by Lisa M Basso
I bolted up in the bed. “Ow, what’s with the pinching?” I rubbed the reddened skin to the left of my navel.
He anchored his weight on his arm, sitting halfway up. Soft blue light bounced off the floor beneath the door to our Almost Cell. It illuminated the then three years’ worth of markings covering all four walls. Our archaic calendar. Kade’s silhouette looked the same as it always did, large and dark, with flat black wings, since nothing shimmered down here. “I told you this wouldn’t be easy, but it’s something you have to learn.”
This night, so very long ago, had marked the fiftieth day Lucien had taken Kade from our cage and returned him. I understood why he wanted me to learn how to take a mental vacation. He was worried whatever they were doing to him—he never spoke about it—they could soon do to me. He wanted me prepared.
“Sorry. You’re right.” I lowered myself back to the scratchy sheets on our small twin-sized bed and slapped his hand away when he pinched again.
“Focus.” His body was so close now; his heat molded his imprint on the lumpy mattress beside me. “You can do this. Whatever comes, you can take it.”
When he pinched again, I was in a hot air balloon in Albuquerque overlooking dozens of other balloons at the International Balloon Fiesta. I barely felt the pain as the balloon dipped and soared into the cloudless blue sky. My fear of heights didn’t matter in my imagination.
I was so focused on the sights breezing past my wicker basket that the next round of pinching and pulling didn’t bother me. Kade flung the covers over us, the sheet draping over my head. His breath blew hot on my ear. I incorporated a balmy wind into my journey. His lips pressed against the column of my neck. I held tighter to the basket, but the hot air balloon sank in the sky.
Against my wishes I felt every touch of his lips to my skin as they trailed down to my collarbone. I fisted the sheet in my right hand, opposite of the side where he laid. Another kiss and another, each bringing me farther and farther away from the sky to a new happy place. Something in him changed. Switched. His arms tightened around me and he nuzzled my neck. I didn’t think twice about breaking and returned fully to our cage, thinking back to the last time we were so close. So long ago. It must have been at least two years before.
Kade tugged the sheet further over us and moved up so we were nose to nose. His lips found mine with so much heat, so much need, I couldn’t help but lift my arms and wrap them around his neck, returning his need with my own. He deepened the kiss for one brief moment before he pulled back and said, “You broke. Try again.”
Instinctively I dropped my arms back to my sides, fighting myself not to overthink the exchange.
He was just finding the best way into my head. Lucien will do exactly the same. I have to be prepared.
Kade repositioned himself beside me again, close, but so much further away than he had been moments ago. His hot fingers trailed over my stomach again. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, but Kade’s hand touched so much more than my skin. Especially since he hadn’t let us get that close since our first kiss—one he probably thought I didn’t remember. He had soothed me with a kiss after Lucien had peeled the flesh from my legs to allow my human entrance into Hell.
Boldness guided my tongue as I parted my lips to beg him never to stop.
Before I could speak, he whispered, “I know.”
I stayed his hand by laying my own over it. “You don’t know. You have no idea.”
He molded his other hand around my waist, squeezing with barely contained strength. “I have every idea.” He escaped my hold and slid his hand up my stomach, mere inches below my breast. “I have so many ideas.”
My heart trailed up my throat so his fingers couldn’t feel the irrational thrumming it had picked up. His words sent chills and heat all over my body, causing my palms to sweat and goosebumps to coat my arms. With the boldness this place had shown me I possessed, I said, “Why don’t you show me?”
Kade distanced himself and threw off the sheet covering us, so I could just make out the lines of his face. “Don’t do that.” I leaned forward to sit up, but he placed the flat of his palm against my chest, just below the collarbone. “If you move again, I don’t know if I can control myself.” The truth to his statement was written in the tightness in his jaw, the flickers of muscles around his eyes, and the shallowness of his breaths. The unyielding blackness swallowing his eyes warned me it would be like this until we found a way out of Hell.
I swallowed and relaxed back into the bed, despite the ache growing in my stomach. I wanted so much more, but it wasn’t my place to push the issue if his control wavered again.
I opened my eyes, banishing the past and returning to the painful torture session in progress. I could drift away again soon, but if I didn’t at least pretend I was present, Lucien and Azriel would pick up on my meditation tactic and find a way to rid me of it.
Both bastards were still in their same locations, like I had been playing with life-size action figures and the life had crept out of them while I checked out. Only my wounded shoulder proved me wrong, bloodier and more thoroughly shattered than before. The pain from the healing was nothing I couldn’t handle. Not after what I’d already blocked out. Still, I grunted and wheezed. For show.
“I think it’s time to try something a little more severe.” Az whirled around, broadsword still at his right side.
Nothing prepared me for his left hand gripping the back of my neck and watching the tip of the blade slide into my stomach. Ice stole my breath. Blood bubbled up my throat and sputtered out of my mouth. I tried to inhale and choked on warm copper, spattering Azriel’s apron. His hand tightened on the back of my neck as the sword carved a new path up my stomach.
“That’s more the welcome I had in mind.” His voice remained horrifyingly calm.
I choked again, coughing and gasping. The room darkened.
Happy place, I reminded myself. Go to your happy place before—
I tried to gasp again, the instinct to live driving me. Fluid pumped from my mouth, my lungs reminding my instincts blood wasn’t good for them.
No more, I tried to say, gasp, relay somehow. I needed a breather—a breath. One single breath of air—even Hell air—was better than … than this.
“That doesn’t look good,” Lucien said. I was surprised I could hear his voice. Surprised I could hear anything but the constant over-heated flutter of my spazzing heart.
Fighting against taking another pain-filled gasp, my chest burned. But now, my chest wasn’t alone in its struggle. My stomach, which I had to assume at this point had been sliced open like a gutted fish, seared and throbbed in a pain so explosive—
My vision faded to black. The pain ceased for a moment. I felt myself falling, air rushing. I smacked into the damp, blood-soaked dirt floor. Not only did the pain return full-force, but it brought along a friend for my brain.
The chains still around my wrists and ankles rattled as I curled myself up in a ball, waiting for the healing to kick into third goddamn gear and save me from the splitting pain.
The crunching of footsteps brought with it a narrow set of ankles. Lucien. “It seems my essence has finally run its course.”
I gasped through blood-filled lungs. His essence gone. I coughed, the action flaring pain. My vision went white.
This was it. All of my refusals, all of my fight, all of my time, wasted, only for it to end like this.
I closed my eyes, saying a silent I’m sorry to Kade. I couldn’t hold out for his return. If he ever would return.
Thoughts and facts twisted in my mind like a hurricane. A surefire sign my brain was shutting down.
“Now I have to decide if you’re worth saving … more of my essence … or to let you die.”
Lucien’s words only registered every few syllables, but I understood enough to claw at the dirt and mouth three words: Let. Me. Die.
That last molecule of energy was all it took for me to let go completely. I welcomed the darkness. At lea
st death couldn’t be as bad as Hell. Nothing could be worse than what I’d been put through these last five years down here. In the bigger picture, my death was better for the world above me. Better I was gone instead of the constant threat I posed to them if Lucien had managed to turn me into his puppet. Death would be sweeter than anything I could remember.
But there was no sweetness here.
Cold.
So much of Hell had been freezing, until now. Stabs of fire-pokers burst from my stomach to my legs, up into my chest, heart, arms, and fingers. So hot. Too hot. My eyes flew open of their own volition.
Dungeon.
Lucien.
Azriel.
Hell.
No.
I screamed through almost un-burning lungs. I looked down to find my ripped, bloodied shirt and the rapidly closing wound beneath it. “No!”
My body shook as I collapsed in the red dirt, clawing at it as if doing so would turn back time. Tears spilled down my face into the bloodied sand around my mouth. “Why couldn’t you just let me die?” I screamed again, finding reserves of strength that must have come from a fresh dose of Lucien’s life essence. He’d intended all along to keep me in this damned, hopeless place.
Strong and unchained. What an interesting combination. I scrambled for Lucien’s leg. My body was still healing, but nothing would stop me from tearing him limb from limb. Even if he would heal.
“We’ve got a fighter.” Azriel chuckled, stomping his boot down on the middle of my back and grating grains of dirt into my still-open stomach wound.
A fighter. Damn straight I was. I flailed for a few seconds before twisting one way, then the other, to throw off Azriel’s balance. It worked. I rolled to my left several times, then crouched low on my feet. My gaze bounced wildly from Lucien to Azriel. I didn’t know if I was deciding which one to go for first or watching them to see which would try and grab me. Being on the opposite side of the Wall ’O Weapons was a serious disadvantage, but I was closest to the door. Not that I’d get very far if I managed to bolt. Still, tallying my options helped my brain to function again.
There was only one sure way to deter them both: to use the power Lucien had been trying to coax out of me. If Lucien wanted it, that meant it had to stay locked away. I could get out of this on my own.
“I think you’ve had enough for today,” Lucien said, returning to his throne. Not a single sign of worry marred his face. And why should it? I was nothing to fear.
“What if I’m not done?” I countered, still tasting blood and sand on my tongue.
A smile snaked up Azriel’s face, finding its way to his dark eyes.
“Give me a weapon,” I offered. “Let’s make this interesting.”
“Doubtful.” Lucien examined his nails the way a woman would after an expensive manicure. “But we do have something else for you. Come along, take a seat.”
“I think I’ll stand.” I fought my shaking muscles to stretch to my full height of so-not-tall-enough-to-be-a-threat—to anyone, let alone these two monsters.
Lucien fished what resembled a TV remote out from beneath his throne seat and pointed it to the blood-spattered metal panel behind the Wall ’O Torture. The entire thing flicked white for a moment, minus the blood, and then a small triangle pointing to the right appeared in the upper corner, the words PLAY in bold letters beside it. The first few frames of the film were shaky at best, like someone had taken the video from inside their pocket. The camera pointed toward the ground for twenty seconds, and then the image rose up. Dark, damp pavement moved beneath the camera. White lines, possibly from a crosswalk. A curb.
Home. Maybe not San Francisco, or Arizona, but topside. I almost collapsed right there, but from the glance I darted at Lucien, there was more coming.
This movie couldn’t be good if Lucien wanted me to see it. I should have tried my escape right then and used all my strength to pry the door off the hinges, but I still feared the rack. At least this way I’d be able to turn away or tune it out.
I swallowed down sand and sour-tasting old blood, and watched the camera zoom in on several men with shining dark wings behind them. They were definitely on the surface. I hadn’t seen a wing reflecting sun or moonlight since the night Lucien brought me down here. The night Kade sacrificed everything to come with me. The camera zoomed out to dark streets teeming with hundreds of people. The buildings curving around the crowd were taller than the camera could capture. The street-level storefronts illuminated out, their foreign fluorescent signs casting pinks, purples, blues, and yellows out into the massive crowd. Asia maybe or a large Asian borough in a huge city like New York.
The cameraman slowly zoomed in on the Fallen again, walking among the people like they belonged. They reached a corner, and all four of them turned in separate directions, dispersing like opposite ends of a magnet. The camera stayed there, zooming in on people coming and going, the four Fallen long since gone.
The screen went dark for a second, then more shuffling, black asphalt, ground moving fast. Running. The camera swung up to reveal all four Fallen gathered in a narrow side street, red life flowing from four women into the mouths of four Fallen. I almost squeezed my eyes closed when something stopped me. The camera zooming in on one Fallen in particular. My Fallen. Kade, his black eyes fully open, his hands cupping either sides of the woman’s face, her life flowing into him. Kade. On the surface. Feeding. With other Fallen.
The TV went black, and I collapsed onto the floor.
Ire welled up inside me, growing until there was no place for it to go. I wanted to hurt Lucien for what he’d done to Kade. To hurt Azriel for what he’d done to my former classmates, Allison Woodward, Tony DiMeeko, and Cassie Waters. Especially Cassie. My memory took me back to that thundering night on Stratford Independence High School’s roof. The deal I’d made with Azriel to spare my fellow student’s lives. Everyone but Allison. The gun in her hand. The deafening noise of the gunshot. The charred scent of gunpowder. The warmth of the blood on my hands as I held her body.
Anger built up around me like armor. I wanted to hurt the ones that hurt me, and so many others. The tang of blood on my tongue coursed with the hot need for revenge. I wanted nothing other than to hunt, stab, and kill. The warmth flooding my body intensified until I felt as if I might burn from the inside out. Pressure and resentment built up in me until there was nothing left of who I used to be. Only hate remained, and my body was too small to contain it.
Feeling like I might burst into flames, I stared into their faces and screamed. Lucien and his narrow build, that lifeless hair flopping over his forehead, blue eyes still twinkling joyfully from watching my pain. And Azriel. His mouth a soft o after witnessing whatever change I was going through physically, thanks to Lucien giving me what no human should have to endure.
Fire and fury stole the rest of me. I screamed and concentrated everything I was worth into making them pay. White light blinded me, and I released myself to the hate coursing in my veins. The world once again went black.
Chapter Four
Kade
Once the pneumatic buzz from my first live feed in years began to dim, I stepped away from the pile of bodies on the ground and leaned against the walls beside my fellow Fallen—two of whom played with the deceased like they were a life-sized Barbie and Ken. The lady I had taken, seduced with my influence and drained dry, was at the top of the convoluted pile. Her head rolled to the side, her once bright brown eyes open so wide I feared they might pop from her sockets.
My cursed heart thundered. I’d done what I swore I never would again. I’d broken every rule I promised myself in Hell I wouldn’t. I fed on the living, lost control of myself, and took an innocent life.
What a way to start a new life.
But I was alive again. That was sure something. On Earth. A place I never thought I’d see again.
A car horn blared from one of the larger streets parallel to our small, closed off alleyway.
A hand clapped my shoulder from b
ehind.
Desire to link with the Fallen spiked, the touch nearly bringing me to my knees. I spun, locking the wrist of the hand and slamming the body back-first against the nearest wall, my other hand jammed into the throat attached. Orias smiled at me from his restrained state. “How do you like the new Earth?”
Against my better wishes, I released him—we were supposed to be brothers, after all—and clapped him on the shoulder to pull him away from the wall.
“Fantastic,” I said with as much awe as I felt flowing inside me thanks to whatever her name was. I clenched my jaw and turned away from the body of the woman I had killed. “But what new Earth?”
“It’s been some time since you’ve been up here. Things have changed. Not all over, but in key places. We’ve started inserting ourselves into the human population. Mostly through low-level thugs and drug dealings, but still, interacting with humans on a daily basis.”
Looking over my shoulder for Lucien to confirm or deny this news, I found no one. “Lucien doesn’t have a problem with this … new way of life?”
Orias clapped me on the back, harder than necessary. “It was his idea.”
“Don’t bother,” Ruman said after stacking his Ken doll neatly on top of the body pile. “Lucien doesn’t stay long up here. He’s got some serious business downstairs.”
Fire roared in my stomach at the thought of Lucien’s serious business. Rayna. The one human who could see both the angels and the Fallen as we truly were. I had hoped that by Lucien having to travel up the ranks of Hell to bring us to Earth it would mean that Rayna would get some peace. But he didn’t travel with us, and he hadn’t spent much time topside before returning. It made me wonder again how he traveled back and forth, if he had a special power that could teleport him without the sixty-six days of travel.
“We probably shouldn’t go for another round,” Orias said. “Unless, of course, someone needs another go.” He blinked; a glossy black sheen coated his eyes. “Perhaps the newest of us?” His toothy smile widened.