by Nour Zikra
“Get me out of here and I’ll show you my choice!” I grabbed the Swiss Army knife from my pocket and pulled out the knife. Raising it in front of me, I gave him my silent but obvious answer.
He sighed. “You have chosen the death of your lover. That is what he is, am I right?”
My empty hand fisted. He had been watching us this whole time. I didn’t know how, but the idea made my blood heat up. Moving to the back of the office, I picked up a cheap-looking plastic chair, the foldable kind, and lifted it high into the air, ready to throw it at the glass door.
“You do not want to do that.” Lucifer looked over his shoulder at the burly man. A second later, the man came, dragging Adriel’s body across the floor. “Again, anything you do that is not to my liking will cause Adriel to die.”
I dropped the chair; its metal legs banged against the floor. “How much have you seen?”
“Enough. I can mostly sense it in your blood.”
“Just let Adriel go, please.”
“As soon as you come to my side.”
“No, I won’t do it. I can’t put all the people I love in danger and let go of everything good just for your stupid agenda. I might be your child by blood, but I am not your daughter.”
“The world is not fair, you know. Has no one taught you that before?” He turned around, took five steps toward Adriel, leaned down, and pulled him off the ground by the back of his shirt.
The big-shouldered man stood behind Adriel and wound his beefy arms around the fallen angel’s torso, allowing Lucifer to let go. Lucifer reached into his dark armor and retrieved a gold dagger.
“Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide. What will it take for you to learn? Choosing me is the only way.”
He slapped Adriel in the face. A second later, Adriel stirred.
Please fight back.
Adriel blinked, his eyes heavy. “Leave her alone,” he said to Lucifer. “She didn’t do anything.”
Fight back!
Lucifer looked back and forth between Adriel and me, flashing his awful teeth at us. “By the devil, you two are adorable.” He turned back to Adriel. “Too bad Adelaide made the wrong choice. Now you must suffer, my old friend.”
“Go to hell,” Adriel muttered. His head hung forward, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.
I wanted him to fight Saleos and free himself, though it quickly became clear Adriel could not do that in his weak physical condition.
Lucifer gripped Adriel’s limp arm, flipped his palm up, and brought the dagger to his forearm. “I will gladly go to hell.”
Slamming my hands against the glass again, I yelled, “What are you doing?”
“I told you he would suffer, yet you didn’t listen.” In one swift motion, Lucifer slit Adriel’s forearm, cutting through a major artery. “Let’s see how long he’ll last before passing out.”
A horizontal line of blood seeped out just below Adriel’s wrist, trickling down his hand. He raised his head for two seconds and met my eyes before his head sunk back. The blood kept pouring out.
My heart felt wild as it thrashed in my chest. I wanted to scream and cry, but I knew it would get me nowhere. Instead, I grabbed the plastic chair off the ground, ignoring Lucifer’s earlier threats, and aimed for the glass door. Saleos saw me coming. He opened his mouth to tell me to stop, realized he had to get out of the way, and dashed away from the door. The chair came smashing through, shattering the glass all over the place.
Without waiting for Lucifer to react, I propelled myself into the other room despite a few sharp glass pieces still hanging around the frame of the door. A twinge in my shoulder indicated I’d cut myself on the glass. Now my tender, bleeding hands weren’t my only battle wounds. They still hadn’t healed, unlike the bullet that nearly killed me yesterday. I didn’t really care, though; a little pain wasn’t news to me.
Saleos jumped in front of me, blocking my path to Lucifer. Although I had my knife in my hand, I decided to kick him in the crotch. When he bent over, groaning, I grinned.
“Lucifer’s little bitch,” I said. Before he could straighten himself, I jammed my knife into the side of his throat and drew it out. “That’s for Simiael.”
Blood as thick as black ink covered the knife. Saleos collapsed, his black eyes turning brown. I beamed, knowing that even though I couldn’t kill Lucifer, I could destroy his army.
Lucifer regarded me. I didn’t have a tactical advantage, and I had to think of something fast. Beside Lucifer, Adriel barely moved.
I raised the knife in front of me. “Let him go.”
“Or what?” He waved his own dagger around, bringing it dangerously close to Adriel’s face. “You will kill all my servants?”
He wanted me to respond so he could turn my anger into mockery. I kept quiet.
“Silly child of mine.” He grabbed Adriel’s bleeding forearm again and pressed the tip of the dagger against his flesh, right above the laceration. “Get it through your thick, stubborn head. Either you stand by my side and he gets to live, or you make the wrong choice and he dies.”
“Addy,” Adriel muttered. He forced his eyes open for a split second. “Don’t do it.” His skin was pale and his breaths were heavy.
“Done!” Lucifer chirped. He stepped away from Adriel and dropped his arm. He flashed his teeth at me, almost like he had some fatherly joke he needed to share.
I looked where he’d pressed the dagger against Adriel’s arm and realized what he’d done. In bold red, Adriel now bled the letter L.
Chapter Twenty-Six
ADRIEL
We were tearing through heaven side by side like we always did. Lucifer’s wings were white as snow, shimmering in the glow of the light showering us.
“Did you say Father created the first life on Earth?” I stopped upon a hill to let my wings rest.
Acres of green radiated around us. Some angels flew around, others lay in the grass humming, and a few, like Lucifer and I, played in the kingdom of our Father. We loved to race each other in the air and try to outsmart the other in ridiculous ways. Sometimes, I would throw one of the glowing rocks I’d find at him to slow him down; other times, he would shove me with his wings. But it was all out of fun. Our brothers and sisters could hear our laughter from a distance, just as we could hear theirs.
Lucifer landed beside me. He placed his hand on my shoulder and grinned. “You should have seen it, Adriel. Father made a creature that lives underwater!”
My eyes were wide with excitement. “What does it look like?” I grabbed a twig from the grass and handed it to him. “Here, carve it on that tree over there. I want to see.”
He moved to the tree and drew a slender, jawless, long creature. “He calls it a fish.”
I pulled a leaf from the tree and put it next to the drawing. “The fish looks like a leaf, but longer and thinner. Why does it look so strange? Where are its eyes?”
Lucifer shrugged. “He says it will evolve one day. When he creates humans, this fish will look meatier, scalier, and have a tiny jaw to eat with.”
“Why does he not create that evolved fish now?”
“I do not know. Why does Father not let us create things too?” He put his hand on top of my head and ruffled my hair. “One day I shall convince him to let me create my own planet in a universe of my own design.”
“How will you manage that?”
“With my charm.”
“You are only saying that because you know you are his favorite.”
He threw the twig across the hill. It disappeared somewhere in the green. “I am simply the most intelligent and delightful child.”
“Clearly the humblest, too.”
He ignored my snide remark. “You should have seen that fish in the water.”
“One day I will. Now come on!” I slapped him on the back with my wing and soared into the air.
He bolted after me. Even though I’d taken off before him, he flew past me, laughi
ng and chanting that he was the best. It was the kind of fun we always had, and we never suspected it would come to an end.
H
Addy’s voice stirred me awake, and I realized I couldn’t move a muscle. Limbs heavy, I tried to get my fingers to twitch, with no luck. My chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, and the back of my head felt like someone had banged it with a brick. Two strong arms wrapped around my midsection.
Through the slits of my heavy eyes, I looked up and saw Addy. She stood a few feet away with her knife aimed in my direction.
“Let him go,” she said, not looking at me, but at something to my right.
“Or what?” Lucifer’s voice rang out beside me. “You will kill all my servants?”
Glimmering gold flashed in my line of sight. It took me a moment to realize it was a dagger.
“Silly child of mine.”
Lucifer gripped my forearm, but I didn’t feel the pressure. As if observing from a distance, all I could do was take in the scene. Lucifer brought his dagger’s pointy end to my skin. Just below where his weapon touched, my arm bled. I tried moving my fingers again, but I couldn’t feel anything below the wrist. My blood dripped down my fingers and onto the floor.
“Get it through your thick, stubborn head,” Lucifer continued. “Either you stand by my side and he gets to live, or you make the wrong choice and he dies.”
I glanced up at Addy, my heart drumming at the sight of her. Her eyes were wide and full of tears, and she had a minor cut on her left cheek.
Although my mouth felt dry, I managed to say, “Addy, don’t do it.”
Her lips quivered, and she shook her head at me.
“Done!” Lucifer dropped my arm and stepped toward Addy. “Look at my beautiful masterpiece. Does it melt your soul the way it melts my own dark one?”
Addy gasped. “No!”
Not caring that Lucifer stood so close, she ran to my side. She tucked her knife into her pocket and scratched at the arms holding me hostage.
“Let him go!” She was wild, her curls flying everywhere like a modern-day Medusa.
I didn’t understand what had happened, but my heavy breathing let me know it was nothing good. The arms around me let go, and my body swayed. Addy grabbed onto me, her arms underneath my armpits, and helped me fall to the floor with gentleness, her hand moving to steady my head before I hit the porcelain tiles.
“Hey, look at me,” she said. “Look at me.”
I met her hard stare while my stomach churned. “What . . .” Between the loss of blood and whatever Lucifer had done, I felt lightheaded.
“It’s going to be okay.” Tears fell down her cheeks. “It’s . . .” She leaned in and kissed me, her lips trembling. When she pulled back, her cries became sobs. “I’m so sorry, Adriel.”
Lucifer came to stand above us. “Ah, young love.”
Addy ignored him and held onto my head. “I’m so sorry.”
“I said he would be a dead man if you did not choose my side. However, I did not say he would die with his soul intact.” Lucifer crouched down beside Addy and smiled. “If you still want him, you could have him. Choose me, and you will regain your precious Adriel. If you do not, I will let him bleed out at noon. Human time, of course.”
Addy kept her eyes on me when she responded to him. “You’ve already killed him.”
“As I said, you can choose me—and him in this state—or he will die.”
Lucifer stood, waved his hand at someone, and backed away. A large man with demonic eyes came and hauled me up, ignoring Addy as she yelled and threw punches at him.
“Where are you taking him?” she said.
“To hell, where he belongs. If you change your mind, you know how to find us.”
The large man threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing and stomped out of the store. Other fallen angels came with us, but a couple waited behind. When Addy tried to rush after me, one of them seized her.
“Stop! Stop!” she yelled.
Everyone ignored her.
Lucifer walked beside the man carrying me and placed his hand over the man’s shoulder, his fingers poking into my abdomen. When he touched me, heat coursed through my stomach to the tips of my ears. Although nothing happened externally, I sensed my chest contort as it pushed something out. I groaned from the force and nearly passed out again.
My head spun. Suddenly, I felt content and weightless on the inside. The guilt I’d carried from when Jenna killed her son vanished. I wasn’t tied to God. I wasn’t tied to useless emotions. I was free to roam and take what I desired. I could do whatever the hell I wanted with nothing stopping me.
With my head hanging so I faced the floor, I smiled and closed my eyes. Addy became a distant memory in a sea of memories I didn’t care about.
“By the way, Adelaide,” Lucifer said. “The war has just begun. Choose your next move wisely.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ADELAIDE
I stood in the back of the store after Lucifer and his demons disappeared with Adriel. A vein in my hand pulsed fifty times a second.
Adriel. How could I let him go? My heart clenched in my chest. A lump developed in my throat and would just not go away. The six days I’d spent with Adriel felt more substantial than the two years I’d dated Devin.
But Adriel wasn’t himself anymore. I saw it in his eyes when they carried him away. His dark pupils had expanded until they destroyed the brown irises I’d grown attached to.
I grabbed the chair I’d used to break myself out of the small office and smashed it four times into a nearby shelf. Packages of beef jerky fell to the floor.
I barely know him. I paced, trying to pull myself together. He doesn’t mean anything to me. He’s just a guy. He’s no one.
I was out of breath, but I kept slamming the chair into things even though it brought me no satisfaction. The chair’s metal legs chafed where my hands had been injured, damaging my raw flesh further.
On the other side of the room, I banged the chair against the counter. A loud cracking sound brought me to a stop. In my hand, the plastic backrest of the chair had snapped in half. Letting out a piercing cry, I threw the chair across the room and crashed to the floor, my back against the counter. I didn’t know what was going on outside. I didn’t know if my friends were safe. All I knew was that I’d lost Adriel forever. But he had become my partner in crime; I couldn’t just let him go.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the heat in my body. It was my only connection to Lucifer. If I could pinpoint where he was, I could find Adriel.
A hot surge moved down my flesh, prickling my arms. I stared out the broken exit door. Lucifer wasn’t far away. In fact, I sensed him here on Earth. His presence was strong, pulling me despite my anger toward him. The feeling made my skin crawl.
I swallowed, pushed myself to my feet, and trudged out the broken door. The hunger I’d felt earlier while in bed with Adriel had become a distant thought. Even my stomach had stopped growling, seeming to realize that I had more urgent matters at hand. Tears kept streaming down my face. Every time I wiped the moisture away, my eyes flooded again.
Outside the store, the smell of burning rubber and gasoline hit me hard. With my hand to my nose, I faced my smoldering Oldsmobile. Lucy’s red paint was burned off. Around the bumper, signs of rust had begun to appear. Most of the tires had melted.
Without a car, I had to call Reed. When he answered, I told him what happened and that I needed him to come pick me up. “I know I asked you to stay somewhere safe, but I really need help right now.”
“Tell me where you are,” he said.
Five minutes later, he pulled up a block from the station, which was where I’d asked him to meet me. His jaw dropped when he saw me. In the middle of the backseat of Reed’s old silver sedan sat Madadel, his wings spread out, taking up the entire space and blocking the rear windshield. Unlike my brother, Madadel did not seem distressed when he saw me.
Reed clenched his jaw, waved for me to hop in beside him, and drove off, no questions asked.
“We were driving around trying to figure out where to go,” he said. “I thought of going to a hospital or school, but Madadel said demons have taken over those places.”
I spun around to look at the angel. “Is that true?”
“Sadly so, sweet Adelaide. Those are the first places to go in a war.”
“But . . .” I looked out the window, staring at the sunbeams breaking through the cracks in the gray clouds. “Everything was fine this morning.” Unable to help it, I broke into a sob.
Madadel reached forward and patted my back. “There, there, child. It will be—”
“Don’t call me child!” I snapped. “I don’t want to hear that word again.”
He withdrew his hand, crossed his arms, and sat back. “My apologies . . .”
“Addy?” Reed kept glancing at me. “I want to help you, but we kind of have to figure out where to go first.”
I nodded. “Okay. How about . . .” I tried to think of some lowkey shelters. “Private properties? Business buildings?”
“Not good enough,” Madadel said.
If all the places people typically went to were dangerous, then we had to think of places where people didn’t go. “Why not hide in some forest and have Madadel shield us?”
“Sure. I suppose I could do that for the next hour, but even forests will become war zones.”
“How do you know all this?”
“This is not the first war between heaven and hell here on Earth.”
“And Lucifer didn’t die the last time either.”
“No, he did not. However, we were able to send him back to hell, which is better than nothing.”
My shoulders sagged. “That doesn’t make me feel better. Adriel is gone.”
Outside the window, the park I’d passed by earlier with Adriel was now deserted. All the kids playing there with their parents were nowhere to be seen. How did they know to run and hide when I didn’t? What happened in those few minutes that turned everything around?
