Colton hesitated, the ache firing up everywhere that mattered as he shifted his weight from the ledge. Ryan waited as patiently as he seemed able to be, his eyes never leaving him. Colton took longer than he needed to, hoping Ryan would give up waiting for him and leave. But he didn’t. He made his annoyance known through heavy sighs and constantly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Once Colton was finally on his feet, Ryan was moving, only pausing long enough to make sure that he was being followed as closely as Colton could keep up.

It was as if the connecting convent were designed to be the Cathedral’s opposite.

While the Cathedral was beautiful and extravagant, the walls of the convent showed its weathered age with crumbling walls and splintering wooden pillars holding the roof. It had crude repairs around the few windows he saw, wobbly doorknobs that wouldn’t work unless you lifted them.

There weren’t many Sisters walking about the halls, but those who were spent their time cleaning or tending to the few plants around.

Colton didn’t remember seeing any of them at the mass. He wondered if there was an earlier one for them because of how full the cathedral had been. He watched their movements, slow and careful, and he watched how they looked at them with curiosity, like they hadn’t gotten the same message that the island had just gotten.

“This is Sister Magdoline,” Ryan stopped in front of a tall woman who showed her years on her kind face, “She works closely with Sam, so you’ll be seeing her around the Saint’s wing.”

The woman was covered from head to toe, looking every bit like how he expected a nun to look. She stood tall, her hands folded in front of her like she was used to holding a book while meeting with others, her face had a gentle smile spread across it, and her eyes held deep knowledge that he could only guess at.

“Michael is a bright child,” Her voice echoed the smile on her face. It was hard for Colton not to return the smile through his pain, “I’m sure you two will make quick friends outside of her schooling.”

“I’m not so sure,” Colton replied honestly, remembering the glare he had met a sermon ago.

“She has a mean glare and sharp edges, but she’s just a scared child inside of that. She’ll have no reason to continue glaring if you stay kind, Chamuel.”

The name felt like a stab to the heart; it was like a fresh wound with thorned edges, tearing out into the rest of his chest. He didn’t know how much more he’d be able to take.

Ryan led him away from her, allowing her to get back to what she was doing before they had interrupted her. They walked around the walls like Ryan was trying to make him memorise the ancient layout. He looked out at a small courtyard in the center, where the arched ceiling opened up, allowing the weather inside the halls.

It felt more like a small, neglected fortress than a typical convent. The courtyard held two fruit trees entangled in the center and a broken border of bushes. The grass was patchy and filled with weeds and wildflowers scattered wherever they could grow.

Colton felt as though the space was more loved than appearances made it seem to be. He could feel the comfort that the sisters who lived there had built into the building. It had signs of attempts to fix the weathering in it, to keep it standing as long as possible. It was as clean as it could be for the open layout that it had, even though there were stains in the stone pathways that they couldn’t clean.

He peered into some of the windows that lined the walls. Most rooms held the bare minimum, with some only containing a bed. But there was a library, cluttered with all the documents and books that the Cathedral didn’t want to hold, and a neighboring classroom that could only fit six desks, including the teachers’ table at the front, and a blackboard so old that it could never be completely clean again.

Ryan waited for Colton every time something caught his interest, looking like there was so much that he wanted to say. Like explaining why he was really on the island. Colton wanted to ask, to break the silence that had grown between them.

But he didn’t. Something told him that he did not want to know the details.

Ryan paused to be sure he was done memorizing, then he quickly turned a corner before leading Colton down a long, spiraling staircase, hidden behind a dull, splintering door in that corner.

Colton was ready to collapse by the time they made it to the smooth marble landing where the spiral ended.

“Welcome to the Saints’ wing,” Ryan said without pausing his stride across the smooth tile. They walked through the short hallway with two doors on either side of it and a large open archway at the end. “That one is the office for the seven of you, the other is mine, straight ahead is the living quarters you started today in.”

It looked like a hospital; everything was a blinding white that seemed like it was polished regularly with how brightly it shone against the LED lights beaming from the ceiling. It smelled like alcohol and despair, and the air held its breath like it was waiting for the news that a loved one had passed.

Ryan didn’t step past the archway, instead walking Colton to it and pausing outside it. “It won’t get easier from here,” He warned, “But you will have the others to help you.”

He searched Colton’s pained face before backing away and entering his office away from him.

The living room was an open space with a kitchenette built into the far wall to his right, with a large family table and chair set with seven chairs. Feet away from the table were mismatched cushioned chairs in front of a white, rounded couch with a brown coffee table and a black rug in between the chairs and the couch.

To his left was a row of four doors, three bedrooms labeled in the center with 1-3, and one metal further down, he assumed that was the freezer. In front of him were another four doors labeled 4-7, all bedrooms.

Auriel had stripped off his uniform, leaving behind a pair of cheap brown shorts he must have gotten on the island, and was crouched in front of Michael, who sat on the corner of the couch, murmuring words that Colton couldn’t hear to her.

Michael seemed smaller than before, younger, as she sat curled into her uniform like it was the only thing keeping her afloat in the array of colored cushions that seemed more like a desperate attempt to have color than actual decoration. The two looked like siblings, like he was the eldest brother trying to reassure the youngest, leaving Colton as the ghost watching through a veil.

Auriel looked up, noticing Colton standing there for the first time. “You’re back early,” he smiled and stood rushing through his next words, “I was gonna make some lunch, you two should officially meet. Chamuel, this is Michael, Michael, this is Chamuel.”

Michael looked at him briefly before making a disgusted face and turning her head back to rest on her knees.

“Teenagers.” Auriel shrugged before walking to the kitchenette.

Colton hesitantly sat on the opposite corner, closest to him, leaving Michael as much space as he could. He watched as she tensed as though she could feel the movement and moved to the chair instead, watching her relax slightly.

“I uh, I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I’ve learned a lot of skills I never needed before. Besides, it’s hard to mess up sandwiches.” Auriel called back to Colton as he worked.

“You’d be surprised,” Michael spoke, her voice dry and soulless, “When I was in Chicago, I was given a lot of weird shit on the street.”

“Like what?” Colton leaned in, interested in the first mention of a ‘before’.

“Sand, dirt, spit. You name it, someone has probably given it to a homeless person.” Michael looked at him again, searching his posture exactly like Colton did to everyone, “People are assholes when they get a taste of superiority.”

“You were homeless? In Chicago?”

“The Murder Capital, yeah.” She looked back at the table, as if looking at him for too long would make her throw up. He wondered what she had seen in her short life, how many people she knew that ended up in the lake.

Colton nodded, unsure of how to change the topic. He could imagine there weren’t very many fond memories back home for her to look back on. They sat in silence until Auriel came back with sandwiches with thick pieces of sourdough bread.

“I’ll take you out to see the island in the morning, hopefully early enough that we won’t see too many people around.”

“I’m used to being swarmed by paparazzi.”

“True, but you aren’t used to being an Angel.” Auriel handed him one from the ceramic plate, “It’s a bit different than the tabloids.”

He took the sandwich from him, silently urging him to explain more. If a lifetime spent in the public eye wasn’t enough to prepare him for a small island of people who already assumed everything that he did was from God himself, how did any of them survive?

“Half of the duties of a Saint, that’s us, are not to be seen by anyone for any reason. We are only warriors in name here; in practice, we are more like the royal family.”

“So we have to make sure everyone likes us?”

“No, we have to pretend like we are divine,” Michael spoke up through the large bites she took out of her sandwich.

Auriel nodded, “The island will do as it does. Some people believe Bation wholeheartedly, some people don’t. Some people love him, and in turn love us. Some people are starting to talk about revolution. We act like we don’t know. We act like we have massive wings attached to our backs. We avoid letting Bation know that some people don’t like him.”

Colton leaned forward, his interest piqued, “There’s a revolution here?”

The pair looked to each other, concern clear on their faces, before Michael spoke carefully, “A potential revolution, so far, there aren’t many supporters yet. If this goes anywhere, it will be years from now before they are large enough to do much of anything.”

“Unless something big changes,” Auriel added.

“But something big could also gain Bation’s favor back.” Colton sighed.

“We can’t do much to fan the spark there while collared, but so long as Bation doesn’t find out, we have a chance to shake the foundation he’s built his whole empire on and save ourselves before taking him out.” Michael had a hopeful spark in her eye that led him to believe she’d known about this a lot longer than Auriel had. She looked like she had a plan centered on the revolution.

Colton looked between them briefly as he thought. If there was a plan, he could help them; he could find the blind spots of the collar that they hadn’t thought of yet, he could communicate with the revolution planners in secret, he could fight alongside them, he’d do anything he had to to get Evan home.

“Is there a plan?” He asked quietly, as though Ryan would suddenly be able to hear them from inside his concrete office

“Michael always has a plan.” Michael had a growing, mischievous grin that ignited the spark into a small flame, before she sat up straight and dropped the grin, “But you have a long way to go before you’re ready.”

Just like that, Michael finished her sandwich in silence, holding a glare to the floor similar to the one she held on him in the Cathedral.

“You should get some rest, you’re going to have a long, hard day tomorrow.” Auriel said as he rose to his feet, “The patrol shift is switching soon, or I’d stick around a little longer. You’re door five.” He nodded to the second door behind Colton and left through door number two on the left-hand side of the room.

Colton hesitated, but Michael’s burning glare began to singe his face, forcing him to his feet and limping to his door, praying for sleep to come sooner rather than later.