by K. V. Rose
He keeps his hand pressed to my mouth, and reaches the other behind him. In his back pocket. It takes me a minute to wonder what he’s doing but then I hear the snick of the blade and see it gleaming in the torchlight when he brings his hand up between us.
I make to step away, but he shakes his head, moves his hand from my mouth and catches my wrist, pressing so hard I feel the bones rub together.
“Not so fast, Lilith,” he purrs, holding up the knife. It’s a short blade but it looks wicked sharp.
I have no idea what he intends to do. Carve up his own skin, like Ezra? His lips are turned up into an eerie smile, the skeleton paint making him seem nearly deranged. And yet I’m glad he’s holding my wrist.
Because part of me wants to run.
But part of me…part of me wants to stay. The part that’s fucked up. That’s always been fucked up since that first foster home.
“If I let you go, are you going to try to run?” he asks me, cocking his head.
I swallow. Was I? I don’t know.
But slowly, I shake my head.
“Don’t lie to me, Lilith.”
I take a breath, and another. Another. I suck down air as fast as I can get it.
“Are you going to run, baby girl?” he asks again, loosening his hold on my wrist.
I shake my head again. I’m not.
He seems to realize I’m telling the truth. He lets me go, then flips the knife in his hand and before I can say a word, he slices a hole in his black pants.
For a moment, I only stare at the pale skin beneath. He cuts a strip of his pants, lets the fabric fall to the ground. Then I see the tattoo. Same as Ezra’s; a skull with smoke and a U. I also see the blood.
I should gasp. Or run now. Maybe ask him what the fuck he’s doing. But I don’t do any of that. I just watch the cut deepen with crimson, swelling under the skull eyes, then run down his thigh, down his pants. He’s bleeding. It’s a good three inches or more, and it might be a shallow wound, but it’s dripping steadily. He has other scars, too.
He runs the flat part of the blade over the wound, coating it in blood. Then he holds up the knife again between us. I can’t stop staring at it, the silver slick with red. He pushes me back against the door.
“Open your mouth,” he commands.
I tense, finding his gaze in the darkness.
“Open your mouth, Lilith.”
And I fucking do. I don’t know why. I could run now. I could scream for help.
But I don’t.
I open my goddamn mouth.
He makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan and he presses closer to me, leaving only enough room to hold up the knife.
“Stick out your tongue,” he whispers, his voice thick with some unknown emotion.
I stick out my tongue.
“Don’t move.” The warning rings in my head as he places the flat of the blood against my tongue. I taste copper. Blood.
His blood.
He slides the blade down my tongue, careful not to cut me, but he coats my tongue with him.
“Swallow it.”
I do. It’s salty and metallic, and I only want fucking more of it. I clench my hands into fists to keep from sinking to my knees, to keep from running my tongue down his thigh. From stopping the bleeding with my own goddamn mouth.
But he pulls me to him by the neck and he crushes his mouth to mine.
We’re teeth and tongues and blood and spit and I only want more. He groans against my mouth, then slips something into my hand.
The hilt of the blade.
“Your turn,” he whispers against my lips.
Chapter Ten
Present
My first thought is about the child. I know it shouldn’t be. I know I should be a better person. But I can’t stop thinking about that girl’s belly, sitting tight and plump between her and Lucifer when they were speaking.
And then Ria’s words, about not knowing. Lucifer’s confirmation, that he didn’t know.
I want to know about her. About the baby. So I ask Nicolas.
He’s day drinking, because the Rain mansion doesn’t follow the natural order of things: breakfast, lunch, dinner. Work in between. No, the Rain mansion specializes in night murders, drug trafficking, and lots and lots of booze.
That and marijuana are the only drugs Jeremiah lets people consume who work for him. They’re drug tested. And they know better than to try to fake one.
I’m not. I don’t know why. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he knows I’ve never been drawn to drugs.
Not yet.
Anyhow, getting piss drunk before ten in the morning is perfectly acceptable in the Rain mansion, as long as work gets handled.
Nicolas guzzles his beer as I sit across from him in one of the living rooms. It used to be a bar, and it still has a bar. But Jeremiah had wanted a bigger bar. Now there are three in the Rain mansion.
The lights are dim, tinted glass shielding us from the warm, mid-October sun.
I remember, vaguely, California’s fall. It was mild, but here...well, North Carolina is still sweltering during the day.
By Halloween, though, it usually cools off. Nights are already dropping in temperature.
Nicolas sets the empty bottle on the edge of the dark red leather chair. I have my knees tucked into my chest, my hands stuffed into my hoodie pockets. Years of dressing up for men left me with a style that screams, “I just woke up”. It’s comfortable. I love it. No one leers at me this way.
Nicolas’s deep brown eyes find mine. Then they go lower. To my throat.
There are purple and yellow bruises there, too high up to hide under my hoodie. Probably from Kristof. Maybe from my brother.
Nicolas sighs and stretches his legs out. He wears dark jeans, a loose-fitting t-shirt that shows off his tan skin, scarred arms. Nicolas hadn’t made his way to the foster system as a child. But he should have. Even I can admit he would’ve been better off. Most of his scars came from his own mother.
“Your brother told me not to tell you any of this,” he finally says, looking down at the polished wooden floor now.
I scoff. “Since when do you let my brother order you around?”
He barks a laugh. “Since I started working for his punk ass all those years ago.”
When Nicolas dealt on the streets. He was known for his quality goods and his word. My brother had told me as much, during one of the many times he tried to compare me to his more competent men. Even to the Unsaints themselves. Although never Lucifer.
“Yeah, stupid question,” I murmur. But even still, I’m not letting it go. “Let’s just do a little ‘Yes’ or ‘No’?” I waggle my brows as he looks back at me, a smirk on his face. It was a game we played when I didn’t want to talk, and he wanted to let me vent, with few words. We asked ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ questions, and no explanation was required. Or, in fact, allowed. All part of the game.
He sighs, lifts his hands in a shrug. “Fine,” he growls.
There’s a five-question limit unless the party being interrogated agrees to lift it. I feel confident he won’t, so I don’t press it.
I tap my fingers together, pressing the tips against one another. “Does Lucifer have a child?”
“Going in for the kill,” Nicolas mutters, shaking his head. He heaves a sigh and plays with the clear beer bottle on his armchair, twirling it around and around. “Yes.”
I feel like I want to throw up. But that will get me nowhere.
“Is he with the mother of that child, romantically?”
Nicolas stares at me, clearly annoyed.
“You know no matter what I say, you have to kill him, right?”
I shush him. “Not part of the game, Nicky,” I croon.
He swallows. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “Yes.” And then he throws me a bone. “Julie is the mother.”
Julie.
Another punch to the gut. If I ask the rest of my three questions, I’ll probably kill Lucifer right now,
as soon as I can find him.
“Did he really burn down Brooklin’s house?”
I know Jeremiah meant what he said when he offered me my freedom. Or rather, my freedom within reason, within the confines of this mansion. But I don’t know if he’d lied about the details.
For some reason, Nicolas seems nervous. He spins the bottle faster in his hands, watching it carefully.
“Yes,” he finally says. “With the help of his Unsaint fiends.” This surprises me. Not the Unsaints, but I thought his nerves had to do with the fact he was going to reveal a lie from my brother.
Two more questions. I shift in my chair, put my hands back in my pockets and clear my throat.
Nicolas raises his brows as if to ask, ‘Is that enough?’ But it isn’t. Not even close.
“Does my brother love Brooklin?”
Nicolas jerks back, nearly dropping the bottle in his hands. He squeezes it in one, fingers blanching against the glass. He didn’t expect that one. But I already know the answer before he confirms it.
“Yes.”
My throat goes dry, and I don’t even know why. If Jeremiah loves her, maybe he’ll stay off my back. He doesn’t seem to be doing that, though. But maybe I don’t want him to. Maybe I like his overbearing cruelties. Maybe they make me feel loved.
My face burns with that thought. I look down at my knees, knobby and full of bruises from God-knows what. Then I remember. Kristof throwing me down on his marble floor. Something my brother had let him do.
One more question.
I take a breath and glance outside, at the neat hedges that line the windows.
I can feel Nicolas watching me.
I don’t know if I want the answer to the one question beating against the side of my brain like a wild animal.
“Does he know I’m here?”
Nicolas freezes. His grip on the bottle tightens so much I think it might shatter in his hands. He seems to stop breathing. I think I know the answer.
But shocking me, he shakes his head.
I gasp at him. “You can’t lie!”
He smiles, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m not lying. He probably thinks you’re here. They all do. But if they knew, they’d have tried to get to you before now. Anyway, no more questions. No explanations, Sidney.”
I shoot him the bird. My name isn’t Sidney. My mom, probably cracked out and half-awake, had written “Sid” on my birth certificate when I was fresh from the womb, still in the hospital.
Well then.
Lucifer might not know I’m here, but he knows something about me. Knows something happened to Jeremiah that night, to make him leave the Unsaints without a word. And Nicolas had given me a hint. He generally showed his emotions around me, but I knew very well he could have hidden them too, when I asked if Lucifer knew where I was.
Nicolas usually kept his feelings to himself, like he had those first two weeks I was here. When Jeremiah kept me in a cell because he didn’t trust me in a room by myself.
Nicolas had been entirely mute. Even when he handcuffed my hands behind my back and forced my mouth open, even as my jaw cracked when he pushed soup down my throat.
He hadn’t said a word. I thought he actually was the devil himself, until Jeremiah released me. And I became friendly with Nicolas.
We aren’t friends exactly. I don’t have those. But we’re something. And he had given me more than he had to.
I almost want to thank him. But I know better.
I sigh and stand to my feet, crouching down to lace up my combat boots.
“One more question,” I say without looking up. “When do I start?”
Nicolas laughs. “It’s a one-shot deal. One shot kill. Halloween night only, Sidney. Your brother is a sadomasochist, you know?”
I smile, nod.
I know.
But no way in hell am I going to wait ‘til Halloween.
Chapter Eleven
Present
Finding Lucifer is harder than I thought it would be.
For one, I don’t have his last name. I hadn’t thought to ask Nicolas what it was during our game, and now it’s too late for that. When I find Nicolas that night in the gym, he zips his lips and throws away an imaginary key. I roll my eyes and get to running on the treadmill. I work better when I get a sweat in.
I don’t listen to music, just the own steady beating of my heart, the inhales and exhales as I run through sprint intervals. I glance in the wall of mirrors in front of me and see the purple and blue bruising on my throat.
I haven’t seen Kristof since the night before. I’m glad. If I had, I might have punctured his lung with the long, curved knife I have in the cup holder of the treadmill. I had left the switchblade in his room in the chaos of my brother’s interruption, but I didn’t need it back. I had more knives in my room than I had clothes.
My eyes flick to Nicolas in the mirror. He’s doing weighted burpees at the far end of the gym, wearing a tank top and basketball shorts. I watch his body move for a long moment, marveling at the muscle tone. He’s breathing hard, and he runs a hand through his short blonde hair, transferring the hand weights to one hand to do so. He catches me looking at him in the mirror and shakes his head, rolling his eyes.
I laugh, bring my gaze back to myself.
I’m wearing a hoodie, letting the extra heat drench me as I power through another stretch of high intervals. My pale complexion is splotchy and red now, and I glance down at the muscles flexing in my thighs as I run, my long runner’s shorts swaying a little with the movement. I take pride in that muscle. It had taken me a long time to build it, half a year after my brother took me from Raven Park. When I’d been an escort, I’d ran, too, but never lifted weights. I didn’t practice fighting either or firing a gun or wielding a knife.
All that changed when I came to the Rain mansion. Even inside these walls, where most of my brother’s staff lives full-time, it’s hard to trust anyone. The only person I did trust was the one at my back, but I know that he would take a bullet for Jeremiah in a heartbeat before he thought to take one for me. I understand that loyalty. Nicolas has been here longer than I have. In truth, he’d known my brother longer, too.
Nicolas hadn’t been an Unsaint because his own family hadn’t been with the Society of 6. But he’d been my brother’s friend even before he started the Order of Rain.
After me and Jeremiah split up, when I was a kid, I had cried for him, even though he’d terrorized me. He was familiar. The devil I knew. The new homes I went to were full of worse monsters, worse devils. When I turned eighteen, found myself with no high school diploma (because I found writing in the library was more fun than writing in class), I had finally tasted freedom.
I’d fell into escorting after looking for easy jobs on the library computer. I’d worked for an older woman for a few months, learning the trade, how not to get caught, how to avoid the cops. And then I got tired of her taking my cut, so I got out from under her and took my clients with me. They brought me more.
I hadn’t been rich.
I should have been. But I undercharged, only wanted enough to pay my bills and buy books and clothes. Then, a year ago, when I decided I didn’t even want that, I’d taken the gun I had at the house for some perceived sense of self-protection and thought I’d retire early. Nineteen and ready to die.
Fucking Lucifer. He took that from me, then put me somewhere worse.
Here.
I walk through the low interval, tugging up my hoodie sleeves, wiping the back of my hand over my forehead. Then I power through the last of the high intervals, thinking only of him. Of how now I could destroy him. He might owe my brother something for burning down Brooklin’s house, but he owed me more. He had taken my death away.
When Jeremiah had thrown me in that cell, it had been fourteen days of constant suicide watch by Nicolas, and a sub when Nicolas had to catch a few hours of sleep. Even then, he didn’t leave my side. Or rather, the other side of my cell. When I’d finally go
tten out, I had a woman—the head housekeeper’s daughter—at my side. She even slept in my room. I screamed at her. I threatened her. But she was stocky, tall, and this time, she had the gun.
I didn’t kill myself.
Taking my own life would have taken bravery that on that Halloween night, I’d had. I’d been confident my life wouldn’t get better, and I felt good about making that choice. About taking my life and death into my own hands. But by the time I’d finally earned Jeremiah’s trust just enough to live alone in the hotel, I hadn’t been brave any longer.
I also couldn’t get Lucifer out of my head. I still can’t. But I never expected to see him again. He had left me in the psych ward, for Jeremiah to find me. And Jeremiah had tried to take me that night himself, before he knew who I was. Lucifer had warned me about him, but turns out, Lucifer was the worst monster.
I’m not just going to kill him for my brother. I’m going to fuck up his life like he’d fucked up mine when he took away my choice. When I’d sworn that oath to him, and he to me. He didn’t keep his end of it.
I’ll take my time enjoying his death, like I hadn’t been able to enjoy mine.
It’s an unlikely source that leads me to Lucifer’s whereabouts.
Around midnight, I’d taken the seven flights of stairs down to one of the kitchens, the industrial one that had been intended for serving meals for the entire hotel. It’s busy, as it usually is in the middle of the night. People who work for the Order of Rain don’t keep normal hours. And the people that aren’t working are getting high, and thus, hungry.
One of my brother’s guards is down here, sitting on top of a mini fridge, ironically used for the kitchen staff. As if the glistening stainless-steel monstrosity isn’t enough. The guard isn’t, thankfully, Kristof, so I let go of the knife strapped against my waist band, tucked beneath my baggy black t-shirt under my hoodie.
Trey reaches his fist out to me and I pound it, nodding toward the string cheese in his hands.