by Nour Zikra
Dropping my sword, I rushed forward and slammed her to the ground before she could reach the knife. “Your knife is useless.” My body pressed against hers, making her immobile. “Don’t be naïve.” I brushed my lips against her ear and whispered, “It won’t do you any good.”
“Get off me!” She struggled underneath me and scratched her fingernails against my skin. Her eyes were wild and angry.
“I don’t want to.”
The Swiss Army knife was only inches out of her reach. Extending her arm, she tried to grab the weapon, but I restrained her and seized it. Her legs wrestled against me, trying to push me off now that her arms were in my grasp.
“You want to play rough, huh?” I touched the knife’s pointy end to her throat. “Then let’s play a game.”
A squeal escaped her lips when I scraped the first thin layer of her neck with the knife. Her eyes interlocked with mine for a moment before she shut them and froze. A line of blood oozed out. It wasn’t enough to kill her, though it was enough for me to enjoy.
“How does it feel,” I said, “to be sliced while someone sits idly by?”
“Please, don’t do this.”
“Open your eyes and look at me.”
Dark-brown irises stared at me, begging for mercy. Her hands, resting over her rib cage in my tight hold, stirred until her fingers clung onto my shirt, brushing against the hard surface of my chest. “You don’t want to do this. Please let me go.”
I flashed my teeth. “But I want to see you covered in red.”
She shouted cuss words at me, too many to keep track of. “Go to hell!”
Her legs kicked, and one of her hands escaped my grip. She planted her palm on my face and pushed me away.
“What? You think you’re going to fly away now?” I bit her hand. The minute she retracted it, I slashed her arm several times. “You are weak.”
Six bloody lines appeared on her skin. She looked down to see the injuries I made, each one proof of what I was capable of. I could tell reality was finally setting in.
Tears welled in her eyes. “Please let me go,” she said again, this time without strength in her voice.
“I will if you’ll join me. Turn yourself.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll have to kill you if you don’t.”
“Or you can just let me go.”
“You know . . .” I pressed the knife to her forearm over the radial artery, the same artery that nearly killed me earlier that day. “Lucifer really wants you alive. I have no idea why, and honestly, I don’t care. He has his agenda; I have mine.”
Though she kept her arm still where I dug in the knife, the rest of her thrashed against me. “You don’t want to do this.”
Letting out a sigh, I pushed the knife deeper into her skin. She screamed and dug her fingers into my chest, trying once more to push me off. Battling on the sideline, a few angels noticed us. Among them was Michael. Their fierce eyes focused on me for a moment. But rather than coming to Addy’s rescue, they jumped back into their respective battles. I didn’t understand why they were ignoring me, though I wasn’t opposed to it.
Addy’s head lolled to the side, looking away from me at the archangel. More blood spilled out of her flesh and flowed down her wrist to the ground, intermingling with the blood of the humans, angels, and demons battling around us. A quiet, shuddering cry escaped from her parted lips. Michael kept watching her as he fought, his blue-green eyes shimmering in the distance. He didn’t seem fazed.
“Looks like our friend wants you dead,” I said.
When she didn’t say anything, I cut her other arm. Starting from her artery, I moved up, slicing zigzags all over her flesh. This time around, she was quiet. She stared at the archangel, but he had shifted his attention back to the battle.
I tore at her, dragging the knife all over her arm and up to her shoulder, then across to her chest. I paused there, digging the tip of the blade into her skin through the shirt.
I pinched her cheeks between my fingers like a claw and turned her face toward me. “Would you like to give me a few memorable last words to remember you by after you’re dead?”
No words came, but her tear-soaked lashes said enough.
“No worries. I’ll remember you anyway.”
Clutching my shirt with her fists, she shut her eyes again and took raspy breaths. Her heart’s heavy beats vibrated through the steel knife into my hand. Each beat jolted my senses like electric shock waves traveling up my arm and into my spine.
Something about her face, the way it froze in fear, blocking out the world, prevented me from doing what I wanted to do. I wavered, lifting the knife away from her skin.
Her wet eyes flashed open and stared at me. Without moving, she glanced down at her bleeding arms. She still had her fingers wound around the collar of my shirt.
“How?” she muttered.
I looked and saw what had caught her interest. While the minor cuts on her arm remained, the deep wounds I’d made over her arteries no longer bled. The torn flesh came together, healing back into place.
Addy placed her hand on top of mine, pushing the knife away. “You can’t kill me. Or . . . you don’t want to.”
Dropping the knife to the ground, I threw my hands around her throat and squeezed just enough to scare her. “You don’t know anything!”
She grinned. “Then kill me.”
My hands shook around her fragile neck, wanting to break it and prove her wrong. Moments ago, I had been slicing the life out of her. What was stopping me now?
I intensified my grip until her black pupils dilated. In them, I saw my face. Angry, bitter, lost. And for the second time, I couldn’t kill her.
I pushed myself off her and lay on my back. “You’re right. I can’t kill you.”
She sat up and coughed to let the air back into her lungs. Once she recovered, she focused on me. “The real Adriel is still in there, whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it.” I watched the gray clouds move by above us, threatening to spill rain.
“The real Adriel doesn’t like you either, so it’s okay.”
She picked her knife up off the ground, stood, and reached for my hand. I gave it to her, unsure if she was going to kill me. She pulled me up. Face to face, I was surprised when she smiled and pulled me away from the fight happening around us. She led me to a small alley in between two buildings. The scent of old, wet trash and mold from the garbage disposal bins hit me in the face. It was a sour smell, and not a pleasant one.
Addy pushed me against the wall and kissed me.
“I want you,” she said in between kisses.
“Right now?”
She kissed me harder, and I forgot all about my agenda. My desire to have her again burned inside. I yanked her by the hips, closing the distance between us. When she moaned, she grabbed onto the back of my head and tugged at the long hairs.
“I knew you were in there,” she said.
I opened my mouth to object to her insinuation, but her lips sucked on mine before I could say a word. So, I told myself to enjoy her body and take advantage of the situation. All I had to do was pretend to be her Adriel and let her think she was in control. Then, once I’d had my fun, I would kill her.
She drew her face away, and I saw her nose wrinkle in disgust. She spat her next words out at me. “Your eyes are freaking me out!”
Relocating her hands to my temples, she drew my head toward hers, said a quick apology, and thrust my head back against the wall.
Chapter Thirty-One
ADELAIDE
I stared at Adriel’s limp body on the ground for the longest time, wondering if he was unconscious or just fooling me like I’d fooled him by kissing him seconds ago. It was the only thing I could think of to get him to not strike back when I attacked. His eyelids now hid his demonic appearance, and so I let myself pretend he was just sleeping. Placing two fingers against his neck, I
felt his pulse. It was steady, calm.
Not far away—just around the corner, really—the sounds of battle shook the earth. People were falling to their untimely deaths at the hands of demons and demonic humans. And while the angels were doing their best, no one knew how to end a war when the one big beast could not be destroyed.
I examined my arms. A few minutes ago, I was sure my injuries were deep and deadly. Now, most of them were gone, except for a few scratches on my skin. I ran my fingers all over. Sure enough, no major pain, just what felt like slight bruising. What was going on? Yesterday, it was a bullet hole in my chest. Today, it was my torn veins.
Adriel stirred but didn’t wake up. If I was going to get myself out of this mess with Lucifer, protect the people I love, and somehow still live to see tomorrow, I needed to do something fast. But I didn’t have a plan.
Leaving Adriel, I started walking back toward the battle.
“You’re becoming more like me with every passing day, dollface,” a raspy voice spoke from the shadows to my right, silencing all other noise.
My head turned before the rest of me did. In the darkness, a figure about my height leaned against the wall. A little sunlight struck a small portion of its body, revealing a veiny, disfigured hand planted on a red stomach made of just muscle tissue and no flesh. When the hand moved, a gray rat fell out and landed at the feet of the creature, dead.
“Do you recognize yourself?” my double said.
The Swiss Army knife slipped from my clammy hand. It clanged against the asphalt, shaking the earth and my heart.
I stepped back a few feet. “What are you talking about?”
The veiny figure chuckled. “You’re always playing dumb, huh?”
“I’m not playing anything. Who are you?”
Its eyes flashed red like two balls of fire. “You already know.”
Recollecting this morning’s vision of the two babies, one real and one demonic, I said, “You’re my demon twin.”
Shrill laughter erupted out of my double’s mouth. “You’re close, yet so wrong.”
Straightening up, my double walked toward the light and flashed yellow-stained teeth at me out of its veiny, burned gums. Its fiery eyes didn’t die out, but out of the darkness, they didn’t look as vibrant. From head to toe, there was no hair, no flesh, and no color other than red. Only the two mammary glands protruding from its chest indicated it was female.
“You know who I am, Ade.”
I had the spine-chilling feeling that something wasn’t right. I looked around the alley. No one else was there, and Adriel didn’t count because he was comatose. Although I couldn’t put my finger on it, my gut twisted in warning. This wasn’t going to end well.
I swallowed back my fears. “Why don’t you tell me who you are?”
My double took a step closer. “But where’s the fun in that? I really thought you would try to guess.”
“I did guess. Now the guessing is over.”
My feet refused to budge as my double moved in on me. The better part of me wanted to run, yet my racing heart paralyzed me. Hundreds of scenarios popped into my head, some where I somehow managed to kill this monster, others where my heart just stopped. But I knew if I stood still, I died. So, when my double was two yards away, I reached down and snatched the knife.
“How about I show you who I am?” My double closed the distance, reached over, and clenched my wrists, squeezing until my fingers were numb.
I yanked my arms back but couldn’t free myself. My double disappeared into thin air, saying “Shush” as it went. For a split second, its hold remained on my wrists. Then something entered my body. My insides felt like they were being squished to make room.
My double’s voice rang close, too close, almost as if it were standing beside me. “Do you recognize me, or are you still in denial?”
I spun, searching for the source of the voice, even though I knew in my heart where it was coming from. My eyes glanced left and right, looking at every crack in the ground, every dust particle in the air, every subtle shift in the alley. But there was nothing except my paranoia.
“You look outside of you,” my double whispered inside my head, “yet you should be looking within. Has it never occurred to you that I am you?”
I stopped moving and stared down at my hands. “What do you mean?”
“You keep asking stupid questions. Close your eyes and look.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Close your eyes, I said!”
Shutting my eyes, I waited for more commands, but my double didn’t speak again, and nothing stirred.
“What’s going on?”
Rather than getting an answer, my insides pinched and shifted. The air felt thick around me. Stomach roiling, I opened my eyes and bent over with my hands on my knees and drew in heavy breaths.
“What the fuck are you?”
I looked up from my spot and realized I wasn’t in the alley anymore. Adriel was gone and so were the moldy garbage bins and the two buildings that had concealed us. I stood in the middle of an intersection, and each side of the intersection went on and on without a visible end. On top of that, dark clouds shielded the sun above, threatening a rainstorm. Luckily, I still held my knife in my hand.
“Where am I?”
“Where do you think?” my double said while out of sight.
“Look, I’m tired of playing games. Tell me what’s going on. Is this another vision?”
“You are seeing your mind. In case it still hasn’t dawned on you yet, I reside here because you and I are one being.”
“You’re lying.”
My insides shifted around again. A second later, I felt lighter. My double emerged out of me like a ghost passing through and spun around to face me.
“I have no intention of lying to myself.” My double’s eyes burned bright. “From birth I was connected to you, and till our death I will stay. We are one.”
“We . . .” I waved my hand between the two of us. “. . . Are not one.”
“But we are. I am not your double; I am a part of you.”
“You look nothing like me!”
“That’s because I’m the superior part of you, the one Lucifer created before you were born.”
“You are not me.”
It bared its teeth, the corners of its raw mouth curving up. “Keep telling yourself that, darling.”
My double circled around me at a slow pace, studying me from head to toe. Its eyes lingered on the long waves of my hair.
Sweat trickled down my back from the dampness in the air. Keeping my guard, I swirled around every time my double moved behind me. I needed an advantage, anything to get me out of here and away from this beast. I clenched and unclenched my fists, took a deep breath, and dug into my mind for a plan.
“What exactly do you want?” I said, stalling.
It paused midstride, the veiny tissue on its forehead crinkling upward. “Want?”
“You brought me here.” I gazed at the never-ending horizon. “Why?”
Its burning eyes gaped at me for the longest minute before it shrugged. “You needed to know who I am.”
“But why in the middle of a war?” Despite the pummeling of my heart against my chest, I took a step closer to my double, channeling my brave side. “You had years to do it. Why now?”
My double crossed its arms. Without any eyebrows, the only indication of a frown was its wrinkled, red forehead. From three feet away, I heard a guttural sound escape its mouth.
And that was how I knew I’d hit the nail on the head.
“What? Did I say something wrong?” I pulled my hair back, feigning confusion. “I just want to learn more about you . . . about us.”
“No, you don’t. You still think I’m some freaky double.”
“I’m just trying to understand. Please, help me understand who you are. Why did you bring me here now, when you could have done it when we were young?”
My double threw its hands into the air. “Because you weren’t ready then!”
Finally, I was getting somewhere.
“What do you mean? Ready how? For what?”
Shaking its head, it backed away. “No . . . no, I can’t tell you.”
I took another step to close the distance. “But aren’t you a part of me? You can tell me anything.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Do you not trust yourself?” Using my double’s logic seemed to be the most effective way of getting answers.
“I was told not to say anything.”
“But you brought me here. You clearly wanted to tell me what’s on your mind. Otherwise you would have kept to yourself.”
My double kept silent and looked up at the dark, fast-moving clouds. It was acting timid for a beast, but just to be safe, I kept a strong grip on the knife.
“Hey,” I said, “don’t you trust yourself?”
It set its eyes on me. “Trust has nothing to do with it.”
Sighing, I moved away. When Reed and I were little, he used to have stubborn fits every now and then. One time, when he was in third grade, he had come home crying and wouldn’t say why. After an hour of trying to get it out of him, I’d decided on a new tactic. I walked away. Eventually, he had come and told me about the bully in his class. I never made the same mistake again.
People sometimes needed a little space before they got the courage to say what they needed to say. My double wasn’t a person, but I hoped the same rules applied.
So, I walked in the other direction, toward one of the four roads. I didn’t explain myself. I just walked. My double hurried after me.
“Hey!” it called out with its raspy voice. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then stop.”
“You clearly don’t want me here. I should find my way back. It was nice meeting you, though.”