by C. M. Owens
It feels like a father/daughter bonding moment.
Why did I start sounding proud when the words just tumbled right out?
Hell girl problems.
His eyes almost soften, as though he realizes why I’ve stopped talking.
He huffs out a breath, muttering something I miss, even with my keen hearing.
Just as I open my mouth to speak, I see his brow furrow as he takes a step back. When his jaw tics like he’s eavesdropping on a conversation not even I can hear, I half wonder just how much better his hearing is. And I get a little annoyed that it’s better than mine, if I’m being immaturely honest.
“Congratulations, Paca,” he says as he glances down at me. “You get to remain a secret for at least another day.”
I don’t even get a chance to celebrate my small win, because I’m suddenly stumbling forward in our surface home’s living room.
As if cued, all four guys are abruptly in the room with me, but they don’t even glare at me for a full second before they siphon out of the living room.
No one asks me any questions, which is clearly not what I expected. We have a system: I do something that pisses off the four of them, they rant and mime wringing my neck, and…now we can have angry sex. It’s on the table, right?
We’ve read countless times that I enjoy a little chase.
They enjoy one too.
Maybe I need to be better about chasing a little less.
Huffing out a breath, I zap myself up to Ezekiel’s room, hoping he’s in a reasonable mood. Oddly enough, I’m supposed to have the most in common with War.
I suppose that should say something about my personality.
Then again, my name should make it obvious, so I don’t know why I’m doing an inner ramble and just staring unabashedly at Ezekiel as he undresses in front of his bed.
“I get that you’re all pissed, and I understand why—”
“We’re all going to sleep tonight—in our own rooms. No arguing or talking. Tomorrow you can tell us what you learned,” he says dismissively.
His bare ass flexes as he plugs his phone into the charger, then he walks over to his dresser and starts pulling on a pair of boxers.
“Look, I don’t want to argue either. But I talked to—”
“Tomorrow,” he bites out, finally glaring over at me. “Trust me. Not tonight.”
“I can’t believe we visited hell, where the Devil and I held a private conversation, and you don’t even want the details. It could be important.”
He snorts derisively.
“The devil’s in the details,” I add to him in my super ominous voice.
He doesn’t even have a glimmer of amusement. Tough crowd tonight.
“What you fail to understand is the fact the Devil plays games. Always. He’s running a game with every single person he comes into contact with, because it’s the only way he can interact with people after being a major participant in hell for this long. It’s the same for all the heirs, including Manella. It’s how we were kept out of the damn trials for so long—a fucking game. It’s starting to feel like you’re playing your own games as well.”
“A game they—Lamar and Manella—thought I was playing,” I say quietly, skipping over that last dig, since I know he’s just pissed and saying things he doesn’t mean. “And it was because Manella was giving Lamar hope. He loves him, and Lamar missed me.”
Ezekiel snorts again. “Doesn’t really matter. They’re all playing a game of sorts, and we’re centuries behind the moves they’ve already made, and we don’t even know why.”
His eyes swing up to meet mine before he continues his tirade.
“Then you refuse to stick with us, and we wonder if maybe this bond isn’t really supposed to happen a second time,” he adds, his jaw grinding. “But then I think of what we went through when you died, and I realize it’s already too fucking late. It’s just as bad as it is when we go for too long without being with each other. And—”
“Wait, you go crazy without the guys?” I ask, jumping in.
It reminds me of something Lake said back before she stabbed me. I was clearly more distracted by the fact she was a girl they had slept with before, and that little morsel of information slipped through the cracks after I died and all.
“We hurt after we’ve been separated for too long. It strains our bond. It’s why our rooms are all lined up. We wanted our own spaces within the home, but we wanted close when we slept.”
“So then our bond has already started, and regardless of why you’re stuck with me, the point is you are stuck with me. Right?” I ask, causing his eyes to narrow as I feel relief filling me.
Sheesh, this moral dilemma stuff shouldn’t burden a girl with no conscience and no guilt. Apparently that purity register of compassion is higher than the journals suggested, because it’s the only reason I can logically assume was the catalyst behind said moral dilemma.
Good thing that’s now over. It’s totally a load off my mind.
“It used to be you who needed us,” he bites out as if he’s accusing me of something.
“I need your bond to be strong in order for me to be strong, so I don’t go kaboom. And I certainly still need you, in case you’ve forgotten the whole burning the earth around me thing that happened after the four of you rudely buried me in a graveyard so far from the house, instead of just letting me keep my room.”
From brooding anger to baffled incredulity, he says, “You were dead.”
“Not this again,” I sigh while pinching the bridge of my nose and shaking my head.
He makes a sound of the same exasperation I’m experiencing, as if I’m the exasperating one.
“What are the chances that the woman meant for us, no matter what damn lifetime we’re in, is the most infuriating person I’ve ever met?” he asks, leaving me to idly wonder if it’s a rhetorical question or if he’s genuinely expecting me to do the math.
“What are the chances I have four guys who can only have free-play sex with me, and I’m constantly dealing with taco blocko?” I counter, leaving him with the same debacle of deciding to do the math or presuming the question to be rhetorical.
“Taco blocko?” he groans.
“Beaver dammed?” I amend.
He blinks at me.
“Twat swatted?” I suggest when the other two seem to puzzle him.
He just glares at me when he realizes I could do this all day.
“Clam jammed…” I let the words trail off and decide to stop when he starts looking slightly murderous.
He closes his eyes and exhales as if mediating, his muscles visibly tensing like he wants to be violent. I’m the stupid girl who sits down on his bed, completely unafraid.
“Jude’s right, and I rarely ever say that. It’s impossible to have an actual conversation with you,” he growls as he stalks out of…his room.
“My social skills are terrible because I only had myself to argue with for over five years,” I call to his back, reminding him that I’m Casper the sad little lonely ghost—or at least I was for the vast majority of my remembered existence.
He pauses as he turns and looks over his shoulder, and I exhale my own annoyed breath as I move closer and prepare to sound pathetic for the sake of an explanation.
“There’s an adjustment period, Ezekiel. I spent all those years watching, listening, and talking. None of you knew I existed, so you’d never repaid the courtesy and listened to my input,” I start, propping up beside him and staring out over the foyer that sits in the center of two large staircases.
“Like you said, we didn’t know you existed,” he agrees, calming just a little.
“You don’t seem to understand that our relationship, a term I’m using loosely, started for you the day you first saw me,” I go on. “But for me, it started that first day I spotted Gage. On my end, I’m still talking, and the four of you practically pretend not to hear me unless you’re yelling at me for having a thought you disagree with.”
&
nbsp; He clears his throat, looking away. I only notice from my peripheral, since I’m not looking directly at him.
“Most of your ideas are half baked and possibly suicidal,” he grinds out.
“Most of my ideas have worked in our favor so far,” I decide to remind him.
That trademark glare they’ve all perfected isn’t quite as intimidating when there’s just one of them exercising it on me.
“I’ve had no guide book or another person to explain this process of my existence to me,” I continue. “My survival has been solely based on trusting my instincts since I came about. Such as, how to keep from sinking into the ground and fading out. How to stop fading out based on watching you… I’ve learned, grown stronger, and clawed my way into a world from which I’d already been evicted, and only my intuition got me here.”
Turning around, I lean against the banister and let my head swivel toward him. It’s his eyes not meeting mine this time.
“My ideas and half-cocked plans admittedly come off as crazy, and there have been few times I really wished someone had stopped me. Intuition isn’t an exact science, and the stakes rise considerably with each new level-up.”
He angles his head, his eyes finally meeting mine again with that glimmer of gold in their depths.
“But when I’m still being dismissed completely, it doesn’t feel any different than the days when you didn’t know I existed. In those days, I was forced to be overlooked and ignored. Here and now, I still have my instincts, and no one but me trusts them.”
He starts to say something, but I continue before he can.
“I get why. The four of you have spent a lot of time cultivating trust and closeness. I just can’t let the four of you make all the decisions, when my intuition has also been a major part of keeping you alive as well.”
Pushing off from the bannister, I start walking away.
As I hear him walking back toward his room, I add, “Goodnight.”
Predictably, he doesn’t return the sentiment. Which is good, since I just showed my pathetic side again. I don’t want pity goodnights.
I don’t poke my head through the doors tonight, since I’m whole and that won’t work, and I don’t feel like straining my tired phantom in this moment.
However, I rap on the doors one by one to tell them goodnight. Silence is what answers me, because they do love a good sulking.
I’m tempted to tell them about our deaths, but they’d likely sneak off to kill Manella if I told them he recycled them as a mercy for losing me.
Now I’m not so sure they’d consider that such a mercy.
Isn’t that ironic?
I’m not a fan of irony.
Chapter 6
The screams rip free from my throat as I remain suspended, held in place by power I can feel but can’t see. My insides feel shredded as the next scream bubbles from my lips, and I cry out, begging for someone to free me from the madness.
How the fucking hell did I get here?
Where am I?
What’re those sounds?
Who’s screaming?
Dark shadows race through my mind, searing me with the urge to kill, taste, destroy. But I can’t do anything, because I’m held in place.
“Ssssoooo pretty,” comes a hiss through the tunnel just as another scream is pulled out of me when it feels like acid-dipped claws are raking over my face.
The harder I fight to move, the worse pain is.
The first slash across my back feels like fire being inserted into my veins, burning me from the inside out. The second slash makes me want to die just because I already crave the relief.
By the fifteenth, my head lulls forward, the pain too intense to focus on the shadows of my mind that provoke so much fury, so much hate, so much anger. All the worst of the impurities flow through me like a relentless disease, renewing their efforts.
Tears start leaking from my eyes, because I know the whip master has just felt their stirrings. He’ll punish me more to drive them back down. How do I know that? Why is this happening?
Shrouded by his hood, I only see hints of his mangled face as he steps in front of me, and my eyes land on the flaming whip in his hand just as it crashes down against my bare chest.
The flames shoot inside me with the contact, and my head falls back as my throat tears from the powerful scream forced out of me this time. I find myself ironically praying for someone to save me.
“Paca, wake up!” someone shouts as the black tower I’m in starts to shake.
No one will save me.
“Paca!” comes another shout as the walls start to crumble from the pits of hell they thought they could lock me in.
Me.
The fucking Devil’s daughter.
My eyes open on the whip master, and a dark, bloody smile forms on my lips as he drops the whip and stumbles back.
The room around me rattles and clatters, as though there’s glass to break, but I don’t see any glass. I only see stones that are struggling not to crumble under the bone-crushing fury running out of me.
The whip master is blown back against the wall, getting held there as he cries out and struggles. Then I see a flash of Kai’s face under the hood, no longer the mangled one that the whip master had, and fear spikes in my blood, worried the face is an illusion. But the panic inside me has me also worried I’m killing—
“Paca!”
My eyes open, which is weird, since I thought they were already open, and darkness veils me as I struggle to break free of the hands all around me that are holding me down.
“Let me go!” I shout, causing all the lights to suddenly burn bright, illuminating the dark room long enough for me to glimpse Jude’s wide-eyed face over mine.
The lights all burst, sending the glass bulbs off in a spray, and the rumbling of the house intensifies for a brief second. The realization that I’m somehow safe back inside the house with my boys is a chilling relief.
How did I get out of hell?
Why was I being whipped?
Where are those damn shadows that were taunting me inside my head?
The room around me goes still and silent as my breaths come out shakily, and Jude exhales in exhausted relief as he glances over at Ezekiel, who is—
Holy shit, Ezekiel is holding up the wall that has started crumbling.
“A little help here,” Ezekiel bites out as Gage goes to aide him in trying to fix it.
Something inside me stirs, and the wall starts fusing itself back together again. All the things that have shattered to the ground catch my eye next.
I wasn’t trying to destroy hell. I was…freaking dreaming.
My lips part in surprise, and I clutch the sheet closer to me as Kai groans and stands from the ground, a little blood coming off his forehead.
“What happened to you?” I ask him, feeling warmer than usual, and frowning at the singed pieces of my bed.
Relieved from holding up the wall, Ezekiel and Gage warily approach me.
“You’re what happened to me when I stupidly tried to shake you awake,” Kai says, wiping blood away from his mouth.
I’m off the bed and in front of him in the next instant, my hands flying up to his face as my eyes rake over him for inspection. Dread unfurls in me, and I wipe the blood away from his lip.
“I’m so sorry,” I say on a whisper, swallowing thickly as my eyes meet his.
Spitting out blood to my floor—something I’ll yell at him for doing later, when I’m not worried about the fact I almost killed him—he pulls me closer, snaking one arm around my waist.
“It was my fault. I knew better than to crash a bad dream, considering we’ve all made the mistake with each other at some point,” he says absently, meeting the eyes of the others like they’re sharing some private conversation.
“Clearly she has bigger consequences when involved with the nightmares,” Ezekiel says on a huffed breath as he sits down on the edge of my bed, scrubbing a hand over his hair.
“It’s
the first time I’ve ever dreamed, and it had to be a nightmare?” I ask, then groan. “Of course it’s a nightmare. I’m devil spawn. We don’t get sweet freaking dreams. The house won’t survive my nightmares if they’re all that bad.”
“We always have the same nightmares,” Jude says quietly, sitting in the corner now with a thoughtful look on his face.
“Whip master with a flaming whip that feels like explosive acid when it connects with your skin?” I ask them. “Is that what you always dream?”
They all seem to freeze and stare at me.
“The nightmares vary from night to night. I meant we have the same nightmares on the same nights. And tonight was indeed the Devil’s whip,” Jude says while studying me.
A growl bubbles out of me, and the house quakes like there’s an aftershock.
Jude’s lips twitch, and Gage slaps him on the back of his head before stepping in front of me and clutching my shoulders.
“You’re having dreams from our time in Hell’s Black Heart now,” he explains, or thinks he does.
“The Devil’s whip?” I ask, focusing on that part. “The Devil did that to you?”
“No,” Kai states rather emphatically.
“How do you know? Do you suddenly have memories of this?” I ask, turning around to face him as the house starts to shake again.
Something dark and angry burns with remembered fury from that horrible place.
“It’s not fucking funny anymore,” Jude says on an exhausted exhale as he shoves his way to be in front of me once more.
When he touches me, he’s the fourth one to do so. The other three are already touching me, whether it be unconsciously or actively done. Some of that ire starts to ebb as my body slowly begins to relax.
Jude’s brow starts to furrow, and I lean back on Kai, taking in the peace their touch offers. Figures they’d be soothed by The Apocalypse, and I’d be soothed by the Four Horsemen.
We’re rather horrible people like that. Not that I mind, but I’m fascinated by just how twisted we must be in equal parts.
With my mind rambling like this, I already feel better.
“The Devil’s whip doesn’t actually belong to the Devil,” Jude says, his tone distracted as he continues to study my eyes. “You were about to go try to kill the Devil again, weren’t you?” he adds, quirking a knowing eyebrow.