When Rebecca returned for me, she immediately handed me a red plastic box that was about the size of a pencil case. “Here,” she said pleasantly. “You’re going to need this.”

I stared at the box for a moment in curiosity and then opened it. I was startled to see that there was a syringe inside as well as a dozen small vials full of liquid. I gave her a questioning look.

“Medicine,” she explained with a wry smile. “You’ll need to take a shot before you’re allowed to leave this quarantine room and then you’ll need to take one every day.”

“What’s this for?” I asked suspiciously, picking up one of the small vials to examine it closer.

“All of us angels are required to take it,” Rebecca told me patiently. “My mom designed this drug for me before her death. It makes us less infectious.”

I was a little startled by that explanation and said, “I didn’t think there was anything even remotely like a vaccine…”

“Unfortunately, you’re correct,” Rachael responded. “This isn’t a vaccine or anything like it. Normally, we angels can infect others through body fluids. This merely reduces just how contagious we are and makes it safer for us to be near others. With this, saliva and other…fluids are no longer infectious. Just coming in contact with our blood won’t infect anyone either, not unless they get it into their blood stream.”

I gave Rebecca a flat look and asked, “Then how am I here?”

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca told me with an apologetic look. “When we get injured, the virus in our system tries healing us and goes into hyperdrive. When that happens, this drug goes out the window and we become contagious again.”

Rebecca took the vial from my hand and then removed the syringe from the box. She snapped the vial into the back of the syringe and then grabbed my arm, giving me the shot.

“You’ll get used to this,” she said with a shrug. “Think of it as being diabetic. Now let’s go see your new quarters.”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” I asked, gesturing down to my bare feet. “You guys took my shoes.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes at that, then went to the door which she’d left open when she’d entered. “Get Jarrod some shoes,” she called out. Then she turned to me and shook her head. “Sorry, but they destroyed your shoes along with the rest of your clothes. They had Nicole’s blood on them.”

Then Rebecca gestured to the vials and said, “In case you’re wondering, that stuff doesn’t work on the demons. Their strain is always in hypderdrive.”

Once a guard arrived with a pair of shoes for me, Rebecca led me out of the quarantine room. I was glad to be out of there since I was starting to feel claustrophobic, but I knew I was still a prisoner. I was just being moved into a bigger cell.

When we left the building, Rebecca gave me a reassuring smile and said, “It’s not much further. We have an area that’s reserved just for us angels.”

I gave Rebecca a quickly look and exclaimed, “I never said I was going to join your squad.”

Rebecca just smiled at that and explained, “Whether you do or not, we all decided that this was the best place to put you. Between the security situation, infection concerns, and rest of us angels already being there, it only makes sense.”

I scowled at that but continued walking beside her. Thankfully, Rebecca hadn’t really been pressuring me to make a decision. In fact, since she’d come back for me, she hadn’t mentioned it at all until I brought the subject up.

Ever since Rebecca had told me about my choices, I’d been thinking about them and not liking either. The real fact was that I hated everything about my entire situation. I was infected with a virus that was going to turn me into a girl and then I was going to be stuck in one form of quarantine or another for the rest of my life, just so the government could make sure I didn’t spill their secrets. There wasn’t anything about that to like.

Of course, Rebecca hadn’t said it specifically, but she’d sort of suggested that I’d be given more trust and freedom if I joined her squad and helped fight demons. However, the idea of intentionally looking for demons seemed to be a rather stupid one and I couldn’t imagine who in their right mind would want to do that. In fact, the very idea of encountering another demon like that was nearly enough to make me piss myself.

“We’re here,” Rebecca announced when we reached the front of a two or three story building.

There was a door in front of us that had a symbol painted on it that looked like a pair of angel wings with a halo floating over the top of them. I vaguely remembered seeing that symbol before, on a patch the soldier was wearing while I tried saving her life. I glanced to Rebecca, noting that she wore a patch with the same symbol on her shoulder as well.

Rebecca entered a code into the keypad beside the door and then announced, “Enter freely and of your own will.”

“This is where you live?” I asked, feeling a little uncertain.

“Yep,” Rebecca agreed, giving me a grin. “Angel Squad has the whole building and a fenced off area behind it. It’s a lot of space for just us, but it gives us privacy and we don’t to worry about accidentally infecting anyone else here.” She gestured around as we went inside saying, “We have sleeping quarters, laundry, a kitchen, recreation areas, a hot tub, and even our own swimming pool.”

“Damn,” I exclaimed in surprise. When Rebecca had said she was moving me out of the quarantine room, I hadn’t expected something like this.

“And yes,” she added with a smirk. “We do call it Heaven.”

“How many people live here?” I asked, thinking about the size of the building.

Rebecca was silent for a moment before answering, “Four, including you.” She shook her head sadly and then added, “We used to have another sister, but Lisa was killed by a demon a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what else I could say to that.

“Come on,” Rebecca told me as she started for some stairs, “I’ll show you to your room and then give you the nickel tour.”

A minute later, I was standing inside of the bedroom that had been assigned to me. It was a moderately sized room that could have done quite well as a studio apartment, and it was even already furnished, including a queen sized bed. However, as I looked it over, I noticed one glaring problem.

“There isn’t a bathroom,” I told Rebecca.

“We have a community bathroom and showers just a few doors down,” she told me with a chuckle.

“Even my previous accommodations came with a bathroom,” I said, more as a joke than anything. “I thought you said this place was Heaven.”

Rebecca chuckled at that. “It is annoying,” she admitted. “This building used to be a barracks, but when they remodeled it, they skimped when it came to updating this section. Apparently, stripping everything to the bones and then installing all new plumbing was a bit more than the budget allowed.”

“So, there’s a hot tub but no toilet for my room,” I muttered with a shake of my head.
I left the plastic case with the medicine in my room and then went with Rebecca while she showed me the rest of the building. It was definitely spacious and seemed even more so because it was completely empty of other people. The top floor contained most of the real living area while the bottom floor contained things like a gym, training room, and storage. The pool Rebecca had mentioned was in back of the building.

“You have free range of Heaven,” Rebecca told me once she was done with the tour. “But for now, the higher ups want one of us to escort you whenever you go elsewhere on base.” She gave me an apologetic look at that.

I nodded at that, then admitted, “It’s a bit more freedom than I was expecting.”

“None of this is your fault,” she said with a sigh. “And it’s a shitty reward for trying to save someone’s life. We’re trying to make this as easy on you as we can.”

“I appreciate it,” I said, absently scratching my arm.

I looked down and scowled, no longer having any hair on my arms at all. And though I hadn’t checked, from the faint itching my legs, I was fairly sure that my arms weren’t the only things that had gone bald.

“Now that you’ve seen Heaven,” Rebecca told me with a grin. “It’s time for you to meet the other angels.”

I was a bit nervous about meeting these women, though admittedly, I was curious about Nicole. After the condition she’d been in the last time I saw her, I wanted to see for myself if she was all right.

“They’re eager to meet you,” Rebecca told me with a grin. “I asked them to hold back for a bit though so I could give you the tour first. I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much at once.”

“And all this isn’t too much at once?” I asked bitterly, thing about everything I’d already been hit with.

Rebecca just gave me a sympathetic look and said, “Come on.”

We went back to the dining room area that Rebecca had shown me a short time earlier, and to my surprise, there were four beers sitting out on the table. When we came through here earlier, the table had been completely empty.

“We thought you could use a drink,” Rebecca’s voice said, though Rebecca hadn’t said a word. I snapped around and saw Rebecca standing in the side doorway, even though she was also standing beside me. It took a moment to realize that Rebecca had shoulder length hair while this new Rebecca had hair that went to her mid back.

This other Rebecca stepped the rest of the way into the dining room while another Rebecca came in behind her. This one had fairly short hair that was bleached blonde. She even had a half dozen rings through each ear.

“These are my sisters,” Rebecca said with a grin, gesturing to the newcomers. “Dani and Nicole.”

“I’m really sorry about this,” the one with the long hair said, giving me a guilty look. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t gotten distracted, this never would have happened.”

“What…?” I started, then paused in realization. “You’re the one I patched up. Nicole…”

“Not fair,” the blonde one said, handing a five dollar bill over to Rebecca who just stood there smirking. “Nicole gave it up.”

“He had a fifty percent chance of guessing right anyway,” Nicole told Dani.

“How can you be up and walking after that?” I blurted out, staring at Nicole.

Nicole lifted her shirt enough to give me a good view of her side, which had a nasty looking scar where she’d been torn open. “We heal fast,” she explained with a self-conscious smile. “The scar will be gone by tomorrow.”

I nodded at that, staring at Nicole and then Dani, feeling a little stunned by just how much they looked like Rebecca. They were all identical, except for the hair and the fact that Dani had more piercings in her ears.

“I really appreciate what you did for me,” Nicole said as she came up to me. “If you hadn’t helped me, I probably would have bled out before healing enough to stop it.”

Then Nicole surprised me by leaning forward and kissing me on the lips. Her lips lingered against mine before she slowly pulled back, smirking faintly as she did so.

“Hey,” Rebecca protested. “He’s going to be one of us soon.”

“But he isn’t yet,” Nicole pointed out.

“Nice to meet you,” Dani said, holding out her hand. As I shook it, she gave me an odd look and said, “You’re in for a rough road, but it probably won’t be as bad as you think.”

“Have a seat,” Rebecca said, handing me one of the beers from the table before taking one for herself. “Since you’re going to be living here with us for the foreseeable future, I think we should get to know each other a little better.”