“And what about you?”
Luke picks up my hand and examines my soft skin, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles like he often does.
“I’ve been in the Pit.”
“The Pit?”
“It’s where we keep the morning star.” His touch gets desperate, like he’s afraid he’ll never touch me again. “I’ve been personally forging all of the weapons for battle.”
My mouth falls open at the admission. The morning star is what Lucifer was once called, and if he was the brightest star to ever be burned, I can’t imagine how difficult it’d be to be in its orbit.
“Why you?”
“Aside from my father, I’m the only one who can go near it. It took centuries to build up resistance, so Lily’s not ready for that. And flames from the star are the only thing powerful enough to truly banish an angel.”
“So, you must really be a God amongst men to the other demons.” He frowns at my choice of metaphor. “You know what I mean.”
A twinkle forms in his eyes. “I’ll be your God. You can pray to me all you want.”
I roll my eyes and elbow him.
“Do…the demons treat you as royalty?”
He cocks his head to the side. “Yes.”
My brows rise. “Do they roll out the red carpet for you?”
“We’re not like human royalty. When we walk into a room, people die. People don’t want to spend time with my sister and me. Most demons have never even seen us.”
I frown. “So, how do you speak to everyone?”
“There’s a pecking order. I tell Valak, Valak tells those who matter.”
“Oh,” I say lamely.
It makes sense. Luke savors his words and is picky about who he gives them to.
“I don’t want to know everyone, and everyone does not want to know me.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to know everyone?” I ask. “Aren’t they your people?”
“No,” he says sternly. “They’re quite egotistical and are always trying to gain favor. Who’s the best at popping out eyes. Who’s the best at skinning. Who’s the best at blah blah blah.”
My mind immediately envisions the screaming of those who fall prey to the demons and I wish it didn’t. He says it so casually, as if it’s nothing. And to him, I’m sure it isn’t.
“What kind of favors could they gain?”
“Importance,” he says. “Have one of the original demons whisper his or her name in my ear.”
“And what’s an original demon?”
“Those souls my father himself damned. Only that type of age can bring you power.”
“So, Valak?”
My lips sneer even as I speak his name.
“Older than I am by many centuries.”
“And who has access to your father?”
“Only the originals.” He rolls his eyes playfully. “Or my sister.”
“She is Lilith.”
I laugh when I say it, but it’s still unbelievable to me. I know I should fear her, fear them, but I just…don’t. Maybe there really is something wrong with me. But if there is, I guess I’m in the right crowd.
“She’s probably the only person in the universe who respects him.”
“He’s your father,” I say softly, my mind wandering off. “I never knew mine.”
“He’s manipulative.” His voice shakes with rage though he’s physically calm. “He’s always been worthless to me.”
“Okay.” My throat begins to feel tight.
I want to get out of the conversation. I’ve never thought about my parents before. Never had a moment to myself long enough to even wonder. Luke spent his entire life hating his father. For what, I’m still uncertain. But I never had the chance to meet my parents. Drug addicts or not, I have zero memories of them. I don’t even know what they look like.
“Come on, there’s something I wanted to show you.”
Luke stacks our plates on the table and leads me into the kitchen. Unlocking the glass door leading into the backyard, he steps out onto the wet fallen leaves. We walk to the edge of the yard and to the gazebo he found me under, drunkenly cursing him as girls do when they drink and are scorned by a boy they like. I begin to walk to it when he gently tugs on my hand, shaking his head.
Blindly I follow him deeper into the forest. We’re way beyond the sight of the house. “Is this where you kill me?”
Luke chuckles. “I’m afraid I don’t have time for that today. But if you’d like me to turn you into a demon, all you have to do is ask.”
I’m stunned silent by the statement. I never realized that me becoming a demon was an option.
My stomach begins to churn at the thought.
“Don’t worry about it, amour,” Luke says, reading my silence, “I won’t do it anytime soon. I’ll let you live out your human life.”
The story of him fighting off the angels for Camilla’s soul makes a lot more sense now. I know to him I’m his second chance, and there’s no way he’ll let me be taken from him again.
Daisy’s worry about my safety—my humanity—suddenly seems a lot more warranted.
And his references to eternity feel heavier than ever before.
“Luckily, I don’t plan on dying anytime soon,” I say to lighten my own mood.
He squeezes my hand reassuringly.
We walk in silence, twigs crunching under our feet and echoing through the trees. Eventually, we come across a small pool of water with a single bench parked at the edge. “How beautiful.”
We take a seat on the wooden bench and stare out at the clear water. Luke puts his arm around my shoulder and tucks me into his side.
“This is one of the oldest spots on Earth.”
I look doubtfully at the water. “Really? I don’t think this would even qualify as a lake.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” He points out toward it. “It might not seem like much, but this is one of the gateways to Hell.”
I freeze, the weight of the statement dawning. “But I thought Hell was six feet underground.”
He rolls his eyes. “Much deeper, I’m afraid. But there are a few places on Earth that act as a doorway. Hypothetically, only demons should be able to go in and out of Hell freely, but there have been times where an unsupervised soul has been able to escape and come back to Earth.”
“Really?” I asked surprised. “Is that a bad thing?”
He shrugs an uncaring shoulder. “The very least of my concerns.”
“So, if I were to…” I look at the water.
“Humans who attempt to pass through die.” He pauses. “With you, I’m uncertain. I assume it would be similar to me transporting you. Extremely painful but you’d make it intact.”
And it’s automatically something I do not want to do.
“Why are you showing me this?”
He shifts on the bench so we’re facing each other. Before speaking, he reaches out and strokes my cheeks with the back of his fingers. “I wanted you to know where you can always find me.”
I frown. “Why would I need to look for you?”
“I just want you to know. If anyone, any demon, gives you trouble, ask for the Regis filius. Repeat it.”
I do.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s my title. Someone will bring you to me. No matter where I am. Everyone of importance has been instructed to do so.”
The thought that the world’s worst, most sinister creatures know of my existence makes me feel a little woozy. “Okay.”
“Good,” he says, his shoulders relaxing. “I want to apologize for how things have been going this past week. I won’t neglect you again.”
“You haven’t been.”
Lily said he needed time to figure some stuff out, and I was more than happy to give it to him. I spent my entire life alone and sometimes miss it. Daisy, Becca, Luke and Lily take up all my time and energy. These last couple days have been relatively quiet and I’ve finally been able
to catch my breath. That is, when I’m not stressing about whether or not I’ve accidentally started a war between Heaven and Hell.
Luke grabs the back of my neck, pulls me toward him and presses a hot kiss on my forehead.
“Plus,” he says when he pulls away. “Lily managed to get in contact with someone. Seems like we’re going to settle this without bloodshed.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask. “Who?”
“They’re sending down a representative.”
They. The angels.
Panic bubbles inside of me. I have to tell him. Even if I really am crazy, he should know about my nightmares. About the angels. About…me.
If my nightmares really are coming true and the angels are coming, then it isn’t just my own sanity that I need to worry about. This war between the angels and demons might actually be happening, and if what Luke says about the angels are true, they don’t care about who gets in their way.
I just wanted to hold on to it for a little longer.
“What is it?” he asks, his brows lowering over his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
He’s been so honest and open with me, and I know he deserved the same.
I open my mouth to tell him the truth and pray it doesn’t change the way he looks at me but am stunned into silence. My head is filled with the sound of wings flying in close. I look around, ready to see some type of winged creature, but there’s nothing. Not even the leaves are floating from any type of wind. But I can still hear the invisible frequency.
My hands fly up to my ears to try to drown it out.
Luke forces my hands away from my head. “Calla? What’s wrong?”
His eyes are full of concern, and for the first time he looks helpless. All of the pent-up fear I’ve held onto about my dreams comes spewing out of me. “The angels are coming. And they’re coming for war, Luke, they’re not coming to negotiate. They want revenge.”
Luke’s entire body freezes, so still he could be made of stone. “What are you talking about?”
My tears are warm against my cold cheeks. “I had a dream that the angels are coming. And there’s a lot of them. I can hear them.”
He sighs, his body sagging. “It was just a dream, amour. After all of this talk about angels it’s normal that you’d dream about them.”
I sniff and roughly wipe at my nose. “No, they’re coming, Luke. And you need to be ready because they don’t plan on leaving without spilt blood.”
He hardens again. “And how would you know?”
My lips are trembling, the words at the tip of my tongue. I wanted more time to keep this for myself. I wanted to be the one thing that wasn’t a burden to Luke at this particular moment in time. I wanted him to still think of me as the delicate, flawed human that I am.
And not whatever it is I might really be.
“Those murders of the angels?” I cry out when I see a fire building within him. “I knew about them.”
His lips pull back over his beautiful teeth. “What do you mean you knew about them?”
I bite my lip to stop it from quivering. “They were in my nightmares. Before the bodies were ever found.”
“You have premonitions?” he asks heavily.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know what it means.”
His grip on my hand begins to tighten. “What were the dreams about?”
The shaking starts again. I didn’t want to tell him. Not yet. I just want this one thing to keep to myself—just one thing.
“Calla,” he snaps my name. “What were the dreams about?”
I try to pull my hand out of his grip but he won’t let go. “You’re hurting me.”
His grip loosens but he grabs my shoulders, yanking me closer to him. “What were they about? Did you know they were angels?”
“No.” I shake my head furiously. “No, I didn’t know.”
“What were the dreams about, Calla?” He’s so close to me now he could bite me if he wanted to.
I lick my lips nervously and take in a shaky breath. “I was killing them.”
Luke’s hands fall from my body like I’m covered in poison. He stands up from the bench, looming over me. “You’ve known about the angels for weeks? Were you the one who called them?”
I place my hands on the bench beside me, wanting to stand up but sitting back down when he doesn’t give me the room. “I didn’t know, Luke, I swear. I would have told you.”
He sneers at me. “How many times have you sat across the table from me? Sat on my lap and put your tongue into my mouth and lied to me? Made me feel regretful for being so dismissive to you.”
I cry out. “Luke please—”
He lets out a huff of frustrated air and runs his hands through his thick hair, begins pacing. “They want war, war they’ll get.”
I sit hunched over on the bench, waiting for the next tongue-lashing. When Luke looks back over at me with disgust in his eyes, he disappears and a sob emerges from my throat.
I cry until it stops hurting.
Until it feels like my chest is going to collapse.
I pick myself up, grab a rock at my feet, and throw it into the water, hoping it somehow acts as a portal and the rock will hit Luke in the head.
Looking around, I try not to panic. I have no idea where we came from. I manage to find our footprints and follow them backward.
By the time the gazebo at the edge of the property comes into sight, my eyes are stinging, my knee hurts from tripping on a rock, somehow the neck of my shirt was ripped, and my head is held high even though my lips are still shaking.
I finally make it to the sliding glass door and take in as deep of a breath as my lungs allow me. With my hand on the handle, I can hear voices inside and debate walking around the house.
The door slides open with ease and as soon as my foot hits the wood floors, both men momentarily cease speaking.
Luke is pointing a finger at Valak, who has his arms crossed over his chest smugly, as if telling Luke that he knew something like this—whatever it is they’re speaking about—was going to happen.
I allow myself a single sniff to stop my nose from running and head straight toward the front door.
I manage to completely avoid peering at either of them and almost make it through the kitchen door when Valak’s voice cuts through me. “Shall I kill her?”
I freeze, my shoulders tense as I wait for a response.
What I receive is Luke calling out his friend’s name in a warning tone. “Now isn’t the time.”
Now. Isn’t. The. Time.
No threat. No stabbing. No…anything that would defend me in any sense.
A violent shudder runs through my body, causing me to shiver from head to toe.
“Why not?” the demon asks in a serious tone. “If she’s working with the angels—”
“She’s no angel.”
If Luke isn’t going to defend me, then I will.
I turn on my heel and face them, each wearing a very different expression: Luke disappointed, and Valak amused.
My hand searches for the nearest thing it can find—a steak knife—and I stalk toward my accuser.
Valak stares down at my torn shirt, his eyes going wide, “Look at her chest, she’s been touched by—”
My hand shoots up and pushes the knife deep into Valak’s jugular. The warm spray of the poor man’s blood he’s occupying gushes out to the sides, dripping down the column of his neck and onto the collar of his shirt, and onto me.
I’m unsure just how much pain a demon can feel, especially one as powerful as Valak, but his eyes are wide with shock as he clutches the steel handle of the knife.
I want to stay longer, enjoy the spectacle that’s bound to happen after my assault, but I’m drained.
If I want to make it back to the apartment before this adrenaline runs out, I need to keep going.
I turn back around, only feeling sorry for the person who’s going to have to wipe up the blood from the floor.
The sound of the
steel hitting the floor is followed by Valak trying to gurgle something out. Luke ignores his friend and takes a heavy step toward me, calling out my name in an equally shocked tone.
I don’t turn around and he doesn’t follow me.
Aunt Polly found me crying over a box of the clothes I had packed.
When she crouched down and touched my shoulder, asking me what was wrong, I told her I wanted to leave. Brushing my hair to the side, she didn’t have to ask any further questions. She told me she had been ready, she was just waiting for me to decide the same.
I called Daisy and asked to move our mani/pedi date to a dinner with the five of us because I was going to be leaving town. We both cried on the phone and she agreed to set it up.
Aunt Polly hasn’t told me where we’re going yet and I don’t care. If she’s managed to pack up her life and move on multiple times throughout her life, then I can do it again. After all, we have the same blood.
All of my clothes managed to fit in a single, medium-sized box. Everything else was disposable: the furniture, the dishes, the memories, everything.
In the clothes I plan on sleeping in, I peer around my bare bedroom for any last-minute items I want to take with me. My eyes fall on the mirror gifted to me and I approach it.
It’s come to the point where I don’t know if the reflection focused back at me is my own or the ghost Luke probably now wishes I was. My eyes are swollen and my nose red from rubbing it all night. Every feature dull and lifeless, seeming just as tired as I feel.
I reach out and place my hand on the cold glass. Somehow this was going to tell him I was alright, wherever I go, though it won’t reveal my location to him and I’m glad. I can use the separation. Because when he finds me, I don’t know what he’ll do with me.
Looking down at my dresser, I grab a marker. He’ll be searching for me in it, somehow, someway. So, I write “I forgive you” across it.
Because, what’s the point of fighting the inevitable?
Daisy’s horn honks, and I drop the marker onto the desk.
Aunt Polly is sitting crisscross on the couch with her laptop in her lap. She’s putting together some last-minute paperwork and making the proper arrangements to make sure those papers go where they need to be on Monday when the high school opens back up.
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