by Lauren Kate
When the numeral 100 appeared under Home, Luc zipped out his wings, flew forward, and slapped the scoreboard a few times. "What's wrong with this thing?"
He swooped back to the bleachers, and Cam watched his wings recede into his shoulders, noting the way they glittered darkly in the morning light.
"I cured her brother," Cam said. "That's worth more than anything you've tried to undo."
"I will allow you that," Luc said. Under Away, the number 1 became a 2. "But you also got old and flabby and bald, which everyone can agree is a big fat point for me." The figure 200 appeared on the Home scoreboard.
Cam rolled his eyes. "If you haven't noticed, Lilith doesn't care how you manipulate my appearance."
"It's not that she doesn't care!" Luc spat. "For some reason, she doesn't see how your body is changing."
Cam was confused. "You mean I'm ugly to everyone but Lilith?"
"Ding ding ding." The scoreboard lit up a 3 under Away. Luc looked directly into the sun without squinting. "I don't get it, either. I was sure that altering the way you look would disgust her, but--"
"It's Lilith," Cam said, realizing something for the first time. "She sees what's inside of me, and even you can't taint that." He gazed down at himself, feeling more confident than he had in days. "I don't know why it took losing my looks for me to realize that." He nudged the devil. "You should give yourself an extra point for that."
"Don't mind if I do." Lucifer turned toward the scoreboard, which now read, Home: 300; Away: 3. Then he narrowed his eyes at Cam. "I can't imagine why you're so confident. You're losing."
"How do you figure?" Cam asked.
"For the first time in any of her lifetimes, Lilith is learning to enjoy her Hell," Lucifer said. "She's quit comparing her dreams to her reality."
"She's adapting, learning to survive," Cam agreed. "She's almost..."
He paused, thinking about the way Lilith had smiled at him the other day from across the cafeteria, and the sound of her voice yesterday when she'd sang along with Bruce at the arcade, and the look in her eyes when they'd toasted her winning lyrics with warm cups of root beer.
"...happy," Cam finished.
"But a happy girl doesn't need saving by someone like you," Lucifer said with a snarl. "Face it, Cam: You need her to hate her life so that she can love you. Or else you lose the bet--and her." Home rang up 2,000 on the scoreboard. The sound of the numbers changing so rapidly pinged like rain on a tin roof. "Yes, a Prom-night defeat is certain," Lucifer said. "But then, it always was."
"You're wrong," Cam said.
"Tell you what I'll do." Lucifer leaned close. The devil smelled like anise mixed with burning coal. Cam's stomach turned. "I'll let you off the hook."
"What do you mean?" Cam asked.
"I'll call off the bet. You can go back to moping around the middle reaches of the universe, never realizing your potential. I'll go back to keeping everyone confused."
In the devil's red-rimmed eyes, Cam recognized something desperate.
"You think you're going to lose," Cam found himself saying.
Lucifer let out a burst of laughter that seemed to shake the ground beneath them.
"Why else would you offer to cancel our wager?" Cam asked.
His laughter ended abruptly. "Maybe what happened with Luce and Daniel changed me, too," Lucifer growled. "Maybe I'm showing mercy to you. Disgusting as that sounds."
"You're bluffing," Cam said. It didn't matter what the devil said. There was no chance of Cam backing out of their deal. "I won't abandon Lilith. I can't go on without her."
"I applaud your perseverance," Lucifer said as the numeral 4 lit up under the Away side of the scoreboard. "But you don't know what you're talking about. Do you even know why Lilith is one of my subjects?"
Cam swallowed. The question had haunted him since before he got here, since Annabelle had told him where to find her.
"Suicide," Lucifer said, slowly, enunciating each syllable.
"She wouldn't--" Cam whispered.
"You think you know her? You don't. And you don't have a chance." Lucifer glanced down at the desolate campus he had created. "And everyone--even all those silly kids down there--knows it but you."
"Tell me what happened," Cam said, hearing the tremor in his own voice. "When did she take her life? Why?"
"You have till the end of the day to forfeit," Lucifer said, his eyes a wilderness of evil. "Otherwise? Things are about to get dirty."
"For a change?" Cam asked.
The devil flashed him a dangerous look. "You'll see."
Cam paced the parking lot, waiting for the buses to arrive, for another day at Trumbull to begin. The devil's warning had put him on edge.
He needed to see Lilith. He closed his eyes and tried to picture her walking to school, but all he could focus on was the suicide Lucifer had mentioned. When had she done it? Where?
Could Cam have been responsible?
From the moment he'd met Lilith, Cam had known there would be no way to disentangle her existence from his own. She was his one true love. If Cam had learned anything from Luce and Daniel, it was this: When you find that soul you cherished above all others, you do not let it go.
The high-pitched squeal of brakes announced the arrival of the school buses. When the yellow fleet had filled the circular drive, kids marched down their steps and flowed toward the school, just as they did every day. But something was different this morning. Something dark was in the air.
The students spoke in whispers, and when their eyes fell on Cam, they stiffened, they recoiled, they turned quickly away.
A girl he'd never seen spit as she walked past him. "How do you sleep at night, pig?!"
As more and more suspicious gazes fell on him, Cam's wings began to burn within his shoulders. Lucifer had warned him that things would get ugly, but what exactly had the devil done?
He made it to homeroom a few minutes before the bell. There were only a few kids in the classroom, but all of them turned their backs toward him when Cam walked into the room.
A girl with long black hair and freckles glanced over her shoulder and scowled. "I can't believe that monster was nominated for prom court!"
Cam ignored everyone, sat down, and waited for Lilith.
She walked in as the bell rang. Her hair was still wet, her clothes were wrinkled, and she was clutching a half-eaten apple. She wouldn't look at Cam.
He waited fifty torturous minutes, then pulled her aside right after class.
"What?" he said. "What's wrong?"
"It's not my business who you were with before you knew me," Lilith said, her eyes wet with tears. "But that girl killed herself."
"What girl?" Cam asked.
"Why do I have to explain this to you?" Lilith said. "Have you been with more than one girl who killed herself?"
"Where are you getting this from?" Cam asked, though, of course, he didn't have to ask. Lucifer must have whispered some trumped-up story into one kid's ear, and now Cam was the school pariah.
"Everyone on my bus was talking about it this morning." Lilith noted the glares aimed at Cam. "Seems like the whole school knows."
"They don't know anything," Cam said. "But you do. You know me."
"Tell me it isn't true," Lilith said. Cam could hear the pleading in her voice. "Tell me she didn't kill herself because of what you did."
Cam looked down at his boots. Lilith was in Crossroads because she'd killed herself, but had she killed herself because of Cam?
"It's true," he said, in agony. "She took her life."
Lilith's eyes widened, and she backed away. Cam understood that she hadn't actually been expecting the truth.
"Is he harassing you again, Lilith?"
Cam turned to find Luc, his hair slicked back and perfectly coiffed. The devil took Lilith's arm, flexing his bicep. "Shall we, gorgeous?"
"I'll make it on my own." Lilith pushed away from Luc, but she was looking at Cam as she spoke.
"Meaning," Luc murmured a
s she turned away, "don't follow her, Cam."
Cam clenched his fists.
"Last chance to fold," Lucifer said.
Cam shook his head in silent rage. As he watched Lilith walk away, he feared he'd finally lost her for good.
"It's not all bad," Luc said, and pulled a folded note from his back pocket. He handed it to Cam. "The principal will see you now."
The secretary's desk outside Tarkenton's office was empty, and the principal's door was closed. Cam straightened the APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION T-shirt he'd picked up at the thrift store, finger-combed his hair, and knocked.
The door swung open.
He stepped in hesitantly, seeing no one.
"Mr. Tarkenton? Sir? You wanted to see me?"
"Arrrrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!" Roland and Arriane jumped out from behind the door and doubled over with laughter. Arriane slammed the door behind Cam and locked it.
"Sir!?! You wanted to see me?" she said in her best Cam voice.
"That is the funniest shit I've seen in centuries, sir," Roland said.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Cam said. "Forgive me for trying to blend in here."
He found himself hugging Roland, then Arriane. They were the last people he had ever expected to turn up here, but Cam had never been more grateful to see friends.
"You are going for it, man," Arriane said, wiping her eyes. She'd shaved her head and was dressed all in black. The only color on her was the bright orange fringe of her false eyelashes. "And I love that. But, uh"--she grimaced, glancing at Cam's midsection--"what's up with the wheat belly?"
"Lucifer's idea of fun," Cam said. "He thought it would be a turnoff, but Lilith can't even see the difference--at least she couldn't see it, back when she liked me. I don't know about now." He looked at his friends, overwhelmed with emotion. "How did you guys get in here, anyway?"
"Also Lucifer's idea of fun," Roland explained. He looked exquisite in a tailored pin-striped suit and a lavender French-cuffed shirt, and he smelled like expensive cologne.
"Right," Cam said, understanding instantly. "He knows he's going to lose, so he wants you two to talk me out of going through with the bet."
"Could be, brother," Roland said, "but we're in agreement with him on that."
"In other words," said Arriane, "what are you doing, Cam?"
"If I'm not mistaken," Cam said, "the last time I saw you, you suggested I fix my mistakes. Remember?"
"Not like this!" Arriane shoved Cam. "After Luce and Daniel earned your sorry soul a second chance...I just--I mean--dude."
Back at Sword & Cross, Arriane and Roland had spoken of Luce and Daniel as if the angelic lovers were a model of love the rest of them should follow. But the way Cam saw things, Luce and Daniel had really only ever cared about each other, and that was fine with Cam. They had never intended to start a revolution.
And yet, somehow, they had. Because of Luce and Daniel's choice to risk everything for love, Cam was here in Crossroads.
"I'm not seeking advice," Cam said.
"That hasn't stopped Arriane yet." Roland leaned against Tarkenton's desk. "Why throw your eternal future away on a rigged bet with the devil? And then, when he makes an offer to let you out of that bet, why refuse?"
Cam could see it looked impossible from the outside: fifteen days to get a girl to love him--a girl whose hatred of him had been forged by three thousand years in Hell. But Cam didn't care what it looked like. In his heart, there was no question that he had to save Lilith. It wasn't a choice. It was a measure of his love for her.
Arriane took Cam's shoulders and pushed him into Tarkenton's leather swivel chair. She balanced the principal's bronze hog in her palm. "Look, Cam. You've always been self-destructive. We get that, and we love you for it, but it's time to stop playing games with Lucifer."
"He never loses," Roland said. "Maybe once in a violet moon."
"I can't do it," Cam said. "Don't you see? This is how I honor Luce and Daniel's choice to give up their immortality. I have to save Lilith. It's the only way I can save myself." He leaned forward in his chair. "The person I love is being abused. What happened to your sense of duty? The Roland and Arriane I know would never forgive me if I didn't try to get Lilith out of here."
"We had a sense of duty when it came to Lucinda's fate," Arriane said. "But Lilith is so much less important than Luce. A blip on the radar."
Cam blinked. "Maybe to you."
"To everyone," she said. "That's why we all spent six thousand years following Luce around. She faced a choice with cosmic implications."
"Lilith matters, too," Cam said. "She deserves better than this."
"Are you at least taking her to prom?" Arriane asked, and sighed. "I've always wanted to go to prom."
"I haven't asked her yet," Cam admitted. "The moment hasn't been right."
"You are so off your game!" Arriane said. "Maybe Ro and I can help in that department. After all that practice with Luce and Daniel, we're masterminds of the romantic setting. Think about it?"
The door flew open. "Is there some way I can be of service to you?" Tarkenton asked.
Arriane carefully set Tarkenton's paperweight hog back on his desk. She patted its head. "This is a real nice pig. I'll give you a quarter for him."
"GET OUT OF MY CHAIR!" Tarkenton thundered at Cam. He turned to Arriane and Roland. "Who are you delinquents?"
"We're fallen angels," Roland said.
"Don't insult my religion!" Tarkenton commanded, his face twisted. "I could have you arrested for breaking and entering. And you, Mr. Briel, you're suspended for the rest of the day and all of tomorrow. Leave campus before I have you removed."
"Please don't suspend me, sir," Cam said. "I need to be here."
Roland squinted at Cam. "Are you kidding me, dude? You care?"
Cam cared. The days were long and lonesome when the girl you loved was in school and you were not. His bet with Lucifer ended in four days. If he was going to free Lilith from this hell, he needed every moment he could get with her.
Three Days
At lunch the next day, Lilith, Jean, and Luis met in the band room.
It was finally free, since the Perceived Slights were all busy at a prom court meeting. Lilith had walked by their table in the center of the cafeteria after grabbing a sandwich and had noticed the empty seat where Cam was supposed to sit. He hadn't been in homeroom or poetry that morning either, and Lilith was trying not to wonder why.
"Hey, Luis." She mustered a smile for the drummer in his blue tank top and fingerless leather gloves.
"Hola," Luis said, playing a tight drumroll. He was getting better. He was almost good.
"That sounded fly," Lilith said.
Luis grinned. "Fly's my middle name."
The battle was three nights away. They were down one guitar player--again--and far from having their act together, but Lilith was determined not to give up. She would figure out a way to pull this performance off.
"I take it we're not waiting for Cam?" Jean asked, giving her a sympathetic look. He had taken off the top of the Moog synthesizer and was tightening the screws inside.
"Nope." Lilith sighed. "Just us."
She was rusty and exhausted. She'd been nauseated since yesterday when she'd boarded the bus and felt every kid's eyes on her. At first, she'd been stupid enough to think that people were suddenly noticing her because they'd heard she'd won the lyrics contest. But not one person said anything to Lilith about the Four Horsemen playing her song at prom.
Instead, Cam's horrible news eclipsed Lilith's good news entirely. By now the whole school had become a buzzing hive of students spreading the same ugly story: The last girl Cam had dated, a girl who'd been in love with him, had killed herself when they broke up.
Lilith knew Cam had known other girls. But this latest story...
Suicide.
"It sucks," Jean said. "I mean, Revenge will be great, but without Cam..."
Lilith knew what he was thinking. Cam was a great musician. He was charis
matic onstage. He brought a needed edge to the band. Revenge would be lesser without him.
Plus, he really wanted to be in the band. She knew that because he'd called her home phone seven times the night before.
"Don't answer it--" she'd said to Bruce a second too late.
"Hello?" Bruce had said, then held out the phone to Lilith, mouthing, "It's Cam."
Lilith had quickly scribbled a note and held it out to Bruce.
"Sorry, Cam," Bruce said. "She says you have the wrong number."
Lilith had mouthed for Bruce to hang up the phone quickly and groaned once he did. "Thanks."
"Why don't you want to talk to Cam?" Bruce asked. "What happened?"
"It's a long story," Lilith told her brother. "I'll tell you when you're older."
"But I like him," Bruce said.
Lilith frowned. "I know. Just don't pick up the phone again."
It was possible Cam had called more than seven times, but seven had been her mom's limit. After that, she'd disconnected the phone. And in the silence that followed, Lilith's heart began to ache. She hadn't meant to let him get close enough to hurt her, but here she was, hurt and bewildered and longing for him to make things right.
She would have to go back to looking out for herself, expecting nothing from anyone, guarding herself against pain.
Now Jean put down his screwdriver, rubbed his jaw, and studied Lilith. "You don't mean you believe those rumors? Cam's a good guy. You know he is."
"I don't want to talk about it." Lilith sat down against the wall between two giant xylophones. She took out her notebook and riffled through the pages.
"What are you doing?" Jean asked.
"Making an edit to the chorus of 'Somebody's Other Blues' before we practice," Lilith said.
"Wait, does that mean we're not breaking up?" Luis let out an audible sigh of relief.
"Course not," Lilith said, standing up and grabbing her guitar.
It wasn't just the band Lilith needed to hold together. It was her friendships with Jean and Luis. Unlike Cam, these boys weren't complicated. They hadn't taken hold of her heart in dangerous ways. But what they had done--showing her a place where she belonged--mattered to Lilith, and she wasn't going to give it up. "Let's do it."
"That's what I'm talking about," Jean said, and powered up his synth.
"Hell yeah!" Luis said, readying his drumsticks.
"Two, three, four," Lilith counted off, a new confidence stirring inside her as Revenge began to play.
