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were as severe as they were after his fight with the demon, or that he would withdraw from her as her own star rose. Just like she didn’t want to see herself becoming swept up in the glamorous lifestyle of a Guardian—the money, the fame, the adoration—so she just closed her eyes to the world while it all washed over her, while she let herself be sucked into everything she used to hate about the Angels. Maddy thought back to the moment she received her rich, entitled Protections, the same moment she realized she had lost herself and become just another Angel. The memory turned her stomach. That wasn’t who she was, but it was who Jacks was. She had wanted the dream of the two of them together so badly that she couldn’t see that was all it was ever going to be: a dream, a fantasy. They were just too different to ever work. How often, Maddy wondered bitterly, do people really see things for what they are? How often do we instead just see a
version
of things—the version we want them to be? Here she was, two years later, and things were exactly the same as they’d been on that first night. And now she really had to face it: Maddy Montgomery and Jackson Godspeed just weren’t meant to be.
    She turned over and looked at the flight wings in her hand. If she somehow survived the demon attack, if she could help Tom and Kevin and everyone she loved to survive, then it didn’t matter what happened to her afterward. If she and Tom could have a life together, wouldn’t that be enough? Maddy’s smile was slight, bittersweet. There’s a strange sense of freedom and calm in letting go of your own desires and giving in to the path that fate has placed before you. She pictured her life up until this point as standing waist-deep in a swiftly moving river, straining and fighting against a relentless current but getting nowhere. Now she was finally letting go and was ready to let the current take her. There was something beautiful about it. Maybe the current would take her to the place she was always meant to go. Maybe everything was going to be okay. She felt a weight lift off her chest, one that she hadn’t even realized was there until now.
    Yet, deep inside her, the flame that still flickered for Jacks had to be snuffed out. She conjured up an image of Kevin in the claws of one of the demons, crying out for help—crying out for her—and white-hot anger raced through her veins. Even if she was the last thing standing between Kevin and an entire army of monsters, she would never abandon him. Jacks knew the kind of danger her uncle was in, the danger everyone was in, and yet he was content doing nothing. He was actually going to stand by and leave those weaker than him to their fate. Tom, on the other hand, was out there right now, preparing to go up against impossible odds without a second thought for himself. The anger came to a boil inside Maddy, replacing her blood with bitter water and filling her. Consuming her. She erased those pictures of the Jacks she loved, of the impeccable Angel she had memorized, and replaced them with the new Jacks. This was the Jacks in battle armor, worn to attack humans. That armor and those robotic wings were all that was left of him now. She let herself think through her next realization very slowly. If the Angels wouldn’t help the humans against their enemy, then the
Angels were the enemy, too.
    She sat up and looked out her window to the Angel City sign that stood on the hill, still gleaming and white, like a beacon. How she hated that sign and everything it stood for. How she hated the city and everything it had done to her.
    In a low voice, Maddy said aloud, “Nonaction is complicity.” She thought of the Emergency Broadcast on the radio. That broadcast was like her life now. This was
not
a test. This was really happening. The Angels were the enemy. The logic was irrefutable. And that could only mean one thing.
    Jackson Godspeed was now her enemy, too.

CHAPTER FOUR
    N estled in