by K. V. Rose
We reach the landing, the both of us, and wait again. Listening. The sound is a fan, coming from a closed door at the end of the hall. Probably the baby’s room. Right off the top of the stairs, there’s another door that’s wide open. At my back, there’s a small bathroom.
Nicolas nods toward the open door, and he walks quickly over to it, standing flush against the wall before he pokes his head in, twisting around like they do in cop movies when they’re clearing the rooms.
He twists back around, and I see on his face.
Something is wrong. He’s frowning, his eyes wide.
I come closer to him, standing just in front of him, and do as he had, looking inside the room. It’s a bedroom, and underneath the blue comforter is Julie—blonde tendrils splayed on the pillow, her face away from us—and the baby, snuggled up against her chest, wisps of hair sticking up at all angles, facing against his mother.
I try to breathe as I duck out the room and slide past Nicolas, flattening myself against the wall, too.
We don’t look at each other. Not for a long moment.
“I’ll do it,” Nicolas finally says, words against my ear so I can hear him.
I swallow the lump in my throat. This is not right. But I’ve never been right. Nothing about me is right.
I squeeze my eyes closed. Jeremiah might be pissed it isn’t me that does it. He wants to teach me a lesson in all of this. But I can’t. I know I can’t. I’ll only fuck it up.
I nod, and Nicolas nods toward the stairs. He wants me to go down before he pulls the trigger.
I want to argue, but now is really not the time. We can’t speak any more than we already have, and I’m not about to fuck this up more than it’s already fucked. So much for bringing Julie’s head back to taunt Lucifer.
My gun still drawn, still in both hands, I make my way down the stairs on tiptoes, looking at my feet, careful not to trip. When I get to the bottom, I glance up at Nicolas, and he’s staring at me. I pull my brows together, confused. He needs to move. We need to get the fuck out of here. The longer we stay, the worse the bad feeling gets.
But when he moves, it isn’t into the room.
It’s toward me. He opens his mouth, about to say something, when I feel a hand over my own mouth.
I try to move, to swing around to whoever it is, but Nicolas is the one to speak.
“He’s got a gun. Don’t move.”
He says it quietly enough, but I hear it loud and clear.
I freeze.
“I told you that you couldn’t run, Lilith.”
Chapter Twenty
Present
I never thought anyone could scare me as much as Jeremiah did. My brother is ruthless, cold, unaffected by basic human emotions. I thought, at times, he was a psychopath. I thought he was a combination of the worst of nature and nurture. Abandoned by a mother that never cared for him, given to families that only wanted to use him. But he had had the darkness in him from an early age. I was scared of him even before we were separated.
But I’d been wrong.
Because when Lucifer drags me outside, into the backyard, and Nicolas comes after me, I’m terrified.
Lucifer still has me against his front, an arm wrapped around my chest. But I can see the gun in his hand. It’s aimed at Nicolas, and Nicolas, for his part, is aiming right back, his eyes focused on Lucifer.
I don’t care much about what Lucifer might do to me, even though I know it will be horrific. I had almost just helped kill his precious Julie, after all. In the same bed his child slept in. But I don’t want Nicolas to die.
He’s one of the only bright spots for me at the Rain mansion.
“Let her go.” His voice is calm, his hands steady as he aims at Lucifer, but his jaw ticks. He doesn’t dare look at me.
Lucifer laughs, raspy and hoarse. I can smell him. Cigarettes and pine. I can feel the warmth of him at my back, feel the strength in his arm slung around my chest. My own gun hangs limply at my side. I could turn it around. Somehow find a way to aim at Lucifer behind me. But I don’t. I don’t want to provoke him. I want Nicolas to live.
“You come into my home, plan to kill a mother and child, and you dare give me a command?” Lucifer doesn’t sound angry as he speaks the words, which is even more unsettling. He sounds as if we’re discussing the weather. Chilly, with a light breeze. Dark, clear skies. Lots of stars visible overhead.
“Let her go, and we’ll leave. We can call it even.” I know Nicolas doesn’t mean that, and Lucifer knows it too.
He doesn’t laugh again. But he rests his chin against my hair, and I see Nicolas inhale, deeply. Trying to calm his anger.
“I’m not letting her go. But you’ll leave. Now.” Lucifer keeps the same conversational tone, his chin still resting on my hair.
Nicolas takes a step forward. Lucifer doesn’t move. Doesn’t even tense. Nicolas notices, and takes another step. I’m not sure how he thinks that approaching closer with his gun still drawn is going to get us the fuck out of this mess, but I can think of nothing to say. Being this close to Lucifer again, being flush against his body…I can’t think at all. He makes me stupid.
“If you don’t let her go,” Nicolas says through clenched teeth, “I’m going to kill you. Then I’m going to kill them,” he jerks his head back toward the house, “and I’m going to make it slow. Especially for the child. I don’t know if he can talk yet, but either way, he’ll be fucking begging me for death.”
I know he won’t. Nicolas won’t harm a tiny hair on that kid’s head. But Lucifer doesn’t know that. Even still, he doesn’t react.
“Do you think they mean something to me?” he asks instead. He tightens his arm against me, sliding his hand up my shoulder and coming to rest it against my neck. “They don’t. But this,” his fingers curl around my throat and Nicolas’s eyes narrow. I see the gun tremble in his grip, just a little. “This does. Did you have any part of this?”
I don’t know what he means at first. I have no clue what he’s getting at.
But then I remember. The bruises. He had seen them in the forest. But what the fuck does he care? He had left me in an asylum, unconscious, soon to be dead for all he knew. I know he hasn’t suddenly grown a heart. He never had one.
Nicolas doesn’t play into the bait. “Let her go.”
Lucifer sighs. I feel his chest expand against my shoulders. Then the gun is withdrawn from my view. And I feel the cold barrel of it against my own head.
I stiffen. Now might be the time to use my own gun. I shift a little in Lucifer’s arms, and he is surprised enough to let me do it. Then I press the gun to his thigh at my back.
He laughs. “That will hurt,” he acknowledges, “but it won’t kill me.” He digs the barrel of his own gun in a little deeper to the side of my head. “This though, this will.”
Nicolas is full of barely contained fury. But he knows as well as I do that Lucifer has just turned the tables. There’s no way, even if both Nicolas and I fire at the same time, that we can get Lucifer down before he puts a bullet in my brain.
And I have no doubt he would. He’s already fucked me over once.
For the first time since this standoff began, Nicolas and I lock eyes. I keep the gun pressed awkwardly against Lucifer’s thigh, but I speak first.
“Go,” I say. “Go and tell Jeremiah. He’ll figure it out.”
Lucifer laughs darkly behind me. “I doubt that, Lilith.”
Nicolas shakes his head. “I’m not leaving without you.”
“You’ll go,” I say, my voice rising, “and you’ll get the fuck back to Alexandria and you’ll tell Jeremiah. There’s no other option.” I hate saying it, especially as Lucifer chuckles again, but it’s true. There’s no other way to get out of this. I can handle myself. I still have a gun, after all.
“Listen to her,” Lucifer croons. “Or I’ll put a bullet through her precious little skull.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, my eyes still on Nicolas’s.
; He shakes his head again. “No.”
“Goddammit!” I hiss, my temper rising. I want this gun away from my head. Once, I thought I’d wanted it. Once, I’d planned to do it. Some days, I thought of other plans. Like jumping from a balcony at the hotel. But right now, I don’t want to die. Not before I kill Lucifer first.
“Shh, baby,” he whispers in my ear. “He’ll do as you say.” He moves his face away from me. “Won’t you?” he challenges Nicolas.
“Jeremiah will kill me,” Nicolas says. I know that isn’t his first concern. But it’s a valid one, nonetheless. I don’t know what to say to it. Maybe he will, after he finds me. But I’ll fight for Nicolas. Just as I’m fighting for him now.
But it’s Lucifer who speaks before I can console him.
“Jeremiah can go fuck himself,” he hisses, the first signs of anger creeping into his tone. “Jeremiah left her when she needed him. Jeremiah has done worse to her than even I could do.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask. My first words spoken to him since we’ve been out here.
Jeremiah is a dick. He had almost killed me. What Lucifer is saying isn’t exactly untrue. But my brother hadn’t raped me in an abandoned building and left me for dead.
Lucifer laughs. “He knows.”
Nicolas frowns. He shakes his head. “Fuck you.”
But he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t deny that he knows something.
Lucifer keeps the gun against my head, his hand gentle on my throat. “If you don’t go running back to your master, I’ll tell her. And then I’ll kill her.”
I twist my head. I don’t care about the gun anymore. I want to see Lucifer. But he presses the weapon harder against the side of my face, not letting me see him.
“What are you talking about?” The words come out too quiet. I feel as if the world is spinning around me. They both know something I don’t. About my brother. About me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nicolas snaps to Lucifer. But there’s something beneath those words. Like he’s trying to convince himself. And his eyes…they’re back on me. And they look almost sorry.
Lucifer sighs. Then he whistles.
I frown, and Nicolas spins around, aiming everywhere he turns. My pulse flies, and I can feel it everywhere. In my chest. My wrists. My head.
Then I hear it.
From the woods, four people emerge with a quiet rustling of leaves. They have skeleton bandanas pulled up over their noses and lips, only their eyes are visible. But I know who they are.
The rest of the Unsaints.
Atlas. Cain. Ezra. Mayhem.
They all have guns. They aren’t aiming at anyone, but they walk slowly to stand beside us, and I see out of the corner of my eye, they glare at Nicolas.
“Nice to see you again, Lilith,” one with a deep voice says. Ezra. My skin crawls and a whimper escapes my lips.
“So you’re not all that stupid, then, huh?” another one asks. I’m not sure who it is. Maybe Mayhem. Maybe Cain. In the dark, I can’t get a good look at them.
Lucifer’s hand twitches against my throat, a low growl comes from his throat. The Unsaints don’t speak again.
Nicolas looks like he’s going to scream. Instead, he slowly lowers his gun. One of the Unsaints chuckles.
Nicolas hangs his head. “I’m so sorry, Sid.”
“Sid?” Lucifer purrs. I feel anger harden in my veins that now he knows that about me. He knows my name. I don’t know if I know his.
“I’m so sorry,” Nicolas says again, sighing. He picks his head up and meets my gaze. “I’m coming back for you. You know that, right? I’ll always come back for you.”
Lucifer stiffens at my back. “Go,” he commands harshly.
I lower my own weapon. My wrist hurts from twisting it to aim at Lucifer’s leg. My hands are sweating in my gloves.
“Go,” I echo him, nodding toward Nicolas. “I know you’ll come back. I’ll be waiting for you.”
“He’ll be waiting a long, long time,” Lucifer snarls. Another chuckle from the Unsaints beside us.
Nicolas looks at me with pleading eyes, but I nod again.
And he walks away.
“That’s a good boy,” one of the Unsaints whispers. Nicolas either doesn’t hear him or pretends not to. He keeps walking, without glancing back. And when he reaches the side of the house, he breaks into a run. We can see, off the side of the house, he gets into the Porsche, starts it, the lights on this time. And then he fucking flies down the driveway. I hope to god he doesn’t get in a wreck before he can get back to my brother.
And I hope to God my brother doesn’t kill him before they find me.
But Lucifer whispers in my ear, and I remember God doesn’t give a fuck about me.
“Welcome back, Sid.” His words are hot against my skin. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Present
We don’t go back into the house. Instead, Lucifer shoves me forward, toward the woods, after ripping off my gloves and discarding them somewhere I can’t see. I don’t try to resist. The boys come with us, and there’s no way I can fight them all off. One stops Lucifer by standing in front of him, a massive form in a black dress shirt and jeans, the skeleton mask still pulled up over half of his face.
“What, Cain?” Lucifer snarls at him.
Cain grabs the gun from my hand, then nods. I let him do it. I don’t want to put up a fight. I have no idea where the fuck I am, where the fuck we’re going.
No one speaks as we enter the woods, and I stumble over branches as Lucifer still holds me to his back and shoves me forward.
I wonder if Julie is his wife now. I wonder how she can sleep through all of this bullshit happening yards away from her own child. I know I’m wondering the wrong fucking things.
The only sounds are of the guys’ footsteps, my own breathing, and my heart still hammering away in my chest. I see up ahead a clearing, and vehicles, black and white paint shining beneath the moon. That’s why we didn’t hear them. I wonder if my brother will be able to find me.
“Where are you taking me?” I finally ask. Because I need to ask something.
Another dark laugh from someone in the Unsaints.
“You don’t get to ask questions,” Lucifer murmurs.
“Aren’t you going to kill me anyway?” I ask.
He abruptly stops walking at the edge of the clearing. There’s a white Range Rover, and a black car. A blacked-out BMW M5, I see from the back of it. The vehicles are parked at angles, the rear-ends toward one another.
The Unsaints circle around me, their skeleton masks pulled down, and I see their guns are away. Probably in the back of their pants. I know Atlas, backwards hat on, directly across from me. I know Ezra, too, because he’s the shorter of them, which isn’t saying much. They’re all like giants. I recognize Mayhem, too, from his white tank and black pants, tattoos covering every inch of his arms. One on his face.
Cain is wearing a dress shirt, his head shaved on both sides, longer on top.
They’re expressions are unreadable, since I can’t see most of their damn faces.
Lucifer has been in my nightmares. Both awake and asleep. But I don’t know him. I don’t know these men, either.
I thought, that Halloween night, that maybe I’d fallen in love with him. I thought miracles happened. I’d started to think, before I drifted off into blackness, that he had been some sort of dark angel, a true unsaint, sent to me in the night to keep me here.
But then I’d woken up naked and alone, save for the tormenter that is my brother.
Lucifer hadn’t been an angel. Not even a fallen one. He’d really, truly been the devil.
I look down at the forest floor. I can’t think while I look at them, while I feel Lucifer’s warm body behind me, clutching me to him.
“I’m going to kill them,” he answers me. “Everyone in the Order of fucking Rain. But probably not for the reasons
you think.”
Fear steals through me. Not for myself. For Nicolas. Even, although I’m loathe to admit it, for my brother. I would normally never be scared for my brother. Never think anyone could get to him. But Lucifer has me, and while Jeremiah might not love me in the conventional sense, he’d never allow anyone else to have me. Especially not after what Lucifer did to me. Not after how Jeremiah found me.
My eyes drift to Lucifer’s forearm across my waist, the cut muscle, his long, pale fingers digging into my sides.
“Explain,” I whisper. I try not to feel his body flush against mine. Try not to smell him.
I don’t want to think about how he had met me at that intersection, slipped his hand into mine.
“You don’t want to know the truth.” He shifts against me, and I realize he had pulled a cigarette from his back pocket as his hand comes up from my waist and he lights it. He takes a drag, exhales the smoke over my shoulder.
I smell that familiar scent of whatever brand of cigarettes he smokes. I like it, although I’ll never admit that out loud to anyone.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to see the Unsaints’ focus on me. They’re so quiet, it’s freaking me out. And Lucifer seems in no hurry to get into one of those cars.
“Who hurt you?” he asks me quietly.
My eyes snap open. I almost laugh out loud. You, I want to scream at him. You fucking hurt me. You ruined my already fucked-up life. You left me at the hands of a monster.
I bite back those words. I don’t want him to know how much he’d fucked me over. I don’t answer him. He doesn’t deserve an answer. He doesn’t deserve anything.
“I can make her talk,” Ezra says, his deep voice rumbling through the forest.
“Chill out, Ez,” Atlas says, rolling his dark eyes. “She’s gonna have to talk, one way or another.”
Lucifer shoves me to the ground. I catch myself on my palms, the forest floor damp. I scramble around, sitting upright, but there’s no where I can scuttle to. They surround me. And from the ground, they look so fucking big. They could tear me apart.