"Seraphim are fiery angels," Harris said.

Agatha echoed with a chant-like: "The wings of fire to whisk you away from harm. A blazing sword to punish evil. A nimbus of flames to see what's true."

A shiver went down his spine. Diving into raw spirituality was a whole new level. "Sure."

He squirmed, but Agatha didn't scoff at his inadequacies. She stared at the smoky sky, but she probably wasn't even noticing it. "I was born with a spark. My passions set fires. It was a little like pyrokinesis, only much, much, much worse. A seraph is my guardian angel, but I have to do the work."

His shivers got worse. Stuff like that could really mess with a fourteen-year-old who was already dealing with a lot of tough stuff. "What kind of work?"

"Had to feel better first. Had to force the mortals to release me from the clinic before the world burned down, ignited by my raging soul."

It only takes one spark to start a fire. Every firefighter knew that. However, he doubted one soul was enough to torch an entire world, even though souls wasn't his field. "Did... did the seraph tell you all this?"

"Yes." Her glance found something far beyond Singapore and her eyes widened as she beheld it.

His gut said it'd take a lot more than one argument to break a mind free from a trap like that. Besides, he didn't have a killer argument. He needed to go knot by knot. "How did he communicate with you?"

"It was a mere whisper in the night at first. Such a beautiful, ethereal voice!"

Again, the ethereal was hard for him. He pressed on hoping to find something more tangible. "And then?"

"Once I was free, I received his messages on my phone."

Aha! Texts were a spectacularly non-angelic method of communication. They would have gone for glowing letters on clouds, or something equally awe striking. Harris took a deep breath in, and it hitched in his chest. "Texting is such a human thing to do."

"I'm just a regular human. He did what he had to do with my limitations."

How considerate of an angel potentially on the verge of an apocalypse!

The truth must have been simpler. "It could have been a garden variety stalker." He could even think of a perfect candidate for this, Oliver 'the right proper chap' Appleby.

"Harris!"

So much shifted through her eyes in one instant that Harris' fingers locked behind her back, joints cracked next to a breaking point. "I'm sorry. I didn't live it like you did."

"I... understand trying to stick to what you know. Sometimes, I did too." She chuckled, as if a grounded approach was a folly. "Fires sprung whenever I forgot myself and gave into doubts or base emotions."

"Sam told me about the cell phone and your cousin's car."

"He doesn't know half of it!"

Okay, so there was more. There had to be a logical reason for the fires! For example, gaslighting on an epic scale. But Agatha was just a girl back then, with no fame. Why would Oliver single her out for his cruel games?

While Harris was wracking his brain, the pause dragged on. Agatha's breathing sped up, then turned rugged. "Harris, you promised to have faith in me!"

"I did, and I trust you. I believe you! Believe in you. Us..." He rocked back and forth to settle his racing guesses. Rocked her too, as she was a terrified child. "I'm looking for a way to help. I'm thinking. Give me a moment." Or a lifetime.

She mumbled too, quivering in his arms. "It's so strange. I talk to people every day on my streams about little things, revealing even the passing thoughts. Except for this. This... I could never talk to anyone about this since the hospital."

"You still talk to him though, right? To this..." Harris choked back a cuss. One wrong word—and she'd fly away, and then there would be no hope for either of them. "This angel? Do you still talk to him?"

She chewed her lip and darted a glance at the dark sky. "Yes. More than that."

His finger joints cracked again. "Oh?"

"Other girls craved boys' company. Kisses at first, then... you know. I envied the physical side of things they had."

Harris felt his cheeks burned, remembering Desiree's bed. "We all want someone to hold us once in a while."

Agatha exhaled a long sigh. "I was freaking out that someone would get hurt, if I did it with Sam or some other boy. So, I begged my angel for help. He promised to come to me in the flesh."

Dammit. "And he did." Maybe he should have made it a question, but he was too sure of the answer. He broke into a sweat before she replied, "Uh-huh."

"Oliver!" He gritted his teeth, making the name sound like meat going through a grinder. God help any other Oliver he might meet later in life. He'd hate them irrationally, with a vengeance, just for bearing that cursed name. "Oliver told you, he is your seraph, come in the flesh to save you from yourself."

Another painful nod from her. "I didn't know right away when my aunt introduced us. But it was him. He... he revealed himself in private."

"Fiery wings? A blazing sword? A glowing nimbus of flames?" Blazing sword would be the easiest to fake.

"Nothing like that, but he knew things about me nobody else could have known. Things about the plane crash."

The damn hotel room was so neat, there was nothing Harris could hurl at the walls. If he didn't hold Agatha, he'd throw himself bodily against it. Pound it with his fists. His sweating forehead. Anything to open a relief valve!

But he was holding her, so he'd drop to hell before he let go. Even if his hands shook so badly, wanting to grab something, the lock of his fingers came undone. He clasped them again. "Oliver might have got the video of the accident and the reports. There would have been a serious investigation."

"True, but how would he know about that cursed rave?"

"Maybe one of your friends talked. Or maybe it was that clinic? They must have had a file on you, and Oliver has his ways." This built up Oliver into a resourceful motherfucker, but at least he wasn't an angel in Harris' version of things.

She slipped out of his arms and turned to the window, hands gripping the windowsill. Ash hung so thick in the air, it seemed to push at the glass, poised to cloak them in the suffocating darkness. "Harris, that's why I returned to Milwaukee. I went to the facility to find out if someone hacked their records."

His heart hitched. "And?"

"The answer was a firm 'no'. The protocols were in place, and they destroyed all the records upon my release, because I was a minor."

"Agatha, please, read the file I brought you. One thing the private eye emphasized is the meticulous, obsessive planning and patience of the perpetrator who harassed Mrs. Ang's business. Oliver is a true psychopath. He could have —"

"One hotel had caught on fire already," she said flatly. "Do you want the Sands to burn too?"

A painful wince contorted Harris' face. He could have done without this flash back when they stood in another hotel room. The one far, far off the ground. It was too late to rewind, so everything came up fresh in his mind's eye. Agatha, naked and drugged, staged on a bed...

Which was just the thing to appall her family enough to —

"Wait! Did your family pressure you into marrying Oliver after the Avantgarde's fire?"

She hiccuped. "My aunt kept calling. She sounded hysterical. She didn't really order me to marry Oliver, but she shamed me for a good while. Then came the carrot: a position on the board if I 'sorted myself out'. They always denied me, because I was 'too unwell'."

The world pushed his girl to the safety of marrying Mr. Right and returning to the fold. Even this view right in front of them, the sky full of black smoke, worked for them. Well, they could fuck themselves!

He jerked the cord to shut the blinds, almost ripping it off. "You went to Milwaukee to ask about the clinic's records. Why? Did anything trigger your suspicions?"

"Because I didn't recognize Oliver when he first entered the room. Because I didn't feel what I thought I would feel at the mere sight of him."

Her hand brushed his lips, and his heart thudded in his ears, dissolving his headache. He kissed the fingertips that smelled of jasmine. "What did you think you should have felt?"

"This," she whispered, lifting on her tiptoes. "This..."

Was it okay for a gentleman to close his eyes and part his lips if the lady kissed him first? Was it okay to hunt for her scent this greedily? Should a gentleman thread his fingers through the lady's, pull off a scarf to let her hair unwind down her back? Hide how much he wanted to ease the dress off her shoulders so it falls the same way the scarf fell?

And all the while, all the while... could he suckle on her lips, but keep his tongue at bay? Let her explore, as if he'd never returned a single kiss before this day... "Did you feel this the moment you saw me?"

"Mainly, I thought you were a giant douche, but yes. I also felt this. You?"

"I need my lawyer and my union rep before I implicate myself."

She giggled and kissed him again.

"Also, the army and the Navy. Maybe the Supreme Court," Harris moaned.

"The Pope?" she teased.

"Why not?"

Time disappeared in a flurry of kisses until he tore himself away from her lips with a sigh. "Yes, I also felt this."

Her face was still upturned, eyes — enormous, lips — moist, parted, tempting...

"You shouldn't marry Oliver if you don't feel like this toward him, but feel like this toward me."

There, he said what had to be said.

She staggered back, hands to the mouth he was just tasting. "Love isn't safe for me. Or for you. You must leave and I must marry Oliver to keep everyone safe."

Harris bit his tongue in time to cut off a cuss.

"I know how insane it sounds, Harris. But I also know that I'm not crazy."

"Not crazy, Agatha, never crazy. You're suffering, and all I want to do when I look at you is to fix this."

"You can't."

"How can I not fix it? I love you."

"You barely even know me."

"Doesn't matter, because I waited for you my whole life." Who sounded crazy now? But in for a penny, in for a pound! "I love you, Agatha. Come away with me to Milwaukee and let me protect you."

Silence stretched between them. Her face scrunched while she was thinking, thinking...

Thinking was good, right? Even if she weighed and measured Oliver and him. He must win this contest. He had to!

"Harris, tell me one thing," Agatha asked at last. "On the night I left for Singapore, when I was trying to find you, where were you?"

An invisible fist punched him in the gut. He gasped for air as excuses swarmed. You were engaged. You were leaving. I felt alone. Disappointed. Excellent stuff, for sure, but he told her the naked, unadorned, bitter truth. "I was with Desiree."

He was with Desiree, going at it like rabbits all night, tiring himself so much he didn't pick his cell phone. Fortunately, he didn't need to explain it. Her eyes reflected the full understanding of his night and worse. The imaginings of what went on in Desiree's bedroom flickered through them.

"Agatha, listen. I lied," he pleaded. "I lied when I said she was the one. You left me with no choice—"

The hurt look on her face shut him up better than any yelling. Agatha didn't put him into Desiree's bed. She did nothing wrong by accepting a ring from a man who courted her for months and pretended to be a seraph. It was he, Harris, who dove into the first warm bed like sex was going out of style.

"I got stupid, okay? I made a mistake. This doesn't mean you can't trust me."

"Actually, it does." Her brow twitched. "Gosh! Desiree must be going insane with worry after you disappeared like that."

"Desiree doesn't want to have anything to do with me! She broke it off! Anyway, forget about her!" Once the words were out of his mouth, he realized they made him sound worse. Like he was bouncing back to Agatha after a hook-up had kicked him out. Oliver could have sowed wild oats all around the globe, but he'd never given Agatha a reason to doubt he'd only ever wanted her. On the opposite, he had that obsessed look about him.

"Come with me to Milwaukee." Harris rubbed his sweaty forehead. "We'll take it slow. Get to know each other, go on dates and stuff. Normal stuff. And let the police do their job in the meantime. Please?"

She glanced at the shuttered window with a wild expression in her eyes. The blinds were completely opaque, but the haze was there. Waiting. "No! Go home, Harris. Patch things with Desiree — "

He grunted in protest — another weak counter, and she waved her hands at him. "Desiree, or someone else. Some lucky woman. And... and be safe."

"Agatha! Wait!" He tried to catch her, but she scrambled out of his room—all clumsy and frantic, like a moth against a pane. "Wait..."

Some shred of decency stopped him in his tracks before he made an even bigger ass out of himself. One stalker was enough for any one woman to handle. She didn't need another love-sick man chasing her around Singapore.

"But don't want Desiree," he whispered to the empty room.

The hotel staff made the bed with geometrical precision. He slumped on the silk cover and dropped his face into his hands. Happiness was within his grasp. Agatha was kissing him. He held her. But he blinked—and she was gone, because he traded in happiness for a night of lust, even though he knew darn well it wasn't the same, not nearly the same, couldn't be anywhere close to the same.

The fault was all his.

His dad was right. Harris ignored happiness for so long, he stopped wanting to be happy. He kept running in small circles, fixing some useless shit.

But the stuff that actually needed fixing? He left it broken to pieces. Not just with Agatha... with his mom, too. The anger that never went away and poisoned everything he touched.

'You have time yet,' Mrs. Ang had told him. He even looked up Mom's number, even though he didn't add it to the contacts list.

Calling Mom wouldn't help his epic fail with Agatha, but he dug his phone out. He hunched over it, one hand clenching his own hair. The other poked the buttons.

The phone rang too many times.

'You've reached Shushan Sarkisian. I'll be out of the office and not monitoring my calls or emails until Monday —′ a robotic voice informed him.

Harris hung up instead of leaving a message. Why? Here, too, he had failed. The word he hadn't said in a while remained unsaid.

Or not.

"Mom."

The curtains, the carpet and the cushions absorbed the brief sound, but it shifted something inside his chest.

Home. I have to go home.

He let go of his hair and dialed the airline. Let them keep him on hold for the rest of the day. Let them take everything he had left in his bank account. He had to fly to Milwaukee tonight. Had to see Dad. Walk into their house. Yeah, it was nowhere near as pretty as this out-of-this-world hotel, but he had to fly home tonight. Only there he'd be able to sleep, wake up and regroup. Only there.

Nobody had ever missed Milwaukee this much. No one. Ever.