At her questions, Adam just looked back at her, letting the silence speak for itself.

Before he'd found out that angels existed, he would have laughed Hell off as a poor joke, but here was yet another person who hadn't laughed. He was glad for it. Adam couldn't say how he was holding himself up as it was; if he had to suffer someone passing off all those years as the joke they seemed to be, he didn't think he'd be able to stand it.

Wasn't that a crazy thought all on its own? That he would be dealing with people again, not merely creatures of light and wrath.

"You sure it's past tense?" Because truthfully, Adam wasn't.