When Sinners Kneel

by R. Scarlett

  Shadows played off the damaged wallpapered walls and I laid back, noticing there had been some water damage to the ceiling.

  I’d never felt safe when I had stayed at housing for recovering demons in the past or in the complexes they had for low-class demons. I felt safer by myself, alone in a tilted apartment building.

  I closed my eyes and let my hands wander up to my neck—where Beau’s rough fingers had touched. The slight memory stirred the heat inside of me.

  I only had a flame, burning dimly inside the pit of my stomach, but it ached, it ached for me to find that spark. To ignite. And out of everyone I’d been around, Beau’s dark soul had been the one to call to me. I laughed bitterly.

  My fingers pressed to my bottom lip and imagined how he would taste, how he would feel. The anger, the bitterness, the wrath of Beau. I wanted the intensity. I wanted to feel the high of his emotions rushing through me. Feeding me. As incubus got high off of sexual energy, I got high off of people’s emotions.

  Months ago, I had been captured and tortured and starved. I hadn’t let myself feed since then, I hadn’t indulged, hadn’t let myself loose.

  Beau awakened something I had hidden, deep inside myself.

  I’d waited for it to make itself known, blooming, seething, and now I wanted more.

  I wanted to learn how to fight, how to protect myself, I needed to go back to the Pit to find any clues to where Dolores was, but I also wanted to be close to him.

  One taste, I told myself. Just one taste of his essence.

  He would never let me.

  And I smiled into the darkness, because of course, it had to be him.

  The pit was silent when I entered its gloom again a week later. All the mess of alcohol, dirt, and blood had been cleaned off the cement floors. I had waited an entire week before entering its darkness as I knew Tensley would watch me closely. I had spent the week acting as if I was happy. Acting as if I had my life together in front of him. Now I came back to the very place I had been banned from entering.

  How this place vibrated with raw power and greed at night and seemed so… calm during the day fascinated me. Looking at it now, I decided I liked the Pit in all its facets.

  It spoke to that hunger within me, desperate to feast on its intensity but also on its gloomy tranquility. Souleaters found large groups of people powerful and dangerous. I tried to avoid bars and clubs—anywhere emotions were heightened, and an increase of people gathered there. But I wanted the intensity of the Pit—I wanted that high—and I wanted it mostly from Beau’s intensity.

  I walked farther in, my ears picking up on the sound of someone hitting a punching bag. Glancing at the level below, I recognized the fighter whose fists kept flying through the air and colliding on the bag with vicious strength.

  It was the woman I’d fought the previous week.

  I didn’t know all that much about fighting, but it was obvious she was a great fighter. She had great stability on her legs, flawless coordination, she was intelligent and fearless with her moves. Plus, she had one hell of a punch, I remembered as my fingers touched my healed side as if making sure the bones beneath my skin were indeed still intact.

  She’d more than earned my respect.

  Maybe she’d be able to teach me how to hold my own in a fight…

  “Can I help you?” a flat voice said from behind me, taking me out of my thoughts. I turned toward it, seeing the bartender behind the bar staring at me. His hands were moving fast, cleaning glasses from the night before with a wet rag. If I wanted to find Dolores, I needed to get a job here. To be inside. To ask questions, to observe, and get answers.

  “I’m looking for a job,” I told him with what I hoped was a friendly smile as I approached the edge of the bar. But the closer I got to him, the better I could see his features. An unruly beard framed his face and hid his mouth. He had a slightly crooked nose and thick eyebrows that were set in a deep frown, casting a shadow over his dark eyes. Eyes that did not seem friendly and welcoming at all.

  His gaze traveled down my body and back up, assessing me, before his frown seemed to crease his forehead even deeper. He was clearly displeased by my looks.

  Asshole.

  “We don’t hire teenage girls,” he said with a bored tone as he continued cleaning out the glasses and slamming them down onto the counter before moving to the next.

  Why did everyone think of me as a fucking kid? I was young, but I wasn’t that young.

  I pinched my mouth into a straight line. “Look, I really need a job. I was here last week, and I saw you had waitresses. I could do that, or I could—” I glanced around the room, spotting a woman wiping the floor with a mop. “I could clean the place.”

  He just stared at me, not amused.

  “Jackson isn’t the right person to talk to, honey. If you want to get hired, you should talk to Danny,” a girl said to my right. She was much taller than me with flaming red hair and a tall, thin frame. Shimmering eyeshadow coated her lids and each time she spoke, her long, fake lashes fluttered wildly at me. “He runs this place. You should be able to find him in his office.” She gestured to a dark hallway and I nodded at her in thanks.

  “Fiona, we shouldn’t let her—” Jackson started but was stopped by Fiona’s sharp retort.

  “If the girl wants to ask for a job, Jackson, she can ask for a damn job,” she snapped, and her eyes were several shades colder now. Jackson’s turned troubled, but he stayed quiet and went back to cleaning the glasses in front of him.

  Weird.

  There was probably some undealt with history between the two of them, I thought.

  I walked down the dark hallway, toward the door I’d been told was the one to Danny’s office. The closer I got to it, the louder the voices grew behind the door. By the sound of it, they were arguing.

  “For fuck’s sake,” a voice bellowed, and then the door shook and swung open before me.

  A man—in his late thirties—stood in the doorway. He had dark brown hair that was slicked back, making the twisted scar that started at his cheek and went all the way down to his jaw bone perfectly visible. He halted at the sight of me, his eyes scanning me fast.

  Almost as if quickly assessing if I was a threat and then recognition seemed to shine in his pale, empty-looking eyes.

  “I—uh, I’m looking for a job,” I told him after he continued to trace me. “The girl back there told me to come here to talk to Danny. Is that you?”

  His eyes shot up to my face, only to go to my lips. “The very one.” Then he paused, lips twitching. “You fought last week. I remember you.” A smile spread across his mouth and he straightened, again scanning me from head to toe. I didn’t like the weight of his gaze on me. Whereas Jackson’s appraisal had been nothing but bored, this one seemed to drip with interest of the wrong kind.

  I bristled, folding my arms in an attempt to add an extra layer on top of me. “Yeah…”

  “You’re the girl Savage took out of the ring,” he added. “Seemed like you two know each other.”

  The mention of Beau sent a shiver through me, but I ignored it and dug my nails into my palms, forming fists. “Not really, no.”

  His eyes scanned me again and his brow hiked up. “I watched you fight a week ago.” He squinted, a hard glint to his eyes. “I thought you’d be more bruised, more damaged.” His eyes found mine. “Someone must have healed you…?”

  I didn’t like the way he said that. Like he wanted me to say Beau had, but then it would tie me to him.

  “Looks like they missed a spot,” he said as his eyes seemed to flash with curiosity at my wrist.

  I swallowed. I didn’t need to ask what he was talking about, I knew. It was the one spot Beau hadn’t let his hands or mouth touch, hadn’t healed, and it still ached like a motherfucker.

  Danny laughed. “The newbies always think it’s easy. That is, until they see the fighters who rule over this place and make the ring their bitch.”

  I nodded again, unsure how to
respond. I hadn’t come here and fought in the hopes of winning. I wanted to find Dolores, but I hadn’t expected the rush it gave me to fight. The adrenaline.

  He hummed, one hand going up as he rubbed his bottom lip with the tips of his fingers. “And you’re looking for a job…here?”

  “Yes,” I told him, flushing at how eager my voice suddenly sounded. He was being creepy as hell, but I really needed an in to stay at the Pit to ask around about Dolores. And if it meant I got to experience the high of the Pit, got to learn how to fight, and get closer to Beau, then it worked in my favor. My only work reference was Scorpios, but I didn’t want to bring that up. So many of the low-class despised Scorpios and their rule over them.

  And I had a feeling he was one of them.

  “Tell you what. Since you seem so enthusiastic, we’ll do a trial run tonight. Waitress?” he asked, and I nodded. “If you can keep up, then you’re hired,” he finished and moved closer to me.

  “Thank you,” I said, nodding fast. “I can do the job.”

  He grinned. “I’m sure you can.” He looked over my shoulder. “Fiona, show—I apologize, what’s your name?”

  “Lex,” I told him.

  And the slow gleam in his eyes made my stomach drop. “Show our little Lex over here around would you?” he told Fiona, but his eyes never left mine.

  Fiona had shown me all the basics. Of cleaning the bathrooms, of serving the men, of helping Jackson when it got too busy. She worked as an Aphrodite, but when the servers were shorthanded, she stepped in.

  I’d quickly realized she was the most lucid of the bunch.

  As we sat in her room at the Pit, simple with a black satin blanket and velvet throw pillows, she applied a dark red stain to my lips.

  “It’ll get you more tips,” she told me, pressing a white tissue between my lips to get off any excess. “The men will imagine their dicks there.”

  I hadn’t said anything back and looked at my reflection. Face contoured, blush heavy and lashes thick and long, shadowing my eyes, and the deep, dark lips.

  “The men around here are simple, doll. Look like you wanna fuck ‘em and that’ll guarantee you more tips,” Fiona said and patted my back.

  My lips twitched, and I turned to look back at her. The entire time I held back from asking questions.

  By eight, the Pit was packed tight with all different range of demons. Most came here to gamble Fiona told me, betting on who was most likely to win the fights. They came here for a quick, good time, in a place where sins were encouraged, and manners were left at the door. And all that somehow required us waitresses to wear short black skirts made of the thinnest material one could possibly find. I hated the outfit, but I couldn’t start being picky. A job was a job. But every time the door opened and the wind blew through, the skirt was always dangerously close to flying up.

  The tips made the job; the men did not, Fiona told me.

  The buzz of the Pit weighed heavy on my chest, squeezing painfully my pounding, frantic heart as I swerved through the crowded rows of customers.

  “I need a rum, pretty lady,” one man said, his hand slipping around my waist as I passed.

  “Sure.” I kept walking, his hand vanishing from my side.

  I didn’t want to piss off Danny’s customers. They were already shady folks, especially if they hang around here. Women were the bottom of the lows to them. There was no honor worth more than survival. So I let them touch me, just like every other woman in the Pit.

  I was the sole survivor of my family and that was why no matter how much shit life threw my way, I would keep surviving. I would keep creating a life for myself.

  I smirked at that. Stubbornness was what had saved me for years. My soul didn’t want to give up and I wasn’t letting death take me just yet. It had been months ago when I had been patrolling for Scorpios at a house party in Queens. Hunters of Orion, humans who loathed demons, had jumped me. I hadn’t had a chance to fight against them, but they had taken me and starved me. They paraded me around like a toy in their clubs. They never touched me sexually, but once they found out I had connections to Scorpios—to the Knights—they had focused on getting answers from me.

  I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t betray Tensley. So I let them.

  They broke the wrong parts of me.

  They broke my wings and forgot I had claws.

  I’d survive and that’s what I was still doing. Surviving. But I knew now that there was more to life than just surviving.

  When Beau had touched me that first night, when I’d fought in the ring, I’d felt alive. The most alive I’d felt in a long time.

  If ever.

  I wanted that feeling to last.

  I learned earlier that day that Fiona had a son at home and this job made the best money to offer him the resemblance of a good life. She’d had him when she was young, nineteen she’d said, and she’d been raising him with her own mother. Her son’s father had been shot in a street fight a few months before she’d given birth. He was four now, and her eyes shone brightly whenever she said his name; Alaric.

  I couldn’t imagine taking care of a child. Hell, it was hard enough surviving on my own, let alone having to keep someone else alive too.

  My fingers itched with the buzz—the sound of the voices cheering and laughing from inside the concrete building sent a shiver down my spine.

  I walked through the crowd, into the dark warmth of sweat and smoke and sex. The closer I got to the bar, the more my body ached. I elbowed my way through the crowd, a few people stopping to watch me in curiosity. When I leaned against the oak bar, the wet mixture of booze touched my skin.

  I scanned the crowd, looking for a sign, a clue to have anything to do with Dolores. Any sketchy behavior. I wanted to ask people questions, but I feared I’d give my cover away. I continued to scan, and unconsciously, I realized I was looking for him, for Beau, but didn’t see any trace of the incubus. He did patrol and maybe tonight he was busy with some misbehaving lowlifes.

  I sighed but noted the empty tray on the counter and quickly grabbed it. I straightened my posture and weaved my way through the crowds. I searched for any guy with an empty or half-filled glass and approached the first one I saw.

  “Another drink?” I asked over the loud crowd.

  He gave me a look, but nodded, handing me his drink. “Rum and Diet Coke.”

  I smiled at him and continued making my rounds until I had enough to return to the bar.

  “Three rum and Diet Cokes, one whisky on the rocks and one water,” I told Jackson as he watched me put the tray on the counter. I smiled at him. “The last guy said he’s on a diet,” I snickered before rolling my eyes playfully.

  Drinking Diet Coke instead of regular Coke because you were on a diet was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Coke was still Coke, whichever one you drank, it was still a ticket straight to the hospital.

  Jackson didn’t say a word and scoffed, turning to make the drinks. Did he ever smile?

  “He doesn’t like anyone, babe. Don’t take it personally,” a voice spoke into my ear, and I spun around to see Danny there, his front almost pressed against my back.

  When his hand touched the curve of my hip, I stepped away. I could taste the bitterness of his distasteful emotions towards me on my tongue without having to touch him. They were that strong.

  I knew not to ask him any of my questions. I didn’t trust him and that put him at the very top of my list of people who might have something to do with Dolores’ disappearance.

  “How’s tonight going?”

  “Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to it,” I told him, voice clipped but not unprofessional. I turned and walked back through the crowd, trying to put distance between us, but I could still feel him behind me. Watching me.

  I suppressed another shudder, letting my gaze drift over each individual, for a sign, a clue. Anything.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Danny’s shadow move again, getting closer and closer
to me. I handed a drink back to a customer, plastering a fake smile on my lips.

  “You looking for Savage?” Danny’s voice asked again from behind me.

  My eyes swung to his and he grinned at the sudden eagerness in my eyes. “I thought he wasn’t here tonight.”

  “Oh, he is. He just hasn’t come out to play yet. But he’ll be here soon enough, he’s fighting tonight,” he added, and my eyes instantly looked to the railing that overlooked the ring below.

  I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant and moved past him, but again, he followed. My nails dug into the palm of my hand, barely restraining myself from clawing his face for not getting the fucking message.

  I went to the steel railing and gripped it tightly. I gazed down at the thick crowd of demons thirsting for blood and eyed the empty ring of dirt.

  The buzz of strong emotions this place reeked of sunk deeper into my bones and I breathed through my nose. I watched as a fighter, bald and huge and muscular, walked into the ring and raised his arms, claiming the area as his own.

  “I can get us a booth to watch,” Danny said, his shoulder rubbing against my own. “You might want to—”

  I shut him out as Beau appeared in the darkness of the entrance, shirtless, his muscular tattooed chest gleaming with sweat and he moved forward, unrushed.

  The crowd erupted in cheers for him and my knuckles turned white around the railing.

  In an effortless move, he bent low at the waist, under the thick ropes and entered the ring. His eyes seemed focused on the other fighter pacing along the other side of the square of dirt.

  Steel, the referee during my own fight the previous week, stood up on the side of the ring.

  When Steel raised one arm, the chaos began.