by KV Rose
Lucifer runs his thumb over his mouth, drops his hand. “Fuck you. All of you.”
Atlas blows out a breath. “Look, Luce, I think you’re going through some shit and maybe you should just talk to us about it.” He adjusts his hat again, a nervous habit. “We’re here for you, okay? I know you just…ya know, everything with your dad and shit….”
Lucifer stares at Atlas as if he’s grown another fucking head. “You don’t know shit about my dad.”
At that, I can’t keep quiet, but I’m surprised to see that Ezra, too, stands to his feet, just as I do, his jaw set.
“Newsflash, motherfucker,” I spit out before Ez can speak, “you’re not the only one with a shitty fucking childhood.”
“You have no idea what my childhood was like—”
“You think you know mine?” I step around the pew, coming to stand in front of him. Cain stands up, at Lucifer’s back, and Ezra and Atlas are behind me. “You think you know shit about me? Tell me something, Luce. Tell me how I got to be called Mayhem.”
Lucifer snorts. “This sounds too much like a ‘Do you want to know how I got these scars?’ type story, and honestly, Mav, no, I don’t want to fucking know.” He takes a breath, and something in his gaze softens. “I know since Malachi—”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” I don’t want to hear that name. I don’t want to think about him. Talk about him. They only know half the story. The half where I pushed my own brother off the fucking roof of my house.
“You guys are stupid,” Cain says quietly behind Lucifer’s back. “We’ve known each other since we were born. We’ve been in this since we were born. We all know that we all got fucked up.” Then he looks to me. “But you, Mav? You need to leave Ella alone.”
“The fuck are you talking about?” I ask, caught off guard, my pulse still flying from wanting to bust Lucifer’s fucking lip.
Cain laughs quietly, shaking his head and slipping his hands into his pockets. He looks like a damn Arabian billionaire, which I guess he is. He’s always possessed more common sense than the rest of though, so I let him finish. “It’s obvious.” He nods toward me, stepping up beside Lucifer. “You’re falling for her.”
“How in the actual fuck is that obvious?”
Lucifer answers before Cain can. “Jeremiah Rain knows about her, which means he’s fucking watching us. Looking for our weak spots. You threw him into a pool table last night and nearly choked him to death for her, and if I recall correctly, last time you saw him, you fucking saved his life.” He cracks his knuckles. “Tell me you don’t feel something for her.”
I don’t answer him. He doesn’t know shit about me, or her. Us.
Cain sighs. “I hate to say it, but your father was right, Mav. You need to deal with Ria, and not get entangled with any steady pussy until then.”
I feel my jaw clench at the way he refers to Ella, but I fight back that impulse. That desire to stand up for her. It’ll only prove them right. And last night, when Jeremiah Rain had his mouth on her, when I was elbowing my way through the crowded bar, I could’ve killed him. I could’ve dug my nails into that still-healing wound I’m sure he’s got on his stomach and pulled out his fucking intestines.
But I can’t tell them that. I feel like I can’t tell them anything anymore.
“Let’s just make it to Noctem, where we can all let this shit out. Come together again.” Cain claps Lucifer on the shoulder, nearly making him topple to the damn floor. “Okay?”
Slowly, Lucifer nods.
Atlas grumbles his agreement. Ezra, too.
But I don’t. Not yet. I look at Lucifer, remembering how close we were just a few days ago, my mouth on his. “Luce, I know you’re dealing with shit,” I say quietly, “but Sid is, too. And you need to be there for her. But stop fucking suffocating her.”
He doesn’t look at me, but Cain squeezes his shoulder, and then, slowly, he nods.
I tear my eyes away from him, feeling my chest tighten at things he doesn’t know. At the way he’s probably going to hate me when this is all over. And some sick part of me? Some sick part of me is looking forward to it. He can’t expect to act just like his brother, his real brother, and not suffer the consequences. My sister deserves better.
Both of them.
Chapter Seventeen
Over a week after the fight at the bar, and I can’t sleep. Maverick is in bed beside me, his mouth open as he breathes slowly, his bare chest rising and falling in the dim light from the alarm clock on his side of the bed.
I don’t even know why he has a clock.
He doesn’t seem to need to get up at any specific time. Then again, neither do I. I haven’t gotten a call back from any job I’ve applied for. And my mother hasn’t called either.
I baked more cookies while he was out, meeting up with his friends, just like I did last Sunday. I cleaned up the kitchen, although I feel certain he’s got a housekeeper because the place is usually spotless. He’s not messy exactly, but he doesn’t really seem like the cleaning type.
He likes to read.
His office is lined with shelves, each one packed. Psychology, poetry, classics. Many of the pages of his books are dog-eared, and I pulled a few from the shelves. In a Shakespeare collection, he had a line from Richard II underlined: “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” The pen had been pressed hard against the page, denting it.
Those are stolen secrets. Things he won’t talk to me about. Much like whatever happened to his brother, he even keeps his appetite for books under wraps.
He doesn’t want to open up.
I stare at him for a long moment. His brow isn’t creased, like it was the first night I watched him sleep. He looks…relaxed. But something is wrong. The man at the bar, the guy with the baseball bat. He’s keeping secrets that concern me. The man knew my name. But he won’t tell me anything.
We’ve fought over it.
He thinks he can keep me in the dark, because at the end of the day, this, between us, is nothing.
He likes using me. I like using him. But neither of us are willing to cross that line. To submit to the other, dig out the glass in our soul and offer up the glittering, bleeding pieces that make us who we are. I let him do anything he wants to me. He does anything I ask.
But bodies are easy.
It seems hearts are far more complicated.
I slip out of bed silently, tiptoe out of his bedroom and down the stairs. I don’t want to wake him with my tossing and turning, but I feel restless. Like I need to move. To think. I have no idea when I’m going to go home, but Tuesday I want to go to The Ark. I missed it last week, but I can’t just hide away in this house for the rest of my life.
He’ll grow bored of me soon.
I’ll need something more soon.
The first floor is warm, and still smells like sugar cookies. I think about heading into the kitchen, popping open the plastic container of them on the counter. But I’m not nearly as hungry anymore as I was just a month ago and to be honest, I’ve gained a few pounds since we’ve been seeing one another.
I put my hands on my belly as I stand at the bottom of the stairs, close my eyes. I like how soft my skin is, how full it feels. How no one screams at me for being hungry. How he doesn’t leave me for hours on end, never mind days. He would never.
Would he?
I think about Sid and Natalie. About Lucifer and Sid’s marriage, about how the man at the bar taunted her. Who was he? A jilted ex-lover? Maybe Sid was married before. The man, Jeremiah, was possessive and hungry and…he used me to get to her.
I don’t know if it worked. I don’t know if it hurt Sid.
I don’t know why I let him kiss me, except I do.
I do know that.
It’s the same reason I let Shane touch me. The same reason I opened up to him.
I open my eyes, let them adjust once more to the dark. Outside this house, it’s pitch-black through the etched glass in the front door. I turn, my feet cold on the wood floors.
I’m wearing Maverick’s t-shirt and my underwear, and I’ve got my hands wrapped up in his shirt.
I head toward the living room, then take a right down a hall with a bathroom, and another door that I haven’t opened yet, but I think it leads to the basement.
Why not scope it out now?
There’s a keypad outside of it and I wonder if it’s an alarm system of some sort. It’s lit green, but it doesn’t have any words. Just numbers, and a smooth, black square beside the numbers.
I have no idea what that’s for.
I reach for the silver handle of the door. It’s locked, and I feel a chill slide down my spine. I shouldn’t be doing this, sneaking around his house this way.
I should go back upstairs.
But as I let my fingers hang on the lever, the door creaks open.
It wasn’t shut all the way.
Warm air rushes out from beneath the door and I suck in a breath, my scalp prickling, stomach quivering. It’s warm in there.
Why?
Slowly, I pull the door open all the way and stare out into nothing but darkness. I blink a few times, glancing over my shoulder. Listening. Waiting for him to wake up, realize I’m not in bed and come find me.
To ask me what the fuck I’m doing.
The house is silent.
I turn back toward the open door, one hand still on the handle as I peer down into the darkness and realize what I’m looking at.
Steps.
It is the basement.
I blow out a breath, almost amused with myself. But something doesn’t seem right. It’s so damn warm. Shouldn’t basements be cold? Maybe this is a rich boy thing; heated basements. I’ve never lived in a house with a basement.
Maybe they’re always warm.
Stop being ridiculous, my brain says. Shut the door and go back upstairs.
But he doesn’t want to share secrets. He killed his brother and won’t tell me a damn thing about it. He’s always so angry. Always so…anxious. On edge. He has enemies and his friends have enemies and I saved him from getting hit with a damn baseball bat and he saved me from being attacked by a grown-ass man but he won’t tell me anything.
Basements always have secrets in the movies, right? And girls that go down in them alone in the dark always die.
I take a breath.
And I go down anyway.
When I wake up, she’s gone.
I sit up, flinging the sheets back as if she might be hidden in the covers. The sun is up, I can see from the small amount of light that trickles in from the blackout curtains. That used to drive me nuts. Blackout should mean no light comes in, but apparently, unless you suction the curtains to the damn window, some light will always find its way in.
And the light is telling me Ella isn’t in our room.
Our room.
I need to get a hold of myself.
The bathroom door is wide open, and she’s not in there either. The closet is closed, but there’s no light from underneath it.
I get out of bed, scrub a hand over my face.
She’s probably downstairs sneaking cookies. The thought makes me smile despite myself. Despite the warnings from the 6. From my brothers.
Fuck them.
I brush my teeth, pull on a black t-shirt and grey basketball shorts and then I head down the stairs, calling her name.
She doesn’t respond, but it doesn’t take me long to find her.
She’s sitting in the living room, perfectly still, her hair up in a bun, feet on the floor, a faraway look on her face. She’s got her hands clasped together, elbows on her knees.
“Ella?” My mouth feels dry when she doesn’t look up. Doesn’t acknowledge me at all. I come into the living room, my feet sinking a little into the plush carpet. “Ella? You okay?” She’s clearly not okay.
Panic surges through me. Is she having some kind of…episode?
“Ella?”
“Who was she?” Her voice sounds distant, and she still doesn’t look at me.
My skin crawls and I slip my hands into the pockets of my shorts to keep from rubbing them over my arms. “Who was who, baby? What are you talking—”
“In the basement,” she interrupts me in that same quiet voice. “Who was the girl in the basement?”
As soon as the words enter my brain and I make the connection, adrenaline shoots through me and I have to move. I turn away from her, forcing myself to walk and not run down the hall, toward the door to the basement. I clench and unclench my fists, try to swallow down past the dryness in my throat.
She wouldn’t have. There’s no way she could have. The door was locked. The basement is soundproof. Ria doesn’t know when people are here, and she hasn’t tried pounding on the door since the first week.
But when I get to the end of the hall, I see it isn’t.
It isn’t locked, and it isn’t closed.
No.
But maybe Ria didn’t leave. Maybe she stayed. Maybe she…understood.
I flip on the light at the top of the stairs and jog down them, calling Ria’s name, my voice hoarse.
Silence answers me.
She’s not sitting on the bed. I flip on all the lights, looking around the makeshift bedroom, slamming open the bathroom door, the small closet.
Nothing.
She didn’t take any of her clothes, but there’s no one in here. I head back to her bed, rip off the sheets.
No note. No…nothing.
She’s gone.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, call the guard. They answer on the first ring.
“Have you seen anyone leave?” I hold my breath, waiting for the answer. But I already know it.
I know it in the slight pause. The tentative, “Who?”
“Anyone!” I slam my fist against the wall. “Fucking anyone?!” But Sid left before. She snuck out through Lucifer’s backyard.
The smart girls always leave, and I think about my girl downstairs. How many minutes do I have before she goes, too?
“N-no,” the guard on duty answers me.
I throw my phone across the room.
She’s fucking gone, and they’re going to get to her. They won’t trust me, not after what Lucifer did. They’re going to find her and they’re going to hurt her, or they’re going to force me to make her…mine.
Which means…
Goddamn Ella. I swipe my hand over the dresser, sending the lamp I’d brought down crashing to the floor, the bulb bursting. I don’t care. It isn’t enough.
I kick the mini fridge with my bare foot, something like a scream coming from my throat. I tear down the stupid fucking posters on the wall I’d hung up for Ria; poetry and bullshit and things that don’t matter anymore. A map of Alexandria.
I storm into the bathroom, my blood pounding in my ears as I rip down the shower curtain, right off the stupid fucking metal hooks.
Fuck them both.
Ella fucked this all up. She’s taken Ria away, she’s put her in danger, and she’s…she’s fucked herself, too.
I head up the stairs, wanting nothing more than to put my hands around her fucking throat. I tried to tell her my secrets couldn’t be shared. I tried to give her everything she could possibly want this past month; fucking food, sex, my entire goddamn house. She’s had the run of this place while I wasn’t home. She’s been able to do anything she wanted. She doesn’t work. She doesn’t have the stress I have. She isn’t keeping secrets as if her fucking life depends on it.
She goes to the stupid fucking Ark, fucks around with boys like Connor. Comes home and does fuck all except wait for her mom to give her scraps of food and fucking attention. And, oh yeah, when she feels like, she lets her mom’s boyfriends fuck her in the ass.
Something she still hasn’t let me do.
Fuck her.
She’s right where I left her, sitting on my goddamn couch in that same fucking position she was in before I found out she fucked me over.
I grab her arm, yanking her to her feet.
; She jumps, blinking as if I’ve woken her ass up from a daydream.
“What the fuck did you do?” I can barely breathe, let alone speak, but I know she heard me.
Her eyes meet mine. They’re narrowed in anger, and she tries to jerk her hand from me, but I tighten my hold on her wrist.
“What the fuck did you do?” I ask her again, losing my fucking patience which I already didn’t have. “Where did she go? What did she say to you?”
She doesn’t speak.
I grab her by her shoulders and shake her. “What the fuck did you do, Ella, fucking answer me!” If she doesn’t start talking, I’m going to fucking make her.
Her lips are pressed together, jaw tight as if she’s the one that’s pissed.
I press my forehead against hers. “Ella,” I breathe out, “I swear to God, if you don’t start fucking talking, I’m going to—”
“To what?” she whispers. She looks up at me through her dark lashes, and my hands slide down her arms, gripping her above her elbows. “Lock me in the basement?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing hard. “You have no idea what—”
“You were keeping her here.”
“Ella—”
“You were keeping her here, too.”
Too? I open my eyes, speechless, the anger momentarily turning into confusion. What?
“You were keeping her here while I was here. You were hiding her away. To play with her when I was gone? At The Ark?”
My brow furrows, all thoughts of finding Ria slipping from my mind as I try to figure out just what the fuck she’s trying to say to me.
She shoves me, hard, and I stumble back, surprised, my calves hitting the coffee table. I windmill my arms, steadying myself. She takes a step toward me and shoves me again. I catch her arms, and we both fall back, my fucking back landing on the coffee table.
“Ella, what the fuck—”
She’s straddling me, her hands pinning my wrists to the table. I don’t fight her back because I have no idea what the fuck she’s thinking.
“You kept her here, too. What about me, Maverick?” She leans down close, her breasts grazing my chest. “What about me? You kept her here all this time you were…you were fucking me and feeding me and sleeping with me!” She’s screaming, her breaths coming out in pants, and it suddenly dawns on me what the fuck is happening.