by Tara Brown
She started to cry. “What was that all for? Lorri tried to eat me, and the wolves—my own boyfriend tried to eat me. What kind of sick place is this? I want to go home. I want Lydia. I’m done.”
I held back a laugh, remembering my own breaking point. I’d thrown my hissy fit only steps from our current location.
“I know.” I wrapped myself tightly around her and winked us to the med lab. Ari passed out.
Daniel strolled into the lab smiling, regardless of the fact that Ari was in a pile on the floor. “That was amazing for a first time. My God, she was perfect.”
Lucas ran into the lab, looking no worse for wear. “Is she all right? Did Lorri get a bite off?”
“No.” I gave him a look. “Lorri would be throwing up right now if she drank Ari’s blood. Where’s Kyung?”
Lucas smiled. “Passed out. He’s still wolfie.”
Daniel frowned. “Why aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Lucas picked Ari up off the floor and put her on the cot, brushing her hair from her face. “Her touch didn’t knock me out this time. She pushed but I was able to fight it.”
“Like your body’s evolved and knew how to fight it?”
“Maybe.” Lucas shrugged. “You’re the genius here, Dan, not me. Why is she unconscious?”
I giggled. “She had a full-fledged freak out on the rooftop. It was awesome. Very ‘I want my mommy.’ Reminded me of me when I was new here.”
Lucas kissed her unconscious cheek. “I think we’ve all felt that way at one time or another. Things feel so hopeless and overwhelming sometimes.”
“Speak for yourself, hound,” Lorri growled, coming around the corner shooting daggers at me.
I smirked. “Someone bitchy from the near miss?”
“Shut it, Aimee.” Lorri snarled, “I had it under control.” She glared hatred at Daniel. “I’ll be back later.”
He tried not to laugh as she stormed from the room. “She’s going to eat someone.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “She is.”
“She really is the devil,” Daniel added matter-of-factly.
“She really is,” I agreed.
“Is she like—” Lucas lowered his voice, “Like the actual devil?”
“Yeah.” I folded my arms across my chest. “The actual devil.”
“Lucifer?”
“Lucifer.” Daniel pressed his lips together.
Lucas watched us, bewildered. “You nearly let Lucifer eat my girlfriend?”
“Pshhhhhh.” I waved a hand at him dismissively. “I had it under control the entire time, and honestly, Lorri does great at keeping the beast in check. How do you not know this story already?”
Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t part of the curriculum when I was here. How do you know who she is?”
I laughed. “Annabelle told me.”
“So, the Devil’s Roses. Lorri’s in charge of the Devil’s Roses, ‘cause she’s the devil. Satan?”
Daniel sighed. “I don’t really know how else to explain this. Do you?”
“No.”
“How? She isn’t even evil. She’s zesty and spicy and rude but not evil.” Lucas stood up from hovering over Ari as only a wolf boy would. “It doesn’t even make sense.”
“Luke, buddy, Lorri is Lucifer. The story you have in your mind of Lucifer is not how things happened. She’s not evil.”
He glanced at Daniel for verification, but he just agreed, “Aimee’s right. Everyone believes the lies but Lucifer was never the problem. She was the solution.”
“She—Lucifer is a girl?”
“Yeah.” I scowled. “Think about the name Lucifer. Not a manly name. The dudes who wrote the Bible made her a man in the story; a woman couldn’t possibly hold that important of a role as the right hand of God. Not to mention, the Bible has been rewritten and translated tens of thousands of times. Shit gets lost in translation.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lucas appeared baffled.
Daniel sat in the chair next to him. “No, honestly, she isn’t taking the piss. Lucifer is a girl. Well, a woman. She is Lorri. She changed her name after having to explain the whole bloody thing over and over. She became tired of trying to reason with the brainwashed masses she was truly trying to help. Dammit, Lorri is still helping. She started the Roses Academy, which back then was God’s idea. He gave mankind free will. It was the envy of every angel that man, a simple being, walked the Earth with the freedom to choose as he saw fit. The archangels saw man as a mistake. They thought mankind was foolish, and free will the biggest mistake God ever made. They wanted to abolish man, force him to kill himself off. They created disease, plague, and pestilence to show God how weak his beings were. Then they whispered temptations, planting seeds of doubt in the weak minds to prove his creations were pathetic and feeble. Murder, rape, suicide, lust, greed, sloth—all inventions of the ever jealous archangels.”
Lucas absorbed and seemed to believe; it was easy for fae to doubt the Bible. It never felt true to me either, with science always seeming more plausible. When Annabelle told me the story, I’d laughed until I met Lorri.
Daniel continued, “The final blow was dealt when they raped human women, impregnating them with Nephilim—half angel and half mortal, or demons as we like to call them. The children were stronger and faster. They grew until the end of puberty and then aged so slowly no human could see a difference in their appearance within a lifetime. The problem with mating with human women and creating Nephilim was that they too were born with free will. God was furious as the creatures began to slaughter humans, rape more women, creating more Nephilim. He saw no choice but to fight back. He called upon his favorite and asked the ultimate sacrifice of her. He asked her to fall. To live amongst the humans and Nephilim and fight back. She would protect the humans, at all costs, from the unnatural creations of the archangels. The angels didn’t know their creations would eventually make an attempt at ruining the world God had spent so much love and care creating. Lucifer fell with some of her hand-chosen angels, like Dorian, to live amongst the people and protect them from the supernatural elements that walk the Earth. She never kills anything that lives by the rule God created for them, ‘Do what ye will but harm none,’ and the Roses law, Keep the Secret.”
Lucas looked devastated. “Wow. I had no idea. I’m the offspring of Nephilim?”
Daniel shook his head. “No, you’re fae, something very different. Aimee is a changeling, also very different. A fallen angel turned her, making her what she is. I am a changeling as well. We are an unnatural abomination to the world God made. At the end of the day, we were born innocent. If we live innocent, then we are left alone.”
“How was she labeled the devil?”
Daniel laughed. “Lorri made the name up for herself. In ancient Hebrew the name meant the accuser. She was the judge and jury for the non-humans of Earth and the protection against the Nephilim. Needless to say, she was quite pissed when the name became something evil. It’s funny how she was believed to be wicked, while the archangels were written into history as the saviors. Mankind did it with Jesus—when God cast down his only son and made him a man, he was in fact meant to be a teacher of people. He was supposed to show them their natural abilities. You see, God has no sway over people; he made them free in every way. Instead of people seeing Jesus as the Son of God and a man who they themselves could emulate, they allowed the seeds of doubt to corrupt them. They killed him.”
“That is crazy. It’s a crazy story. I can’t believe the archangels got away with so much.”
“Lorri can’t either. She still fights with them, particularly Michael. He wanted to be the one God chose to save the humans, but it was discovered he too had lain with human women, impregnating them against their will. Every time there is a surplus of beings like us and the balance is tipped the wrong way, bad things happen. Bad things, like the Dark Ages.”
I smiled. “We are the fine line between balance and chaos.”
“An
d Ari will make a fine Rose.” Daniel nodded.
“This is all so messed up.” Lucas paused, digesting it all.
“How’s my girl?”
“She’s not your girl,” I snarled at Dorian who strutted in like he owned the place, as usual.
“She’s fine, Dorian. She’ll be awake any second, no doubt. Where are you off to now?”
He shrugged, still eyeing me up. “Not sure. I think Lorri wants me to help Aleksander some more.”
I flinched at the name. My heart was still confused sometimes, especially when I was around Aleks. He had a magical pull I couldn’t always fight.
“His father again?”
“Yes.” Dorian nodded at Daniel. “Would you care to join us, Aimee, dear? He’s struck again. We’re just heading to a small place in Louisiana. I believe Aleksander called it Violet. Which I thought was funny because I was once with a woman from Louisiana named Violet, about a hundred years ago.”
My lip twitched. “No. But if you catch him, kill him, Dorian. Don’t waste a second trying to find a redeemable quality.”
“Oh, Aimee.” Dorian laughed. “I’ve never given pause.” He shook Daniel’s hand and walked from the room.
Ari stirred on the bed, but I was still lost in the fact that Dorian was on the good side. The man had called humans sheep. He enjoyed sucking the souls from young girls. I shivered, remembering the girl in the woods he’d let me murder. She was my only innocent and it still bothered me.
“I’m going home,” I muttered to Daniel.
“Okay.” He glanced up from his work at the computer and smiled. “Thanks for coming.”
“Yup.” I winked home. I needed Shane.
Chapter 18
Payback is a bitch named Forgiveness
Ari
The house was empty as I crossed over the threshold of the main entryway. It had been months since I’d darkened the doorway. I missed it so much, even when it was as silent as that moment.
Lucas had been sent somewhere with Ben. Aimee was being weird, only checking in when she had to, and Lydia was working on something I knew nothing about.
“Why, Miss Ari, you don’t need to be standing in the doorway like a stranger. Come in. Lydia just said it’s getting hot in here. Leaving the door open only makes it worse.”
I smiled at the maid. “Good to see you, Annabelle. Is anyone here?”
“Just us chickens.”
“Great.” Realizing I was free now, my training was over, I had an idea. “Annabelle, I have some things to do. I’ll be back around dinner.”
Annabelle waved. “Be safe.” She didn’t try to talk me out of it or tell me to stay home. I was free. Trusted even.
As I walked to the door I questioned whether I should’ve been trusted or not.
Not that it mattered, I was going to do it and no one was going to stop me.
I strolled out of the house, wondering about the guards. Daniel made a girl named Izzy drop me at home so I hadn’t walked through them yet. I didn’t know if they were still set to keep me there.
I just strolled through, exhaling as I passed them. I had a few things on my list to be completed before the other version of me could remain silent and in peace.
The bus ride made me nervous. I’d never been a bus girl. My town in the desert was tiny. There hadn’t been any buses there at all.
My heart tugged whenever I thought about my uncle. He too was on my list of things I needed to take care of.
Relying on my other version to guide me, we ended up in a creepy part of town. The wall in my mind that separated her memories from mine intensified. I knew she didn’t want me to see the flashes of the past that tried to enter my mind.
At a random stop, I got off the bus and walked down a quiet street, noticing a sick and dirty feeling growing in my stomach. I knew it wasn’t mine, but I grew more nervous as I drew closer to my destination. I rounded a street corner and dread filled me as my eyes made contact with the wrought iron fence.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I whispered to myself.
My palms blasted heat as my nerves heightened from the stress of everything. I watched from behind a tree as the children played.
A small boy played alone, lifelessly digging in the dirt with a stick. I knew he would be a favorite. I could spot them by their lack of will to live. The hair on my body stood on end as I looked through the crowd, able to pick out the kids who would need me. The ones whose lives were forever tainted and ruined by the life they’d endured in the orphanage. No one protected them. Society didn’t think about the fact that orphans were left under the control of a select group of people, people who didn’t deserve the right to be around children. No one ever thought about what happened when one of those people betrayed the trust that was placed in them.
Careful of the nuns, I remained out of sight in case one of them accidentally recognized me. My appearance was different than when I was there, but I couldn’t take any chances.
The children were called in for supper, and I watched as the lifeless ones were dragged in while being yelled at and spanked. The memory of it happening to me was hazy as the other me accidentally let it slip through the cracks.
A flash of color, bright and painful, accompanied one memory back with a vengeance.
I was standing in the playground, looking at the gates, maybe ten years old. The other side of the gate was freedom. I thought about life beyond the gate a lot. I knew I had a family out there somewhere searching for me. Like all the others, I knew my being there was a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to be growing up in an orphanage.
The nun grabbed me, dragging me in, hitting my legs with a switch. It stung but my eyes wouldn’t produce tears. I wasn’t allowed to eat dinner because of the dawdling. I was forced to go to HIS office. I panicked, knowing what would happen. My stomach hurt. I looked at the nun, prepared to beg for my life, but the wicked smile on her face told me she knew what happened in the office. She knew about the back room.
The memory didn’t fade. It flashed away as my mind shut off and I leaned forward and threw up on the tree I was hiding behind. I trembled, panting. I had no idea it had been that bad. The other version had never let me see behind the curtain.
With even more resolve, I knew what I had to do. And even though my body screamed at me to leave, I couldn’t. I had to move forward to finish it.
I walked around the block to the back of the property as the sun started to go down. With no hesitation, I pulled myself up and over the gate. Keeping low, I crept along the back of the building to the laundry room. It was kept open a crack because of the humidity. The laundry ladies always left around dinnertime.
The other me had snuck out often.
I climbed the four stairs quietly and peeked through the gap of the open door. I didn’t see any movements in the large laundry room and opened the door quickly.
I dashed into a storage closet to ensure no one was around before venturing out into the hallways. Dinnertime was always a private time for HIM. He usually had a child to punish. My palms became balmy with sweat, just thinking about hurting him.
If I could get to him, everything would change.
I stayed in the closet for two breaths and then stepped out, checking all around. I made my way to the clean clothes cupboard for the nuns, yanked out a habit, and pulled it on over my clothes. I caught a glimpse of myself and hoped no one would notice how young I was.
Then I walked to the service stairs that I’d hidden in many times. My feet went up them as quickly as they could, all of me on pins and needles.
Behind me, children talked and laughed as they ate their dinners.
Nuns shouted overtop, telling them to stop and eat. A deep hatred for those women rose in me.
Maybe they had never wanted children, but they wanted to serve God. A job they had poorly done.
When I got to the second floor my heart pounded in my chest. I took a deep breath, trying to calm it down as I slipped along the dark wooden corridor,
listening. Nothing moved around me and I couldn’t hear any breathing.
I walked to HIS wing where his voice filled the dark shadows I hid in, listening. “You’ve been a very bad boy, Anthony. Again, you’ve dawdled and defied the nuns. God needs me to cleanse you of the devil’s touch.”
Every bit of me wanted to run away, but I forced myself to approach the voice—HIS voice. The voice I heard in the echoes of my mind, back where the other Ari lived.
I shivered as I drew closer, still terrified of him. He’d taken some things from the other Ari and I wanted them back.
“Now you sit there for a minute and think about your punishment, and I’ll be right back. I need to prepare the room,” he muttered.
My breath turned ragged as his footsteps left the room, thumping on the hollow floorboards. He was going to the back. My stomach lurched forward again, but I managed to swallow it down as I slipped into the room.
The boy from the playground sat in the chair trembling. Silent tears rolled down his face. I placed a hand to his shoulder, making him turn sharply, terrified.
I put a finger to my lips and hoped the little boy wouldn’t scream.
He looked frightened, but he didn’t speak as I winked and slipped past him. When I rounded the corner silently and saw it I gagged. My hands quivered as I reached for the handle just as it opened.
The priest stopped, confused. “What are you doing here? Who are you?” He appeared older than I recalled. His face was chubbier than before but still as ugly and disgusting.
“What?” I feigned being hurt. “You don’t remember me?” I didn’t know where the courage came from, but I was grateful for it.
“Who are—” He surveyed me and his eyes lit up. “Ari? You defiant little bitch, you came back.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the room, slamming the door. “How dare you wear a habit.” He tossed me to the corner where the smell of the room assaulted my nose. My own blood and sweat lingered in there somewhere.
He grinned, looking me up and down. “I see you have not lost the attitude that has delivered you to this pathetic life.”