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go.”
    “ It could take an hour.
The nurses will come back to sedate her, and then what will we
do?”
    “ We’ll guard the entrance,
lock down the room.”
    An alarm sounds and Gloria rushes
forward to smash the close button. It doesn’t work. The sirens
continue to wail throughout the building. Gloria gives up on the
close button and tries to manually pull the door closed, but it
won’t budge.
    “ So much for locking down
the room.”
    Footsteps pound against the linoleum,
echoing someone’s approach.
    Gloria peeks her head into the hallway
and swears.
    “ Tell Jesse what’s going
on. Tell her she has to wake up.”
    “ She’s
unconscious.”
    “ Maybe she can hear you.”
Gloria knocks back the first wave of respondents, two nurses who
squeal. “No. You can’t come in here. Stop trying or I’ll be forced
to hurt you.”
    As she talks down the nurses, I put my
lips against Jesse’s ear. I feel more than a little silly until I
remember something about coma patients hearing the voices of loved
ones.
    “ Jesse?”
    Nothing. Maybe she can’t hear over the
sound of wailing sirens.
    I speak louder. “Jesse,
can you hear me? Wake up. It’s an emergency. Wake up !”

Chapter 8
     
    Jesse

    “T his is weird .”
    Gabriel and I are standing in one of
Jeremiah’s medical rooms. The big, open wall lined with beds is too
bright and too warm. Ally is by my bedside, yelling into my ear,
and Gloria is in the doorway, refusing to let a herd of doctors and
nurses into the room. Every time they get too close she kicks at
the herd with her gigantic cast. One nurse cries out when the
plaster connects with her shin.
    “ What’s all that racket?”
I want to cover my ears. I can’t. My body is stretched out in the
hospital bed with Ally standing guard over it.
    “ Alice believes you are in
danger.” Gabriel’s wings hunch, reminding me of an angry cat with
an arched back. His fiendish green eyes survey the situation.
“Alice is usually right.”
    I snort. “She’d love to hear you say
that.”
    The commotion in the room doubles, and
I turn toward the clotted doorway. Jeremiah stands toe-to-toe with
Gloria who refuses to let him pass. Jeremiah’s red in the face but
his voice is steady.
    “ Captain Jackson.” He even
manages a hint of deference. “Please let us into the
room.”
    “ No.”
    He pushes his glasses up the bridge of
his nose. “Jesse is in danger of hurting herself and innocent
people.”
    An idea hits me. “My
shield.”
    “ Cast it yourself.”
Gabriel opens his wings.
    I groan. “How?”
    “ You can command it,
Jesse. Picture it. Call it forth.”
    I try to imagine what I would look
like, laying there with a shield shining all around me. A tickle
washes over my body and the shield appears, enveloping
me.
    I smile. “That was pretty
easy.”
    “ Oh thank god.” Ally
murmurs. Her shoulders slump and all the air whooshes out from
between her lips. “Keep your shield up, baby.”
    I smile. “She called me baby. Did you
hear that?”
    Gabriel blinks at me.
    Gloria steps aside and lets the flood
of people enter the room. But now, none of them seem to know what
to do with themselves. They stand in a disjointed huddle, glancing
from my immobile form to Jeremiah as if waiting for
instruction.
    No one moves.
    “ What now?” I
ask.
    Gabriel turns those green eyes on me.
“You are aware.”
    “ I know I’m aware.” I
gesture at the room. “Hel- lo ?”
    He blinks at me.
    “ Look. We talked about
this. I accept that you’re either a real angel or that my head is
totally busted from dying and you’re an illusion. But either way,
I’m going to need you to have good communication skills. We’ll
never get through this if you keep talking like a
wookiee.”
    His eyes search my face and then he
wets his lips. “You are waking up.”
    “ Good job.” I squeeze his
biceps in my hands. “I understood you perfectly.”
    A hint of amusement crosses his face,
the corner of his lips turning