by Nour Zikra
Inches away, Addy’s yellow-haired friend Lizzy crouched and gawked at me. A strong-smelling perfume wafted off her skin. It wasn’t bad, just too sweet. She wore a shimmering gold top that came an inch short of her belly button, an unzipped leather jacket, and tight leather pants to match. She smiled when she saw I was awake.
“You were mumbling in your sleep.” She rested a slim hand on my bicep. “I think you were having a nightmare.”
I sat up, forcing her to drop her hand to her side, and glanced around the room. “Where’s Addy?”
Lizzy stood and grabbed a wallet off the living room table. “We’re going to find her.”
“We?”
“You and me, silly.” She placed a pair of black sneakers in front of me and waited for me to put them on. When I finished, she started walking toward the door, her heels clacking. “By the way, I know you’re not her cousin.”
Jumping to my feet, I hurried after her. “She told you?”
“Kind of.”
Lizzy locked the apartment and almost ran down the stairs. I tried keeping up but was out of breath after the first floor. My legs had never needed to work this much.
“Hurry up,” Lizzy shouted from the bottom stair.
When I finally got to the parking lot, she was fiddling with her keys.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Sorry.”
She spun around and headed to her car, not waiting for me to catch my breath. She was a lot like Addy, impatient and slowing down for no one.
We were on the road stuck at a red light when she looked at me and asked, “Did you sleep with Addy?”
“Uh . . .” I crossed my arms over my chest and fidgeted in my seat. “No.”
“You sure?”
“We don’t have those kinds of feelings.”
Lizzy put her finger on the tip of her nose and giggled. “You make it sound like having ‘those kinds of feelings’ is crazy talk.”
After fidgeting some more in my seat for the remainder of the ride, she pulled over at a club with a sign out front that read “Euphoria” and ushered me to the doors where a tall, buff man with a scarab tattoo peering out of his V-neck let us in after a flirtatious exchange with Lizzy. All she had to do was coil a straight strand around her finger and smile at him.
“That’s how it’s done!” she screamed over the music and flashed her white teeth at me.
“That’s how what is done?”
“We got in for free.”
Lizzy stepped to the bar and looked around the crowded room. A guy came toward her with drinks in hand, and she smiled at him.
“Right on time,” he yelled over the blaring music and handed her a drink.
Lizzy nudged me and said, “Adriel, this is Nate, our neighbor.” Her eyes swayed back to Nate, glimmering with a secret.
Nate leaned in and planted a kiss on her cheek before reaching his hand out to shake mine. “Hey.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, “but I have to go find Addy.”
I didn’t wait around. I dove into the crowd of dancing bodies. The music pulsed within me, making my heart leap like it was going to fall right out of my chest. I pushed through people, looking from face to face to make sure they weren’t the woman I was searching for.
When I got to the other side, I was ready to give up. Addy clearly wasn’t at the club.
And that was when I saw her, across the room near the DJ booth, wearing a tight-fitting black dress. Her arms were wrapped around a man’s neck, and she brushed her body against his as they moved to the beat of the wild song. For a fleeting moment, my eyes were hypnotized, moving over every inch of her, gliding over her legs and trespassing on other territories. I swallowed. Angels don’t think this way. I blinked out of the daze.
After putting her hand on the back of the man’s head, Addy pulled him down toward her and said something in his ear. The man didn’t blink, but he seemed to like whatever she said because he grinned at her and gave her his hand, palm up.
“Stop!” I yelled.
No one heard me over the deafening music.
I shoved myself into the crowd again, pushing through to the other side. Some people gave me dirty looks, while others refused to move out of the way. By the time I reached Addy, the man’s arm had blood dripping from it.
“What have you done?” I shouted from behind her.
She spun around to face me. At first, her eyes were wide, but then they softened and looked a bit sad.
“Just doing my job.”
“This isn’t your job, though.”
She placed her arms on my chest and looked at me. “I have to bring Reed back, and that’s what I’m doing.” She gave me a small shove and stomped past me.
The man she was dancing with laughed. I stepped up to him and studied his pupils, hoping by some miracle the L cut wouldn’t work on him.
“What are you looking at, man?” he hollered.
His eyes had glazed over, taking on a charcoal color.
Not wanting to start a fight with a demon without my wings, I raised my palms in front of me and backed away. “My apologies!” I stepped around people to search for Addy and saw her exiting the club. I ran after her.
She had reached her car in the parking lot when I made it to the door.
“Addy, wait!”
She stopped and crossed her arms.
A few people to my left lingered against the side of the building with cigarettes in hand. When a gust of wind came by, the acrid smell of clinging smoke hit me. My nose wrinkled in disgust, and I moved away from the group.
Addy’s big eyes looked up at mine when I made it to her car. Her face was still, emotionless.
“What you did in there,” I said, “that was really stupid. You turned another man.”
“I did what I had to do. Like I already said, Reed comes first.” She opened her car door and looked at me. “Are you coming or what?”
I hesitated for a second. When Addy stepped inside, I moved to the passenger side and hopped in, unsure of what was going on, why she was letting me go with her.
“Addy, what makes you think you had to do that?”
She started the engine and pulled out of the lot like a leopard in a wild-deer chase. I braced myself for another speedy ride.
“You seem to forget that Lucifer had a demand, and if I don’t do what he wants, he’ll kill my brother.”
“But how do you know that he will keep his word? Just because you’re helping him doesn’t guarantee he won’t hurt Reed.”
A long, ceaseless honk jolted me in my seat. The car came to an abrupt, screeching stop behind a white pickup truck. I looked at Addy, who still had her hand on the horn.
“Idiot,” she said, cutting in front of the truck.
“Addy.” I needed her to understand, to get her to think for a moment. “You can’t trust Luci—”
“I don’t have a choice.” Her tone was rigid.
“You do.”
She pursed her lips. We drove in silence all the way back to her apartment.
Chapter Eleven
ADELAIDE
I woke up the next morning with my temples throbbing. Six people. I’d sold six people’s souls to the devil yesterday. The repercussions had to be big. Like ending-up-eternally-in-hell big.
No matter. It had to be done.
From the other room, I heard giggles and laughter. Because the house tended to be quiet early in the mornings, the noise struck me as odd. I changed out of my pajamas and into casual clothes and left the bedroom.
In the kitchen, Lizzy stood slicing bananas and strawberries while a pan with pancake batter heated on top of the stove. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee encircled the entire room, awakening my senses and my desire for a sweet sip. Directly in front of Lizzy, Adriel, who was still in yesterday’s clothes, sat on one of the counter stools with a grin on his face. He was in the middle of sharing some sort of wisdom with her. Pausing at the end
of the hallway, I watched him and wondered what an ex-angel had to tell a human fashionista.
“It’s just a beautiful sight to see,” he said. “Shades of green, bright pink, and the orange-yellows, all coming together and mixing and dancing.”
Lizzy nibbled on a big piece of strawberry and set the rest of the fruit she had sliced in front of Adriel. “So, you lived in Alaska for a while?”
“Visited for a few years. It was a long time ago.”
“Wow. I’ll be sure to put the northern lights on my bucket list.”
Adriel grabbed a piece of strawberry and a piece of banana and stuffed both into his mouth at once. He closed his eyes for a second before swallowing. “That’s so delicious!”
I stepped forward into the kitchen. “Good morning.”
Both turned to greet me, though Adriel’s eyes seemed to do more than that.
Wanting to avoid his gaze, I set my sights on the coffee maker filled with warm, dark liquid. The pot called out to me. I made a dash for it, passing by Adriel and dodging his stare. When I reached the coffee, he spoke.
“Addy, could we talk?”
“About what?”
When Lizzy and I first moved to this apartment not long ago, we had made sure to always keep two mugs by the coffee maker. One—mine—looked like a cow with a tail for a handle, and the other—Lizzy’s—looked like an insomniac owl with its eyes wide open. I grabbed my mug and poured myself some of the divine drink.
Adriel stood. “Can we talk in private?” He grabbed another piece of strawberry and started moving toward the hallway.
Though I doubted Lizzy knew anything, I still looked to her for answers. She shrugged like she knew what I was thinking.
Sighing, I put the coffee down and followed Adriel. He stood in front of my bedroom chewing the remnants of the fruit but didn’t say a word until I opened the door and let him in. Using my heel, I shut the door after us for privacy. The minute it clicked against the wall, Adriel spoke.
“We need to talk about what happened at the club.” His tone was rough, which kicked my defenses into gear. He paced around the room, pausing to look at my scattered work papers on the desk, most of which were of furniture and wall paint selections. “For your safety, and the safety of the rest of the world, you can’t do anything Lucifer asks you to do anymore.”
Of course, I knew Adriel was right. Back when I was a few years old, Erica used to drop baby Reed and me at her mother’s house so that she could go out at night with her random boyfriends. During those frequent sleepovers, Grandma Di would teach me about Jesus and warn me to never let the devil tempt me. She was a devout Christian. I never took her too seriously as a kid. And Erica had obviously never taken her seriously, either, because she defied her every wish. Grandma Di died when I was just six, so her teachings had faded quickly. However, I knew now that she’d been right about the devil. He was real, and he was tempting—no, forcing—me to his side by using Reed.
And while I knew all of this to be true, I didn’t want to admit that Adriel was right. With my hand perched on my hip, I looked him square in the eyes. “Who are you to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do? You’re just a fallen angel.”
Taking a deep breath, Adriel moved closer to me, close enough that I couldn’t help but glance at the tight muscles of his chest that projected through the cotton shirt I’d given him.
“Listen.” His voice was gentler now, and his eyes begged mine to get on the same page. “I might be a disgrace, but I still have my perception, and I can tell something is off. Lucifer is planning something big, something none of us ever expected.”
He kept looking at me long after he finished talking, and since I had no idea how to respond, I stood there awkwardly looking back at him. One of us had to break the spell.
I lost the staring contest when I looked down.
“Addy?” He tilted his head down to look at me. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
A quick nod did the job. He stepped away, satisfied. Still, while I did understand him, I didn’t intend on following his empty guidance.
H
Secrets could kill, but only if discovered. That was my motto for the night as I slipped on a miniskirt and a black crop top with long bell sleeves and tiptoed out of my room, stopping just short of the living room.
The room was silent and dark, the only light coming from a salt-crystal lamp by the couch. Peeking past the wall of the hallway, I tried to see if anyone was in the kitchen. When I found no one, I rushed out of the apartment and locked the door behind me.
I chose Club Euphoria again. When I arrived, I examined myself one more time in the car’s visor mirror. Drunk strangers on the dance floor would probably never notice, but anyone with clarity of mind would be able to see the worried crease between my brows. Still looking in the mirror, I practiced a seductive smile with teeth, and when I found one that didn’t look forced, I stepped out. I tapped Lucy gently on the roof for some good luck, leaving a sweat mark on the paint from my clammy palm.
“Crap,” I mumbled under my breath and wiped my hand against the fabric of my skirt.
At the door, Lukas, the bouncer, was checking people’s IDs and deciding who to let in. He was like the god of the nightclub, rating people’s worth based on age and appearance. The last time I had to stand in his long entrance line was the night I turned twenty-one. Strutting toward him now, I watched him turn his head and scan me from the head down, lingering on my bare stomach.
“Adelaide Shaw,” Lukas said, giving me a grin. “Two nights in a row?”
The music blasted all the way to the door, shaking the earth and my heart.
I smiled back and touched Lukas lightly on the chest, my fingers sweeping over his scarab tattoo. “Are you sick of me?”
“Never.” He drew the rope away from the door, giving me ample room to walk inside the club.
“Thanks, Lukas.”
With a wink, he watched me go in.
Skimming over the crowded dance floor, I examined all the potential people in the room. A tan man wearing a gray vest stood in the corner of the bar shouting something into a brunette’s ear. She gave him a sideways look and rolled her eyes. He didn’t seem to notice, or at least, he didn’t seem to care. On the dance floor, a drunk woman in her thirties was trying to pull the pants off the man next to her. Even though he was laughing, he kept breaking away.
So many. So many people whose absence might not make a difference for others.
After calculating which person to go for first, I decided on the unrelenting man at the bar who still harassed the brunette, even though she had shrugged him off multiple times. Besides, the dancing drunk woman would never have worked out. I didn’t know how I would even begin to seduce her.
I snaked my way to the bar, eyes on my target. The man in the vest looked up, noticing me noticing him. I moved past him and the woman and glanced over my shoulder. Leaving the brunette alone, he was on my heels in seconds.
On the dance floor, I spun around, eyes fixed on him. He moved in, his hands reaching out to rest on my hips. The rhythm carried me, swaying me. Vest guy closed the distance between us, obviously excited to have finally succeeded in getting a female to look at him. To my bad luck, he smelled of curry and garlic.
I flashed him the smile I’d practiced and pulled his head closer, speaking in his ear. “Can you do something for me?”
Pulling back, his beady eyes gleamed with a need for approval. “Anything,” he said.
His big lips parted like he was about to kiss me. I shook my head, stopping him.
I took his hand in mine and flipped it like I had with the six others, Devin included. Vest guy kept his mouth shut and waited, his other hand gripping my waist. I pulled out the reamer from Reed’s Swiss Army knife, which had been tucked in my bra this whole time, and traced an L on his wrist. In the dimness of the club and its flashing lights, no one noticed anything. When blood began spilling out, I told
vest guy to clutch the wound with his hand and leave it to dry up.
He blinked once, seeming to be in a trance as he stared at me. Then the white around his irises shifted to black, a sign that his soul was no longer his. One down. I quickly moved away, leaving him by himself on the deafening dance floor.
Once more, I walked around the room. Men and women, bodies on bodies. The bartenders, a man and a woman, busied themselves serving drinks. Around them, the people at the bar seemed to be getting along.
Glancing at the other side of the room, I found a man standing alone eyeing the crowd with a drink in hand. I headed his way. With all the people on the dance floor, I couldn’t see him clearly, just the outline of him and his jaw-length brown hair. Still, he seemed like the perfect sacrifice, all by his lonesome.
Ten feet away from the man, I froze. His eyes found mine. He set his drink down on a table beside him. Adriel. He watched me with a mixture of anger and worry on his face. Like a regular human, he wore jeans and a white shirt with the top buttons unbuttoned, baring skin and collarbones at the base of a long, taut neck. My breath caught in my chest.
I turned to go, not waiting for him to interrogate me. Like last night, he had ruined my plans by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Addy.” He was behind me at the door in seconds, his hand spinning me around by the elbow.
I collided with him, no space between us. His firm hands wrapped around my waistline to steady me, his eyes on mine. Neither of us spoke. For a moment, I thought I saw his eyes drop to my lips. But it happened too fast, and when he opened his mouth to speak, I told myself that I’d imagined it. Not that I knew for sure, but I assumed angels didn’t think that way, not even fallen ones. I felt crazy even thinking that him holding me like that might mean anything.
“You said you understood,” he said.
“I never agreed to anything, though.” I pulled away and kept walking, knowing he would trail behind me. Just a few rows down, my car waited. I hurried in its direction.
“What you’re doing is dangerous, Addy. Are you aware of that?”