

  This all reminded me of the reason I had bunked up with a demon in the first place. My little section of the city hadn’t come to this. Not yet. And more than anything, I knew my parents were proud of the life we had started there.

  “So what’s the call, Seraph Supreme? Is this one of your Shades or not?”

  He didn’t answer right away, and when I turned to Barnem, he was still looking at the corpse show, but now he was holding a can of beans. Using his fingers to scoop the brown mush out and stuff a pile into his mouth, he smacked his lips and ignored me.

  “When the hell did you—”

  Spotting his victim, I snatched the can from Barnem and handed it back to the flabbergasted homeless man sitting behind us.

  Barnem didn’t even flinch. He licked his fingers and grumbled a, “Yeah. Only the beginning. And you can joke all you want about this, but it’s your job to fix it.”

  I yawned, both because I was tired and inappropriate. “Agree to disagree.”

  The man in the cherry picker took another furry lump down and stuffed it in the white garbage bag. Even from where I was standing, you could see his fingers smeared in blood.

  “You really don’t see the gravity of it all?”

  “No. Not really. So someone went all pet crazy, Barnem. Call a priest. Or PETA. Just leave me the hell out of it. Far away. Different zip code.” I could spot how this rubbed him the wrong way, more than usual. I usually keep from talking about myself. But for some reason I turned to him and said, “I’m not built for this, okay? I’m not. All of this is so outside of me, Barnem, and trust me, that’s where it belongs. All right? I’m not exactly the right person who does well with pressure. Or social interactions. Or family. Or discussions on climate change, stem cell research, or public bathrooms.”

  “I understand—”

  “I’m not done. Or the American Dream. Or backwash when you share a water bottle. Or toy poodles. Or UFO sightings.”

  Barnem scratched the back of his head. “Are you done?”

  I held up one finger.

  “American football. All right, I’m done.”

  “I understand who you are, Grey,” he said coldly. “Trust me. I’ve lived over you for years now. I know you can’t keep a job to save your life. I know you used to be close to your sister and that she hasn’t been back for what, over a year? Petunia, right? I know you were homeschooled but you’re very bright.” Before I could ask him how he came to know me in so much detail, he waved me off. “Your mom liked to talk when we met in the elevator.”

  Hearing about my mom from a complete stranger was a trigger. I set my fist together, pushing the grooves in my knuckles until they fit against each other. I hated that feeling of someone telling me about my life, of someone feeling this power over me. I didn’t want anyone to have any knowledge about me, not without my permission. It was like someone raking their nails against my insides. With my anxiety on high alert, I started clack-clack-clacking my knuckles together. It’s b
een a thing I’ve been doing since I was a kid. The odd pain that spins around my wrist when I do this, the one that shoots up my forearm and caps at my elbow makes me feel so real that it keeps me rooted in the here and now. I do it to keep me grounded before I leap off of the page. Before I spin off into space.

  Barnem wiped away an equally bored tear from his eye. “Not going to rant in response?”

  “I don’t rant!” I replied, blowing up on him. The old lady in front of us turned around to shhh me with her penciled in eyebrows, but I was too far gone. Feeling cornered always flipped me from meek little mouse to a goddamn personification of the Macy’s fireworks! “Don’t think bringing my mom into this changes anything,” I snapped, shoving my finger in the Seraph’s face. “You can’t guilt me into this. Absolutely not. And you definitely can’t play the whole ‘God’s plan’ card. Poor planning on the Creator’s part, if you ask me. Should have Googled me and found out that I’m the last person—the last— that should be in charge of this. Plus, I barely believe in fate. The fact that some runway model slips and falls on her face isn’t God’s plan. It’s called gravity.”

  “It’s also oddly satisfying.”

  “Of course. That goes without saying. Wait! Where are you going?”

  Barnem had turned through the crowd and started walking away.

  “Wait,” I huffed, catching up nearly a block down. “What about the ... the mess? You haven’t fixed any of it.”

  He didn’t even stop or slow down to respond. “Don’t care.”

  “Oh, and I’m supposed to?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  I was in a half jog trying to keep up with him. “Unfair!”

  Even though he was in the middle of the road on a green light, Barnem stopped and whipped around on me.

  “No. You know what’s unfair, Grey? What’s unfair―”

  A car, speeding to grab the light, narrowly missed hitting Barnem. It slammed on the brakes, skipped the sidewalk, and hit a lamp post, flush. Above the broken glass and blaring car horn, Barnem continued.

  “What’s really unfair is that I’ve had to stomach centuries worth, centuries, of colonization, governmental subterfuge, and something called ‘90’s Ska music’. Do you know what I’m talking about, Grey?”

  Behind him, a woman—her blood-soaked hair plastered to the side of her head—climbed out of the passenger seat and limped over to the hood. Her foot was bent off to the side, dragging along the concrete. She was sobbing.

  “Uh. Not really. But, Barnem―”

  “Really? It’s like white people rapping and doing really bad Caribbean accents. Actually, never mind that, never mind. Don’t try to change the subject.”

  The woman slid herself over to the driver’s seat. She started calling out, “Bailey, oh my god, Bailey,” as smoke crawled out of the smashed engine.

  “Humanity’s been screwing this world up since the cave paintings which, in my opinion, and I’m allowed to have it, weren’t really that good.”

  The bloodied woman banged on the window. A small crowd was gathering, but everyone was too busy choosing which filter would bring out the plight of the woman better.

  “But the Shades? The Shades are going to tear this place apart. If you haven’t been paying attention, they’re already at work, Grey, fucking up the already fucked up. They bring out the absolute worst in your people by hanging around. The animal carcass thing? Only petty stuff. Only one of them blowing off some steam. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  The woman snatched a selfie stick from a young couple trying to frame themselves correctly with the wreck and used it shatter the rest of the glass. Diving in to hug the man crumpled on the steering wheel, she checked his pulse and started screaming,

  “And it’s because of you, Grey. All of it. No matter how many times you deflect or make jokes or polish it up with some half-assed philosophy of yours. You’re wrapped up in this now.”

  A news crew from the pet massacre swooped in alongside the car. They asked the woman how it felt to lose someone so close to her. She told them that he wasn’t dead. The reporter spun back to the camera and promoted a later segment about how nine out of ten women are in denial about failed relationships. I heard a vlogger nearby critiquing what she was wearing at the time of the crash.

  Barnem placed his hands on my shoulders. “I will probably have to wait for several more centuries before the Shades come back together. But this mess, this one, Amanda Grey, is on you. You’re right. You’re the last person who should be in the middle of this. So you get your wish. You can go back to your sheltered life, go back to those four walls you’ve holed yourself up in all of these years, now with a hellbringer for roommate. See how long the world is going to last now that you’ve made that selfish decision.” Satisfied with himself, the angel gave me a light tap, grumbled a, “Have a nice life,” and then walked off in the direction of nowhere in particular.

  I watched as street performer started piling into the gawking sea of humanity to take advantage of the crowd, making it impossible for the ambulance to drive in.

  I called in Barnem’s direction, late but still with reason, “Hey, that sounded like a rant to me!”

  CHAPTER 4

  With Barnem the Worst Angel Ever having walked out of my life, I focused on getting my partially shitty existence back on track. I returned to my neighborhood in under an hour, and after a quick trek through its aisles to setup one of my famous dinner, I stood at the supermarket checkout line, watching as the bag boy/man shoved my seven cans of kid’s spaghetti and a few carrot sticks―all the makings of perfect Friday night―in bags for me to carry.

  I tried my best to shake the weight of the day, of the last couple of days, and keep my eyes on the prize. I can’t say that I’ve ever lived an easy life, but it was mine and mine alone. My parents were a big part of it, and at the very least, I had managed to keep their livelihoods intact. I was totally sure that what had happened—an event which included angels and demons and murder and prophecies and ramen pops—was going to last as long the flu, or the fanny pack fad of the 90’s.

  I was so caught up in telling myself that everything was now okay that I didn’t notice that the bag boy/man was staring at me so hard that I could spot the red veined trails in his eyes. He had a round face and his slicked back black hair tied into a ponytail. He was one of those guys that could have been either fourteen or forty-nine; like he had been dragged through his timeline on his face. He sported more tattoos than actual clothing, with two full sleeves of everything from a floating eye and bloody roses, to a Gumbi smoking a fat joint with a big Mexican flag behind him that sported the phrase “Estamos Pasando La Vida”. The ink even spread up his neck, stopping behind the gauges in his ears.

  Going out in public always puts me in two different positions. First it makes me a jittery fool that can barely cross a street without me wondering if a crazed driver was secretly planning to hunt me down and run me over. Or back up into me. Or skip the curb because he fell asleep at the wheel. Or fall on me from a top floor parking lot. Look, you get the idea. I’m sometimes a nervous wreck, and all the other times I want to head-butt everyone in the face: Christmas carolers, fruit vendors, meter maids … you name it. Whatever I have, whatever makes me the way I am, probably has a really, really long medical name which means nothing. Means nothing and everything. It made my life a living hell growing up and kept me out of school. Mom and Dad felt that I didn’t need to be hopped up on meds and counselling and instead homeschooled me, kept me safe. Of course, that didn’t stop kids from being cruel little turds. It wasn’t long before my sister heard someone call me “Mental Mandy”. Of course, she then beat the living crap out of a boy twice her size for calling me that. Like, the kid had to go to picture day the following week still sporting that purple eye.

  I managed to strap a leash on it. I taught myself how to focus and flush those voices i
n my head before they swelled like an ocean of sound. Before I start drowning. Staying indoors was perfect for me and I never complained; never thought that I was missing out in life. I only came out when it was necessary—chores mostly—but every time, it was like landing on an alien planet. People are weird, sick creatures; mouth breathers. And there were occasions where I needed to assert myself, because New York was a city where your entire existence was a challenge; where you have to elbow, uppercut, and dropkick your way to brush your teeth in the morning.

  This whole damn city seemed to breed ogglers. But that doesn’t mean I would let a man shove his eyeballs in my personal space. He was larger than me and was reeking of a cologne that was so potent, it probably had a European name that meant lighter fluid. So I stood back and went to my go-to in this situation. I puffed up my chest, bugged out my eyes, and waited there until he ran away. I even sent a little tremble through my lips for good measure.

  Feminism deserves its own Haka.

  But unlike all of the other men I’ve ever encountered, this one didn’t back down. He kept staring. My bags were packed and ready to go, but those cold eyes were buried into me. And I sure as hell wasn’t backing down. So the two of us stood there, in complete silence.

  “’Scuse me.” The cash register girl, in her triple-thick Dominican accent, tapped the front of the card machine.

  Without looking, and keeping myself as inflated as possible, I swiped my ATM card and punched in the pin. Snagging the receipt from her, eyeballs permanently on the freak, I growled a, “Thank you. Have a good afternoon,” (because manners) and scooped up my bags. Our eyes stayed locked as I walked backward out of the automatic door and into the busy Queens street.

  That afternoon, I arrived back at the apartment that had been recently hijacked by the usual suspects: a demon flopped on its chair, flicking through channels, and an overbearing angel rummaging through my fridge and complaining about a cup I left in there that contained either old milk or new cheese. But these two were nowhere to be found.