Caspar does his best to stay on guard the rest of the day, but his body is having other ideas. As he’s impatiently waiting for the pages to dry and the rain to lessen, his fever rises. He’s determined to not get back in bed, but suddenly, he finds himself in it anyway. 

His vision swims. He looks to his right. Malakai is in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. 

“Did you move me?”

Malakai looks up from where he’d been staring at the wall. “You fell asleep.”

Caspar thinks about complaining, but he can’t muster the strength to be angry. “What time is it?”

“7PM.”

Caspar sighs. He’s wasting so much time. “Did the pages dry yet?”

“Looks like it. Before you do anything else, though, we should check your scrapes.”

“I can do it myself. Bring over the first aid kit.”

Malakai doesn’t argue. He retrieves the kit and places it on the bed. Caspar pushes the covers off, shivering. “It’s cold. Did you crank the AC up?”

“You have a chill. Something might be infected.”

“I cleaned all my wounds.”

“You also walked around in wet, dirty clothes for an hour before calling for help. That’s plenty of time for an infection to develop.”

“You could’ve helped sooner.”

Malakai doesn’t respond. 

Caspar’s voice creaks. “You could’ve saved all those people.”

“Debatable.”

Caspar’s brow furrows as he starts to take his pajama bottoms off. His whole body is tender, but it’s especially hard to move his legs. They ache down to the bone. “I guess empathy is too much to expect from a demon.”

Malakai crosses his arms, tapping his fingers. Caspar darts his eyes over to him as he removes the bandaging from his thigh. Malakai’s expression is tranquil, eyes studying the gash on Caspar’s leg. 

Guess he doesn’t mind the insult when it’s true, Caspar surmises.

Caspar turns his attention to his left thigh. The injury there looks okay. It’s no longer bleeding freely and a scab is starting to form. He wipes it down with a towelette before squeezing on antibiotics and rewrapping it with gauze. 

Malakai grabs the old bandage, throwing it away. “Do you think I should live like you, Cas?”

Caspar rolls his eyes. The implication Malakai is making is clear: your life sucks, poser. I get to be a cool demon devouring souls. What do you have, besides mommy issues?

Caspar takes a deep breath, finishing sanitizing the last of the scratches on his legs. “I think a lot of people would be better off if you did. We already have enough selfish people in the world.”

“From the looks of you, you could use a little selfishness.”

“Too late now.”

Malakai smiles. Caspar averts his eyes, trying to suppress a full body shiver. Feigning bravery, he starts to address the blisters on his feet. Suddenly, a twinging throb in his back makes him grunt in pain.  

Damn. It feels like someone took steel wool to it and rubbed it bloody. 

“Cas, does it hurt?”

“Yes, obviously. So glad I damned my eternal soul for your stellar observational skills.”

Malakai’s face doesn’t change, but Caspar notes the sound of feathers in the air, like his wings are flexing. Is he trying to intimidate Caspar by reminding him of his inhumanity? 

He isn’t human. Caspar can’t really expect human social cues, can he? Or at least, he can’t expect Malakai to truthfully express his emotions via human social cues.

“Can I help you with it?” Malakai asks. 

“I don’t need help. It's not deep.”

“Don’t make me list the WebMD symptoms of a staph infection, dude. A pinprick can become an oozing crater.”

Ugh. Caspar cringes at that mental image. “Fine.”

Reluctantly, Caspar takes his shirt off and turns his back to Malakai. Caspar jolts in fear as he feels Malakai come close. He chuckles, a low sound that rings in the air. “Don’t be so tense. I’m not even touching you yet.”

“Don’t. Just tell me what it looks like.”

Malakai hums contemplatively. “It looks bad. It’s red all over.”

Caspar curses under his breath. “Can you look up the closest hospital?”

Malakai pulls out his phone. “34 minutes away, Northwest Care Center. The roads are blocked off though. Flooding.” 

Caspar swallows thickly. He really, really, really doesn’t want to be touched by Malakai. Especially not when he’s in such a vulnerable position. But if Malakai wanted to strike when Caspar was down, he’s had plenty of opportunities, right?

“Do you know what to do?” says Caspar.

“Of course.”

Wordlessly, Caspar hands over the first aid kit. He holds his breath, waiting for the first cold touch of anesthetic. Instead, Malakai comes close, handing over something to Caspar.

Caspar looks down into his palm. It’s a neon red feather, about the length of his palm. An alula feather, Caspar recognizes. 

“What’s this?” Says Caspar.

Malakai is searching through the first aid kit now. He fishes out a debriding bottle. “A gift. We’re going to make friendship necklaces.”

Caspar stares down at the feather. “Wait, is this—Agh!”

He jumps as Malakai begins spraying down the scrapes. “I have one too. We’ll match. Fun, right?”

Caspar closes his fist around the feather, teeth grit as his wounds sting. “I thought you said your wings didn’t have any color. Did you lie?”

“I didn’t.”

So they change color. A lie of omission, then? Of course. Caspar should have expected that Malakai would lie even about this, the most mundane of facts.

Caspar brushes his finger down the vein of the feather. Even under the low light he can tell it's no ordinary material. It shimmers with rainbow iridescence. “Stop beating around the bush. Why are you giving this to me?” 

“To mark you as off-limits.”

“Mark me? Why?”

“To keep others like me away.”

That sends a shiver down his spine. Others like Malakai? So, other demons?

Malakai continues on as he spreads antibiotic gel on Caspar’s back, fingers gentle. “That, and it will help me find you if we’re separated. I can feel through it. So if you need me, you just need to touch it.”

Caspar immediately stops petting the feather. 

Malakai snickers. “You can put it away for now.”

Caspar lays the feather down on the nightstand. Friendship necklaces? He’s already dying, does he really need to be leashed too?

Malakai finishes up with the scrapes. Caspar sighs with relief as he puts on his shirt—he feels ready to start with his uncle’s journal.

Anticipating his next move, Malakai brings over the papers. Caspar props himself up with a pillow as he looks through the pages. Ever the meticulous organizer, Duncan has helpfully labeled and dated each page. 

A specific date catches Caspar’s eye. April 30th. The day Caspar left his mom. 

Caspar’s gone off on his own again. Delilah was in hysterics over it. I don’t understand why that boy can’t just help his mother. I tried to talk to him, but I think I made it worse. I said some things I didn’t mean to.

Guilt makes Caspar’s stomach clench. He’d intended to go back soon, but after that call with his uncle, he’d finally resolved to leave this life behind. Of course, it didn’t last. It never does. But it had been a nice summer pretending he was about to have a normal academic life once August arrived. What a joke. 

Caspar flips to the back, reading on. The next date is May 15th. 

Delilah found a new hunt. Or several new hunts, that is. She’s outlined several cases in the country she thinks could be related to Bartholomew’s disappearance. None of them have any connection from what I can tell.

Below, Duncan outlines all the potential cases Delilah planned to go on. Caspar narrows his eyes as he reads.

Oklahoma. Local woman reports that an unseen force saved her from a robbery. Cites “Guardian Angel.”

Kansas. Mysterious crop circles appear overnight, baffling locals. 

Colorado. Unsettling footage shows a humanoid figure walking on all fours. Resident anxieties at an all-time high.

Wyoming. Rangers desperately search Yellowstone National Park after three siblings, ages 5, 10, and 16, go missing. 

His uncle was right. They’re all strange and worthy of looking into, but what do they have to do with Caspar’s father? 

“Your father is missing?”

Caspar jolts. Malakai is staring down at the paper. Caspar folds it so he can’t read any more. “Dead. He went on a hunt and never came home.”

“So there was a body found?”

“No. But he would’ve come back if he was still alive.”

“Your mother believes differently is what I'm reading.”

Caspar scowls. “Why do you care?”

Malakai smiles, tilting his head. “Maybe we can find your father too. Anything’s possible.”

What a boldfaced lie. Caspar has a hard time believing Malakai would go through the extra effort with no reward. Besides, Caspar’s better off believing his father is dead. The only alternative is he left. 

Is it selfish to hope he met his end at the hands of a monster? It was less painful than believing Caspar was abandoned so young, before he even had a chance to meet his father.

Dismissing that train of thought, Caspar reshuffles the pages. He organizes them in a nice orderly stack. 

These are the last words his uncle wrote. They deserve that much.

“By the way, I got you some groceries,” says Malakai.

Caspar blinks. He looks up. Malakai is holding a heavy H-E-B bag up.

“I thought you said the roads were closed?” Caspar says.

“I went anyway. Also, how do you not have scurvy? In your pantry there was zero fruit, zero vegetables—do you shit bricks or what?”

Caspar gapes. “The hell? You went anyway? You walked through the flooding?”

“More or less.”

“And H-E-B was open?”

“One of them was.”

Caspar is silent then, picturing Malakai trudging through the flooded streets, holding bags of produce above the water. “What did you get?”

Malakai digs in the bag. “Apples, canned vegetables, canned preserves, flour, sugar…”

“You spent all my money on that?”

Malakai picks up a bag of carrots, waving it around. “No, I didn’t. I have my own money.”

Caspar grimaces. “And where did you get that?”

“Same place where I get all my stuff. Don’t worry about it, Cas.”

“Did you hurt someone?”

Malakai rolls his eyes. “Pretty sure I did a lot more than just hurt those vampires in Redpine. They’re not going to miss their wallets.”

Caspar lets out the breath he was holding. “Fine.”

“Now that you get it, you need to eat. Something better than ramen.”

Caspar flops back into bed, smothering his face into his pillow. “Trying to fatten me up for your dinner?”

Malakai snorts, retrieving a can of vegetable beef soup from a bag. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

Caspar closes his eyes with a heavy sigh, trying not to focus on the throbbing ache of his body. 

“Cheer up, bud. At least we have a lead now.”

Malakai is right. They at least have an idea of where to go next. One step closer to Caspar’s mom…

He decides then to enjoy what time he has left. Maybe Malakai is right. Maybe he should be a little selfish. When’s a better time than when you’re dying?

“I want a grilled cheese too.”

Malakai looks up from the stove as the soup plops into the pot. “Grilled cheese?”

“Yeah. Do you know how to make it?”

Malakai smiles sweetly. “Of course. I’ll make it for you.”

Caspar watches on. There’s no way he’ll be able to forget what Malakai really is. But at the moment he looks human. He’s acting human. It's enough for Caspar’s buzzing anxiety to turn down a notch, his animal hindbrain whispering you’re not alone now. You’re finally not alone. Someone’s here to protect you.

He’ll indulge the delusion for a moment. He deserves that much until it’s time to pay up.