Every Last Breath

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Because I wasn’t that brave.

  Because I wasn’t this selfless.

  I was just one girl with no other options, no other card up my sleeve.

  Landing in Rock Creek Park among the thick, tall snow-tipped trees, I’d walked the trail, oddly calm. Okay. Maybe not calm. As I stared up at the moon breaking free from the clouds, I felt nothing.

  I was empty—determined, but completely empty.

  Only a few minutes passed before I heard a soft chuckle from behind me. The stake was in my back pocket, where I’d have easy access to it, but I left it there as I slowly turned around.

  A light dusting of snow coated the ground and flurries drifted down to Earth. The Lilin was standing about five feet from me, and it looked like Sam again. Anger pricked at my skin. I hated it when that thing took on his image.

  And it knew it.

  The Lilin smiled at me from across the short distance. “Have you finally come to your senses?”

  I raised my brows. “If coming to my senses is helping you free Lilith—”

  “Our mother,” it interrupted.

  Ignoring that, I continued. “Then you’re out of your mind. I will never help you free her, because freeing her would mean the end of everything.”

  “Not freeing her means the end anyway,” the Lilin responded, taking a step forward. “Don’t you understand that? I will continue stripping souls until the Alphas have no choice but to step in, until they eradicate every demon and Warden topside.”

  My hands tightened. “Why would you do that? You would be killed right along with the rest of us.”

  “Ah, yes, that’s true, but I know Hell will not stand for the Alphas going after all the demons. They will retaliate, and it will be Armageddon.” The Lilin that looked like Sam smiled as if it was picturing a sunny day at the beach. “My death—your death—will be worth knowing that rivers will run with blood and these humans, these overgrown parasites, will die by the millions.”

  Absolutely thunderstruck by his words, I shook my head. “You’re...a hundred percent certifiable.”

  “No. I just have nothing to lose. My life? This shell I’m using?” It patted itself on the cheek. “It’s nothing. I have nothing to give up. And even if I did, I would do it for our mother. I would do anything to deliver her the revenge she deserves.”

  I blinked. “That’s kind of sad.”

  One shoulder rose. “It is the truth.”

  Something sparked in my chest, and it tasted like hope. “It doesn’t have to be. Don’t you understand that? You have choices to make. You can stop what you’re doing and try to make something out of this life you were given—”

  The Lilin threw its head back and laughed.

  “We have free will,” I insisted, grappling onto anything that could somehow change its mind. “All of us, not just the humans, have free will. You can change. You can stop this right now. You—”

  “Free will? You are naive, sister. There is no such thing. We are born with our fates clearly laid out in front of us. There is no changing that.”

  “You are wrong, so incredibly wrong.” I wanted to stomp my foot to drive the point home. “Anyone can change their paths, including demons. Look at Roth. He never used to think free will existed, but when he made a choice to save me, he realized it did. Look at him!”

  It grinned. “Ah, the Prince. I look at him and I see someone who was once great and feared by all, but who has become nothing more than the lackey of a stupid, silly little girl.”

  I clenched my jaw. “I’m not the one who’s stupid, bud, and he’s no one’s lackey.”

  “Enough,” it sighed. “Really. This conversation bores me. You know you cannot stop me. You have to have realized that by now. You can’t kill me, because doing so would kill you. I am a part of you.”

  “You are nothing,” I said, full of bitter venom.

  It inclined its head. “If I had feelings, you might have hurt them.”

  As I stared at the Lilin, that tiny spark of hope flickered, and then went out. There would be no reasoning with it, just as Grim had said. Maybe if I had taken that approach from the beginning, there would’ve been time to try to change its mind, but there wasn’t enough time to do that now, and it was too much of a risk to chance it.

  The weight pressed farther down on my shoulders and my chest as the Lilin inched close to me. I held my ground, taking a deep breath. “What...what do you really look like?”

  Surprise flickered across the face I missed so badly. “What?”

  “You heard me. You’re not Sam. You’re not Elijah. I want to know what you really look like.”

  The flurries around us seemed to ease up as the Lilin studied me thoughtfully, the fine dusting of snow coating its dark hair. “What does it matter?”

  I wanted to see its real face, just once, but that wasn’t exactly the most convincing argument. “I don’t know. Maybe...maybe it would help me understand you better.”

  Its eyes narrowed, and then it cast its gaze to the sky. It sighed dramatically. “You are so human.”

  When Roth said it, those words had been dipped in warmth and love. When those very same words came out of the Lilin’s mouth, they were an insult.

  The Lilin suddenly shot forward, stopping no more than two feet in front of me, its eyes pure black. “You want to see what I really look like?” it demanded. “You want that?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  It smiled, and then it began to transform. Its entire body trembled, and then shook violently. I wanted to step back, because at this point, I sort of expected it to explode, but found myself unable to move as it shortened and became slimmer, as the brown hair gave way to hair so blond it almost appeared white. Bones snapped and refused again into different lengths. Its features contorted until I was staring into eyes that were a pale shade of blue, leached of almost all its color.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, I felt like I was staring into the mirror. An exact replica of me stood there.

  “I am you,” it said, in my voice.

  “No.” My heart started thumping. “You are not me.”

  “I am. I’ve always been you.” A small smile appeared, revealing just one side of its teeth, and all I could think at that point was—was that what I looked like when I smiled? God. “We are one and the same,” it added. “We are no different. Do you understand that?”

  A handful of months ago, a sight like this would’ve delivered a blow to my confidence. I’d have been shaken to the point that I wouldn’t have been able to recover from it. Thinking that I was a part of something so cruel and evil would’ve crippled me.

  But I wasn’t the same girl now as I’d been then.

  “This is some kind of trick.” My voice was steady as I stared at myself. “How do you look like me? You haven’t—”

  “We are a part of one another,” it replied, glancing down at itself. With a low giggle, it ran small hands down its sides and then across its front, then up.

  Wow.

  That was disturbing to see...myself kind of feeling myself up.

  “You helped create me.” Reaching up a hand, it started twirling a strand of hair around its finger. One pale brow rose. “We share the same blood.”

  “That’s all we share, and I know this isn’t your real form.”

  The smile turned coy as it raised one shoulder. “If you say so.”

  I drew in a deep breath. “You’re a coward. You know that? You can’t even show me who you really are.”

  “I am not a coward.” The smile slipped from its face.

  Mimicking its earlier movements, I shrugged a shoulder. “No wonder you can’t show me what you actually look like. You don’t see yourself clearly.”

  Cheeks flushing red, the pale eyes disappeared in a flood of black. The Lilin began to change form again. This time my mirror image was stretched like Gumby. As bones cracked, the icy-blond hair shortened to shoulders that were broader. The Lilin stopped trembling and what stood before me wa
s something altogether familiar and yet different.

  And I knew deep down this was really the Lilin.

  The eyes were pools of black and the complexion pale. Cheekbones were high like mine, but broader and the tilt of the jaw was more masculine, the lips less full. The Lilin, in its true form was a male, was a head taller than me and a little broader, much slimmer than Roth or Zayne. It—he—was beautiful in a creepy sort of way, a fragile masculine sort of beauty that looked like it would shatter at any moment.

  He looked like Lilith.

  He looked like me.

  If someone put the three of us in a room together, it would be obvious that we were related. Not until this very moment, staring at him, did I really see it. This creature...this thing truly was a part of me. We did share the same blood. It was my brother.

  The knot from earlier returned to my throat and I wanted to cry. As stupid and useless as it would be, I wanted to flop down on the cold, snowy ground and cry, because I really was staring at something I was a part of—my own twisted flesh and bone.

  “Are you happy now?” he asked, and his voice was deep.

  I shook my head, blinking back tears. Roth’s face formed in my thoughts, and I hoped with every ounce of my being that he could forgive me for this. “No. Not at all.”

  Confusion flickered across his face and then his expression evened out, turning bland. “I’m done with this foolishness.”

  “So am I.”

  Reaching behind me, I pulled the dagger out of my back pocket. I moved as fast as I could, faster than I ever had, and my brain was a vast, empty canvas as I moved. I didn’t think, didn’t register the return of bewilderment marking his features.

  But then, in a split second, realization thundered through me as I stepped forward, thrusting the dagger into the Lilin’s chest with every ounce of my strength.

  I was brave.

  Shock splashed across his features at the same moment pain exploded in my chest. The intensity of it was so jarring that I let go of the dagger, jerking back. The pain was like fire, engulfing my chest and spreading into every limb. It was so much more powerful even than when the Wardens had stabbed me in the stomach, an intensity that was final. Wet warmth poured down my front. My heart beat, and then there was a sharp wrenching sensation from deep inside of me.

  Black eyes were wide and his hands were pale as he gripped the end of the dagger. “What...what have you done?”

  I wouldn’t answer even if I could.

  Because it was happening.

  The wound in his chest lit up, pulsing with a blue-tinged light that seemed to come from within and the light spread rapidly, as if his skin had been peeled back. The light burst in flares of different colors, soft pinks and blues, and buttery yellows, and those lights, almost like little balls, shot straight up, disappearing into the sky above us.

  Not lights, I realized dumbly, but the souls—the souls of everyone the Lilin had consumed. I knew in my heart of hearts that Elijah was among them, and so was Sam. I could almost feel him, I thought, almost hear Sam’s chuckle and feel his hand brush over mine.

  He was free.

  I knew it.

  There wasn’t another heartbeat.

  Our legs folded at the very same second, and we crumpled, folding like a paper sack. I didn’t feel the ground stop my fall. I didn’t feel anything. All I saw, through the darkness creeping into my vision, was the snow beginning to fall again, a tiny flake coasting to the ground.

  And then I saw nothing at all.

  twenty-eight

  I DIDN’T REMEMBER closing my eyes, not even blinking. Yet somehow I was no longer lying on the cold ground in Rock Creek Park, but standing instead, and it was the park—but not during the night, or during the winter. Sunlight beat down through the leafy limbs and a warm breeze toyed with the hairs around my face.

  What in the what?

  My gaze dropped to the ground, and the Lilin wasn’t there. Confusion pounded through me as I stared at the empty spot before me and then down at the front of my sweater. It was bloodied, as expected, but there was no pain in my chest. And this was the park in DC, but it also wasn’t.

  Something seemed wrong. Fragile. Thin. As I walked closer to a tree, I brushed my fingertips along its bark. Bits of it flecked off, turning to ash. I jerked my hand back.

  “What have you done?”

  Spinning toward the sound of the voice I’d only heard once before, I couldn’t suppress the weird shudder at the sight of her—of Lilith. Dressed in the same barely there white gown I’d seen her in last time, she looked different. Mainly because there was a splash of red coursing down the front of her dress, matching mine.

  “How...how are you here?” I asked, glancing around. “Are you free?”

  “Free?” Her pale eyes widened. “I will never be free because of you—because of what you’ve done. You’ve killed my son—you’ve killed me!”

  Maybe dying made me a little slow on the uptake, but her response didn’t answer my question. “I don’t understand.”

  “How can you not?” She drifted toward me, her bare feet snapping out from under the long gown. “You killed him, knowing that would be the death of you—the death of me.”

  Okay. I had no idea that my actions would kill her. Nope. No one had filled me in on that. I’d assumed she was like a Twinkie, would survive a nuclear fallout.

  “Where are we?”

  Her blood-red lip curled up. “In the in-between.”

  “The what?”

  “Are you pleased with yourself?” she ranted, ignoring my question. Her cheeks leeched of all color. “You think killing him—killing me—will change anything? Evil will still be evil. Hell will not cease to exist. Dark deeds will still be carried out.”

  “But it will...it will stop Armageddon,” I said, blinking.

  She scoffed. “For a while, but, child, do you know how many times the world has come close to being obliterated? The end is inevitable.”

  I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling woozy. “But it won’t happen now.”

  “I’ve never been more disappointed in that which I created,” she seethed, and when I opened my eyes, she was directly in front of me, a tall and terrible, beautiful apparition. “Does any of my blood course through your veins?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed, but it did nothing to easy the nausea.

  Her eyes, the same color as mine, rolled. “Doubtful. I would have bred something more intelligent, with greater cunning and actual survival instincts.”

  I stepped back from her, forcing air into my lungs, but it felt like I was only getting a sliver of what I needed.

  “To think that I have survived thousands of years, overcoming so much, to be taken out by the hand of my own daughter.” She huffed. “And in so cowardly a way. But my son—he honored me. He worshipped me, as he should, but you ended him. You are no child of mine.”

  “I’m your daughter,” I gritted out, focusing on her. “The daughter you left at birth. What in the Hell do you expect from me?”

  “Loyalty?” she returned.

  I stared at her, wanting to laugh in her face, but my lips felt strange. Numb. Cold. “You left me with the man who wanted to kill me.”

  “But he didn’t, did he? Obviously not.”

  Shaking my head, I immediately regretted doing so. The world spun a little. “I had to stop the Lilin. There were too many people’s lives at stake. Maybe you don’t care about that. Maybe you’ve never cared about any of that, but that’s where we’re different.” Legs weak, I leaned against the tree, but the moment my weight touched the trunk, it gave way.

  Staggering to the side, I watched the great oak cave into itself, breaking apart in chunks that disintegrated into flakes. It crumbled soundlessly. One minute the tree was a solid part of this world and the next it was gone.

  “What’s...happening?” I turned wide eyes on Lilith.

  She pursed her lips as she eyed me with her chin raised. “You’re dying. That is what is happ
ening.”

  “I’m not dead now?”